That night Nancy rolled over in bed and put her arm across Jim’s body. He was sleeping, but at her touch, he turned and pulled her into his embrace. “Gorgeous woman,” he mumbled sleepily.
“Jim . . .” Nancy laid her face on his shoulder, brought her thigh to rest against his. She could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear, slow and steady, so unlike her own, which was racing double time. “Jim, about France.”
She had his attention now, his body tense in the semidarkness.
“What about it?”
“Are you really going to live there?” She felt his free hand stroking her arm gently. “You keep saying it’s not working for you here, so does that mean you’re going to leave?”
He was silent. “God, Nancy, I don’t know what to do. I feel I’m in the way here. It’s not a big house and you’ve got your mother to look after, the girls round all the time . . . You don’t need me under your feet. But I won’t leave you to cope alone if you want me here. I love you, you know that.”
Nancy heard that he loved her, and she believed him, but she also heard that he didn’t want to be there, living in the cramped house with her sick mother, who was becoming more demanding, more crabby with each passing day, rarely having her to himself, when he could be enjoying the freedom of the beautiful French farmhouse. That he was staying because he felt he ought to.
Recently he had started making excuses to be out all day. Nancy knew they were excuses because he was running down his students—he didn’t need the money now—and his gigs were mostly at weekends, in the evenings. She didn’t blame him for his absences: there was nothing he could do to help, and his presence seemed to irritate her mother.
She experienced a leaden weight in her gut now, the weight of knowledge that their relationship was maybe too new to survive this tough test. What did Jim owe her? As Louise was always pointing out, they barely knew each other. And he was right: it was stressful in the house, all of them tense most of the time, no one happy.
Her body stiffened, as if to ward off the anticipated pain of loss. Without him, she knew she would just shrivel, give up. The family had been enough before, but knowing Jim had changed that. She’d finally found someone, miraculously in her seventh decade, who was her soul mate.
“Maybe you should go to France, Jim,” she heard herself saying. “It’d be better all round. You’re right, you can’t help with Mum. That is what it is and there’s nothing we can do except wait it out.”
At her words—their tone almost cold in her desperate desire not to care—Jim pulled away, reached over to turn the bedside lamp on.
“Nancy?” He sat up in bed, naked, his long legs bent under him, facing her as she lay against the pillows. His hair was loose, and he pulled it off his face as he stared at her. “Are you saying you want me to leave you?”
She sighed, dragged herself into a sitting position against the bed-head. “I don’t see how it’ll work otherwise.”
His expression was bewildered, shocked. “You’re actually chucking me out?”
“No, no, of course not. But maybe it would be better for you to go for a bit, while Mum’s ill, see how things pan out for us both. You never know, you might not like France after all.” She gave him a wan smile, hardly believing what she was saying, but unable to pinpoint another option in the turmoil of her mind.
“Wait, Nancy. I don’t want to live there without you, you know that.”
“I’d just hate us to fall out, start bickering, drive each other away because it’s too difficult to be together here.”
He stared at her. “So in case we drive each other away, you’re driving me away first? Ha!” The sound was explosive. “Doesn’t make sense. I have no intention of living without you, Nancy.” His expression fell. “Unless, of course, you’ve gone off me?”
Nancy felt cold and empty. “Of course I haven’t.” She blinked away the tears. “But, Jim, we will drive each other mad. Look at that stupid row we had the other night . . . and sex is hopeless when Mum’s upstairs. With one thing and another, we never have any time to be properly alone.” She paused. “Just till Mum’s . . . till things are resolved.”
Jim was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, “You’ve thought this out, haven’t you? You do want me to go.”
She grabbed his hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. If you leave me, I shall die.” She let the tears fall this time, she was too tired to stop them as Jim lay down beside her again, pulling the covers up, cradling her in his arms.
“No need to go that far,” he teased, and very, very quietly they began to make love.
*
“Happy birthday,” Jim leaned over her as she woke and dropped a soft kiss on her mouth.
Nancy smiled sleepily. “Thanks.”
She assumed the envelope he handed her was just a card, but when she opened it, two tickets fell out. Checking, she saw they were for a concert at the Dome that night: Brahms Symphony No. 3 and a Prokofiev violin concerto.
“Oh, Jim! That’s fantastic!” Laughing delightedly, she was touched by the present: he knew how much she loved Brahms. “How brilliant. Thanks, thanks so much.”
“I thought you’d put in too much time listening to me warbling away. Time for some proper stuff.”
