A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  Love from Tina xxx

  PS, please send your letters to Lane’s End House from now on, I will put the address on the envelope.

  PPS, did you know we have been writing letters for a whole year now? Such a long time and I hope there will be many more years.

  Thirty-five

  February 2014

  Keaton had found a new job to go to, which was a huge relief. He would start mid-March. For the last couple of weeks he and Sharanne had been formal and distant. Any awkwardness between them they steadfastly ignored. They were boss and assistant once again, nothing more. It was simple and it was right and Keaton already felt assuaged after the dark days of their brief and misguided fling. He now felt a new thrill of confidence, a surety in his and Tina’s future. He’d made up his story: he was bored in his current job, it was stale and dry; he wanted to try something new and it was all part of his plan for them as a couple – their new start. He would suggest, in time, that they move house, perhaps even move to a new area and start a truly different life. His new job didn’t have to be his forever job. He was resigned now to never being a father. And it was all right. He would never discuss babies with Tina again, he decided. There was no point. Although she had said she wanted a child, he didn’t believe her. And, his trump card – they would take that exotic holiday. At lunchtime he popped to the travel agent and picked up a pile of brochures with photographs of impossibly blue skies and snow white beaches.

  She sat on the bench and pulled her green coat closer around her. She didn’t want to be recognised, not just yet, and to date she thought she hadn’t been. Tina carried a bunch of pink carnations, as she so often did, to put on Meg’s grave. Tina looked as she’d ever looked: a quiet, lonely figure. Tina, dear little Tina, who was now a grown woman.

  Simone’s guilt knew no bounds. Simone knew the birthdays and the death days. Simone watched. But she did not approach. She couldn’t, not yet. She felt that she had let those girls down. She had let her husband down and she shouldn’t have. She had foolishly, vainly listened to the poison-tongued sister and had allowed her marriage to fail; she had withdrawn herself from the man she loved and those delightful little girls and therefore from everything that had been good in her life. And Meg – Marghuerite – dead for all these years, reduced to a pretty grave, an elegant name writ in stone. When Simone had decided to look for her grave, she had found it, high up in a quiet corner of the cemetery, pretty and fresh. She had brought flowers on that first visit but there were already fresh pink carnations on the grave, and Simone had rightfully guessed who had placed them there. She took her own flowers home with her. Perhaps, Simone often thought, if she’d been around, if she had been there that day, Meg might still be alive. Simone knew it was illogical – if she and Edward had not gone their separate ways, they both would have been at work on that dreadful Wednesday. Neither of them would have been there. The mythical taunt of what-ifs had no place in this tale. The outcome would have been no different had she and Edward still been together. Edward had contacted her of course, through her work, to let her know Meg had died. But she hadn’t attended the funeral. She couldn’t bear to stand alongside her husband, her sister-in-law. She had sent no flowers. She should have done. She’d simply allowed herself to fade away, away from her old life and into her new one, and had forced herself to forget.

  Today, Tina tidied the grave as she usually did, snipping at the grass with the scissors she always brought with her. She brushed off the gravestone, rendering it truly pristine. She cried, a little. But there was no speaking today. It wasn’t often that there was no speaking. Simone usually heard Tina talking to herself, conversations of an involved and intimate nature, weird one-sided arguments. Often she heard, ‘Meg!’ Sometimes there was shouting, arguing, and Tina would look furtively around, close her eyes and hum loudly, tunelessly. She was a tortured person, Simone knew. Ah, those poor girls.

  Simone was aware of the passing years and had made a decision. She had mulled it over, formulated her plan, procrastinated.

  She knew that Edward lived at Lane’s End House and had done so since their separation. They had never divorced. Over the years, Simone had received two offers of marriage and had refused them both; she had been involved with “unsatisfactory” men and had eventually shunned all romantic relationships. She lived simply, quietly, sometimes in France, sometimes in London. A couple of years in rural Somerset, post-retirement, had given her time to think, and she had found her thoughts returning, again and again, to her husband and his family. And now, after all these years, she had decided to attempt this reconciliation with him. She prayed it would not be too late. She had long feared Edward’s non-forgiveness. She thought there was no other woman. The only residents of Lane’s End House on the electoral role were Edward Thornton and Lucia Thornton.

