The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (6 page)

Adam rubs his eyes. One of his contact lenses flicks out.
Damn
. He scrabbles around for it on his desk and finds the blue disc sitting on the shift key of his keyboard. He throws it in the bin and gets out his old pair of glasses from his desk drawer.

Tell her to leave.
Everything was so black and white for Ella.

He dials Fay's mobile, hoping he'll catch her before she finishes her shift, and closes his eyes as he listens to the dialling tone.
A power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
That's what he'd learnt at the AA meetings Fay had taken him to. He believed in that step more than any of the others. Except the power he ascribed to wasn't an abstract God, it was a flesh-and-blood power, a power that had walked into his life the day Norah left.

Fay's mobile goes straight to voicemail.

It's me. Call me when you get this. Whatever happens, call me before you go home.
 

And then he leaves another message.

Pick up the girls from school. Take them to the Holdingwell Café for a hot chocolate or something. Don't go home until I call you.
 

He can't tell her in a phone message. They've been through too much together. And what was he meant to say, anyway?
My wife's come home. Your best friend. And I don't know how I feel about her any more. I thought I was over her, but you know what she's like, how she pulls you in
…

God, what a mess.

He looks around his office. Fay decorated this too: the painting of a rowing boat on a still lake, the Nespresso machine standing in the corner, the ergonomic chair he's sitting on. Soft yellow walls.
They'll lighten your mood, make you feel good,
she'd said as she stood there with her paint pot and brush and stepladder. A bunch of white peonies from the garden in a vase on his desk, the fresh flowers she brought in for him every week.

Fay's the reason he's sitting here, behind this desk, rather than standing in a pair of blue overalls, sorting bottles from cans. She did the same to Number 77 Willoughby Street. Fixed the broken bits of furniture. Oiled the door hinges. Sifted the clothes and letters and books. Threw things out. And then she redecorated.

It'll be a fresh start,
she said as she boxed up the junk of their lives.
It will help the girls.

Ella had locked herself in the attic and told Fay not to touch her room. It was the only bit of Norah that Ella had left.
And Mum will need her stuff when she gets home,
Ella had said.

Ella and Fay used to be friends. But the day Norah left, all that changed.

She's just been waiting for Mum to get out of the way so she could take over,
Ella had yelled in one of her fits of rage.
She's probably fancied you all along. She's probably the reason Mum's disappeared.

In the blink of an eye, Fay had gone from Fairy Godmother to Evil Stepmother.

What Ella didn't understand was that Fay had done all this for them. She'd never intended to take Norah's place. It had just happened, an unexpected turn in her life – as unexpected as the love Adam found for her.

That was the truth of it, wasn't it?

Adam grabs his jacket, takes the packet of cigarettes he keeps locked in the top drawer of his desk and walks out past his secretary.

‘I'll be out for a while,' he says.

He goes to the back of the plant and opens the garage set aside for the manager's car. His old motorbike is in there.

Fay wanted him to throw it out along with the rest of the rubbish from the house. They'd had a fight:

I need it,
he'd said.

You like it, there's a difference,
she'd answered. And she'd been right. He liked the wind in his hair. The freedom. The way Norah made him feel – at the beginning, at least.

It's not safe,
Fay had said, searching for people carriers on the web.
We'll get a car for the girls, something practical. And we'll get you a bicycle. You can cycle to work. That'll give you wind in your hair. And it'll get you fit
. She'd smiled and kissed him and then said:
I want you to live for ever.

He'd wanted to say it back:
I want you to live for ever too.
He'd wanted to say more; he'd wanted to say
I love you.
But he always held back. Perhaps, deep down, he knew that to say it would be unfair when he still hoped that Norah would come home.

He strokes the saddle of the motorbike. What he'd give to go for a ride, to keep going and going, to forget what he has to deal with back home.

Instead, he puts on his bicycle clips and helmet, and goes around to the front of the plant to collect his bicycle.

 

As he free-wheels down the hill towards Holdingwell, he tells himself that it's going to be okay. He's not going to let his family fall apart. Not again. This time, he'll hold it together. He'll be the one to take charge. He'll take Norah's return calmly. He'll keep his promise to Ella: he's going to make it okay.

 

June, the receptionist in the pediatric ward, looks up from her computer screen.

‘Adam – hi.'

‘Is she free?'

‘I'm afraid she's in theatre. I don't think she'll be long, though – you can wait for her if you like.' June points to a line of green plastic chairs.

Adam nods, waits for June to go back to her computer screen, walks past the chairs, and follows the signs to the operating theatre.

