The Moment You Were Gone (9 page)

The notebook was no longer in the sequined pink bag. She bent inside the wardrobe and rooted around among the discarded clothes and shoes. It wasn't there, or in the chest of drawers, among the underwear or the T-shirts. She lifted up the mattress – that was where boys were supposed to hide pornography, wasn't it? – and looked under the bed, but all she found there was a sock. Then she looked in the schoolbag – a scruffy grey backpack, with writing in felt tip scrawled all over its fabric, torn along one seam – and that was where she found it, sandwiched between the physics textbook and the one for higher maths.

21 September 2005

Anyway, I suppose I should tell you something about myself. There's all the obvious boring stuff, and you know some of that already. I'm eighteen. I do well at school, mainly because I work hard (they've always called me boffin at school, and it used to make me a bit miserable, but then I decided to take it as a compliment and now it kind of has become one. I guess Mrs Sadler would see a moral in that: be true to yourself blah-blah). I am doing A levels in maths, chemistry and physics, and Mum and Dad think I ought to study medicine but, really, I want to be a scientist. Genetics, maybe. Who knows? I love books – I wanted to do English as well as science, but in the
end I had to give something up. I swim for the school and for the last two years I've competed in the national trials. My best stroke is crawl, and I'm quite good at butterfly as well. I love swimming. It's the closest you get to flying. Sometimes I think I'm most like myself when I'm in the water. There we are – back to the idea of a ‘self' again. I take lots of photographs and perhaps there's a particular reason for this, but that's another story. (Mum and Dad gave me a really good digital camera for my birthday.)

OK. What else? My closest friend is called Goldie – that's not really her name, of course. Her name is Emma Locks, but because she's got this rippling golden-blonde hair everyone called her Goldilocks, then just Goldie and it stuck. Most people don't even know her real name any more. We met each other when we were five; she's almost like my sister now, except we don't quarrel. I've got a boyfriend called Alex. He's clever and ironic and dry, and half the time nobody understands a word he's saying. Maybe it sounds strange to say this but I've always thought he'll be the one to finish it between us. One day he'll wander off and forget to tell me he's gone.

Maybe I like him precisely because he's a bit strange and you can't explain him even to yourself or pin him down. He eats raw chillies at lunchtime.

None of this says that much about me, though, does it? I could be anyone at all. We did an exercise in creative writing at school once. We had to write a hate-list and a love-list. I can't remember what I put, but I'm going to do another for you, and try to be honest.

I hate
: sand between my toes, tomato ketchup, rats, pebble-dashing, animal liberationists, thongs, cooked apples, itchy jumpers, supermarkets, hair sprouting out of noses and ears,
designer labels on the outside of clothes, those wristbands with slogans on them that make you feel like you're doing something to help the world simply by wearing them, people who think they're radicals because they're wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, fat African dictators in white suits who live in grand palaces and eat caviar while their country burns and starves, people using foreign words in their sentences to impress you, spittle at the corner of mouths, Christmas-tree lights that are all tangled up, drizzly Sunday afternoons, waiting for someone, those envelopes with grey fluff inside, golf, windscreen wipers on dry windows, the word ‘minging' (and ‘manky' and ‘pikey' and ‘scum'), hair in food, dog shit on the pavement outside my front door, November and February, theme parks, recorded advertisements on the telephone, bank statements, tepid baths, politicians looking sad during two-minute silences, arguments about whether Darwin was right, feeling jealous of friends, patchouli oil, chewing-gum (being chewed, or stuck under tables and seats), the soft-mushy sound people make when they eat a banana, party political broadcasts, trifle, the lottery, being told it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, being told to ‘cheer up, it may never happen', being told that I'll change my mind when I get older, the smell of beer, sweet popcorn, strawberry creams, plasters in swimming-pools, asterisks replacing swear words, instruction manuals, new-year resolutions, my socks slipping down inside wellington boots, waking up and not knowing where I am, when I don't get the joke but laugh anyway, ulcers, Monopoly, the sound I used to make on the violin before I gave it up, white chocolate that sticks to the roof of your mouth, people claiming that climate change is still unproven, music in lifts, peanut butter, someone whispering and thinking
they might be whispering about me, worrying about my weight, eggshell in my mouth, toothache …

I can't think of anything more right now, although I'm sure I will as soon as I'm not writing this.