  Simone decided she would call at the house; she would push past the odious Lucia who no doubt would open the door and stand like a sentry, barring her way. But she would not let Lucia bar her, not this time, not now. Life was precious and life was short and time was slipping away as it was apt to do, and Simone had made up her mind.

  She watched Tina walk away from the grave. No, there had been no talking this time. Just tidying and flower-arranging, nothing more. Simone felt a sense of relief although she wasn’t entirely sure why.

  Tina arrived home. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate with her customary large swirl of cream and lots of chocolate sprinkles. She felt that she had achieved something, going to the grave and not speaking to Meg. Meg had tried to speak to her, of course. But Tina had ignored her. It was the only way. Meg thought she could govern Tina’s life but she was wrong – she could not. Tina was going to kill her aunt, she really was, and she knew that once that woman was dead, Meg would also be dead, because she would be “at rest” whatever that meant, and Tina’s life could begin. Tina was sure of this. She and Keaton could have their much longed for child. Tina felt she would make a good mother; surely it was a matter of instinct and imagination? Babies were remarkable and joyous. Keaton’s talk of jail… that was silly and melodramatic. She would never be sent to jail. Wouldn’t she just be sent somewhere “secure”, somewhere where she could get “better” for a while, a few months? She was mentally unstable, wasn’t she? Not dangerous. She found herself laughing out loud, shaking her head. She had to free herself of her past and her family, and accept that things happened that were not her fault. She had to start living. Visits to Meg’s grave could be normal visits, not shouting sessions. Just a bit of dignified, quiet weeping, maybe, on her birthday, or the sort of conversations you can have with dead people where you know they are dead and they’re not really listening, and above all, they don’t respond. Meg would be dead, properly dead, once and for all, like Granny and Grampy. Visits to their graves were much simpler affairs. Tina was shocked to feel this way. All these years she’d wanted Meg to be alive and had fantasised that she was. But now she wished her dead. Properly dead. Was it a betrayal? Or was it just the desire to be normal? Tina didn’t know. She could only feel. Something had to change. Something had to be righted.

  Tonight she would make a nice dinner for herself and Keaton. She would tell him she really did want to start a family; make him understand she was serious and she meant it, even if it was just one child. She would tell him she’d had her coil removed in December. Tomorrow she would think over her plans. She had some ideas. She would not tell Keaton. She would not tell Kath. They would call her melodramatic and Kath would try to talk her out of it, Meg was right about that. Keaton would tell her to drop it. But she would not drop it, not now.

  Friday 10th December 1976

  Dear Elizabeth

  I have sent you a present for Christmas which I hope you will enjoy. I hope it will get there in time. Lucia told me to have it posted by surfiss but the lady at the post office said it wouldn’t get to you for months so Lucia let me post it by air mail and she paid. Un
cle Edward gives me pocket money but I spent that on the book. It is another one of my favourites. The School at the Chalet is a great story with good characters and Joey is my favourite. I think that is because she is meant to be everybody’s favourite and the writer of the story wants you to like her. It is set in a boarding school in a country called Austria. There are mountains and lakes, a bit like in Heidi but that’s in Switzerland which is next door to Austria. I would like to go to boarding school because the girls are all freindly there. In case you don’t know, it’s a school where you go and live, you stay there in big rooms called dorms with lots of other girls. Your mum and dad if you have them send you parcels and letters from home. Meg says she would hate to go to a boarding school but I don’t agree and we argue about it. She is still very bossy. This year I will spend Christmas at Granny’s house. My dad said he will be there too. At school we are doing a play for Christmas and I am in it. A big girl in the seniors is Snow White and I am one of the animals she meets in the woodland glade. I am a deer. I hate school more than ever. It’s too noisy. My best friend Kimberly is now Sharon Kite’s friend. Kimberly hardly talks to me now and she laughs at me. I was going to give her Ballet Shoes for a Christmas present but I don’t think I will bother. I have another friend called Karen who brought me some sweets all for me today. She lives next to our school and she goes home for her dinner and when she came back she had a bag of Black Jacks and Fruit Salads and a tube of Parma Violets. She is a nice girl. I will give Ballet Shoes to her.

