Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Linda Newbery
Copyright
The Shell House
Sisterland
Set in Stone
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain as Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon in 2014 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Black Swan edition published as Missing Rose in 2016
Copyright © Linda Newbery 2014
Linda Newbery has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Extract taken from Lord of Flies © Estate of William Golding and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473541894
ISBN 9780552773829
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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For Linda Sargent – writer, guide, friend, polisher of sea-glass.
Thank you.
August 1990
It was the day when everything stopped, and something started that was quite different, that couldn’t be controlled or shaped or ended. From then on, a ringing telephone could terrify; a knock on the front door could numb the house into petrification.
Prompted at first by her parents, then by the police, and ever after by her own search for overlooked significance, Anna went over and over the events of the morning, the lunch time, and her parting from Rose. She replayed and replayed until she couldn’t tell if she was really remembering what happened. Maybe she was only recalling memories.
For Anna it had started as an uneventful weekday in the summer holidays, a Wednesday. Mum and Dad were at work, and the girls spent most of the morning in Rose’s room, Rose sketching with the radio on, Anna sprawled on the bed, reading. Early haze cleared to unbroken sunshine; after a sandwich lunch, Rose fetched the garden lounger from the garage and put it under the pear tree, then sat sideways to paint her toenails before settling with a book. Bored with being at home, Anna decided to go the shops.
‘See you later,’ she called from the back door, and Rose, already engrossed, replied without looking up. What were her exact words? Anna couldn’t remember, though in the days to come she strained to hear, squeezing her eyes tight shut to open her ears to the echo of what she’d missed. Rose had said nothing, she was sure, about going out, or meeting anyone. She looked as if she intended to stay all afternoon in the quiet of the garden, reading and sleeping in the tree’s dappled shade.
Asked what time this was, Anna thought it must have been about a quarter past two, because the radio was still on in Rose’s bedroom and she’d heard the two-o’clock pips as she went upstairs. Some two hours later she returned, letting herself in with her own key. She had felt no more than mild surprise to find the house empty, the garden deserted. Sometimes, still, she dreamed of returning to that day and making it so ordinary that it would merge into dozens of similar featureless days. Rose would be in the garden, or if not she would soon come home, preoccupied, a little impatient at being questioned. But there.
No sign of a break-in; the police asked her closely about that. No sign of anyone having visited. Nothing any different from how it usually was. The blue garden lounger was there under the tree, with an empty glass tipped over on the grass. Anna poured a cold drink, took Rose’s purple varnish and painted her own toenails, although it was forbidden by Mum, who said that Anna was too young, so she’d have to keep her feet hidden in socks and shoes. Soon after five, Mum returned from work and asked where Rose was; six o’clock came, and seven, and now Dad was home as well. At eight-thirty, Mum phoned Rose’s friend Christina. No, Chrissie hadn’t seen Rose that day, and had no idea where she might have gone. They’d spoken on the phone last night, when Chrissie got home from her holiday, and were to meet tomorrow, A-Level results day. They planned to be at school to open their envelopes together, compare results and go into town to celebrate or commiserate.
Anna didn’t see why Mum was getting so worked up; it wasn’t particularly late. Dad reassured them both that everything was fine, that Rose would be back any moment now. She’d met someone she knew, or she and Jamie had got back together and were making up for lost time. Or, likeliest of all, Dad said, she was anxious about her A-Level results. ‘Remember the state she got into about her O-Levels?’
‘GCSEs, Dad,’ Anna corrected.
‘You know she’s set her heart on getting three As,’ said her father. ‘Let’s hope to God she gets them. It’s the waiting, it’s got to her. She’s met someone from school, gone home with them.’
‘She’d have phoned,’ Mum said flatly; it was her reply to all his suggestions. ‘She wouldn’t stay out without telling us.’
‘She’s eighteen now, love, old enough to take care of herself. We’re not going through this every time she goes out for the evening. She’ll turn up, right as rain.’ Dad kept saying that, as if saying it over and over could make it so.
Sent up to bed, Anna stood for a while with her elbows on the windowsill, looking out at the garden. Dusk was falling now; the shrubs were heavy with leaf, and it had begun to rain – light, refreshing rain that Anna could hear through the open window as a faint hissing, and smell as wetness on dry earth. It was almost the middle of the school holidays. At first, the six weeks had stretched out with no end in sight, but already the nights were creeping in earlier. It didn’t seem fair that midsummer, the longest day, was back in June, before the holidays had even started. After what Dad called ‘the year’s turning’, the days immediately began to shorten towards autumn and September, and the return to school.
In bed Anna propped herself up, reading Forever, her library book, anticipating drama, and the earful Rose would get when she turned up. Eventually she turned off her light. It was a way of hastening Rose’s return; when she woke up it would be morning, Rose would be asleep in her room, and no one would remember why they’d been so worried.
