Secrets of the Tides (26 page)

Welcome home babe. We missed you
.

Hanging with the Grizzlies
.

Come join us xxxx

Dora smiles. ‘The Grizzlies’ is their private name for the grumpy old men that prop up the bar at their local. She picks up Gormley’s water bowl, rinses it out and refills it with fresh water from the tap. It sloshes onto the lino as she places it back on the floor. Maybe she doesn’t want tea after all. It is the kind of night that calls for soft jazz and a chilled bottle of white wine, a chance to enjoy the last gasp of the weekend before the realities of Monday morning descend. She switches the kettle off and grabs her keys.

She had made good time on the drive home from Summertown and it is still light as she wanders along the Dalston backstreets towards the pub. All around her the urban sprawl seems to buzz and hum. Returning to London is like being wrapped in a comforting blanket; the reassuring blare of traffic and humanity converging on her until she barely notices individual sounds. It washes over her, a backdrop of noise, like the friendly hum of an old refrigerator. Dora rolls her shoulders to release their tension and suddenly realises how immensely relieved she is to have left behind the static order of Helen’s life at Clifftops and the picture-perfect Dorset vistas. It was a confronting visit, and yet she has come away ultimately dissatisfied. She hasn’t found what she was looking for.

The whole city seems to be celebrating the first truly warm weekend of the year. A car speeds by with its windows rolled down and hip hop blaring. She passes a couple strolling arm in arm and sees them stop to steal a kiss. As she crosses the road a gaggle of hoodied kids on skateboards sweeps past her, laughing and cursing loudly, full of confidence and the daredevil bravado of youth. The city is pulsating in the glow of early evening sunshine. Dora realises she can’t wait to see Dan and quickens her pace.

The Fox is conveniently located a mere stone’s throw away from their home. ‘Scarily close’, Dan had joked. ‘We’ll be alcoholics before the month is out,’ he’d toasted over a bottle of red wine on their first night as homeowners, seated at one of the pub’s rickety wooden tables.

Dan and Dora love it there. It is their adopted second home. They’d stumbled in that first time, on a dark winter’s afternoon, after the oily estate agent had shown them around the old button factory. It was there, sitting on tatty red velvet banquettes beside the smoky coal fire, that they had gone through the pros and cons of the flat purchase. They’d tried to be rational, tried to maintain a sense of gravity as they’d discussed the leaking roof and worn out floorboards, the dilapidated kitchen and stained wall tiles, but inside they both knew the space was meant to be theirs and as they’d talked their mounting excitement had been impossible to conceal. It was there that they had exchanged Cheshire cat grins and clinked their handled pint glasses together, sealing the deal on their first home. And it was there they had returned just a few months later after the contracts had been signed and the keys collected, to celebrate and drink and giggle nervously at the enormity of the project they had taken on.

Dora pushes open the heavy wooden door to the pub and enters its dark interior. There is the customary collection of men slumped at the bar, all beer bellies and jowls. She can see Dan on the other side, sitting at his usual table with his head bent over one of the Sunday supplements and a half-drunk pint of bitter in front of him. She takes a moment to watch him, enjoying the rare perspective it gives her, a moment to regard him with unobserved detachment, as others might.

He is sitting on a favourite wheel-backed chair. It is clearly too small for his long, lean frame, but Dora knows by now that he will never change. No matter how many times she tells him he looks uncomfortable he always gravitates back to that one spot. He seems to like the hard, bone-jarring seat and the cramped confines of its austere wooden frame. He sits there now, his long legs wrapped underneath him and his shoulders hunched over the table, like a modern-day Gulliver among the Lilliputians. He is dressed in his work overalls and she can see a smear of red clay across his cheek. He has obviously come straight from the studio, not really surprising judging by the state she has found the flat in. His lovely face is still, his brown eyes fixed on the papers before him; and he must be tired, she realises, for he is wearing his gold-rimmed glasses; he doesn’t usually bother. His black hair skims the tops of his ears and is beginning to curl at the nape of his neck. He’ll need a haircut soon. He turns a page of the supplement and then moves his hand unconsciously onto Gormley’s head who is lying faithfully at his feet. The Labrador opens one eye and nuzzles his nose into his master’s palm in gratitude.

