The Last Time I Saw You (9 page)

“Do you like dinosaurs?” she asks, with great seriousness.

“I adore them,” replies Jules firmly and I try not to look incredulous.

Madeline casually slips her hand into hers. “Let’s see the Tyrannosaurus rex,” she says, pulling Jules ahead as though she’s known her forever: she must be giving off some kind of motherly musk that intoxicates anyone who’s less than four feet tall.

“Let’s wait for Livvy,” she says, shrugging apologetically.

“Come along, Olivia,” says Madeline sternly.

“Yes, wait for me, I love the tyrannosaurus rex!” I cry, scuttling across the grand entrance hall after them.

We make our way around the museum in painstaking detail, learning about every spit and cough that came out of the dinosaurs’ enormous bodies. Jules oohs and aahs in all the right places, while I try and fail to look sufficiently fascinated. One of the fatal flaws to my character is that I either absolutely love things (Kate Bush’s back catalog, schnauzers) or hate them (beetroot, Justin Bieber). And also, maybe, I’m a tiny bit jealous that it’s Jules that she’s taken to with such enthusiasm. I couldn’t help but be flattered by the enthusiastic picture that William painted—I liked the sense of symmetry, the idea that some part of her might know that I had meant something to her mom when she was no more than a star in the sky. I feel idiotic now, like I’ve fallen prey to another attempt to try and make sense of something that is beyond the reach of sense. Right now Jules is perfecting her listening face as Madeline takes us in minute detail through the daily diet of the stegosaurus.

“So how do they know all that?” I ask.

“From their
droppings
,” says Madeline, with a despairing look at my utter stupidity. “Their droppings make fossils and the . . . and the sky-entists look inside them and then they know.”

There’s something very sweet about her mispronunciation, a rare moment of childishness, bringing into sharp relief how unnaturally poised she seems the rest of the time.

“Scientists,” I say, smiling down at her.

“I know, scientists,” she snaps, spinning back to the sign at the base of its enormous foot.

I look to Jules, out of my depth, and she gives me an encouraging smile, subtly stepping backward to give me space. “So tell us about how long they lived for,” I say,
trying to sound like I haven’t even noticed how cross she is, but she turns her body squarely toward Jules, and directs her answer to her. Definitely Sally’s daughter, I think, yet again, quietly admitting defeat. Madeline’s fit of pique lasts until the point when we get to the tyrannosaurus rex rulers, where she stops to make a thorough inspection. I grab Jules, who is soothing a grizzly Nathaniel.

“I think I need to go and feed him.”

“Yeah do, but Jules, I literally don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Oh you’d have been fine,” she says. “She’s just playing us off. There’s no way she’d have been so tricky if you’d been on your own.”

We look down at her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, rulers and erasers fanned out around her like a garish fence. She looks so incredibly alone, and yet I can’t bring myself to kneel down beside her and break into the bubble.

“Dunno, maybe I’m just rubbish. Nathaniel wailed his head off when I picked him up last week.”

“It’s just his age,” says Jules. “And don’t you go making out I’ve turned into some hellish earth-mother-baby-whisperer type. I’m a ball-breaking career woman. I’ve got a BlackBerry and I’m not afraid to use it, I’m . . .” She trails off. “Do you think we can have wine at lunch, or is that completely inappropriate?”

When Jules goes to find somewhere to feed the baby, I look over to Madeline, holding an eraser in each small hand, peering at them like it’s the hardest decision of her life, and my heart squeezes up in my chest. I walk over quickly before I can overthink it, gingerly kneeling down on the periphery of the stationery wall.

“Can I help you choose?”

“No thank you. I have chosen the velociraptor. They lived in the Jurassic age, but then there was a big explosion that made them all die.”

She’s holding on very tight to the velociraptor ruler, like she’s keeping it safe from any unexpected meteor catastrophes that might be about to strike.

“Tell you what, why don’t we get two? Maybe we could get an elephant or something, they’re not extinct.”

“No, they’re in the zoo,” she points out. “Mommy took me to see them. We went to our secret place and then we went to see the elephants.”

“What was your secret place?”

“Our secret place!” she says. “It was secret so I can’t tell you. Then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

“Was it Daddy’s secret place too?” I say, looking at her a little too intensely. There’s something about the way she says it that makes it feel like a real secret, not a child’s fantasy.

“No, Olivia. That is how a secret is made. You don’t tell anyone else. It’s me and Mommy’s secret. You don’t understand and you don’t know my mommy. I’d like the velociraptor, please. Thank you.”

Madeline runs off, without a backward glance, making sure I can’t pry anymore. William’s given her some spending money, and she stands on tiptoes at the desk, carefully laying down a five pound note while I hover behind, not wanting to force myself on her any more than I already have, pushing down the questions I’m desperate to ask.