But she woke instead to Mum’s voice from the downstairs hall. ‘It’s Sandra Taverner, Rose’s mother. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but we’re a bit worried about where Rose is. She’s not with Jamie? No, no. Yes, I know, but I thought perhaps …’
And it was still dark; not morning, but a few minutes before midnight. Anna sidled to the top of the stairs. Her mother stood for a moment still holding the phone, then replaced it and went back into the sitting room. Surely Rose would come in at the stroke of midnight, or risk being turned into someone else or frozen into a statue. Anna waited, her eyes on the front door, confident. The hands of her watch aligned themselves at twelve, and the minute hand moved barely perceptibly into the frightening orbit of next day. It was tomorrow now, and Rose hadn’t been here since yesterday, and that made it immensely more serious.
She crept halfway down the stairs.
‘I’m going to phone the police,’ her mother was saying.
‘Don’t you think we should—’
‘No! No! I can’t wait any longer!’ And now Mum’s voice rose in a wail; she ran to the telephone table in the hall, both hands clamped to her mouth. Seeing Anna, she stopped dead. Dad followed, put an arm round her shoulders and led her back into the sitting room. He hadn’t seen Anna huddled on the stair, shivering in her pyjamas.
She heard him say soothing words, and Mum’s quiet sobs. When he came back to the phone there was a long moment of breathing as he reached for the receiver, hesitated, then picked it up. He was going to dial 999, Anna supposed, and although this was exciting she wanted to yell at him No, don’t, because to make that phone call was to stop pretending everything was normal, and to move into a new phase.
‘I want to report a missing teenager,’ Dad said. ‘Yes, yes. My daughter.’
She is thinking of her garden.
Soon it will be snowdrop time. Maybe already they’re stirring underground, getting ready to push through frozen earth. Each year there are more, their circle widening like ripples. She has planted them in the green to encourage them to spread, after they flowered, when the stems wilted softly and the small bulbils could be trowelled up and separated. Last year she did that, and the year before, and the year before. Two or three weeks from now, she’ll have her reward: the lawn under the pear tree will be pooled white, as if the tree has sprung into blossom early and dropped its flowers wet and shining into the grass. Soon after that will come the hellebores, and the first daffodils, and then the great rush of spring that comes upon her every year with no time to register each change.
Now, in the hollow after Christmas, everything seems frozen into suspension, waiting for the date that will soon be marked on the calendar. The end. The beginning. On that day, yet to be decided, she and Don will walk out of the house and hand over the keys and never come back. She would never have believed she could do it, but it’s easy after all. She can register quite dispassionately that the Christmas just gone is the last one here. There will never be another summer. Almost certainly she’ll see the hellebores and the tête-à-tête narcissi, but by the time her roses flower (Cécile Brunner, Veilchenblau, The Pilgrim; she loves the names as much as the roses themselves) the house will belong to the Baverstocks. ‘It’s what the house needs,’ Don said, after phoning the estate agent to accept the offer. ‘After so long.’
Yes. The house has been waiting for years, echoing to the memory of children’s voices. For too long the rooms have been full of absence, full of reproach. Now it will be a family home again.
‘You’ll love working on a new garden. You can take some of your favourites with you,’ Anna has suggested; ‘divide them, or dig them up altogether?’
But that would have meant starting two or three months ago, in the autumn, assembling a nursery of cuttings and divisions. Now isn’t the time, with the ground hard-frozen. Something obstinate in her refuses to salvage. Instead, she’ll walk away, leaving her treasures behind. It will be a final parting. Isn’t that the point?
The estate agent brought the Baverstocks on their first and second viewings, but on their third visit, with the offer accepted and solicitors engaged, they came unaccompanied, to take measurements for curtains and furniture. Don did most of the talking, while she smiled and made tea and listened, retreating into silence.
‘We’ve looked at so many, but this is the house for us. And it’s the garden that sold it to us.’ Mrs Baverstock was a young woman of, surely, Rose’s age, sleekly casual. ‘It’ll be wonderful for the boys.’ Too sure of herself, assuming the right to have anything she wants. The husband had a notebook and an air of wanting to get on with things, looking around the room as if for flaws.
Three boys, they told Don in answer to his questions; eight, ten and five. They asked about schools. They expressed polite interest in the house in Cranbrook, in the reasons for the move; Don said that it was time for a change, for downsizing.
They can’t wait for us to move out, she thought, so that they can take over, bringing their boys and their noise. They’ll dig up my plants and install decking and a swing, a barbecue.
‘It’ll be a wrench, I’m sure.’ Mrs Baverstock has asked them to call her Joanne, and her husband Tim; but, having taken against them for planning to live here, she doesn’t intend to call them anything. ‘Your children grew up here, did they? That’s a lot of memories to leave behind.’
Children. They’d seen Rose’s room, of course. They’d tramped in, talking loudly about bunk beds for the two older boys.
She knows Don can’t lie. He nodded, looking at her uneasily, but this time she did speak. ‘A daughter, Anna. She lives in London.’
What business of theirs, anyway?
‘Boys!’ she said to Don, when they’d gone. ‘I can’t see this as a boys’ house. Boys in my garden! They’ll kick footballs. Scuff the lawn. Break stems off plants.’
‘Come on, love. It can’t be helped. And you’ll have your new garden.’
