Life Begins (39 page)

Bill held the umbrella steady and fixed his gaze over the stone wall of the churchyard while Jean set down her bunch of flowers – her favourites, irises and purple campanula. Using her good hand, she traced her index finger slowly round the letter ‘R’ engraved in the headstone. It felt wonderfully simple, as seemingly complicated things often were in the end. Forgiveness, embracing all the imperfection of the love that had kept her by Reggie’s side for four decades – there was really nothing to it.

‘He was always so kind,’ she told Bill, as they made their way back to the car. ‘So kind,’ she repeated, in a murmur, keeping back the private observation that this was precisely what had always been so hard: how the gentlest handling could feel like an insult to one seeking the reciprocation of something more akin to passion.

Bill held out his arm for her to grip as she levered herself into the car. ‘Back to the hotel, then?’

‘I’d like to sit here for a bit, if that’s all right,’Jean replied, winding down the window.

‘I’ll have a walkabout, then,’ he said cheerfully, pulling out his cigarettes and tapping the earpiece that connected him to his mobile phone. ‘Back in five. Hit the horn if you need me.’ He marched off, balancing the arm of the umbrella on his shoulder while he lit up.

‘Well, well,’ said Jean out loud, shifting her sore wrist so she could get closer to the open window and sniff the wet air. Earth, tree bark, the scent of recently cut grass and the sweet, subtle smell of the rain itself… The layers were endless if one took the time to seek them out. It was noisy,
too, an orchestra of drips and drumming threaded with birdsong and the hum of distant traffic from the motorway. It had been raining at Reggie’s funeral, although of course she hadn’t seen any beauty in it then.

‘Sorry, Reggie, not coming before… Sorry, love.’ Jean dusted away a tear, then put on her glasses, wanting a clear, final sight of the top of the gravestone through the slanting rain and the swaying branches. The air was cold on her face but her feet and hands were pleasantly warm. Who would have thought it?’ she exclaimed next, both as a general remark at her circumstances and in a fresh attempt to understand exactly how she had arrived at them. A light, that was it. A light had appeared in her bedroom just as the weary hopelessness was tightening its stranglehold. The pad with the farewell letter to Charlotte – the third attempt –  had been propped awkwardly against her knees. There had been ink on the bedclothes, she remembered; terrible black stains, and the galling realization that she had forgotten, after all, to gather up the wretched little stockpile of sleeping pills, that she was going to have to endure the painful ordeal of clambering back out of bed and rummaging for them. And then, quite without warning, there had been the light… or, at least, a warmth, a heat, a glow – 
something.

Jean waved to Bill as he reappeared among the trees, then wound the window back up. She didn’t believe in ghosts; during the years abroad she had dismissed out of hand any servant tittle-tattle about spirits. But she was in no doubt that something had entered her room that night – some essence, or energy, filling her and leaving her filled, even after it had seeped away. The notion of this private pilgrimage had sprung to mind immediately afterwards, so like a need that the requirement of remaining alive to see it through did not
need examining. She had phoned the taxi company that evening, gathering confidence when her tentative suggestion of a driver on a daily rate was so well received, as if people did it all the time instead of just lonely widows with broken wrists following mad ideas about revisiting old haunts.

She had taken the phone off the hook – not told anyone – for fear of losing her nerve. Packing, sorting out her route and accommodation, closing up the house, pushing her arm beyond limits at every turn, Jean had nearly baled out more than once. At times it was the sheer effort it would have taken to unscramble the arrangements that had kept her going, along with self-mocking mutterings about the harmlessness of lank hair and sodden arm plaster. And then Bill had arrived, whistling, smartly dressed, cleanshaven, opening doors, swinging her bags, cracking a joke about the barmy balmy weather and she had felt as irrevocably committed as a shy bride about to be swept off in the back of a limo.

‘Back to the hotel now, please, Bill.’

‘How lucky it was still going strong, eh, Mrs B, after all those years – and a lot smarter, you say?’

‘So lucky… and, yes, a lot smarter.’ Jean leant back against the headrest and closed her eyes, seeing again the grey walls of the poky room where she and Reggie had argued about England and houses and Charlotte… about every subject, in other words, but the one that, for those few weeks at least, had mattered so much: the one called Charity, the girl with the satin skin to whom her husband had, for the first time and unwittingly, almost lost his heart.

