The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (28 page)

Later, Fay goes downstairs, walks past Nat sleeping curled up on the camp bed with Norah, and out through the glass doors into the garden.

Fay takes off her shoes and walks barefoot across the wet lawn. For months she battled the weeds and moss. And then she spread new grass seed, covering it with nets so that the birds wouldn't eat it, watering the earth twice a day until new shoots came up.

Tilting her face to the sky, she lets the rain strike her face. For the first time since she got back from the hospital on Friday afternoon, she feels that she can breathe: the wet earth, the grass, the rain-heavy air.

It's become a ritual, coming out here after long hours spent locked up in the windowless operating theatre at Holdingwell General.

The rain falls harder, but she doesn't care. She wants to be on her own, in her garden – just one last time.

She goes over to the flowerbeds and kneels in front of the white peonies she planted when she first moved in. Her knees sink into the soil. She takes off the brown flower heads, scattering the dead petals around her on the lawn. Then she pauses and looks up at the house. Everyone is in there except me, she thinks. She's overcome by the loneliness she used to feel when she visited Norah and Adam and the girls, knowing that she'd never be more than a guest. The same loneliness she felt in her London flat after Norah moved in. She'd given Norah her room because there was more space for her to do her music practice and had moved into the box room. Sometimes Adam stayed over. She'd hear them talking late into the night. Watched them fall in love. Loneliness isn't about being without people, it's about being with people who make you feel alone.

When Fay's finished with the dead flowers, she doesn't stop. She tears at the dense white heads in mid-bloom and yanks them off their stems. And then she goes faster, ripping off more heads, scattering them among the dead petals.

‘Mummy?'

And then a bark.

Fay looks up. Louis and Willa stand on the lawn, looking down at her. Willa in her white nightdress and bare feet, a small, perfect version of Norah.

‘What are you doing, Mummy?'

Willa stands in the rain, staring at all the dead petals on the lawn and at all the flower heads that look like they're alive, only they've been pulled off their stems. Mummy's always telling Louis off for digging up her plants.

‘Mummy?' Willa kneels down beside her on the wet grass. ‘What's wrong?'

Mummy stares at the flowerbed she's torn up, blinking raindrops out of her eyes. Willa's never seen Mummy cry. First Ella, now Mummy: it's like someone's turned the taps on and made everyone cry.

‘Is it because of Ella?'

Still Mummy doesn't answer.

‘I think she'll come round,' Willa says. ‘She's just a bit upset about Auntie Norah.' Even though she likes her, Willa still can't bring herself to call Auntie Norah Mummy.

Or maybe she's upset because Willa's out of bed and it's really late.

‘I couldn't sleep,' Willa says. ‘The storm's really noisy.'

She wishes Mummy would come in. It's cold and windy out here and Mummy's lips are blue.

Mummy gets up and pulls a packet of Daddy's cigarettes out of her pocket. Mummy's not meant to know that Daddy still smokes sometimes – and now she's lighting one of his cigarettes?

Louis gives Mummy a nudge with the side of his head, like he wants to knock the cigarette out of her hand. But Mummy doesn't move. Willa feels a fluttering in her palms. Mummy's never been like this before. Mummy's always the one who makes everything okay.

‘Do you want me to get Daddy?'

Daddy's the best person in the world for cheering Mummy up, like when Ella's been mean to her or when she's seen too many sick children at the hospital.

‘It's okay,' Mummy says, her voice sniffly. She gets up and brushes the earth off her knees. Raindrops skid off her face and her bare arms; Willa feels the rain soaking her nightdress too.

‘It's not okay!' Willa says, and in a moment she's halfway across the lawn and heading back indoors. ‘Come on Louis!' She pats her thigh to make Louis come with her because he's getting wet too, and when he gets wet his bones hurt because he's got arthritis – Mummy should know that, she's the one who explained it to Willa. But Louis bows his head and settles down next to Mummy.

Willa's decided that whatever it is that's wrong with everyone, she's going to fix things, just like Mummy always fixes things for all of them. And she'll start by getting Daddy. Daddy will know how to make Mummy feel better. Next to Ella and Willa and Louis, Daddy loves Mummy more than anyone in the world.

‘Daddy! Daddy!' Willa tugs at the duvet. ‘It's Mummy.'

He sits up, still cold from trying to fix the roof in the rain.

Willa's hair and nightdress are dripping, her feet covered in bits of grass and soil.

‘Mummy's in the garden and she's tearing up all her flowers and she's smoking.'

‘You're not making any sense, Willa.' He gets out of bed and lifts her off the ground and holds her to him. ‘It's okay. You've just been dreaming.'