Always, to hold herself steady, the garden is where she retreats. Mentally she places herself in dappled light under the pear tree, looking across at the wide border and the massed flowers of the Veilchenblau rose – mauve, almost blue, against the fence.
And whenever she wants to, if she listens, she hears the girls’ voices, one calling to the other from the swing, or Rose giving Anna instructions. Eventually they will come in, hungry, in search of biscuits, or choc-ices from the freezer: Anna with dirty fingernails and dishevelled hair, Rose as if from a world of her own devising. There they are, playing, secure in the green enclosure of childhood, where it is always summer.
Anna was painting the bedroom walls. Martin was at Ruth’s today, and she’d decided to get on with the job alone, to surprise him when he came in. As soon as he left, she caught a bus to B&Q, taking a taxi back with her purchases; then she changed into jeans and an old T-shirt, moved and covered the furniture, and spread newspaper over the carpet. The hours passed in a succession of radio news and CDs, mugs of coffee going cold on the windowsill while she painted and painted.
She and Martin had put off the job of redecorating, getting only as far as choosing a colour. Now, giving the whole day to it, she found an unexpected pleasure in the task: the dip into cool green, the loading of the brush with enough but not too much paint, the nudge against the side of the tin; then the custardy glide, as scuff-marks and small blemishes disappeared beneath a skim of perfection. It was years since she’d painted. The feel of the brush in her hand recalled the art rooms at school and at college, years ago when there had been time to think of nothing but making marks on paper or board. Then, earning a living had seemed irrelevant, a worry she needn’t face yet; devoting herself for hours on end to the picturings of her imagination could be seen as a virtue. An artistic future had surely been her due, waiting for her to claim it. She had almost forgotten, but this felt good, the ache in her neck and arm as she edged colour along below the cornice, standing on a stool to reach. Stepping down to the floor, she admired her work, the stretch of wall gleaming and flawless.
Martin had suggested that her picture could hang here, above the bed, but now Anna wasn’t sure. Expecting him to dismiss it as immature, she’d felt touched that he liked it and thought it too good to be hidden in a cupboard. She washed her hands and went to fetch it from the spare room, laying it on the old curtains spread over the bed.
For her A-Level exhibition she had given it the title Shore. In a tall, narrow frame, it showed a stretch of shoreline, low tide lapping at the left-hand frame. In the foreground, the prints of bare feet were sharply delineated, fading into the tideline as they receded to the small, indistinguishable figure walking alone by the sea’s edge. Only her art teacher had understood that she meant the title ironically: Shore, when she was sure of nothing but absence and uncertainty. The painting asked a question that had never been answered, even now.
Anna admired the light through sea-mist, the smudged suggestion of low cliffs at the horizon. I painted that, she thought, wondering if she could still do as well. Perhaps she ought to make time, join a class; there were plenty of opportunities. She had forgotten what it meant to her, back in the days when she was never without a sketchbook and pencils. But – she angled her gaze at the picture, and at the point on the wall where she supposed it might hang – did she really want to invite Rose into the bedroom? To install her, even that imagined glimpse, above the bed?
She would stow it back in the cupboard, after all; tell Martin that she didn’t like it any more, and they could choose something together, something new. She slid the picture back into its sleeve of corrugated cardboard, thinking that next time she went home she’d take it with her, replace it in the portfolio with the rest of her work.
Home – she was doing it again. Home was not here but her parents’ house, the home that would soon belong to someone else. It was the only real home she knew; everything since had been temporary, and after more than a year she still thought of this flat as Martin’s. Home was Sevenoaks, the quiet cul-de-sac, the shady garden, her old bedroom. Once her parents moved out, it would be gone from her life, an idea she was finding impossible to grasp. She had been astonished – dismayed too – by her mother’s decision to leave, but, knowing that her father thought it a good thing, had helped all she could, searching RightMove, making contacts, even accompanying them on some of their viewings. Soon everything would be packed up and moved; she’d have to go through the belongings stored in her bedroom and in the loft, and either bring them here or dispose of them. More significantly, Rose’s things would have to be confronted, and decisions made. Who would do that?
In her parents’ spare bedroom – Rose’s room – Anna’s student portfolio was kept in the cupboard. She hadn’t looked at it since the time when Martin had shown an interest, but the other Rose picture, the watercolour she’d kept back from the exhibition because it was too private, was among the paintings and sketches stored there. It showed the garden, and the pear tree where the swing had been hung when she and Rose were children. Anna had painted Rose under the tree, reading: bare legs stretched out, feet with toenails newly painted a dark and somehow provocative purple. The bottle of nail polish was on the grass beside the lounger. Sunlight dappled Rose’s face and glossed her hair; her head and shoulders turned towards the onlooker with an expression that was partly smug self-containment, part annoyance at being interrupted.
Anna had never shown that painting to anyone but her art teacher. Now, with it clear in her mind, she couldn’t tell whether it was painting or memory she was seeing. She had expected to feel relieved – a sense of closure, as people said – that once the house was sold she would never see the garden again, never stand in the silence of Rose’s room. Instead she felt only loss; the loss of her childhood, of herself as Rose’s sister.
