I Remember You (37 page)

‘I don’t think he’d agree with you about that,’ Tess said, smiling and shaking her head. ‘And for what it’s worth, I don’t, either. We never thought that, it’s that everyone else here did in this ridiculous town.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Diana, as Suggs appeared with the wine. Then, ‘Do you really think that?’

‘I can see why he needed to get away from here,’ Tess said. She thought of the lease, the letter on the fridge which she still hadn’t answered. Diana put the two glasses back on the bar.

‘Need a hand, dear?’ called a quiet voice from the back, and Diana batted the request away fiercely with her hand.

‘Do be quiet, Richard,’ she called in his direction. ‘What do you mean?’ she said to Tess. ‘It’s not ridiculous here.’

‘I’m not saying—’ Tess said, scared by her expression. Diana’s eyes were cold. ‘I’m not saying it’s ridiculous for you. I’m just saying…sometimes—it’s like a theme park. Oh, a toy town.’ She thought of Peter, of their conversation earlier. ‘You know. The tea towels, the tourists, the—all that stuff.’

‘Well, shame on you, Tessa,’ Diana said, and Tess leaned back, so frosty was her tone. ‘There may be a gift shop, and there may be tourists, but it’s still a proper town. A place where people live.’

‘I know that,’ said Tess. ‘But sometimes—I can’t stand it. Everyone in everyone else’s business. Getting things wrong most of the time, too.’ She was thinking of Adam and Philippa, and how no one had known anything.

‘I know,’ said Diana, her grey eyes sad, as if she understood. ‘But this is a community. We support each other. They’d support you, if you let them. There are people here whose grandfathers’ names are on the war memorial, young people who can’t afford to buy a house here because of the second-home owners, people who remember the water meadows before all of this happened. So remember that,’ she said. ‘Everyone comes from somewhere, and lots of people come from here and are proud of it. It’s not a theme park to them.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Real life isn’t about sparkly fantasies and new things, you know. Real life is hard work, but it’s what you have in the long term, and occasionally you treat yourself to a cake from the deli and a nice Cath Kidston tea towel and that’s how you find the balance.’

Tess stared at her, not knowing what to say. She looked around the pub; Suggs was chatting to the man sitting by himself at the bar, and she saw it was Guy Phelps. Had they heard? Did they agree if they had? She closed her eyes, almost in pain, and Diana shrugged her shoulders. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to say all of that, Tess. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ Tess said. She felt as if a heavy mist was clearing. She shook her head. ‘Honestly.’

‘Too much wine. That’s what it is. It’s none of my business to say it to you, dear. I meant to say it to Adam, before he left. For the last ten years, probably.’ Diana smiled bitterly. ‘I’ve taken it out on you instead, haven’t I?’

‘It’s fine, though,’ Tess said, a bit shakily. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘It’s not fine,’ Diana said. ‘It’s true, though,’ she added, in her blunt way. ‘I am being unforgivably rude, I’m afraid, and I like you. Always have since you were eight and you asked
the Mayor at the village fete why he was so fat.’ Tess laughed, astonished. ‘I’m glad you’re staying here.’

Tess thought of Peter; then she thought of the book of poems on the bureau at home and the contract for work she still hadn’t signed, and the mist, the smoky smell of approaching winter out in the dark streets tonight. She sipped her drink and squeezed Diana’s hand. ‘You’re right.’

Peter would be in a bar somewhere, in San Francisco: she’d never been, so she couldn’t imagine it, the way she could if he were in Rome. If he were in Rome he’d be in the Piazza Navona with a beer, his dark, beautiful eyes resting on the waitress, flickering across the long, beautiful piazza, the sound of laughter and water from the fountains in the background, his elegant brown fingers playing with a sachet of sugar…She could picture him in Rome, they seemed to go together. She couldn’t picture him in San Francisco. In a bar too, perhaps, playing pool, slapping some buddies on the back? No, Peter didn’t like pool—or did he? She didn’t know. So much she didn’t know…Tess stared at Diana, colour returning to her face.

‘You’re right,’ she said again.

‘Damned right I am,’ said Diana, picking up her glasses of wine again. ‘See you later, m’dear.’

Tess drained her drink and walked to the noticeboard, her eye caught by something. On the worn, dry cork, next to an advert for yoga classes in the community centre and another for Carolyn Tey’s flower-arranging course, was a pink flyer for Knick-Knacks, Jacquetta Meluish’s shop. Tess gazed at it.

