Missing You (25 page)

Sean crosses to the wall, flashes his light up at where the water’s coming through. The soot has been washed away, and there’s slime on the brickwork which has eroded and loosened.

‘That can be fixed,’ he says. He checks his watch. ‘How much longer do we have?’

‘Twenty minutes.’

‘I’ll take some pictures but we’ll need to come back next time the line’s closed. When’s the next possession?’

‘Not for a couple of weeks.’

‘Let me know. We’ll do a proper survey.’

Sean finds his camera, angles it so that the water won’t reflect back into the lens, and takes some pictures.

The manager’s radio crackles. There’s a testy exchange of words. Sean nods; he understands that they have to get out.

‘There’s a tunnel at Box,’ says the project manager, ‘and it’s said that if you stand at the western end you can see the sunrise at the eastern end on Brunel’s birthday.’

‘Is it true?’

‘Don’t know,’ said the man. ‘But it’s a beauty of a tunnel. Two miles long, perfectly straight. Thirty million Wiltshire bricks lining the inside. And all of it blasted by hand and the spoil taken away by horse and cart.’

‘Blimey.’

‘They don’t know they’re born, the labourers these days,’ says the project manager.

Sean shakes his hand, then he goes back to his car and sits down to unlace his boots. He records a brief summary of the morning’s events into his phone, then switches it to Bluetooth and throws the handset onto the passenger seat. He is on the A46, on the way back into Bath, when the ring-tone broadcasts out through the car speakers.

It’s Belle. Again.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi. Sean, I wanted to apologize for calling you so late the other night. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and wanted to hear a friendly voice and I know you were probably . . .’

‘It’s OK. Listen, I’m in the car, Belle. Can I call you later?’

‘Oh,’ she says. Her voice drops. ‘Aren’t you on hands-free?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then. I just wanted a quick word.’

‘Go on.’

She pauses. She gives a nervous little laugh. ‘This is difficult,’ she says, and then she takes a deep breath and continues: ‘It’s Amy’s birthday next Saturday, as you know, obviously, and I . . . well, I thought it would be nice if we spent it together, all three of us, as a family.’

Sean holds his breath.

‘I can’t, Belle, I’m sorry but . . .’

‘You hadn’t forgotten it was Amy’s birthday?’

‘No, of course I hadn’t. But I wasn’t expecting to see her. You told me you were going to be in Cornwall.’

‘Well, our plans have changed. Lewis is going on his own.’

‘Oh.’

Belle sighs. There is a silence. Sean spots a lay-by, indicates, and pulls over. He turns off the engine. A magpie is picking at road-kill at the junction between the lay-by and the road. Lorry drivers and police officers in hi-visibility jackets are socializing by the burger bar. The traffic on the main road goes by.

Belle speaks again. ‘She’s going to be seven, Sean. This is an important birthday for her. I want her to have happy memories.’

‘I know. But—’

‘I’ve given up my week in St Ives. You can at least spare a day, can’t you?’

‘I’m doing something else.’

‘Oh.’ The hesitancy and warmth evaporate from her voice. ‘So you’ve got something more important to do.’

‘Belle,’ he says, ‘this is the first time in nearly a year that you’ve called to suggest something like this. I wasn’t to know. ’

‘It’s the first time since we separated that Amy’s had a birthday.’

‘And you told me you were taking her to Cornwall. I’m sorry, but I’ve promised to do something.’

‘With your new girlfriend?’

‘Yes.’

‘And her child?’

‘Yes.’

‘How am I going to explain that to Amy?’

Exasperation rises in Sean like bile. Somehow he is in the wrong again. Somehow he has found himself in the role of uncaring father, selfish ex-husband, bastard man.

‘Belle, you’re twisting things,’ he says, and although he can’t justify this statement he knows he has been unfairly out-manoeuvred.

Belle replies in a calm, measured voice. ‘Honestly, I’m glad you’re moving on, really I am, Sean, but after everything that was said at the school, now that we
know
our daughter has problems, don’t you think she should come first? Especially on her birthday?’

‘What were you thinking of?’ Sean asks slowly.

‘We could do something special, something she’ll always remember. Maybe spend the day at the zoo?’