 

Fay stands outside the family room in her blue scrubs. Her mask hangs at her neck and a pink bandana covers her wisps of white-blonde hair. She's talking to a couple, her palms held out as she explains something. The man and the woman stand so close that they seem to be propping each other up. Fay touches the woman's arm. Adam recognises the expression in Fay's eyes – it's the one she had in the days after Norah left, when she hadn't yet worked out how she could fix things.

This is Fay's other life, the one she had when she was nothing more to him than Norah's best friend. The friend with the successful career and letters after her name, a fancy car, a huge salary. The friend who disapproved of Adam, whose job barely paid the bills, who was a distraction to Norah's musical career – who was too blind to see that his wife was unhappy.

Adam turns and walks out of the hospital.

 

He drives past Holdingwell Primary. Willa's face flashes in front of him: her big brown eyes questioning. A little girl who doesn't know that her mother isn't the woman who works at the hospital; a little girl whose birthday is on Sunday. He feels the seams of his life tearing open.

Adam cycles to the house. By the time he gets there he's hot and sweaty and exhausted.

He looks up at the windows and imagines Norah walking around the home they used to share.

I'm going to go in and tell her that she needs to leave
, he says to himself
. That I've moved on. That I'm not the same, pathetic guy she left behind
.

Obsessed, that's what he'd been. Would have done anything for her.

He clenches his jaw.
I'm a good dad. And, apart from a marriage certificate, I'm as close to being Fay's husband as I can be. And I don't need you any more.
Ella's right. He should make Norah leave.

His breath grows shallow. It's coming back, the panic.

He looks up at the house again. His hands flutter by his sides.

Damn it. Get a grip.
 

This morning, driven by the excuse of having to leave for work, he'd been able to push the feelings away. But seeing Norah now?
His
Norah, home again? God knows what it would do to him.

Not now
, he thinks
. I can't do this now.

He gets on his bike and heads back to the recycling plant.

Ella stops in front of The Great Escape travel agent's and stares at the posters of palm trees and deserts and twinkling New York skyscrapers. Had Mum stopped here and planned her departure?

The window reflects Ella's face. The late-afternoon sun catches her hair and lights it up like it's on fire. In a second, Mum's face replaces her own: her chestnut eyes, her long red hair. The Mum she remembers. It's a trick Ella's been practising for so long that now the switch happens automatically – sometimes Ella doesn't see her own face at all.

Ella presses her palms against her eyes to make the picture go away.

She takes an elastic band off her wrist, yanks her hair back behind her ears and runs to Superdrug.

The checkout lady beeps through the hairdressing scissors and the black hair dye: ‘I hope these aren't for you.' She stops mid-scan and looks at Ella. ‘You have such beautiful hair – such a lovely natural colour.'

‘It's not natural.' Ella stuffs the items into a plastic bag and heads back out onto the high street.

Since Dad had got together with Fay, he'd got braver about stuff. Grown up. It was one of the Fay-changes Ella didn't mind. But now it was like he'd reverted back to the man he was when Mum left: hiding away, too scared to face people. He was probably desperate for a drink.

He'd told her to go back to school, to wait for Fay to finish her shift, and then they'd come and get her. Stuff that – even the great Fay can't fix this one.

She looks at her watch. It was too late anyway. She'd missed her maths test.
I'm not going back to school. Not now, not ever.

Ella walks to the one place Dad's forbidden her to go. If he doesn't have the balls to talk to her about Mum, he doesn't get to lay down the law.

Ella lets herself in through the back door. Whenever she comes to visit, she avoids Sai's mum, who's Indian and stares and doesn't talk much and probably disapproves of Ella as much as Dad does of Sai. Mrs Moore spends most of her time serving in the post office; as long as Ella sticks to the flat, she'll be fine.

Ella knocks on Sai's door. No answer. She lets herself in and walks across the top landing.

There's only one bathroom in the flat: a small basin, a shower cubicle with a plastic curtain greyed with age, and a loo with a cracked seat. The linoleum curls up in the corners. And the door doesn't lock.

A hum of voices comes up through the floorboards. Ella puts a stool up against the door handle. Then she places the scissors and the box of hair dye on the side of the basin. She reckons it'll be easier to dye her hair when it's short, so she picks up the scissors first.

The crow in Ella's stomach squawks so loud that Ella thinks the customers downstairs in the post office must hear it too.
Shhh
, she wants to say.
I know what I'm doing.

She stares at herself in the rust-speckled mirror. Once more, her mum's face replaces her own. The crow stamps its feet.