With half an hour left to kill before William arrives and my anxiety levels reaching new heights, I’m incredibly relieved
to see a sign advertising a special filmed exhibit.
SEE
THE
DINOSAURS
LIVE
AND
3
D, it says.
WATCH
THEM
IN
THEIR
NATURAL
HABITAT
. We settle down into the comfy seats, and I immediately start thinking about work. I’m fretting about my presentation, wondering what the hell it is I’m missing, when one of those accursed stegosauruses jumps out of the darkness in all its 3D glory and looms toward me. From that point on I’m gripped: seeing those lumbering beasts moving around, thundering through their habitat, predatory and magnificent, suddenly stops the whole experience seeming dry and irrelevant and brings it to life. I turn to Madeline when the lights come up.

“That was great,” I say, then notice how sad and pensive she looks.

“I’d like my daddy now,” she says. “I’d like to see him.”

“He’s probably waiting for us outside.”

She nods, bottom lip quivering.

“Madeline, darling, what’s wrong?” I say, my heart going out to her.

“It was like the dinosaurs were alive,” she says.

“Was it too scary?” asks Jules.

“No, I’m not scared,” she says stoutly. “I don’t get scared.”

And I see it then, the unfairness of the fact that the dinosaurs could seem alive, even though they’re extinct, while her mom has disappeared without trace. It’s yet another reminder that Sally’s gone, that there are no miracles to be had. “They’re not really alive,” I say, trying to convey with my face what I can’t seem to convey in words—that I get it, that it seems unjustifiable and unimaginable to me too, even though I’m supposed to be a grown-up. “It’s like a film, like
Finding Nemo
or something. Nemo’s not real.”

“I know that,” she says wearily, sliding out of her seat. “I’m not a baby.” She stomps off down the aisle without a word, and I trail uselessly in her wake, watching her thin little frame cutting its way through the space in search of her father.

Jules links her arm through mine and I squeeze it hard, the steady rhythm of her blood pulsing through her veins feeling like the most precious of gifts.

CHAPTER SEVEN

William stands on the steps, tall and erect, gazing out into the middle distance. We’re following Madeline from a few paces behind—I hope he won’t think that we’ve simply abandoned her to her grief. “Daddy?” she says, and as he turns I see that proper smile again, that smile that makes him feel like he’s thinking only of you.

“Hello, darling, did you have a nice time?”

My body clenches in preparation for her telling him how useless I am, but she does nothing of the kind.

“Yes, in fact I did. The stegosaurus ate mostly like he was a vegetarian.”

“I see,” says William, smiling at me over her head. “And have you said thank you to Olivia and Julia?” he asks.

“There’s really no need,” I say hurriedly, “we enjoyed it, didn’t we, Jules?”

“Yes we did!” agrees Jules heartily, while she struggles with the folded up pram. William steps forward without
being asked and pulls it out for her. “I didn’t know anything about stegosauruses before today.”

“They are very interesting,” says Madeline solemnly, and I’m suddenly overcome by a desire to hug her, even though I know how unwelcome it would most likely be.

“Dinosaur investigation is hungry work, I’m sure,” says William. “You must be famished. Will the little one’s nap schedule allow for some lunch?”

“It’s his favorite meal of the day,” says Jules, and we set off.

We follow William through the wide streets of Kensington—the tall, gray houses looming over us like elderly dowager duchesses—until we finally reach a corner restaurant with big picture windows. Jules and I exchange an almost imperceptible glance, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. Our dad would never have taken us somewhere like this, not in a million years; on the rare occasions we went out to eat it was a pub lunch or perhaps a Pizza Express if he was feeling particularly ritzy and Continental. Madeline sails in, utterly unfazed by our surroundings, casually allowing a waiter to pull out a chair for her.

“I want you to sit next to me, please,” she says to Jules, and yet again I try not to feel crushed. I sneak a look at William, wondering whether he’ll think I’ve failed in some way, but even if he does, he doesn’t show so much as a flicker.

“Are you terribly Presbyterian about lunchtime drinking?” he asks.

“No, she definitely isn’t,” says Jules, ears pricking up, bat-like.

“Well that’s a relief,” laughs William, and just for a moment the whole situation feels normal—no, more than
normal, rather lovely—but then I remember what surrounds it and feel a sting of shame at my callousness.

“Wine would be fine,” I say, stiffness descending over me. It’s so hard to know how to be.

“Righto, I’ll order some white,” says William, effortlessly summoning a waiter. I study his profile as he efficiently scans the list: at times like this it feels like those unimpeachable manners cover every peak and trough of emotion like a heavy blanket of snow, giving everything a perfect, icy uniformity.

