The Lover Page 4

  Frances rammed the rest of the flowers into the metal vase, overcome with weary despair that grief could be triggered by such an enduring cause for annoyance. Feeling the familiar onrush of yet more tears, she dropped her face into her hands.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done.’

  Frances remained on her knees in the sodden ground, shaking her head and waving the owner of the voice away. Glimpsing green anorak out of the corner of her eye, she waved even harder.

  ‘Death is a bastard,’ remarked Joseph Brackman, before turning and walking away.

  When she was sure he had gone, Frances blew her nose and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. Before rejoining the road, she checked up and down it, tightening the knot of her headscarf nervously. Once she got back onto the bridlepath, she found herself squinting in the direction of the red-tiled roof of the Brackmans’ cottage, poking out from amongst a clump of trees in the stretch of land beyond the river. It had once been a railway station and in the area surrounding it there still lay half buried sections of old line and rusting pieces of machinery. Local gossip had it that the house was as dilapidated as the track it had once served, that the council rented it out for a pittance to the penurious Brackmans in order to save themselves the bother of expense and renovation.

  A couple of years after their move from London Frances discovered that Daisy and Felix had been sneaking over the footbridge that led towards the old railway in order to play spying games round the threadbare hedges marking the boundary of the Brackmans’ garden. In the pocket of her daughter’s dungarees she had found a notebook inscribed with the words, Watching witches, which contained a few disjointed jottings about the comings and goings of Mrs Brackman. She had scolded both children severely, trying to impress upon them the importance of respecting other lives, no matter how strange. While in her heart she sympathised with their fascination, nursing her own apprehensions about a man who elected to live with his mother until middle age, a man who wore open-toed sandals in winter and who kept his face permanently hidden in the lee of an anorak hood.

  Having longed to get home, Frances found herself hesitating with the front-door key, dreading the emptiness awaiting her inside. As she pushed the door open her eye was caught by something in the milk-bottle rack. Bending down she saw that it was a jar of homemade jam, with a small square of checked cloth for a lid, and a label saying, ’97 Brackman. Frances picked it up with a groan of reluctance, resenting the sense of obligation such an unwarranted gift placed upon her. In a bid to bury such feelings, she hurried into the kitchen and threw the offending item into the rubbish bin. The only person ever to eat jam had been Paul, she reminded herself; Daisy was too weight conscious and Felix preferred peanut butter. A few moments later however, overcome with shame at her own mean-spiritedness, she was scrabbling desperately among the food scraps and soggy tea bags in order to fish it out again. Cursing under her breath, she wiped the glass clean and wedged the jar at the very back of the larder shelf, between an unopened bag of flour and some gravy powder which she never used but could not bring herself to throw away.

  Chilled from her walk and disinclined to do battle either with the half-hearted performance of the central heating system or the maze of answering machines representing British Gas, Frances ran herself a bath. She lay in the water for a long time, staring at the pale curves and dips of her body, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of physical isolation. The cold tap was dripping slightly as it always did; she watched each silver dribble of water form and fall, heard the sound of each small splash echo through the silence. She remembered Paul’s large, comforting hands, the dry warmth of them on her skin. The frequency with which they had made love had dwindled over the years, but not the tenderness. Sinking lower into the water, Frances hugged herself, too desolate suddenly to cry, missing not sex, but the memory of being held, of feeling her husband’s broad arms around her, moving with the rise and fall of her breath.

  At the sound of the doorbell her first instinct was to slip deeper into the water. When it rang a second time she put her fingers in her ears and closed her eyes. The prospect of stumbling to the door in a wet dressing gown was inconceivable. Coping widows did not seek mid-morning solace in hot baths. After a couple more minutes however, weary curiosity got the better of her. Wrapping herself in a towel, she tiptoed into her bedroom, approaching the window from a side angle, sliding along the wall like a thief. The drive was empty. The only signs of life were tyre-marks in the gravel and the branches of the trees bucking in the wind. Stepping into full view, Frances stood looking out for a long time, hugging herself against the cold air, feeling somehow disappointed and yet bewildered at being so.

  Chapter Five

  Sally folded Felix’s letter in half and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket next to the dog lead. In an attempt to justify her recent rekindling of commitment to the ancient family pet (Sheba had reached the age where she could go for days without the necessity of anything more strenuous than a stroll round the garden), Sally had lately enquired whether she might receive payment for domestic chores. Both parents had eyed each other in surprise, so clearly torn between snorting in amazement and offering some goofy form of encouragement that Sally had nearly laughed out loud at their pathetic transparency. They had settled upon three pounds per every hour of labour. Sweat-shop terms by any standards, but worth it, both for the extra cash and the freedom it gave for sloping out of the house after school without being subjected to interrogation.

  It had been so muddy on Sally’s previous visit to the bridge that on this occasion she took the precaution of smuggling out two black rubbish sacks from the cupboard under the kitchen sink. After tearing them open, she spread them out as an under-sheet for Felix’s tartan rug. The dampness still seeped in, but only round the edges and in the odd unprotected patch in the middle. It was still a comfort to lie on it, to bury her nose in the bristly wool and imagine she could still smell Felix’s skin and the faintly acrid aroma of the opaque liquid they produced between them.

