Losing Nicola (21 page)

‘What exactly are you doing, Alice?' he said.

‘I'm kissing the lovely grass, like Fiona did in the Yorkshire Dales,' I told him. I quoted the line.

‘Ah yes,' he said. ‘Rupert Brooke. Always to be relied on for a schmaltzy sentiment. Like the potency of cheap music.'

‘Why are you so cynical?' I asked.

‘You could answer that yourself, especially after seeing how utterly strange it would be for anyone, Brooke, Fiona or anyone, to start kissing grass. Besides, suppose a dog had peed on it; you'd never even know.'

Brushing frantically at my mouth, I'd had to concede that he had a point.

I open the window wider, and lean forward, fanning myself. Should I go down to the edge of the sea or not? There are a few people about, dog-walkers for the most part, but also a few couples, arms around each others' waists. As I stand there, indecisive, a figure appears from the direction of the lifeboat house. A man, dark-haired, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. Backlit by the moon, he stops directly in front of my flat, separated from me by the silver-painted railings and a stretch of grass. He looks directly up at my window, and, afraid he can see me, I shrink back. In the white light of the moon reflecting off the sea, he looks so much like Sasha Elias that I almost lean from the window and call his name. But I hold back, partly because I am semi-naked, and partly because I cannot be sure. It is, after all, a good ten years since I met him in Paris.

Nonetheless, I am certain enough of his identity to rush into a pair of shorts and a yellow T-shirt, run down the communal stairs into the front garden and step out of the tall gate onto the pavement. Which way can he have gone? Whichever way he'd chosen, he should still be in sight, which he is not. Perhaps he's turned into one of the many pubs, which are still open on this humid Saturday night.

I hurry along the road that runs parallel to the promenade. At the Boatman's Arms, I peer in through the window but can't see him, or anyone remotely resembling him. It's the same at the Drum Major, the Wooden Lugger and the Admiral Nelson. I slow down. Perhaps I was mistaken. It is easily enough done in the imprecise light, especially given the distance from my window to the seafront path. Besides, what would I say if I caught up with him, if it is indeed Sasha, if I did indeed see him and it wasn't just a figment of my imagination?

So I talk myself out of any further search and go home, where I lie on top of my bedcovers and listen to the gnawing sound of the sea against the shingle, and the occasional squawk of a gull.

At two o'clock I wake from sweaty sleep. I get up and pour myself a glass of iced water. The scrap-albums which Bella brought down with her are still on the window seat, waiting for my attention, and I sit down, open the cover of the first one, look down at a photograph of Nicola. A school photograph, head and shoulders, her school tie loose at the neck, her defiance of authority still burning bright, even in newsprint, even after twenty years. I shall have to read the transcripts of the inquest which, a quick flip through the albums informs me, are all there, carefully glued to the thick card pages. But not now. I anticipate that I shall not enjoy reading these cuttings; that I shall need the steadying strength and clear colours of daylight to get through them. I will deal with them tomorrow. Or perhaps even the next day.

Instead, I return to my bed, carrying a couple of Sasha Elias's pages.

Was it Sasha I saw earlier, I ask myself, and if so, how many times has he returned to the town, walked along the front and stopped to gaze up at the windows where he once temporarily lived?

Later, I stretch out in the darkness and think, as I have done so often, about Nicola. Did she lie there among the brambles, bleeding and broken, aware that even if she had the strength or ability left to scream, no one would hear her? Did she know her killer? Did she regret anything, as life seeped out of her, or was she unconscious from the first? Could any of us have done something to save her?

Fiona believed in fresh air. She believed just as strongly in having some time to herself, because, she said, she would otherwise go mad. So sometimes she pushed Orlando and me out of the house and told us not to come back for five hours. And we would set off on our bikes clutching her erratic tomato sandwiches wrapped in the waxed inner packet of a cornflake box. I think she hoped that we went for long bracing bike-rides along the promenade and over the dunes, but in fact we cycled down to the town and spent our five hours in the upstairs reading room of the library. The librarians tolerated us because we behaved ourselves. We didn't leave apple cores on the shelves, or tear pages out of the books. We didn't spill drinks on the floor. Food was forbidden, in any case, but they might have suspected that we were trying to sneak in a sandwich or a packet of Smith's crisps. When we did, we left no crumbs.

