Love Always (32 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Guy’s shop is like something out of a fairytale. Just off the increasingly corporate Upper Street is Cross Street, a higgedlypiggedly small road of shops, and Guy Leighton Antiques is halfway down. It is painted a kind of dove-grey, and in the pretty bow window is a Rococo mirror, an old teddy bear sitting on a small wicker chair, and a heavy crystal engraved vase with a single dusky rose in it. I stare at the window, longingly. I want everything in it.

When I push open the door, an old bell jangles in a pleasing way. Inside, it’s empty and silent. The distressed white floorboards glow in the late-afternoon light, and as I look around, wondering what I should do next, I hear a voice say, ‘Hello? Natasha?’ From a back room Guy emerges, pushing a pair of half-moon spectacles off his nose. They hang on a chain around his neck. He blinks, rather blearily.

‘I’m not early, am I?’ I seem to have caught him unawares. ‘Sorry,’ he says, looking embarrassed. ‘I was having a nap.’

‘Oh.’

‘Quite nice in the afternoons, when it’s quiet, you know. Put the radio on and have a doze – there’s an original Eames chair out back I can’t bear to part with, it’s too comfortable.’ He catches himself. ‘Good grief. I sound like I’m ready for the old people’s home.’

This reminds me of something. ‘That’s funny. I literally just left a message at the home for Arvind on my way here,’ I say, more to myself than to him. ‘He was out for the afternoon, they said. Do you know, is Louisa down there?’

‘Yes, she is. She went down yesterday.’

Archie was going to see him around now, too. I’m not even sure Mum’s been down since the funeral. ‘On her own?’

He misunderstands me. ‘Oh, yes. My brother likes an easy life.’ He smiles, rather sadly I think. I think of the indolent, good-looking Bowler Hat, so often to be found sleeping in an armchair or deckchair while Louisa brings him tea. I frown at the thought. ‘She’s a kind soul, Louisa, she loves to help.’ He scratches his chest and yawns. ‘She loved your grandmother, Natasha, Frances was like a mother to her. They were very close.’

‘Louisa had her own mother,’ I say. ‘Yes . . .’ Guy’s expression is non-committal. ‘But I think Louisa loved it down there, and she wasn’t a threat to your grandmother. Never was. Frances adored her, and she didn’t have to raise her. And – well, Louisa just likes doing things for other people.’

‘I know.’ Fond as I am of her, I can’t help rolling my eyes at this.

Guy ignores my expression. ‘Now, this is unpardonable, not offering you anything. Can I get you a drink, some coffee? Maybe some whisky? It’s very cold outside.’

‘Tea would be great if you have it,’ I say. ‘Just PG or anything.’

‘No problem,’ says Guy, motioning me to come through to the back room with him.

The office is a small, chaotic space, overflowing with papers and books, some old and clearly antiques, others dog-eared paperbacks. There’s a pile of old Dick Francis novels by the side of the worn Eames chair. Two dirty coffee cups sit on the floor and a fan heater purrs amiably beside them. There’s a worn footstool, too, upon which lies a sleeping cat, also purring.

Guy pushes the cat off. ‘That’s Thomasina,’ he says. ‘Stupid thing. We thought she was a boy for ages, called her Thomas, and then she suddenly produces kittens, three of them.’ The cat straightens herself languidly and glides away.

It looks as if nothing’s been changed for years. Everything in this shop is slow; the warmth is soporific, as is the smell of old, musty things, the rumbling sound of the heater. It is getting dark outside, and I wish I could just curl up in the chair and sleep.

‘It looks very cosy here,’ I say. ‘Must be nice, if you’re having a quiet day, to come in here and relax.’

He gestures to the chair, and turns away to fill the kettle from a cracked old sink in the corner of the room. ‘Yes, though lately it seems I’ve been doing a lot of napping and not enough selling of antiques. Not very good.’

‘It’s a hard time,’ I say, sitting down. ‘That’s true,’ he says. ‘But I’m not keeping up. Not been going to the markets enough, getting new stuff in.’ He waves around the shop, and I see now that, while every piece is lovely, the space is bare. ‘We need more stock.’

‘You have some lovely things, though,’ I say. ‘It’s a beautiful shop.’

‘Thank you,’ he says quietly. ‘Thanks. My wife used to keep it looking rather better than it does now. She had a wonderful eye for that kind of thing.’ He stops. ‘But she died five years ago, and I’ve let it go since then.’

I’m sure Hannah was with Guy at Octavia’s confirmation, but that was years ago. I’m sure I vaguely remember her, curly hair and a wide smile. ‘Well, I’m sure she’d be very pleased,’ I say.

Guy pours hot water into a mug. ‘You’re very kind,’ he says.

‘But I fear she’d be angry with me if she could see what an old man I’ve turned into lately.’ He looks around and down, in disgust. ‘Reading specs, for Christ’s sake! On a chain! Pah.’ He taps them gently with one finger. ‘Dozing in the afternoon, doing the
Telegraph
crossword and listening to Radio 3 – if my younger self could see me now.’ He stops.

