Tideline (25 page)

‘Have you ever been in love?’

‘Nah! No way.’

‘What about this Alicia?’

He shrugs.

I see I’ve embarrassed him, probed a bit too close. He’s sensitive. Still such a young boy.

‘I’m not going to mess up like my parents.’

It’s tempting to take a wise mature woman role at this point and say we all think that when we’re young, but Jez does not want to hear this. He thinks, as all young people do, that
he won’t make the same mistakes his parents have done.

‘You know when you’re a child,’ I say, ‘and you realize the colour blue may be different to what other people see?’

‘What, like you think it’s blue but maybe someone else sees a colour you never even dreamed of? I’ve thought that.’ He’s talking but not looking at me. His eyes are
still shut. He’s enjoying our closeness, but he’s afraid of enjoying it. I understand perfectly.

‘Well, it’s like that with relationships. What one person perceives may be an entirely different thing to the other person. How can you know that? You both assume you’re
looking at the same blue and that you’ll be working in parallel, with the same aims and shared values. Maybe your mum and dad thought they’d met someone who saw the same blue,’ I
say.

‘They’re adults. They should try a bit harder. Other people manage to stay together. Helen and Mick. You and your husband.’ He gives me an odd look as he says this.

Dare I admit that my relationship with Greg has been a mistake too? That we only stay together for practical reasons? But Jez seems to want to believe that we are, on some level, happily
married, so I say nothing. He looks a little better. There’s a faint flush in his cheeks and his breath is flowing more easily. He’s so close, I put out my hand, lift a lock of his
hair, move my mouth towards his ear. He jerks his head so violently away from me, I feel hurt and ashamed.

I stand up and go to the door.

‘Night Jez,’ I say.

‘Don’t go!’ he says. ‘Please. Don’t leave me again. I’m sorry about that.’

‘I’m sorry too. But I’m going now. We’ll talk some more tomorrow.’

‘Let me come outside with you.’

I look at him gently. He must realize how much I’d love him to come with me, sit at the table as he did when he arrived on Friday, while I prepare dinner for us both.

‘Have a good night. Try to sleep. I’ll be back in the morning.’

‘Sonia, no,’ he croaks as I reach the door. ‘Please don’t leave me here alone for another night. I’m cold and it’s scary here. And I’m not well.
Please.’

But I ignore his pleading, and force myself to walk away from him, out into the night.

Sonia

At eleven o’clock the next morning I’m settled with a cappuccino at a table on the terrace at the Pavilion Tea Rooms, as they’ve renamed what was once a
simple park café. Tiny shoots are just appearing in some of the flower beds around the terrace, but there’s a cold wind. The bare tops of the trees claw at dark scudding clouds.

Helen arrives a few minutes later, like an unseasonal butterfly on this raw day, wrapped in a gorgeous cerise scarf and matching hat, and swathed in a blue-green wool jacket with a hood. Unlike
me she is partial to a broad pallet of colour in her wardrobe. It suits her. She kisses me on both cheeks and stares at my coffee.

‘You don’t fancy a drink?’ she says.

‘It’s a bit early for me, Helen,’ I say. ‘But you go ahead if it’s what you feel like.’

I wonder if a better friend would advise against drinking wine at this time in the morning. Might try to persuade her pal to take it easy. But there are two reasons I don’t. The first is
that I detest moralizing. After all, who am I to judge another’s vulnerability? Who is anyone? Don’t we all have our weak spots? Isn’t every one of us subject to a failing of one
sort or another? Shouldn’t we allow for each others’ weaknesses in order to live with and accept our own?

The other reason is that it is to my advantage to have Helen drunk. It means she becomes looser with her tongue. I can store what she tells me without her noticing my curiosity. So when she
suggests wine, I offer to go and get her a glass, a bottle even, if she prefers, and she thanks me and says they do half-bottles and she’ll compromise and have one of those.

I’ve only just sat down again, and am pulling my coat around me to keep out the icy wind, when she launches in.

‘Well. There’ve been some new events,’ she says. ‘Even since I saw you on Friday. I’ve got myself in a bit of a pickle, and I need your help.’

I stare at her, the coffee cup halfway to my mouth.

‘Look, Sonia. I have to tell you this, because I’m not sure what to do about it any more. The day Jez disappeared, Friday, I didn’t go to work. But I told everyone including
the police that I did.’

