The Moment You Were Gone (25 page)

Gaby woke to the sound of the front door shutting. Her body remembered before her brain; there was a weight in her chest and a hollowness in her stomach. She couldn't believe she had managed to sleep. She had heard Connor going downstairs, and then a few minutes later entering his study. She had almost decided to go to him there, because it was unbearable to lie in bed and wait for the morning. And now she looked at her watch, which she'd forgotten to remove, and it was nearly six o'clock and the window was a pale grey patch in the room. The moon had gone and so had the stars, but the sun was not yet near the horizon. In the countryside, cockerels would be crowing in farmyards. She could hear birds singing outside. Her throat was sore, as if it was full of drawing-pins. Her legs itched from the rough blanket she had lain in.

She rolled out of bed and stood in the middle of the room. There was a white rectangle on the floor by the door that turned out, when she took a few steps towards it, to be an envelope. She picked it up and turned it in her hands without opening it. Then she put it carefully on the desk where Ethan used to work and wandered muzzily into the bathroom. She gazed helplessly at her puffy eyes and dry lips, and splashed cold water over her face. She sensed that there was no one in the house but
her, and was filled with a desolation that made her feel old, frail, lonely.

In their bedroom, the bed was empty, the duvet pulled up over the pillows. She sat down on it, suddenly breathless. On the table at Connor's side, there were two books, both with markers in, and a medical journal; stuffed on to hers and overflowing on to the floor, there were the piles of books she was going to read soon, the magazines she hadn't quite got round to putting away, the notepads scrawled with lists she had made and not looked at again. She sighed and made herself get up, pulled on her old dressing-gown and went back to retrieve the envelope. Running her finger under the gummed flap, she pulled out the sheets of paper and looked at Connor's familiar, slanted writing. But the words blurred. ‘It's three in the morning,' she made out. She took the letter downstairs to the kitchen, where it was neat and orderly and fragrant with the many flowers she had bought yesterday; the dishwasher had been unloaded, the surfaces cleared and the boiler was humming. She made herself a large pot of tea and sat at the table with the mug cupped between her hands and the letter spread in front of her. The steam made her face damp as she read it through slowly, word by word; then she read it again.

After she had finished, she didn't know what to do with herself. It was only half past six. In the houses around her, people lay fast asleep. The lamps were still lit on the street. She ran herself a bath, but as soon as she lay down in it she wanted to get out. She put her dressing-gown back on and made herself a piece of toast and marmalade, but after one mouthful she threw it into
the bin. She picked up the phone to ring in sick for work, but as it was ringing realized that of course no one would be there yet, so she left a vague, apologetic message on the answering-machine and promised she'd call again later. She found the packet of cigarettes in her bag and smoked one down to the filter. Then she stood up decisively, found the scrap of paper with Nancy's email address written on it in the pocket of the coat she had worn yesterday, and went to Connor's computer, which she used when she needed it. She pressed ‘new' on the message box and typed in Nancy's address. ‘I told Connor last night,' she wrote, then sent it before she could change her mind. She thought about Stefan. He would have to know. There was a momentum about things now that none of them could stop. Connor would meet Nancy again, maybe he would meet Sonia, Stefan would discover the truth, then Ethan would find out. The secret had been spilt and now it was spreading over everything.

She got dressed in brown cords and a thick, shapeless pullover – the oldest, plainest clothes she could lay her hands on. The sight of all her bright, complicated things hanging in the wardrobe made her feel weary and jaded. So much effort, so much theatrical dressing up and showing off, and for what? She tied her hair back and coiled it into a stern bun. It was still not yet seven o'clock. Standing at the window, she stared out blankly at the street, which was filling with figures: men and women leaving early for work, moving briskly in the cool air; a teenager on a bike, with a bag of newspapers slung over his shoulder. The postman walked up the path to their front door and a few seconds later Gaby heard the clatter of mail falling
on to the hall floor. She lay down on the bed and put her hands behind her head.