When the wine arrives we all cling on to our glasses, awkward, before Madeline thrusts her juice glass forward. “You’re meant to say cheers,” she says reproachfully and we do, the spell broken. Jules turns out to be my secret weapon. She acknowledges what’s happened, respects the context of why we’re here, but the fact she’s bonded with Madeline let’s some lightness in. She asks her questions and elicits more than monosyllables, even extracting a few giggles. It seems to allow William to drop his guard a bit, the table comfortably splitting down the middle.

“How’s the fight to the death with your arch nemesis going?” he asks, a smile playing around his lips. I’d forgotten that I’d even told him about Charlotte.

“Robot Girl? Disastrously,” I say, and his brow furrows. “Everything I come up with feels so ordinary. Flynn Gerrard’s a star. He’s going to want something that twinkles.”

Charlotte’s a star in her own tiny firmament too, twinkling out a harsh, artificial kind of light. Sally streaks across my consciousness, the biggest, shiniest star I knew at one time in my life. I sneak a look at William, wondering if he feels a tremor of her here between us. I should tell him what Madeline said, but I can’t do it here, in front of her. Perhaps I
should e-mail him, but the thought of delivering that ambiguous information in such an impersonal way feels somehow cruel. Maybe this is all my stuff, me arrogantly assuming that I know more than I do about his feelings, projecting my own complicated relationship with Sally onto his.

“Apologies if this sounds hideously patronizing, but do you care about it? The issue, I mean, as opposed to beating the princess of darkness?”

“What princess?” asks Madeline, ears pricking up. “Do you know a real princess?”

“Far from it,” says William. “Now eat up a bit more of your salad so you can have pudding.” He turns back, dark eyes burning into me.

“Of course. I feel like these women’s lives are defined by an accident of birth. They don’t know what they can achieve, because the world never shows them. There’s . . .” I try and find what it is I’m trying to express. “There’s no room for fate. It’s all preordained.”

“Or rather it’s all down to fate, but it’s a terrible one.”

“Yes. I suppose I think of fate as heralding something good.”

Sometimes I worry I put too much faith in fate, that it’s a cop-out.

“When you talk about it, I can feel your passion, and I don’t believe for a single second that Charlotte’s got that in her armory. It’s yours for the taking, I’m sure of it.” He looks at me, such belief in his face that it feels infectious. “When I’m writing a speech and it’s not coming, that’s what I do. Go back to the emotion of it, and then sprinkle the facts and figures over it right at the end.”

“But what if you don’t believe it?”

“Sorry?”

“If you don’t believe what you’re writing. If it’s not the truth.”

“It might not be my truth, but it’s someone’s truth,” he says, fiddling with the stem of his glass. “That’s what I’m looking for.”

Is truth really that fluid and unquantifiable? Surely our own truth has to remain our personal gold standard, even if we choose to ignore it or hide it in the moments where it’s too much to bear? Or maybe the very fact that we can do that proves the veracity of what he’s saying.

I look away, to Madeline—determinedly wrestling an untamable plume of spaghetti around her adult-sized fork—and think about her passion for those dinosaurs. She couldn’t convey it to me until I saw them moving, engaged with them as living beasts—that was when I realized that her seven-year-old self knew more than me about whether they were worth my notice.

“A print campaign is a waste of time,” I say. “There’s no way of making it stand out. You just end up with those awful, generic pictures of sad-looking Africans.”

“So?”

“A viral film that tells a story about how well it can go if someone gets the right support.”

“And the reverse too,” he says. “How disastrous your life can be if you make the wrong choices.”

I can see that sadness hovering there, ready to break over him if he were to let it. I give him a tentative smile, suddenly seized by an illogical, overwhelming desire to protect him—to keep him on the side of the light.

“How was it today?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

“It was . . .” He looks at me, almost helpless. “It had to be done,” he adds, facing it down.

He must have to keep finding that hardness, that grit, to get through everything that life is throwing at him, but at what cost? Is it not the softness, the moment of surrender, that allows you to heal? I remember what he said, about not having anyone to talk to. Will it be better or worse when he’s back in New York? I think of Mara and her elusive-feeling husband, his name escaping me, her promise that they would look after them when they returned. I truly hope that they’re up to the job. I need to step away for a moment.

“Will you excuse me? I’m just going to pop to the toilet.”

“So, what’s for pudding?” I ask Madeline, smiling brightly as I sit back down.

“Jules is having meringue islands and she says I can have some and I am having chocolate pudding, though Daddy says I might not like it because it’s hot, and if I don’t he’ll eat it all up.”

“So you can imagine what I’m hoping the verdict will be,” he says, looking at her fondly. “How about you? I’m thinking about jam roly-poly.”

“Are you getting in a bit of British stodge before you leave us?” I say.

It gives me a twinge, the idea that they’re going, although I’m not entirely sure why considering how briefly I’ve known them. I suppose there was a strange, complicated kind of intimacy to that evening we spent together at the Berkeley. The fortress around him feels so hard to penetrate: the fact that he let me pass, chose me to share his vulnerability, feels more precious than it would if he was the kind of person who emoted all over the place.

