by Isabel Wolff
Across the lake, a teenage boy was struggling to make one of the rowing boats go forward. His oars kept catching.
‘Why do you put up with it, Laura?’ I heard Nerys say.
Hope had asked me that too, and I’d replied that it was a question of love. But I knew now that wasn’t the answer.
‘It’s because…’ I felt my throat constrict. ‘You see…the last three years…’ Nerys’ face had blurred again. I looked down at my lap, and watched, with a detached interest, as a large tear splashed on to my hand. ‘All my confidence had gone. I didn’t know how to be with anyone. How to have a relationship. I hadn’t been on a date for so long. Not since I first met Nick over ten years ago.’
‘There there, Laura.’ I felt the light consoling pressure of her hand on my arm.
‘I’d made this decision to move on, but I was terrified…But then, out of the blue, there was Luke, and he wanted to be with me so I said yes. I was trying to seize the day.’
‘No,’ said Nerys. ‘You weren’t trying to seize the day.’ I looked at her. ‘You were trying to seize yesterday.’
I stared out over the lake, her words rippling through my mind as though she’d just lobbed in a huge stone. You were trying to seize yesterday… It was so, so true. I’d resolved to move forwards, but instead I’d gone backwards.
‘Can I give you some advice?’ I heard Nerys say.
‘Yes,’ I replied. For once I wanted to hear it.
‘What I’ve always thought is…’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve worked with you both for over two years now…and, well, every time I see you together I just think how well you get on, and how sort of “right” you seem together…No?’ I was shaking my head. ‘He thinks the world of you, Laura. He’d be lost without you—he often says that.’
I looked at her. ‘Does he?’
‘Yes. He often says how marvellous you are—and how clever.’
‘I’m not clever,’ I said bitterly. ‘I’m a mug.’
‘He says how attractive you are too.’
‘No. I’m a “jolie laide” with delinquent hair and size fortyone feet.’
‘But he feels you’ve never seen him in that way,’ she went on, ignoring me.
‘To be honest…I don’t think I have.’
‘Why not, Laura? You like him, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Of course I do. Tom’s wonderful.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘Well…He’s seeing someone apart from anything else.’
‘That’s not going anywhere,’ Nerys said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Come on Laura, what’s the real reason?’
I didn’t want to tell Nerys the real reason and diminish her respect for Tom. She hadn’t been working for him at that time. It would be disloyal to him, and unfair on her—she admired him so much.
‘Is it because he’s your boss?’ she persisted.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s the reason. It’s too…difficult.’
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘People often date their colleagues.’ I thought of Hope—she used to work at Kleinwort Perella, she met Mike on a training course. ‘Anyway, don’t miss your chance, Laura. I missed mine,’ I heard Nerys add, ‘twenty-five years ago. Not a day goes by when I don’t regret it.’
‘Really?’
‘I knew such a nice boy—Patrick—we dated for two years in our mid-twenties, and we got engaged. But then I had my head turned by this other boy—Alan—and I broke it off with Pat. Pat held a candle for me for three years but by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late—he’d got married. He had three kids and is still happily married apparently, while I…’ Her voice caught. ‘I’ve always regretted not marrying Patrick when I had the chance because, for whatever reason, another chance never quite came my way.’ She wrapped her fingers around her gold locket. But how sad to keep a photo of him, I thought. A constant reminder of what might have been. Nerys saw me glance at it. ‘Here…’ she said gently.
‘Don’t Nerys,’ I said. ‘Really. It’s too personal.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind showing you.’
She prised it open with a crimson thumbnail.
Two tiny, avian faces stared out at me, one yellow, one green.
‘That’s Tweetie,’ she said, pointing to the left hand side, ‘and that’s Pie. I’ve had them for eight years now. Lovely company, they are—they whistle their little hearts out they do, the darlings.’ Suddenly her mobile trilled out. ‘Hello, Tom. What? Oh dear.’ She was shaking her head and tut-tutting. ‘Oh dear,’ she repeated. ‘Poor Dylan. Well I kept telling him to be careful on that motorbike of his didn’t I? I said to him, you want to be careful on that motorbike of yours, Dylan. He’s come off his bike,‘ she mouthed. ‘Broken his wrist. I see, Tom…So you need help…Of course you do…no, it’s definitely too big a job for one person…Well, as it happens, I’ve just bumped into Laura. We’re sitting by the Serpentine…Yes. It is nice. Very nice…Lovely day for it. No…she says that’s fine. She’ll be with you in twenty minutes. She’s delighted to help.’ She snapped her phone shut.
