Missing You (4 page)

‘She used to read a lot. That was one of her favourites. I think she used to wish my father was more like David Niven,’ says Fen.

‘She wouldn’t have been the only woman to feel like that. Not about your father, I mean . . .’

‘No.’ Fen smiles. A memory of her father, tall and imposing in his headmaster’s robes, striding through the grounds of Merron College, flashes into her mind. She pushes it away. ‘What have you got there?’ she asks.

‘Rachel Carson.
Silent Spring
.’

He opens the book to check the title plate.

‘This one might be worth a bob or two.’

‘Shall I have a look on the internet?’

‘I’ll do it,’ says Vincent with uncharacteristic eagerness. He doesn’t like using the computer, as a rule.

‘If this is worth what I think it’s worth, I’ll take you out for lunch,’ he says.

‘Sorry, Vincent, I have errands to run.’

‘People to do, things to see . . .’

‘Post office, bank, chemist, supermarket.’

‘As your employer, shouldn’t I take priority?’

‘You just can’t get the staff these days, Vincent.’

‘Indeed,’ he says, switching on the computer and wincing as it trills its welcoming five notes.

‘So what did you do this weekend?’ he asks, rubbing his hands, his face illuminated blue from the computer screen. The computer is elderly and inefficient. It takes a long time to boot up.

‘Shopping, cleaning. The usual.’

‘How long have you been in Bath now?’

‘Five years or so.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Vincent, I’m all right.’

‘I know you’re all right.’

‘You don’t have to worry about me. I’m perfectly happy.’

Vincent takes off his glasses and rubs the sides of his nose, where they have pinched.

‘Five years of being on your own,’ he says, ‘it’s such a waste.’

‘I have Connor. I have Lina and you
and
my lodger has moved in now. I’m hardly lonely.’

‘Are children and friends enough? Don’t you want to be with someone? Properly?’

Fen looks up at him coyly. ‘But Vincent, you’re already spoken for.’

Vincent shakes his head and smiles.

‘Whatever it is that’s caused this drought, it’s time to put it behind you,’ he says. ‘You’re only young once, Fen. You only have one bite of the cherry. Five years is long enough.’

Fen nods as if she agrees, but she thinks: How would you know?

For the rest of the morning he is tied up with either the computer or the telephone. He is generating a buzz of interest in the Rachel Carson. Although he speaks quietly, for any talk of money embarrasses Vincent, there is excitement in his voice.

Meanwhile, a steady stream of customers comes through the door, tinging the bell which is linked to a sensory pad beneath the hessian doormat. Fen feels very calm in the shop, because of the clear view of the pavement outside. The level of the shop floor is lower than the level of the pavement, so people have to bend down to look beyond the window displays and past the posters; they put their hands above their eyes to shade them from the glare, and screw up their faces and peer in. People always look through the windows before they commit to entering the Gildas Bookshop. It would be impossible to be surprised, which is how Fen likes it to be.

If Tomas finds this place, if he looks through the window, she will see him before he sees her.

Fen can sometimes go for days without anything reminding her of what happened before Tomas left. She can go for days without thinking about Joe. But sometimes . . .

Sometimes she’ll see a boy in the street, a young man with shaved hair and long legs in over-washed jeans, or she’ll hear a certain snatch of music, James or Elvis Presley, and the memories will come back to her. On occasions, the past is more substantial to Fen – more real – than the present. She remembers the way Tomas used to sit with his bony knees apart, she’ll think of the weight of his hand on her arm, his cheek on her shoulder, his eyelashes, the way he always offered her a bite of his hot dog, or a drink from his can, or a drag of his cigarette or whatever he had. The ways Tomas, impossibly, tried to look after her.

And always when Fen thinks of Tomas, she thinks of Joe standing just behind him, or beside him, watching.

Sometimes all it takes is a small change in temperature, stepping from shadow into sunlight, and Fen will look around her, certain that Tomas is close.

She waits and hopes . . .

She hopes her brother has been wrested from his addictions and is drifting through some other continent, picking fruit, perhaps, or working barefoot in a beach bar. She imagines him in baggy swimming shorts, loose about his hips, and a shell necklace, maybe with long hair now, and a little beard, surfer piercings in his ear and eyebrow, tattoos on his arms. She hopes he has some good friends. Sometimes, if she’s in a nostalgic, self-pitying, sentimental frame of mind, she sits on the top step, outside the kitchen door, staring at the sky and wondering which constellations he sees at night.