Dora understands how Gormley feels. It was Dan’s hands that she had first noticed the night they’d met. She’d been drinking warm Chardonnay at a friend of a friend’s book launch when someone had introduced them. ‘Dora. You should meet Dan. He’s Alice’s cousin, and a genius artist.’

Dora didn’t know who Alice was . . . someone attached to the book, she assumed, but she didn’t mind. It was as he’d reached out to greet her that she’d noticed his hands. They were huge and rough with heavily lined palms that felt raspy to the touch. His knuckles were marked and gnarly and a livid red scar ran across the back of his left hand. Dora stared, entranced. They were a workman’s hands; the hands of someone who knew accidents and pain, hurt and healing; the hands of someone who knew who they were, and where they were going; the hands of a real man; the hands of someone who had already lived a life. She had stood there, wordlessly, as he had greeted her, trying to control the slow flush spreading across her face; she couldn’t help it; she couldn’t stop thinking about how those hands would feel on her skin. She’d been lucky enough to find out later that night.

Dora hadn’t planned on falling in love and, at first, she had comforted herself with the fact it was nothing but pure lust; just a hot, hungry sexual attraction she couldn’t resist. She liked the way he made her feel in bed, the way he made her forget who and where she was. When she was with Dan she found she could just live in the moment, and with him, the moment felt good. She didn’t plan on opening herself up to him. She didn’t plan on laying bare any of her secrets. They simply met up, had dinner, fell into bed and then let themselves out of each other’s flats the next morning, skulking away to complete their respective walks of shame until the next time.

But then something had changed. It had crept up on her when she wasn’t looking, a feeling that had sneaked into her heart and made leaving him each morning harder and harder. She found herself thinking of him when he wasn’t there, longing for his arms around her and his lips on her skin. But more than that, she wanted to spend time with him out of the bedroom. She wanted long, snowy walks on Primrose Hill and hand-holding in the cinema. She wanted newspapers and freshly squeezed orange juice on Saturday mornings, and lazy Sunday afternoon pints with friends in the sunshine. Most of all, she realised, she wanted to share her life with him.

The thought terrified her. And yet losing him wasn’t an option either – he made her feel the most sane she had felt in a long time, and so, fighting the voice inside her head that screamed ‘Don’t do it! Don’t let him get too close!’, she had let him into her life – and her heart.

As if sensing her gaze Dan looks up from his seat across the bar. He frowns in her direction, his eyes refocusing for an instant, and then breaks into a broad grin. He is standing by the time she reaches the other side of the room.

‘Hey, you’re back already. Fantastic.’ He pulls her into his arms, planting a generous kiss on her lips. ‘How are you?’

‘OK. I made good time, didn’t I?’ she agrees, checking her watch. ‘The traffic wasn’t too bad. I guess everyone decided to stay put and enjoy the sunshine. What are you doing in here on such a beautiful evening? I thought you’d have your head down in the studio, or at least be out the back here, soaking up the last rays of sun.’

‘Nah, you know me. I fancied a bit of good old-fashioned pub grunge. But how are you?’ He asks again, his eyes full of concern. ‘Are you tired? Do you want some fresh air? Shall we move outside? Would you like a drink?’

‘Dan, chill out, will you. I’m pregnant. Not infirm. I’m fine just here. And what I would really love to drink is a double gin and tonic, ice and a slice of lime . . .’

Dan gives her a worried look.

‘Joking!’ She holds up her hands in supplication. ‘I’ll have an orange juice. Straight up.’

Dan lets out a palpable sigh of relief and nods his head. ‘Coming right up.’

Gormley is thumping his tail in languid acknowledgment of Dora’s arrival and so she bends down to pat him. ‘Hey, Gormley. Did you miss me?’

Gormley thumps his tail again and yawns, showing off a fleshy pink tongue and blasting her with warm, meaty breath.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

Dora settles herself at the table and reaches across for the newspaper Dan has been reading. It is some article about environmentally friendly house renovations; all grey-water tanks, compost buckets and solar panels. Nice if you can afford it, she thinks, pushing the pages back towards Dan’s empty seat. When Dan returns he places a glass of orange juice in front of her before folding himself back into his seat.

‘So how was the trip?’ he asks.

‘Oh, fine. I missed you and Gormley though. How was your weekend? Did you get much done?’ It is a clumsy deflection but Dan lets it pass for now. She knows he is a patient man. He will bide his time.

‘All good here. I spent the entire weekend in the studio.’