There were two librarians back then, a woman in a lacy sort of jumper that smelled of sweat, and Gordon Parker. Looking back, I can see that they might from time to time have slipped upstairs and listened outside the door of the reading room, or even poked their heads round the door, in order to check on us. In cold weather, they put the gas fire on for us, which popped and burped as we read our way through the books on the shelves which housed English Literature, Humour, History and Travel, or brought books up from the Children's Library.

We weren't at first allowed to take adult books out of the library, but after a while we had exhausted the stock of Noel Streatfeilds, Arthur Ransomes, Richard Jefferies, Richmal Cromptons. We'd zipped through the Dimsie books, the Angela Brazils, the books about girls who rode horses or learned ballet at Sadlers Wells, or boys in improbable jungle adventures,
Treasure Island
, Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling. They showed us another world, a place where angels and demons lurked, and there wasn't always a happy ending. We read all the different coloured Andrew Lang
Fairy Books,
except for
The Olive
Fairy Book
because we had that at home
.
We read collections of Norse myths, classical legends, short stories from Russia, Lamb's
Tales from Shakespeare
, Grimm's
Fairy Tales
,
The Ingoldsby Legends
, until finally we were let loose in the adult section.

The town library now is brand new, purpose-built, three times the size of the one where Orlando and I spent so many hours. There are large windows overlooking the sea, landscaping outside the entrance, an exhibition room, and much-expanded children's and reference sections. Sitting at a desk with a plastic marker saying
Chief Librarian
, a man who is unquestionably Gordon Parker is pointing to a map of the area, his finger indicating Dover Castle.

‘You mustn't miss it,' he is saying to an elderly American couple. ‘It's an extremely interesting example of a traditional Norman castle, complete with keep and drawbridge. The first sign of trouble from the French and everyone in the town below could be accommodated within its walls. The Romans built a
pharos
up there, too.'

‘Pharos?'

‘A lighthouse, honey,' says the wife. They both nod in that politely attentive way that Americans have when they're being given information.

‘It's quite easy to get there on the bus,' Gordon says. ‘Takes about half-an-hour, and the driver will drop you right at the entrance to the keep. I presume you've already been or are planning to go to Canterbury Cathedral.'

‘We did Cannerberry two days ago.'

‘I think we might just go see Dover.' The husband takes his wife's arm. ‘Thank you for your help.' The two of them totter out of the library in the direction of the bus station.

As Gordon turns away, I call his name. ‘Mr Parker!' He is still slim, but has lost the pinched look of the post-war years. His hair is still dark but no longer greased back, he wears contact lens instead of National Health specs.

His gaze falls on me without recognition.

‘I'm sure you don't remember me,' I say. ‘I'm Alice Beecham.'

‘Beecham?' His high forehead wrinkles.

‘From Glenfield House?'

For a moment he stiffens, and I wonder what insults the name conjures up for him. Then he smiles. ‘Alice Beecham . . . Goodness! Well, well, well, it
has
been a long time, hasn't it?'

‘Would you have time for a coffee with me, Mr Parker?'

‘Gordon, please.'

‘Or let me buy you lunch.'

He looks at his watch, a wafer-slim affair on a crocodile skin strap. ‘We-ell . . . it's almost my lunch break, so I could take it early. And since I'm in charge of the place now, they can hardly kick me out for taking too long, can they?'

We laugh together, jolly but wary. I follow him along the front and into the only café in town, he tells me, where you can get a decent cup of espresso. The place is next door to the Top Deck, the little dance hall where Nicola was supposed to be going after my birthday party. In twenty years, it doesn't seem to have changed in any way, including its function.

‘It's really lovely to see you, Alice.' Gordon folds his hands together in front of him. He wears a heavy gold signet ring on the fourth finger of his right hand and I wonder what that's meant to signify, if anything. ‘So tell me, why are you here?'

‘I've moved down here, if you can believe it.'

He looks searchingly at me. ‘As a matter of fact, I find that difficult to understand, in the light of . . . well, of what happened.'

