Deep Water, Thin Ice (22 page)

‘Did there have to be a reason?’ Alex said with a smile. ‘You’re one of my oldest friends.’

‘In both senses of the word, true. But not so good a friend that you thought fit to discuss giving up your career with me it would seem.’ Francine paused and gave Alex a pointed look, eyebrows raised. ‘I heard you’d gone to Devon.’ When Alex looked up at her questioningly, she added: ‘From that eager sister of yours. I met her a few weeks ago at a charity concert.’

‘Ah Erica.’ Ever since Alex had become part of the music set, Erica had been vicariously part of it too. She was always bumping into people.

‘I’m sorry Francine. I should have told you I was going.’ Alex shuffled on the seat, playing with the plastic spoon between her fingers. ‘The decision was sudden and then I was too embarrassed to get in touch.’

‘I think I’ve got over the hurt now,’ said Francine acidly, and took a long draught of coffee. ‘Mm, good.’ She put the mug down.

‘But you must have heard about…my last concert?’ Alex said.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that was why.’

‘Was it?’ The question hung there and then died for lack of an answer. ‘So…you’re back from Devon then?’ Francine added.

‘Mm.’

Francine pursed her lips forward ruminatively and allowed her eyes to run over Alex’s face. ‘You know you could walk back into a job anywhere round here, even now. All over the world I imagine. You were starting to ride high when you walked out. I may not be hurt but I’m not sure I’ve forgiven you yet.’

‘Well I
am
sorry…’ Alex raised her chin and met Francine’s accusing gaze. ‘…but you can’t sing when you’re feeling like that.’

‘Can’t you?’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Alex bitterly. ‘Singing, when you feel so lost…it seems to exaggerate it all, to multiply every feeling you’ve got until you think you’ll be crushed by them.’ The plastic spoon in her fingers started to bend under the pressure of her fingers.

Francine took another mouthful of coffee, apparently unmoved.

‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve let you down,’ said Alex fiercely.

‘It’s not me you’ve let down. It’s yourself. Did it help?’

‘Help?’

‘The running away?’

‘Yes,’ said Alex defiantly. ‘Yes, it did.’ She thought for a moment, running the spoon around the foam on the top of her coffee. ‘I think so, anyway.’

‘Hm. Well I think you’ve been wasting precious time. When you’re as old as me you’ll value your time more.’

‘Really Francine, if…’

‘I was amazed at you. After all the work you’d put in…To be so single-minded for all those years and then risk throwing it all away. Still, I don’t believe in looking back. So you want to get back on board do you?’ Francine fidgeted her solid bulk to allow her access to the large handbag which hung on the side of the chair. She pulled out her diary and began to riffle through the pages, talking to herself. ‘Of course it’s been a long time so first of all we’ll have to see how your voice is.’

‘Francine, I’m really not sure.’ Alex felt deflated suddenly and wondered why she’d arranged this. Had she really thought she was ready to perform again? She could feel herself shrinking inside with panic just at the sight of Francine’s diary and all the events and commitments it implied.

Francine stopped turning pages and looked up.

‘What do you mean?’

Alex met her eyes and then looked away.

‘I’m not sure if I can do it again.’ She hesitated. ‘I think I’ve lost my nerve.’

Francine studied Alex’s face closely. Then her eyes narrowed and she closed the diary with a snap.

‘Look you’re too old now to be behaving like a child,’ she declared, leaning forwards and tapping one index finger peremptorily on the table between them. ‘You never used to be like this – you were focussed. You’re not the first person to lose someone, girl. You’re letting your emotions rule your head, rule everything. Yes, it’s partly those emotions which make you such a good singer but they have to be harnessed and used constructively, not left to run unchecked. You’ve got just a few short years left to you when you can sing at your best.’ She paused and Alex was uneasily aware of people watching them. Francine resumed, uncaring. ‘Now if I believed in a God, I’d say he made you to sing. But it doesn’t come to you; you have to chase it, grasp it.’ She clenched her liver-spotted hand into a fist till it shook with the tension. ‘It’s up to you. You sing or you don’t sing; it’s your choice. Simple as that. No-one could say it will be easy but I’m not here to jolly you along into it. Anyway I’m a busy woman.’ She drank the remains of her coffee and put the mug down with a clunk onto the table. ‘I’ve got things to do.’ She picked up her bag, tossed the diary into it and stood up briskly, throwing her shawl across her shoulder. Then she fixed Alex with the look all her students had learnt to dread. ‘You have to make some decisions for your life and stop drifting. And if you want any help from me with your voice, you know my number. But don’t ring unless you’re serious.’