She kicks her legs and wriggles out of his arms.

‘No, I haven't been dreaming.'

‘Let's get you dry.' He takes her hand and guides her to the door.

‘Only if you promise to go and find Mummy.'

‘Okay, I promise to go and find Mummy.'

He takes her to the bathroom, towels her dry and helps her into a clean nightie, and then carries her back to her room. Dear Willa, she shouldn't have to be dealing with all this.

‘You promise you'll go and get Mummy?' Willa looks up at Adam from her bed, eyes heavy with sleep. ‘Mummy's really sad about something. I tried to make her happy again but she won't listen to me. So you have to go out and make things better.'

‘I'll go and get Mummy, but you have to promise me you'll get some sleep,' says Adam as he tucks Willa's duvet around her.

‘Mummy needs sleep too,' says Willa. ‘And she needs to get dry. She'll catch a cold if she stays out in the rain any longer. Plus, she's poorly, she's been sick…'

‘I'll look after Mummy.' Adam kisses Willa's forehead. ‘I promise.'

 

Adam stands on the lawn, swaying with exhaustion. His eyes are so raw with tiredness he can't focus.

Fay sits on the bench under the peach tree, sheltering from the rain. She's torn up her peonies. And she's smoking, a white cigarette between her soil-stained fingers. Every time she inhales she coughs, but she keeps going, drawing hard on the cigarette until it's burnt down to a stump.

It turns out Willa hasn't been dreaming.

As he walks closer he notices Louis at her feet. The rain has flattened his fur; he looks small and frail.

Adam comes to sit beside her under the tree. Rain falls around them, but here, under the tree, they're sheltered.

She draws on the cigarette again.

‘Stop it,' he says to her.

She looks up at him. ‘Stop what?'

‘This isn't like you, Fay.'

‘It isn't?' She flicks a cigarette onto the lawn and takes another out of the packet on her lap. ‘Who is it then, if it isn't me?' She strikes a match and lights the cigarette. ‘Want to know who I got these from? Ella. It's funny, don't you think, how we've suddenly become friends again? I mean, after everything.' She laughs. ‘You know what's even funnier? Ella stole these cigarettes from you!'

Louis looks at Adam. He wants him to do something, to make things how they were. How Adam wishes he could do that. Turn back time. Stop Norah from coming home.

‘Fay —'

Fay holds up her cigarette. ‘Am I being like Norah?'

‘Come on —'

‘Isn't this what you love about her? Impulsive Norah. Make-your-pulse-race Norah. All these years of living with safe, predictable Fay. God, you must have been bored out of your mind.' She blows smoke out at the sky. ‘Well, now you can have her. No more Fussing Fay getting in the way. I'll just finish this –' she holds up the cigarette – ‘and I'll be out of your hair.'

‘That's not how I see you, Fay.'

She lowers her cigarette.

‘Willa's worried about you,' he adds.

Fay shrugs.

‘Don't pretend you don't care.'

‘Is there any point in caring?'

‘Of course there's a point. You're everything to her.'

‘I'm all she knows.'

‘You're her mother.'

Fay looks up through the branches of the tree. ‘I'm the one who stayed. That doesn't make me her mother.'

‘And Ella,' he goes on. ‘She realises now, how blind she's been. You said it yourself. She gets how much you did for her, for all of us. She needs you. We all do.'

‘You keep saying that.'

‘Saying what?'

‘That you
need
me.' She yanks at a tuft of wet grass. He's never seen her damage anything. She went through life fixing things, not pulling them apart.

‘We do… we all do.'

She lifts her head and stares at him. ‘I don't want to be needed. Don't you get that, Adam? If I'm just the fixer, the person who helps you get through the day, who makes things okay, I'm replaceable. Thousands of women could do that. Millions. You should have hired someone from an agency: a live-in au pair would have done the trick.'

‘I don't know what you want me to say.'

‘I guess that's the problem, Adam. You shouldn't have to work it out. You should just know.'

‘You mean everything to me too. I can't do this without you. I can't live without you.' Adam rubs his eyes. Is there anything he can say, anything at all that will make things better?

‘I've got it. You needed me – and now you don't need me any longer. I'm glad I was of service. Send me a thank-you card and move on.' Her hands are shaking.

‘You're incredible, Fay. You —'

‘Don't, Adam.'

‘Don't what?'

‘Don't try to make me feel better out of some sort of obligation or guilt – or gratitude. God, please, please don't tell me you're grateful.' She draws Louis in towards her. He rests his head on her lap.

