What’s the point of this? She dabs powder, applies lipstick, grimaces at herself to check for smears on her teeth. The face in the mirror looks tired; blue-grey eyes, with a little red veining, gaze back at her. But when she looks more closely, the eyes are quite empty. She can look right into them and there’s nothing.
Sometimes, catching unexpected sight of herself, she sees her mother’s face; even, more alarmingly, her grandmother’s. Where has the smooth-faced young girl disappeared to, in this fast-forward rush through the generations? Can it really be hers, this face? How odd that people think it’s her they’re seeing. It can nod and smile and do all the things faces are meant to do, and that’s enough to fool people. It’s become an irrelevance. Other people seem closely associated with their faces, but hers is an encumbrance, something she has no choice but to wear, patching it up and trying to make the best of it whenever she’s going to meet people. Like plumping up cushions or dead-heading the roses.
She’d rather stay in. She isn’t hungry and she doesn’t want to spend the evening in pointless chit-chat, but Don has said they’ll go and it’s too late to back out. There’s no escape from what she can only see as an ordeal. He’s like that. If he says he’ll do something, he does it.
‘Ready, then?’ Don is jingling his keys, just short of impatient. She puts on her coat and a silk scarf, picks up her gloves and follows him downstairs.
Malcolm. That’s who they’re going to visit. A golfing acquaintance of Don’s, and his wife, Kathy; she’s met them both briefly, but can hardly picture their faces. Why not keep it like that? Why make the effort to get to know each other better, as Kathy put it when she invited them? Other people’s lives. Other people’s children and grandchildren and holiday plans. She wants to float away, look down on it all from an aloof height.
‘But we won’t be living here much longer,’ she objected, when Don told her about the arrangement. ‘What’s the point of making new friends?’
‘For Pete’s sake! Cranbrook isn’t a million miles away. We won’t be cutting ourselves off from everyone we know. That’s the point.’
Perhaps they should move a million miles away. Perhaps that’s what she wants. Cranbrook is no more than a feeble gesture of change, barely forty minutes in the car.
Don has remembered to pick up the wine and chocolates she bought yesterday. All she has to do is belt herself in and be transported.
‘You’ll like Kathy,’ he tells her, wiping the inside of the windscreen.
‘Will I?’ She always bridles when people tell her that. Are her affections so logical, so easily predicted?
There’s a pause, then Don says, as he pulls out of the drive, ‘I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong. You don’t seem very happy. I thought you’d be pleased everything’s going so smoothly.’
She takes a deep breath and sighs it out, wondering if she can pick something from the confusion that will make sense. ‘It’s – oh, something at work. Not important enough to bother you with.’
‘No, go on.’
‘Well – I wish they wouldn’t try to change things. Afternoons. I can’t do afternoons. I told them.’
‘Have they asked you to?’
‘Yes, two a week, but I said I couldn’t.’
Don looks at her. ‘Is that all? It’s sorted, then. Why worry about that? You’ll be leaving, anyway, when we move.’
She wonders why she started this; she has no intention of elaborating. And yes, he’s right. Just a few weeks more. It’s part of her routine now to get well away from the health centre by one-thirty; she can’t risk being even five minutes late. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays have become dangerous now, evenly spaced, waiting to trap her. The others in reception have no idea, seeing no difference between those days and the others. But she doesn’t have to keep putting herself through this – it’s the one thought that keeps her going. She could resign now if she liked: say she’s got too much to do, getting ready for the move. Don wouldn’t mind. It’s only a kind of obstinacy that makes her reluctant to give in. With so much about to change, she wants at least to hang onto the shape of her days.
She keeps noticing, lately, how carefully he treats her, with a mixture of concern and exasperation, as if she’s a frail-tempered convalescent who must be humoured. It’s making her feel frail, her nerves about to snap, as if she’s entitled to outbursts of temper or irritability. She has to remind herself that there’s nothing physically wrong with her, nothing at all. It’s only a house move they’re facing, not life-threatening illness.
Soon the tyres are crunching on gravel and they’re outside an ivy-clad house with a pillared entrance porch. The woman, Kathy, comes to the door, wearing some sort of Eastern-inspired, bead-encrusted garment, her hair held back by jewelled clips. In the gush of How lovely to see you and You found us, then, she registers her own dullness and drabness, her safe clothes. Fortunately Malcolm is far scruffier than his wife, dressed as if for gardening in saggy trousers and a zipped top.
