Precious Time (39 page)

‘Is that really what you want, Dad?’ Jonah asked.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘But …’

‘But what?’

‘You don’t think we ought to talk about what happened?’

‘No, I don’t!’

‘Okay,’ he said soothingly. ‘If that’s what you want, that’s fine by me.

Relieved, Gabriel sank back into the softness of the pillows. He was home and dry. The relief was as potent as the earlier rush of adrenaline had been. Jonah passed him his tea and as their eyes met, his son smiled and suddenly Gabriel wasn’t so sure that he was home and dry. He knew that smile so well, had loved it. A hot wave of panic flooded him, his heart thudded painfully in his chest and his hands shook so much that he had to put the mug on the bedside table. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t. Consumed with the absurd need to weep on his son’s shoulder again, he summoned all his strength, heaved himself out of bed and blundered blindly from the room.

His head spinning, frightened he was going to be sick, he locked himself into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bath. He pressed his clenched fists to his eyes and wept as silently as he could.

God in heaven, why had it taken him almost thirty-five years to see just how like his mother Jonah was?

The May sunshine had warmed the wooden bench Archie was sitting on, which helped to relax him a little. He wasn’t a jumpy man, but today his nerves were shot to pieces. Which was crazy: he was only meeting Stella, for heaven’s sake - a woman he’d known for most of his adult life.

But perhaps he hadn’t ever really known her. If he had, surely he wouldn’t be sitting here in Buxton, in the Pavilion Gardens, waiting to meet her so they could discuss their divorce in a civilised and amicable manner.

It had seemed the right thing to do when he had written to Stella earlier in the month, and it had still seemed right when she had penned a hurried note last week to say she couldn’t make it that day after all, but would the following Tuesday be okay? He had sent a note back saying it would be fine.

But now it felt anything but fine. What would they say to each other? Would they argue and cause an unpleasant scene that would play right into the solicitors’ hands?

The sun and nervous energy were making him sweat - he

unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up. He was ten minutes early, and he watched the people around him enjoying themselves.

Picnic blankets were laid out on the grass where cool-bags, discarded socks and shoes had been scattered, and groups of tiny children, their lips and clothes stained with ice-lolly juice, squealed and laughed while their mothers chatted. Through the leafy trees, and down by the lake, where ducks were being fed chunks of processed bread, the miniature train rattled along its narrow-gauge track, whistling. In the shade of an oak tree, a girl and a boy were oblivious to the world around them as they kissed.

He sighed. Oh, what a world it was, at one minute so beautiful and full of golden opportunities, and at the next hopelessly confusing and fraught with difficulties.

‘Archie?’

He started. ‘Stella!’ He got to his feet. Was it really her? Surprise must have been stamped all over his face.

Self-consciously she patted her short, flicked-back hair. ‘I’m still getting used to it,’ she said.

But the dramatic change in hairstyle and colour - from mousy grey to harsh teak - wasn’t the only thing that was different. She had lost weight, more than a stone. And since when had she had such long nails? They must be false - she had never been able to get hers to grow. She had always complained they were too brittle. The jewellery was new too, and there was too much of it, he thought.

Gifts from the new man in her life, perhaps. The silky overshirt covered a camisole top that was low at the front, and between her breasts an amber pendant he didn’t recognise caught the sunlight.

She had changed the colour of her lipstick too. It was darker. Too red. It gave her teeth a yellowed appearance. ‘You’re looking great,’

he said.

‘You too.’

They sat down and Archie cringed at how easily she could lie. He knew he looked far from well. Only that morning when he had been shaving he had noticed the unhealthy pallor of his skin and the extra lines and shadows around his eyes.

‘How’s the shop going?’

Pride made him want to say that business was booming, that since she had gone the money had poured in, that he spent every evening counting his new-found booty and devising ways to spend it - a yacht here, a second home there. And that was when he wasn’t fighting off the women! Oh, yes, all the gorgeous young women he’d had in his life since he had become a single man - banging on his door they were. ‘Oh, same as ever,’ was all he said, thinking that this was the answer his circumspect solicitor would expect of him ‘Make the shop sound too profitable, Mr Merryman, and she’ll want a cut of that too! ‘Business is up and down,’ he added, further obliging the lawyer in his mind.