Briskly she carried the Shore painting back to the spare room and put it away. She wished she hadn’t been tempted to look; she should have known better than to poke a stick into that particular pond. Again she looked at the bedroom walls, now drying nicely; she was glad to have finished before Martin got back, to tidy away the sheets of newspaper, the brushes and tins. Martin hated clutter.
At the sink, washing out her brushes, she realized how late it was: nearly eight o’clock. Looking out at the street below, the canopy above the jeweller’s and the lit windows of the Cantonese restaurant opposite, she heard someone calling, and a siren from the direction of Clerkenwell Road. Voices carried in the chilly air; people hurried along the pavements, faces half hidden in scarves and upturned collars. It had been a day of piercing cold, the kind of January day that felt marooned in midwinter, the hours of daylight a brief reprieve before darkness fell again.
She was hungry now, her thoughts turning to food. It was Monday tomorrow and Martin was due to make an early start, driving to an appointment in Aylesbury. She took a ready meal out of the freezer – beef stroganoff, his favourite – and put it in the oven, then changed her clothes, brushed her hair and checked her mobile. He hadn’t left a voicemail or text message. When she called there was no answer, which presumably meant he was on his way, driving.
Anna thought of calling Ruth, but instead phoned her parents. It was her mother who answered, sounding cheerful and a little distant.
‘Yes, everything’s fine. Our buyers came round yesterday, Mr and Mrs Baverstock. Fortyish, I should think, or late thirties. Nice enough. They’ve got a young family. Boys.’
‘Oh.’ Anna couldn’t adjust to the speed of this; her mother’s decision to move, and now, barely two weeks after her parents had put in their own offer, a buyer for the Sevenoaks house. And how did you feel about meeting them? she wanted to ask. The thought of them taking over our house? But something in her mother’s tone discouraged her, a note of bright determination that might be too easy to flatten.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’ve been painting the bedroom,’ Anna said. ‘Now I’m waiting for Martin.’
‘Why, where is he?’
‘He’s been over at Ruth’s.’
Usually her mother showed faint distaste when Ruth was mentioned; much as she approved of Martin, and his stabilizing influence on Anna, she preferred not to acknowledge his previous life, his marriage and his two sons. Anna expected her to change the subject, but instead there was a pause, then: ‘Ruth’s? Do I know who Ruth is?’
Anna felt cold. This wasn’t the first lapse.
‘Mum, of course you do. Ruth. Martin’s ex-wife. He had to help her sort out some financial stuff – her mother’s accounts and suchlike.’
‘Ah, that one,’ her mother said, as if Martin had had several wives. ‘Her mother died.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Anna was thankful not to have to explain again.
‘Of course I remember. It’s just that there’s such a lot to think about, with the move.’
‘I know, Mum. It’s a huge upheaval. I’ll come over and help you sort through stuff whenever you like.’
‘Oh … not yet,’ said her mother, vague again. ‘There’s plenty of time to think about that sort of thing.’
When another hour had passed and Martin still hadn’t returned, Anna gave in and phoned Ruth. Was it breaking a taboo? But if a rule did exist, it wasn’t of her own making.
Ruth answered at once. Yes, she told Anna, Martin had just left. He hadn’t expected to stay so late, but there’d been a lot to sort out.
‘I could come too, another time,’ Anna offered, wanting the conversation to be more than transactional. ‘You know, if there’s anything …’
‘Thanks, Anna. Actually, that might be good, in a week or two.’
‘Whenever you want. Are you OK?’
Silly question.
‘Yes,’ said Ruth, though she sounded doubtful. Even, perhaps, a bit sniffly.
‘I’ll call next week, shall I?’ Anna told her, already planning to do it when Martin wasn’t around.
The drive from Woodford would take about half an hour, depending on traffic. Anna set the table and put out salad, then made up the bed in the spare room.
When he came in, Martin gave no sign of noticing the cooking smells or the laid table. Anna went to him for a kiss, and he gave her a peck on the cheek, perfunctory, almost irritable.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, more sharply than she meant.
‘Nothing. I’m tired, that’s all.’
‘Come and see what I’ve been doing!’ Taking him by the arm, she pulled him towards the bedroom door. ‘What do you think?’ She stood triumphant, looking at the immaculate walls, and the bed still covered with old curtains; childlike, she waited to be praised and petted.
He glanced around. ‘You didn’t say you were doing this today. I thought we’d agreed on the blue?’
‘This is the one,’ Anna told him. ‘You called it blue, but it’s the one we chose. Bluey-green. Greeny-blue.’ Last weekend she had bought sample tubes and had patched each colour on the wall near the window, writing the names in faint pencil.
‘No, that one was blue. This is green. Definitely green.’
‘I know it’s green! Jackman’s Green. It was you who said— Oh, never mind.’
‘It’s fine,’ Martin conceded. ‘I’m not saying I don’t like it. And you’ve done a good job. We can’t sleep in here tonight, though. It’ll take a day or two for the paint smell to go away.’
‘I know. The bed’s ready in the spare room, and I’ve moved our things. Let’s go and eat.’
Martin moved away. ‘Actually I don’t need anything. Ruth made us a meal.’