  Banned from curling up on such hallowed property, Sheba retreated to a dryish spot near the wall, whimpering feebly to herself. Ignoring her charge, Sally took the letter out of her pocket and pressed it flat. It was only the second one she had received. Two letters in four weeks. A starvation diet of comfort. Phoning her at home was out of the question because it would get suspicions up.

  Dear Sal,

  How are you doing? Sorry I haven’t written for a while but life is incredibly busy. The work load is really building up now – beginning to piss me off, as there are so many other things I want to do…

  Sally had to resist the temptation to skim the next paragraph. There would be nuggets of affection, there always were. Just never enough of them.

  Jerry, the guy in the room next to me turns out to be not such a geek after all. As he’s on the same course we’ve got this work-sharing deal going, which is quite useful. It’s his birthday tomorrow and he’s having a sort of party downstairs in the dive they call a bar. I am going to go, but have rugby training first…

  Sally skim-read these details with a sinking heart. Telling herself that parties were a normal part of student life did not prevent her feeling threatened. By the end of the paragraph it seemed a serious miracle that Felix had bothered writing to her at all.

  Of course all this would be a hell of a lot nicer if you could be here to share some of it with me. God, I miss your…’ An adjective had been scratched out and replaced by fit. Sally tried hard to see what his first choice had been. It looked like brilliant but she couldn’t be sure. She frowned, continuing to read more slowly now, savouring every word…. body. How is our secret space? Still warm and dry? When you go there do you think of me and all the things we did? Sometimes I still can’t believe we have actually got together. God, I wish you were here right this second, just to grab hold of. The thought of it is turning me on so much I can hardly write…’

  Sally rolled over onto her back, kicking her
legs in the air with yelps of joy that made Sheba prick up her ears with suspicion. ‘He loves me, you old pooch. He loves me to bits.’

  ‘I guess I’d better stop before I get myself in a worse state than I am already. If you can get to a telephone on Saturday night – let’s say six o’clock – I’ll be waiting at this number – 01458 356798 – for fifteen minutes.

  Hope you are surviving.

  Love Felix.

  At the sight of the last two words Sally could not help feeling a little deflated. He could have said, All my love, or, lots of love at the very least. Just the single love sounded muted somehow, especially since she had ended her last communication, tons of love forever. She re-read the best paragraph to reassure herself and then reached for some cigarettes and matches wedged into a gap in the wall. The matchbox was so damp that when she tried to strike it the whole thing caved in, spilling matchsticks all over the rug. Giving up, Sally pulled herself into a cross-legged position and stared out at the arch of countryside framed by the bridge over her head. A slice of white wintry sky was already yielding its insipid light to the pull of dusk, robbing the fields of their verdure and leaving only brown and grey. The river water, swollen to the tips of its banks, looked black and forbidding. Feeling disheartened, Sally shifted her gaze to the pair of weeping willows on the bend of the river, their branches sweeping the surface of the water with the grace of dancers’ arms. Once, on a warm August evening, Felix had pulled her behind the trailing curtains of leaves and kissed her up against one of the trunks, pushing so hard that she could feel the ridges of bark pressing into her back. Remembering the sweet perfection of the moment, Sally experienced a wave of despair that it should already feel so distant and unreachable, lost in the long shadow cast by the milestone of Paul Copeland’s sudden death and the hateful necessity of Felix leaving home.

  Sighing deeply, she carefully folded away the rug and bits of plastic bag and tugged at Sheba who had fallen asleep. Having checked for the sound of approaching cars, she led the way out of the hideout and up the bank to the roadside. On reaching the tarmac, her eye was caught by a figure moving on the opposite side of the river behind the willow trees. Worried at the possibility of having been seen emerging from under the bridge, Sally paused to see who it was. It took her a moment or two to recognise Mrs Brackman, not because of the failing light or yards separating them, but because the old lady looked so different from Sally’s last glimpse of her in Leybourne high street the year before. Instead of the neat Mrs Pepperpot bun, her hair hung in a loose, wild cloud around her face. Although it was cold, she wore what looked like a nightie and slipper-like shoes. Sally could see the veins in her calves, gnarled and twisting like the roots of an old tree. Her first instinct was to run. But something about the obvious distraction of the old woman got the better of her.

  ‘Mrs Brackman, are you all right?’ She walked briskly over the bridge, waving with her free hand.

  For a moment the old lady looked panic stricken. She turned in little circles, examining the ground and sky to establish the whereabouts of the voice.

  ‘I’m over here.’ Sally waved again, but with less conviction.

  On spotting her finally, Mrs Brackman waved both arms and beamed. ‘I’m going home,’ she called. ‘Am I late?’ she added anxiously, the smile dissolving.

  Sally was just pondering how to respond, when Joseph Brackman appeared at a jog from round the bend in the river. At the sight of him, his mother began hurrying in the direction of the road, leaving the path and wading through the long grass covering the steep bank up to where Sally stood. She came to a halt at the bottom of the slope, staring morosely at the clumps of brambles and bracken blocking her way.