Connor ran. Through Camden, up Kentish Town Road and towards the Heath. He made himself go as fast as he could, so that his chest ached with the effort. He went up Parliament Hill, then towards the opposite side, where you can believe that you're in the countryside. Almost no one was around yet: a few dog-walkers, a tramp trailing his sleeping-bag, a young man sitting on a bench given in remembrance of ‘our darling Gail, who loved this place'. Connor ran past the ponds, scattering ducks and fat pigeons, and along to the tennis courts. It wasn't enough. He retraced his circuit, his calves aching with the effort and his knees sore. The tramp had gone but the youth was still there, just sitting, and Connor wondered why he was so pensive. As he slowed down to a walk, at the exit to the Heath, he looked at his watch. It was not long past seven. He certainly couldn't go back yet; Gaby might still be asleep and he wanted to give her time to read his letter and prepare for his return. He had to behave with great caution now. He remembered how delicately he and Gaby had treated each other at the start of their relationship, how attuned they had been to the other's mood, knowing that they were holding each other's heart in their hands. Later, of course, that had necessarily worn away. They had had arguments in which they traded crude insults; they had behaved carelessly or unsympathetically and stopped treating each other as precious and vulnerable. But throughout they had had a sense of the comradely robustness of their marriage: they had teased each other,
laughed at each other, had sometimes taken each other for granted but rarely taken offence. Now Connor felt returned to the exquisite frailty of their beginnings, when the heart is a bruise and love an open wound.

There was a café up the road where he and Gaby sometimes went at the weekend because it served thick soups, vegetarian stews and large salads, and in the summer they could sit outside on the pavement and watch the world pass by. He went there now and although a ‘closed' sign hung on the door, he could see a woman moving around inside, preparing to open up. The sweat cooled on his forehead as he waited; the heat from his run was ebbing away. But the clichés were true: it did make a difference that the darkness had turned to day; it did help to exercise until your body ached.

The woman turned the ‘closed' sign to ‘open' and Connor stepped into the snug interior of dark wood, white walls, sofas and chairs. He asked for a glass of water, which he downed standing at the counter, and a cappuccino; then, seeing her frown, he added a toasted cinnamon-and-raisin bagel. He sat at the table by the window and made his coffee last as long as possible, sipping its warmth through the frothy surface. He tore off a shred of bagel and tried to chew it but couldn't swallow it. The café was beginning to fill and Connor wished he had a book or a paper so that he could pretend to read. Instead, he gazed out of the window at the people striding busily past and thought how long it had been, years indeed, since he had sat like this, doing nothing. Everything he did, from working to cooking his meals, was planned and had a purpose. Even when he went for
a walk, he did so quickly and efficiently, rarely loitering. All of that seemed a different world. Time, which used to go so fast, had slowed to a dawdle; his purpose had narrowed to a single domestic point. Gaby.

At eight o'clock he put a generous tip on his table and left the café. He trailed along the road, stopping to get a newspaper that he tucked under his arm after glancing at the headlines and thinking about buying a bunch of roses from the kiosk outside the Underground station, but Gaby had turned the house into a florist's yesterday and, anyway, to do so would be to reduce the magnitude of what he had done – the contrite husband handing over the bouquet. Sorry, darling, but here's a present to make up.

At the front door, he fumbled in his pocket for keys, then changed his mind and, like a stranger, lifted his hand and knocked.

9 November

I am about to ring you up. Mum and Dad have both gone out to the cinema and I'm alone in the house. They asked me to go with them but I said I was tired. I think maybe they guessed but they didn't push me. I don't think I can put it off any longer. I nearly did it a few minutes ago, I even started to dial the number, but then I slammed the phone down. I need to think of the first few words I will say to you. I have to practise saying them out loud and in the right tone – self-confident but not too loud – so that I don't stutter and go tongue-tied the way I do sometimes when I'm nervous. I know it doesn't really matter – I mean, I don't have to impress you or anything. Why on earth should I care what you think of me? Hello, can I speak to Nancy Belmont? My name is Sonia. It's perfectly simple. But maybe you won't even be there.

