The Moment You Were Gone (29 page)

‘What?' He stopped dead and glared at her. ‘What's that?'

‘I've got a small photograph here with me. Do you want to see it?'

‘A photo of Sonia? No. No, I don't.'

‘OK.'

‘Does she look –?'

‘Like you? Yes, I think so. And Gaby recognized she was yours at once, you know.'

‘All right, then. Show me.'

‘Sure?'

‘I said, show me.' Nancy took her wallet out of her bag, unzipped the inner compartment and drew out a passport-sized photograph. She passed it to Connor.

He turned away from her. Dark, spiky hair, a triangular face, a defiant look. He was shocked by the thrill of pride that ran through him. ‘Thanks,' he said, handing it back.

‘I'm seeing her later today.'

‘Today?'

‘Yes.'

‘I see.'

‘Connor, she'll probably want to know about you. She
might ask your name, want to meet you. I would if I was her. Have you thought –?'

‘Yes.' His voice grated. ‘I mean, yes, I've thought about it and, yes, you can tell her about me, if she asks.'

‘And if she wants to meet you?'

Connor swallowed. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘But –'

‘But?'

‘But not with you.'

Nancy gave a short snort of laughter, and he was catapulted back to the days when he and this woman had been simple friends, and they would sit around a table, the four of them, and Gaby would throw back her head and peal out laughter and Nancy would give her sardonic snort of comic delight, while Stefan beamed beside her. Those were happy days, he thought.

‘You mean, you don't want us to be like a little alternative family together? Of course I agree with that.'

‘Good.'

‘So I can give her your address?'

‘Yes.'

‘Does –?'

‘Does Gaby know of my decision? Of course she does. It was Gaby who insisted on it, in fact. She's being very honourable.'

‘I'm sure.'

‘Nancy?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You have to say more than that.'

‘I don't. I can't. It was so long ago. What's the point
in knowing, anyway? What difference does it make now? It's all over and done with, long ago.'

‘It doesn't feel that simple,' he almost shouted. ‘You left years ago. You disappeared out of our lives. I thought I'd never see you again, never have to think about what happened. Then all of a sudden – this. Like a bomb in the middle of my placid life, everything blown apart. Everything. And I don't know what's the right thing to do. I've tried to do a thought experiment on myself. Why are you smiling like that? Is it so ridiculous? I've asked myself that if God were looking down on this situation, what would he say was the right thing to do? The ethical thing. But God doesn't seem to know. Should I see Sonia or not? Tell Ethan and Stefan or not? Talk to you and walk with you like this or not? If I behave well to one person, I hurt another. It's as if I'm in a thick fog, wandering around and not knowing where I'm going. Everything's so –' He passed a hand over his face. ‘I don't know,' he said eventually. ‘I don't know any more. I don't know what I think and I don't know what I feel and I don't know who I am.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said gravely, and Connor shrugged.

‘Why didn't you have an abortion?' he said, in a weary tone.

‘You mean, if I'd had an abortion you wouldn't have to be going through all of this?'

‘No, of course not. I just don't understand why. You always used to be vehemently pro-Choice.'

‘I still am. Maybe without the vehemence.'

‘So?'

‘I don't know that, either. I thought I would, but I kept
delaying it. I didn't understand it myself. I left it till it was too late for it to be a simple procedure – and then I left it even longer. And then – well, then I went ahead with it because it was the only thing left to do. Perhaps I was punishing myself.'

‘But you never wanted to keep it?'

‘Her.'

‘Her. Never wanted to keep her?'

She wheeled to face him, putting a hand across her stomach as if the memory of her pregnancy was a physical presence inside her. ‘What do you think, Connor? Of course I fucking wanted to. Do you have any idea what it feels like to go through a pregnancy and give birth, then give your baby away? The violence of my loss was like – never mind. That's over. I didn't know what else to do, is the real answer. It was your baby. Gaby was the person I loved most in the world. Stefan was the person I thought I loved second best. We'd wrecked all of that – and I didn't know what to do. I was on my own.'

