The Lover Read online

  In spite of careful screening beforehand, Libby was dismayed to find that her selection from the wide range of films on offer at the Hexford multiplex contained several deaths and one funeral. Even within the safe confines of romantic comedy in which these scenarios were enacted, she found herself cringing in the dark on Frances’s behalf, wondering whether to have a stab at some lighthearted comment or to leave her alone. That Frances did feel mildly uncomfortable arose simply from the fact of being part of a threesome. She hadn’t sat in a cinema as an appendage to a couple since her early teens, when Carol bribed her to act as camouflage for an unpromising liaison with a creature with long limp hair and guitars tattooed onto his forearms. Frances had hunched all her thirteen-year-old self-consciousness down into her seat, seeking solace in an enormous box of popcorn, chewing noisily in a show of nonchalance for the rustling intimacies taking place alongside.

  ‘I thought it was rather fun,’ declared Libby, as they walked towards the restaurant, the edge of defiance in her tone bearing testimony both to her concerns about Frances and marital tensions arising from a prolonged altercation with a new layout in Hexford’s intricate one-way system.

  ‘Great fun,’ murmured Frances, whose own general unease had not been alleviated by the in-car sniping following their departure from the cinema. It was painfully apparent that Alistair’s participation in the evening was under sufferance. The fatigue-gullies under his eyes looked particularly ragged and there was one moment in the film when she was sure Libby had nudged him awake.

  ‘Look, we don’t have to eat,’ she ventured, ‘I mean, I’m not saying I don’t want to, but it is very late and you must be tired…’

  ‘Of course we must eat. I’m starving and so is Alistair, which is why he’s being so grumpy.’

  As a precaution against treading on the toes of happier times, Libby had jettisoned all tried and trusted late dinner haunts in favour of a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of Hexford called The Green Garden. When they eventually located both the restaurant and a parking slot she had made a deliberate point of hanging back to walk with Frances, leaving her husband to stride on ahead alone.

  ‘A lot of fun,’ repeated Libby determinedly, eyeing Frances’s bent head over the top of her menu and gloomily thinking that the funeral of the father-in-law in the film had been a shade too close to the bone. Under the reddish gleam of the Chinese lanterns she was struck in the same instant by the quiet, yet striking quality of her friend’s looks. If anything, suffering seemed to have lent a new edge to Frances’s appearance. Even the pallor of her face suited her, giving an almost translucent look to her skin. She had lost weight too, drawing attention to the fine structure of her cheekbones and the roundness of her eyes. Her hair, freshly washed for the evening, looked thick and shining. She had swept it back off her face into a loose ponytail that complemented the dense layering of colour – honey, brown and an almost lemony fairness that would take many years to reveal any evidence of grey. In spite of her friend’s unenviable circumstances, this last observation caused Libby, who had already given up the battle to hide the steely streaks in her own mousy brown hair, to release a small sigh of injustice at so glaringly an uneven a distribution of natural assets between women of equal age.

  ‘It was a clever plot,’ announced Frances, aware that her silence was failing Libby and wanting to make up for it. ‘Just the right balance of comedy and seriousness. I like films that do that – pull you in opposite directions…’ she tailed off, not preoccupied with morose thoughts about death or burying loved ones, as her companions feared, but the comic way in which the seventy-year-old wife of the father-in-law had thrown herself into being single again: Salsa lessons, mini-skirts and cordon bleu. Safely distant from Frances’s own circumstances, it had made her smile in the dark and wonder whether she had judged her own mother too harshly after all.

  ‘All I want is egg fried rice and duck in plum sauce,’ announced Alistair, closing his menu.

  ‘But we’re all going to share each other’s food,’ began Libby.

  ‘I don’t want anyone else’s food. I want duck in plum sauce.’

  ‘But Alistair,’ persisted Libby wearily, ‘that’s the whole point of Chinese, everybody trying bits of everything, and anyway, perhaps Frances wants plain rice – I’m not mad about the fried kind myself, as you know—’

  ‘Well, you girls order plain rice then.’ Alistair offered a tight smile across the table.