‘Er…I don’t mind, Nerys—but is there any reason why you didn’t ask me first?’
‘Because I knew I didn’t have to,’ she replied.
FOURTEEN
I got to the office twenty minutes later. As I walked down the Mews, I saw that the front door was wide open, and suddenly there was Tom, looking fraught, in a white tee shirt and jeans, an emergency cigarette in his mouth, a bulging bin liner in each hand.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he said as he swung them into the yellow skip that now occupied the parking space. ‘The guys will be here early tomorrow to give the place two coats; then in the afternoon they’ll pull up the old carpet and lay the new one—which means everything’s got to be cleared by tonight. It’s a much bigger job than I realized, and I was relying on Dylan but he’s in casualty.’
‘We’ll manage,’ I said. My anger with Luke still filled me with a manic energy that made the idea of physical work appealing—and it was more constructive than smashing plates.
‘Are you okay, Laura?’ Tom said, peering at me. He drew on the cigarette, then stubbed it out on the wall. ‘You look a bit…’
‘I’m fine,’ I said briskly. I didn’t want to talk—or think—about Luke. I picked up one of Tom’s rubber bands, and tied up my hair. ‘Let’s start.’
We disconnected the computers and printers. Then we spent a couple of hours moving the furniture, putting the desks and chairs in the tiny courtyard at the back of the building, under plastic sheeting. Then we began to clear the cupboards and quickly filled several bin liners with old video tapes, presenters’ show-reels, box-files of redundant publicity material and long-concluded correspondence.
‘We should have dealt with all this junk ages ago,’ Tom said as he dumped a pile of old Broadcasts into the bin liner. ‘Nerys has been going on at me about it for months, but I couldn’t face it.’
We worked for a couple of hours—the skip was filling, and Tom’s t-shirt was getting grubby and grey—then he glanced at his watch. ‘It’s two thirty. We’d better eat something—I’ll run out and get some sandwiches.’ He returned ten minutes later with two small paper carriers.
‘What are you smiling at?’ he asked as he handed one to me. He overturned an empty crate and sat on it.
‘At this.’ I held it up. ‘I found it while you were out.’ It was a photo of Tom and me, surrounded by packing cases, on our first day in All Saints Mews. ‘Remember that? September ‘99?’
‘Yes.’ He looked at the photo. ‘It was exhausting because there was that late heat wave, wasn’t there—it was eighty degrees—and I was in a state at what I’d taken on. I’d borrowed so much money—I never thought I’d be able to make it work.’ He passed the photo back.
‘Well I told you that you would—and you have done. Brilliantly.’
‘We have,’ he corrected me. ‘And what’s that other photo you’ve got
there?’
‘Oh.’ I wasn’t going to show him this one. I handed it to him and I noticed him colour slightly.
We were sitting at our table at the Bafta awards in the spring of ‘01, smiling for the camera. We’d been nominated for the Helen of Troy documentary, and with us were our other halves. There was Tom and, on his left, Amy, who was then six months’ pregnant. She looked lovely in her pale blue dress with a rose in her hair, but at the same time I could see she was tense. With hindsight it was obvious why—she was probably aware, even then, that Tom had fallen for Tara, who was sitting on his other side, luminously beautiful, leaning into him just a little too far. And there I was, in the foreground, with Nick on my right, looking big and handsome in his DJ, his arm stretched along the back of my chair. Within months of that picture being taken, all our relationships had imploded. The photo seemed to vibrate with nostalgia and angst.
Tom handed it back without speaking, then unwrapped his cheese roll.
‘We look so young,’ I said, just to break the silence.
He shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Shall we keep it?’ I asked, though I knew the answer.