Everyone seems to kiss nowadays, the double air-kiss that once looked flamboyantly Gallic, even people who are barely acquainted. Reluctantly she submits. Kathy, one hand still on her shoulder, says, ‘Come through and sit down, Sandra. Such a cold night! Malcolm’s lit the wood-burner.’
‘Cassandra. My name’s Cassandra.’
Why’s she saying that? Sometimes it’s as if a different person speaks for her; the words are out so quickly that she hears them before they’ve formed in her mind.
‘Oh! I’m so sorry. I thought Don said Sandra.’ Kathy recovers quickly. ‘Well, Cassandra is lovely – I don’t blame you for preferring it. Do you predict the future?’
‘No.’ The answer yips out of her. ‘I can’t even predict the past.’
Kathy laughs, as if this is immensely witty, but there’s an awkwardness now, affecting all of them. Malcolm rubs his hands together. ‘Drinks! Let me get drinks organized. White wine, er, Cassandra – Soave? Or there’s soft drinks if you prefer.’
While Kathy takes the coats and Malcolm officiates in the kitchen, Don gives her a puzzled, warning look, and mouths, ‘What’s that about?’ She doesn’t answer. Drinks are brought in; there’s bluesy piano music in the background, and warmth from a log-burning stove. Sinking into a too-soft sofa, she stretches out her feet and assumes a vaguely genial expression, saying nothing. Kathy is answering a question from Don: something about her grandson, how naughty he is; how she looks after him every Tuesday and Thursday morning, how he plays her up.
‘Have you got grandchildren?’ Kathy asks, looking at her.
‘No. Not yet.’ Her voice sounds much louder than she meant. ‘Not until Rosanna …’ The pause stretches into silence; they’re all looking at her.
‘Rosanna?’ Kathy prompts. ‘Don mentioned your daughter – an estate agent, isn’t she? That must have been useful.’
She is thinking of Rosanna in the garden, the coming and the going – like people weaving patterns in a folk dance, looking as if they’ll collide but always swerving away, looping back. Finding a gap to disappear into. Always someone has to disappear. It seems to be a rule.
The pear tree. She can close her eyes and take herself there, beneath its branches, in the everlasting summer.
‘Yes,’ Don says quickly, with a sharp, sidelong glance. ‘Anna was very helpful in all our house-searching.’
‘Anna,’ she says, bringing herself back. ‘Yes, yes, she was.’
‘So you’re moving to Cranbrook? Lovely, and not too far.’ Kathy passes a plate of olive canapés. ‘And you’ve been in your house for – how long?’
‘Oh,’ Don says, ‘more than thirty years now. We moved there when …’
The pause stretches out while everyone waits. It’s the sort of harmless-sounding question that can easily trip them up. This is his own fault, she thinks almost with relish, for getting them into this situation. Their oldest friends, their real friends, know about Rose; it’s understood, no one needing to mention her name. With new acquaintances they have to skirt around this unstable ground that won’t bear their weight.
‘… when Anna was three,’ Don finishes.
‘Aaah, so all your memories of her childhood are there. It’ll be a wrench to leave, Cassandra, I’m sure?’
Kathy’s sympathetic tone sends her into a foment of rage. She feels her limbs tensing against the sofa’s embrace. I understand, says the crooning voice; you don’t need to tell me. I know what you’ll be leaving behind.
No, you don’t. No one knows. No one can begin to know.
She has to grant Kathy this, though – during that stilted conversation, a decision has made itself. On the way home, in the car, she announces to Don: ‘I can’t go through with it. We’ll have to pull out. I can’t live anywhere else. I’m staying here.’
Anna and Martin spent Sunday morning, as usual, at their health club: Pilates and a swim for Anna, weights and the sauna for Martin. Over a snack lunch in the bar, they considered seeing a film later. Anna was looking up times in the listings magazine when a man in his fifties, a gym acquaintance of Martin’s, came over to their table.
‘Hi, Jeff. How’s it going?’ Martin greeted him.
‘Good, thanks. Thought we might meet up next week, if you’re free one evening?’
He was about to engage Martin as his financial adviser. They arranged a time; then Jeff turned to Anna. ‘He’s in great demand, your husband. I’m lucky to get a look in. Are you in the same game?’
‘Partner. Martin’s my partner,’ said Anna. ‘No, I’m not. I work at an estate agent’s.’
Jeff raised his eyebrows. ‘So the two of you should have your fingers on the pulse, between you. Which one?’
‘Burton Brown, in Holborn, at the moment.’
Jeff nodded, and Martin said, ‘But it’s not just at the moment, is it? Anna’s doing a maternity cover, but we hope they’ll make it permanent.’
