Fourteen

‘Darling, you must come and take over.’ Sabina’s voice clacks down the phone line.

‘I can’t. The business – ’

‘Business – Poof! Gerald … he need you.’

‘I can’t just drop everything.’

‘Even for your husband?’

‘Sabina, you know perfectly well we were divorced thirty years ago.’

‘He love you, Vanessa. He tell me so.’

Vanessa ends the call and contemplates the designs in front of her. The lines merge and criss-cross as thoughts assemble, retreat, advance again. What should she do? Gerald’s been home from hospital for a week and Sabina – who’s been looking after him – has to return to Buenos Aires.

She throws her pencil across the room and lets out a shout. Josie, sitting in the corner of the shop knitting up one of Vanessa’s designs, looks round. ‘Problems?’

Vanessa groans. ‘My sister-in-law! Correction – my ex-sister-in-law drives me nuts!’

‘What’s happened?’

‘My ex-husband – who walked out on me and his two little daughters years ago – has just come out of hospital. He’s got cancer and she’s expecting me to go up to London and look after him.’

Josie resumes knitting. ‘Will you go?’

Vanessa listens to the clicking of the needles, a sound she’s always found soothing. Josie’s knitting a calf-length coat in a yarn, which fades in and out of different colours, mustard to pink to black, to grey. It’s almost finished. ‘That’s great, Josie. Exactly the effect I wanted.’

‘I love the way it hangs. I was itching to have a go at it rather than asking one of the knitters.’

‘Could you cope here for a few days?’

‘Of course. If you’re sure that’s what you want.’

‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I want. Half of me says, you must go – he’s sick, he needs you. The other half says, you must be mad – he left you, treated you badly, came crawling back, just when you were happy with someone else … ’

‘Toss a coin,’ Josie says laughing.

‘Okay.’

‘I was joking.’

‘How else can I decide?’ Vanessa goes to her bag and takes a fifty-pence coin from her purse. ‘Right. What’s it going to be?’

Josie shakes her head. ‘You’re crazy. I can’t choose.’

‘Heads, I go; tails, I don’t.’ Vanessa flicks the coin. It lands on the floor and bounces away into a corner. She can see it glinting. ‘Can you get it, Josie?’

Josie puts the coat to one side and crawls under the table. Vanessa stares at her bottom in its tight jeans. ‘Which is it?’ she asks.

Josie wriggles closer to the coin. ‘Heads.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Jake says. ‘What is it with you and old geezers lately?’

‘What do you mean?’ Vanessa is meeting Jake for a drink before going to Gerald’s house.

‘First this fuss about Gerald, and now you’re all wet-eyed because of a taxi driver.’

‘It was a shock. I had no idea he was seriously ill.’ Vanessa thinks of John, the softly spoken man who’s driven her to the station so often. Recently there’s been a recorded message every time she tried to order a taxi, and today she discovered John is dead. Vanessa wishes she’d known he was sick; she would have sent him a card. ‘He was a really nice man,’ she says, conscious that Jake is studying her.

He doesn’t say anything at first, and the silence is long enough for Vanessa to feel uncomfortable.

Then, ‘Is Gerald a really nice man?’ Jake asks.

Vanessa takes a sip of wine. ‘I wish you didn’t sound so angry.’

‘Wishing doesn’t make things come true. I would have thought you’d have learnt that by now.’

‘It’s not like you to be so harsh, Jake.’

‘Perhaps it’s time I let my feelings out more.’

‘Tell me why you’re upset.’

Jake pauses with the bottle of lager half way to his lips. ‘For real? You want to know how I feel?’

Of course, Vanessa wants to say. You must tell me what you’re feeling, however difficult it is. But the truth is she doesn’t want to know. It’s not going to be good; she can see in his eyes it’s not. Steel-grey eyes, like Andrew’s were that last morning. ‘Tell me,’ she says.

‘I hate the bastard.’ He bangs the bottle down on the table. ‘I hate Gerald Blackstone. I hate what he did to our family before, and I hate what he’s doing now.’

‘What do you mean, what he’s doing now?’ Vanessa says. ‘Before, I can understand. But now?’

‘He’s got you crawling round him. Cordelia put the phone down on me when I mentioned him. And Esme’s giving me grief all the time.’

‘What about?’

‘Should she go and see him? Suppose he dies? Does he deserve another chance? He must be worth something if Vanessa loves him so much. But how can she face Cordelia if she sees him?’ Jake’s been staring at the table, but suddenly his eyes lock on Vanessa’s. ‘Is that enough, or do you want me to go on?’

Vanessa has to look away. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.’

‘What about my dad? No one ever mentions him.’ Jake’s face looks bony and angular as if his anger has tightened the skin. ‘What chance did I have to say goodbye?’

