Made in Heaven (20 page)

She hung her head miserably, wanting to shout:
But I love you too. It's different. I can't breathe when you're near me. It's not the same
.

‘Then we shouldn't discuss it any further, Lydia. It's not fair on either of us. We'll just stay as we were, then. Friends?'

She was unable to think of anything to say, wondering why she felt so desperately unhappy when she had made the decision. He continued, ‘If I thought you were going to stop writing to me, I don't know what I'd do. Promise me at least that you'll go on writing to me.'

‘Every day. Every single day, I promise. And you must write to me, too'

‘I will. And maybe we could meet from time to time … we could have lunch? Tea?'

Joss had shaken her head. ‘I don't think I could, Gray. It would be too hard to … Well, I'd be so guilty. Churned up. I wouldn't be able to enjoy my time with you.'

‘So that's it, right? Is that what you're saying?'

‘What's that?'

‘Michael Drayton. A sonnet, that begins:
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part
.'

Gray smiled. ‘Is that what we're going to do? It hurts, Lydia. I have to tell you, I'm … well, I'm sick about it.'

‘So am I.'

‘You're not eating those delicious scones.'

‘I can't. I'm sorry.'

‘Let's go, then.'

As they left the café, Joss had glanced back at one particular ship: its long body upended into a jagged black diagonal on the triangular pale mass of the rock on which it was impaled. She shivered and followed Gray into the sunshine. On the way up to the house, before they were in sight of it, just as they were passing under the low-hanging branches of a tree, he pulled her to him and she fell against his body in a storm of tears. ‘Oh, Gray, what can I do? I want … It's so … ' The words she was struggling to speak wouldn't come out.

‘Tonight. Just tonight, Lydia. Please. If you spend the night with me, I'll never ask you for another thing ever again.'

She'd turned her face up to his and wound her arms round his neck. Yes, she said, over and over again and wondered whether he could hear her. Oh, yes …

The door of Isis's room opened and there was Zannah, outlined against the light.

‘You okay, Ma?' she whispered. ‘We're ready to eat, if you are.'

‘Fine,' Joss whispered back. ‘Just fell asleep for a moment. I'll be down soon.'

The door closed and Joss sat open-eyed in the dark, pulling herself together. Her mobile was downstairs in the kitchen. She wanted to send Gray a text now, this minute, telling him about the shortlisting. She could imagine his reaction. Instead she would try Bob again, after they'd finished eating. He was bound to be home by then.

On the way home on the train, Joss looked and looked again at the image she and Mal had chosen for the jacket and wondered whether she could send one of her six gratis copies to Gray. No, that would be madness. She was so thrilled with the book that she even looked forward to showing it to Bob. Would he have anything celebratory waiting for her? Perhaps he'd booked a table for a meal. Maybe the house would be full of flowers. There might even be a bottle of champagne in the fridge. It would be too much to hope for all three, but she found herself excited at the prospect of a treat.

‘Hello, darling! Where are you?' Joss said, as she let herself in.

‘Here, love,' said Bob, coming downstairs from his study. ‘Good journey?'

‘Not bad. How's everything here?'

‘Fine, fine … busy of course. When aren't I? Marking's a bugger as usual.'

Joss said, ‘Fancy a cup of tea? I'm going to make one.'

‘Good idea. You go and put your case away and I'll get the kettle on.'

Joss went upstairs and came down again. She made a pot of tea before she turned to him and, unable to bear the suspense any longer said, ‘Well?'

‘Well, what?'

‘You're not saying anything, Bob. Why's that?'

‘What on earth are you talking about?'

Sure enough, he looked quite bemused. His hair was sticking up. He'd been working and he always ran his hands through his hair when he was concentrating, focused on what he was doing.

‘I'm talking about my shortlisting … '

‘Oh, gosh, yes, that's terrific!' His puzzlement increased. Joss could tell by the deepening of his frown. ‘I told you it was terrific on the phone yesterday, when I spoke to you at Zannah's?'