‘We? I haven’t decided yet. I might turn it down,’ Anna said.
‘Really? Nice to have the choice.’ Jeff settled as if for a long chat, stretching his legs. ‘You’ve got something better in view?’
‘Not really.’ Anna gave a tight smile, not meeting Martin’s eye; they were prickly with each other today, and she knew the reason. Martin had turned huffy on their way here, when she told him of her arrangement to help Ruth next Saturday.
‘Again? I don’t see why you want to get involved,’ he said, and she had retorted, ‘I know.’ Privately, she hadn’t forgiven him for his casual misinformation about Rose, for telling Ruth that Rose had died. He couldn’t begin to understand the gap in her life, a dark place of incomprehension and reproach, a sore ready to weep again whenever she picked at it. Knowing how unreasonable it was to blame him, since she never spoke of it, only made her harden towards him.
At last Jeff said he ought to be going. ‘Till Thursday, then, eight o’clock. Nice to see you, Anna.’
As soon as he’d gone, Martin turned back to the film listings. ‘What was that about,’ he said, not looking at Anna, ‘saying no to Burton Brown?’
‘Well, I might. I’m not sure.’
He put the magazine down; his face registered puzzlement, then exasperation. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a good position, you know it is. You like the work, and they’ll give you the training you need to make a career of it. You’re lucky to have a chance like that drop into your lap. What more do you want?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on, Anna. You’d wait a long time for a better offer – I thought you’d bite their hand off. It’s a good salary, convenient for home, it could lead to other things. Are you saying you’d rather drift from job to job, carry on as you were? You’re not being rational.’
‘Not agreeing with you, you mean.’
‘You haven’t given one good reason for not accepting.’
Anna tried to find one. ‘I don’t want to tie myself down, that’s all.’
‘For God’s sake! You’re thirty-three, not a student on a gap year. Tie yourself down? Why look at it like that? Aren’t we all tied down in one way or another? How d’you think we pay for the flat, our membership here, our holidays, weekends away, the car? You’d miss all those things soon enough if you didn’t have them.’
‘It’s just – things happen without me choosing them. I didn’t choose Burton Brown. It happened that way, that’s all. If I say yes, it turns into something I can’t get out of.’
‘All I know is that you’re throwing away a chance most people would jump at. I don’t understand you, Anna.’
The words hung in the air for a moment. She looked at him.
‘That’s right. You don’t.’
Martin threw out his hands in a gesture of I do my best. ‘So this is about more than the job. It’s about everything.’
‘Maybe.’ Anna had the feeling that this conversation had already been written; that it was running ahead of her, pre-scripted. And being a script, it would end in a row, an ultimatum, a point of no going back.
‘You were quick to put Jeff right when he thought we were married,’ Martin said quietly.
‘I don’t like people making assumptions. But we can’t argue here.’
‘I don’t want to argue anywhere. A relaxing Sunday was what I had in mind. Looks like that’s off, then.’
He was on his feet, shouldering his kit bag, turning his back on her. Suddenly self-conscious, Anna became aware of all the people around, the jangly music in the background that couldn’t have been quite loud enough to drown their conversation. She threw a jaunty smile at the barman in a pretence that nothing was wrong. Following Martin through the swing doors, she knew from the set of his shoulders and the speed of his walk that she’d done it now, spoiled their day – more than their day – and no wonder.
What now? Perhaps he expected her to scuttle after him, but instead she lingered in the foyer, reading notices about exercise classes and New Year offers on beauty treatments. When he realized she wasn’t coming, Martin would probably march back to the flat, unless he’d chosen a film and would go ahead and see it by himself.
She thought of phoning Bethan to see what she was doing, but was reluctant to admit to rowing with Martin. Bethan and Cliff, both so sunny-natured, never seemed to quarrel, though she supposed they must. She left the foyer for the rawness of outside; it was a grey, miserable day, a hint of drizzle in the air, no trace of yesterday’s transforming sunshine.
Ruth. Ruth was the person she’d like to go to now. But that was impossible; Ruth would be at Holtby Hall, and Anna wasn’t sure where that was, knowing only that it was out in the Essex countryside. Even if she Googled it, she’d need to drive there, and didn’t want to add to Martin’s annoyance by taking the car without asking. Although she’d passed her test while still in her teens, she hardly drove now; living in London, there was little need. When they used the car it was invariably Martin who took the wheel, mainly because if Anna drove he was a bossy and fidgety passenger. Anyway, how could she run to Ruth and say she’d had a row with Martin, expecting Ruth, of all people, to sympathize?