Vanessa reaches out to take his hand, but he pulls it away.

‘He promised to collect me from nursery school … ’

‘I know, Jake. It was awful for you.’

‘What is it with Gerald? Why does he get all the attention? Why doesn’t anybody care about my dad?’

My dad. The words scorch Vanessa’s heart. ‘I care about your dad – ’

‘You didn’t even go to the inquest!’

‘You don’t understand, Jake. It was traumatic.’

Jake slams a fist into his palm. ‘It’s all about you. Your trauma! What about mine? What about Dad? Didn’t he at least deserve you being at the inquest?’

Vanessa’s fingers tighten on the glass. It feels as if she might crush it. ‘Of course he deserved it.’ She should have known this outburst would come at some stage. ‘He didn’t deserve to die. He was a lovely, kind, sweet man – ’

‘Yeah, but sweetness doesn’t do it in this family, does it? Vanessa and Gerald, Gerald and Cordelia, Gerald and Esme – that’s all you ever hear. Never Andrew and Jake, Vanessa and Andrew.’ Jake stretches out his hand. Vanessa cringes. He’s going to slap her. She closes her eyes and waits. She deserves this. Her cheek smarts from the imagined blow.

It doesn’t come. She opens her eyes. Jake’s fingers are hovering over her rings. He settles on one and strokes it. It’s the emerald Andrew gave her when Jake was born. ‘What about Vanessa and Andrew, Mum? What would Dad say if he knew you were about to shack up with Gerald again?’

‘It’s not like that.’ Vanessa tries to stop her hand from trembling. ‘I’m going to stay with him for a few days until he can cope on his own.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Jake stands up. ‘I’m going now.’ He bends towards her and his lips touch her cheek. Vanessa catches the scent of shower gel, and then she’s staring at his departing back.

She orders another glass of wine and takes it to the back of the bar, where it’s quieter and darker. Memories and feelings surface like elusive images after a dream. Her insides churn. Is Jake right? Has Andrew been forgotten? At first, she denied thoughts of him simply to survive. On the day of the inquest she sat at home, on her own, refused to answer the phone, see anyone. To sit through details of the accident would have been unendurable. Andrew was all round her: his watercolours lining the stairs, the photos he took of everyone, his books, his clothes, his toothbrush in the bathroom, even his blond hairs in the brush on the dressing table. She got rid of it all; it hurt too much. Some of it she parcelled up to send to Andrew’s mother in Cumberland, but she lost touch with her a long time ago. Neither of them able to face the other’s pain.

Looking back, Vanessa can’t remember spending much time with Jake. She can picture him laughing, kicking his football in the garden, playing with a friend’s puppy. He seemed to cope well. But one day – it must have been a few years after Andrew died – she was clearing out Jake’s bedroom and she found a bundle secured with an elastic band hidden behind a chest. They were photos of Andrew. Unable to look at them, she’d destroyed any photos she had in the first weeks after his death, and she almost dropped these hidden images in her urgency to discover what was there. In some, Andrew was on his own; in others, he was with Jake, or with his arm round Vanessa. And in every one he was smiling. Vanessa remembers her first sight of those pictures. The shock. Andrew’s long floppy hair, pronounced jaw with its little cleft, and his grey eyes here in front of her, forever frozen. She put the photos back into a neat pile, replaced the elastic band and returned the secret stash to their hiding place. She knew then how a broken heart felt.

Sabina is waiting in the hall surrounded by suitcases when Vanessa arrives. Her eyes are wide and her usually pristine hair is untidy. ‘Darling, you late.’

‘We didn’t agree a time. I told you early evening.’

‘My plane leave in four hours.’

‘You could have gone. Gerald could manage on his own for an hour or so.’

Sabina clutches Vanessa’s arm. ‘He’s very … how you say? Needy.’

‘Well, he’ll have to get unneedy,’ Vanessa says. ‘I can only stay a few days.’

‘You won’t leave him on his own?’

‘Sabina, I should be working. This is not at all convenient, you know. Where is he now?’

‘Sleeping, poor darling. Just climbing stairs make him exhausted.’

Sabina’s cases are loaded into the taxi and she is off. Vanessa closes the front door. Silence settles round her. She thought she’d said goodbye to this house forever.