Sean sighs. He looks at the reflection of his eyes in the glass of his car windscreen. Amy is his only child. His only chance.

He pushes his hair back with the flat of his hand.

‘She’d be devastated if you didn’t make the effort for her.’

This he feels like a fist in his belly.

Belle is silent. She knows she has achieved her goal.

‘I’ll sort something out,’ he says. He ends the call. He turns off the phone.

He gets out of the car and goes to stand at the side of the road, staring through the traffic at the countryside beyond, the lovely Cotswold hills and valleys. The air smells of exhaust fumes and fried onions. The men at the snack van, standing like cowboys with their legs apart, hold the paper-wrapped burgers with their two big hands as they chew their meat and watch him.

He was going to take Fen and Connor out into the countryside. He was going to walk with them alongside the Kennet and Avon canal. He was going to show Connor the narrowboats, maybe take him for a ride on one, and watch Fen’s face as she marvelled at the beauty of the valley below Limpley Stoke, sunlight dappling her hair. They were going to pack a picnic and a blanket, and after a while they’d leave the canal and walk by the river instead, and perhaps find somewhere where they could swim and Connor could paddle. He had believed he would not see his daughter on her birthday, so he had planned an alternative that would help keep his mind off what he was missing. He had promised Fen another perfect day and now he must let her down.

thirty-six

Fen nibbles around the edge of a sweetcorn cob. A line of butter glistens down her chin.

‘When I was little,’ she says, wiping her chin with her hand, ‘I saw a film and these children were playing hide and seek in a maize field. I thought it looked like the best fun. And then we were on holiday and there was a maize field there so I went and hid in it and it was horrible.’

Sean raises an eyebrow.

‘Tomas and Joe were supposed to come and find me but they didn’t, they just wanted to get rid of me for the afternoon. They were fed up of me tagging round after them. But I couldn’t get out of the corn. Because what you don’t realize is that in real life you can move up and down the lines, but you can’t get in between the canes; they’re like trees. I was too small to see over the top and I was disorientated. I couldn’t remember which way I’d come in.’

‘What happened?’

‘Huh?’

‘How did you find your way out?’

‘I can’t remember. I must have done.’

‘Well, you’re here now.’

She puts her feet on his lap. ‘Yes I am.’

‘More wine?’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

He plays with the little silver chain around her ankle. Traces the daisy-chain tattoo with his fingertip. He has been quiet all evening.

She senses more than hears him take a deep breath and she thinks: Uh-oh.

‘Belle called today,’ he says.

‘A gain?’

‘Yes. You know it’s Amy’s birthday next week?’

Fen wriggles with pleasure at the thought of what they have planned. ‘They’re going to Cornwall, aren’t they?’

‘There’s been a change of plan.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m sorry, Fen.’ Sean holds her calf with his hand. He says: ‘We’re thinking of going to the zoo. Belle thinks it’s important to give Amy some quality time. She’s given up her holiday so we can be together, as a family, for Amy’s sake.’

She adjusts immediately. She says brightly: ‘Amy will like that. It’s a good idea.’

‘Fen . . .’

‘We can walk the canal another time.’

He says: ‘I know this is shit, I know it’s a mess, but it will sort itself out. We’ll get to some kind of status quo and then—’

‘It’s OK. I understand.’

‘You don’t have to be so understanding all the time. If you want to be angry that’s fine. Scream at me, shout at me, tell me not to go.’

Fen looks up at Sean, and then down again.

‘It’s Amy’s birthday,’ she says. ‘Amy needs you.’

‘What about Connor?’

‘I haven’t made any promises to him.’

Fen takes her feet off Sean’s lap. She begins to stack the plates.

Sean looks up at her. She smiles back brightly but inside she feels the old anxiety wake and stretch itself. What can she do? She can’t ask Sean not to spend the day with Amy. She can’t tell him about the fear that’s nagging away at her, the instinct that’s warning her that her happiness is being threatened. She can’t tell him to stay away from Belle because she knows Belle does not, cannot, love him as she does. All she can do is look into his eyes and reassure him that he is doing the right thing for his daughter, because he is.

She leans down, cups his cheek with her hand and kisses his lips, his warm and garlicky lips.

‘Leave the dishes,’ says Sean. ‘Leave them.’

