Heartstones (2 page)

Chapter Two

Days blurred into one another. For the first few weeks Phoebe managed to make it into work most days – it was as though the reality of the situation took some time for her to understand. It took at least two months to realise that David really wasn’t ever going to come breezing back into the staff room with his cheerful smile, let alone come bounding up the stairs to her flat.

The Christmas holidays were awful – empty days without a class of five-year-olds to distract her. On Christmas Day Phoebe dragged herself and a bag full of badly wrapped presents round to Nola and Steve’s. Nola drank too much Buck’s Fizz and argued with Steve about the turkey, while Amy and Ruben could hardly be prised away from their new DS games. Everyone forgot about the plum pudding in the microwave.

Sandra and the girls came round in the evening and they all squeezed on to Nola’s leather three-piece to watch a BBC comedy special in silence. Halfway through one of the girls climbed on to Phoebeʼs lap and Phoebe had to blink back her tears as she whispered
my Dad used to laugh at this show
. Later Phoebe let her tears fall unchecked as she ran home through the freezing night.

Phoebe was only vaguely aware of the New Year seeping in and by the time she returned to school it became harder and harder to go through the motions of her day. On Valentine’s Day she gave up and simply stayed in the flat. By the following Monday Phoebe barely had the strength to crawl from her bed to call in sick again.

‘We can’t keep finding supply teachers to cover for you, Phoebe,’ said Victoria Leach, who was now the Acting Head. ‘We’ve all had this nasty flu bug but everyone else has managed to get in after a day or two.’

Sometimes Phoebe set off for school in the morning, feeling slightly better, manoeuvring her ancient Morris Minor out into the rush-hour traffic only to find herself unable to drive more than a few metres, her vision dangerously blurred by tears, her legs incapable of working the pedals. Often she would leave the car, parked haphazardly against the curb, and walk and walk and walk, until her feet stung from so many miles of hard pavement and her head ached from lack of food and water. Then she would go back to bed.

‘You’re going to lose your job if you carry on like this,’ said Nola, opening the curtains and picking up the jeans and jumper that lay on the floor where Phoebe had discarded them the afternoon before.

From where she lay Phoebe focused on the heart stone mobile. It hung from the curtain pole against the window. Thirteen stones worn into perfect heart shapes by the sea – tied with fuse wire and suspended from beach-bleached sticks by thin lines of black cotton.

Nola reached up and opened the top of the window. The heart stones gently tapped against the glass. ‘When are you going to grow up and get rid of all this eco-hippy rubbish?’ Nola said, giving them a push so that the tapping became a clatter.

‘Why do you have those funny stones hanging up?’ David had said to her the day before he died. Phoebe lay with her cheek nestled against his chest. She breathed in the clean citrus smell of his skin mixed with the wine they were drinking. She relished his warmth against her body.

‘They’re special stones,’ she mumbled, wishing she could fall asleep.

‘Did you find them in India?’

‘No.’

‘Thailand?’ She shook her head.

‘Australia?’

‘I found them in Ireland, on the beach with my granny.’

‘I always forget that you’re really Irish.’ David twisted a long curl of her auburn hair around his finger. ‘My little Celtic colleen.’ He pulled.

‘Ow! That hurt.’ Phoebe tweaked his chest hair in return and David caught her wrist. Briefly they wrestled until Phoebe freed herself and fell back on the pillows laughing. After a few seconds she wriggled back into his arms. ‘I’m only half Irish and anyway my dad was Anglo-Irish, not a Celt. I hope that doesn’t destroy any of your fantasies.’ David didn’t answer and they lay in a silence broken only by the distant sounds of the evening rush hour. Phoebe thought about the broad, red-headed man who had been her father. Her memories of him were hazy but she felt sure he had actually been much more Celtic-looking than his long-limbed, handsome-featured mother.

‘Are you asleep?’ David asked, giving her a little prod.

‘No,’ she replied and slowly started to kiss the smooth muscles of his chest, working her way up towards his lips. She felt him lift his arm and knew he was looking at his watch.

‘I’d better go,’ he said.

Phoebe stopped kissing him and sighed.

‘Soon, Phoebe, very soon,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘I’ve decided that I’m going to tell Sandra after Christmas.’ He sat up and drained his glass of wine.

