Thirteen

The house was a mess, thought Connor, irritably, dropping his bag in the hall, stopping to pick up the mail, then stepping over a pile of laundry on the way into the kitchen. The sink was full of dishes, the ashtray was full of cigarette stubs, and the remains of a cooked breakfast were still on the table, along with Gaby’s house keys. The air was thick and stale and he unlocked the door into the garden and pushed it open, noticing as he did so that Gaby had left washing hanging on the line. He had spoken to her earlier, as Stefan was driving him home. She’d been on her mobile, her voice crackling, and had said she was on a train. In fact, she said, she was in the dining car, eating porridge and looking out at green fields, where cows were lying down in the drizzle. Connor, bewildered, had started to ask where she was and where she’d been and when she’d be back – and why on earth, for that matter, was she on a train when she had his car? But she’d interrupted him to say that the line was breaking up and a few seconds later the call was disconnected. When Connor tried her again, the phone was turned off.

Clearly, in spite of her keys on the table, she had not been at home since she left on Saturday morning to take Ethan to university. There were signs of a hasty departure everywhere. Cupboard doors were open, surfaces littered with objects Ethan must have discarded at the last minute. Upstairs, their bed was unmade and the wardrobe stood ajar, with a colourful pile of Gaby’s clothes on the floor beside it. Connor frowned. He had imagined opening the door to a warm, tidy house and Gaby’s smile, her hand on his shoulder as she asked him about his week and told him about hers. He ran the water in the kitchen and discovered it was cold, so he turned on the immersion heater and set about clearing up before Gaby returned; he needed everything to be in its proper place before tomorrow morning when he went back to work. Although he gave a heavy sigh as he set about the task, Connor enjoyed cleaning. He liked taking mess and turning it into order. He was very methodical. He put on a wash, stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and left the dirty pans beside the sink while the water heated, then took his bag upstairs and unpacked his own clothes before hanging Gaby’s in the cupboard.

There was an empty chocolate box on Gaby’s side of the bed and a hot-water bottle on the floor, and Connor saw her lying back, popping truffles into her mouth. Where was she, though? He shook out the duvet on their bed and plumped up the pillows. Wiping surfaces, vacuuming the floors, filling the sink with hot, soapy water to wash the pots and pans, returning Ethan’s belongings to his room, putting CDs in their covers and books on the shelves: mess made him feel that he had lost control, but neatness restored it. The washing-machine hummed; the row of glasses gleamed beside the sink. Clean, empty surfaces, chairs pushed back under the table, old newspapers put into the recycling bag, the satsumas he’d bought yesterday arranged in a bowl. Soon he’d reward himself with a cup of tea and then he would go down the road to buy a chicken for the supper he had planned. He would have a long bath and shave. But he did wish that Gaby would come home. He opened the fridge. A tub of goat’s cheese shot out and hit him in the stomach.

He saw her first half-way up the magnolia tree by the side of the house. For a moment he said nothing, just stood and stared at her, feeling strangely happy. She lay across a branch like a cat, her ripped skirt twisted round her bare legs and her hair piled on top of her head. ‘I left the door open in the kitchen for you when I went to the shops, just in case.’

‘Connor, you’re back!’

‘So it seems.’

‘I meant to be here when you arrived.’

‘You can come down now.’

‘I’m not sure I can. It’s always easier to climb up than get back again. They say that in walking and climbing guides, don’t they? Make sure that every step you take is reversible.’

‘Shall I give you a hand?’

‘Please.’

He put down his shopping bag, held out his arms and she slithered from her perch, scraping her calf. ‘This isn’t quite what I expected,’ he said, his arms still round her, his face in the fragrance of her hair. She smelt of woodsmoke and salt, and her face was pale and tired.

‘I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t either. And the house must have been in a terrible mess when you got back; I meant to clean everything up but it’s all been so – well, let’s go in and then we can talk. You look all tanned. Was it lovely? Did you miss me? I missed you.’ She stopped suddenly and kissed him full on the mouth. ‘It’s been odd,’ she said. ‘Ethan, and then – well, anyway …’

‘Here, let’s not stand outside. Yes, the house was dreadful. You and Ethan are as bad as each other. Is he all right, by the way? I’ve been thinking about him. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.’

‘I’m sorry too.’

‘I should have been. And of course I missed you. What have you been up to?’

‘Up to?’

‘Where have you been?’

‘Oh, well, you see –’

‘And where’s my car?’

‘Ah.’

‘Gaby?’

‘It’s in the garage.’

‘But –’

‘In Exeter.’

‘In the garage in Exeter. What happened? Did you have an accident? Is that why you look so done in?’

‘Not an accident as such. Shall I make us tea?’

‘Gaby –’

‘It kind of blew up on our way.’

‘What d’you mean, blew up?’

