Beneath the Surface (9 page)

‘Lauren, come back now!’ Kathryn called, spotting Lauren’s head bobbing up above the rocks. But the small child carried on clambering until she slipped and lost her balance. Now Kathryn could no longer see her, she could only hear her cries.

‘Lauren!’ she shouted out in fear. ‘Lauren, where are you?’

Morrie had heard her cry and had run along the beach and straight for the rocks. He climbed them with swift confidence until he reached Lauren and carried her back to Kathryn.

‘She’s not hurt,’ he told her, handing Lauren over, ‘maybe just a bit shocked. Although not as much as you, by the look of it.’

That evening he had come by the house to see how they were all doing.

‘You could have got to her,’ he told her kindly. ‘She wasn’t in any danger.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Was it just that you were frightened?’

‘I can’t swim,’ Kathryn admitted.

Morrie smiled. ‘You’re going to have to learn if you’re to live in the Bay,’ he said. ‘And the girls must, for sure. I can teach them if you like?’

And Morrie stayed true to his word. He took the girls under his wing and made them into waterbabies. But Kathryn never set foot in the water. And since the girls had grown up, she barely ventured to the beach, either.

From that day on, if Kathryn needed someone to fix a leaking pipe, or put together some shelves, Morrie appeared with a grin and a toolbox. And when he was there, he played with the girls, showing them magic tricks and promising them something he would always fulfil, like taking them out on his boat.

Over the years, on occasion Kathryn allowed herself to consider the possibility of more than friendship with Morrie. She knew he was keen – he hadn’t said outright, but it was obvious he liked her. But a relationship with another man was the last thing she needed. Look where the last one had got her. She should have followed her heart then, she’d known it wasn’t right. No one would fill the gap in her heart Robert had left, especially not Peter, yet she had married him anyway.

But some nights, alone in bed, she felt lonely and she would let her mind wonder what it would be like to be with a man like Morrie. With his mop of coarse grey hair and thick eyebrows, he wasn’t textbook handsome. The sun had aged his skin and deep lines had set in around his eyes and mouth but he made her feel safe and he never asked anything of her.

Kathryn dismissed the thought. Even if Morrie asked her outright there were reasons why she wouldn’t let anything happen. Three reasons, she counted. First, no one could get that close to her family, it was too risky. If her past ever got out … And two, there was Peter. She couldn’t risk him finding out there was a new man in her life and stopping the cheques or worse still, turning up on her doorstep. But more than any of that was reason three, her mother. The comments she had made over the years, such as, ‘I see that fisherman is here again. You’ll have two daughters working with fish, if you’re not careful.’ No, Eleanor would never approve of her having a relationship with Morrie.

Three reasons that made it out of the question. And so Kathryn put the thought to the back of her mind every time. Besides, she didn’t know if she could love him. Not like she had Robert.

Instead she played out in her head the conversation she could have had with Morrie that day.

‘Ever since my mother was taken into the home I feel like I’m dying with her,’ she started. It was something she thought about a lot recently, whether she actually was. Dying inside. She rolled the words around her mouth, savouring the way they felt. Some days it was too hard to make all the parts of her body work together as they should. All she wanted was for all of it to go away. Maybe her mother was the lucky one – she didn’t have to think about anything anymore.

Dear Adam,

On January 5th, 1990, Kathryn took a call that changed the course of our lives forever. That day runs clearly through my mind as if I watched it on TV yesterday, the memory playing like a reel in slow motion. When anyone asks me about my dad, that day is still the first thing I remember.

My mum was in the kitchen cooking his tea. She was singing to herself and was in a good mood because he had phoned that morning to say he was coming back early from work. He had been away for three nights and she was so excited to see him, it was like he hadn’t been home in weeks. She had on her favourite yellow jumper, and the pearls he had bought her for Christmas, and I could smell her perfume drifting in from the kitchen, mingling with the smells of chicken casserole.