How does Louis do it, thinks Adam? How does he love them both?

Fay hugs her legs to her chest and closes her eyes.

He sits down beside her. He wants to put his arm around her and draw her in but he's scared that she'll push him away.

‘You used to hate me,' Adam says.

They'd never talked about this. Not once in the whole six years they'd lived together: how it used to be between them before Norah left.

She stubs out the cigarette on the side of the bench. ‘I never hated you.'

‘You hated me being part of Norah's life.'

‘And why do you think that was?'

A stillness settles between them.

He looks up at her.

‘Because I loved you, Adam. I loved you every bit as much as Norah did.'

He feels an opening-up in his chest. All those years when he felt inadequate in front of Fay, the perfect best friend, the woman who saw right through to his weaknesses – who reminded him, over and over again, that he wasn't good enough for Norah.

Fay goes on, her voice quiet, ‘I didn't hate you. I hated that you had each other – I
hated
that I'd never come first.'

He knows that Fay's waiting for him to tell her that it's not true. That he loves her more than Norah, that Norah coming back hasn't made a difference to what they've had all these years. That it's more than gratitude that he feels. But he can't find the words.

He looks at the petals strewn across the lawn.

‘We'll plant some new ones,' he says. ‘We'll do it together.'

She doesn't answer.

He thinks of Norah behind the glass doors to the lounge, sleeping on the camp bed with Nat.

Turning back to Fay, he eases the cigarette out from between her fingers and kisses her forehead, like he did Willa's a few moments ago. ‘It's cold out here,' he says. ‘Please come in, Fay.'

She doesn't answer.

‘I promised Willa I'd make sure you got some sleep. And she's right – you're exhausted.'

Fay looks up at the house. ‘Is she okay…?' she whispers. There's a tremor in her voice. ‘Is Willa okay?'

He takes her head between his hands, draws her in and kisses her. For a second, as he feels the warmth of her breath between his lips, he lets himself think that this is going to be okay. That they'll find a way forward.

She pulls away and looks at him, waiting.

Why can't he just say it? Why can't he tell her what she wants to hear?

She shakes her head. ‘Go back in.'

‘Fay —'

‘Just go!'

As he walks back through the rain he feels an emptiness that reminds him of the day Norah left. It's happening again.

It's midnight. The moon shines high. The world is falling asleep.

In the tall red-brick house the big dog lies on the carpet next to The Mother Who Stayed. He persuaded her to come back inside and then he waited on the landing while she had a bath and warmed up. When she came out, she dried him off with her white towel and, for the first time, invited him into her room.

When he closes his eyes he sees the tight bud of life stirring inside her.

Across town, the teenage girl sleeps in the boyfriend's bed. He puts his arms around her and cups his body into hers.
As her limbs go heavy, she prays, may this moment never end
.

Outside, on the patch of grass outside the old ladies' bungalow, the man in the rainbow jumper takes off his boots and slips back into his tent, singing a jazz tune:
The bright blessed day
…
the dark sacred night
…
He hopes that she hears it, the teenage girl who slipped from the windowsill.

In the room on the first floor of the tall, red-brick house, the little girl listens to the night: Mrs Fox's cries, the singing outside. She gets up and walks to the bedroom on the second floor. The door's open. Her mummy and daddy lie in bed, a big gap between them. Her dog lies by the bed on her mummy's side. She goes over and strokes the tangle of curls on his head. He stirs and opens his eyes.

It's okay,
says the little girl.
Stay with Mummy, she needs you tonight.

She pushes open the door to the lounge. The little blond boy is curled up with his mama on the camp bed and Onkel Walter is asleep on the sofa. She goes up to the mummy who was there first but who went away. The little girl wants to be nice to Mummy Norah, but she's not sure she needs another mummy, not when her real mummy loves her so much.

She walks up to the glass doors and looks out into the empty garden. And then she hears someone move behind her. The little boy has woken up. He joins her at the glass door and she takes his hand.

Tomorrow, I will introduce you to Mrs Fox,
says the little girl.
Mrs Fox is going to have lots of little babies and we will look after them together.

The little boy smiles and stares into the moonlit garden, and then goes back to lie next to his mama.

Upstairs, in the main bedroom, the father listens to the steady breathing of The Mother Who Stayed lying beside him. Even now, after everything, she's here.

I have to get it right this time,
he thinks.
I have to get right.

He hears the dog's paws knock against the feet of the bed – he's running in his sleep, trying to catch someone.

Outside, thunder rumbles through the clouds. The wind picks up again. Someone's singing ‘What a Wonderful World'. His words soar through the night sky.