Conrad & Eleanor (28 page)

El's eyes well up again. What if she had lost him? ‘I love you,' she whispers.

Amazingly, Con grins at her. A ghost of the old Conrad grin. ‘That's good,' he says. ‘I love you too.'

‘And me,' comes Cara's muffled voice from Conrad's shoulder.

‘And you, my little Cara.' He turns his head on the pillow and plants a kiss on her hair.

The three of them cling to one another in silence.

In the morning it is decided they will stay at the hotel until Con is fit to travel. Cara's constant presence makes it impossible for Con and El to talk, which is good, El realises. He is weak and sleepy and still running a temperature. There are lots of things it is better not to say. It is Cara who asks Con about what happened to him, and his explanation – that he is fed up with his work and wanted a day or two on his own to decide whether to quit – is plausible enough, as is his request that they should take a present of some kind to Alberto, who has played the Good Samaritan.

El leaves Cara with Con and goes in search of expensive chocolates and wine. A work crisis followed by illness and collapse is an explanation that everyone will be able to understand and El wonders if, in fact, she wants to know any more than this. He left without telling her, without talking to her, and for reasons which may not all be to do with her. The issue of Mad – of another woman, if there is or was one – isn't it better to let it lie? Conrad is not with Mad, after all. And that would be the only real betrayal, El realises – if he actually left her for another woman. She can see, they both know, he wanted her to find him. And he must know that she wanted to find him. That any sense of relief at his absence lasted for all of ten minutes. That without him she made no sense – none of them did, the family made no sense without him. If he doesn't know it then she can tell him. But there's no rush.

P
aul,
M
egan and
Dan are all at the house when Conrad, Eleanor and Cara arrive home from Bologna. Megan has organised a meal to welcome them. Sitting at table, the centre of their attention, Con feels overwhelmed, like a child at his own birthday party. T
here'll be tears soon
, he imagines himself saying. Each of them has worried about him and grieved for him; he is unworthy.

‘Did you honestly think we wouldn't worry?' says Megan. ‘You thought no one would notice you'd gone?'

‘Well,' says Con. ‘Well, you'd notice, of course. But I suppose I didn't imagine it would upset you unduly… I mean, you've all got busy lives.'

‘So busy we don't care what happens to our father,' remarks Paul acidly.

‘Paul thought I'd murdered you,' El contributes.

There is a moment Con can't read, as Paul and El lock eyes. He decides to laugh. ‘Well, I'm not sure I would have blamed her. I was miserable company.'

‘It's not a crime to be miserable,' says El softly. Con really is afraid he will cry.

‘Paul said the police will assume it was the spouse. I told him he was being stupid,' says Cara.

Con glances at her thin white face, and at her plate. ‘I hope you don't think you've finished,' he tells her.

‘For God's sake, Dad! I'm an adult!'

‘Then eat like one.'

‘Ba – bum!' goes Paul, and Dan pats his palm against the table for applause. El glances at him and laughs. There are so many of them, El and Dan and Cara and Megan and Paul, so bright and big and noisy, Con wants to take in each one of them properly and rejoice in their presence but the conversation keeps jumping on and changing and they fire questions at him which he can't answer and by the end of the meal he is dizzy with their energy and speed.

It is extraordinary to be home. Everything is so poignant – so precious. In the morning, before the children are up, his and El's breakfast mugs and plates wait to be cleared, one last slice of toast leaning crookedly against the marmalade. They woke early and the two of them sat here facing each other across the table and ate their breakfast together. That's when he told her about Maddy. These crumby plates bear witness. The low winter sunlight slants in through the Victorian window he put in on the landing, with blue and red glass in its corners. It stains the white wall of the staircase red, blue, red, blue. The banister rail is smooth beneath his hand; it has been painted white, then blue, then sanded back to the bare wood and varnished, during the years that they have lived here. There is the quiet bedroom where he and El sleep in that big double bed, he with two soft pillows, she with one hard. His garden, desolate and sodden but showing the first hints of spring; a cluster of snowdrops, spears of daffodil leaves, a blackbird singing.

He feels as weak and grateful as a convalescent.

‘You
are
a convalescent,' El tells him. ‘You've been ill. You need to give yourself time.'

He will. On Monday he'll go to the doctor and get a sick note. It is amazing that he can be here in this beautiful house which belongs to him and El; with his wife, whom he loves; with his children.

It is only after they have all departed on Sunday afternoon that he and El really have the place to themselves. He wanders into his work room and contemplates the gaps left by the removal of his files and in-trays. Presumably the police will return things now he's home. When they do, perhaps he'll have a bonfire. El appears in his doorway.

