The garden of the Hope and Anchor is busy tonight. Despite the late-October chill the crowded bar spits out a constant stream of people, come to huddle under patio heaters or sit beneath strings of brightly coloured lanterns, raising their voices above the music thudding from the outdoor speakers. I stand on the edge of a small circle of drinkers and sip my beer, not quite a part of their conversation, and watch James’s students celebrate their end-of-year show.
I don’t know, exactly, why I came tonight, except I’d wanted I suppose to do something to mark Heather’s leaving. Phoning James was something the old me would never have done but that solitary, fearful person left when Heather did, following her along the dark and rainy street three nights ago. And when I’d shut the door behind her I had made myself turn a lock on the past too, on Fremton and everything that had happened there. Later, I had sat with Maya in my arms and felt stronger and more determined than I had in years. The future – Maya’s future – was all that mattered now.
It had been Monica who had persuaded me to phone James last night. ‘So what if you don’t fancy him?’ she’d said as we’d sat together in her kitchen. ‘Go and have a few beers anyway. Might be a laugh. I’ll look after Maya for you.’
‘No,’ I’d said. ‘Thanks, but there’s no way I’m leaving Maya.’
But gradually, bit by bit, she’d persuaded me. ‘It’ll be absolutely fine, you’ll see.’ She’d smiled. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, I promise.’ And so, in the end, I’d agreed.
I spy James by the door, talking to an older man I recognize from the exhibition earlier. I watch as he throws his head back and laughs at something so loudly that people near him turn and smile too. At that moment a tall, blonde woman in her twenties appears by his side. They kiss on both cheeks and I notice how her hand lingers on his waist, and I find myself wondering about her, about who she is to him.
I’d been nervous as I’d arrived at the university earlier, following the signs and arrows to the exhibition hall, unsure about what I’d find there. But the place had been buzzing with people, their voices bouncing off the walls, sudden eruptions of laughter rising to the high ceiling like flocks of startled birds. I’d spotted James in the centre, surrounded by his students, and, unsure what else to do, had begun to make my way around alone.
At first I’d felt self-conscious, afraid that people would be able to tell I’ve not been to a gallery since school. I’d stood in front of each painting and worried about how long I should pause for, what sort of expression my face ought to wear, but within minutes I’d entirely forgotten myself. I know nothing about art, not really, and yet soon a series of landscapes had held me transfixed. They were of the Thames at Greenwich, the paint applied in thick, angry whorls, the colours in jarring, clashing greens and reds, the water bleeding into the shore and sky.
I’d looked at them for a long time and afterwards had moved around the rest of the exhibition entirely absorbed. Occasionally I’d paused and glanced around the hall, trying to match each set of images with its creator. I’d felt envious as I’d watched them all – their proud, happy faces as they’d celebrated with family and friends. How must it feel, I wondered, to have achieved something like this?
At last I’d stopped in front of a series of drawings of various deserted buildings: a dilapidated church, a house with its windows boarded up, a derelict pub. It was only after closer inspection that you noticed in each the ghostly trace of human presence. A featureless face at a window, a disappearing figure, a shadow of someone standing just out of view. I had been admiring them when James appeared.
‘You came!’ he’d said, and we’d looked at each other for an awkward moment or two, each of us wondering, I suppose, what my being there meant. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he’d said at last. ‘I’m really glad you came.’ And he’d smiled at me then the way men do who fancy you and are trying to work out what their chances are and I’d turned away and said too quickly, ‘I like these.’
‘Yeah, they’re pretty great, aren’t they?’ He’d come and looked at them with me. ‘Do you want to meet the artist?’ And before I could reply he’d shouted across the busy hall and waved over a very fat Welsh man with a booming voice and grinning face so at odds with the eerie, melancholic images I’d been looking at that at first I’d been too stunned to speak.
‘This is Tony,’ James had said and I’d shaken hands with the man and then his wife and after that the following hour had seemed to pass in a flash as more of James’s students drifted over to join us. I had become caught up in the celebratory atmosphere and the artists’ discussions of their work and while I’d stood there and listened and smiled and sipped my wine I’d watched him, James; noticed his enthusiasm and his warmth as he’d talked to his students, saw how liked he was in return. When people began to move towards the pub next door I’d let myself drift with them.
The crisp clear evening turns to rain and one by one we leave the pub garden and squeeze our way into the crowded bar instead. James finds me by the door saying goodbye to Tony and his wife. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says when they’ve gone, raising his voice above the music and drunken laughter, ‘I’ve barely had a chance to talk to you since we got here.’ He looks at my coat. ‘You’re not leaving too?’
‘I should, really. Monica’s babysitting and I’d better get back.’
‘At least let me buy you another beer?’
I see now that he’s a little drunk, his dark eyes a shade bolder as they rest upon my face. And this time I don’t look away or make a hurried remark, instead I return his smile until someone pushes roughly past us and on impulse we clutch at each other to steady ourselves, then laugh. James pulls me to the end of the bar, away from the thudding speakers.
‘I had a good time tonight,’ I say, when he’s ordered us some drinks.
He laughs, ‘You sound surprised.’
‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d go to normally, but yeah, I enjoyed it. How about you? You must have felt proud of them, your students?’
He grins. ‘They did all right, didn’t they?’
‘Must be a nice job.’
‘It is, I love it.’ He takes a sip of beer. ‘But you’re an artist too, aren’t you? I remember the drawings you had in your flat. I thought they were very good.’
I look away, embarrassed. ‘Thanks. It’s … I don’t know, I did them a while ago. It’s not something I’m serious about or anything.’