Connor looked at her. The austere face seemed to have fractured, and now he did not feel that she was a stranger any more. He saw the lines on her face and the grey flecking her hair and was filled with a heavy, melancholy affection. He put out a hand and touched her shoulder. ‘I'm sorry too,' he said. ‘I'm so very, very sorry for all you've been through. And I'm glad I know. In spite of everything, I find I'm glad.'

She took his hand then and they walked along the path together, not saying anything.

He felt her warm fingers between his. ‘What time are you meeting her?' he asked at last.

‘In about an hour and a half.'

‘So soon! Where? Not here?'

He had a vision of the girl seeing them together like this, hand in hand. He let go of her fingers and put his hands back into his pockets.

‘No, not here. Can I ask you something?'

‘Go on.'

‘How's Gaby?'

‘She's – I don't know. She's calm.'

‘Calm?'

‘I know. Not like her, is it? She's calm and kind and practical. And almost, well, pitying. She pities me.'

‘Oh!' said Nancy. She bit her lip.

‘It makes me feel ashamed.'

‘Will you and her – will it be all right?'

‘I don't know. Sometimes I think that it was all so long ago, and we've been so good to each other since, how can it not? And sometimes I think that something's been broken and, whatever I do, I can't put it back together. It feels wrong, telling you this.'

‘I understand. Sorry, I shouldn't have asked.'

‘It's not your fault. I should go now. I have to get to work.'

‘Connor?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're not a bad man, you know.'

‘Goodbye,' he said. She could see that there were tears in his eyes. ‘I don't know if we'll –'

‘No, nor do I. Good luck with everything.'

‘And to you. Take care.'

‘I did love you,' she said in a rush, as he started to walk away from her, then put her fist into her mouth.

He turned. ‘What's that?'

‘Nothing,' she managed to say. ‘You must go now. Goodbye.'

He set off along the riverbank and she watched as his thin figure, in its dark overcoat, melted into the crowd.

Connor walked until he was sure he was out of sight, then stopped. He had no idea what he was feeling, except that he was sick and empty and tired. He left the river and walked up towards St Paul's, where he stood for a few minutes, at a loss for what he should do next. Perhaps he should go inside and kneel down in the cold, lofty space, bend his head and pray. But he never prayed. He had no God, nor had he ever had. He had had only a belief in himself, ever since he was a small boy striving to escape the grim world his parents had given him. What would he say to God? Make it not have happened, make Gaby love me the way she used to, make Ethan never have to think of me as the man who hurt his mother, make Stefan live a happy life, make me someone else, turn back the clock, undo the past, make it all right in a way that it never can be.

There was a stall selling coffee, and he asked for a cappuccino. When it came he wrapped his hands round the cardboard cup and felt warmth return to his fingers. He lifted the plastic lid and leant over the steam to let it lick his face. Then he shuffled a few paces and sat on a wooden bench in the lee of the cathedral and closed his eyes. He saw Nancy's forty-year-old face and Gaby's. He saw their younger faces. His cheeks were wet and when he felt them with his fingers he discovered he was crying.
The salt tears stung his skin. He put the coffee, half finished, on the ground, and bent forward on the bench with his face in his hands. Tears dripped through his fingers, and his shoulders were shaking. Small whimpers were coming from deep within him, like the first warning sounds of a great quake. The whimpers grew louder and now his whole body was shuddering. He was dimly aware that people would be passing the bench and looking curiously at the well-dressed middle-aged man weeping like a baby. He didn't care. He pressed his head deeper into the cup of his hands and was in his own warm, wet, private darkness. His throat was sore and his chest ached. His eyes hurt and against his closed lids he could still see the faces of those he loved, his own private film of anguish.

‘There, there,' someone was saying, more like a rustle of leaves than a voice.

A hand was on his bent head, stroking his hair. For a mad second, he thought it was his mother, comforting him as she never had when he was little. His sobs grew louder.

‘There, there.'