‘No one wants to think they’ll be doing a crossword and dozing in the afternoons when they’re twenty,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. When I was twenty, wow. I wanted to take over the world. I was very angry. I even took part in a sit-in.’

‘How admirable of you. What for?’ Guy asks. He hands me the mug and gestures vaguely towards a nearly-empty pint of milk on a little fridge by the door.

‘Do you know,’ I admit, ‘I can’t remember. Something about students’ rights. Or maybe animal rights.’

Guy gives a shout of laughter and sits down on the foot-stool, smiling.

‘So you sat in some student hall all night and you can’t remember why?’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I think I fancied one of the blokes organ-ising it.’

Jason, Oli’s best friend, our best man, was a radical student leader straight from central casting: he even owned a khaki jacket and had a beard. ‘Now he’s head of year at an exemplary secondary school down the road,’ I tell Guy, blowing onto my tea to cool it down. ‘He wears a suit to work. He and my husband aren’t at all how they were when they were twenty. They used to want to change the world. Now they just want an app on their phones that’ll tell them how to go about changing the world.’

Guy looks at me, and he is sober for a moment. ‘Perhaps we’re all guilty of that,’ he says.

‘How so?’

‘Oh, I was the same,’ he says easily, but his voice is sad.

‘Thought I had all the answers, like your friend there. I thought we lived in a stagnant, rotten country, run by elderly upper-class white men. And we did need to change, but I didn’t do anything to help it.’ He smiles, but there is bitterness in his eyes. ‘I run a shop selling pretty old things to people. I live in the past now, and the country’s still run by upper-class white men as far as I can see. Banks, government, committees – it’s just that most of them are younger than me. Younger and richer.’

I don’t know how to respond to such honesty, and the silence is rather uncomfortable. After a few moments, Guy recalls himself.

‘Rather maudlin,’ he says. ‘Too much time to think. Bad thing.’ He pats his knees and stands up, rather stiffly, for the stool is a long way down. ‘Time to explain why I asked you here.’

He goes over to the corner of the room. ‘Now, Natasha, I have something to give you, and that’s why I wanted to meet up. To – explain.’ He opens a cupboard door and turns back towards me.

He is holding a small, flat thing in his hand, and I stare down at it, not really thinking.

‘Here,’ he says, holding his hand out to me. ‘Cecily’s diary.’ There’s a thud and a squeal from Thomasina the cat. I have dropped my cup of tea, boiling water is everywhere.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It takes a few minutes to clean up, and I am very sorry. There is a painting that is probably ruined, as hot tea and water-colours don’t mix, and I keep apologising as I help Guy wipe down various cases and books and random antiques, but he is completely relaxed about it. As I am on the floor, mopping up the tea with a cloth, I say, ‘Where the hell did you get this?’

‘Well—’ Guy is immersed in a stain on the wall, and has his back to me. ‘It’s – it’s complicated.’

I stare at the innocuous red exercise book, the white pages yellow with age. On the front is written, in the scrawling handwriting I know so well:
Continuing the Secret Diary of Cecily Kapoor
. ‘Did you take it?’

‘No, I did not,’ he says firmly. ‘Your mother sent it to me. She took it.’

‘What?’

I am still holding a soggy ball of kitchen paper; my head snaps up.

‘She posted it to me a few days ago. Said I should read it.’

‘But—’ My anger is rising. ‘Why you? She can’t stand you.’ I catch the tip of my tongue between my lips. ‘Sorry. She – she’s just not your biggest fan, maybe.’

‘Yes,’ Guy says. ‘Right. I’d gathered that. I don’t know why, to be honest. But I don’t know why she sent me the diary either, I’m afraid. Well – I do know why. You ought to read it and find out.’

I’m blushing, with embarrassment and anger. ‘Still. Where the hell did she get it in the first place?’

‘It was in your grandmother’s studio. She’d found it after Cecily died and kept it in there, all these years.’ He stops. ‘I did wonder, a few months after Cecily died – what happened to the diary? But I assumed they’d just put it away with all her things. I didn’t think about it, really.’ His head sags. ‘I was too – I was thinking about other things.’

‘So Mum just took it.’ My head is spinning. ‘After the funeral? So she’s had it ever since? Why did she take it? Why hasn’t she said anything?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her. I think she just saw it and snapped,’ Guy says carefully. ‘She was in the studio with Arvind, and she spotted it. The pages you have must have become separated, somehow, just fallen out.’

‘Have you got the note?’

He pauses. ‘I didn’t keep it. I’m sorry. I don’t think she planned it out. I’m rather concerned about her, you know, Natasha. It’s a lot to cope with, what she’s been through. And she’s completely disappeared now. I rang her after I’d – I’d read it, to talk to her. I’ve rung her several times, but she never answers.’

‘Typical,’ I say. My head is spinning. ‘She – I accused her of all these things, last week, and she just stood there. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t mention she had the diary, didn’t say anything. And then she just sends it off to you – of all people, when she’s told me you’re the worst of the lot of them. She’s—’ I don’t know what to say. ‘She is mad.’