‘So you did. I kind of expected … never mind. Anyway, this is it. The book.'

‘Oh, God, I'm sorry … I should have said something again. I'm really sorry … I'm preoccupied, you see. This looks fantastic, darling and I really, really hope you win. Any chance of that?'

Joss answered quickly, ‘Not much,' then asked what was preoccupying him. She wanted time to think. To unpick everything that was wrong with what he'd just said. With how he'd behaved when he'd picked up the book for about thirty seconds and given it no more than a cursory glance, and hadn't even commented on the picture on the cover. Preoccupied, she thought. That means: to the exclusion of something he must know is important to me. He hopes I win, but isn't sure I will and winning's the important thing. The implication being, I'll pay proper attention if you're a winner. He is clearly not interested in the book, nor in what's in it. Now he was talking on and on about going away. Perhaps the shadow of the conversation they'd had about Gray was still there in the back of his mind.

‘So I'll be away towards the end of September for two weeks. You'll be okay, won't you? I can't let this opportunity pass me by. Good connections for the future. Excellent prospects for more work.'

Joss nodded. He'd be in Egypt for two weeks, she'd
grasped that much. External examiner to some university in Cairo.

‘I'm tutoring a poetry course at Fairford for some of that,' she said. ‘That's five days I won't be at home.'

‘That's fine, then, isn't it? We'll both be busy at the same time. Right. Nice to have you back. Must go and do some more on my paper.'

He'd wandered out and left her on her own. I'm going to bed early, Joss told herself, and if I'm still awake when Bob comes to bed, I'll pretend I'm fast asleep. She knew he wouldn't wake her to make love. He'd never done that, in all the years they'd been married.

*

Next morning, after breakfast, Bob went straight to his study and Joss stood at her desk and read a few poems from
The Shipwreck Café
. Then she put the book down and stared at her laptop screen, wanting to write an email to Gray. She sent one instead to Maureen, assuring her that she had every intention of sorting out the stationery very soon. Joss imagined her opening her email, reading the message. Would she mention it to Gray? Oh, I had such a nice email from Joss … What would he think when he heard her say that?

The sun was out. Joss closed her laptop, and went to lie on the sunlounger in the shade of the laburnum tree in the back garden. Bob didn't even realize she was still sulking. That's the problem, she thought. It's not that he doesn't care, it's just that he's unaware of most of my feelings. And perhaps a fraction more withdrawn than usual since her confession about Gray. She looked round the garden. It was a small square of lawn edged by narrow borders containing nothing very remarkable: roses, honeysuckle growing against the high fence, and two mature camellia bushes, one white and one pink. In the spring, their flowers, thousands of them, filled her with pleasure, though it was always a shock to see how quickly the petals grew brown. Almost the very
first poem she'd ever written was about that:
This is a flower to tuck into your belt/or wind into your hair with satin bands/before the fire of growing in the world/has scorched the edges of the petals brown
.

The trees that drooped their branches over her fence and made patches of welcome shade belonged to the house adjoining theirs, but Joss regarded them as part of her own garden. They'd been able to afford this big house early on in Bob's academic career because even for those days, it had been very cheap. A property of this nature, the estate agent had explained, usually had far more land at the back, not to mention a garage. They'd managed to build a garage about ten years ago, but the garden had remained tiny. When the girls were small, a climbing-frame took up most of the lawn. Bob wasn't a gardener and this never bothered him. As for Joss, she felt as though Charlotte's garden, which had been part of her youth, part of her life, was still hers. That must be, she thought, why the idea of Zannah's wedding reception being held there gives me such a kick. Joss and Bob had not wanted a big wedding. They'd opted for a register office in Manchester, saving what little money they had for a few days in the Lake District. Charlotte had come up for the ceremony and a few friends were there too, but the occasion had been low-key. Now that Zannah was going in for the full works, Joss acknowledged that she was quite pleased to see Maureen's nose put out of joint about the venue. There was, though, something else: it would be as though Zannah was marrying from her mother's house, not the one she lived in today, but the one she used to live in, which could still make her feel nostalgic for a time when she was young, with nothing but possibilities before her.