Ella closes her eyes.
I'm not you,
she whispers. And then she takes a first snip, right by her jaw. And then another. And another. The golden strands fall to the floor. She keeps going until her hair is as short as Sai's; soon it will be as dark too. She smiles at her reflection. They can pretend that they're related – which wouldn't be far from the truth: he's more of a family to her than anyone back home.

Ella makes up the dye and shakes the bottle. If only Willa were here; Ella could dye her hair too and then no one would ever guess that they were related to Mum.

She tips the bottle upside down on her head – a glob of dye plops onto the floor.
Shit.
She grabs the hand towel and mops it up, then realises that the dye's more likely to stain the towel than the linoleum.
Shit, shit, shit.
She puts the towel under the tap and rubs it with soap. The effort of scrubbing and lowering her head has made the dye on Ella's hair trickle down onto her forehead. She takes a bit of loo roll and rubs at her skin.
I can't even get this right
.

There's a light knock on the door. Ella drops the cup of dye into the basin. God, it's everywhere now.

‘Sai?' How's she going to explain all this to him?

There's a long pause. And then another gentle knock.

‘It's Mrs Moore.'

Sai's mum. God, what's she doing up here? Ella looks at the mess in the sink, the stain on the floor, at the towel with its dirty black splotches, at the blobs of dye on her hair.

‘Is it Ella?'

Although Mrs Moore married an Englishman, Ella senses that this quiet, traditional Indian woman isn't so keen on an English girl for her son. Mrs Moore knows what it's like to be in a mixed marriage: her community back home rejected her. And now that her husband isn't around, she's found herself alone with no one but Sai for family. Of course she wants more for him.

‘Are you okay?' Mrs Moore asks. ‘Can I help you?'

Ella's throat tightens. She opens the door.

The sun shines through the window on the landing, lighting up Mrs Moore's green sari. Her hair is tied back, a red stain in her parting. Sai says that his mum's not meant to have that stain any more, not now that she's a widow.
But Mum will always see herself as married
, he says.
Nothing will ever change that.
Ella likes the thought that people can love each other for ever.

She waits for Mrs Moore to notice the mess. Mrs Moore will never let her come back to see Sai, not after this.

Instead, Sai's mum reaches past Ella and picks up the scissors from the side of the basin. She holds them up and inspects them. ‘I wish I had the courage to cut my hair.'

‘Courage?' If only it were courage that made Ella do it.

Mrs Moore nods and reaches for one of Ella's short tufts of hair and tucks it behind her ear. ‘It suits you like this. You have good cheekbones.' Then she looks over Ella's shoulder at the basin. ‘I dye my hair too – to cover up the grey.' She points at her roots. ‘It takes a bit of practice.'

‘I'm sorry I've made such a mess. I thought Sai might be free to help, but I couldn't find him. I didn't know where else to go…'

Mrs Moore shrugs. ‘Mess can be cleaned. Would you like me to help you? It is easier with an extra pair of hands.'

It would have been easier if Mrs Moore had shouted at her and told her what an idiot she was for making a mess and ordered her to leave. She can't cope with people being nice right now.

‘It will be fun,' says Mrs Moore.

Ella nods. ‘Okay.'

First, Mrs Moore holds Ella's head over the basin and washes out the dye. Then she takes her into the kitchen at the back of the flat and sits her on a high stool.

‘Don't you need to be in the post office?' asks Ella.

‘Sai is looking after it.'

‘Does he know I'm here?'

She shakes her head and smiles. ‘I saw you walking past the window. And I heard you on the stairs.'

So much for sneaking in.

‘We will surprise him, yes?' says Mrs Moore.

How many people can Ella get wrong, she thinks. Mum, Fay, Mrs Moore. She can't trust her own judgement any more.

‘I use henna on my hair. It is a dark brown colour but has tinges of red – I think it will suit you better than the black dye. And it is good for your hair; it is from the earth.'

Ella nods and watches Mrs Moore empty a packet of browny red powder into a small bowl, add water and make a paste. When she stands close, Ella smells paper and tape and stamps and newsprint and the metal of coins on Mrs Moore's hands. And another, sweet smell, the same smell as Sai.

As Mrs Moore combs the paste into Ella's hair, Ella closes her eyes and lets her mind float on the movement of the comb and the sound of the bracelets tinkling against each other on Mrs Moore's wrists.

‘I always dreamt of having a daughter,' says Mrs Moore. ‘Of doing her hair.'

I've always dreamt of having a mum, thinks Ella.

She lets the world outside fall away: the thoughts of Mum coming back, of Dad ignoring her, of what Fay will do when she finds Mum in the house or how Ella's going to protect Willa from the truth. Here, in this small kitchen above the post office, Ella can pretend that nothing else exists. That her life hasn't just capsized.