Then she turned, clutching her book and her bag, and walked out into the night. It would be nice to say the mist outside had cleared too, but it hadn’t. Still, she walked home, smiling. She tidied up a bit, she folded the funeral service
sheet into her book of Catullus’s poems, stacking it next to the Bible and a few other books. She would work it out, she knew it. And then she went to bed where she slept soundly, for the first time in a long while.

‘Come on, Sandy,’ Tess said, a pleading note in her voice. ‘You don’t need to do that here, you can do it when we get to the villa, it’s really not that far away…’

‘I’m just going to tie the laces properly
now
,’ Sandy said. ‘Because I know it’s all very well preserved, but the grass and everything will be terribly muddy, and I don’t want to get these shoes wet, Tess, dear.’ She tugged at her spotless hiking boots. From inside the minibus, Brian the driver sighed loudly.

Tess stamped her feet, hugging herself in the bitter cold air. ‘You can do it on the minibus,’ she said firmly. She patted Sandy on the arm, propelling her gently up the steps, and nodded apologetically at Brian. ‘Right, everyone. Ready?’

‘I’ve been ready for forty minutes,’ said Brian grimly. ‘Where to?’

‘Langford Regis,’ said Tess sternly. ‘You know that.’

‘Just checking,’ Brian said, and eased the minivan into gear. ‘Just making sure.’

‘Can you turn the heating on?’ said Sherry, as the creaking old vehicle juddered out of the gates of Langford College and down the high street. In the back row, like the cool kids from school, Gerald the company director, resplendent in tweed, and Tom the usually mute librettist, nodded.

‘Bloody freezing,’ said Gerald briefly. ‘Gosh.’

‘I have
absolutely
no idea why you would have picked this day to go on a trip like this,’ Tom said, patting the cream cashmere scarf at his neck.

‘Because we get it to ourselves and we can have a private tour,’ said Tess. ‘I told you to wrap up warm, Tom. There are spare jumpers up here,’ she said, pointing to the overhead shelves. ‘You’ll just have to put one on if you get too cold.’

They were right, though: it was a bitterly cold day in early December, when it hurt to breathe, and the air caught at the back of the nostrils and throat. Frost gripped the yew trees in the churchyard as they drove past; along the road the hanging baskets outside the Feathers were a forlorn sight, black and covered in ice. Tess patted her bag as if reassuring herself that she had everything: notes, water, mobile phone and, of course, a First Aid kit. She didn’t want to get a reputation for being the killer of old ladies. She stared out of the window. It was a lovely day for a drive, cold though it was; the air was clear and the sky was ice-blue sharp.

‘We will be back in time for tea, won’t we, dear,’ said Sherry.

Jemima looked alarmed. ‘I have to pick Gideon up at three,’ she said. ‘And Maisie has a flute lesson at three thirty. I’m afraid I really have to be back by two thirty,’ she said, her voice rising slightly hysterically, as only the English middle-class woman can make it. ‘Tess?’

‘We’ll be back well before then,’ Tess said patiently, for the third time. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘I want to get back early too. ‘Cause the Christmas lights are being switched on in Thornham tonight and I don’t want to miss it,’ Sherry told Jemima.

‘Well, the children are
so
excited about ours.’ Jemima smiled dampeningly, and went back to reading her book.

‘Who’s switching them on?’ Gerald demanded from the back. ‘We had Dale Winton in Chislehurst last year. Funny chap. Very funny.’

‘Actually, we’ve got Frank Roberts this year,’ Sherry told him proudly.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Tom.

‘Frank Roberts, the rugby player?’ Sherry said. ‘Played for Bath for years. Runs a cab company now.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ Jemima said coldly, looking up from her book.

‘I have,’ said Gerald. ‘Prop, am I right?’

‘You’re right,’ said Sherry. ‘Lives locally, ever such a nice man. So yes, we’ve got him. Who’s doing Langford?’

‘Look,’ Tess said, tapping the window as the bus slowed down for the traffic lights at the pedestrian crossing. ‘As if by magic.’

She pointed out of the window at a figure taping a poster to a wooden telegraph pole. It was Jan Allingham, chatting gaily to some unseen figure while she wrestled with curls of sellotape attached to her fingers. She turned at the sound of the bus and, catching sight of Tess in the window, waved wildly, sticking the sellotape together.

‘Are you coming tomorrow?’ she called, her voice faint through the glass. ‘Look!’

In the doorway of the health-food shop Tess saw her companion, Diana Sayers, leaning against the shut door, watching her and chatting back. She saw Tess in the window of the bus, squinted to recognize her, and then smiled back. She mouthed something. Tess couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she waved back at her, smiling.

‘So yours is tomorrow, then?’ said Sherry with relief. ‘That’s good. Avoid a clash. Who is it?’