*

Gray knew he would feel awkward talking to Adrian. He'd always had a problem with him, ever since he'd
first met and married Maureen. Even when Adrian was very young indeed, he had known exactly how to make Gray feel like an unwanted intruder. He'd been a spoilt toddler who'd grown into a spoilt child, and even though the rows they'd had throughout Adrian's adolescence were over long ago, even though Gray had to admit he'd become a reasonably okay adult, it was always difficult, even now, to know what to talk about, the kind of attitude to adopt, how to behave. He shuddered as he recalled a scene from Adrian's childhood that seemed to set a pattern for their relationship.

Maureen had gone out somewhere. Gray could no longer remember where. Jon was about five, which made Adrian seven. He'd worked out a plan for the day which involved taking the boys to the park for a kickabout with a football, followed by a session in the playground on the brightly coloured equipment that always seemed to be swarming with kids.

‘I don't need you to push me,' Adrian said on the swings, so Gray had turned to Jon. When they reached the roundabout, Adrian leaped on it and refused to move over so that his brother could sit next to him. ‘Get off,' he'd screamed at Jon. ‘No little kids on here.' As if to emphasize his point, he'd spread out his legs as wide as they would go. The girl sitting next to him moved up, clearly scared. Adrian could look very threatening for a small child. He glowered at Gray and stuck out his tongue.

Even now, he could remember how furious he'd felt and what hard work it had been to keep his voice even and pleasant. He said, ‘I'm not asking you, Adrian. I'm telling you. Make room for your brother or you're off that roundabout and we're going home.'

‘Get stuffed!' Adrian screamed. No one looking at them would have seen it like that, but he knew how nearly he'd lost it, how close he was to grabbing the boy by both legs and pulling him forcibly off the turning
roundabout. He managed to control himself sufficiently to stop the bloody thing going round, then reached out and picked the boy up under his arm, as though he were no more than a baby. Adrian started to shriek. Gray shouted, ‘SHUT UP! I've had quite enough of you for one day. We're going home.' He found he couldn't breathe properly. Jon was clinging to his legs, frightened by his brother's screams.

Adrian managed to keep screaming all the way home. Maureen came out to meet them, looking as though Gray had taken her beloved son and cut him up into small pieces.

‘Mummy! Mummy! He hurt me. He wouldn't let me … My arms hurt. He hurt me. He's horrible. I hate him. Send him away.'

Perhaps he had hurt the boy. Perhaps he hadn't been as gentle as he ought to have been. Later on, he'd explained everything to Maureen, but he could see that, in her heart of hearts, she believed her son's version of events. Nowadays, when they met, Maureen was like a kind of buffer between them, but one to one … that was different. Gray was quite sure that the shadow of that tantrum and many others even worse fell over them every time they met.

Gray had no clear idea of why today's meeting was strictly necessary, but he'd been nagged into accompanying Maureen to town. She'd persuaded him to take one of the days off work that were owed to him and he wondered whether he'd agreed partly out of guilt. Perhaps he'd fallen in with her plans without much of a struggle because he knew that his heart and attention weren't with his wife, but with Lydia.

While Maureen was having her hair done, her son and her husband were supposed to air … Gray wasn't quite sure what they were supposed to air, but he knew Maureen was concerned that Adrian shouldn't feel left out of the wedding preparations. Also, she'd
mentioned Isis. Gray had been so shocked to see Lydia in Charlotte Parrish's house that he hadn't properly registered Zannah's daughter, but she'd seemed a nice enough child.

‘Hello, Doc,' said Adrian. ‘Been waiting long?'

‘No, no, not long at all. Can I get you something?'

‘Stella, please. God, it's hot, isn't it?'

‘Stifling. You okay out here, or would you rather go inside?'Gray had taken a table under an awning in the pub's garden. It wasn't his kind of pub. Too trendily done up and full of braying young people, but the garden was pleasant and it was convenient for Adrian's work.