I love
: the smell of basil, the smell of coffee being ground, the smell of petrol and nail-varnish remover, clean sheets, hot baths in the winter after I've had a really long day, the times when I'm swimming well and I feel strong and supple and just right, getting a simultaneous equation to come out, Keats's poetry (and John Donne's and W. H. Auden's), fish pie, blackcurrant ice-cream, sour apples, the words ‘clunk' and ‘odd' and ‘thwart' and ‘fizzgig', the skin of baked potatoes, crying in weepy films, notebooks with thick white pages that haven't been written in yet, getting the giggles with friends, waking up in the dark and looking at the clock and seeing I've still got hours to go before I have to get up, May and early June, rock pools, warm evenings, receiving a letter in the post, the smell of grass after it's rained, thunderstorms, warm rain, weeping willows, firelight, the colour green, Italy, snorkelling, pistachio nuts, bread just out of the oven with lots of butter, cycling downhill (after I've gone up it), the sound when you cut through a hank of hair, good teachers, staying up all night and seeing the sun rise, dancing when you get the rhythm right and the music feels like it's running through your whole body, cherries, the smell of babies, doing cartwheels, mist in the early morning, sharpening pencils, swimming naked, cooking lemon drizzle cake, picking scabs, windy weather, elections, the Olympic Games, bread-and-butter pudding, little white clouds, my room when I've tidied it and every single thing is in its proper place, teat pipettes, strangers who smile at you for no reason, big soft towels, the bobbly scar on my index finger
where I grabbed on to a barbed-wire fence, white wine, New York (I've never been there), owls …

Do you know what I think? I've just read through both lists, and the hate-list seems much more revealing than the love one. Why do you think this is?

The real question, though, is what am I going to do next? And the answer is – I don't know. I haven't decided. It all feels too big and significant. It almost doesn't feel real. It's as if this is happening to someone else. Not me, Sonia.

She closed the book and put it back in its place, but for a long time she went on sitting on the bed, staring at her hands, her whitened knuckles, until she collected herself and left the room.

‘Ticket, please.'

Gaby handed hers over.

‘This isn't for first class, madam.'

‘No, I know.'

‘And, here, it isn't for this journey, either. It's for London. I'm afraid you're on your way to Penzance.'

‘Yes. It's very beautiful here, isn't it?'

‘Madam?'

‘I got on the wrong train, that's all,' she said. ‘Sorry. I'll get off at Liskeard, shall I?'

‘But you've already passed Plymouth. Why didn't you –?'

‘I was in a bit of a dream. It's been a funny kind of day. My son – my only child – has gone off to university for the first time and my mind was on other things. Memories. But I don't want to lie to you – I knew it was the wrong train all the time.'

‘I don't follow you.'

‘I just suddenly got on it. It seemed the right thing to do, although I'm beginning to feel a bit foolish. Have you ever done anything like that?'

‘I can't say I have.'

‘Do you want me to pay for this journey?'

‘If you get out at the next stop, I'll turn a blind eye. Considering everything.'

‘You're a very nice man,' she said warmly, and he blushed and rubbed the side of his face in embarrassment.

‘But you'll still need to go to the second-class carriage, unless you want to pay the extra, which will be –'

‘No, it's all right. I'll move.'

But the train was already slowing and a voice announced over the Tannoy that they were coming into Liskeard. As she got out on to the platform, she noticed that it was already dusk. The nights were drawing in.

She didn't have an address or a phone number, just the name of a village a few miles from Liskeard. In any case, she certainly didn't want to phone ahead. That was out of the question. Never mind, she'd have to get a taxi to Rashmoor, then wander about until she tracked her down.

A few months previously, Gaby had been lounging on the sofa after supper, nursing a large glass of red wine and half watching the news. There was an item about the floods that had severely damaged several villages in Cornwall; some residents had even had to be rescued from their houses in boats. A female reporter, sloshing along in the muddy brown water and looking inappropriately jolly in bright red wellingtons that had obviously been bought for the occasion, said, ‘I'm here in the picturesque village of Rashmoor, where dozens of houses have had to be evacuated. It really is an extraordinary scene.' The camera panned over images of a street that had become a stream, with the tops of cars, fences and lamp-posts poking out of its fast-flowing surface, and then of the inside of a house, water half-way up the stairs and a furious-looking woman standing a few steps up
holding a bucket, before returning to the face of the smiling reporter.

