The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (35 page)

The sun rises over Holdingwell.

In the white hospital room, the little girl stands at the window. Mummy Norah said that if she wanted Louis to come back, she had to let him go – but she's not sure: what if he feels hurt about her not talking to him any more?

She closes her eyes and sees him running down Willoughby Street.
Please
…
let me keep him a little longer
…

Across town, the father cycles to work.
One more day
, he told The Mother Who Left.
Then you need to go
. Once she's gone, he'll propose to Fay and their new life will begin.

On the train heading to London, the little boy sits on his uncle's lap and looks at the electricity wires whizzing past. They're going to London Zoo.
We need to give Mama time to say goodbye to everyone
, Onkel Walter explained when Mama said she was staying behind.

The Mother Who Stayed and the teenage girl sit in the front of the family car. The teenage girl is taking the day off school to collect her little sister from hospital.

Dad needs to know about Mum being sick,
she says.

The Mother Who Stayed nods.
But he has to hear it from her.

The teenage girl looks out at Holdingwell. The world's shifted.

She turns to The Mother Who Stayed:

Whatever happens, you're staying, right?
 

I'll always be there for you
, she says. But the teenage girl knows that isn't an answer.

And in the tall red-brick house, The Mother Who Left puts on her clothes and her coat, walks through the front door and goes to find the man she walked out on six years ago.

Adam sits at his desk at the recycling plant. He'd had to get away for a while, to sort out the mess in his brain left by the last few days.

When all this is over, I'll find a way to see Nat,
he thinks.
Nat will come over for holidays and long weekends. Fay will grow to love him as much as she does the girls.

Let her sleep,
Fay said when they'd found Norah curled under a blanket on the camp bed.
She's exhausted.

We're all exhausted,
he'd thrown back.

It's more than that, Adam.
 

He'd asked her to explain, but then Nat had come in.

The phone on Adam's desk buzzes.

‘There's someone to see you,' says his secretary.

Before he has the chance to answer, the door opens.

‘She wouldn't wait,' says his secretary.

His mind flashes back to Friday afternoon, when Ella burst in.

‘It's fine,' Adam says and waits for his secretary to leave.

Norah stands in his office, pale, thin, deep shadows under her eyes.

Will he ever stop feeling that pull?

‘I got the bus,' she said. ‘I thought we should talk.'

‘Yes, we should talk.'

She was right. It was time to set things straight before she left.

Norah looks around his office, just like she looked around the house on Friday morning.

‘Could we go somewhere – somewhere other than here?' she asks.

He wonders whether, like him, she sees Fay everywhere.

‘Sure.' He grabs his jacket from his chair and guides her to the garage at the back of the recycling plant.

 

They stare at the old Triumph.

‘So you kept it?' she asks.

‘For special occasions.' Though he can't remember the last time he took it out.

He grabs two helmets out from under the seat and hands one to Norah. They used to ride without helmets, on dirt tracks in the country, on roads where they wouldn't risk getting caught by the police. Fay had objected to it even then, though he'd always thought it was because she was worried about Norah, not Adam. Could it really be true that she'd loved him all this time?

Norah climbs on behind him and he feels her grip his waist. He'd always felt he was riding with a child rather than a grown woman, so light he could barely feel the difference from when he was riding on his own.

As he turns out of Holdingwell on to the motorway and speeds up, Norah whispers into his ear, her breath warm: ‘I haven't felt this alive in ages…'

He thought that was why she'd left, because she needed to feel alive again – that she could only do that without him.

They take the route they always took, to the field and the oak tree. And they sit there in the long grass, leaning against the trunk and share a cigarette. For a while they look up into the branches; patches of sunlight fall across their faces.

This is Norah's kind of garden.

They look at each other for a moment and, at the same time, lean in and kiss.

‘A goodbye kiss?' Norah asks, pulling away.

‘Yes.'

He's glad they've come here one last time.

Norah sweeps her fingers over the exposed roots of the oak tree. ‘I'd like to be buried here,' she says.

She'd always done this: made declarative statements about life and death, her vocabulary dominated by absolutes, by always and for ever. She used to scare him with her words, just like Fay's gentle, measured words made him feel safe. And yet Norah's forever had run out, hadn't it? She'd left. And Fay was the one who'd stayed.

‘It's where I've been happiest,' Norah adds. ‘It's where I'd like the girls to come.'

‘Come on, Norah, don't do this.'

She stubs out her cigarette on a gnarled root. ‘There's something I have to tell you, Adam.'

Adam feels his chest constrict. He's heard enough this weekend to last a lifetime.

‘Fay's pregnant,' she says.

‘She's what?'

Norah smiles at him. ‘Noticing was never your strong point, was it?'

His head reels. Pregnant? Christ. Yet it made sense: the sickness, the restlessness, the fullness around her stomach and breasts.

‘I didn't want to be the one to tell you – it wasn't my place. But I was worried she might…' Norah rips up a bit of grass. ‘After everything that's happened, I was worried…'

‘She wouldn't, Norah.'

‘No, probably not. But anyway, there it is. Now you know.'

He stands up. It doesn't feel right, him sitting here with Norah while Fay's at hospital with the girls, carrying his child.

‘Why didn't she tell me?'

‘The same reason why women all over the world don't tell men they're pregnant.'

‘Because…'

‘Because we don't want the man we love to feel obligated. We want to be chosen, Adam, for who we are. For what we mean to you. Not for some practical reason. Especially
that
reason. And —'

‘And?'

‘She knows how it turned out for us… how having kids changed us.'

Adam rubs his brow.

‘Things are different now. I'm different.'

She smiles. ‘Yes, I think you are.'

He stands up. He needs to go and speak to Fay.