‘Why not? You should keep it up, I thought they showed real promise.’
I remember how much I’d loved art at school before I’d moved to Fremton, how my teacher would let me stay behind after class and work away at something while she carried on with her marking. I recall the smells of the art department, how completely involved I’d be, caught up in the pleasure of being entirely focused on what I was doing, how ambitious I’d been for the future. I feel a flicker of sadness and I shrug, ‘Maybe. I – it’s just something I used to do in my spare time.’
‘What do you do? For work, I mean.’
‘Nothing right now, I had some savings and help from my uncle when Maya was born, but usually I’m a waitress. I suppose I’ll go back to that soon.’
He nods. ‘Do you like it?’ he asks.
I laugh. ‘God no, but it pays the bills.’
‘I guess that’s the great thing about painting, or whatever – a chance to escape all that, forget the everyday shit for a while.’
As he talks I take in little glances, the way he does of me; covert, quick appraisals. It’s the openness of his face that’s so attractive, I realize: how easily he smiles, the way his eyes flash light and dark as he talks, the obvious pleasure he takes from life. Like I used to be, I think, a very long time ago. I take another gulp of beer.
‘You can come to the studio if you like, some time,’ he says now. ‘Use our materials, if you ever fancy getting back into it.’ And then he asks, ‘Would you like another beer?’ and the air between us flexes and waits as his eyes hold mine.
I shake my head. ‘I should go. Better get back to Maya’, and I see the disappointment that flickers across his face.
As we say our goodbyes he gives me a brief hug and I breathe in the clean, lemon scent of his neck. We linger for a touch longer than necessary and I have to fight a sudden impulse to sink against him, because I sense that it would be OK to do that, that he would take my weight and wouldn’t mind. ‘I’d better go …’ I draw away.
‘Hey, Edie?’ he touches my arm. ‘How about a drink some time? Shall I give you a ring?’
And I find myself saying, ‘Yeah, OK. I’d like that.’
I walk home hugging myself, my arms wrapped around my body to keep the cold out, and something else in; something I haven’t felt for a long time. Police cars and buses and drunks and gangs of teenagers pass me in the damp orange-black night, the street lights casting a hazy glow upon the thin mist that hangs now in the air, and I turn down a narrower side street and think of the paintings I’d seen and the people I’d talked to, and the calm, steady warmth of James’s eyes as they’d looked back at me in the bright boom and clamour of the pub.
When I get home I find Maya asleep in her cot, Monica watching TV with the sound down low. We tiptoe into the kitchen. ‘How was she?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, good as gold. Drank her milk and out like a light.’ She smiles. ‘How about you? Did you have a good time?’
I take my coat off, avoiding the pale blue searchlight of her gaze, and say casually, ‘It was all right.’
‘Yeah?’ She grins at me. ‘And how was James? Will you see him again?’
‘Maybe.’ I shrug. ‘He said something about going for a drink some time.’
‘Nice one!’ She nudges me in the ribs and despite myself I laugh.
We stand by the window and look out at the sea of lights in silence.
‘Wow,’ Monica says.
‘Yeah, you kind of forget what a shithole this place is when you look out at that.’
We turn and consider the poky, cluttered space, at Heather’s things still piled up in the hall. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she lies.
‘I suppose I’ll get it sorted one day.’ I turn to her and smile. ‘Thanks for looking after Maya tonight.’
She shrugs. ‘Nothing else to do – the boys were both out and I don’t like staying in on my own.’
I hesitate, before putting an awkward hand on her arm. ‘I mean it though,’ I say. ‘Thanks for being so good to me over the past few weeks.’
She smiles again and we stand there for a while, the two of us, up here in my tiny kitchen, looking out at the city far below.
Later, after Monica has gone home and Maya begins to stir, I take her to the sofa with me and idly watch the muted TV screen while she drinks her milk. I hold her to me, her head tucked neatly beneath my chin, her body warm against mine, and in the midnight peace I think about my mother. A memory comes to me from when I was six, the day my dad left home. I’m sobbing, holding on to his arm, begging him to stay as he packs his bags in angry silence. ‘Mum!’ I scream, turning to where she stands in the doorway, watching him with a pale pinched face. ‘Don’t make him go! Please don’t make him go.’ But she turns away into the kitchen and shuts the door behind her. A few minutes later my father leaves and I scream at the closed kitchen door with all the fury I can muster, ‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’
But then another memory comes to me, a recollection of being held myself when I was very small in the same way I’m holding Maya now: the sensation of my face against my mother’s chest; the smell and warmth of her skin, the feeling of being wholly and completely safe. I look down at Maya. I didn’t know what love was all about, I think, until I had you.
I’m about to go to bed when I hear the noise outside my flat. I freeze in the passageway, straining my ears. There it is again. A creak on the stairs that lead directly to my door. Perhaps it’s Monica – maybe she’s forgotten something. I wait and a few moments later hear the sound again, but louder this time – footsteps retreating back down the stairs to the landing below. Fear prickles my scalp. Who on earth? One of the other tenants? I creep to my door and, after listening for a while longer, hesitantly open it and look out. Nothing. The stairwell is silent now. I step out on to the landing but no one’s there. Someone had been outside my door though. Hadn’t they? I suddenly notice that the door to the communal store cupboard on the floor below is slightly open. It’s a large space – big enough for my neighbour to keep his bike in. Big enough to hide in. I stare at it. Hadn’t it been closed when I’d passed earlier? I wait for a few moments more, before eventually going back inside my flat, and, feeling a little ridiculous, double-lock the door behind me.