‘D'you fancy a walk? The sun's shining.'

‘Good idea.'

‘Just a short one,' she says. ‘You old invalid.'

‘The canal and then back along the old railway line?'

El nods and they put on boots and coats in silence. Once they are off the road she takes his hand. There's a fitful wind and the low sun flickers between heavy clouds. He notices that the hawthorn beside the path has tiny buds like hard little nipples. Out here, in the cold air, it is possible to breathe.

‘Well,' he says.

‘Well,' says El.

He wants to be honest. ‘I'm not very good at answering your questions because so much was wrong. I mean, everything was wrong.'

‘I know. That's to say, I didn't know. But once you were gone I worked it out.'

‘For you as well?'

She shrugs. ‘Work is fine. It usually is. I suppose because it is, I immerse myself in it and I let everything else go to hell.'

‘I was a drag on you.'

‘Well, you were. But I wasn't exactly treating you well. I mean, the thing with Louis —'

‘Tell me.'

‘I don't quite know. How it got to that stage. I suppose he's the cleverest person in the department; he understands without me having to explain. He's quick, he's funny —'

‘So. What will you do?'

She stops abruptly, pulling Con round to face her. ‘I'm telling the truth, you fool. Can't you see we have to?'

‘Yes. Of course.'

‘I've finished with him. I understand how crap it was.'

Con holds still, forcing himself not to ask how Louis has taken the news. El looks back up the path then returns her gaze to his. ‘I want to be with you.'

He allows a grin to break across his face. ‘Thank you, my Lady.'

‘Idiot,' she says, flapping at his arm with her free hand, and moving on down the hill. ‘Idiot.'

‘Yes, I am. I could see myself, like a great blot. But it all got so knotted up I could never talk to you about it – the awfulness of the animal house and Gus and everyone ignoring me, and then Maddy and the threats and the damage she was doing, which was all my fault… I couldn't see a way out and I couldn't see a way to tell you. I thought you would despise me.'

‘Oh Con.'

‘Well, why not? I was despicable.'

There's a silence. They walk on down the steep, gritty path towards the canal and a string of geese pass, honking overhead. ‘I was impatient,' she says eventually. ‘I'm always too impatient.'

Con shrugs. ‘You wanted me to be a success and I wasn't.'

‘I'm not sure that's true. I just wanted you to be as involved in your work as I was.'

‘To make it OK for you to ignore me.'

‘That's the negative way to put it. You could say, because I was happy in my work and I wanted you to feel the same.'

‘I could.' His tone is doubtful and she glances at him.

‘Look, whatever you accuse me of, you're almost certainly right. Sometimes I think all I want is for everyone – not just you, but everyone – to leave me alone to get on with my work. To make no more demands on me; to expect nothing.'

‘Yes. I felt that.'

‘But when you weren't there…' She trails off. They go down the steep steps, cross the road, under the railway bridge and down past the old mill to the canal path. The valley bottom is in shadow. El doesn't speak again till they are by the canal. ‘This is the thing that's hard to explain. When I didn't know where you were, or whether you'd come back, I was useless.'

‘Well, I imagine it was a shock. And naturally – probably, naturally – you wouldn't want me to be the victim of some nasty accident.'

El shakes her head. ‘No. It's hard for you to believe because it was hard for me to believe. I couldn't go to work. I couldn't help Cara. I couldn't answer Paul. I couldn't shop or cook. I couldn't even think of a way to look for you.'

‘You were upset,' he says uneasily. An El who is doing nothing is unimaginable.

She shakes her head again. ‘It wasn't about being upset. I wasn't sobbing and tearing my hair. It was about being meaningless. Without you.'

Con is stuck for a reply. He thinks about sitting on the train to Bologna with the bass beat of his neighbour's music in his ears and the monkey house stench of orange in his nostrils: he thinks about the dark wet streets of the city with a lurking presence always at his back, and of the bar where he saw the young couple with their baby in a carrier: he thinks of squatting in the shadow underneath the window of his
pensione
at night, so that the revolving orange light in the street would not shine over his face. Was he meaningless? And if so, was it because of El's absence?

‘I don't know what to say,' he says slowly. ‘It wasn't simple. It wasn't one thing. I mean, all the time I was away, it was for lots of reasons. You were one of them. And I was – lost, I suppose you could say – lost without you. Is that the same as meaningless?'