  Happy Christmas from your English cousin Tina xxx

  Thirty-six

  March 2014

  It was Keaton’s last day at work. Last week he had told Tina that he was leaving. He’d expected surprise, lots of questions, but Tina had barely responded. She’d nodded and said yes and no in the right places, and that was that. She hadn’t been listening, of course. She was locked away in her own private world again. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, for once. During the same conversation she’d told him she really wanted a child. He still hadn’t believed her, but he in his turn had smiled and nodded in the right places and let her prattle on. He knew there would be no child, coil or no coil. It just wasn’t going to happen for them. He couldn’t allow himself to hope. Tina was delusional. He’d mentioned the holiday and produced the brochures. Tina had glanced at them.

  He was clearing his desk. The stapler he felt so attached to he’d already placed carefully at the bottom of his bag. He searched through the rest of the stationery. There were a couple of pens he liked. He had a few things to tidy up, files to pass on to his colleagues. But really his work here was done, and it was a relief. Soon there would be a new start, and his mistakes would be firmly behind him, those few regretful days he’d given in to his ridiculous “urges”. Really, now, he felt nothing for Sharanne and he never had done. Temptation was a strange emotion. It was untrue. He’d never give in to it again, he knew, and that at least brought him a sense of bitter well-being.

  Sharanne brought in his morning coffee for the last time. She looked sad. More than that – withdrawn, pale. It must be hard for her, Keaton conceded. She had feelings for him and he had taken advantage of her, he knew, and now he was leaving and their paths would not cross again. He would make sure of that. It sounded harsh, but it was the only way if he was to preserve his marriage.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Keaton and he took the coffee and held it in both hands. Sharanne held hers in both hands too. They regarded each other for a moment, and both attempted weak, ironic smiles.

  ‘Keaton?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m going to miss you.’ Sharanne started to sob and she flung down her coffee. It spilled over the rim of the mug, all over the mercifully clear desk, and she went to the window, hunched and weeping.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Keaton, and dabbed at his desk with tissues for a few moments before he joined her at the window. He would once have tapped her back or placed his hand briefly on her shoulder, or something else supportive but not intimate. Today he did neither. He just stood alongside her, waiting. She made an effort to stop crying. She wiped her eyes and turned to Keaton.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

  Keaton had fainted once as a teenager watching a dissection of a sheep’s heart in a biology lesson. He’d never been sure why he’d fainted because he wasn’t averse to blood. Maybe the ripping apart of a creature’s heart had been the problem. He felt himself sway and put his hand to the wall to steady himself.

  ‘Oh,’ was all he could manage.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I don’t know what else… Is it—’

  ‘You’re not about to ask if the baby is yours, are you?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I… I can promise you that.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re a good man.’

  ‘What on earth are we to do?’

  She had no answer. She cried again and this time she leaned her head on Keaton’s shoulder. He let her. He stroked her hair. He smiled to himself, despite feeling the pain and the pressure of the ever-increasing mess he was surrounding himself with. A baby. His baby. His much longed for baby. He was going to be a father at last. Ideas and thoughts flung themselves across his mind; he could not make sense of them, apart from one.

  ‘You won’t abort will you?’ he said. He didn’t care if it sounded blunt and selfish, and it did.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Oh! I can’t tell you… thank you. That’s all I can say. Thank you.’