*
Ross had made her a chocolate cake, which the girls decorated enthusiastically with a Smarties heart and lurid sugar sprinkles, stripy candles, chocolate buttons, pink sugar roses, their glee as they presented it to her at teatime making her want to cry. As she sat with them all in her kitchen—even her mother at the table for a short period before she got too tired—she thought how incredibly lucky she was.
*
That night, Nancy got dressed with care. It seemed an age since she’d paid attention to how she looked. She was desperate to get out, have a rare evening when she wouldn’t have to listen for her mother. She looked at the clock: five-thirty. They were eating in town before the concert, Jim had booked the Italian they’d gone to all those months back, after the fracas in the bar.
“We ought to get going,” he called up.
Nancy finished her makeup and went upstairs to say goodnight to her mother. Louise was coming over to check on her once the girls were in bed, and had said she would pop in every hour or so. Frances had her mobile beside her if she needed help, and was in bed anyway, watching television—she wouldn’t miss Nancy for a few hours.
But when Nancy went into her room, her mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over, hugging herself and crying softly. She jumped when Nancy came in and shook her head, holding out her hand as if she wanted Nancy to leave.
“Mum?”
“It’s nothing, darling. I’m fine,” she muttered, making an effort to sit upright. But she was clearly not fine.
“Is the pain very bad?” Nancy asked, sitting beside her on the bed, putting an arm round her shoulders, frail and bony beneath her nightdress. Her mother winced at her touch.
“Shouldn’t you be getting off?” As she spoke, Frances gave a small gasp, her breath coming in short, feathery pants as if she dared not breathe more deeply. She turned to Nancy, her face white. “I’m fine . . . Please . . . go . . .”
Nancy ignored her entreaty. Lifting her gently into bed, she pulled the covers up over her mother, tucking the duvet round her body, stroking her hair back from her forehead as she might for Hope or Jazzy. The skin was bone cold, clammy to the touch.
“Let me call the doctor, Mum,” she pleaded softly. But at the word “doctor,” her mother’s eyes flew open.
“I don’t need a doctor. It was just a spasm . . . It’ll pass.” She laid her hand on Nancy’s, pressed it briefly. “You’ll be late.”
Nancy heard Jim calling again as she stood looking down at her sick mother’s face, tense and exhausted with pain.
*
Jim was waiting for her in the kitchen, texting on his mobile. He smiled as she came in. He looked gorgeous, smart in a navy shirt, black jeans and a charcoal wool jacket. Her stomach churned, as she said, “Mum’s not well.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Jim frowned as he slipped his phone into his jacket pocket.
“I don’t know. She seems in agony . . . She can’t get her breath properly.”
Jim didn’t say anything, then glanced at the clock. “Shall I fetch Louise, then? We’ll be late if we don’t get a move on.”
A silence fell on the kitchen.
“I can’t leave her, Jim. Lou has to put the girls to bed—she can’t be here with Mum for a while yet . . . I thought she’d be okay on her own, but you should see her . . .” She knew she was gabbling, trying to make what was not all right, all right. “I’d never forgive myself if I left her and something happened while I was away . . . when she was alone.” She prayed Jim would understand.
“Christ, Nancy, are you saying you’re going to give up our whole evening, miss supper and the concert, when your daughter is perfectly capable of coming over and looking after Frances—is probably happy to, what’s more? There isn’t anything anyone can do if she won’t see the bloody doctor, anyway.”
Nancy stared at him, shocked by his tone. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” was all she said, not wanting to repeat herself. She knew she could trust Louise, but it was more than that. Her mother was her responsibility. She wouldn’t enjoy a note of the concert, thinking of her lying in bed in such a terrible state, even if there was nothing she could do for her. “I’m going to make her a hot-water bottle,” she said, not looking at Jim as she went to fill the kettle.
“So that’s it, then, is it?” Jim said, his voice low and angry. “You’re not even going to ask Louise to help, even though you rescue her every single bloody time she has a problem? It’s your birthday, Nancy.”
Nancy glared at him. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry the evening’s ruined,” she said, knowing she didn’t sound at all sorry, even though she was. “You went to a lot of trouble to get the tickets—”
“This isn’t about the sodding tickets.” Jim interrupted her. “This is about you sabotaging every damn thing that’s fun in your life.”
“Yes, well, there isn’t much fun in my life at the moment, with my mother dying upstairs, in case you hadn’t noticed. Can’t you see that I don’t have a choice, Jim?”