‘Oh, great.’ She followed him back to the kitchen, all expectation of pleasure draining out of the evening. ‘Why didn’t you let me know? And why are you so cross? Didn’t you have a good time with Liam?’
‘I’m not,’ Martin said, looking directly at her for the first time. ‘Liam was fine. It’s all a bit wearing, that’s all.’
‘What is?’
He puffed out his breath. ‘So much to sort out. I thought Ruth would have done more by now.’
‘But you’re helping her, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, with the financial stuff. But she hasn’t even started on the house, and it’s becoming a bit of an albatross. It’s about time she … you know, moved on. Started to get over it.’
‘Well, it’s tough, losing a parent,’ Anna said, leaning against the sink. ‘Both parents, now. You wouldn’t know, would you?’ It sounded like an accusation. She didn’t know, either, but she did know absence: the bewilderment of it, the gulf it left.
Martin didn’t respond. He went to the fridge for a beer, an eloquent silence in the turn of his shoulders.
‘But … you think she’s taking advantage?’ Anna said. ‘Using this to keep hold of you?’
‘No.’ Martin gave a quick, impatient shake of his head. ‘That’s not what I mean.’
But maybe I’m right, Anna thought, knowing that Ruth’s devotion to Martin had somehow survived the break-up of their marriage. Her friend Bethan said that Ruth would soon meet someone new, and then Anna could stop worrying. But Anna wasn’t worried, only curious, seeing Ruth’s continuing love as a measure of Martin’s worth.
She rather liked the way Martin helped Ruth, not making a big deal about it – with her tax self-assessment forms, and part-exchanging her car. An only child, Ruth was now parentless, her father having died some years ago. Her mother, chronically ill, had been in and out of hospital for several months until being admitted to a hospice. Then, early in December, Ruth phoned with the news that her mother had died.
Anna couldn’t have faulted Martin’s conduct. He cancelled his meetings for the next two days, and went straight over. He knew how to register the death, and who else had to be informed; over the next fortnight he helped Ruth with the funeral arrangements, went through her mother’s savings and accounts, dealt with the solicitor. If Anna had any possible cause for complaint, it would have been on her own behalf. She felt excluded. Martin refused all her offers to go with him or to take Liam out for the day. He didn’t want Anna involved, not even to go to the funeral. ‘What’s the point? You didn’t know Bridget. Ruth wouldn’t want you there.’ He always sounded certain of what Ruth would and wouldn’t want. To Anna’s frequent questions he gave only the blandest of answers: ‘She’s OK … She’s coping … She’s taking it one day at a time,’ – as if life could proceed in any other fashion. A kind of morbid curiosity pulled Anna towards Ruth, like a driver reducing speed to stare at a crash on the opposite carriageway. Ruth had become glamorized by her closeness to a death.
But Martin’s sympathy, it seemed, was time-limited, now approaching its expiry date.
‘She’s upsetting Liam,’ he said now. ‘It’s not as if Bridget’s death wasn’t expected – it’s been on the cards for nearly a year.’
‘Still! It’s a shock. Expecting it can’t take that away. When it comes to it, we don’t know what death means.’
Martin rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand. ‘All I’m saying is she needs to pull herself together, for Liam’s sake.’
‘That’s not something she can decide,’ Anna said. ‘It’s not surprising Liam’s upset, either. He’s lost his gran. And Ruth’s on her own now, isn’t she? You could be more sympathetic.’
‘Well, thanks for that, Anna.’
What a range of nuances he could place on the mere pronouncing of her name! It could sound aloof and disapproving, as now; at other times, when his breath was warm on her neck, his hands roving, it was a caress, a declaration of love, or at least of lust. When he looked like this, wearing the shut-off expression Anna was beginning to know, it was hard to believe they could ever be intimate.
‘I’m only trying to have a conversation.’
‘Trying to put me in the wrong, more like. Let’s face it – whether I go to Ruth’s, or don’t go, you’ll take offence.’ He moved to the sink to rinse the tumbler under the tap; in his way, she made no effort to move aside. ‘At first you complained about me spending too much time with her. Now I’m being callous. Why not accept that it’s nothing to do with you, and let me get on with it?’
‘Of course it’s to do with me! And I didn’t complain, not once—’
‘Not in so many words. You didn’t need to,’ Martin said, in an I know I’m right tone that made her want to hit him. ‘Weren’t you going to eat? I’ve got papers to sort out for tomorrow.’
‘Fine! Don’t let me hold you up,’ Anna flung at him as he left the room. She stood undecided for a few moments before taking the over-browned stroganoff out of the oven. She no longer felt hungry, but obstinacy made her serve a portion for herself and sit at the table to eat. A hard lump in her throat made swallowing difficult. She could have wept if she’d wanted to: whether from sympathy for Ruth, self-pitying frustration with Martin or sheer petulance, she couldn’t tell.
Anna walked along High Holborn, wrapped up against the cold in winter coat, scarf and beret, the heels of her boots tapping authoritatively with each stride. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in a full-length window, she took a moment to recognize herself – a tall woman dressed in black, with a frowning expression. She looked in dismay at this forbidding double – was that who she was? This other person had taken her over. She couldn’t see her own self looking out from inside.