“I might come back,” pipes up Madeline.

“For holidays and things?” I say.

“No, to school.”

“What, like university?” says Jules. “That won’t be until you’re much bigger.”

“No,
school
,” repeats Madeline, frustrated. “Like in Malory Towers.”

“Boarding school,” I say, my eyes flicking to William. “It’d still be when you’re much bigger.”

“Daddy went when he was eight.”

My eyes flick round to William, appalled.

“But Daddy’s parents were probably just a drive away. Not a plane ride.”

William flicks a look back at me, his jaw set. There’s an awkward silence before Madeline speaks.

“I’m going to go and help Jules change Nathaniel’s diaper now.”

Once they’ve gone, William and I lock eyes.

“I take it you don’t approve,” he says.

“You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea,” I say. It’s none of my business, I know that, but in this precise moment it feels like it’s got everything to do with me. Life keeps reminding me that I never truly let Sally go—surely she would never have wanted this?

“She wants to go,” he says, his tone icy. “She’s talked of nothing else since she started reading those books.”

I imagine her there—that reserve solidifying and calcifying until it’s become her personality, a shell that’s as tough and intrinsic as a tortoise’s. Her beauty and her poise will assure her fear and admiration, but will they allow in real love? Of course William will love her, adore her even, but that love will prevent him from seeing how alone she is,
out there in the world, her wound buried too deep for her to even make the connection.

“Every little girl reads those books and thinks that’s what they want,” I snap. “They think it’ll be midnight feasts and jolly japes, but the reality is very different.”

“Did you board?”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“Then what on earth qualifies you to judge?” he snaps back, angrily signaling for the bill. I feel an illogical surge of fury as I watch him yanking his black Amex out of his pigskin wallet. There’s a sense of surety that his kind of upbringing gives you, when all the time it’s robbing you blind, denying you any perspective beyond the gold-plated blinkers that you’re not even conscious you’re wearing.

“Um, I don’t know, being a sentient being?”

I see him crumple, his righteous anger burning itself out.

“Trust me, it’s not much of a life for a little girl, me working the hours I do, no mother to come home to. It’s an easy flight, grandparents and cousins on tap. At least she’ll have a sense of her heritage.”

“You’re everything to her,” I say. “You mean far more than some abstract sense of Englishness.”

“I think you’ll find that was Sally,” he says softly.

Before I’ve got time to apologize for being so presumptuous we’re silenced by Madeline appearing at his elbow.

“Has my pudding arrived?” she asks.

“No my darling,” he says, stroking her face. “But I’m sure it will.”

We plow through our puddings, Jules’s easy banter with Madeline keeping the conversation afloat. I will time to slow itself, to give me time to rebuild a bridge between us, but Nathaniel needs to go home, and the moment of goodbye
comes all too soon. I risk a hug with Madeline, gratified to feel her small body press back against mine.

“Thank you for the dinosaurs,” she says.

“No, thank
you
. I enjoyed it. I never knew that stegosauruses were vegetarians.”

“You could go again on your own if you wanted to.”

“I’m going to wait until you come back,” I tell her. “It won’t be the same without you.” I look to William, but his face is implacable. “Do you think you will come back soonish?” I say, awkward.

“Right now it’s hard to predict,” he says, his tone neutral.

“I really hope you’ll be in touch when you are,” I say, trying to silently communicate how sorry I am that I overstepped the mark.

“I will,” he says, stepping forward for a hug that takes me completely off guard. “I’m very glad to have met you,” he adds, his words pitched low, lost somewhere in the mess of my hair. Again that strange sense of intimacy, an intimacy I can’t quite find a way to quantify—maybe that’s because it’s located in the silence, in the shadows that gather around what we’re prepared to express, an absence so loaded with meaning that it becomes a presence.

“We should go,” I say, suddenly needing to swim away from it. I grab Jules’s arm and we say our final goodbyes, pushing out into the blustery day and setting off for the tube.

I don’t speak for a couple of streets, glad to leave Jules to fuss over Nathaniel. That said, she only lasts five minutes.

“I really like him, Livvy.”

I can hear something in her voice that I’m not ready to hear. I wriggle my shoulders, aware how heavy the energy
felt between us, but also how disconcertingly weightless I feel now he’s gone.

“Yeah, he’s lovely.”

She pauses, weighing up her words.

“Don’t hate me for saying this, but men move quickly. They can’t handle the quiet.”

“Don’t! Just don’t,” I say, pulling ahead. The fact she’s even saying it feels scalding to me. She locks her arm through mine, pulls me into step with her as if we’re still little girls and she’s that tiny bit bigger. I put my hand on the pram’s handle next to hers, and look down at Nathaniel’s open, innocent face. “She’s barely cold in her grave.”