At that point Gaby had sat bolt upright on her sofa, slopping her wine. For as she watched, a woman wearing boots and an oilskin walked past. She glanced fleetingly at the camera and, for a surreal moment, Gaby had the clear sense that she was looking straight at
her
– and then she looked away and quickened her pace. Even as Gaby a gasped and leant closer, the woman was gone, and the reporter was saying something about climate change and insurance companies. She hadn't seen her for nineteen years, yet the recognition was sharp and total: the square jaw and intense eyes, the colour of a gas flame; the way she had of carrying herself, back straight, head up, like a soldier on parade. She'd always done that, even as a girl. People had always thought she was taller than she was.

For a few minutes Gaby had sat on the sofa, startled with the shock of it. Then she drained her glass of wine, stood up decisively and pulled the large road atlas down from the bookshelf. She turned to the index and found Rashmoor. And there it was, a tiny dot near Bodmin Moor, a few miles from Liskeard and not far from the sea. Without giving herself time to think, she rang Directory Enquiries and asked for the number of Nancy Belmont, Rashmoor, Cornwall. ‘Sorry, caller,' said the voice at the other end of the line, ‘but that number is ex-directory.' So she had seen her: she did live there. After so many years of not knowing where she was, not knowing if she was in the country, not even knowing if she was still alive, Gaby had found her. Or, rather, she had appeared to Gaby, like an apparition. She had stared into her eyes.

But that had been many weeks ago now, and Gaby had done nothing about it. She hadn't even mentioned it to Connor, although she didn't understand why not. She'd practised the words – ‘Guess who I saw on television?' – but never spoken them. Connor had told her often enough that she should let Nancy go. He had argued, reasonably, that whatever her motives Nancy had made it clear by her behaviour that their friendship was over. It was no good trying to persuade her to change her mind; you couldn't beg someone to be your friend or plead with them to like you. And neither had she told Stefan, for what was the point? She'd let the image go and it drifted slowly to the muddy depths of her mind where it lay out of sight.

But now here she was in Liskeard, on some madcap errand to find a friend who wasn't a friend and ask her – ask her what? Why did you leave Stefan like that? Why did you leave me? Why did you never write? What happened? She wasn't even sure any more that she wanted to know the answers. To make it worse, there wasn't a single taxi. It was getting dark, and Gaby stood indecisively, pondering. Perhaps she should get back on the next London train. She could be home before too late, have a long bath and watch a film or curl up in bed with a book.

But even as she was thinking this, she had turned her back on the station and walked towards the centre of the town. She had no idea of which direction to take – the atlas had shown that Rashmoor was north-west of Liskeard, but which was north-west, for goodness' sake? Connor knew things like that. He would frown for a few
seconds, considering, then point decisively. And he was always bloody right. It was extremely annoying – like the way when he was driving and she was failing to find where they were on the map, let alone where they were going and what road to take, he would jab the page and say, ‘We're about there.' Perhaps she could smell the sea and follow that, or perhaps she could orient herself by the North Star, if she knew which star it was. Wasn't it the bright one, low on the horizon, or was that the Pole Star – or maybe the Pole Star and the North Star were the same? She squinted up at the darkening sky hopelessly. She should learn about constellations, she thought, knowing that of course she wouldn't.

She went into the first pub she came to, making her way through the fug of cigarette smoke to the bar.

‘Can you tell me the way to Rashmoor?'

‘Rashmoor – let me see, it rings a bell.'

‘It's near here.'

‘Yeah – Vicky, do you know where Rashmoor is?'

‘Isn't it the little village up past the old tin mines? The one that got badly flooded in the summer?'

‘That's the one. I knew that, I knew it.' He leant across the bar to Gaby. ‘Take the first left out of the town, drive up that road for a mile or two, then take the next right along a small road that follows the river. It's a bit isolated, mind.'

‘Thanks. How many miles do you think?'

‘Not many. It'll only take ten or so minutes I reckon.'

Gaby didn't tell him she was walking. She asked for a glass of white wine and a packet of dry-roasted nuts, and sat at a small table near the window, sipping the wine
slowly and popping nuts into her mouth, crunching them. Then she stood up, waved at the man behind the bar and left.

