Where the West Wind Blows (11 page)

It might look just like him.

How can I possibly destroy it?

But how can I not?

A week later I am still here, dithering. One day I am a mother-to-be, the next I am undecided. I do not answer my phone. I do not write. I do not phone him. So why am I surprised when I wake up one morning to find him battering down my front door?

With dread in my heart I pull on my dressing gown, tie it at the waist and hurry downstairs. He is peering through the fluted glass, his hand to his eyes, his face distorted and when I see him that old familiar jolt of love stabs like a knife.

I reach out and open the door to let him in and I am engulfed in the force of his personality

“Fiona! Thank God you’re all right. I’ve been so worried. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Jezz.”

I let him kiss my cheek and, when he does so, I inhale the wild smell that I have missed so much. “I left my phone charger in Wales. I’m sorry, I should have called from a land line.”

He follows me through the house, discovers the kitchen for himself and I see his eyes linger on the row of steely knives. Flushing, despite myself, I remember telling him my story. His mouth had turned bitter when I told him of the knife, the blood, the postman hollering through the letterbox, the wailing sirens …

Jezz hates that I was so full of life and wanted only to die while his wife, so full of death, dreamed only of living. I can see he hasn’t forgotten although he does not speak of it.

I begin to fill the kettle, knowing him well enough to understand that he will be wanting a cup of tea. “You went to the doctor? What did he say?” he watches me reach down the cups from the cupboard, matching bone china with a blue-white glaze. When I finally turn and look at him, I see how earnest his face is and realise how selfish I have been. I should have rung him, made up a story, anything to put his mind at rest.

“I’m fine.” I am astounded at how easily I lie. “It’s a virus, nothing that can’t be shifted with anti-biotics.”

“Thank God for that. I couldn’t bear it if you were sick. I was so scared for you.”

He comes to me, puts his hands about my waist and pulls my groin close to his. It feels right, easy. For a moment I am deliriously happy to have him here but then he stares into my eyes and I remember that I can’t be happy. This cannot last. My news is guaranteed to end things between us.

Nothing lasts forever, only death. 

After a moment, I pull away to see to the kettle. “You’re looking good, the town must suit you,” he says and I make a face.

“Not really. I hate the crowds and the way everyone is forever rushing around.  Do you know, I’m sure I can taste the pollution.”

He pulls out a spindly chair and sits down. I am surprised it can bear his weight. He looks around the kitchen and my eyes track his across a pile of clean tea-cloths, last night’s washing up, yesterdays junk mail …I catch my breath at the pile of leaflets, the uppermost featuring a glossy photo of a breastfeeding mother. His eye passes over it, not registering its implication and I breathe again.

“So, when are you coming back?” He places a hand on each of his knees and I approach him with the tea tray, sit opposite him at the table, remembering other mornings here, with another man. In another life.

“I’m not sure.”

“Not sure? You
are
coming back?”

“Oh, yes. I have to see the doctor again in a week. I thought to return after that…”

My voice dwindles away. I cannot meet his eye.

“What aren’t you telling me, Fiona?” He puts down his cup, his mouth grim.

Oh God
, I think,
here we go
.

I shrug my shoulders. “There is nothing to tell, I’ve nothing to hide. I’ve just been taking stock, thinking which direction I should take now.”

At least that isn’t a lie, not a total one anyway. I risk a glimpse at him.

“As regards us?”

I can hear the uncertainty in his voice, the hurt and regret twists at my guts. I take a breath and sip my tea.

“Maybe. But I was thinking more along the lines of putting this place on the market, freeing up some money for the future.”

“You don’t need money, I told you I have plenty.”

“But that is your money,” I reply quietly and firmly. “I need to have my own. We might not be together forever, Jezz. Nothing lasts forever. I have to plan for that.”

He leans back in his chair. “Well, that attitude doesn’t make me feel very comfortable. I thought we were for keeps.”

“We can’t know that. Not at this stage.”

“I know, but I’m used to looking after my woman.”

Am I your woman?
I want to ask it but I don’t. Instead I force a brittle laugh.

“I don’t need looking after anymore.”

His eyes are dark again, clouded with insecurity. “Don’t you?” He pauses, pretends to scratch something from the sleeve of his leather jacket, “Have you ever thought, Fiona, that maybe I do?” 

His voice is low and almost plaintive. I am reminded of a child crying in the dark and for the first time I realise that perhaps I am not the only one to have benefited from our relationship.

Things are getting too deep here, we will end up saying things we don’t mean if we aren’t careful. “Are you staying for lunch?”