The arguments ebbed and surged until, like a gunshot in the dark, Charlotte had cried, ‘Stop,’ and banged the wall. Inches apart, all three had held their breath. Then, in the thick, dreadful, quiet darkness Jean had felt Reggie’s hand
touch hers. A minute later the hand was moving down her arm, her belly, her leg, with more explicit purpose, but with such urgent tenderness, too, as if, beneath the mechanics of that tireless appetite, there lay some passion after all.

By the time Martin and Sam pulled into the Rotherhithe cul-de-sac the following Friday evening, grass and concrete alike were glistening under the full force of the beaming sun following another afternoon of downpours. Informed during the course of the journey that he was to have a half-sibling and that, with Cindy still fragile and tired, he was to spend the next thirty-six hours being quiet and undemanding, it was not with the best of spirits that Sam lugged his rucksack upstairs. There were dubious smells coming from the kitchen, which turned out to be fish – three grey ones lying side by side in a pan, their dead, cloudy eyes fixed on the swirls of steam floating round the ceiling.

For a change and because it’s healthy, Cindy said, when he went in to say hello, like she knew it was a rubbish meal even before she had served it.

‘Can I go out on my bike?’

‘After supper, I should think, if the rain stays away, if Dad agrees.’

‘Agrees to what? Hmm, something smells good.’ Martin bounced into the kitchen and slipped his arms round Cindy’s waist, fondly cupping the new thicker waistline camouflaged by her apron.

Sam looked away quickly. Without his briefing in the car he wouldn’t have noticed Cindy was any fatter, let alone pregnant. He had wanted a brother or sister once, but presented with the reality of it – and in this split version of a family too – he wasn’t at all sure. He would still be number
one, his dad had said, which had only got him thinking of George’s siblings and how not one of them was ever number one, not really. ‘I want to go out on my bike after supper.’

‘I want never gets,’ Martin murmured, ‘and it’ll be dark soon.’

‘I said he could,’ Cindy put in, making a special face at Sam. ‘It won’t be dark for a while yet. We’re eating early because I am, as usual these days–’ she made another, different, special face, this time for his father ‘– starving.’

‘And I’ve got lights,’ Sam added, brightening at the sight of mashed potato.

‘Assaulted on all sides,’ pronounced Martin, in a tone of happy defeat. He let go of Cindy and advanced on Sam instead, holding his fists up like a boxer spoiling for a fight. Sam ducked and made a run for the door, only to be swung off his feet and over his father’s shoulder.

‘Not so big yet, are you?’ Martin growled, while Cindy tutted happily, rolled her eyes and drained the peas, and Sam, making a show of wriggling resistance, wondered when, if ever, a boy could announce that the time of genuinely enjoying such games had passed.

The fish weren’t quite as horrible as Sam had anticipated, especially after he had been allowed to fetch the ketchup. He ate fast, keeping an eye on the slits of blue sky through the kitchen blinds, while his dad and Cindy talked about things to do with work, then ticket sales for their concert, occasionally putting questions his way, but really obviously, like they felt they had to try to make him feel included.

When he was ready to go, his dad, merrier still with a glass of wine in hand, rapped his helmet, told him to stay in the compound, not to run over any old ladies and be home the moment it got dark.

Sam let his bike roll down the slope of the hard-standing,
then pedalled slowly round the mini roundabout a few times, wishing he had thought to bring his mobile. He and Rose had recently exchanged telephone numbers – at last! – and he wanted badly to tell her about Cindy having a baby. She would, as usual, know how he felt without him having to explain. She was amazing like that –
just getting
things – like knowing, since the evident failure of their desperate little scheme, to leave the repellent subject of his mother’s love life entirely alone. And wanting to stay just as friends – he was sure she knew that, felt it too – in spite of the stupid playground taunts.

The wheels of the bike made a lovely swishing sound on the wet Tarmac. Sam speeded up towards two fat pigeons scrapping over a crust, getting a lovely rush of power when they took off in fright. One day he would have a motorbike, he decided, pedalling as fast as he could now, away from the little roundabout and across the junction that led towards the compound entrance.

‘Mah-jong. I’m afraid it’s off.’ Theresa’s voice was crisp, unreadable. ‘There’s been something of a domestic crisis.’