‘Martin Riviere,’ Tess said, pointing at the crumpled poster in Jan’s hand. ‘Again.’ Jemima looked crushed.

Martin Riviere (real name: Martin Trowton) was a fairly ancient quiz show presenter, a local boy made good who had retired to a big house in the valley below Langford ten years ago, since which time—as the only celebrity in the near
vicinity—he had been prevailed upon to open the church fete in Langford twice, in Thornham once, the summer fete at Langford Primary twice, made a cameo appearance at the Organ Fund Fundraising Spectacular as the Angel Gabriel, and switched on the lights in Langford now three times.

‘Oh, not again,’ said Sherry, with all the bitchiness of the local rival. ‘How
boring
.’

Along the high street, signs that Christmas was coming were everywhere. The lights were hung across the street, ready for tomorrow’s ceremony. The window of Knick-Knacks was filled with brown parcels tied with beautiful red velvet ribbons; Jen’s Deli had a tasteful plethora of panettone and Vacherin cheeses; but the rest of the town had no such scruples and silver-fringed signs saying ‘
Merry Christmas!
’ and large plastic cartoons of Santa, small pearlescent-coloured Christmas trees and pink, green, red and purple baubles and strings of fake glass beads hung in every other shop window, and every house in town. Even Tess and Liz had been involved in their own Christmas tree decorative tussle—Tess being very much of the ‘more is more’ mind-set when it came to tinsel and ornaments, and Liz, who was of the same persuasion as her boss Jen, rearing her hands up in horror every time she saw a bit of tinsel. Still, they had found agreement and their tree stood proudly in the window, the bureau having been moved out of the way so it could take pride of place in their sitting room, along with every other house in town. Almost every house.

As the minibus moved off again, Tess glanced towards Leda House, where the window boxes, like the rest of the facade, were empty, blank and a little dirty. She gazed at the shuttered window.

Lynda clutched Sandy’s hand. ‘It’s freezing in here,’ she said, shivering.

‘I know, but it’s not a long drive,’ Tess told her patiently. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes or so. And it really is a wonderful place, if you haven’t been there before. The best
preserved mosaics in—oh, my God.’ Her jaw dropped. ‘Brian—stop! Stop the bus!’

The front door to Leda House was open—it was never open. She could see just inside, into the hallway; the ceiling lampshade swung in the breeze.

‘Can you stop, please, Brian?’ Tess called, her voice louder than she’d intended.

‘What?’ Brian called.

‘Just pull over, quickly,’ Tess said. ‘I just need to see something—’

Brian screeched to a halt, as the members of the Langford College A level course all tipped over to the left, and Gerald and Tom clutched each other, to stop themselves falling to the floor.

‘Don’t be long,’ Brian said. Tess shot him a look as the door swung open and she climbed down the steps. She hopped across the road and, uncertainty striking her only then, paused at the front gate and looked inside.

No one had been seen in Leda House since the funeral. Jean Forbes had received a nice pension and she and her husband had immediately shut the house up and left for a lengthy—and well-deserved—cruise. The windows were shuttered; the furniture covered in dust sheets. Peering into the darkened hall, Tess called out, ‘Hello?’

The rumbling sound of the minibus’s engine behind her was distracting. She advanced, little by little, so that she was standing on the threshold.

‘Adam?’ she called into the gloom. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out a beautiful, threadbare wine-red carpet, and on the walls row upon row of prints, on exact lines, engravings of classical ruins, of statues, pillars, temples, all in black and white. The long hallway had four white doors, two on each side; they were firmly shut, and the only remaining light came from another door, out to the big garden, with its immaculate lawn that she had glimpsed only once,
when as a child she had climbed on Adam’s shoulders to peer over the thick stone wall. Tess slowly stepped further forward. She was standing on the carpet now, in the house.

Suddenly she heard footsteps, a kind of scuffling, shuffling noise, somewhere in the house. She jumped, and breathed out, in a gasp.

‘Adam?’ she said, more loudly, and moved to the staircase at the back of the hallway, looking up. She ran up the steps, peering onto the landing, around to the first floor, but all the doors there were shut, and there was no answer, no sign of anyone. And the noise had come from downstairs, she was sure…Shaken, Tess came down the stairs again, retreating swiftly towards the front door. She peered back out onto the street, but Diana and Jan had disappeared. Perhaps the door had just blown open; there was no one there. Her fingers itched to open the sitting-room door, and she wrapped her hand round the smooth black doorknob. But she couldn’t open it, something inside her stopped her. There was no one there, and this was ridiculous. She shut the heavy front door carefully behind her and turned back to the van, where the members of her class were watching her expectantly, their faces pressed against the windows.