I’m on my own, she thought, when it comes down to it. That’s how it has to be.
She waited for a bus. If one came quickly, she could be back at the flat before Martin. She would pretend nothing had happened; that was usually the best way to get over a disagreement. But if he wasn’t there, she’d have a quiet afternoon by herself, reading or watching TV.
As soon as she entered the flat, she knew it was empty. She was half disappointed, half relieved. If Martin came in, he’d probably shut himself in the spare bedroom that served as his study, hardly emerging for the rest of the day. She imagined a scene in which she apologized for saying those things, put her arms round him and kissed him, led him into the bedroom. But the fact remained that he was unlikely to thaw until she was safely bound by a contract of employment with Burton Brown.
He wants to control me, she thought, and her resentment hardened.
Now, with the afternoon to fill as she pleased, she felt only apathy. When the phone rang, she picked up quickly, expecting Martin’s voice.
It was her father. ‘Anna, love? I’m glad you’re there. Have you got a minute?’
‘Hi, Dad. Yes, of course.’
A pause, then: ‘I’m a bit concerned about your mum. She’s started to behave a bit oddly.’
‘Oddly, how?’ Anna’s voice came out tight with anxiety.
‘Well – she’s suddenly taken against the idea of selling the house. Says she doesn’t want to move after all.’
Anna assimilated this in silence, surprised only by her lack of surprise. She tried to find suitable words. ‘But it was her idea, wasn’t it? What – pull out now, when your buyers are keen?’
‘Well, I think that’s the point. It’s suddenly hit her. Yes, we’re all ready to proceed, solicitors engaged – and how can we disappoint them, the Baverstocks? They’re all set. They’ve paid for their survey, looked into schools, made plans.’
‘She’ll come round. This is a wobble.’ Anna offered the assurance she knew her father wanted. ‘It’s a big thing to adjust to.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said her father. ‘But at the moment, she’s adamant – wants me to ring both estate agents and call the whole thing off, tomorrow morning.’
‘Is she having second thoughts about the Cranbrook house? Is that it?’
‘I don’t think so. She can’t bear the thought of packing up and moving, that’s what she says.’
‘I don’t blame her for that. It is daunting. I’ve said I’ll help, any time she wants.’
‘Thanks, love. I know you will. But there’s more to it than that. She … doesn’t seem quite herself, in other ways.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well – switched off from everything. It’s hard to say, exactly – so, I thought maybe you could come down, see if you can find out what’s at the bottom of it? Maybe one evening next week?’
Anna looked at her watch. ‘I’ll come now. I’m not doing anything.’
‘Oh, thanks, love. I’d be glad of that. Martin too?’
‘He’s not here. I’ll come on my own.’
‘Ring me from the train, then, and I’ll pick you up. Oh – don’t say it was my idea, will you? She’s not here now – she’s popped next door. I’ll make up something, tell her you phoned and were at a loose end.’
‘OK, Dad. See you soon.’
Purposeful now, Anna draped her damp swimsuit and towel in the airing cupboard, changed out of her exercise clothes, put on a little make-up, and checked that her wallet and Oyster card were in her bag. She wrote a note to Martin saying Gone to visit my parents, adding, in case he misunderstood and thought she’d run home for sympathy, Dad phoned – worried about Mum. As an afterthought she wrote Staying overnight. She put a nightdress and washing bag into a holdall, together with a smart top and trousers for work tomorrow.
Waiting for the Piccadilly Line train at Russell Square, she heard the phone conversation over again, noticing this time the unfamiliar tone of her father’s voice: a note of helplessness, of trying to deal with something beyond his grasp.
Home. Part welcoming, part stifling, it was always the same. It was the one certainty in Anna’s life. Until the autumn, and her mother’s astonishing announcement, she had taken for granted that it always would be. Common sense said that her parents should have left Sevenoaks years ago, but common sense hadn’t, till now, been strong enough to let them pull free.
It was impossible to imagine other people living here. How could they? The house was Rose, and Anna belonged to it; so did her parents. Of course her mother would never be able to clear the rooms and close the door behind her for the last time. It would signify a final parting with Rose, consigning her to the past. Never would her mother do that, until it was forced on her by age or disability.
Whenever Anna went back, the house claimed her, stripping away the years. It told her she’d always be her parents’ daughter, Rose’s younger sister, always thirteen, allowed to the brink of adolescence but no farther. She was trapped there, pinned like a specimen on a collector’s board. The family was caught in waiting, no longer complete. They didn’t dare speak too loudly; they were careful with each other, too careful. There was no escape from that huge, unexplainable absence, a black hole that had sucked them in and shrunk them to a singularity, a full-stop.