‘And your mother?’

‘A little better.’ No thanks to you, he wanted to say, with an uncharacteristic spurt of malice. Oh, this was no good! They wouldn’t get anywhere if he carried on like this. What was done was done. Bitterness wouldn’t help either of them. ‘Do you fancy an icecream?’

he asked, catching sight of a tot leaning forward in his

pushchair, trying to grasp the cornet his mother was keeping at a safe distance.

‘I shouldn’t, really,’ she said, smoothing out a crease in her skirt, then crossing her legs and revealing a shapely calf. ‘I’m on a diet.’ She made it sound like it was the ‘in’ thing to be doing, that over in cosmopolitan Macclesfield that’s what everyone was up to.

‘Oh. Sure I can’t tempt you? Not even a small one?’

She shook her head. Not one hair moved, he noticed. ‘But don’t let me stop you.’

Childishly, he took her words as a challenge and strode off to the nearest icecream seller. With a strawberry Cornetto in his hand, he took the return journey more leisurely. Come on, he told himself, drop the pathetic dumped-husband routine and relax or this meeting will be a waste of time.

‘So what was it you wanted to discuss?’ she asked, when he joined her on the bench again. He saw her sliding two gold bracelets apart on her wrist so that she could look at her watch. Couldn’t she have done that while he’d been gone? And how come she was so cool? He was sweating and squirming like a pig.

He moistened his lips and launched into what he wanted to say.

‘This isn’t easy for me, Stella, but I just wanted you to know that…

that I’m sorry.’

She looked at him blankly. ‘Sorry?’

‘Yes. For not being the husband you needed. I let you down and this … this awful awkwardness between us seems … Oh, Stella, this coldness between us seems a heck of a price to pay, especially when you think how happy we once were.’

She continued to stare at him, and in such a way that he wondered if what he’d said hadn’t made sense. He opened his mouth to try to make himself clearer.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, her tone icy. ‘Is this some sly trick of yours to make me feel guilty?’

‘Me?’

‘I know what you’re doing, Archie, you’re clinging to the past.

You’re trying to—’

‘I’m not!’ he blurted out. ‘I was trying to say that I want you to know I understand. Or, rather, I think I understand. Over the years we both changed without either of us realising it, and—’ A high pitched squeal of laughter distracted him. He turned to see a small child lying on his back waving his legs in the air as his mother tickled his tummy. ‘Perhaps if we’d had kiddies, things might have been different,’ he said flatly.

‘This isn’t about us not being able to have children,’ she said pointedly. ‘It’s not even about you forcing your mother on me.’

That really hurt. He tried to respond, but his voice failed him.

‘I’m not coming back, Archie. I thought I’d made that perfectly clear. I have a new life now. One that makes me happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long while. I only came here to make sure you understood that.’

He was stung by her hardness and felt himself shrivel inside.

Melting icecream trickled down his thumb. ‘Stella, I asked you to meet me so that we could try to make things easier between us. To make our divorce less painful. I thought it would give us the chance to go our different ways with a more positive attitude.’

‘I don’t believe you. You wanted to drag me here to flaunt your forgiveness at me, to make me feel bad about what I did. You always did want to be the good guy - self-righteous Archie Merryman. Well, now you’ve got what you always wanted. I’m the villain for walking out on you and you’re the hard-done-by man everyone feels sorry for.’ Her voice was tight with recrimination, her words spilling out as though she had been storing them up specially. Suddenly she leaped to her feet. ‘There’s nothing to be gained from this. I knew it would be a mistake. And look!’ She pointed to his left hand accusingly.

‘You’re still wearing your wedding ring. You haven’t accepted anything at all.’ Without another word, she wheeled round and marched away.

He was dumbfounded. He watched her stride out in the direction of the opera house, her unfamiliar hair bobbing through the strolling holiday-makers. Her arms swinging, she veered off-course only once to avoid bumping into a man with a pushchair. Then at last she disappeared.

Archie thought, if your new life makes you so happy, Stella, why do you look and sound so miserable?