‘I don’t want to. But I do want to keep this.’ He held up a large snap of Tom, me, Sara and Nerys celebrating the commissioning of Whadda Ya Know?!! We were waving a bottle of Krug at the camera and Tom was hugging me. He was smiling so much you could hardly see his eyes.
‘Now that was a happy moment. And it’s all thanks to you, Laura.’
‘No—you came up with the format.’
‘But you started the whole idea. When you told me about the question-setting you were doing. Don’t you remember?’
‘Yes. But then if it hadn’t been for Nick going missing I wouldn’t have been doing that, so, in a funny sort of way, we owe it to him—not that he’d have the slightest idea.’
Tom nodded sympathetically.
‘It’s our tenth wedding anniversary tomorrow,’ I went on. I pulled the ring-pull off my can of Coke. ‘I don’t think we’re doing anything special.’ It felt strange even remarking on it, slightly desperate, like trying to celebrate someone’s birthday after they’d died. As I opened my packet of crisps I wondered whether Nick would notice the date, wherever he was. The tabloid hacks had all given up the hunt.
Tom and I carried on sorting and discarding—by now it was gone five—then we began to take everything off the walls. We put all the reference books into crates—the fat Compendiums and the Oxford Companions and the sturdy Cambridge Guides. I heaved the Encyclopaedia Britannica off the shelf, and here, now, was my old Latin dictionary, and next to it, I now saw, my Horace. So that’s where it was. As I pulled it out, it fell open at a well-thumbed page.
See how Mount Soracte stands deep in dazzling snow and the struggling trees cannot bear their loads, and the rivers are frozen with sharp ice…
Heap high the fire, and bring out, O Thaliarchus, your finest, four year old wine…
Entrust all else to the Gods…don’t ask what tomorrow will bring, and whatever days fortune bestows, count them as profit.
Now is the time for sweet love affairs and dances, while you are young, and crabbed old age is far off; So, for now, let the playing fields and the piazzas, laughter and soft whisperings at nightfall be your pursuits…
‘What’s that?’ Tom asked. I passed the book to him. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘And this one—on the facing page.’
‘“Don’t ask what final fate the Gods have given…”‘ he read, ‘“and don’t consult Babylonian horoscopes. Much better to accept what shall be; whether Jupiter has granted us many more winters or whether this may be our last, which now hurls the Tuscan sea against the facing cliffs. Be wise, strain the wine, and don’t look too far ahead. Even while we’ve been talking Time has been swiftly flying. So seize the day…” Seize the day…’ he repeated.
‘Not yesterday,’ I murmured. Tom gave me a quizzical glance.
Suddenly my mobile rang. Without looking at the screen, I answered it.
‘Laura!’ It was Luke. ‘I just needed to speak to you, Laura, to explain everything in person—you see I didn’t lie to you, because I didn’t say that she wasn’t going—’
I snapped the phone shut. A moment later, it trilled again, and I ignored it. It rang a third time and I hesitated for a second, then tapped in the code which would block the number.
‘Are you okay?’ said Tom.
I was aware of his curious gaze. ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m okay.’
Now we dragged the crates of books to the back, then Tom unscrewed the rickety shelves and we flung them in the skip, and took the pictures and posters off the walls. Then we went upstairs and cleared everything there. By the time we’d done that, it was eight. My back was aching and my temples were damp.
‘So…is that it?’ I said, looking around. The light was fading.
‘Well, there is just one more thing,’ Tom said. ‘But you don’t have to stay.’
‘Of course I’ll stay—what is it?’
‘Arnie said I should give the walls a quick wipe so that they can dry overnight. He said the paint will look much better if we do. It’ll probably take us about an hour but as I say, you don’t have to—you’ve already done so much and I’m really grateful that you came to help me and—where are you going Laura?’
‘To fill the bucket.’
We had a large sponge each—I loved plunging mine into the warm water, then wiping away the dust and grime in strong, sweeping strokes as though I was waving to someone a very long way off. My shoulders ached, but I didn’t care. It was satisfying and distracting. Just what I needed.