Anna hadn’t been home since Christmas. Her visits to her parents weren’t frequent, not because of any deliberate avoidance, but because it was always easy to find something to do rather than set out for Sevenoaks. She was more likely to see them in London on one of their trips to the theatre or an exhibition, or to meet her mother for Saturday shopping at John Lewis or House of Fraser. Her father had recently retired, and her mother had worried that he wouldn’t have enough to do; but in fact Don filled his days happily with a range of interests and outings, golf, and various DIY projects. Sandra had her part-time job – every weekday morning as receptionist at a health centre – and spent Wednesday afternoons in the local Oxfam shop. To all outward appearances, they led comfortable, purposeful lives.
Both parents were transparently pleased that Anna had settled with Martin, so presentable and well-grounded, even if her mother would have preferred him not to have a divorce behind him, and two sons. Anna’s father liked to give himself credit for her new stability; it was through him that she and Martin had met, eighteen months ago.
Anna had recently split up with Simon, an aspiring but idle artist, with whom she had lived since her student days in Southampton. When they parted, her finances were in a mess; she asked her father for advice, he passed on the name of an adviser recommended by his accountant, and Anna made a telephone call. Martin sounded approachable, and offered to come round to see her one evening. After a dispiriting search, she’d found a tiny flat she could afford, at a stretch, in Lewisham. It served as a base, at least, while she looked for something better.
At first, she thought Martin was considerably older than her. He was businesslike in a dark suit, sitting on the only chair she had, while she wore jeans and a baggy sweater and sat on a bean-bag that was spilling its stuffing. She’d forgotten he was coming and hadn’t even tidied up; the flat was full of cardboard boxes and carrier bags still waiting to be unpacked. He was too smooth to interest her at first glance, although she registered his even features, flawless skin and well-cut dark hair. His shirt was white and crisp; she imagined a wife at home, ironing it for him. He talked and talked about fixed-term investments and TESSAs as if Anna knew what it all meant. Quickly bored, she tried to assume an expression of at least vague intelligence. She wanted him to sort it all out for her; she didn’t want to take an interest or make decisions. Eventually he glanced at her just as she was stifling a yawn. He broke off in mid-explanation, smiled, and said, ‘I’ve lost you, haven’t I?’ He had beautiful teeth, and so kindly and genuine a smile that she started to look at him differently.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m clueless about all this.’ He must think it a daffy, ingenuous thing to say: Look at me, so charmingly disorganized. She wondered what he thought of her drab flat, with posters Blu-tacked to the wall, and bare boards showing at the edge of the carpet. He must think her a slob, not to have made more of the place. Along with the dutiful wife, she imagined a brand-new executive house with a double garage, and someone to do the cleaning; she added a couple of kids, a boy and a girl, who went to private schools and had violin lessons.
Taking out a sleek diary, Martin told her that he’d go away and draw up details, and come back in a few days. She leaned over discreetly to look at his handwriting as he entered the new appointment: small, firm and precise.
When he came back the following week, on a humid July evening, he was less formal, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, with no tie. He wore glasses this time; Anna thought he looked good in them, almost better than without. He’d brought a folder with her name under a plastic label on the front, MS ANNA TAVERNER. She hadn’t specified Ms; he’d got that right by himself. She sat beside him while he talked through the details. Even with all the windows open, it was sweltering in the flat. It was so humid that Anna felt the air clinging to her like sweat if she moved. She had showered and changed after work, but before Martin had finished explaining the various documents in the folder she felt dampness clamming her face. Even his white shirt was wilting a little around the collar, and in the V of its unbuttoning his skin glistened beneath a film of perspiration. He was slightly built, barely an inch taller than Anna, with a well-proportioned, compact body that looked fit and toned. Occasionally he took off his glasses and rubbed his wrist across his forehead. His eyes were hazel-brown. Anna decided that she liked having him in her flat and would try to keep him there a bit longer.
‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked abruptly. It would have to get cooler soon; she was desperate to get out of the room, to splash cold water over herself.