Mostly, Fen hopes only that Tomas is well and happy. She wishes he would come back. She wishes he would find her. Until he does, all she will have are her memories and her nightmares. She has had enough of those.

Sometimes she can hardly wait for the day when he returns. She can’t wait to put things right.

And sometimes she has to fight to make herself believe that day will ever come.

six

There is a man in the drive sweeping up the first fallen leaves of the autumn when Sean arrives to visit Amy, and for a moment he thinks it is the Other. Anger rises up in him and he has a fantasy of swinging the car round and hitting the man. He would catch him hard on the thigh, throw him into the air, break both legs maybe. He imagines the Other sliding cartoon-like down Sean’s windscreen, the glass shattered, the frame dented, and the Other’s hands leaving bloody trails as he slipped into a crumpled heap on the ground. But the man looks up, and it’s not even a man, just an amiable boy, one of the three who live over the road – Chris, he’s called, or Nick, or Mark – with his woolly hat pulled down over his ears and his jeans sitting low on his hips. The boy holds up a hand in greeting and Sean salutes back, trying to keep the humiliation from showing in his eyes.

Belle opens the door and a breath of warm, scented air drifts over Sean’s face.

‘Come in,’ she says, like it’s not his home, not his house, like his wages aren’t paying the mortgage. Her words are wounding, so is the cheerful tone of her voice; everything about her makes him feel crushed and also angry. Doesn’t she realize how diminished he feels, being invited into his home like a stranger? Why hasn’t Belle, blessed as she is with so much sensitivity and empathy, got a clue as to what’s going on in his head?

He cannot bring himself to thank her. Already his heart is thumping and his mouth is dry. He steps over the threshold and follows the sound of CBeebies into the living room, where Amy is lying on the smaller of the two cream leather sofas, propped up with cushions and pillows and almost covered by her duvet. Her eyes are half closed and there is a bright red circle in the middle of each cheek.

‘Hello, sweetpea. Are you in the wars?’ he asks, and she nods solemnly.

‘I have a chest infection,’ she says, and she coughs with such polite theatricality that Sean has to turn his head to hide the smile. He catches Belle’s eye and they share a moment of parental harmony, and he thinks: This is stupid, this is Belle and me, we are man and wife, we are a pair, we are as one.

‘Cup of tea?’ asks Belle, turning towards the kitchen.

‘Please,’ he says and goes over to his daughter.

Her eyes are runny and the lower part of her nose is sore and red, glistening with mucus.

‘You poor little bugger,’ says Sean, sitting down by Amy’s feet. He tweaks her toes. She sniffs and manages a brave little smile.

‘Are you staying for tea, Daddy?’

‘I don’t think so. But I’ll stay for a bit.’

‘Have you got somewhere else to live now?’

‘Yes. In Bath. You can come and stay.’

‘Has it got a garden?’

‘Yep. And there’s an alley at the back where all the children play. And there’s a boy who lives there, called Connor. He’s a bit younger than you.’

‘Oh.’

She looks disappointed.

‘I would have actually preferred a girl,’ she says. ‘An older girl. Or a dog. But it doesn’t matter.’

‘Connor’s nice,’ says Sean with ersatz cheer. ‘The house is all right too. You’ll like it.’

‘Does this mean,’ whispers Amy, so that her mother can’t hear, ‘that you’re the boy’s daddy now?’

‘No,’ says Sean, silently cursing Belle for this situation, for riddling Amy with anxieties so frightening she has to put them forward in a quiet voice, ‘I’ll only ever be your dad, Amy.’

‘And also,’ she whispers, ‘now you’re living there, does it mean you’re never coming back here to live?’

Sean shakes his head emphatically. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Doesn’t what?’

Belle comes in with a tray of drinks and sets it down on one of the designer coffee tables. The whole room seems to have grown larger and plusher since Sean last saw it, but he supposes that is because of the contrast with the smaller floor-plan and cheaper, older furniture in Lilyvale
.
He feels a burst of shame at the thought of his lodgings, the old stains on the carpets, the throws which disguise the age of the rickety chairs and the over-soft sofa, the mismatched crockery. The shame is like a narcotic in his bloodstream and his prejudice, born of indulgence, disgusts him when he thinks of quiet Fen and how she works to look after her son, to keep the house clean, to make him comfortable.