Jim came over to her and clutched her arms, looking down into her face with an expression she wanted to pull away from, it was so intense, so full of frustration.
“You do have a choice. You do. You could go and get Louise right now, tell her what’s happened, let her cope for a change. Frances is her grandmother, for God’s sake.”
Nancy twisted away from his eyes. “I can’t,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
Jim’s grip loosened and he turned away. Shaking, she poured the boiling water very carefully into the neck of the hot-water bottle, screwed the top down tight, shook the bottle upside down to get rid of any water drops and pulled the cover across the rubber.
“Right, well, I’m not going to waste the tickets even if you are. I’ll see you later.” And in a moment he was gone, front door slamming, the cold blast of air left in his wake a chill reminder of his rage.
For a moment Nancy just stood there, clutching the warm, furry hotty to her chest. She knew Jim was right: she could have asked Louise. But she was right too, wasn’t she?
*
Nancy didn’t sleep. She heard Jim come in very late and imagined him at one of the numerous small bars he frequented—maybe his friend, Sammi’s—drowning his sorrows in whiskey, disgruntled with her and her family in just the way her family had been with him. She wished she had played it differently from the start, but she didn’t know what she could have done that would have made it better for them all.
Jim crept into the bedroom and slid quietly into bed, obviously thinking she was asleep. She listened to his breathing gradually slow as he lay beside her, smelt alcohol and the night air, wanted to turn to him, but she was still upset with him for walking out like that. In the end, her desire to resolve their fight now, rather than lie awake all night stewing, overrode her irritation and she rolled over to face him.
“You awake, Nancy?” he whispered, reaching a hand out to her, finding her arm, letting it rest there.
“I’m sorry, Jim.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“How was the concert?”
“I didn’t go, just wandered around feeling sorry for myself. How’s your mum?”
“She settled quite quickly and went to sleep. I could have come.”
In the ensuing silence, they both began to move over till Nancy lay against Jim’s chest, his arm around her shoulders, the length of their bodies touching. His skin was still cool, but she felt an almost tangible relief to be back in his arms. A relief tinged with a dull sadness, however, which stemmed from the knowledge that this time he would not stay.
*
Two days later, during which time they had been carefully loving and polite to each other, Jim announced, “I’m going to have to make a trip to France, check on the house.”
They were having coffee in the bright kitchen, the wet November morning still dark outside, even at eight o’clock. His tone was cautious, his eyes watching her face. “I thought I’d go for a couple of weeks, get back before Christmas.”
When she didn’t answer, he went on, “I have to put all the bills in my own name, sort out a ton of stuff with Fabrice. Madame Laverne is keeping an eye on things, but I need to see for myself, make sure it’s all watertight for winter.”
She nodded. “You should do that.” She didn’t look at him.
“Nancy?” Jim reached across the table and took her hand, but her own lay motionless beneath his. She hated herself for sulking, but she couldn’t help it. “It’s only for a short time, then I’ll be back.”
“No, no, I understand.” She finally looked up at him. “I’ll miss you.”
His face relaxed a little. “God, I’ll miss you too.”
“But you won’t miss this grisly domestic drama, eh?” She inclined her head toward the stairs, giving him a wry smile.
“I wish I could take you with me,” he said, lowering his voice. “I hate you being stuck here.”
Nancy shrugged impatiently. “Nothing to be done about that.”
*
The following morning, she watched him get into the taxi, guitar and small duffel bag on the back seat, and a wave of misery engulfed her. It was the guitar that tore at her heartstrings. Jim always told her his Gibson was part of his psyche, his muse, his comfort blanket, and the fact that he was taking it now meant he wasn’t just visiting—as they had before—he was intending to inhabit Maison Lavande, fill it with his music, make it his. She pictured the view of the distant hills, the warmth of the sun, which even now, in dark November, she imagined shining as if it were midsummer. She smelt the pine on the clear air, tasted on her tongue the astringent local wine, felt the cool tiles beneath her feet.
It was raining and bitter here. All she had to look forward to was the long-drawn-out process of getting her mother out of bed, listening to her pained gratitude, watching her play with some toast crumbs and cold tea, worry about Louise and Ross’s marriage, their financial security, try to find some iota of pleasure in the endless day. Without Jim, there would not even be the evenings together, where they drank too much wine, listened to music, whispered their treasonous thoughts, crept about the cottage and indulged in the cuddles that had replaced their previously passionate lovemaking.