One Moment, One Morning (22 page)

*     *     *

It’s happened again, and on the train too. Floods of tears, without warning.

One minute Anna is functioning fine, reading the evening paper. She kept it together all through work, then had a chat with Bill, her colleague, as far as Haywards Heath, where he changes for Worthing – she even managed to talk to him about Simon a little, without breaking down. She got through Wivelsfield and Burgess Hill by focusing on the crossword.

But then, at Preston Park, the dam breaks. And she has no idea when the suddenly rising river of tears is going to stop, where it is headed, what damage and debris it is going to leave in its wake. To make matters worse, she is due at Karen’s in fifteen minutes. She doesn’t want Karen to see her like this. She’s even arranged to go on ahead of Lou so as to give them a little time together, the two of them. She
has
to be strong for Karen.

Anna gets off the train, eyes streaming. Though she is making no noise, she is conscious people are staring, but she is too distressed to worry what strangers think of her.

She turns right out of the station and up the hill, her vision blurred but she knows the way. She knows it is sadness about Simon but that doesn’t help: she feels
everything
is so bleak. She has a desperate yearning to be with someone; she can’t manage the upset on her own, she is so overwhelmed.

She has to go past her house en route to Karen’s, and it occurs to her that perhaps Steve will be home. He’ll have finished work, and what she needs right now is a hug – a great big hug that squeezes out all the tears, like wringing clothes in a mangle. Then, hopefully, she can go on to Karen’s, restored.

She turns the key in the door and calls down the hallway. But unlike the other night, when she came in to the smell of spaghetti Bolognese and words of comfort, she is greeted by silence.

She goes into the kitchen.

No Steve.

He is probably at the pub. For a moment she is angry, not sad, but then she is gripped by misery again, so she sits down at the kitchen table, doesn’t even take off her coat, and wails.

Now she is free to vocalize, she is almost scared by the force and depth of her anguish. It is as if she is crying herself inside out; she is roaring, the way a child roars, hiccuping. Presently, she is not crying for Simon and Karen and Molly and Luke, and Phyllis and Alan and everyone else; she is weeping for herself.

Anna always feels she has to be so strong and wise and funny and bright and right now she doesn’t feel any of those things. She feels weak and needy and vulnerable, and she wants someone to look after her. Yet simultaneously she has a strong sense of foreboding: she is conscious Simon’s death has cast a brutal light on her own circumstance and she is increasingly uncomfortable with what it has exposed. So, perversely, she decides to put her hunch to the test (it’s not as if she could feel any worse, after all), picks up her phone and dials.

After a few rings, he answers.

‘Steve?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, Anna.’ She can detect people talking in the background, laughter, music.

‘I know. Your silly little face comes up on my screen.’ At once she knows he is tipsy. Not drunk, not yet, but on the way. She can hear it in his voice: he is speaking too slowly, as if he is having to think more than usual about what he says. And the phrase ‘silly little face’ is not one he’d use sober. Her suspicions confirmed, she is furious.

‘Where are you?’

There is a pause. He knows she knows where he is: he doesn’t want to admit it, but he has no choice. Eventually he concedes. ‘The Charminster Arms.’ Their local.

‘Oh, right. How long have you been there?’

‘Not long, just got here.’ She knows he is lying. ‘Why? Where are you?’

‘At home.’

Another pause. Inebriated, information takes longer to penetrate. ‘But I thought you were going to Karen’s?’

‘I was, but I came home.’

‘Oh, why?’

‘I felt miserable.’ Might as well say it as it is. She wants to know how he’ll handle this information – she is challenging him.

‘Right.’

‘I thought you might give me a cuddle.’

‘I see.’

But he doesn’t see. He can’t. He won’t see anything straight, if he’s drinking. And once he’s started he won’t stop, so his cuddles will be worthless. They’ll come at a price – the risk of verbal abuse – and it’s not one Anna wants to pay.