At last he lifted his face from his hands and looked around through his watery, bloodshot eyes. A woman was sitting on the bench beside him. She was tiny and ancient, wrapped in a thick, oversized coat tied at the waist with a length of rope and her feet stuffed into moth-eaten slippers. An absurd hat, more like a grubby turban, was perched on her head, and her lined, weathered face reminded Connor of an onion. Her little blue eyes peered at him. ‘Hello, dear,' she said. ‘You needed to get that out of you.'

‘Sorry.'

‘When you want to cry, you have to cry or it poisons your insides,' she said. ‘Me and Billy have a good weep together sometimes, don't we, Billy?'

Connor stared around, bewildered, then saw a small, scruffy dog sheltering between her legs, its face peering out from between the flaps of her coat.

‘Sometimes I sit on this bench all day,' said the woman, ‘and no one even looks at me. They walk by me and their eyes go right through me. I'm invisible. They even drop litter at my feet. Once someone threw an apple core and it landed in my lap and they didn't even turn and say sorry. People are very rude nowadays. My name is Mildred May Clegg. I have a name. My mother gave it to me eighty-eight years ago, but there are days when I have to go and stand outside a shop window so I can see my reflection in the glass, just to make sure I'm still there. I say, “Hello, Mildred May.” Maybe I wave at myself. People think I'm not right in my head. They walk in a wide circle so they don't come anywhere near me. There's nothing wrong with my head, is there, Billy? There, Billy can tell you. He knows. Dogs see more than people. Billy recognizes when someone's a bad one. He snarls or backs away. He likes you, though. Look, he's wagging his tail, that's a sure sign he thinks you're all right. It doesn't matter what they look like, they can be dressed up all fancy and speak ever so proper, but he can tell what they're like inside. People can't do that, can they? Or not many, anyway. I reckon I can. I've had practice. Years of practice. I used to sing, you know, when I was young. You wouldn't think it, would you? I wasn't
always like this. I was a pretty girl and I sang and everyone said I'd go far. Life doesn't turn out the way you think, does it? It was the drink that did for me, or the death. Death first, and then drink. That was the order, though the order's got muddled up since then and, anyway, nobody cares to ask any more. They used to care. They used to say, “Mildred May, you have to pull yourself together.” They were probably right. I mean, if you don't pull yourself together quite quickly you stop remembering how to do it. Since then, I've sat on this bench and watched people. It's a bit like watching the river after a bit. Faces flow by, they do, and mostly you don't properly look at them. A tide of humanity,' she said, shaking her head from side to side and winking at him. ‘Just a tide passing by.'

Connor stared at her with his throbbing eyes.

‘But some you notice. They jump out at you, look into your face, and after that they're inside your head. When I die, a lot of people die with me.'

‘Can I get you a cup of coffee?' he asked politely. ‘Or something to eat?'

‘Billy would like a doughnut from there.' She nodded at the stall where Connor had bought his cappuccino.

‘A doughnut for both of you, then?'

‘And one for you, young man. You need feeding up. Don't you have a mother?'

‘No.'

‘Everyone needs a mother. I was a mother once, you know.'

‘Were you?'

‘My little Danny boy.'

‘What happened?' His voice was gentle.

‘My father used to tell me that nobody owns anybody else. You're here for a while and then you're gone. Gone without a trace.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘It's a vale of tears, my dear. Never you mind.'

‘I have a son called Ethan,' Connor said. ‘He's nineteen. He's left home now.'

Once again, fat tears began to roll down his cheek.

‘An apple one for me, and a jam one for Billy.'

‘Very well.'

Connor bought three doughnuts wrapped in paper napkins and returned to the bench. He sat down beside Mildred May, close enough that their thighs touched and he could smell the sweet stench of alcohol on her. ‘Here.'

The old woman took the jam doughnut and held it out. Billy crept from the shelter of her coat and grabbed it before retreating again. Then she tore her own in half and posted the first portion into her pursed mouth, making a smacking sound as she ate. She pulled a glass bottle full of clear liquid out of one of her pockets and took a gulp, then put it away again. Connor took a bite of his own doughnut. It had been many years since he'd eaten one and its fried, doughy sweetness comforted him.