She was meeting Bethan for lunch. Until Christmas, the Italian restaurant had set out tables and chairs under its awning on milder days, and patio heaters wastefully radiating warmth, but today there could be no question of anyone sitting outside. Bethan waved from their favourite table, in an alcove near the bar. She was dressed more casually than Anna, in a printed tunic over a long-sleeved T-shirt. Anna brightened, seeing her.
‘It’s all right, you’re not late. I got here early to read something through.’ Bethan had a pile of papers on the table in front of her; she gathered them into a folder, which she stashed in her saggy fabric bag.
‘I thought you did everything electronically these days?’ Anna said.
‘We do, but this author doesn’t. He isn’t even online, can you imagine? We have to phone him, or send a letter. But he writes like a dream.’
‘Anyway, how are you?’ Anna settled herself next to Bethan on the cushioned bench. ‘You look great. Positively blooming.’
Bethan always did have a look of robust health: slightly plump, rosy-cheeked in what she disparagingly called her milkmaid look. ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she said, smug and self-conscious. ‘I’ve got over the sickness now, and I can’t tell you how good that feels.’
‘So you’re doing all the right things? Laying off alcohol and coffee, going to pregnancy yoga?’
‘Course!’
Briskly the waiter took their order, geared to quick service for people on lunch breaks.
‘It’s a girl,’ Bethan said, spreading the fingers of one hand over her stomach. ‘I just know it’s a girl. Not that I mind, either way. But Cliff wants a girl. Actually, Anna, I want to ask you something. A huge favour.’
‘Oh, what?’
‘I – that is, we – we’d really like you to be godparent. Would you?’
‘Godparent? Me?’ Anna absorbed this. ‘Well, thanks, Beth. I’d love that. Only – what do you mean by the God bit? I don’t think I could make promises in a church without feeling like a hypocrite. Will it be a church christening?’
‘I did look at some websites, and you can have a naming ceremony, anywhere you like, and do it your own way. I know, I know. It’s all a bit early to start planning, and Cliff says I shouldn’t tempt fate, in case something goes wrong.’ Bethan held up both hands to show crossed fingers. ‘Anyway. By godparent, I mean as in supporter. Special auntie. Pagan parent, if you’d rather.’
‘In that case … but do you really think I’m, you know, reliable enough?’
‘You are now.’ Bethan gave her a teasing look. ‘I might not have thought so once.’
‘Then – thank you. I’d love to. I was hoping to be honorary auntie, anyway.’
‘Brilliant! Thanks so much!’ Bethan gave her a hug, then took out her mobile to text Cliff the news. The waiter brought their pasta dishes and salad; putting her phone away, Bethan asked, ‘How about you? How’s work? How’s Martin?’ She began to eat hungrily.
Anna shrugged. ‘Everything’s fine, thanks.’
‘What about you two? Do you think you’ll, you know, have children?’
‘You sound like my mum,’ said Anna, unfairly, as her mother had never given such a hint.
‘Still! You’re thirty-three. Biological clock ticking.’
It always jolted Anna to remember that she had reached such an age; surely she ought to feel adult by now, responsible, in control of her life.
‘Martin’s already got the boys,’ she said.
‘Yes, but you?’
‘Haven’t really thought.’
Bethan made a puh face. ‘You expect me to believe that? You’ve never so much as thought about having a baby?’
‘I don’t want to be pushed into anything, that’s all.’
‘Who’s pushing?’
‘No one. Just – you know – people’s expectations.’ Anna filled Bethan’s glass with mineral water. ‘Yours, now,’ she added lightly. ‘Like it’s the obvious next thing to do.’
Bethan shrugged. ‘Only asking. What about the job? How’s that working out?’
‘Fine, thanks. Keeps me off the streets.’
‘You don’t sound keen. You’re not chucking it in, are you?’
‘It’s only a trial period. I’m not sure I want to stay there for ever. I quite like the work. I like houses, property. I like matching people to homes, or dreaming about what I’d do if I had the money. It’s just – just I don’t like feeling tied down.’
‘But why think of it like that?’ said Bethan. ‘You’ve got a lovely man, a nice flat, and now you can have a good job as well. All this flitting from one thing to another – wouldn’t it be more rewarding to stick at something?’
‘Beth! You’re definitely turning into my mum.’
Bethan sagged into her seat in an attitude of surrender. ‘It’s only common sense. What’s the problem? No one’s asking you to sign up for life, are they? You haven’t found a vocation, that’s your problem.’
‘But how many people do?’ Anna said. ‘What’s yours – massaging the egos of pushy authors?’
Bethan giggled. ‘I won’t mind taking a break, that’s for sure. Anyway. How was your weekend?’
Anna told her about the decorating, Martin’s visit to Ruth, his late return.
‘Hmm.’ Bethan lowered her eyebrows. ‘You’re not thinking they’re—?’
‘No! Definitely not.’
‘It’s just that you mentioned it. I asked about your weekend and that’s what you chose to tell me.’
‘It’s not what you’re imagining,’ said Anna. ‘I like Ruth. She and I could easily be friends.’