Eventually . . . ‘Do you want me to come home?’ he offers. She knows he does not want to.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I will if you like.’ Again she hears slowness.

‘No, I’m fine.’ She is brisk. ‘I haven’t got time to wait for you. It was only if you were here – and you’re not. I’m late as it is. Don’t worry. I’ll see you later.’ Now all she wants to do is get him off the phone. ‘Bye.’ She snaps down the clamshell.

For a minute or two she sits staring at it, as it lies on the kitchen table.

She was right. Where, in these moments when she needs looking after,
is
Steve? Yes, he is there sometimes, but not now and by no means always. And, increasingly, sometimes is nowhere near good enough.

She’s exhausted by crying, and to compound that now she has to deal with her disappointment in him. Sometimes she wonders if being with Steve is against her better judgement: if her physical lust for him means she suppresses the fact he is bad for her emotionally, financially, and socially too, come to that. She knows deep down that several of her friends don’t approve of him, and that they worry about her. Karen and Simon have intimated as much; others are too tactful to say, but she can feel it. Like a cold draught from an open window, it might not be visible, but it fills the air nonetheless. She has edged away from those who make her feel most uncomfortable; others she sees without Steve because she enjoys herself more without silent disapproval weighing down the experience. Yet people perceive one another differently; a few of her friends get on well with Steve, too. Certainly one or two of her girlfriends have said they find him physically attractive. And whereas she senses some believe she could ‘do better’ than pair up with a handyman, others envy the fact that he’s several years her junior and can do useful work around the house.

It is all very complicated.

But she has no time to examine further: Karen will be worried about where she has got to, and Anna has arranged for her to meet Lou. The meeting was her idea; she can hardly bow out.

Anna gets to her feet. She makes herself look presentable again, and is soon on her way. As she nears the house, she senses Karen’s presence. She looks up. Karen is standing at the window, waiting. Anna forces a smile, waves, and increases her pace.

Karen’s house is on one of Brighton’s many hilly residential streets. On either side of the road, late Victorian terraces stagger up the gradient, tired-looking in the orange glow of street lamps. At the top is a pair of 1930s semi-detached houses. From the outside, they are not especially attractive, but Lou supposes they offer more space for the money because of it, and she knows Karen has children. There is a built-in garage at the front, so Lou has to go round the side to locate the main door. She locks her bike to a drainpipe and rings on the doorbell. Its ‘ding-dong’ reminds her of the ‘Avon calling’ ads from her childhood.

She hears voices inside and has a moment of trepidation. Lou has arranged to meet Anna here as she has been getting behind with writing up her session notes from the school, and doesn’t want to let her paperwork slip another week. She has such a full weekend planned that this evening after work was her only opportunity. It also seemed sensitive to allow Karen and Anna an hour or so alone before she arrived, rather than intruding on the children’s bedtime.

But now the encounter is upon her, Lou is anxious about exactly what’s expected of her, how she – if anyone – is going to help. It makes little difference that she’s a counsellor; she’s still unsure of how to speak to the bereaved, especially a woman who has lost someone so very dear so terribly recently.

Footsteps come towards her down the hall, the door opens. It’s Karen. She is dressed more casually than she was on the train that Monday morning, in faded jeans and a floaty top – but Lou recognizes her immediately. Her face seems different this evening, though: the appalled, frightened panic has diminished; instead her features are a picture of sadness. It is the same transformation that Lou noted in Anna the morning before, but a dozen times more marked.

‘Hello.’ Karen’s voice is soft, gentle. ‘You must be Lou.’

‘And you’re Karen.’

‘Yes.’

‘I wish we were meeting in happier circumstances.’

Karen gives a rueful laugh. ‘Me too. But come in, come in.’

Lou steps over the threshold into a square hallway. Obviously it’s a family home: there are pictures of the children in frames on the cream-painted walls; the coat rack is crammed with diminutive duffel coats, anoraks and scarves; on the parquet floor are several pairs of small boiled-sweet-coloured wellington boots and scuffed shoes, scattered higgledy-piggledy.