She moves from room to room, checking each one for changes, for memories. What was once the family living room at the front – a clutter of furniture, toys, books, magazines – looks unused. The evening is overcast and Vanessa flicks on the light. The naked bulb hanging from the ceiling makes the room seem squalid. The two deep-set alcoves either side of the fireplace are still the chocolate brown Vanessa painted them after Gerald left. At one time paintings and drawings jostled for space on the walls: work by Vanessa and Gerald, by friends, students, some of it finished and framed, more often transitional pieces, a set of sketches in preparation for a sculpture, some five-minute pen and ink drawings of the children. The place was as much a work room as a living room. But now the walls are bare and only two pieces of furniture remain. Vanessa is astonished to see the red leather sofa with its tubular steel supports; the leather is split and the stuffing spills out. The other piece is the double rocking chair where she and Gerald used to sit facing each other, rocking backwards and forwards, faster and faster, a simulated sexual dance that was almost more erotic than the sex to come. She remembers buying the furniture in the first years of their marriage.

The room at the back of the house overlooking the garden, once Gerald’s studio, looks as if it’s where Gerald spends his time when he’s at home. There’s a desk, a sofa, a television set, over by the window a long table covered in books and papers. On one side of the desk there’s a framed photo. Even from a distance, she can see it’s a black and white one Gerald took of her not long after they met. The crafty old goat. Does he really believe she’ll be taken in by that ruse?

On the other side of the desk, she notices a small sculpture. She moves closer. It’s bronze and no more than eighteen inches high. It’s a female figure, lying on her back, her hands clasped behind her head. She picks it up and her forefinger traces the rise of the woman’s breasts, the mound of the belly; it hovers over the slit between her thighs. It’s the piece she fell in love with at that first exhibition of Gerald’s. When she moved out, Vanessa left the sculpture behind deliberately. Gerald had given it to her on their wedding day. ‘I knew you liked it,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe you’d have slept with me that night if it hadn’t been for this.’ Vanessa was amazed. He knew. Even though she’d pretended a different one was her favourite to please him, he’d known the effect this one had had on her. He understood her. Their love was perfect.

How could she have been so stupid? What love is perfect? What chance of two people who don’t even understand themselves, understanding each other? She thinks of her relationships, focusing on an image of each one – her mother, her father, Gerald, Andrew, Cordelia, Esme, Jake – they pass across her vision like hopefuls in some sort of beauty parade. Failures. All her relationships failures.

Vanessa is about to go down and explore the kitchen, when she hears a noise from above. She climbs the stairs. Although the bed is made up in the room that she and Gerald used to share, he’s not there. The next room that was once Cordelia and Esme’s is bare – Vanessa took their furniture when she left and it looks as if it’s been empty ever since. Along the landing, she pushes open the door of the small bedroom at the back of the house that was her workroom. There’s a single bed in it where Gerald is lying. He’s on his back and his eyes are closed. Against the blue pillowcase, his face is the colour of dirty snow. There’s a book on the floor; it must have fallen off the bed and made the thud she heard. She picks it up and smoothes the creased page. It’s a study of the work of Elisabeth Frink.

Vanessa looks up and finds Gerald watching her.

‘Hi,’ he says, his voice croaky as if he has a sore throat.

‘Hi.’

‘You’re here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Has Sabina gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’

‘Is it okay if I open the window?’

‘Go ahead.’

She crosses to the sash window and tries to push it up. It doesn’t budge.

‘It’s stuck,’ Gerald says.

‘I know.’ Vanessa feels his eyes on her back. ‘It always used to.’ She puts the heel of her palms to the cross piece in the middle of the window. She heaves and it lifts a couple of inches. Cool air trickles through the gap. She rests her forehead against the glass. The garden looks neglected. Through the tangled undergrowth she glimpses the yellow gleam of the broom she planted one spring. It gives her a jolt. She is back at her work table, studying the colours in the garden. The broom was in flower, she remembers, when Gerald left.

‘Vanessa.’

She doesn’t look round.

‘Vanessa.’

Still she gazes out of the window into the twilight. When she was young, she was too weak, too in thrall to him to stand up for herself. He lost all respect for her, and worse, she lost it for herself. This time, it must be on her terms.

She turns round.

He’s struggling into a sitting position, trying to shift the pillows to support himself. His neck and head stick out from his pale blue T-shirt like a child’s drawing of a matchstick man. He rests on one elbow and looks up. ‘Could you help me?’

She moves to the bed and shakes out the pillows. She puts her arm round his back and under his arm. ‘Can you shift your bottom if I take your weight?’ His bony frame is not difficult to lift, but she’s aware of her breast pressing against his shoulder, the smell of his body. Her cheek is almost touching his. She’s sure he must be able to feel her heart against his arm. As soon as he’s settled, she retreats to the end of the bed.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I appreciate you coming to look after me.’

‘We must have rules, Gerald.’ Her voice is sterner than she intended.

‘Rules? Like in bridge or rugby?’

She looks at him sharply: his expression is innocent.