‘This is Radio 4. And now it’s time for Word of Mouth with Michael Rosen.’
Tom had found his small transistor, so, as we worked, we listened to a discussion about whether the word ‘actress’ has had its day when ‘authoress’ and ‘priestess’ have long since been abandoned. Then there was an interesting feature about all the foreign words that have found their way into the English language—‘zeitgeist’, ‘fiasco’, ‘karma’ and ‘bonsai.’
‘The best ones are French,’ said Tom. ‘Esprit de corps, crème de la crème, joie de vivre—that’s a nice one isn’t it—embarrass de richesses…’
‘Cause célèbre,’ I mused. ‘Crime passionel…’ I love that. ‘Only the French could romanticize murder.’
‘Femme fatale,’ said Tom. ‘And of course, coup de foudre…’ he added with a jaundiced air.
‘Hmmm…coup de foudre.’ To be stunned or dazzled by love.
By now, dusk had descended, and by the time we’d got to the top floor night had fallen and we were working by artificial light.
‘Almost finished now,’ said Tom as we worked away in the boardroom. I felt a bead of sweat slide into the small of my back. ‘Hey!’ he suddenly yelled.
We’d been plunged into darkness.
I heard Tom sigh as he went over to the light switch and flicked it up and down. ‘It must be the bulb,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a spare one in the kitchen. I’ll get it.’
‘It isn’t the bulb,’ I said, glancing through the open door. ‘The lights downstairs have gone too.’
‘Then it’s the fuse,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to fix it. The fuse box is by reception.’
‘Don’t leave me on my own, Tom.’ I felt a fluttering of panic. ‘I don’t like the dark. In fact, I hate it.’
‘Then come down with me. But be careful.’
Now, as we stepped gingerly on to the landing, feeling for the handrail, we saw that the entire building was without light.
I glanced out of the window. ‘There are no lights on anywhere.’
The Mews was in total darkness, and, beyond it, the Lucozade glow of the street lamps had been extinguished. There were the sounds of doors being opened as people stepped outside to see what was happening, or threw up their windows. In the distance we could hear the wail of police sirens, and the honking of cars.
/> ‘Maybe it’s just a local failure,’ I said.
‘No,’ I heard Tom say. ‘This is a blackout. The traffic lights are down.’ I remembered the power cut we’d had a few weeks before at the studio.
I stretched out my hands in front of me. ‘Where are you?’ I said, my pulse racing. ‘I can’t see you. I can’t see anything.’ I suddenly saw the fluorescent points on Tom’s watch face float towards me, then felt his hand on my wrist. I heard the click and sigh of his lighter, then the room was filled by a halo of light. Now we could see each other, our features distorting in the flickering flame, our shadows dancing across the bare walls.
‘We interrupt this programme to bring you a newsflash,’ we heard. ‘Large parts of London and the south east have been hit by a power failure. The cause is unknown but a spokesman for the National Grid company, Transco, has said that terrorism has been ruled out…’
‘It’ll probably last a few minutes,’ Tom said as he held the lighter higher. We could see the tongue of flame reflected in the window, our faces aglow on either side of it, as though we were figures in a Rembrandt. ‘Let’s just sit and wait.’ We went back into the boardroom where we sat on the big brown leather Chesterfield that had been too heavy to move out.
‘You are advised to stay at home until the electricity supply is reconnected. We’ll bring you further updates, but there is rolling coverage now over on Radio 5. Meanwhile here on Radio 4…’
Still holding the lighter, Tom turned the dial.
‘…the advice is to stay at home, avoiding, wherever possible, the use of naked flames, and, if you were about to set out on a journey, you should delay leaving until power has been restored. So joining me in the Radio 5 studio now is…’
‘If you want, I could walk you back to your flat,’ Tom said as some energy expert chatted away in the background. ‘It’s a cloudy night, so it’s pretty black out there…’
‘Don’t we have a torch?’
‘No. But we could take it steadily.’ I thought of bumping into a lamppost and having my nose broken again, or falling off the kerb and snapping an ankle—or being mugged; that could happen, couldn’t it? Worse, I thought of being alone in my flat in the dark.