I stare at her. My hand starts to tremble. For a horrible few seconds I think she’s about to tell me that she was here, in Greenwich and saw Jez come to my door. That she knows he is
living with me. That now the police are making enquiries it’s time to ‘fess up’ as Kit’s friends would say. The cup rattles against the saucer as I put my coffee down.

‘I took the morning off – I only work half days anyway on a Friday. So I didn’t think anyone at work would be bothered either way.’

She stares at me, wide-eyed, as if expecting me to guess what she’s about to say.

‘Now the police think I’m involved in Jez’s disappearance. At the moment it’s only hunches, instincts, they have no firm evidence. But they’re trying to get
some.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The questions! Endless! They’ve been back to question me, not Mick. Twice. And I told you, they imagine I have a motive, because Barney wanted to get into the same college as Jez.
Now they’ve found out I wasn’t at work that morning. But I’d told them I was.’

‘Oh God. How ghastly. Then where were you?’

My pulse has slowed now. I watch her carefully as I sip my coffee.

‘Not where I said I was. The truth is, and I can only tell you this, it’s so humiliating. I was in a bar in Smithfields. Hair of the dog. If Maria finds out, I’ll never live it
down. Look. I got pissed on Thursday night, sitting up, drinking alone. I know it sounds a bit sad. But sometimes I just need it. When Mick and the boys are all busy doing their thing. I’m
lonely, Sonia. I’ve been lonely for a long time. And facing it is sometimes too much to bear.’ Two tears roll in tandem down her cheek. She wipes them away with both index fingers then
takes a deep breath and a gulp of wine.

‘So. On Thursday, I drank. Far too much. Couldn’t face work on Friday. Sat in a pub. Drank again. It’s pathetic. And now I’ve lied to the police to save face!’

‘God, Helen, you’ve got yourself in a right muddle, haven’t you?’ I’m so relieved that this is all she wants to tell me, I feel like hugging her.

‘No. no. The thing is, I think it could be OK. I told them I was at the Turkish baths. All I need is a good friend. Someone unconnected with Jez to say they saw me there. And it’s
plausible. In fact, perhaps, I thought of you because you’re freelance, it’s perfectly possible for you to pop to the baths on a Friday morning.’

‘Look, Helen. I don’t think I should get involved. I’m sorry. Anyway, isn’t it a bit late? Surely they’ll have checked already if they know you didn’t tell
the truth the first time?’

Helen fiddles with some change I’ve left on the table. She takes a sip of her wine.

‘What do I do? If you won’t help me I’m buggered!’

‘You’re not, Helen. You tell them that you were in a pub, if that is where you were. Tell them the truth.’ I feel impatient now. She’s not done anything, for
goodness’ sake. She’s not got everything to lose. Helen looks hurt, as if she might really cry.

‘And Mick?’ I say at last, more gently. ‘How are things with him?’

She sniffs, knocks back the end of another glass.

‘It’s all more complicated than I’d admitted. Even to myself. The jealousy. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. There was someone, oh a year ago now, I was involved
with.’

‘Right.’

This is unexpected. ‘Do you want to tell me who?’

‘It’s over, Sonia. I finished it. To save our marriages. His and mine.’

‘You did the right thing.’ I can barely believe these words come from my own lips. Whenever did I know what the ‘right thing’ was?

‘But the guilt has been with me ever since. So how can I confront Mick with this suspicion that he’s having a fling with Maria now? He could throw it back in my face! When he found
out about me he dealt with it. He didn’t like it, but he let it go. Now this thing with Maria is eating away at me. I’m losing all my confidence, all my dignity.’

‘Oh, Helen.’ I’m acutely aware of the feeling she’s describing, the agony I, too, felt with Jasmine all those years ago. That terrible conundrum. If you admit to your
hurt you invite contempt, if you don’t, you remain in agony. It’s a curse. But I say nothing.

‘I’d been convincing myself everything was back to normal between me and Mick. But then this comes along and the façade of our so-called happy marriage has been blasted off.
There were faults we refused to see. It only took one shift for the whole lot to collapse. Jez goes missing and everything’s fallen apart.’

We sit silently for a few minutes.