‘I can tell.’

Dan looks at her quizzically.

‘The flat . . . it’s a tip!’

‘Ah, yes. Sorry about that. I was going to tidy up, but Gormley here, he bullied me into coming to the pub to celebrate. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

‘And what are you both celebrating?’ Dora asks with a smile.

‘Oh you know,’ Dan throws his arms out expansively, ‘the sunshine, a free bone from the butcher, the start of a new sculpture, you coming home . . .’he pauses and looks her in the eye, ‘the baby.’

Dora reaches across for her drink and takes a big gulp. It is thick and treacly – the sort of orange juice that has spent too long collecting dust in a bottle at the back of a shelf and not enough time soaking up the sunshine on a tree somewhere glorious in Spain. It leaves a furry pulp on her tongue. ‘So how’s the sculpture coming along?’ she asks. ‘Are you going to tell me
anything
about it?’

Dan looks at her evenly. ‘Not this one, sorry, but it’s a surprise. I’m really pleased with it though. I started the clay model this weekend. It’s different, for me. A real “departure” as they say.’

‘Sounds interesting.’

‘Yeah, I’m excited. The Grimshaw commissions are all well and good. They’ll pay the bills, but they’re not exactly ground-breaking, are they?’

Dora nods.

‘Oh, before I forget, your dad called.’

‘Did he?’ Dora pauses. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Yes, all fine. He invited us for lunch. Do you fancy it? I can make up an excuse if you don’t want to go . . .’

Dora thinks for a minute. ‘I suppose we ought to. It’s been ages since we went to their place. Besides, we should tell him our news, I guess?’

‘
You guess?
Does that mean . . .?’ Dan trails off.

Dora shrugs her shoulders. ‘Well, I’ve told Mum now, haven’t I?’

‘OK,’ says Dan slowly, clearly confused. ‘So tell me, how did it all go down there? How was your mum?’

‘Oh, Mum was Mum. Nothing ever changes.’

‘So no breakthrough?’

Dora pauses for a moment. ‘I guess not.’

‘Really?’ Dan asks, taking a sip from his pint. ‘She must have been pleased about the baby though?’

Dora can hear the hope in Dan’s voice. She feels his expectation weigh heavily on her and she chooses her words carefully in response. ‘Mmm . . . more startled, I think. Pleased? I’m not so sure. She so rarely gives anything away.’

‘But she must have said something?’ Dan pushes. ‘It’s not every day you’re told you’re going to be a grandmother.’

Dora doesn’t know how to explain the conversation she had with Helen. She doesn’t like to tell him of her tears, of how she’d screamed out in frustration and stormed out of the conservatory, and their subsequent awkwardness with each other before she had climbed back into her car the next day and driven home. Dan knows a little about Alfie, but he can’t know, can never understand just how much it has affected them all. She doesn’t want to disappoint him, she really doesn’t. But she also knows she can’t lie. ‘We talked. We talked about the pregnancy . . . and about Alfie. I finally found the courage to ask her if she blamed me for what had happened.’

‘What did she say?’

Dora thinks for a moment. ‘She told me it was time to
let it
go.’

‘There you go then, and she’s right, you know.’

Dora shakes her head. ‘But she couldn’t say it, you see. She couldn’t say, “Dora, it’s not your fault.” ’

Dan rubs at a smear of clay on his hand. ‘I’m sure what she meant was—’

‘No.’ Dora shakes her head. ‘I’m sick of making excuses for her. I’ve made so many in the past. But I’m tired of it now. She told me I was only a child back then. She told me to let it go. But she couldn’t answer me when I asked her if she still thought it was my fault. So you see, I’ve been right all along. She’s always blamed me for losing Alfie.’ She feels tears welling up in her eyes as she speaks the words out loud and Dan reaches across and gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

‘Well, perhaps you have your answer then. As painful as it is, perhaps you needed to go down to Dorset to discover that you won’t ever be able to rebuild the bridge between you and your mother. But you can certainly tell yourself that you’ve tried, right? Perhaps, if your relationship with her is as dysfunctional as it sounds, well . . . maybe you shouldn’t see her for a while. If that’s what will make you feel better?’

Dora nods and bites her lip. ‘I just hoped . . . you know . . . I just wanted . . .
she’s my mother
.’ The tears are running silently down her cheeks.