*

Since soon after arriving in London, Alex had received a succession of voice and text messages on her phone from Theo. She had replied by text early on explaining that she was in London, she was fine and would be in touch soon. It was a holding tactic; she didn’t want to talk to him yet. Like Simon, she’d found he had a way of persuading her and she needed space to think.

For a few days after meeting up with Francine, Alex abandoned jobs at the house and wandered round London, trying to see the way forward. She felt like one of Mick’s migrating birds which gets blown off course and finds itself in unfamiliar territory. But she suspected that up to now she’d only been playing at living there. She’d been holding the place at arms length as if she thought it might pull her in if she got too close, and that wasn’t going to help any decision-making. It was like trying to tell if an old pair of trousers still fitted by looking at them. So she tried to make an effort. She visited a succession of old familiar haunts and made apologetic contact with people she knew but had neglected. She even bought a ticket for a concert at the Barbican but left at the interval and chided herself for her weakness, vowing to do better next time.

But, whatever she did, she couldn’t fool herself, it wasn’t the same any more. It didn’t feel like home. Perhaps I’ve been away too long, she thought, or maybe I’ve changed. She’d end up walking by the Thames but thinking of the Kella, so much smaller and more insignificant and yet so much more appealing. Then her mind would slip smoothly to the Grenloe and Mick and Susie and she would wonder what was happening on the reserve. And then of course there was Theo. She hadn’t so much allowed herself to drift away from him as consciously run, the same way she’d run away from London when it had all become too difficult.
Wallowing in it,
Victoria had said. Maybe she was right after all. At the very least she now thought her behaviour betrayed some weakness of character and she was ashamed. The time had come to stop vacillating and to do something purposeful with her life.

She announced her decision to Erica a couple of days later.

‘You’re going back to Devon? Already?’ Erica had just sent Ben to bed and poured two glasses of wine. It was obvious she had been expecting a nice cosy evening of chat, just the two of them. ‘But you’ve only just come back.’

‘I won’t go straight away – it’ll be a couple of days. I’ve got things to sort out.’ Alex took the glass of wine Erica handed her and sat down on the sofa. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and then said: ‘I’m going to put the house up for sale.’

Erica was in the middle of drinking and nearly spilt her wine. She put the glass down with exaggerated care and then looked up.

‘Oh Alex, are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ Alex affected more certainty than she felt. ‘Simon’s not here. You’re here of course, and Ben, but you can come and see me often. I hope you will. Ben’d love it in Kellaford.’ She shrugged. ‘It was time to make a decision, to stop living a split life and I’ve decided to stay on down there.’

Erica picked up her wine again and drank a large mouthful with a frown. She swallowed, a little ostentatiously, Alex thought. Why was she taking it all on herself still? It occurred to Alex that the time was long overdue when Erica should stop feeling so responsible for her sister’s happiness or, indeed, should consider that their lives needed to be so intrinsically and irrevocably linked.

‘Is it because of Theo?’ Erica blurted out. ‘Are you going back for him?’

‘Maybe. To be honest I don’t know. I really like him. I don’t know how far it will go but if I don’t make a clean break from London and the house and all the memories, I’m not giving it a fair chance.’

‘But you’ve not really tried it here…’ Erica began, but Alex flashed her a warning look and she fell silent.

‘I
have
tried it,’ she protested, ‘and I can’t settle. I just can’t see me living here again. Not at the moment anyway. I need a fresh start. Try to support me will you? It’s not been an easy decision.’