El laughs. ‘It's not a competition! You don't have to have been just as meaningless as me.'

‘But it always
is
a competition with us, isn't it?' he finds himself saying. ‘Isn't that the trouble? Over work, over the kids, over caring about each other.'

‘
Is
it a competition over work?'

‘Not any more, obviously. But I suppose it was at one point.'

‘OK. Let's not fight old battles. Not a competition over work. It's not a competition over the kids because you've put in the time with them and you're their main person. Which I knew, but I understand it better now.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning I understand jealousy is not appropriate and that I should honour you for the things you can do better than me.'

‘It's not a question of better, it's just a question of having the time to pay attention.'

‘Conrad, for God's sake, accept a compliment! You are a better father than I am a mother and thank heavens for it. They need you. They love you.'

‘They love you too,' he says quietly.

‘Yes, so much that they think me capable of murder.'

He laughs, and after a beat she joins in.

‘When we can talk like this,' she says, ‘it's impossible to believe how much we couldn't talk.'

‘Things get furred up,' he says. ‘Like limescale in pipes. Like cholesterol in arteries. Things get clogged up and then the – the system needs a – a —'

‘Good dose of vinegar,' offers El. ‘For the limescale, anyway.'

Con looks up and takes in the faint haze of green on the willows, the pinkish red of other twigs and branches. ‘When do the pussy willows come out?'

El laughs. ‘You're asking me, country boy?'

‘Early spring,' he reflects. ‘It must be soon. D'you remember when Megan wanted to pick some and we argued?'

‘What did we argue about?'

‘You said she could and I said she couldn't.'

El pulls a face. ‘Conservationist.'

‘Not at all. They're practically impossible to pick. You can bend the twigs double before they'll break. And then you have to twist and twist it round to try and snap the strands of bark. It hurts your hands, it's horrible.'

‘So who won?'

‘I told her I'd go for a walk later with the secateurs and cut some for her.'

‘And did you?'

‘No idea. I probably forgot. But so did she.'

‘Right.' She stops to watch as two drakes skid down onto the surface of the water behind a duck who is streaking away as fast as she can, neck outstretched. ‘All the things we've argued about. All the millions of things,' she says.

‘Yup.'

‘Was that the problem? We more or less stopped arguing.'

‘Well, if you think back that's not true. It had got to the point where we only argued. The arguments were few and far between, but that's because we didn't actually see each other very often.'

‘All right. Do we need to sit down with a pen and paper to do this or can we do it as we walk?'

‘Do what?'

‘Draw up some rules. Some do's and don'ts.'

‘You're going to fix us with a list of rules?' His voice is more sarcastic than he intends.

‘Look, Con. We've both admitted. Lots of things went wrong. It's not going to just all come right again because we want it to.'

‘It's not all going to come right again because you make a list of rules.'

‘No, but it might help. Anything that might help is worth considering. Number one, make a time to talk every week. One evening minimum. Say Friday. Starting no later than 7pm.'

She is serious so he nods.

‘Your turn.'

‘God, El, I don't know.'

‘Do something together every weekend. Walk, theatre, gallery, outing.'

‘Every weekend?'

‘Why not? Doesn't have to be all weekend, it might just be Saturday afternoon.'

‘I feel like I'm being marriage guidance counselled.'

‘That's not a bad idea either.'

‘NO.'

‘Not a bad idea at all!'

He realises she is teasing him. ‘Make a list of rules if you want, and I'll look at them. But I'm not convinced.'

‘OK,' she says. ‘I will. And you know what my third one will be?'

‘No.'

‘Sex.'

Conrad sighs. In Bologna there were twin beds in the hotel room and anyway he was sweaty and ill and Cara was popping in at all hours. Last night they curled up together for the first time in their own bed, and although he put his arm around her and she spooned her back into his belly, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that this was enough for now. That after the flight home and the noisy meal, and with the children in the house, a chaste hug was the most appropriate end to the long day. Anyway he was exhausted. Also, Con thought, I am nervous. Maybe she is too. He couldn't actually remember the last time they had made love.

‘Sex,' persists El. ‘Because if we can't talk about it – if we don't communicate about it – it's another, I don't know, chasm, between us.'

‘Right.'

‘D'you want to talk about it now?'

‘No.'

‘OK.'

They climb up to the old railway line in silence. The sun flashes in their eyes. The trees and bushes alongside the track are more forward than those by the canal; higher up, Con supposes they get more light. There are several bearing pale catkins which do actually dance like lambs' tails in the wind. He points them out to El.