I shrug. ‘I have to live somewhere, and I like the air down here. Besides, it's all so long ago.' I'm lying, of course. ‘Do you remember Mrs Sheffield?'

‘Vi? Yes, of course. She sings in the same choral group as I do. A nice alto voice. We'll miss her when she goes.'

‘She's converted her house on The Beach into flats and I've bought one of them.'

‘Which one?'

‘The big one on the first floor, with the bay window.'

‘Very nice indeed. I've been there.' He reaches into the breast pocket of the Harris Tweed jacket he's wearing, despite the heat, brown-and-white herringbone, plaited mock-leather buttons down the front, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I do hope he isn't going to light up. I can't abide second-hand smoke. He plays with the packet, but thankfully makes no move to get out his matches. ‘Tell me about your mother,' he says. ‘Is she well?'

‘Very.'

‘She was always so kind to me.' He looks out at the beach where seagulls are constantly raucous. ‘I would love to see her again.'

‘I know she'd feel the same. Perhaps next time she comes down to visit . . .'

‘I really used to envy her ability to write stories. Actually, I've often wished I could write about those Glenfield House days.' He taps his cigarette pack on the table. ‘On the other hand, there was quite a spate of books about families exactly like yours.
I Capture the Castle
, for instance
.'

‘Our Spoons came from Woolworths,'
I say
.

‘The Constant Nymph.'
He smiles. ‘You and Orlando were always great readers, weren't you?'

‘That's why
I used to love books like that,' I say. ‘They reminded me of home.'

‘They always seemed to feature eccentric harried mothers just like yours.'

‘And awkward girls in ill-cut grey flannel skirts.'

‘Constant worries about money, an inefficient house to keep up, middle-class values to maintain,' he says enthusiastically, as though recommending the books to a dithering reader.

‘Just like Glenfield.'

‘Exactly. Yet, you know something?' He sips judiciously at his coffee. ‘For all its eccentricities and discomforts, that house was a real refuge for me. And your mother . . . she was very good to me, really took me under her wing.'

The image of Fiona as mother hen is unfamiliar to me.

‘My own parents were killed in an air-raid,' Gordon continues, ‘and since I was an only child, without any other family, I was very much on my own.'

Although it had been my brothers who teased him, I am overwhelmed with retrospective guilt. Before I can say anything, he is reminiscing again.

‘God, do you remember that evil-tempered geyser in the bathroom? I can tell you, Alice, taking a bath in your house was a definite act of courage!'

We exchange gossip for a while. He has a confiding way of putting a hand on my arm as he speaks, as though afraid I might otherwise get up and leave. I tell him about my marriage, my reasons for coming back to England, bring him up to speed on Ava's death, Dougal's life, and Callum's.

‘And how is Orlando?' he asks. ‘Such a brilliant boy, we used to discuss everything from Henry James to Mahler's symphonies.' He throws back his head in a shout of laughter. ‘And so eccentric! Do you remember how one year he insisted on wearing a black armband throughout the holidays to mark the death of George Orwell?'

‘Did he?' I don't remember any such thing. Am I the one with the defective memory, or is Gordon? ‘He's a musicologist now – a historical musicologist.'

‘I've seen his programmes on the telly, actually. Extremely good.'

‘He's attached to Cambridge University and he also has a professorship at Yale.'

‘It was obvious even back then that he'd do well, whatever field he went into.' The cigarette pack taps against the table top. ‘I hope you won't mind me saying that I thought you children were absolute menaces,' he continues. ‘But your nuisance value was quite offset by the fact that you were all so . . . so
interesting
. It's a funny thing to say about kids, really.'

‘Were you happy back then?' I ask.

He frowns, considering the question. ‘Not exactly
un
happy,' he says eventually, ‘But certainly not happy the way I am today. For one thing, I fit into my own skin now, and back then, I didn't. And then we were all so desperately poor, with the war so recently ended. Not just individuals, but the nation, trying to put our former enemies back on their feet before getting back on our own. But things are so much better now, aren't they? Especially now that we've passed through the Sixties, been set free, as it were.'