He looked relieved. Anna went into the kitchen, washed her face and hands and fetched the bottle of Chablis that had been chilling in the fridge. They drank all of it and she opened another. By the time he left, after she’d made him strong coffee, Anna knew that he was divorced, living alone, and had two sons; that he was thirty-nine, eight years older than her; that he’d been brought up in Worcester, but his parents now lived in Spain; that he usually wore contact lenses but found them uncomfortable during the pollen season; that he read mainly political biography and popular science, but liked Ian McEwan and Ian Rankin. She spent much of the evening looking at his hands and forearms and his mouth as he spoke, wondering what it would be like to go to bed with him.
Ten days later, she found out. He took her out for dinner; she wore a dress and put her hair up, such was the novelty of going out on what she could call a date, a proper date with a grown-up man. Afterwards they came back to her flat, drank coffee, talked; then Martin looked at her and said, ‘Well.’ It was a question. ‘I suppose I should be going.’
‘You don’t have to.’
They undressed each other in her bedroom. Anticipating this, she’d shoved all the clutter into cupboards, and had changed the bed linen that morning. It was highly satisfactory. As she’d expected, Martin made love as well as he did everything else.
‘What was your first impression of me? That first time you came round?’ she tried to get out of him, after he’d stayed twice more.
‘I thought, here’s someone who’s bloody clueless about money.’
‘No, seriously,’ she persisted. ‘You don’t end up in bed with all your clients, I suppose?’
‘Far too time-consuming. Besides, most of them are male and not even slightly tempting. You’re fishing for compliments.’
‘That’s right.’
The alarm went off, ignored by both of them. Martin stroked her shoulder with a fingertip.
‘I thought you were interesting.’
‘Oh? Interesting in what way?’ Anna could see only a muddle of hopes and doubts, desires and vague good intentions.
Martin considered, then said, ‘There’s a lot you keep hidden.’
‘But doesn’t everyone? Don’t you? Surely no one wants to be so transparent that everything’s on the surface?’
‘Perhaps what I mean is – you haven’t found your way yet.’
‘Have you, then?’
‘Maybe. There’s the boys. There’s work.’
‘And is that enough? Don’t you wish you were with them all the time? Don’t you have regrets?’ It was the nearest she had come to asking about his failed marriage.
‘Course. Hasn’t everyone?’ His eyes were closed. ‘Regrets that would eat me up, if I let them. I don’t let them.’
‘But how do you stop?’
For answer Martin rolled over and began kissing her, and her arms tightened around him until the alarm shrilled again and the demands of the day took over. When she thought about it later, she wondered if he saw her as a distraction, or as his salvation. Maybe, in return, he could save her from herself. Or was that expecting too much?
She wanted him to have seen something unique in her, something unknown, as yet, even to her. She thought she loved him; I am in love, she told herself, when she ached at the thought of not seeing him for two days, when she yearned to find him beside her when she woke, his eyes warm as he smiled, sleepy and short-sighted. Whatever ‘in love’ means. It felt like playing a role, living up to something she’d read about, seen in films, as if being in love was a constant, a state to be achieved and hung on to. Everything about this new relationship surprised her: the speed of it; that she could get involved with someone like Martin; that he chose to involve himself with her. She caught other women’s glances at him when they were out together, and was part thrilled, part ashamed of the inner voice that exulted: He’s with me! Look! I’ve got a proper man! It couldn’t last. She kept expecting him to end it, to announce that he’d found someone more confident, more elegant, part of the grown-up world he seemed to inhabit so easily.
‘Well, Anna! He seems a really nice chap. I liked him a lot,’ her mother said, in a phone conversation after Anna eventually took Martin to meet them for a restaurant meal. The sub-text was clear: Here’s the one for you to settle down with. Hang onto him, now that you’ve got rid of that other layabout. Anna felt a surge of resentment towards Martin and a tug of loyalty to Simon, so gawkily thin that his ribs showed; shabby Simon, dressed always in shapeless T-shirts, sweaters with unravelling cuffs, frayed jeans with packets of weed in the pockets.
Her father was waiting at Sevenoaks station.
‘Thanks for coming, love.’ He was more cheerful than he’d sounded on the phone.
‘Thought I might as well stay.’ Anna indicated her overnight bag. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes, any time you like.’ Don led the way to his car; when they were both belted in, Anna asked, ‘How’s Mum today?’
‘Seems a bit more her normal self. You’ll probably think I’m worrying about nothing. But I didn’t tell you about last night – we had dinner with Malcolm and his wife, from golf. She started being funny about names. First she insisted on being called Cassandra, when no one’s called her that for years. And when Kathy asked if we’ve – if we’ve got grandchildren, she called you Rosanna.’
‘Oh,’ Anna said flatly. ‘What else? What did she mean?’
‘I don’t know. Later on she talked about you quite normally.’