Bethan gave her a comically sceptical look.
‘Why not?’ Anna countered. ‘If it wasn’t for Martin in the way.’
‘Yeah, right. You’d be soulmates.’
The waiter came for their plates; Bethan turned down coffee, but Anna looked at her watch, and ordered an Americano.
‘Martin’s the one I feel sorry for,’ Bethan said. ‘He’s afraid you’ll start comparing notes.’
‘Typical man, that’d be. Assuming we’d have nothing else to talk about.’
‘She did seem nice,’ said Bethan; she had met Ruth recently at Martin’s fortieth birthday party.
‘Sister substitute, obviously. Is that what you’re thinking?’
‘Yes. I wasn’t going to say.’
No. No one ever did say. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Rose’s name must never be mentioned. Anna had come closer than usual to breaking the rule.
Bethan looked at her sidelong, tilting her head. ‘You seem a bit …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Unsettled.’
Anna made herself smile, trying to regain the celebratory tone they’d started with. ‘Sorry. I don’t know why. Except it’s not because I want a baby, and definitely not because I think Martin’s sleeping with Ruth. Let’s not get sidetracked. Honestly, Beth, I’m thrilled you asked me to be godparent. Will you give me a crash course?’
‘We’ll talk more, sometime soon.’ Bethan glanced up at the clock. ‘I’d better get back. Publicity meeting at two-thirty.’
Anna downed her coffee and summoned a waiter to settle the bill. Outside on the pavement she and Bethan stood for a moment, buttoning their coats, pulling on gloves.
‘I’ll text you. Take care,’ said Bethan, as they hugged.
‘And you! Great to see you. Look after yourself.’
Bethan walked away quickly in the direction of Bloomsbury, a jaunty figure in her purple tights, boots and butcher-boy cap. Anna watched her go, wishing she had Bethan’s gift for happiness. It looked so easy, for those who had the knack.
Years ago, when they were children, Rose showed Anna the Seven Sisters.
Standing by the back door, Anna was shivering so much that her teeth hurt; she could have made herself stop, but it added to the excitement of being out in the dark. Nighttime transformed the garden into a strange, unknown place, even though indoors was only a few steps away, with Mum and Dad watching TV. As long as she could reach back and touch the house wall, she’d be safe.
They had come out to look for a hedgehog that sometimes scuttled across the lawn, nosing its way to the dish of cat-food Rose put out for it. Anna hugged herself, peering into the stalky, spidery place beside the shed. Her eyes sought the thicker patch of darkness that might, if she willed it hard enough, clump itself into a hedgehog and trundle over the grass as if on wheels. It gave her a shivery thrill to think of other lives so close to her own, of creatures huddled in darkness, waiting for nightfall, their time for creeping out. Then Rose, distracted from hedgehogs, called, ‘Look, look at the stars! There’s the Plough, and the Pole Star. And the Seven Sisters – how many can you see?’
‘Where?’ Anna’s head jerked up, her eyes adjusting to a different scale. The stars giddied her; how could she not have noticed them?
Rose pointed. ‘See? It’s like a blurry bit. Look at the very top of the tree, then go up a bit, like two o’clock. Have you got them?’
Anna gazed, anxious not to make Rose impatient. There were bears and lions and hunters if you knew how to see them; Anna imagined them chasing each other across the night sky, trailing stardust like glitter. She knew there was meant to be a swan and a lion and a pair of twins, and now sisters too. Her eyes searched for faces, flowing robes and hair, like those pictures made of joined-up dots. Star-sisters. But all she could see, following Rose’s pointing finger, was haze, a smudged thumbprint of light. She was disappointed.
‘Did you make that up?’ she asked Rose. ‘About sisters?’
‘No! It’s true. They’ve got names – Dad showed me. We looked them up in a book.’
He didn’t show me, Anna thought. Resentment prickled her. She thought of Rose and Dad in the garden looking at stars, finding the pictures, joining the dots; herself left out, sent up to bed on her own. The Seven Sisters belonged to Rose and Dad. She was only being let in on something that was already theirs.
‘I can’t see them,’ she said, huffily.
‘You’re not looking properly,’ Rose told her. ‘That blurry place is made of stars. How many can you see?’
Anna stared. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the individual points of light. ‘Seven,’ she said, sure of a right answer.
Rose shook her head. ‘There’s supposed to be much more than seven. If you had really good eyesight, you’d see more. But you won’t if you look straight at them. Look to one side, then try.’
Anna tried. She fixed her gaze to the left of the smudge, pretending not to look, as if she could play a trick on a star cluster thousands of light years away. There was an impression of clarity, of the separate stars just out of her eyes’ reach. But when she stared straight at them, trying to catch them unawares, the vision blurred. The stars wouldn’t be caught that way.
It’s funny, she thought: the more you look, the more you can’t see.
On Friday evening Anna phoned Ruth.
‘Thought I might come and help tomorrow, while Martin’s out with Liam?’
Now that she was offering, it seemed a stupid idea. She waited for a polite brush-off, but instead Ruth said, ‘Would you? If you really mean it, I could do with some help over at the house. My mum’s place, I mean. I’ve got to make a start on sorting out her things.’