‘Did the doctor give Amy antibiotics?’ asks Sean, to change the subject. Belle nods.

‘She gave me a fright last night. She was so hot she was hallucinating.’

‘Were you?’

Amy nods, and sits up to drink her Lucozade.

‘She thought there were penguins in her bedroom.’

‘They were evil penguins. They were standing on my shelf and they were singing a song,’ says Amy.

‘What sort of song?’

‘“In a cottage in a wood”. They knew all the actions.’

‘You’ve been watching too much
Pingu
.’

‘No,’ says Amy patiently, ‘these were real penguins, not cartoon ones. They were like soldiers. They were marching and holding up one wing.’

Sean shudders at the thought of the Nazi penguins.

Belle says: ‘OK, Ames, enough of that,’ and she passes a pile of envelopes to Sean. ‘There’s your wage-slip in there, and credit card statements, a postcard from your mum and dad, letters from the bank.’

‘Thanks.’

Belle clears her throat and sits on the edge of the opposite sofa, her back straight, her hands resting on her knees. She is well manicured, as always. She has lost a little weight, thinks Sean, and she is wearing new clothes: plum-coloured trousers, a pale sweater made of the softest of wools, brown boots.

‘Don’t you think it’s time you had your post transferred to your new address?’ she asks in a voice so gentle it takes him a moment to realize the implications of her words. ‘Don’t you think you ought to let people know you’ve moved out? You have told your parents, haven’t you?’

‘There’s no rush, is there?’ he asks.

‘There’s no point not doing it,’ says Belle. ‘It’ll be one job out of the way,’ she adds. ‘And what if there’s an emergency? What if your family needs to get hold of you? What should I say if they call here?’

He gets the point. He takes a sip of tea.

‘OK,’ he says.

‘It’ll be better now you’ve got somewhere to take Amy,’ says Belle. ‘You can have her for the whole weekend, as soon as she’s shaken off this cough. That’ll be fun, won’t it, Ames? Spending more time with Daddy?’

Amy glances from one parent to the other, unsure of the politic answer.

‘You’ll probably find that you grow closer, the two of you,’ says Belle. ‘I’ve heard lots of people say that the exclusive time parents and children have together in these kinds of situations can be bonding. It can be a very positive experience.’

‘Who are you trying to convince?’ Sean asks. ‘Why all the pill-sugaring?’

‘Oh, Sean, don’t . . .’ She trails off. She looks at the backs of her hands. She is still wearing her wedding ring and she twists it round and round the base of her third finger. ‘I’m just trying to be civilized,’ she says. ‘It’s not as if I don’t still care about you.’

‘You’ve got a great way of showing it, Belle.’

‘Sean . . .’

He takes a deep breath, holds it in his lungs, tries to exhale his anger. Amy’s eyes switch from one parent’s face to the other’s. She is pressing herself deep into the settee.

‘Sorry, Amy,’ says Sean. ‘Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to shout.’

He takes her hot little foot in his hand, but she winces and withdraws it.

Belle is giving him a ‘see what you’ve done now’ look.

‘Is there anything you need?’ she asks in a cooler voice. ‘From the house? Do you need extra bedding? Towels? Pots and pans?’

‘No.’

He will not thank her. He won’t give her the balm to soothe her conscience. No. Her words sound attentive, concerned, but this generosity is all part of the eviction process. She just wants shot of him.

This is all wrong. It’s like some kind of nightmare, like one of those films in which the hero goes to work in the morning and comes home to find everything looks the same but everything has changed.

‘Daddy?’

Amy has not changed. She stares up into his eyes and her own are wide and worried. She sniffs loudly and wipes her nose with the edge of her duvet.

‘Amy, don’t be disgusting. I’ve told you a hundred times to use a tissue,’ says Belle.

‘For Christ’s sake, Belle, she’s not well. Give her a break!’ Sean hisses.

‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ Belle replies in a voice that’s quiet and brutal.

‘Oh! Right! So you can fuck your bastard tutor any time you want but I’m not allowed to
talk
to you?’

‘If you’re going to use language like that I think you should get out of my house,’ says Belle.