Something Only We Know (42 page)

‘This is a sleep pod,’ Ned was saying. ‘And this is his food bowl. And this here’s a tiny litter tray. You can toilet-train them, the man in the shop said. Bet you
didn’t know that, did you?’

A run followed by a hot shower was what I needed to start this sunny Saturday. I was actually feeling fitter than I’d ever been, thanks to an extra zumba class and
Hel’s reduced-fat cooking regime. This hiatus, this period on stand-by while I reorientated myself and my career, I wasn’t going to waste. I’d joined Revolution’s online
reading group, I’d caught up with Manchester friends, I’d even had a day shopping for wedding gear with Vikki. As well as reorganising my bedroom I’d streamlined my wardrobe,
thrown out stuff I never wore, mended and altered the items that needed mending and altering. I’d taken my shoes to be reheeled, bought boot-trees and Scotchgard. Whatever was coming, however
my future was going to pan out, I wanted to be ready for it.

I tightened the laces on my trainers and set off down the drive. A circuit of the estate would be enough to get my blood pumping. Best not to overdo these things.

It was still only mid-morning and the streets were quiet. I let myself move off the pavement and onto the road where I could run more freely and didn’t have to watch out for dog mess. Some
people were out washing cars. On one or two front steps small children played. It was nice to see the different families going about their daily routines. Round the corner I came across a house
with a mesh-sided pen on the lawn and a small white bunny inside eating grass industriously. That made me remember Bersham Hall and their shed of giant freak-rabbits. Which made me think,
inevitably, of the happy day we’d spent there – and of Owen. I imagined telling him about Hel’s hamster, and what judgement he’d have passed on the matter. It wouldn’t
have been a positive one, I guessed. He worried that keeping pets was a waste of the earth’s resources.
But Helen needs an animal of her own,
I argued silently.
She needs that
focus. It’s a safe attachment for her. It’ll help boost her confidence and it won’t demand too much in return. And hamsters are only small. They don’t consume a lot,
planet-wise.

Then with a rush came the realisation,
I don’t have to have those conversations any more.
All that was over. I no longer had to justify myself continually. I still missed Owen,
but it was a dull, achy resignation rather than the keen pain of before. ‘Please, Jen, no,’ he’d said to me when I told him I was bailing out. ‘I’m sorry. We’ve
been through this. I was stupid over Chelle and stuff, I know that, and I’m trying to make it up to you. Don’t give up. Not when we’ve come this far.’ His face had been so
pleading, so handsome, I’d almost given in. It would have been easier. But it would have been wrong. It wasn’t fair to stay with someone if you didn’t love them. However else my
life was in flux, that much I was clear about.

My feet pounded the tarmac and I took in great lungfuls of air. I felt aware of the whole of the flesh of my body, my fingertips and scalp and pumping thighs, my dry lips, my wind-blown cheeks.
I rejoiced in my working joints and the ligaments that strung my bones together. Over my head white clouds feathered across the blue. I was alive, I was healthy. The world was mine.

I ran on.

By the time I’d got home and showered, Hel was in the kitchen putting together some lunch. Ned hung about, nicking cherry tomatoes off the salad and casting unhappy looks
towards the hamster cage. Whatever had been said on that topic, it obviously hadn’t been what he’d anticipated. The air between them was chill and brittle. Like Ned, though, I had no
idea why she wouldn’t have been simply thrilled at the gift, unless it was because it had been sprung on her – not big on surprises, my sister – or because she was worried about
getting too attached to something that probably wouldn’t live that long. Who knew? Behind her long curtain of hair, her cheeks were flushed, and she was moving in a jerky, jittery way that
made me think they must have had a full-blown argument.

‘Stick that bowl on the table as you go past, will you?’ she said to me.

I did as I was told. Mum and Dad were sitting on the sofa together, studying a book of crosswords.

‘Is it foolishness, Don?’ said Mum, sounding oddly plaintive and like a character from a Noël Coward film. When I glanced across, though, she was just talking about one of the
clues.

‘Not if coxswain’s right,’ said Dad.

I set up the pepper and salt pots and then returned to the kitchen. Ned was standing very close to Hel and whispering. They sprang apart when they saw me.

‘Oh, Jen. We were wondering whether to do the cake for lunch or save it till tea, what do you think?’ Hel nodded towards the fridge and the inevitable pavlova.