  ‘Am I late?’ she said again, more urgently this time, piercing Sally’s gaze with her black eyes.

  ‘No, you’re fine. Not late at all.’

  By the time her son joined her she had become dazed and submissive. When he took her arm she began nodding and then seemed to try to bend down to search in the grass for something, plucking at the long stems with her veiny hands.

  ‘Thank you,’ Joseph Brackman called up to Sally, trying to steer his mother back towards the path.

  ‘But I didn’t do anything,’ muttered Sally, thinking suddenly what a pitiful pair they looked, shuffling along the riverside in the gathering dark. ‘Can I help at all?’

  ‘No. We’re fine.’ He raised one arm but did not look back.

  When Sally got home her mother remarked that she had been a long time.

  ‘I met the Brackmans.’

  ‘The Brackmans?’

  ‘The old lady looked really sad and weird, like she’d gone wandering and forgotten to get dressed. He had come looking for her. He didn’t have a hat on and you could see this massive scar across his forehead. It’s utterly repulsive. By the way, do I get money job by job or at the end of the week?’

  Libby laughed, relieved after several tense weeks, to see some small evidence of natural cheeriness return to her youngest daughter. Beth was a much easier proposition as a teenager, not nearly so moody and sharing her uncertainties instead of bottling them inside. There had been an independence about Sally right from the start, a blessing for a mother of four young children, but less easy to accommodate now that she was growing up. Sometimes Libby wondered if it was all her fault, whether Sally’s willfulness and introversion arose not from her allotment of genes so much as from having been sandwiched in the middle of her siblings. She had barely established a niche for herself before her younger brother stormed into the world, edging her out with his hollering and charm, for many months reducing the entire family to a state of exhausted exasperation.

  ‘I’ll keep a tally and pay you every Friday, like a salary. How does that sound? So long as you don’t always choose the ironing pile over your homework. Talking of which…’ Libby looked pointedly at the kitchen clock.

  ‘I’m going, I’m going.’ Sally retrieved her satchel and disappeared up to her room. Having locked the door, she lit two joss sticks and embarked on a long letter to Felix, telling him, among other things, that Mrs Brackman might know of their hideout, but it didn’t matter because she was clearly mad.

  Chapter Six

  When Libby marked the eight-week anniversary of Paul’s death with an invitation to the cinema, Frances felt compelled to accept. Not simply because she knew she could not avoid friends forever, but because trying to appear capable of normal activities was a less daunting prospect than owning up to the fact that she appeared to have lost not only a husband, but her own personality. Almost two months on and the blankness of grief was, if anything, worse. Apathy continued to grip her like a disease. There was nothing she wished to do, no one she wanted to meet. Her doodled list of people to contact was long since covered in the ring stains from mugs of tea she did not drink. The radiators were still lukewarm and bubbling with air, the lawyers still waiting for her to confirm a date for their meeting, the vicar still unvisited. If the phone rang, she could not always bring herself to answer it. Sometimes Frances truly believed that her only motive for managing anything was the thread of guilt running through the lethargy, the self-disgust at how she was allowing all the props of everyday life to crumble away.

  In spite of Libby’s kind offers to pick her up, Frances had insisted she would drive to the Taverners’ and go on with them from there. Apart from anything else, she was increasingly anxious to keep prying eyes away from the creeping chaos invading her home. Worse than house dust and kitchen grime was the state of the garden, where the plants seemed to sprawl with the surly look of creatures who knew no fear of chastisement. Frances had reached the point where she hardly dared to venture outside, dreading the way the long grass would close round her shoes and the trailing branches snag in her clothes. All that remained of Paul’s grass clippings was a shrivelled pile of brown sludge, a spot he would have long since cleared for one of his beloved bonfires. The previous year he had completed all his pruning in time for Guy Fawkes
. The Taverners had come, with three of the children and a large box of fireworks. Frances had grilled sausages and chicken drumsticks while Paul poured drinks and conducted a muted argument with Felix as to who would be in charge of the pyrotechnics. You’re treating him like a child, she had wanted to say, but didn’t, because of the guests and the certain knowledge that criticism made her husband dig his heels in. To compound matters, Paul saw fit to intervene when Felix reached for a second bottle of beer, declaring loudly that preparation for mock A levels would not be improved by a headache. Even the memory of it made Frances’s face burn on her son’s behalf. Annoyed and frustrated, she had busied herself with the ice-cream scoop, avoiding Paul’s eye as he tried to ensnare her support. A bad evening. But, looking back, Frances found herself missing the friction. She realised now that such tensions had helped to define her, had given her something to push against and feel alive.

  Backing the car out of the garage she suddenly noticed that some ivy had somehow wormed its way through a crack in the wall. A robust trailing green stem was snaking its way down towards a shelf of old paint pots. Leaving the engine running she leapt out of the car and seized the stem, tugging downwards, winding it round and round her hand till her fingers hurt. When it snapped at last, she looked up to see the small green stub she had created, bobbing insolently and vigorously at the entrance to the crack, in no way incapacitated from making a second descent. A sense of powerlessness flooded through her; so overwhelming, so draining, that it was several minutes before she staggered back to the car, groping for the steering wheel and seat like a blind woman.