  ‘I’ll eat anything,’ responded Frances hastily. ‘Any rice and…’ She picked a number at random from the long list of main courses, ‘number twenty six, prawns with ginger and spring onion.’

  ‘So how are you?’ blurted Libby earnestly, once the atmosphere at the table had been lightened by the arrival of a bottle of wine.

  ‘So-so…keeping busy, you know…’ Frances took a sip from her glass, wondering what the Taverners’ reaction would have been if she had confessed to the squalor and slothdom that was invading her life, the contradictory longing and abhorrence of company, her leaden sensibilities, her utter idleness.

  ‘Too busy to see me, that’s for sure – it’s been weeks. I’ve felt positively rejected, haven’t I Alistair?’ She cast a quick look at her husband who delivered a grave nod of agreement. ‘So tell us what you’ve been up to – that charity of yours, did you say?’

  ‘Yes…mostly paperwork…’ faltered Frances, inwardly justifying the lie by thinking that the letter formally withdrawing her services had at least involved paper.

  ‘You always say they’re frantic in the run-up to Christmas—’

  ‘God, Christmas,’ groaned Alistair, whose concentration had drifted somewhat from the theme of the conversation, ‘what a hideous thought.’

  ‘We’d love you and the children to spend it with us,’ put in Libby, ‘no need to answer now, but think about it, won’t you?’ Frances nodded, her heart twisting at the thought of going through the rituals without Paul’s determined enthusiasm to back them all up. ‘That’s very kind, Libby – kind of both of you – I will think about it, I promise…’ She broke off at the arrival of their food, delivered by an oriental doll of a waitress with black button eyes and a thick curtain of blue-jet hair.

  Unsure whether the dishes were over-salted or whether it was just her mood, Frances had to make a conscious effort to eat with relish. Absorbed thus in managing her own emotions, it was something of a shock to look up and see Libby dabbing fiercely at her eyes with her napkin. ‘Sorry…sorry,’ she gasped, ‘everything’s just so hateful at the moment…I can’t help wanting to cheer you up even though I know it’s pointless, but that’s just me, wanting to cheer everybody up, even Alistair when he’s being foul, like tonight –’

  Alistair, clearly torn between indignation and the responsibility of offering sympathy, withdrew the arm he had laid across his wife’s back and then replaced it, giving Frances a shrug of helpless apology.

  ‘– and like Sally who’s being utterly impossible…

  As Libby weepily continued to spill out her grievances, Frances was tempted to reach across her plate of oily prawns and give her a hug of gratitude. It was such a wonderful relief not to be the prime focus of concern, to see glimpses of troubles from some aspect other than her own. She squeezed Libby’s arm instead and handed her a glass of water. ‘You poor thing…so much on your plate and trying to sort me out too.

  I know I’ve been making it hard for you. It’s hard for me, harder than I could ever have imagined, but the last thing I want is to bring you down with me. You’re right, you can’t cheer me up, so please stop trying. Although I’m deeply grateful, I do think I need to work things out on my own. In fact, I think a big part of my problem – as well as missing Paul of course – is that I have never had to work things out on my own in my life before. I let Paul run things, which was what I wanted, but now I’m paying the price. And don’t worry about Sally. Remember all the trouble we had with Daisy during her early teens? But she came through in one piece
…well, with an almost normal appetite and a couple of A levels anyway. Claude might not be the creature either Paul or I would have chosen as a lifelong partner, but she’s at least making her own way, her own decisions. You just had an abnormally easy ride with Beth. And the boys are a piece of cake, but then I think boys are, generally. They blow hot and cold, but at least you know where you are. Felix didn’t talk to us for six days once, communicated entirely with hand signals. In the end we had to admire his tenacity…’ She broke off, aware that Libby was smiling instead of crying and that she had just delivered more uninterrupted sentences than she had managed in over two months.

  The rest of the meal was easier and the drive back to Leybourne managed in companionable silence. They said their farewells with renewed and relaxed fondness, hugging in the beams of light cast from the Taverners’ sitting-room windows.