‘This is a difficult situation for both of us and a set of rules will help.’ God, she sounds so schoolmistressy.

‘I’m in your hands.’

‘Gerald, if that’s supposed to be clever.’

‘Sorry.’ He folds his arms across his chest and looks up at her. ‘Tell me about these rules.’

She feels stupid, but she can’t back out now. ‘One – no mention of love.’

‘No mention of love,’ he repeats like a dutiful child reciting its tables.

‘Two – no pressurising to get Cordelia and Esme to visit.’

‘No pressurising.’

‘Three – no hand holding or physical contact other than is necessary.’

‘Ah, well … ’

‘What do you mean, ah well? Either you accept the rules or I get the first train back to Dorset.’

‘The physical contact ... ’

‘What about it?’

He’s grinning at her, but she won’t let her face soften.

‘I might need some help in the shower soaping my back!’

Vanessa doesn’t feel as uncomfortable in the house as she feared. Even sleeping in the bedroom she used to share with Gerald isn’t the ordeal she expected. Gerald grows stronger. On day one he has a shower and gets dressed on his own, day two he comes downstairs, day three he goes for a short walk.

‘Sabina would have had you a permanent invalid,’ Vanessa says when he returns.

He collapses into a chair to catch his breath. ‘Whereas you, slave driver,’ he says between gulps, ‘would have me out digging the garden!’

‘I want you to get well.’

‘So that you can abandon me for your nice safe life out in the sticks?’

‘Gerald! Lyme Regis is a beautiful place and I run a business there which I need to get back to!’ Predictably, she’s risen to his bait, when she’s promised herself she won’t allow anything to ruffle her. She turns to the door, so that he won’t see the telltale red stains on her cheeks. ‘I’m going to prepare some supper.’

‘Sorry about before,’ Gerald says. They are sitting at the kitchen table. Vanessa’s cooked lamb chops in tomato sauce, once a favourite of Gerald’s, but tonight he’s only played with the food. ‘Tell me about Lyme Regis.’

Vanessa is immediately wary. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’ He shrugs. ‘Anything.’

‘Okay. It’s enchanting – stunning coastline, pretty little town … it’s famous for its fossils … ’

‘But what about your life? What’s it like for you there?’

‘I love it. I love my house, my work … ’

‘Tell me about your house.’

‘It was a wreck when I bought it – Cordelia had left home by then, and I just had Esme and Jake with me – I’ve done loads to it, and it’s beautiful now.’

‘And your work?’

‘The business is successful. Customers from all over the world.’ She wishes she didn’t sound so defensive. ‘I run workshops in knitwear design. It’s very fashionable now. I know you never thought much of knitting – ’

‘Not true!’

‘You said I looked like a granny with my needles and wool.’

Gerald groans. ‘I said a lot of things in those days, Vanessa. Things I wish I could take back.’

Vanessa’s silent.

‘Do you like living by the sea, city girl that you are?’ Gerald asks.

‘It’s wonderful. I walk by it most days. I don’t feel right unless I’ve done the trip to the end of the Cobb.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The sea wall. It’s famous. It’s in one of Jane Austen’s novels – I can’t remember which one – and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. They filmed that in Lyme. Did you ever see it?’

‘When was it?

‘Before I moved there. 1981, I think.’

Gerald shakes his head. ‘I was out of England for most of the eighties. I kept on the move. After … ’

Vanessa feels her stomach pitch, like a boat in momentous seas. Please don’t say anything, she wills. If you start talking about all of that, I’ll …

‘You make it sound a really nice place.’

Whatever Gerald was about to say, he’s clearly thought better of it.

‘It is.’

Gerald examines his hands. He studies the backs and then turns them over, staring intently at the palms. ‘Look at these stupid lily-livered things,’ he says. ‘Smooth as a baby’s bottom. I wonder if I’ll ever lift a chisel, or a lump of stone again.’

‘I’m sure you will. When you feel stronger.’

‘I’m scared, Nessa.’

‘Are you?’

‘Scared shitless.’

‘What about?’

‘Scared I won’t work again – ‘

‘You will.’

‘Scared what my life’s going to be like; scared of being here without you.’

‘I’ve got to go in a day or so.’ Vanessa starts clearing the plates. ‘I’ve made some phone calls. There’s Meals on Wheels, and you can have someone every day to help you.’ She stacks the dirty cutlery on the top plate.

He reaches for her hand. ‘Leave that a minute. There’s something I want to ask you.’

‘What?’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘Where?’

‘Your house.’

‘In Lyme Regis?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think – ’

‘I won’t be any trouble. I know you’ve got your work. Nessa.’ He grips her hand with surprising strength. ‘I don’t want to be here on my own when you go.’