Laying the Ghost (19 page)

‘He could just phone you. That would be the simplest. You did give him …?’

‘Yes, of course I did! Landline
and
mobile.
And
email address. I’m open to all communication, me,’ Nell told Kate. ‘But who knows? Maybe there’s a good explanation. Like he’d rather eat chicken feathers than talk to me ever again.’

She felt weary, leading Kate through to the kitchen. It was as if having got the mail and the computer-checking out of the way, the day offered nothing more till after school time, when she had the non-blissful prospect of finishing dealing
with
Mimi. She might as well go back to bed, pull the duvet over her head and sleep all the day’s hours away. If she hadn’t got a living to earn she’d be very tempted.

‘Come on now, be rational,’ Kate told her. ‘It’s hardly been any time at all. Perhaps he’s away somewhere. If he lives alone and works at something arty, he can please himself, can’t he? He might be up a mountain getting inspiration from cloud formations or he might be in Australia, staring into the Indian Ocean and wondering how to get the colour of it right.’

‘I know, I know. I just wish I hadn’t started this. I mean, what am I hoping to achieve here? I’m just using it as an excuse not to get on with the rest of my life. It’s like some kind of obstacle I’ve put up, something to be climbed over before I move on and sort myself out. I don’t need it and it won’t change anything!’

‘You should have done it years ago,’ Kate told her firmly. ‘It’s clearly been an issue.’

‘Funny you should mention Australia, though,’ Nell said, measuring out coffee. ‘Patrick’s sister went to live there, not long after her wedding.’

And what a strange wedding that had been. On the surface it was the full works, the church, the flowers, the meringue dress, the big white limos, the marquee, the mother of the bride in classic feathery hat and a pale turquoise silky outfit. But there were, quite pointedly, no bridesmaids, and at the reception there was the sad spare
place
at the top table for the absent sister who was never mentioned. Patrick, until the moment he’d suddenly blazed back into life and dragged Nell into the orchard, had been determinedly drunk and in the morose mood from hell. The bride hadn’t thrown her bouquet to a jostling bunch of shrieky friends, either. She had simply walked away by herself and left it, without comment or ceremony, and as soon as the photos outside the church were over, on the little grave in the churchyard where the missing bridesmaid was buried: Patrick and Susannah’s five-year-old sister Catherine. And after that, without any further word, Susannah and her new husband had resumed their wedding-day jaw-breaker smiles and got on with enjoying the party.

‘You’re not on a diet, are you?’ Kate was now saying, opening a cupboard and pulling out a pack of dark Ryvitas. ‘No biscuits? Is this all you’ve got? You’re usually a reliably well-stocked house, especially in times of stress.’

‘It is, sorry. I really need to go and shop properly sometime. Mimi and I are living like students here at the moment, just grabbing food on the run. We tend to dig out whatever’s in the fridge, cook it up with onions and a load of tomatoes and sling it over some pasta.’ And such a lot of pasta, Nell thought guiltily. Pasta, porridge, roast chicken, anything with mashed potatoes – all you needed for inner comfort. She must come out of this zone, if only in the interests of maintaining her dress size. It was just
that
eating salad or broccoli or a slab of virtuous salmon – whatever you put with it – didn’t make you feel you’d been cuddled.

‘You’ve got to get past that one. She’ll get lardy and she’ll only blame you,’ Kate warned, patting her own very substantial hips. She pulled a Ryvita out of its pack and studied it closely, in case it had mould. ‘I could eat one with some jam on it …’ Kate was back in the cupboard, moving jars. ‘I’m always hungry – it’s that post-baby thing.’

‘Post-baby? Alvin’s nearly three!’

‘OK, I know, but if you consider how time goes faster when you’re older, then you have to think that three is the equivalent of six months to the average teenage mother. What’s this?’ Kate asked, pulling out a pile of envelopes.

‘Where? Oh … Those are some of Patrick’s letters. Shouldn’t be in there. I’m sure that isn’t where I left them.’

They were the ones he’d written when he was away with his family on a ski trip. No emails back then, no mobiles. He’d been bored in the evenings and had written to Nell every night, telling her how many infant-age French children had run over his skis, how much
vin chaud
he’d got through at lunchtime while listening to his parents bickering about whether they should risk going down the most dangerous black run.