I said, ‘It’s your birthday. You get to choose.’

‘OK, then. Let’s have it now.’ She gave a little grin, and for a moment she looked young and excited. I thought I saw her shiver. Then she came over all serious again.
Something was going on with her and Ned, but I couldn’t fathom what. He just avoided my gaze.

When lunch was ready, Hel sat at the end of the table to serve, as she regularly did these days, and we filled our plates with lean meat and wholemeal rolls and crispy vegetables. As we ate we
talked, about Helen’s presents, about where we were going to perform our home zumba practice, and whether she might like the bracelet that went with the earrings I’d bought her. Dad
told us about the new driver he’d taken on last month, a guy who liked smelly garlic sausage on his sandwiches which stank out the office and the cabs. Mum related a story about a guest at
the hotel who’d smashed a bottle of aftershave in the lift, with the result that you’d needed a hanky over your face before you could go in there. Ned was quiet, and I wondered whether
to ask him when he was planning to go down the pet shop. Then I thought better of it and enquired instead how the renovations were going at Farhouses. So he described the upgraded French windows
and how that was going to get more sun into the west lounge, and we listened politely, but my eyes kept lighting on Hel and the way she was pushing her food round her plate, sliding up her sleeve
to check her watch. Two or three times I caught her eyeing the hallway. It was almost as if she was expecting someone. It crossed my mind that perhaps she’d invited a colleague from the
kennels, and been too shy to mention it to us in case they didn’t turn up.

At last it was time for the pavlova. Hel fetched it in and placed it in front of her, ready to slice. There was no birthday candle this year, but we still took a moment to wish her many happy
returns. Her lovely face twitched and she blushed, self-conscious at the attention.

She said, ‘Well, I wanted to make this special. I wanted, it’s a special—’

And that’s when the doorbell rang. Hel jumped in alarm and dropped the knife with a clatter. Her eyes were wide and fearful.

‘Shall I get that? I’m nearest,’ said Ned. But I was already out of my seat. I had this feeling – I think it had been niggling at me most of the morning – of
foreboding, a sense that I ought to get out there into the hall and intercept whoever was trying to gain entrance.

It was a man who was standing on our doorstep. I could see that through the frosted glass. Tall, dark hair, a plaid shirt. A plaid shirt. I felt my breath leave my lungs and a crushing
hopelessness descend. Even as my hand was half-raised to the latch I was still thinking,
If I was quick, could I nip through the house and round the back? What’s the best way to head him
off?
This stranger, who I believed was not a stranger.

‘Who is it?’ called Dad from the dining room.

It was no good, I was going to have to open the door. I grasped the handle and pulled.

For a few seconds we stared at each other. I was lost, wrong-footed; he was embarrassed. It was not Joe. It was
not
Joe. That was all my brain could manage.

‘Jenny?’ said the man. ‘It is, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already?’

Something shifted in my brain and the fog cleared. Since we’d last spoken – what, six years ago? Seven? – his hairline had receded and you could see his scalp showing at the
front between the gel-spikes. He was thicker round the waist, too. His forties were catching up with him. But the eyes were the same, piercing and humorous.

I began to smile, I couldn’t help it. His presence here was so absurd. He ought to be standing outside the school science labs, shouting at passing kids to do their ties up. ‘Mr
Wolski!’

‘It is indeed. Though call me Tadek. Is Helen in? Could I see her?’

‘Oh. Yes.’ It was then I clocked the plastic bag he was carrying and the bunch of flowers poking out of the top. The delight at recognising him, at his not being Joe, drained away.
What did he want? What was he here for?

‘You’d better come inside,’ I said.

I led him through and introduced him. And I knew, even as I watched everyone look up from their plates, that the scene would imprint itself on my mind forever. The last normal moments of the
day. My parents’ faces registered only total puzzlement, Ned was concentrating hard on his pudding, and Hel – Hel was a study in dread. Her whole body tautened and I wondered if she
might get up and run to him, but in the end she stayed where she was. Next thing, she ordered me to get him a chair, which I thought was a bit rich. ‘Oh, and another bowl while you’re
up, Jen.’ I did as I was told because it was her birthday. Mr Wolski handed the flowers not to my sister but to Mum, who seemed both pleased and annoyed. I suppose she hadn’t forgiven
him for helping Hel find her kennels job.