Before long, she had left Liskeard. All around her stretched the moorland, scattered with the pale shapes of sheep, and above the great sky heaved with clouds. A bird flew low over the ground in front of her uttering a plaintive cry and once she thought she glimpsed a fox. As she walked, her feet becoming sore and blistered so she had to shuffle, she tried to plan what she would say to Nancy. But it was no good. Her mind refused to co-operate. She understood, but she still didn't truly believe that in a short while she might be standing face to face with the woman who for years had been her closest friend and who had nearly been her sister-in-law. She'd used to imagine the circumstances of their meeting (the party, the wedding or funeral, the moment in the street when they would find themselves face to face), and she'd practised what she'd say – whole, eloquent speeches that would make Nancy realize what she had done, the pain she had caused not just to Stefan but to her as well. She had long, impassioned sections about the meaning of friendship, its unconditional loyalty. Sometimes the words she wrote in her head were delivered more in sorrow than anger – but often they bubbled with rage. Now, walking over the moors towards her, she couldn't remember a word of them, and even if she could, she knew that they would be useless.

She tried instead to think about Nancy in the past, but even that was difficult. She found that, all of a sudden, she could not properly remember her face, either as a
child or as a young woman. She summoned particular events to mind to see if that would bring back the image of her friend (their first day at secondary school, when Nancy had turned up with cropped hair and her leg in plaster; that bike ride they'd been on together when they'd cycled through a shallow-looking puddle and found themselves pedalling deeper and deeper into it, until at last they'd both toppled off, screaming with laughter; the time Nancy and Stefan had announced to her, with awkward formality, that they were – er – kind of, you know, seeing each other; a rare time when she'd seen her friend cry, though she'd never discovered the reason, and she'd been extraordinarily moved by the way her fingers had clutched a sodden, shredded tissue, which she used to mop her swollen eyes; Nancy's twenty-first birthday party when she'd worn a tux and danced salsa with Stefan to everyone's applause). But Nancy was like the person in the photograph whose features have been pixellated out. She was a smudge. The years they had known each other seemed to run together, all the separate episodes leaking into each other like colours mixing on a palette. Nothing of Nancy was distinct in her memory any more; everything was murky and undifferentiated. The only image that remained clear was the brief glimpse that Gaby had had of her on the television screen, when for almost two decades she had been a stranger.

Instead, Gaby found herself remembering Stefan's face on the day that Nancy had left him. That still lay clear in her mind. It had been a weekday night. Ethan was asleep in his room, the night-light glowing softly beside him, and Connor – who had been on duty for thirty-six hours
had been in bed for an hour or more. Gaby was lying on the sofa reading a book (she even remembered which:
Innocence
by Penelope Fitzgerald, a lovely novel that she would associate for ever with betrayal). The rain had hammered down outside, but inside it was warm and messy, and she was sipping a mug of hot chocolate that she had made – with a sense of luxurious self-indulgence – with cream and chocolate melted over a double-boiler. She had been feeling as contented as a lazy cat. And then there had been an urgent rapping on the front door. She had pulled the belt on her dressing-gown tighter, taken a last thick gulp of her drink, and gone to see who it was. Stefan had stood on the threshold in the pouring rain, his hair flattened on to his skull. He had stared at Gaby, but she had had the impression that he wasn't really seeing her. A small frown puzzled his brow, but under it his eyes were empty. The skin round his mouth was slack, and he looked old, drab and hopeless. Gaby had tried to hug him, but he stood passively in her arms in his thick wet overcoat, his arms hanging by his sides.

Walking along the empty road now, Gaby felt the old anger flare up inside her, making her quicken her pace. There was one image of Nancy that she could vividly remember from the past, after all, and she held on to it. She had gone round to Stefan's flat, which until then had been Stefan and Nancy's flat, the following day, knowing from Stefan that she would find her friend there. Nancy had arranged a time when Stefan was at work to collect her possessions and drop off the keys. Gaby was struck by how efficient she was being – telling her brother in the evening, moving out lock, stock and barrel the next
afternoon, not even keeping a key in case she should want to return. They had been together for five years, they had planned their future together, but now in a single day she was clearing away all signs that she had ever been there. Gaby was nearly too late. Nancy had arrived earlier and spent less time in the flat than she had anticipated, so Gaby came upon her pulling her last case into the back of the van, the engine already running and ready to go. She was wearing dark jeans, sneakers and a black leather jacket, and her hair was covered with a bandana. She looked agile, streamlined, vaguely piratical. When she saw Gaby she seemed neither startled nor guilty. She slammed the back doors shut, rubbed her hands on her jeans and stood back. ‘Gaby,' she said, ‘I thought it was better this way. A quick, clean break.'