Charlotte slowly put down her knife and reached for a tissue to wipe the onion tears out of her eyes. Her hair, wet still from a bath – a lovely long indulgent soak with the radio parked on the stool next to her – suddenly felt unpleasantly cold. ‘Oh, no, Theresa… I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s Naomi,’ Theresa said hurriedly, sufficiently aware of her friend’s train of thought for a touch of embarrassment to creep into her tone.

‘Naomi?’ Charlotte sank into a chair, hoping she didn’t sound too relieved. Why, what’s happened?’

‘She’s just pitched up on Jo’s doorstep in floods of tears with all three children in tow. Apparently she and Graham
had some sort of row and he
hit
her – or tried to. She ducked and his fist landed on the wall… Can you
imagine
?’

Through the tone of appalled sympathy Theresa sounded almost excited. And no wonder, Charlotte mused. Not getting on with Henry must seem mild in comparison to such horrors.

Theresa, expounding on the grave revelations about their friend’s life, was growing earnest and faintly hysterical. ‘Admittedly she seemed a bit dazed when she came to tea – that time before Easter when the twins ran riot. She was definitely not quite on-the-ball… But I’d never have guessed anything was
that
wrong. And neither did Jo, who – let’s face it – is the one to whom she has always been closest. And now it’s come to this terrible head, and with Naomi’s parents in France and that one sister who travels all the time she couldn’t think where else to go. Jo says she’s been trying to phone you about it this evening but there was no answer.’

‘I probably had the taps running – I got drenched again on a walk with the dog. Christ, poor Naomi… I can’t believe it, although I suppose it shows –’

‘What? What does it show?’

‘That… well, that there’s always the other life.’

‘Other life?’

‘The one we try not to reveal to each other,’ Charlotte murmured, thinking – inconveniently, selfishly – of Dominic in the restaurant the previous week; how her stomach had knotted every time he tipped his head towards his dining companion, how she had wanted to look every time he laughed. ‘The one we keep in our heads.’

‘Ah, yes…’ Theresa muttered, her own thoughts also skipping from Naomi to her own situation. The only ‘other life’ she felt capable of caring about was her world with
Henry; a lost world that she wanted back so badly she had gone straight to the fridge after Jo’s call to see if she could rustle up something surprising for supper, freshly determined to restore full domestic harmony in her household by whatever means at her disposal, no matter how pitiful or old-fashioned. Hopes thus raised, she had been standing, packet of frozen prawns in hand, when Henry called to remind her that he was delivering a lecture, didn’t need feeding and wouldn’t be back till after nine. ‘Well, my head doesn’t contain a
life
so much as a big ridiculous mess – as I’m afraid you now know only too well.’

‘How can we help?’ Charlotte was determined to stick to the matter in hand.

Theresa sighed. ‘I don’t think we can do anything, at least not for the time being. Jo seems to have everything under control. She’s putting Naomi and the twins in the loft conversion and Pattie with one of the girls. Paul’s going to talk to Graham. She’s calling me tomorrow. You hadn’t started cooking, I hope?’

Charlotte eyed her chopped onions, sitting in a pool of oil in the frying-pan. ‘Not really, though I need to anyway, of course, for Eve.’

‘Ah, Eve, I’d completely forgotten. Well, have a great time.’

‘Theresa?’

‘Yes.’

‘Eve… she – she’ll never be a friend like you.’

‘Thank you, Charlotte. What a lovely thing to say… Thank you.’

‘I mean it.’

‘Me too… and our lunch,’ Theresa blurted. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t really talked since. I’ve been putting it off, to be honest – I felt such a dope. But the fact is, you were great
– couldn’t have been greater – about everything. And what you told me,’ she rushed on, ‘about your father not being your father… I didn’t really know what to say. As you gathered, I had other things on my mind. But what I really think is that getting the whole truth is always good in the end. I mean, the
worst
thing in a life is feeling something’s wrong and not knowing what it is, don’t you agree?’

‘Absolutely. The whole truth – we need it.’ Honesty had levels, Charlotte reminded herself firmly, putting down the phone. Life was full of grey splodges. One had to clutch at what few certainties one could. Theresa and Henry were meant to be together and she had been right to do everything within her power to ensure that. Naomi’s woes sounded terrible but would get sorted with time, just as her own had done. And as for the Dominic thing, it would no doubt wear off, gutter without the hope of reciprocity, like any flame deprived of oxygen. Her hand shook a little as she returned her attention to the onions. Shock on Naomi’s account, of course, she told herself, stirring hard as the oil warmed and gleamed.