Phoebe had hardly dared to breathe. She reached up and traced the tattoo around his arm; the skin still brown from his half-term holiday in Tenerife; she thought about the pictures she’d seen on Facebook – David and Sandra and the girls, running through waves, laughing in a restaurant. Sandra had posted them,
Fab Times,
she had written.
It was hell,
David had said on their return.

ʻWhat about the girls?ʼ Phoebeʼs voice was a whisper. ʻI thought you’d said you couldn’t put them through a divorce.ʼ

David had found his boxer shorts at the end of the bed and he began to pull them on. He turned and stroked her cheek. ʻIt will be hard at first but they’ll get used to it.ʼ He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. ʻAnyway the girls adore you and when they see how happy we are, they’ll be happy too.ʼ

 ʻBut …ʼ

He put his fingers on her lips, ʻI love you, Phoebe Brennan, and I want to be with you for ever.ʼ

Now for ever wasn’t going to happen and Sandra would never know he’d planned to leave her. She got to be the grieving widow while Phoebe was just an acquaintance, a colleague, the little sister of a family friend.

‘It’s not like you to be ill like this,’ said Nola. ‘You need to see a doctor. I’ll make you an appointment when I get into work.’ She started smoothing the bedspread. ‘Maybe you’re depressed, though goodness knows what you’ve got to be depressed about; you should try living with Steve and two self-centred kids – and if you only knew the sort of abuse I get from patients at the surgery – then you’d have something to be depressed about.’

‘Nola,’ Phoebe shifted her head against the pillows. ‘Can I tell you something?’ She didn’t look at her sister. She could see the trees outside the window; already plump buds were pushing their way out of the skeletal branches. She could hardly bear to think of the season changing, the world carrying on without him in it. She took a deep breath in. ‘It’s about David.’

Nola sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and took a crunched-up tissue from inside her cardigan sleeve. ‘Let’s not talk about him, you’ll set me off crying again,’ she wiped her nose. ‘I’m seeing Sandra most days at the moment. I think she’s still in shock, poor thing, she doesn’t sleep, she’s lost weight. She’s hardly able to do the shopping and get meals for the girls.’

‘I just need talk to you about something that happened, something that was going on.’ Phoebe could feel her heart beginning to beat faster.

‘I think if Steve died I’d just get on and cope, I’d be sad, upset for the kids, but I would carry on. But Sandra, she loved David so much, adored him. They adored each other.’

‘Nola …’

‘Poor Sandra, last month she told me she thought she might be pregnant.’

Phoebe felt as if ice-cold water was suddenly pouring through her veins.

ʻPregnant?’ Her voice came out a whisper.

‘She wasn’t, it must just have been the trauma. I thought that it would be a relief – the last thing she needs is another child with no father – but she was heartbroken. She wanted to be pregnant, to have another little piece of him, a new life they had created together.’

Phoebe couldn’t bear to think of them creating a new life together. David said he spent most nights sleeping in the spare room, that all affection was long gone, how could Sandra possibly have thought she was pregnant? Phoebe’s head spun, the trees outside the window blurred.

‘Apparently they often talked about having another child,’ went on Nola. ‘Sandra said he’d always wanted a son.’

Phoebe felt her stomach contract and she knew she would be sick. She quickly threw the covers from her bed and rushed into the bathroom.

Nola crouched down beside her and rubbed her back as Phoebe retched into the toilet; days of not eating meant that nothing much came up.

‘Oh, Phee, you really are ill. I’ll get you an emergency appointment – Dr Riddick, not a locum; that’s one of the perks of being the receptionist.’

Phoebe sat back against the radiator and wiped her mouth with a tissue offered by Nola.

‘No, don’t,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right.’

Nola felt Phoebe’s forehead as if she was still the little girl that Nola had had to care for. ‘If you’re not better by Monday afternoon I’m getting you an evening appointment.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll ring you, OK? I’d better get back, Ruben’s got a judo tournament and Amy’s threatening to dye her hair pink with food colouring.’

At the doorway Nola turned. ‘Was there something you wanted to tell me?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Phoebe said.