  ‘See what I mean?’ muttered Libby, as Frances groped in her bag for her car keys. She pointed out the figure of her youngest daughter, framed in the window, curled up in an armchair in front of the television. ‘The deal was bed by ten. Any normal child would be scrambling for the stairs, at least pretending they had obeyed orders.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Midnight, and God knows what trash she’s watching. You’d better talk to her Alistair. I’ll only shout and make it worse.’

  They stood side by side on the doorstep while Frances backed out of the drive, both waving and watching her departure with such vigilance that Frances found herself feeling an unforgivable stab of empathy for the tribulations of their wayward third child. It was only as the lights of the farmhouse receded in her rear-view mirror, that the old fearful emptiness returned. She drove slowly, thinking of the contrasting darkness of her own home, devoid now of any emotions other than those she alone brought into it.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning Frances woke early as usual. Outside a raucous chorus of birds was celebrating the recent arrival of the sun. Pulling one of the pillows from Paul’s side of the bed over her head, she closed her eyes, settling down to the interminable wait for the hands of the alarm clock to edge towards a time when it would not feel too cranky to have breakfast. The unutterable tedium of grief was not something people talked about, she reflected grimly, pressing the pillow so closely to her face that with each breath she sucked in a mouthful of linen. In spite of counting to a hundred, when she next looked at the clock it was still only five forty-five. Hurling off the duvet, she tugged on a pair of warm socks and her dressing gown, resolving for once, more out of angry boredom than anything else, to go with the flow of these new and inconvenient biorhythms and see where they led.

  By the time the postman arrived Frances had not only eaten a bowl of cereal and drunk two cups of tea, but also trawled around the house with a rubbish sack, emptying waste paper bins and gathering several weeks’ worth of half-read newspapers. It was only in the doorway of Paul’s study, a cramped attic room where he had often retreated at weekends, that her step faltered. A visible film of dust covered the screen of his computer and the neat stacks of journals lining the lowest of the bookshelves. On the wall hung a picture of Paul as a student, balancing on a stone wall with a bottle of champagne in one hand and his mortarboard in the other. His hair was long and unruly, the set of the mouth determined, even in a smile. Though the picture showed him supposedly in the act of losing his balance, it had always been clear to Frances that he was playing for the camera, that behind the feint of falling he was sure-footed and in control. They had met several years after Paul’s university days, in a crowded Soho bar at the birthday drinks of a mutual friend. Cautiously, fearful of the pain it would cause, Frances allowed her mind to travel back towards the memory, summoning the physical props of the occasion, the seventies’ juke box, the mist of cigarette smoke, the spilt drink that led to their introduction – details rehearsed so many times to each other and to friends over the intervening years. Digging her fingers into the thin plastic of the bag, bracing herself for sadness, it was something of a shock to find instead the physical images dissolve, leaving only the kernel of the memory, the instant certainty of her feelings, the joy, the relief, of having stumbled upon someone who could offer her the security and love she craved.

  Dropping the bag, Frances reached out and ran the tip of one finger across the computer screen, tracing two diagonal paths through the dust. Paul had tried to get her interested in using the thing, but she had resisted. Her finger-mark shimmered. A cross, or maybe a kiss? She squinted at the screen, lingering over the question as if it mattered beyond the garbled logic inside her own head. Before leaving the room she arranged the periodicals on Paul’s desk into tidy piles, not yet having the heart to add them to the collection of debris in her bag, but aware that another miniature cog in the process of her recovery had edged into place.