For a moment Erica looked as though she would protest again but then she forced a smile and raised her glass.

‘Here’s to a fresh start then. I guess that’s what we all need sometimes.’

Alex offered her a grateful smile and returned the toast.

‘Thanks Ricky. Yes, I think maybe we do.’

Alex spent the next few days sorting through the house, contacting estate agents and her solicitors and steeling herself to get rid of the last of Simon’s clothes and the less sentimental of his personal effects. She left keys with the agents, packed up the things she could fit in the car to take back and arranged to have her favourite bits of furniture sent on.

She’d been in Hampstead nearly a fortnight by the time she and Erica parted the following Saturday morning.

‘Come for Christmas,’ she entreated her sister and was pleased when Erica agreed. ‘You can meet Theo. You’ll like him. I’m sure you will. Everyone does.’ She gave Ben a hug. ‘And you’ll love Devon. If the weather’s any good, we’ll go exploring.’

Alex drove away and headed west persuading herself that the flutter in her stomach owed more to excitement than fear at her decision.

‘Did it not occur to you that I might worry?’ Theo said when Alex returned home. She’d rung him that same evening, anxious to hear his voice. The trip to London, the enforced absence, had put things into perspective. She had missed him. ‘One bloody text to say you were all right and you’d be in touch. That was nearly two weeks ago. No answers to my calls or messages. Nothing.’ His voice had an edge she hadn’t heard before.

‘You’re cross,’ she said. ‘I can understand that. And I am sorry Theo. But I needed to get away and think it all through. I should have told you, explained or something. But I was so confused. Forgive me?’

‘I thought we were so happy together. That night we spent together…’ He paused and she could hear the emotion in his voice when he spoke again. ‘…it meant so much to me Alex. I’d hoped it would to you too.’

‘It did Theo. But I think that’s why I ran away. It was all happening too fast. I was scared.’

There was silence and she wondered if he was still angry but he sounded calmer when he spoke next.

‘Alex, this isn’t a casual thing for me; you do understand that don’t you? But I don’t want to get hurt either. Don’t toy with me will you?’ His voice dropped low. ‘We need to cherish each other; cherish what we have together. It’s been good so far but we could be so much more yet.’ The softness of his voice in her ear was warm and tender. ‘If you really care for me, promise me you won’t run away like that again. Promise me you’ll talk to me if you have worries or anything. There’s nothing we can’t work out together you know, you and I.’

And she’d promised and meant it, relieved to have made peace with him. The emptiness of the house in London, rendered more stark by the presence of Simon’s things, had brought into focus how much she enjoyed Theo’s company. She was determined to embrace the decision she’d made and, as Francine had put it, ‘stop drifting’.

On the following Monday morning, keen to catch up with what was happening there, she walked down to the reserve.

‘Hello stranger,’ Mick said, appearing from the sheds at Susie’s barked greeting. He looked her over for a minute with his usual inscrutable expression, and added: ‘There are jobs to be done if you’re stopping.’

Suppressing her perverse disappointment that he didn’t appear to have missed her, she followed him round to the sheds to collect bags and secateurs and then they went harvesting seed heads from the reeds. He did it every year he said, so that he could raise new reed plants and expand the reed beds without having to buy them. Mick wore waders while Alex wore his wellingtons which were too big for her and slid up and down as she walked.

‘You stick to the edge of the bed,’ he told her, wading out a couple of feet. ‘Right, you put the bag over the seed head and then pull it in tight round the stem…like this…before you cut it. Do a few then tip them into the drum over there. OK?’

For a while they worked silently to a background bird chorus of chirrups, warbles and trills. A woodpecker hammered at a tree somewhere nearby.

‘I went back to London,’ she said after a few minutes. ‘I had some things to think through, to decide. That’s why I haven’t been down recently.’ She glanced across at him but he was involved in what he was doing; it wasn’t even clear if he’d heard her. She felt obscurely rattled by his disinterest. ‘Or maybe you already knew? You always seem to know everything anyway,’ she added tartly.