‘Did she? What did she say?’
‘Oh – that you’re living in London, happily settled with Martin.’
Silenced by this, wondering where Martin was now and whether he’d seen her note, Anna turned to look out of the side window. It was almost dusk, and the swell of the North Downs rose beyond the town like a grey cloud-bank. She said, ‘Did you say anything to Mum about it?’
‘No. I didn’t want to stir things up.’
‘Sounds like it just slipped out. Rosanna instead of Anna.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ Her father sounded relieved. ‘I’m making too much of it, I expect.’
Didn’t want to stir things up! So typical of Mum and Dad, Anna thought, and of me too. Let’s pretend everything’s fine, then maybe it will be. But Rosanna, Rose–Anna. Did that make her two in one? Or only half?
Becoming an only child had been a difficult adjustment, after years spent in Rose’s wake. Faced with the casual enquirer, hairdresser or friend-of-a-friend, Anna found it too complicated to embark on, too painful. Asked if she had brothers or sisters, she learned to answer, ‘No, there’s just me,’ which wasn’t even a lie. At the time, everyone from school knew, of course, and local people – Rose’s disappearance had been all over the front page of the Sevenoaks Chronicle, until interest faded and there was nothing more to report. It slipped into the background, no longer requiring comment.
The just always echoed in Anna’s ears. Just me. You’ll have to make do with me. I know Rose was always more important, more special. Every time she thought she was grown-up enough to dismiss these feelings, they crept back to nudge at her.
This road, Ashurst Avenue, alongside the recreation ground with woods and fields beyond, had been Anna’s route home from school for years and years; Rose’s, too. For a moment Anna saw Rose running across the grass, long hair flying, tears streaming down her face; Jamie catching up, grabbing her arm, turning her to face him. Whenever Anna returned to Sevenoaks, Rose was everywhere and nowhere; she was used to that. But Jamie Spellman. Where was he now? She didn’t want to think about that.
‘We haven’t talked any more about what she said – you know, wanting to call off the move,’ her father said. ‘Perhaps you’re right, and it’s only a glitch. Best to do nothing – leave her to think it over.’
‘But how do you feel about it, Dad?’
‘Me?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll do whatever makes your mum happy. She was the one who started this off, after refusing even to think about it, all these years. The Cranbrook house would’ve been fine, and it seemed we were on our way. But if she wants to stay put, it’ll save us a lot of bother, that’s for sure. I don’t like letting people down, though. Our vendors and our buyers, both lots.’
‘Perhaps it won’t come to that.’
‘I think, unless she raises it, we won’t mention this. I thought we might talk about the birthday plans. It’ll give a reason for you coming down unexpectedly.’
‘Great, only I haven’t really thought much about it yet,’ Anna said, with slight reproach. ‘Oh well, I can improvise.’
Her mother would be sixty at the end of July – unbelievably, to Anna – and at Christmas Don had proposed throwing a party. For Don’s own sixtieth, he and Sandra had spent four days in Paris, but with Sandra’s birthday so close to the anniversary of Rose’s disappearance, celebrations had always seemed out of place. The approaching birthday and anniversary were both big ones: Sandra’s sixtieth, and twenty years since Rose had gone.
‘That’s another weird thing,’ said Don. ‘When we talked about it on our own, she said, “Oh no, I don’t think we should make a fuss. We didn’t do anything for Roland.” ’
‘Roland?’ It took Anna a moment to assimilate this. ‘But Roland’s— What did you say?’
‘I wasn’t sure at first what she meant. It would have been two years ago, Roland’s sixtieth. Did she mean we should have marked it in some way? We never have, before. And then she tried to pass it off, as if she hadn’t meant to come out with it.’
Roland, Rose. The two missing members of the family. But Roland had died years before Anna was born; she and Rose had sometimes talked of him as the uncle they’d never had. They knew him only by his photograph: long-haired and gaunt-faced, stranded in the sixties where his life had ended at the age of eighteen. It was the family curse, Bethan said, visited on them by a bad fairy at a christening. All the more reason, Anna thought now, not to provide a new generation. But Mum – this did sound worrying. She wasn’t nearly old enough, surely, for mental decline of a kind Anna didn’t want to put a name to.
‘I don’t think I told you at the time – you were in Southampton,’ her father said, ‘but she hasn’t mentioned Roland for years, apart from when George Harrison died.’
‘George Harrison?’
‘Yes, this was – what – ten years or so ago. The newspapers were full of it, and your mum – well! You’d have thought it was a personal bereavement. She bought all the papers and spent ages poring over the features and obituaries. She even cried – though she tried to hide it.’