  Back downstairs there was a small heap of mail on the doormat which Frances took with her into the kitchen. Before sitting down she prepared toast and instant coffee, making a performance of setting the table, feeling suddenly as if life alone was a new private drama in which she had to learn to play her part. She opened the letters between mouthfuls, tearing up an offer of a new credit card and even managing a wry shake of the head at a health care scheme promising Paul and his loved ones longevity and peace of mind. Third in the pile was a hotel brochure advertising weekend breaks for anglers on the edge of a Scottish loch, with a telephone directory of luxury leisure facilities for the diversion of loved ones not so smitten with the notion of spending all day hunched over a fishing rod. Frances found herself scanning the leaflet, wondering whether it was unsolicited or something Paul had ordered specially. For a bank holiday break maybe, or their wedding anniversary. Their twenty-second, it would have been. With the see-saw state of her emotions, having no prospect of an answer to so simple a thing suddenly seemed to matter very deeply. It made her that see Paul’s sudden death had cut off the script not only of his own life, but of hers too.

  Aware that the fragile resolve with which she had managed to start the day was in danger of slipping away, Frances hastily turned her attentions to the next letter, a thick white envelope with a London postmark. Hugo Gerard, clearly tired of waiting for the promised initiative from his client, had written to suggest a time and a place in London for the sorting out of Paul’s legal affairs.

  ‘…if you are unable to make the appointment time suggested, I would be grateful if you could let me know, either in writing or by telephone, as soon as possible.

  In the meantime, please allow me to reiterate my deepest condolences on the sad occasion and consequences of your recent bereavement.

  I remain yours…’

  The last envelope in the pile had clearly been delivered by hand. There was no address, only the words Frances Copeland, written in spidery sloping letters. Inside, on what appeared to be the back portion of an old Christmas card, was written, ‘Come to lunch today, Joseph Brackman.’ It read more like a summons than an invitation, and with no let out, not even a telephone number, to facilitate refusal. Frances stared at it for several minutes, remembering the jam on the morning of their encounter in the graveyard and feeling again all the injustice of such unsolicited intrusions into the private wasteland of her life. Tearing the card firmly in two, she dropped it onto her plate, amongst the dry discarded remains of her toast. When the phone rang a moment later, she glanced nervously over her shoulder, like a child fearful of being caught doing wrong.

  ‘Mum, it’s only me, Daisy. Just calling to see how you were.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Really…? Oh…well, that’s good. Look – I know I’m coming home for Christmas and so on – but I was wondering – that is Claude and I were wondering – when you would like to come and stay. I mean it doesn’t have to be a weekend or anything. I’m only working part-time after all.’

  ‘And how is the new job?’

  ‘Very good, thanks. Look, why don’t you come next week?’

  Frances hesitated, struggling
against the knot of resistance already tightening inside, not understanding its origins beyond an irrational surge of reluctance to leave the safe familiarity of her home.

  ‘Daisy, that’s sweet of you, but I’m really not sure whether I…’

  ‘Please?’ There was a sharpness in her daughter’s tone.

  ‘Well, certainly not next week…’

  ‘The one after? Or maybe the one after that? Which would be…let me see now, the first week in December.’

  ‘The first week in December,’ echoed Frances, feeling browbeaten and weak. She heard the riffle of papers, as her daughter flicked through a calendar or diary.

  Week commencing the fifth. That looks fine. Come on Monday and stay till Friday. OK? Let me know flight details and so on nearer the time. Or take the Eurostar, it’s wonderful.’

  ‘Okay, yes, I’ll let you know, darling, nearer the time.’ Frances put the phone down slowly, frowning at the realisation that the outside world was lapping at her door like the swell of an irresistible flood.

  *

  ‘We’re having soup. Chicken and avocado. I made it this morning. It has to be prepared at the last minute otherwise the green of the avocado fades. A good colour, I think. A citron brilliance to it, like the skin of a lime. You must drink something. How about nettle wine? My mother makes it, or used to. Still plenty left.’ Joseph seized a green glass bottle from a cardboard box and began pulling at the cork with his teeth.

  Frances had not yet taken her coat off, but was hovering near the side door by which they had entered, as if entertaining the very real possibility of escaping back out of it. She had not meant to come. She had decided positively against coming, so positively that rather than play curtain-twitching games with the view of the Brackmans’ cottage, its red roof tiles catching the light of the first sun they had had in days, she had resolved to go out in the car. But at twelve fifteen, just as she was closing the front door behind her, Joseph Brackman had appeared in the driveway.