‘One good thing is I’m getting to know Alicia, Jez’s girlfriend. She’s been coming around a lot, of course, poor kid. She’s devastated. But she’s company. She
finds their behaviour nauseating too. She’s never got on with Maria. When she’s not too distraught about Jez, we manage to laugh about them together. Alicia sticks her fingers down her
throat when she sees Mick waiting on my sister hand and foot. In a way, it’s a distraction. Stops us worrying about Jez. That’s how I’m trying to see it, Sonia, though I’m
afraid my feelings could well up at any time and I’ll let them see how hurt I am. Not hurt. Angry, upset, guilty, confused. My feelings are all over the place.’

She’s beginning to sound a little drunk.

I do want to reassure Helen. I’m fond of her in spite of everything. There’s a great pleasure, I seem to remember, in sharing secrets with other women, it can be almost as
intoxicating as a love affair in its own right. I’ve not often had this privilege. My greatest passions have been played out in secret, unable to carry their heads high. But I know from the
days when I first met and had doubts about Greg, and from nights spent in bars with confused friends, in love but uncertain, how intimate and exciting such conversations can be.

‘I must get back.’ She leans across now, squeezes my hand, and I catch a whiff of her vanilla perfume. ‘But you promise to keep in touch? Now we’ve re-established
contact? You’re the only person I can really talk to about all this. Everyone else is too involved.’

I promise that yes, of course, I’ll keep in touch.

When she’s gone, I lean back, stare past the trees to the view down the hill and across the river to the towers of Canary Wharf, the HSBC building, the mini Manhattan it’s become
across there with its skyscrapers and myriads of silver windows glinting now in another sudden shaft of sunlight that’s found its way between the clouds. I think of the way it looked in the
old days, when Seb and I made the riverside our playground, how the Isle of Dogs was out of bounds. I feel as if I’ve taken a step too far onto the forbidden side of the river. That
everything that happens leads me deeper into the murky streets and hidden bombsites. I wonder how I’m ever going to get back. Or whether I want to.

Sonia

‘I’m off, Sonia.’ Greg’s at the door. His suitcase is packed, he’s wearing the tracksuit bottoms, casual jacket and white Adidas trainers he
always travels in.

‘I’ve not seen as much of you as I’d have liked. But we’ve both got work to do. Maybe you can give some thought to the things we’ve talked about. Don’t forget
what you promised me.’

‘What’s that?’ I ask.

‘To go to the doctor’s. Oh, and I’ve phoned a couple of estate agents. They’re coming to take some photos. Just photos, Sonia, so don’t get all funny about
it.’

‘When? When are they coming?’

‘Sometime next week. One’s on Tuesday I think. They’ll be in touch.’

‘OK,’ I say, smiling outside, seething within. I lean forward and kiss him on the cheek. Greg brushes his dry lips against the sides of mine and pats my shoulder before heading up
the alley.

There’s a rank stench in the garage this afternoon. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the light but when they do I see that Jez is very unwell. He’s lying awkwardly on the
bed as if he’s been writhing about in his sleep and there’s a strange brown liquid pooled onto the pillow under his mouth. His glassy eyes are open, but only just. I put my hand on his
forehead. He’s running a high temperature. Then I see that the sheets are soiled, even though I’ve used the pads, and there’s a pool of vomit on the floor.

‘I’ll soon get you sorted out,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t mean to leave you for so long. Let’s clean you up and get you back to the music room as soon as
possible.’

He looks up at me through glazed eyes. ‘The music room?’

‘Of course. As soon as the coast is clear. I never meant for you to stay in here.’ Look what it’s doing to you, I think. You need light and air and music.

‘No! It’s drowning me, go away. Go away! Go away! There’s another one, over there. Oh please!’

At first I think he’s talking to me, then I realize he is staring in terror at an imagined monster over my shoulder.

He’s delirious. I feel his forehead again, his neck. The skin there, under his hair, burns. I try to recall advice indelibly printed on the minds of young mothers. Remove extra layers of
clothing to bring down the fever. Apply cold flannels to the forehead. Give Calpol every four hours. But when is it you seek medical attention? What did I learn the time Kit had suspected
meningitis? It comes back vaguely. Rashes that don’t fade when pressed beneath a glass. Sickness. Aversion to bright lights.

Jez has already been sick. What will I do if he needs antibiotics? If he does have something awful? I bend over him, pull the covers back, look for suspect rashes. There’s a faint red
sprinkling of tiny spots on his inner thigh. My heart gives a great thump against my chest. It can’t be septicemia. Don’t people get rashes after a fever? That’ll be the
explanation.