I was happy, too – I loved seeing my daddy. I was lying on the living room carpet, drawing him a card to say ‘Welcome Home’. It had three stick people on the front and flowers all around the edge, and I had been so absorbed with drawing it, I hadn’t heard the telephone ringing until my mother came in to answer it. When she saw me she frowned and I knew she wouldn’t be happy that I was using my felt tips near the carpet, but she didn’t say anything.

She answered ‘Hello?’ into the receiver and I watched her, trying to guess who it was. Then she threw her hand to her mouth and slowly crumpled to the floor. Dropping the phone she shouted, ‘Abigail, get your coat!’ I sat there, looking at her, and she said, ‘
Now
, Abigail, quick! We have to go to the hospital.’

‘Can I wear my nurse’s uniform?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Oh. But—’

‘I said no, now please just do as I ask and get your coat on. And your shoes, where are your shoes?’

I cried all the way to the hospital, wailing that I wanted to be a nurse. She told me to stop going on, saying she couldn’t deal with my screaming. She never said why we were going. I don’t even remember her telling me who was in the hospital but at some point I must have found out it was my dad.

She drove fast and every time we stopped she slammed on the brakes so hard I fell forward in my car seat. We pulled up outside the door of the hospital and she hauled me out of the back of the car. ‘This is where disabled people park,’ I sobbed, thinking I was being helpful. ‘Look, there’s the picture of the wheely chair. Daddy says we shouldn’t park where—’

‘There’s no time,’ she said.

I followed her, running through corridors and swinging doors, hanging on to her hand and trying to keep up. When we reached the place where my dad was, one of the nurses held me back as my mother pushed open the door and left me behind.

‘I want to go with Mummy,’ I cried.

‘No, you come and have a look at what we’ve got in here,’ the nurse said. I expected the room to open into Narnia. Instead there were a few boxes of plastic toys, dolls with matted hair and a pram with a wobbly wheel. I refused to play with any of it and sat in the corner while they offered me unwanted squash and digestive biscuits.

As soon as my mother appeared in the doorway I knew something awful had happened. Her hair was a mess, as if she had been tugging it. Black streaks ran from her eyes to her chin and she said nothing, just looked at me, rubbing tears away with the back of her hand.

When she held out her hand I stood up and took it and we walked back to the car in silence. I knew better than to say anything – I think I knew I didn’t want to hear what she might tell me.

Once we were inside the car I eventually spoke.

‘Why are you sad, Mummy?’ I asked.

She clutched her hand against her mouth and threw open the door, throwing up onto the car park.

‘Mummy?’

When she finally turned around, she reached out and put her hand on my knee. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘We’ll be fine, don’t you worry.’ As she spoke she stared at me with lifeless eyes and I could feel her whole body shaking through that hand against my leg. Even at six I knew everything was not OK and that we wouldn’t be fine.

‘Mummy, what’s happened?’

‘Your daddy had a broken heart,’ she told me, ‘and they weren’t able to fix it.’

*****

Maggie asked me to talk about my dad today. ‘I want to know how he fits into yours and Kathryn’s pictures,’ she said, asking me to think about all the memories I have of him. I told her it was funny but I couldn’t think of my dad as a whole, more a series of events I strung together until I formed the person I thought he must have been. Of course I didn’t know him for long but there are definitely bits I picture clearly.

The only issue I have is how difficult it is to remember my dad without immediately thinking of Kathryn too. The two of them went hand in hand in my childhood. I always remember them being so in love. I was sure he loved her, as much as he did me, yet now I can’t imagine what a man like my dad must have seen in her.

I told Maggie I think he was a passionate man. He had a collection of classical music LPs he used to play at dinner and on Saturday mornings he took me to art galleries, where he showed me paintings of men and women, saying, ‘Look at their faces, Abigail. Think how they are feeling, look how in love they are by the way they look at each other.’ I later learned he met Kathryn when he was working at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. I was so excited when you took me there just after we got engaged because it meant I could drag you around it, which you did obligingly even though I know you weren’t as interested as I was.