‘Well, I suppose she’s of that generation that got swept up in Beatles hysteria. Perhaps she was one of those girls who screamed themselves silly. I don’t ever remember her talking about it, though.’
‘That’s what I thought. I was pretty gutted myself when John Lennon was shot – it was the end of an era – but she didn’t react in the same way to that. With George, though – she practically went into mourning. And finally I got it out of her that Roland had specially liked George Harrison. He played the guitar.’
‘I know that, Dad!’
‘I mean Roland played guitar. He was in a band, but I don’t think it ever came to anything. Well – there wasn’t time.’
‘You never told me any of this,’ Anna said, with an edge of reproach. ‘About Mum acting weird.’
‘No, well – you weren’t at home, and it was so peculiar, but she suddenly snapped out it, and binned all the papers. It was if George Harrison’s death had brought everything else back – Roland, and …’
‘Rose.’ Anna filled the pause.
The final turn into Knole Crescent, and she was back home, as if she’d never been away. There was the house, half-tiled and ivy-clad, behind a low box hedge. Anna – and Rose, even more – had scorned it as hopelessly old-fashioned as a child, envying her friend Melanie, whose house was open-plan with huge windows, but in the local estate agent’s brochure it had been a substantial Edwardian family house, semi-detached, in a quiet location close to the town centre and its amenities … many original features … She knew now how desirable this style of house was; prospective buyers had exclaimed, Dad said, over the original tiles in the porch, the fireplaces, the generous proportions and secluded garden. And so they should.
In the warmth of the hallway, Anna and her mother exchanged kisses, while Don put the car away in the garage.
‘Well, this is an honour!’ Sandra greeted her. She was dressed in sharp-creased trousers and a cable sweater, scarf knotted at her neck; flat shoes in patent leather, discreet make-up. She didn’t do scruffy, even for Sundays at home. Her hair, once as thick and richly brown as Anna’s, was now tinted ash-blonde to disguise creeping greyness.
‘Hi, Mum. OK if I stay the night?’
‘Course you can! The bed’s made up.’
Home received Anna, reassuring and cloying. It peeled back the years, telling her that the quality of light in this hallway, the particular smell of the house – some kind of polish or spray mixed with lingering Sunday lunch – would never change. From outside, the sounds of her father closing the garage, one of the doors dragging over the concrete of the hard-standing, then the slam and clunk, the turn of the key; sounds she never thought about for a moment when she wasn’t here: all of them so deeply ingrained in her memory as to capture home in its entirety. Here she was her parents’ daughter, the younger sister, the only child, while the other Anna, the Anna who tried to be grown up, stayed in London.
Stupid. Stupid.
In the kitchen her mother had Classic FM on the radio. She made tea; Anna asked about the evening with Kathy and Malcolm. When her father came in, she tried not to meet his eye, feeling like a conspirator.
Her mother carried the tea on a tray to the sitting room and drew the curtains, shutting out the night. Anna raised the subject of the forthcoming birthday, and her mother laughed ruefully at the idea of having a rail pass, qualifying for concessions. ‘Don’t knock it,’ said Don, two years ahead.
‘Well, what do you think, Mum? About your party? We could find a really nice venue, somewhere unusual.’
Anna expected protests of the I don’t want a fuss kind, and sure enough her mother said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t like big parties.’
‘It doesn’t have to be a big party, Mum. It could be for you and Dad and your special friends.’
Sandra thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so. I can’t be the centre of attention. Maybe I’ll go off on my own somewhere.’
‘Off on your own?’ Anna pictured her mother running away from a party, abandoning her guests.
‘Yes. On a holiday. I’ve never done that before.’
‘I thought we might go somewhere together.’ Don looked a little hurt. ‘Venice, perhaps. We’ve often talked about it.’
‘We can do that as well.’
‘What sort of holiday have you got in mind, then, Mum?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, yet.’ Sandra might have been shrugging off an irritation. ‘It’s only a thought. There’s plenty of time to decide, now that we’re not moving.’
Anna glanced at her father before saying, ‘Yes, Dad told me you were having doubts.’
‘It’s not doubts. It’s definite. You can go if you like,’ said her mother, with a defiant look at Don as if it was all his idea. ‘I’m staying here.’
Anna was silent, conscious only of a wash of relief. She knew that she ought to back up her father, find reasons and persuasion, but she couldn’t think of anything worth saying. Things would have to change eventually; but not yet. Not yet.