‘They should be in here with the others,’ Nell said, opening a drawer and moving napkins and tea towels around. ‘I’ve got a box of them – I was looking at them the
other
day and was sure I’d put them back. I must have left these out on the table by the computer and Andréa moved them when she was cleaning.’

‘Just suppose,’ Kate said warily, ‘suppose he never does get in touch with you. Suppose he just ignores you because for him it’s all long, long over and not worth rehashing. What will you do then?’

Nell thought for a moment. ‘Well … seeing as according to my mother it was Patrick who was asking about me only a few years ago, I assumed he’d be OK about hearing from me. But … If he isn’t, well, then I’ll deal with that one when it happens. Or doesn’t happen.’

‘Oh good. And don’t give it too long. If he hasn’t got back to you by this time next week, just give up and forget it,’ Kate said. ‘But I hope you
do
get to meet up with him and he’s gone old and fat and bald and unattractive. Then you’ll feel like you’ve been set free to find a nice fresh new one, won’t you? You need a man without a whole trolley-load of ancient baggage. And look …’ She pointed at the side window where Ed was passing, on his way to Nell’s back door. ‘There’s one approaching now. What with this tasty neighbour and your safety-class man, you can’t say you aren’t spoiled for choice, can you? They’re like buses, men,’ she said, swiftly grabbing her bag and heading, with helpful tact, for the front door. ‘None around for years but when they do turn up they come along in convoy.’

* * *

‘I shouldn’t really be here,’ Nell told Ed as they went back into the Bull’s Head bar to get a drink at the interval. The John Horrocks Blues Band had played a vibrant first set and her ears were ringing. ‘Mimi is in disgrace and I should be at home glaring at her and making sure she remembers she’s in big trouble.’

‘If you’ve got a troublesome teen at home, the least you should do is make sure they see you going out to have some fun. When they’re grounded it really rubs it in! What do you fancy? Beer, wine? A vat of medicinal gin and easy on the tonic?’

‘Oh … definitely not gin; for me, that stuff is even worse than champagne for gloom and misery. Dry white would be good, thanks.’

The barman opened a bottle of Sauvignon and poured out two glasses. The place was busy – John Horrocks pulled a fair-sized, though not particularly young crowd. Nell was glad about this – she hadn’t made a huge effort with how she looked (plain black wrapover skirt, flat boots, deep rust cashmere and a selection of chunky necklaces), and was grateful not to be surrounded by hordes of sleek, skinny girls in baby-smock mini-dresses and with their endless legs on view. Luckily Ed wasn’t the sort who’d expect her to be in full-scale dress-up. As ever he looked comfortably dishevelled, very much in the style (or unconscious lack of it) of the laconic James May on
Top Gear
. She thought of Steve and the contrast
with
Ed: Action Man versus a well-scuffed teddy bear.

‘I haven’t actually grounded her,’ Nell admitted as they went to sit on a sofa on the far side of the bar. ‘I thought of keeping her in over next weekend, but that would definitely be one for the old ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you’ category. Going out tonight for a bit is one thing, but I wouldn’t be able to escape that whole forty-eight hours of watching her pull the moody from hell! And besides, I think she got the gist of the message: skiving school is a capital offence.’

‘Tamsin used to do it all the time. When the school eventually wrote to ask if the glandular fever was getting any better – something she hadn’t actually had, of course – she told me she couldn’t give a flying one and said she preferred being educated in the real world. She spent all her time in libraries, devouring books by the dozen, so I suppose she had a point. Not …’ and he laughed, ‘not that she was reading Dostoevsky or Milton or anything so edifying, but the amount of crime fiction she got through …’

‘That’ll be the “real world” she was learning about then, will it?’ Nell laughed.

‘OK – fair point! All the same, it’s stood her in good stead. She got a Silver Dagger award at only twenty-two and she’s working on a TV script – a pilot from her first book. If that goes well … who knows? Move over Lynda La Plante.’

‘So, for her skipping school was a canny career move. For Mimi, well, I can’t really fathom her. She said she went off to Bath by herself and admitted that she travelled without a ticket, but I think there must be more to it than that. If she was with a boy, why not say so? I’m not exactly the heaviest parent.’

‘They like their secrets,’ Ed said, smiling. ‘Teenage girls like diaries, confidences, whispered things. I bet you remember that.’