‘You haven’t read what’s in here,’ Guy says. The lines on his face deepen, and a spasm of pain flashes in his eyes. ‘If she’s mad – I can see why.’

I don’t say anything. ‘Natasha, you don’t know what it’s like to lose a sibling,’ he says.

‘I’m an only child,’ I snap at him. ‘Of course I don’t.’ Guy jangles some change in his pocket. ‘Yes . . . yes, I know. Well, you have to understand. It’s always been with her, this. It changed us all. I don’t think—’ He clears his throat, staring into the distance. ‘I don’t think I ever really got over her death.’

‘Cecily’s death? Really?’

‘Yes,’ he says, and he looks at me now, his kind grey eyes full of pain. ‘There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of her. It’s strange. It was so long ago.’

‘Why? Cecily? But you didn’t know her that well, did you?’ I say. ‘You hadn’t met her before that summer, had you?’

‘No.’ Guy stands up, and he crosses over to the other side of the room, his back to me. He takes a deep breath, and then he turns around and stands up straight. He says, ‘You’ll see. But – I saw her dead by the rocks . . . broken and battered.’ He passes his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. ‘I brought her up from the sea myself, you know, that evening. I carried her in my arms.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘We put her in the sitting room. Awful.’ He blinks and looks at me. ‘You know, until the funeral, I hadn’t been back to Summercove since the summer she was killed. Died.’ He corrects himself. ‘Died.’

My mouth is dry. ‘You think someone killed her. You think – Mum killed her?’

The silence is long, broken only by the sound of Thomasina’s purring, her claws piercing the worn fabric she lies on. ‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘That’s not what this is about, Natasha. It’s not a whodunnit. It was an accident. Your mother was there, I saw it. But believe me, it was an accident.’

‘So why does everyone seem to think she did it?’ I said. ‘There were people at the funeral, pointing at my mother, whispering about her. Octavia does, Louisa does, the rest of them.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what to think any more.’

‘Perhaps it’s been a useful diversion from what really happened.’ Guy’s hand squeezes the coins in his pocket together so that they make a screeching, scratchy sound, and I wince. ‘Sorry,’ he says. His face is unbearably sad, old and sad. ‘You know, we were young. The world was changing. We had our lives ahead of us. And then she died, and it altered everything. For a long, long time, I thought there’d never be anything nice or good in the world again.’

He holds out the diary, his hands shaking. ‘Read it,’ he says, his voice cracking. ‘Find out what kind of person she really was.’

‘Who? Cecily?’

He shakes his head. ‘Read it.’

We walk through the silent, echoing shop. It is almost dark now. I have my hand on the door; the old bell jangles loudly. ‘I’ll read it tonight,’ I say.

‘And call me afterwards?’ His face is hopeful. ‘Don’t talk to anyone else, will you promise me that?’

‘Promise. Goodbye, Guy.’

‘Natasha –?’ he says. ‘It’s lovely to see you again. You look wonderful, if I may say. I heard from your mother that you and Oli have separated,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. But it obviously suits you.’

I think of the rumpled bed Oli and I had sex in this morning, the rain on the cobbles last night . . . Ben’s face as I walk away from him. ‘That’s unlikely. But thank you.’

I smile my thanks and suddenly his expression changes, as if he wants me gone, instantly. ‘Well, I’d better get on—’ He looks around the shop and I take my cue and go for the door again.

‘Oh, let me get that.’ He comes forward and holds it open for me, and then suddenly he leans towards me and kisses me on the cheek as the bell jangles.

‘It’s great to see you, Natasha,’ he says. He smiles at me and I smile back. ‘And—’ He stops.

‘What?’ I ask. I’m standing on the threshold of the shop. ‘You do look so like her. Cecily.’

‘That’s what my grandmother used to say,’ I tell him. ‘Well, it’s a compliment,’ he says. ‘She was beautiful.’ He stares at me curiously. ‘We’ll speak. Please, I want to speak to you once you’ve read it.’

He shuts the door, suddenly. I am increasingly unsettled as I start off back home. I walk and walk, through the quiet Georgian terraces of Islington, down towards the canal, past the Charles Lamb pub, out towards Shoreditch. It is that curious time of day you get in spring when it is still light but feels as if it will get dark at any moment, that the day is over. It is dark by the time I reach the curious Victorian enclave of Arnold Circus and walk down Brick Lane.

I let myself into the flat. I make a cup of tea and sit down, thinking about my conversation with Guy. I look down at my lap, at the exercise book, so innocuous-looking in my hands, the schoolgirl handwriting and floral decoration around the border the same as a thousand others, before and since. It strikes me that I’ve always thought of Cecily as being a child. They always talked about her, when they talked about her, as a young child. And she wasn’t, it seems, if what I found out this afternoon is true. She was a woman.

I open the diary, on my knees. The rest of the flat is dark, its cool loneliness is what I need. I feel my heart thumping, as if someone is holding it, squeezing it. I know once I start reading I won’t be able to stop. Voices echo in my head as I open the flimsy red exercise book, looking at the carefully scratched patterns on the front. ‘That was the summer she died . . . That was the summer she died . . .’

And I read.