‘Ah, Lou, hi,’ says a familiar voice; it’s bolder, more confident, a contrast to Karen’s, and Anna comes through from the kitchen. Lou is relieved to see she has a glass in her hand.

Anna seems to pick up on the unspoken request. ‘Would you like some wine?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’ll get you some.’ Clearly Anna is at home here. Lou wonders exactly how long she and Karen have known each other, where precisely they met.

‘Dump your bag and come through,’ says Karen.

Lou does as she is told, hangs up her parka and follows them both into the kitchen.

The kitchen is a generously proportioned room divided by a breakfast bar. At the far end are built-in painted units, a cooker, a sink and French windows to the garden. It is dark outside but Lou guesses it is just a patio; near the city centre this is the norm. Directly in front of her is a large oak table, battered and scored by use, to her left a fridge-freezer. Children’s drawings are stuck with magnets to the top half; at child height magnet letters spell ‘luke’ and ‘dog’ and ‘apple’ in bright shades of plastic.

She’s just absorbing this when Karen says: ‘I remember you from the train.’

Lou is taken aback: in all the commotion, she hadn’t expected Karen to notice her.

‘Red or white?’ interrupts Anna.

Lou sees they are both drinking red. ‘Er . . .’

‘Have whichever you want,’ reassures Karen. ‘There’s plenty.’

‘I prefer white,’ she admits.

‘No problem,’ says Karen, and reaches past her into the fridge. ‘Sauvignon OK?’

‘Great.’ Lou is struck by how Karen is making her feel welcome, even with so much else on her mind. There are some people whose nature it is to look after others no matter what, she thinks. And others, like Lou’s mother, whose nature it is not to. In comparison, her mother’s hosting is self-conscious and showy. She pushes her resentment away. She is not here to think about her mother.

‘I didn’t think I would recognize you,’ says Karen. ‘But you were really helpful.’

‘Was I?’ Lou is touched.

‘Yes. I think you realized what was happening before anybody.’

‘Maybe. Everything occurred so fast.’

‘Yes.’

A couple of beats of silence. Lou is at a loss. ‘I’m sorry,’ is all she can muster. It seems hopelessly inadequate. She tries to recall her actions. She shouted, tried to get people to act swiftly; wasn’t that it? ‘I wish could have done more,’ she admits.

‘I wish I could have, too.’ Karen twists the stem of her glass. Then her voice drops, and she says in a whisper, but with real ferocity, ‘
God
, how I wish that!’

Anna moves closer to her friend, reaches out, puts one arm around her shoulder. ‘Sweetheart . . .’

Lou can feel such raw pain she is almost knocked sideways by it.

‘I should have tried to revive him.’ Karen closes her eyes, as if she’s looking inwards, examining her failing.

Lou has a rush of guilt: she didn’t try to save him either.

‘I don’t think you could have,’ says Anna, quietly.

‘But I’m his
wife
!’ Karen cries. It’s a fast track to her emotions, this conversation, and Lou has not been there five minutes. She’s used to outbursts from her students, but she feels involved in this so personally that she cannot be as distant as usual, and it shakes her. To emphasize what she means, Karen says, ‘I should have looked after him. That’s what wives should do . . .’ Her voice cracks. ‘He was always so good at looking after me.’

‘Yes, he was.’ Anna is wistful; once again Lou has the impression she is bereft of being fully cared for. ‘But you have been wonderful at looking after Simon, at looking after
everyone
, honey, including me. I can’t bear for you to feel you’re not. You’re one of life’s great looker-afterers.’

‘I’m sorry, Lou,’ Karen says suddenly, ‘you’re still standing. Please, do sit down.’

This illustrates Anna’s point exactly. Lou pulls a chair back from the table. ‘Thanks.’

‘Have you eaten?’ Karen reaches into one of the cupboards.