‘Teenage girls and middle-aged men.’ Nell knew she sounded bitter, but the thought of Alex and his many years of secret liaisons had come sharply to mind. Maybe Mimi would be like him, having to keep something back, having to live in her own head.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean to say that – this is an escape night.’

‘That’s OK – it’s not been long since you and Alex split. He’s bound to be on your mind.’

Nell looked at him carefully, trying to fathom what he was thinking. Why had he asked her out? It had sounded neighbourly and casual (‘Just wondered … if you’ve got nothing better to do …’) and of absolutely no real consequence at the time. Now she wondered, was there more to it than that? Kate would say there definitely
must
be. She’d say, why didn’t he just go to see this band by himself, or drag some workmate along? But then Kate was eager to pair her up with a new partner, to keep her friend
tidily
organized with a love life. Just for once, though, Nell thought, wasn’t it lovely to be out with someone of the opposite sex, without the remotest possibility of sex being something you had to consider?

The bar was emptying as the room at the back filled up for the band’s second set.

‘We don’t have to go back in, if you’d rather get back to Mimi,’ Ed told her, finishing his drink.

Nell hesitated for a moment. ‘Well, actually … I probably should go home. But you don’t have to if you’d rather stay – I can go by myself, no problem.’ She was thinking ahead here. If she went home alone, that would solve any potentially tricky problem about how to say goodnight. This was like being a teenager – would he kiss her? He never had, not even in an air-kiss polite greeting sense, so no, he almost certainly wouldn’t. God, why would he even want to? She was surprised to find herself thinking it wouldn’t be too unwelcome if he did want to, but she wasn’t up on the finer points of dating etiquette. Not that this was a date, not really … So much for having no thoughts in that direction. But then he only lived next door. If she was going to practise amorous arts for future use, she’d do better to sign up to some kind of agency and get through a few casuals who wouldn’t really count and were safely more distant, geographically. What a ridiculous train of thought! She picked up her bag and started to make a move.

‘I’ll come with you – I’m ready to go,’ Ed said, heading for the door with Nell. ‘Ooh, watch out …’ Nell had opened the door and walked straight into a stick that an incoming woman was wielding. A ski pole, for heaven’s sake – there’d only been two days of snow this winter. What on earth was she doing with it? Ed caught Nell’s arm and stopped her from crashing hard into the door frame.

The woman, limping (OK, so she had an injured foot. She wouldn’t be the only one if she wielded sticks around like that), and using the pole for support, stomped crossly – if unevenly – past Nell into the bar, ignoring her apology, followed by an equally bad-tempered-looking man, bulked up in a North Face quilted jacket.

‘They were a cheery pair,’ Ed laughed as they went out into the chill air. ‘Do you think she really hurt herself skiing? I bet she didn’t.’

Nell looked back at the pub. Through the window the woman was glaring at her as she leaned the pole against the bar at an angle guaranteed to trip up the next unlucky punter.

‘She’d like us to think so,’ Nell said, feeling cheerily malicious. ‘But I think she just fell off her front doorstep or something. You know,’ she said as the two of them walked along the road towards where Ed’s car was parked, ‘it’s funny round here, isn’t it? It’s so typically south-west London that if you need a walking stick for a while, a person would immediately look around their house and
pick
out a ski pole. Not an umbrella or a golf club. And can you imagine they might, say,’ and she giggled, ‘unscrew the mop head from a Vileda and use the stick?’

Ed laughed. ‘Certainly not! That would be far too downmarket! Imagine passing up a chance to be a show-off! Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s a gap in the traffic – we can cross here.’ He grabbed Nell’s hand and they crossed the road, which didn’t, Nell decided, feel at all strange, or challenging or problematic, merely friendly and perfectly normal. Just so long as he didn’t kiss her and complicate things. She really wasn’t ready to deal with anything like that.

11

Sweet Wine

(Cream)

‘I FELT A
bit iffy coming here tonight with this.’ As they walked into the candle-smoked Body and Soul studio, Abi opened her bag and showed Nell a big chunky hammer. ‘D’ya think that’s blunt enough to please Steve?’

‘I don’t know about pleasing Steve, but I’d have thought it was blunt enough to slaughter a rhino,’ Nell told her. ‘Can’t you get done for carrying something like that around?’