I wonder if he would have stayed in Paris if it hadn’t been for my mother. She told me once he only came back to England because she refused to live in France. Did he question what he had given up the day he returned? I sometimes heard her joke, ‘Robert, you should have stayed in Paris if you don’t like my cooking.’

‘I gave up food for love,’ he teased her back.

My grandmother used to call him a gypsy. I first overheard her say it to my mother when I was supposed to be in bed. I must have been about four or five and I hadn’t heard of one before. The next morning I asked my mother what a gypsy was and she squinted her eyes at me and said, ‘Where did you hear that word?’

‘Grandma,’ I told her.

‘Were you listening in on our conversation, Abigail?’ she asked. ‘You know it’s rude to eavesdrop.’

She never told me what a gypsy was and I forgot about it until three months later when the fair came to town. Dad was urging her to take me, saying how much I would love the lights and the music and riding the carousel.

But Kathryn was adamant she didn’t want us going. ‘It will be swarming with gypsies and the like,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to spend the evening watching my bag in case one of them tries to steal it.’

I couldn’t believe Eleanor must have thought Dad was a thief and I wondered if he’d stolen something of theirs. There were enough nice things for him to take, and I started imagining finding piles of my grandmother’s jewellery in his bedside drawer. One night when my mother was putting me to bed I asked her if Daddy was a bad man. She looked at me, smiled and said, ‘No, your daddy is the best.’

Of course in later years I knew that wasn’t what Eleanor meant. She was simply letting my mother know Dad wasn’t good enough for her.

Eleanor didn’t see the man I saw. The father who sat with me in bed if I had a nightmare, made chicken soup if I was poorly, and rubbed calamine lotion over my body when I had chicken pox. One Christmas he spent hours making paper chains that he strung all around the house, interwoven with fairy lights, until my mother made him take them all down, saying they were a fire hazard.

*****

I think you would be the kind of father he was, Adam. I can see you gathering up a brood of children and reading them stories, running with them on the beach, and letting them tackle you to the ground over and over again with endless patience. I hope you know it was never you I doubted, I hope you know it was me.

The following week I didn’t try to cancel my appointment with Dr Richards but when you left me at the door I considered running. We agreed to meet an hour later in the bar around the corner, you wished me luck, kissed me goodbye and walked away. I waited for you to disappear but you kept turning to wave at me. Did you know there was a chance I wouldn’t go in? As soon as you were out of sight my foot wavered on the step of his surgery.

I had never understood people saying a switch had been flicked until that moment. I thought,
Abi, it’s time to stop running.
So I turned and went into the waiting area, announcing my name to the sullen receptionist. Then I knew there was no turning back.

Dr Richards asked about my week and we discussed work. Then he deftly turned the conversation onto you and me. He asked me a few things I was sure you’d already told him. When did we meet? How long had we been married? How long had we been trying for a baby? I wondered if he was testing me, seeing whether our stories matched. It was almost as if he’d completely forgotten I was in the room the week before. But they were the easy questions. The hard one came next, when he asked how I felt about trying unsuccessfully for a baby. I think I just shrugged because then he asked about our relationship instead. His eyes looked through me when he spoke – I imagined him seeing right into my soul.

I told him you were the one who made me try mussels for the first time and I realised they were my new favourite thing; that for our first-year anniversary you blindfolded me and took me to the theatre, where you’d booked tickets for
Miss Saigon.
I told him every Christmas morning we sat in bed opening our stockings while sipping champagne and eating mince pies. And that whenever you went away with work you left me love notes hidden around the house, and you told me you loved me every single morning and every evening without fail. Just to make sure I always knew.

Actually, I didn’t tell him any of those things. Not ‘our’ moments. In reality I think I said, ‘It’s good.’

The funny thing is I didn’t tell him anything worth knowing until I was leaving his office.