I get up, clinging to the front of my dressing gown to keep it closed and he glares at me, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

“Now I
know
something is going on. Am I staying for lunch? A few weeks ago you’d have had me in your bed by now.”

I am on the back foot now, uncertain how to reply. I feel so impossibly trapped. I don’t want to lose him; I just need more time to think. I want to delay the pain of explaining and the inevitable rejection.

“I just need time to think,” I blurt out and he leaves his chair so quickly it tips over, lies with its legs in the air, like a dead insect.

“Think about what?” He is shouting now. The old angry, dangerous Jezz is back in control and, for a fleeting moment, I think I could die in this kitchen after all.

I take a step backwards.

“Don’t shout at me,” I say stoutly, feigning a courage I don’t really feel. “I have been through a rough time and I have some personal things to sort out. I will come back to Wales when I am ready and maybe we can take up where we left off then.”

He scrutinises me for what seems like a long time but can only be seconds, then he rubs his hands over his face. He is different in this suburban setting, rougher against the neat domesticity of the home I shared with James. My new life is contrasted starkly with my old.

How I wish we were back in the cottage, where he wouldn’t hesitate to seduce me on the floor and somehow make everything right but here, in another man’s house, he is bound by absurd unwritten conventions.

“Fine,” he says, “I’ll go then. Another three hours on the train won’t kill me. I’ll not trouble you again. I’ll be no woman’s stalker but listen, Fiona, listen, I mean this more than anything I have ever said to you before. When you come back,
when
you come back, I will be waiting for you and we’ll say no more about this – this – whatever it is.”

My throat closes up so I can hardly speak and I nod gratefully as tears splash onto my cheeks. He ruffles my hair, his hands big and warm; then he lifts my chin and kisses my lips that are wet with despair. “I don’t know what is going on in that daft head of yours, woman, but sort it out fast, ok? I love you, I’ll be waiting.”

He slams the front door and I drop back into my chair, my hand to my mouth and weep my heart out, more confused and lost than I was before.

I love you,
he had said, and the words are resounding from the silent walls.

For a few more weeks I prevaricate, hovering on the brink of indecision, torturing myself. My growing relationship with Welsh whisky makes it difficult to think straight but finally, I make up my mind, pick up the phone and book the termination.

Then I buy myself another bottle of Penderyn, take it home, open the lid and fill a tumbler to the brim. It will seem easier if I am drunk. I sit in the dark and sip it, the taste and the smell bringing back the wild wet days I spent with Jezz and his flask on the windswept beach.

My life is stormy again now.

The healing is undone.

I think I will never know peace.

The liquor scalds a crimson path down my throat, the taste making me smack my lips and gasp – just as Jezz does. I am chilly and I am lonely and I don’t know what to do.

I miss him.

How could I have sent him away when I need him more than ever?

I feel no better in the morning. I brush my teeth three times, trying to freshen my breath and get the taste of whisky from my furred tongue. Then, reluctantly, I force charcoaled toast between my lips and sip black coffee and, trying not to think about my destination, I pick up my case and slip out of the door.

Looking neither left nor right, I hurry along, pinning my mind on frivolous things, things that can’t hurt me; a row of tulips, a cat licking its paws on a doorstep … a baby in a buggy, sucking its thumb.

My throat aches with unshed tears.

I pass a neighbour who calls ‘good morning’ but I can’t allow myself to stop. I just smile and walk by. I cannot pause to think, or talk, or let my footsteps slow. I must get myself to the clinic just as quickly as I can …before I change my mind.

Before I have the chance to turn around.

Somehow, I cross the tarmac of the car park and the automatic doors usher me inside the clinic that smells of disinfectant, new carpet and death.

“Hello, do you have an appointment?” The
child
at the counter is as breezy and bright as a summer day, her whole life stretching before her, her opportunities as yet un-wasted. I nod and speak my name through frozen lips.

“Take a seat in the waiting room.” She gestures with a long, slim arm, a heart tattoo pulsing on her wrist. “Someone will be with you shortly.”

The waiting room is bland. Magnolia walls, thick pile carpet, piano music issuing from hidden speakers. There are no pictures, no photographs, just a plant on the windowsill that is slowly withering, deprived of water, dying of thirst …like an unnourished foetus.

One other woman is waiting. She is flicking calmly through a magazine as if she is here for a filling or a pedicure. She is half my age. I sit down, sickness rising in my throat, my heart hammering, knees trembling. Panic simmers in my chest. I don’t want to be here. I feel shamed, like a murderer.