‘You’ve come to wish Helen a happy birthday?’ she asked, trying, like the rest of us, to get her bearings.

‘I have.’

‘Well. That’s nice. She didn’t mention you’d be dropping by. Would you like a drink? Some pavlova?’

‘Great, thanks.’

Hel was already passing some down. I tried to signal to her, to Ned, to ask them what was going on. Ned’s shoulders were hunched defensively. Whatever it was, he had at least half an idea,
I guessed.

‘Have you come far?’ said Dad.

‘Churton.’

‘Oh, Churton. Nice round there.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you still at St Thom’s?’

‘I am.’

‘Science, isn’t it, you teach?’

‘Biology mainly. My timetable’s almost entirely A level these days. Some GCSE cover when I’m needed. I’m head of Sixth now, of course.’

‘I see.’

‘And I oversee curriculum development.’

‘St Thom’s, eh?’

‘Anyway, it’s nice of you to drive all the way out here,’ said Mum, fingering the cellophane wrapper on her bouquet.

It was Ned who broke the small talk. ‘Come on, Hel.’

My sister lowered her face.

‘Helen has something she wants to tell you,’ he continued, pushing himself a little way from the table, as if to make a performance space for her.

Everything went quiet. Hel raised her head again, swallowed, glanced from Ned to Mr Wolski. Mr Wolski nodded encouragingly, and Ned reached out and took her hand.

‘I . . . You need to know. I’m going away,’ she said.

‘Away?’ said Mum at once. ‘What do you mean? Where?’

‘I’m going to college. Like Jen.’

‘You mean Manchester?’

‘No. Warwick. I’m going to train to be a veterinary nurse.’

‘Bloody Norah,’ said Dad.

‘I got an offer a month ago, but I only formally accepted last week. I’m due to start in September.’

‘
Warwick
?’ repeated Mum.

‘Well, the campus is actually in a village called Moreton Morrell. It’s about an hour and a half away from here. Not too far.’

‘And a fully accredited course,’ Mr Wolski chipped in. ‘At an RCVS Veterinary Nursing Approved Centre. We did our research, didn’t we, Helen?’

‘We did.’

Mum’s face grew tight. ‘Oh, you did? What about local colleges? Did you research those? What about Reaseheath and Harper Adams, places like that? They do animal courses. I’ve
seen it in the paper. She could study there, no need to go away from home.’

‘No, Mum. I have to go. I have to be far enough away so I can properly set up on my own.’

Now the news was finally out, I could see Helen’s relief was giving her confidence. She sat up straighter, and though she was licking her lips continually and still grasping Ned’s
fingers, she was fired up with what she wanted to say.

‘But how will you manage, love?’

‘I’m thirty-one.’

‘You know what I mean.’

We did, and what was there to say?

Mr Wolski shifted his chair round so he was facing my mother, and reached inside his plastic bag. He drew out a glossy brochure and some web page printouts which he laid in front of her. Then he
began to turn the pages and take her through them, describing in positive terms the town, the campus, the course outline, the pastoral tutor system and the medical access available to students. He
spoke calmly and with authority, and I thought, Yes, this is his job, isn’t it? I bet he handles such situations all the time, reassuring worried parents that their kids have made the right
choices and will survive away from the nest. Maybe not in such charged circumstances, but he’d know the kind of concerns they had, and how to allay them. It would be a very familiar script.
How would Helen fund a degree, Dad was able to ask, and Mr Wolski told him about the loan application process and the rates of repayment. Did you assist her with the forms? Mum wanted to know. Of
course he had. He’d sat with her at our kitchen table and gone through every section; later on, he’d helped her arrange a fortnight off from the kennels so she could get some hands-on
experience at a vet’s. He’d even, it transpired, taken her down to an interview, on a day we’d assumed she was at work.

That stung. That smarted. It all did. Because she could have confided in me, for God’s sake. Those months leaving me to stress about what was really troubling her, what was going on in her
head – shutting out Ned as well – when we could have helped and encouraged. The nights she and I had sat together and talked, when she’d given out so much of herself. Would it
have killed her to confide that extra step? Why hang on to one key secret? Why not share with her sister? There’d been so many opportunities. Had we made any progress over this last year?