He drove home to Deaconsbridge more confused than when he had set out. What had she meant by him always wanting to be the good guy? Sure, he liked to be liked. Who didn’t? It was human nature to want to get on with other people. The belief that there was good in everyone was at his core. Take that Mr Liberty, for instance. He certainly wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but Clara Costello proved his point perfectly: she had seen something worth digging for beneath the layers of prickly rudeness or why else had she put herself out for him?

To his surprise, by the time he reached home and was locking the car, he no longer felt so sorry for himself. It was Stella his heart went out to. Her bitterness seemed so much greater than his own.

He let himself in at the back door and saw that his mother had managed to peel some potatoes for their supper - a hopeful sign. He went through to the sitting room where he could hear Corrie’s theme playing on the television.

‘Hi, Mum,’ he said, forcing himself to sound carefree and jolly. He had told her where he was going, that he was trying to smooth things out between him and Stella, and he wanted her to think that the meeting had gone well, that he had it all under control now. He reached for the evening paper, which had slipped on to the floor beside her armchair and passed it to her. It was then, when she made no move to take it from him, that he realised she had had another stroke.

The doctor said there was no need for him to stay. ‘You might just as well go home and get a decent night’s sleep in your own bed,’ she advised.

But Archie said no. ‘I wouldn’t sleep anyway.’

The doctor, a woman in her early forties with a kindly,

understanding smile, nodded. ‘I thought you’d say that. But do your best to grab the odd nap. We don’t want you conking out on us. You look too useful a chap to lose.’

With the curtain drawn around the bed, screening them off from the rest of the ward, Archie sat alone with his mother while she slept.

Except it wasn’t a true sleep. She was now in a world where he couldn’t reach her.

Dr Singh had warned him that a second stroke was on the cards, that it would probably strike within a year of the first, but when it had happened, he had been taken unawares. ‘No use looking for warning signs and symptoms,’ Dr Singh had said, ‘it’ll just make you more anxious, which will make Bessie more anxious.’

He laid a hand on his mother’s and hoped she could feel his touch.

He wanted to believe that she knew he was there and that she wasn’t facing this alone. With her head turned away from him, she looked just as she always did when she slept. But the other side of her face told a different story. The corner of her mouth was open and looked as if it was waiting to have a pipe or a cigar popped into it. Her eyelid looked as if someone had tied a thread to it, then pulled it down towards her cheek. It was a heartbreaking sight.

Still with his hand on hers, he sank back into the chair, tilted his head, closed his eyes and listened to the noises beyond the curtain.

Someone was coughing - a dry, tickly cough - another patient was muttering in her sleep, and beyond the ward, voices rose and fell. A phone was ringing and hurried footsteps squeaked on the polished floor.

This last sound dredged up a pleasant memory for Archie, of his first visit to Mermaid House and Clara Costello’s confident step as she led him the length of the impressive hallway towards the drawing room.

As sleep claimed him, he wondered where she was now. What

wouldn’t he give to pack up his troubles and take to the road?

That night Clara dreamed she was running. Her legs carried her effortlessly through fields of long, dry, swaying grass. Her feet were bare and a warm breeze blew through her hair - not short as it was now but streaming out behind her - and in her arms she carried Ned.

There was no weight to him and together they were almost flying. In the distance, there was a hill, and Ned asked her to take him to the top. Their laughter rang out like birdsong as she ran sure-footed up the steep incline. The higher she climbed, the lighter and freer she felt. From the top, where the sun was brighter, the wind keener, they looked down on to a small town. It was Deaconsbridge. There was the church, the bustling market square, Archie’s shop and the Mermaid cafe. Away from the town, and perched on a hill which he had all to himself was a man. He was waving to them. Standing beside her, Ned clapped his hands. ‘Mummy, there’s a man waving to us. Is it Mr Liberty? Has he come to see us?’ But as she shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun, she caught Ned by the hand and started running again, down the hill, her feet scarcely touching the ground beneath them. ‘That’s not Mr Liberty,’ she cried, the wind tossing her words over her shoulder, ‘that’s your father.’