Just like Jezz.

He killed his wife.

I am killing his child.

I stand up and my stumbling feet take me toward the open door where I bump into a woman with a clipboard. Her eyes flicker up and down my body, assessing me, judging.

“Mrs Japp?”

“NO,” I croak and push her away, make my escape.

The doors open smoothly and silently and I am outside. I am running, my ribs hurting, my breasts bouncing, tears streaming, my coat flying open, my pot belly straining at my clothes. People turn to stare; a few of them call out after me, asking if I am all right, if they can help.

There is only one person who can help me
.

The station is not far. I can be on a train home in less than half an hour.
Home
, my heart cries;
Home to Wales. Home to Jezz.

On reaching the train station, I dart the wrong way through the automatic doors and push through the crowds, earning myself black looks and cries of outrage. I lean breathlessly over the counter, cuff away my tears.

“A one-way ticket to Aberystwyth,” I demand loudly as I push my credit card beneath the glass. “One way.”

I am not running.

I am going
home
.

I will make it right …somehow.

Eighteen

On the train further doubts beset me but I can’t turn back, not now. There has been too much turning in my life, too much running away. The time has come to be brave, to face up to things. I’m a mother with a child to think of now.

As the train eats away the interminable miles, I doze and wake, buy a coffee from the trolley, spill it on my blouse, doze again and stare out of the window, my head lolling on the back of the seat. I don’t know what lies ahead but whatever may come, I will be facing it head on. I am sick of running, sick of whimpering about the rough hand that I’ve been dealt.

I can see my face reflected in the glass window, superimposed upon the English countryside. It is not a young face, the strain is writ clear upon it, and I don’t know if I am up to the challenge of single parenthood, I will be old before he reaches maturity. But I won’t deprive him of life because I am scared. And if Jezz won’t help me, well, I can fend for myself …and my child. I am strong.

Slowly the landscape turns wilder and hillier and I know that soon we will cross the border. The great river stretches, the tide is out and long legged birds stalk across the mud, the sun glinting on the rippled surface. Then the mountains and fields take me and there are sheep on the hillside, rusty tractors moving slowly between hedgerows. I am coming home. Home to the coast of Wales, where the west wind blows.
Home
.

The train waits at the terminal as I hail a cab that winds its way from town along green serpentine lanes toward the sea. Here, cars are scarce, women gather at gateways to gossip, children scatter as we approach the village and dip down further toward the sea. There, outside my cottage, I step out of the taxi and turn to look about me and find I can breathe again. After so long away I can actually hear the silence, the absence of traffic, the bleating sheep, the rush of the wind. I can almost taste the slow drip of time, the sweet dawdling pace of life and it makes me smile.

Across the bay, the dark slate of the wet snaking road writhes between the white cottages nestled snugly on the hill and, up on
Y Pen
, I can see the white walls of Jezz’s railway carriage dazzling in the sun. Soon I will see him again.

I thrust a handful of notes at the taxi driver and tiptoe through the shining puddles and along the garden path, where the plants sprawl at my feet and raindrops cling like diamonds to their leaves. While I have been gone spring has come, bringing life and light with it. I am sorry to have missed the best of the daffodils but the apple blossom will soon be out and, already I see the strawberries are bearing white star-like flowers, promising fruit.

The smell of home embraces me as I open the door, damp and soot and mildew, a hint of turpentine. I drop my case in the hall and push through to the kitchen, which is just as I left it. All except for an envelope leaning against the milk jug and a pot of fresh flowers on the table.

Jezz’s writing is dark and heavy, his personality evident in each loop and twist, his determined underscoring of my name speaking volumes.

A love letter?
I wonder as I place my finger beneath the seal and tear it open.

My darling Fiona,
(he writes)

I have to go back to The Highlands for a while. If you come back and I’m not here, I haven’t left for good. I’ll be back before the summer ends.

Be seein’ you,

Jezz

My heart turns over.
Has he left already?
The letter is not dated. I know I have missed him. I rush back to the door, trip over my bag and begin to run down to the shore, my silly city shoes inadequate in the soaking shingle, my ankles turning, making me stumble. But, desperate to catch him before he goes, I struggle on until, I reach the edge of the sand. There, I stop and stare across the beach, my eyes unable to believe what they are seeing. 

Jezz is walking away from me. He has taken off his coat, slung it over his shoulder and his t-shirt is blown tight to his body, his hair tangling in the breeze. I can tell from the way he is walking that he is relaxed and happy, in tune with the world again.

I would be glad of that … if he were alone.