‘I drove it in the wrong gear. The one for towing things.’

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘Sorry.’

‘How can you do things like this all the time?’

‘Sorry,’ she repeated, her voice wobbly.

‘Time and time again.’

‘I know. I said to Ethan you’d be furious.’

‘Do you blame me?’

Gaby rubbed her face. ‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘Of course I don’t blame you. I drive myself mad as well. Listen, Connor, I’m really, really sorry. That’s all I can say. We can hire another car on our insurance until it’s mended, and I’ll go and fetch it when it’s ready, of course.’

‘If you’d only thought for a –’

‘It needs a new engine.’

‘Jesus.’ He sat down at the table, squeezing his ear-lobe between thumb and forefinger and frowning at her. ‘Is that why you’re home late?’

‘Well, not exactly. It’s kind of a long story. I can’t say it in a sentence. It’s going round and round in my head and I need to – Look, why don’t you have a bath and I’ll make us tea. We can talk about it later. And you can tell me about your week. Yes?’

‘All right.’

‘Let’s not ruin the first evening back. There are more important things than broken cars.’

‘Hm.’

‘Connor –’

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. You’re filthy. Get into your bath and I’ll bring you your tea.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I can’t tell you how lovely it is to have you back.’

Sitting on the train, Gaby had worked out the dates. There was no way round it: Nancy had been pregnant when she had left. It must be that Stefan was a father –a father who didn’t know he was a father; a father who wasn’t a father. Or had he known? No, surely that was out of the question; it would make no sense. He had loved Nancy, adored her like a besotted fool. She had left him because she had discovered she did not love him enough to stay. Presumably the pregnancy had pushed her to go when she did. But why on earth had she not had an abortion? What had possessed her to have a baby in order to give it away? Nancy wasn’t religious; more than that, she had always been a fierce advocate of women’s right to choose. It didn’t make sense at all. As Gaby sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the kettle to boil, she put her head in her hands and felt the thoughts churning in her brain, a seething froth of half-formed ideas and half-remembered words. What had Nancy said to her about Stefan, in that level voice and looking at her with her turquoise gaze: leaving Stefan had felt ‘like a crime’. I bet it did, she thought bitterly. You were carrying his child and you knew how much he longed to be a father.

The kettle boiled. She made tea and took a cup up to Connor, where he lay perfectly still in the bath, eyes closed, the water lapping at his sides. While she’d grown softer and rounder, he’d become more gaunt with the years, muscles in his legs and sharp ribs. Gaby looked down at his brown forearms, brown neck and ruddy face, his shocking white body with the fuse of hair running down his belly. His genitals bobbed gently in the water. She put the cup down on the edge and his eyes opened. He looked at her and smiled and she leant forward through the steamy air and kissed his moist cheek. ‘What long eyelashes you have,’ she said.

‘All the better for closing my eyes.’

And he did just that, and slid further into the water.

She should never have gone to Rashmoor in the first place. She should never have tracked down Nancy and thought that somehow it was her right to push and prod her for secrets. She most certainly should never have broken back into her house in secret, like the vain and foolish girl in Bluebeard’s castle, and gone through her belongings like that, trying to winkle out some simple answer to the question that had dogged her through the years. Never, never, never. For now she knew and couldn’t unknow, couldn’t turn back the clock and not get on the train, not sneak into the house, not lift out that letter and read the few typed words. She knew, and the knowledge poisoned her. She could feel its toxic juices inside her, seeping through her body, oozing into every cavity of her brain, staining the past and corrupting the future. She knew what she had no right to know, and what should she do now? She had got so much more than she had bargained for that she was choked with it. She didn’t know how to tell Connor, how to begin – because then she would have passed the secret on to him, like a virus that would infect him too. And what about Stefan? Didn’t he have a right to know? The thought of it made her breathless with panic. For now, through her ignorance and folly, she had an unwanted power and there was no way of not using it. To withhold the secret had it own consequences: she would be denying her brother insight into his own life, and if he was ever to find out, then discover she had known all along, how would he feel? Yet the idea of saying to him, ‘I think you have a daughter,’ felt impossibly cruel. Anyway, he didn’t have a daughter: Nancy had given her away.

So Gaby did not tell Connor, not that evening at least. She glossed over her delayed return – the car, she mumbled, and then complications with the trains on Sunday, you know how it can be, finding a little place not so far from Exeter; she didn’t exactly lie, but her heart pounded with the deception and she was surprised that Connor didn’t pick up on her anxiety. They ate Moroccan chicken and talked instead about Ethan, and about Connor’s time away with Stefan, and what the week ahead held for both of them. They were tired out, and after supper and the news, they went to bed. Connor set the alarm clock for seven o’clock, then turned on to his side, laid a hand on Gaby’s hip and went to sleep. But Gaby lay awake for some time, staring into the darkness.