They go upstairs, into her bedroom, and he draws the curtains and takes her hands to pull her to him. She steps forward and their bodies meet. They kiss and he strokes her hair, smoothing it down her back; she puts her hand on his neck to bring his head down so that she can reach his lips. He presses against her.

She knows that her desire for him turns him on, she knows this and she wants him to make love to her, she wants it very badly. She wants him to prove to her how he feels. She wants him to commit his body to hers.

She finds his belt buckle, unfastens it, sits on the edge of the bed and one by one undoes the buttons on his jeans. They are straining. She finds him with her fingers, strokes him, then leans forward.

‘Fen,’ he says, ‘you don’t have to do that.’

She looks up. ‘I want to. I like it.’

‘No. No, wait.’

He sits beside her on the bed. He puts his arm around her and pulls her close to him. She puts her face into his chest and breathes in the warmth of him.

‘Listen,’ he says, taking her head in both hands, and holding her so that she has to look at him. ‘Listen, I’ve told you a hundred times and I’m telling you again. I don’t want Belle, not any more, not at all. I don’t want to be with her, I don’t want to sleep with her. I don’t much like her. And it’s reciprocal. Belle doesn’t want me. She hasn’t wanted me for a long time.’

Fen nods.

‘Is that clear?’

She smiles. ‘Yes.’

He leans down then and kisses her and they make a pact with their bodies. And although she is not convinced by what Sean said, Fen thinks that’s the best that either of them can do for now.

She lies beside him with her head on his chest and she feels and hears the beating of his heart beneath her ear. She runs her fingers up and down his chest just for the pleasure of her skin being so close to his. He is twining his fingers in her hair. She is naked, but she doesn’t feel vulnerable. There’s a sexy, musty smell to Sean’s skin.

‘Tell me,’ he says. ‘Tell me what happened with Tomas and Joe. Tell me why you feel so responsible.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can.’

‘It would make things worse,’ she says.

‘How do you know? You never talk about it. You just think about it and you’ve probably got it all out of perspective. If you told somebody, if you told me, maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad.’

Fen sighs.

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘that night when I lay here, on your bed, and talked about me and Belle, well, it changed everything. It turned me round. Once it was out of my system, I could move on. And I have.’

‘But you hadn’t done anything wrong.’

‘Fen,’ says Sean, ‘whatever happened, whatever it was, you were just a kid, you weren’t responsible for your brother. Nobody is responsible for any other person’s life.’

‘No, you’re wrong. We
are
responsible for the people we love,’ Fen whispers. ‘That’s the whole point of everything.’

‘Then just tell me the beginning of it. Tell me when it started to go wrong.’

‘I don’t know when it started.’

‘What about the drugs? When did you first know your brother was into drugs?’

Fen remembers. She was fifteen. It was the summer holidays, night-time, and she was asleep in her bedroom in her father’s house in Merron. She was woken by a noise, like gunshot, just above her head, and then another noise. She was frightened and she almost screamed for her father, but she heard a familiar whistle and realized that the noises were pebbles bouncing off the panes of her bedroom window.

She slipped out of bed, drew back the curtain, looked out and saw Tomas, standing in the middle of the road, swaying like seaweed in the tide.

She crept downstairs. The stairs were old, creaky, tale-telling stairs that threatened to give her away. She didn’t dare turn on the hall light. She opened the front door carefully and Tomas stepped through.

He embraced her. ‘Fen,’ he whispered.

He held on to her. His breathing was strange.

‘Tom, what is it? Are you all right?’

‘Oh,’ he sighed, ‘I’ve never been so good.’

‘What is it?’ she asked, suspicious. ‘What’s wrong with your eyes? Tom, what have you done?’

He held a finger to his lips.

‘Tom!’

‘Fen, it is so amazing. It is such a beautiful feeling.’

It was as if he had undergone a religious transformation. He was evangelical. Fen had never seen him like this before. And he smelled strange. Everything about him was weird.

‘You have to get to your room,’ she whispered. ‘Come on.’

‘You don’t understand. It’s beautiful and for the first time in my whole life I feel like I—’

‘Come on, you’re scaring me,’ she said, more firmly. She put her arm around his waist and pushed him, and slowly they went upstairs together.