  ‘How was your last day? I’m so glad you have a week off. Let’s hope the weather’s fine and we can have some days out. Why don’t we organise that holiday of yours? I’ve been looking through the brochures. Keaton? Are you listening?’

  Tina was being unusually and deliberately garrulous, and she was taken aback by her husband’s lack of response. He only smiled vaguely in her direction and it was as though his eyes were focusing inward, looking intently at something deep inside. Had they swapped roles, just for a moment? Something was amiss. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked him, moving to him and rubbing his chest. ‘I’ve started on Bolognese. We have red or white wine. Which do you fancy?’

  ‘You decide,’ he said, and Tina thought for a moment or two. ‘We’ll have red, shall we?’

  ‘Whichever you like. Do you mind if I hop in the shower first? I want to wash the day away. You know the feeling.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. I’ll get on with tea and open the wine. Is that all right?’

  Keaton nodded and made for the stairs. It was clearly not all right. Tina turned to the stove. Keaton hauled himself up the stairs, and she could hear his slow progress. She had expected him to bounce in the door, all smiles and stories about his last day. Hadn’t they got him with shaving cream? No. There were no signs of any pranks. No signs of fun. He hadn’t been drinking. Something was wrong.

  The shower was hot and he allowed it to pummel his body. He had a good body. He’d never overeaten. He wasn’t a gym type, but he loved long walks and short ones, and in his younger days he’d cycled a lot. His body wasn’t in bad shape for a man well into his forties, approaching fifty. And his body had finally spawned a child. It was the most amazing thing and it would be the most amazing part of him, and in the high summer meadow of his mind he was elated. He felt strong. He felt tall. He felt majestic. He was going to be a father. That afternoon, Sharanne, amid further tears, had calmed down enough to reassure him again and again, that she would be keeping this baby no matter what. He could or could not play a part. It was entirely up to him. She would make no demands. Keaton had explained to her what the pregnancy meant to him, how it made him feel, something he found surprisingly difficult to express. But she seemed to get it. He knew the child would need to remain a secret, at least for now, if not forever. He had no intention of leaving Tina. Shar
anne got that too. She wasn’t asking him to leave, she said. But… her door would always be open if he ever… changed his mind. She said she loved him, and he hushed her and said that kind of talk would get them nowhere because he was married and that was that. And he was truly sorry and what an awful mess this all was but still, but still – he was enthralled. He was thrilled.

  It all moved so fast. He’d nipped out that afternoon and obtained a cheap mobile phone and given Sharanne the number. It was her phone, he told her; their phone. Nobody else would know about it or have the number. She should text whenever she needed to and he’d get to it as soon as he could. He’d keep the phone in his desk at his new job.

  What else could he do? For now the phone was in the inner pocket of his bag. Tina never, ever went through his bag. His wife’s trust in him was complete and he burst into tears in the shower and sobbed silently for his wife, their life, the new life in Sharanne’s womb. He tried to work out how any of this could ever have happened. Things like this didn’t happen to people like him and Tina; they were both too sensible, too mature, too devoted. And he’d wanted a child with his wife, conceived in love and tenderness, not in ridiculous, ill-judged moments – on a desk, on a floor, against a wall. This child had a shameful conception, if ever there was such a thing. He stopped crying, turned off the shower, stepped out and dried himself. He put on his black trunks, his most comfortable pair of jeans, his favourite black t-shirt and he stood, alone and quiet in front of the mirror. He took a long hard look at himself. His life was going to be nigh on impossible. Everything had changed and now he would have to go downstairs and spend the rest of the evening with Tina and pretend, act, feign – what? He wasn’t sure. The good husband? She had missed the March reading group, claiming she hadn’t had time to read Fahrenheit 451. He didn’t believe that. He’d seen the book lying around on the sofa, on the coffee table, in the kitchen… It was a slim book, and not a difficult read as he remembered. She was just too preoccupied to read it, which was not the same as being too busy.