Later

So I've done it. I feel all trembly, as if I haven't eaten for ages. You answered almost at once and you just said, ‘Yes?' in a curt voice, and for a moment I couldn't speak. When I did, my voice was pathetic and a bit squeaky. I must have sounded about nine years old. But I managed to stammer out my sentence. I think I wanted you to sound flustered or anxious, but you didn't. You were more like someone arranging a business meeting, very quick and efficient. Well, that was probably
right, I guess – I certainly didn't want to start having an emotional conversation about how weird all of this was, blah-blah. But to be honest, I didn't particularly warm to you. You must have thought it all out beforehand, though. You had your suggestions of places to meet, and it was probably a good thing to agree in advance on how long we should be together, so it didn't dribble on with neither of us knowing when to leave. It felt a bit like a dentist's appointment or a maths tutorial or something. One hour, late morning, on the steps of the British Museum. And now I keep thinking of what I should wear. Isn't that stupid? Alex would be very disapproving of me. He hates vanity. But I think that probably it's just a way of thinking about who I should be when we meet, if that makes sense. I have to prepare myself: shall I be cool and punky me, or neat and organized me, or emotional and vulnerable me? I wonder if you're thinking the same, but you didn't sound like that on the phone. You sounded like you probably know exactly who you are and I bet you'll be wearing something sensible but quite expensive and whatever I've chosen will suddenly feel all tacky and wrong. I already feel clumsy. I'll spill my coffee and mumble my words and cry.

12 November

Yesterday me and Alex took George for a long walk. George can't move very fast any more: he's too old and fat and the vet says he's arthritic as well. But it was good. It was windy, and the leaves were flying up in front of us as if they were great flocks of birds and the light was thick and dramatic. I told him everything that's been happening with you. I didn't tell him before because I hadn't spoken to Mum and Dad and some-how it felt all wrong that he should know when they didn't.
His reaction was interesting. When my parents heard that I'd made contact with you, I could tell they were a bit hurt that I'd kept it secret for as long as I had, though they never said so. But with Alex it was the opposite. He loves people being mysterious and unexpected. He says that everyone should have secrets and hide bits of themselves away. Anyway, he seemed really chuffed and impressed by my news. Sometimes I think he would never have been interested in me in the first place if I hadn't been adopted. I'm not just this ordinary girl from the outskirts of Stratford, whose mother is a librarian and father an accountant and who lives in a semi with an old dog: I'm also someone with a mysterious background, who might have come from anywhere and be anyone.

I've tried to tell him that I don't want to be a mystery to myself but I don't think he takes it in properly. And he certainly doesn't understand the dread I feel at meeting you and perhaps having to redefine myself; for him being forced to redefine himself would be a wonderful adventure. The fact of not knowing is what I hate about myself and what he loves. Well, love isn't the right word. It's not a word he ever uses, and even when he's at his most tender he somehow manages it with raised eyebrows and a knowing smile – as if everything has to be framed by the knowledge that he's always being a bit ironic, a bit theatrical. He's very suspicious of love – he says it's a sentimental word and a dirty word and usually a lie and almost always a trap, and people do terrible things to each other in its name. I think if I told him I loved him he'd be out of the door faster than I could say, ‘Just joking!' I don't tell him, but not because I think he'll disappear. I don't tell him because I don't know what I feel. Sometimes, when I see him walking towards me down the road with his beaky nose, looking
eager and vulnerable (God, he'd hate to think he looked like that, which makes him even more touching), my heart contracts and I want to wrap him up in me and keep him safe from harm. Is that love? Or is that just the way so many women feel about men? Women want men to need them, and men dread women needing them. I was talking about that to Goldie yesterday – how one of the biggest insults a man uses about a woman is that she's ‘needy', which means he's gone off her. It seems cruel that the more you love and need someone the less likely it is that they'll love and need you back. Auden wrote once about having to be either the one who loves or the one who's loved. He chose to be the one who loved. I don't know what I would choose. Neither. I want it to be equal. Why shouldn't it be? I think Mum and Dad love each other equally; they're not sentimental towards each other. You wouldn't look at them and think, There's a great love story. But they seem to belong to each other and to know each other inside out. They finish each other's sentences sometimes, and have these shared stories that go back through all the years they've been together. I can't imagine what will happen when one dies and leaves the other alone. It doesn't seem possible that either could be single and independent again. It's like all their little habits and rituals have grown up around them like a shelter – which is probably my shelter, too, now I think about it. I read this quotation in the papers today, in an article written by a woman who'd lost her husband after something like forty years of marriage: ‘I am rich in all that I have lost.' It made me feel quite weepy.

I'll tell Goldie today as well. It feels better if the people I'm close to know what's going on. And, anyway, she can tell me what to wear!