Phoebe heard the bang of the door and then, half a minute later, the distant thud of the main front door downstairs. Almost with relief, she lay down on the bathroom floor and let hot tears flow over her face and onto the ceramic tiles. She couldn’t bear to think of David and Sandra talking about having another baby, planning the future, making love; while all the time David had been making love to her, talking to her about exactly the same things. He had told Phoebe that one day, when they were together, when he and Sandra were divorced, they would have children – as many children as Phoebe wanted. They’d even had a conversation about names; how could he ever have wanted more children with Sandra?

The thought of it hurt Phoebe like a physical blow and she drew her legs up to her stomach as if in self-defence. Then, suddenly, she realised the truth. Sandra had been making it up, lying, pretending she might be pregnant to get more sympathy, making up the story about David wanting another baby to add to the pathos of her husband’s death.

Phoebe relaxed a little. David hadn’t lied to her; he would have left Sandra, he’d been just about to leave her. She pressed her hands against her stinging eyes. If only the driver hadn’t used the brake as she skidded on the black ice outside the school. If only David hadn’t been shepherding the Year Four children across the road at the time. If only David was still alive.

After a long time Phoebe went back to bed and let herself sink into memories of the past – the only thing that brought her any comfort.

Phoebe thought about the second time she had met David, many years after the barbecue on that hot summer day in the overgrown garden. This time it was winter, she had just returned from Thailand. Back at Nola and Steve’s, permanently cold, sharing her old bedroom with Amy; she felt uncomfortable, in the way, itching to get on a plane and leave again, she wasn’t even sure why she had come back to Britain.

She sat shivering, in multiple layers of clothing, in front of Steve’s computer, trying to find out how to get a job teaching English in Japan.

‘Planning your escape already?’ a voice said and Phoebe turned to find David standing beside her. Ten years had passed and this time his hair was short and he wore a suit and tie. The tie had pictures of Bugs Bunny printed on it and even though it had been loosened to reveal an unbuttoned collar and a tiny patch of chest hair, he looked ridiculously conventional. Phoebe stared at him, surprised at the transformation, though his face was just as handsome as before, his intense blue eyes making her feel like an awkward teenager again. She forced herself to swivel on the office chair and face him.

‘I’m grabbing the day, just as you advised.’

David raised an eyebrow in a question.

‘Don’t you remember
, live life to the full
, it’s what you told me to do,
see the world, meet people
.’

David grinned down at her. ‘Did I say that? I’m flattered that you remember.’

Phoebe felt her cheeks flush. Through the wall she could hear Sandra talking to Nola and the shrill shrieks of the twins up above in Amy’s bedroom – probably going through her rucksack, pulling out her bikini tops and denim shorts.

‘It was a long time ago,’ David continued. ‘Though I do remember that you looked like the kind of girl who was longing for an adventure, and from what Nola tells us you’ve certainly been having one. How long were you travelling?’

‘Too long – according to Nola – and I can just imagine the things my sister has been telling you about me. She thinks I’ve been wasting my time and wasting my education. She says it’s time to settle down and get a proper job.’ Phoebe made a face.

‘Didn’t you do something quite arty at college?’

‘Illustration.’

‘That’s right, I remember. I heard you were good.’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘What about you? Still living your life to the full?’

‘Well,’ David began slowly, ‘I’m sure you know that Sandra and I got married and that we’ve got twin girls. We moved back here to be closer to Sandra’s parents and now I’m headteacher of the local primary school.’ He paused as one of the twins let out a squeal above him. ‘I think that just about sums up the last decade for me. Is that enough information for you?’

‘I suppose I thought you’d do something more …’

‘Exiting?’

Phoebe found it hard to drag her gaze away from his. She smiled. ‘I just never expected to see you in a suit and comedy tie.’

‘Don’t knock what you don’t know. I did the travelling thing too, followed the trails, smoked the hashish, did the bungee jumps, but I’d say that becoming a father and a teacher has been the biggest adventure by far.’

Phoebe rolled her eyes and they both burst out laughing. ‘That sounded really corny, didn’t it?’ said David.

‘Just a bit,’ replied Phoebe. David leant against the study wall and ran his hands through his neatly cut hair.

‘You’re right. Life hasn’t exactly been what I was planning when I last saw you. Sandra got pregnant, I needed a job, we needed a house, teaching was the easiest and quickest option; living life to the full was suddenly on hold.’