‘Yes, of course I’ll help.’
Ruth sounded relieved. ‘I’m not looking forward to it. It’ll be easier with company, but not much fun for you.’
‘I’ll come down on the tube,’ Anna told her. ‘Martin’s bringing Liam back later, isn’t he, so I can go back with him.’
‘Good – I’ll meet you at Woodford station. I’ll be putting Liam on the train at ten-thirty – does that sound OK?’
When Anna told Martin of this arrangement, he gave a shrug, as if recognizing he’d been outmanoeuvred.
‘It’s nice of you to do that. It’ll be a bit dismal, though.’ He’d just come in, and was looking through the post.
‘Not really. It’s not as if I knew Ruth’s mum.’
‘I’d have thought you had enough house-clearing on your plate, with your parents’ move coming up.’
‘Mm. This is a practice run, perhaps.’
‘Must be worth a bit, that place. She’ll be glad of your advice. Either she could do it up and sell it, or let it and get the income. That’s what I’d do – wait till prices go up, then sell. It’ll only increase in value if she hangs on to it.’
‘I don’t suppose money’s the main thing on her mind,’ Anna reproached. ‘It’ll be a big wrench. Did she live there as a child?’
‘No – her parents moved there the year we got married.’
It still jarred Anna to hear Martin say ‘we’ like this as if it was still current; to come up against this other, earlier we that was Martin-and-Ruth. Martin didn’t mention Ruth much, beyond the transactional details of his days with Liam, and had never told Anna why the marriage had ended, apart from an all-encompassing ‘Things didn’t work out.’
She and Ruth saw each other only occasionally, when Liam – usually Liam on his own, now that Patrick’s visits were less frequent – was being collected or returned, but Martin’s presence always emphasized the triangular nature of their relationship. Ruth, a little younger than Martin, was diffidently attractive, with quick movements and an air of anxiety. When she came to Martin’s birthday party in November – alone, there never being any suggestion of a new partner – she had been quite uncharacteristically dressed up, trying to use clothes and make-up as a shield, giving herself extra height with heeled shoes that made her self-conscious. Till then, Anna had felt ambivalent about her, but now she was oddly touched by this brave effort.
Not knowing many of the other guests, Ruth had stood awkwardly with her wineglass, affecting close interest in the bookshelves until Anna went to her rescue. She knew from Martin that Ruth had given up her job in a hospital pharmacy to work as a gardener, a backward career move in his view. Asking about this, Anna drew out details of the course Ruth had taken in horticulture and garden design, and of various projects she spoke about with enthusiasm. Gratitude and warmth shone from Ruth’s eyes, not the wariness Anna might have expected.
When Anna compared herself to Ruth, she couldn’t see what Martin had gained from the substitution. Though tempted to probe further into his dismissive ‘Things didn’t work out’, she never did, fearful of the not-workings-out that were emerging in their own relationship.
Saturday was bright and frosty, more cheering than the bleak greyness of the previous week. As Anna came out of the Underground station at Woodford, Ruth pulled up in her black Fiesta, nosing into an empty parking space. Liam got out of the passenger seat, wearing his Chelsea scarf. Anna felt disconcerted, as she always did at first sight, by his resemblance to Martin, the sleek dark hair and dark eyes. Martin was taking him to a home match today, and being allowed to go to London alone on the Underground was a new concession.
‘’Lo.’ Liam gave her a perfunctory wave.
‘Hi, Liam. Hi, Ruth.’
Ruth startled Anna with a kiss and a warm hug, which she hastily returned. ‘It’s really great of you to do this,’ Ruth told her. ‘You must have loads of better things to do on a Saturday.’
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ Liam mumbled, but Ruth insisted on going as far as the barrier, and seeing him through. Martin, who would meet him at Holborn, considered Ruth over-protective; but now Anna sensed Ruth’s anxiety as they waited for the small and suddenly vulnerable-looking figure to cross the bridge to the opposite platform, where a train was already pulling in.
They went back to the car. Ruth’s mother’s house was in a village near Epping, and their route took them between leaf-strewn banks and stands of trees. Even in midwinter, the copper of the beech leaves was dazzling; the forest floor was thickly strewn, and the few still clinging to branches were burnished into fiery bronze by shafting sunlight. Anna saw, in a hollow, flecked ice on a pond, with hollies huddling close, a trodden path leading through the stand of trees, and grasses bleached strawy pale.
‘I know,’ said Ruth. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I try not to take it for granted, seeing it most days. We used to go for long walks with the boys.’
That we again; Anna wasn’t used to hearing it from Ruth, and it hung awkwardly in the air for a few moments.
A stretch of common marked the edge of the forest; then Ruth took to narrow lanes, crossing the M25 and reaching, after another few miles, a settlement hardly large enough to be called a village: a few houses, a post box at the junction of two lanes. A pair of cottages stood together beyond a farm entrance. Ruth and Anna got out of the car. Motorway traffic hummed faintly in the distance; nearby, rooks cawed in the treetops, and wings beat against cypress branches as a woodpigeon took clumsily to the air.