‘Sorry,’ she called, crossing the road again and hopping on board once more. ‘Sorry, stupid of me. Must be a gardener or something. Thought someone was back in there.’

‘Or a ghost,’ Jemima said, clutching her hand to her throat. ‘Jacquetta—you know Jacquetta Meluish? She’s my neighbour. She said her friend Carolyn said there were
ghosts
there…’

She looked around momentously at the others.

‘Ooh,’ Sherry whispered.

Brian nodded, unimpressed, and jerked his head, motioning for Tess to sit down, which she did. She shivered as the bus drove off again, glancing back once at the house, still shuttered up, as though its eyes were closed.

‘It was really weird,’ Tess said, that evening, hovering over her flatmate. ‘I got the feeling someone was there. I really thought there was. But it was nothing.’

‘Perhaps it was a
ghost
.’ Liz turned around from the hob, and licked one of her fingers. ‘Perhaps it was Leonora’s ghost. How spooky.’

‘That’s what Jemima said,’ said Tess uncertainly. ‘But I highly doubt it. I’m sure it wasn’t that at all. It was just—weird.’

‘Well,’ said Liz reasonably. ‘He has to come back some time, doesn’t he? Adam, I mean.’ She paused, and then shook her head and said, ‘Anyway, let’s get these apples started. We can put them in the fridge, for tomorrow. Why don’t you be in charge of dipping?’

‘Sure,’ said Tess, feeling like a five-year-old, but comforted by Liz’s soothing voice.

‘Here, have a lolly stick,’ said Liz. ‘Be careful before you dip them in, though. The sugar’s really hot.’

‘OK,’ said Tess meekly. She glanced at Liz quickly. Francesca had never made toffee apples. She, Tess, had never got back from a long day at work to find Francesca putting the finishing touches to a stew ‘to have later’. Nor had she ever found Francesca ironing her sheets, ‘because I was doing mine and I thought I might as well do yours at the same time.’ Francesca had bought some very expensive lavender linen spray in a cut-glass bottle which was never used. That was as close as she’d got to ironing, in the five months they’d lived together.

Tess paused, holding her apple over the golden, bubbling sugar. She wondered where Francesca was now. She had to call her again, it had been weeks since they’d spoken. Of course, she didn’t
desperately
miss her, it was just…

‘Tess!’ Liz cried sharply, but it was too late. Tess dropped her apple. It fell into the molten sugar with a resounding
plop
. The girls both leapt back, but not far enough to avoid a few small drops of boiling sugar hitting Liz’s bare forearm. She howled.

‘Shit!’ she said, composure gone. ‘That really hurts.’

‘God, I’m so sorry!’ Tess cried. ‘Oh, my God! Are you hurt?’

‘No, I’ll be fine,’ said Liz. She patted her arm. ‘Just stings. Just stings! Er,’ she said, looking round at Tess. ‘Why don’t you go into the sitting room and relax? I’ll just finish off here and then we can start supper. Sound OK?’

‘Sure,’ said Tess gravely, smothering a smile. ‘Will do. Let me know if you need any help.’

She went into the sitting room and sat on the sofa, looking at the tree with its twinkling white lights, the little stucco angel on the top that Liz had found at the church Christmas bazaar the previous week. Christmas was almost three weeks away, and she wasn’t feeling Christmassy at all, yet.

She thought back to the previous year and the flat in Balham, and how she and Meena had bought their tree from the dodgy man in the corner shop who also sold them illegal fireworks. They had gone after the pub, dragged it down the street, narrowly avoiding dog shit, and when it was back in the crowded, cold sitting room, they had lovingly festooned it with red, green and gold tinsel, some plastic lamps left over from Diwali, some gold bangles Tess had bought in Accessorize and a feather fascinator that Meena had worn to a wedding the previous summer perched on top of the tree. They had sat in silence, their arms round each other, drinking wine, and then Tess had gone to bed and cried all night: for all it was two months since she’d split up with Will, it was only that night she really realized it was over. She was leaving London, and she was moving away.

Tess shifted on the sofa, tucking her feet under her and gazing at the tree again. It was coming up for a year, now, since she’d moved back. What did she miss about London? Meena, definitely. The flat, with the bed with the loose spring that dug into her back, and the dog next door that howled in the night? No. Fair View, the optimistically named school where she’d taught? No. And yet—though it was unwelcome, Tess’s mind flashed back to earlier that day, as the Langford
college A level course poked around the ruins of the villa. Gerald, looking at his watch, had said, ‘Can’t believe this place got a Lottery grant. Bloody ridiculous.’