Norah reaches for his hand. ‘Wait for her to tell you.' She stands up and touches his arm. ‘And stay, just a bit longer. There's something else I have to tell you before I leave.'

Fay pulls out of the hospital car park. She's got a thumping headache and her eyes keep blurring.

She glances back at Willa in the rear-view mirror.
I nearly lost her, my little girl
. Even when Fay moves out Willa will still be a bit hers, won't she?

Ella slots the
Fantastic Mr Fox
soundtrack into the CD player. Fay notices that her fingertips are pink and raw from having been bitten down so low.

You'll always be a bit mine too, Ella,
she thinks.

Ella skips to the last song, ‘Let Her Dance'.

As the music kicks in Willa claps her hands: ‘Yay!'

‘I thought you'd like it,' says Ella, reaching behind her and placing her hand in Willa's palm.

‘Can we watch the film again tonight?' Willa asks. ‘As it's a special occasion?'

Ella sighs and rolls her eyes, but smiles too.

‘Of course,' Fay says.

‘And can we get some ice-cream and popcorn and invite everyone to watch – can we have a big cinema in the lounge with Nat and Onkel Walter and Mummy Norah and the Miss Peggs and Sai and Mrs Moore.'

‘That sounds nice,' Fay says.

Fay looks out at the road. The glare makes her headache worse. The sun and rain come and go in waves. Everything's shiny and lit up and dripping. She can smell the wet road. She can even smell Louis's fur from the back of the car: that damp, closed-in smell when he got wet – she used to hate it, but now it makes her miss him more than she can bear.

The sun strikes the windscreen.

Her head pounds.

In the distance, a motorbike turns into the road.

Fay blinks.

Steel fenders.
Triumph
printed across the side.

She slams on the brakes, nearly misses the red traffic light at the pedestrian crossing.

It's the Miss Peggs with their three Chihuahuas. They cross the road slowly and then stop and wave at her.

On the other side of the crossing, the motorbike pulls up.

Adam – on the bike he'd promised to get rid of.

‘Look, Mummy!' Willa yells from behind. ‘It's Daddy…' She kicks the back of Fay's seat with excitement.

Lily elbows Rose and whispers something in her ear. They look over at the motorbike and then they look back at Fay.

‘He's on a motorbike! And Mummy Norah's riding on the back!'

The light turns green.

A driver behind Fay honks his horn.

Ella takes the nail of her forefinger out of her mouth, leans forward and takes in a sharp breath.

Fay puts the car into gear and pulls away.

The motorbike swerves past them and turns into Willoughby Street.

Louis?
Willa whispers into the dark room. She lies in bed and wipes her tears with the back of her hand.

She's seen other people cry, but she's never cried herself. She thought that maybe it was just one of those things she couldn't do, like how Ella can't sing in tune or Daddy can't see without his contact lenses.

She licks the tears off her hand – they taste salty, like the sea's found its way into her body. Big, salty waves pushing up into her eyes and nose, waves that remind her that Louis isn't here and that he's never coming back.

Her eyes sting. More tears come out, and this time she lets them fall.

She thought that, when she came home from the hospital, everyone was going to be friends again and that they were going to be a big, happy family and that that might make her feel better about Louis not being there, but ever since Mummy saw Daddy on the motorbike with Mummy Norah, she hasn't spoken a word to him.

Without Louis, the house feels cold and echoey. Whenever she thinks of him there's a pulling feeling in her chest that makes it hard to breathe.

Willa swings her legs out from under the duvet and, feeling for the wall with the hand that's not in the cast, she walks up the stairs to Ella's room.

‘Ella,' she whispers as she sits on the bed beside her. ‘Ella…'

Ella groans but doesn't wake up.

Willa takes the Junior 10k medal that she's been wearing over her pyjamas, the one that proves that Ella can run faster than anyone her age, and puts it around Ella's neck. Ella missed the presentation because she went back to get Sai, but the organiser waited for her and when she crossed the finishing line for the second time he hung the medal round her neck and said that the mayor of Holdingwell had heard what she did, and that he was going to double her sponsorship money. And that means more money for the charity that helps people like Sai's daddy and that means that people won't die so often when their hearts don't work. Willa wishes that no one ever had to die.

She looks around Ella's room.

Earlier tonight, Daddy went on to the roof and put some more plastic over the hole in the tiles and Mummy put a bucket in the middle of Ella's floor to catch the drips. She can hear the water now, plop, plop, plopping into the bucket.

We're going to need a new roof,
Daddy said.
It's got too bad for a patch-up job
.

The curtains are open and the street lamp outside the house lights up the room. Music plays softly from Ella's stereo. There's a CD case on the side that Willa's never seen before – it's got a picture of Mummy Norah playing the trumpet on the front. Willa notices that a few of the things that Ella got rid of when she emptied her room into binbags, have reappeared… It's a good job it was a bank holiday and that the bin men didn't come round to collect things like they usually do on a Monday. Ella's Blu-Tacked the poster of Louis Armstrong back above her desk; the corners are curled up and his face is soggy. She's placed Mummy Norah's trainers, the ones Sai rescued, at the end of her bed. Her trumpet case lies open on a chair by the music stand. And there's a photo on the windowsill of Ella when she was little, littler than Willa, and she's running alongside Mummy Norah, both of them with their red hair fluttering behind them like kites. Ella's grinning so hard you can see all her teeth and her eyes are sparkling too.

Maybe she's forgiven Mummy Norah for leaving when she was little.

She lifts the edge of Ella's duvet. ‘Please can I come in?'

Ella shifts over in her sleep and makes space for Willa.

Willa lies next to Ella for what feels like ages, but she still can't get to sleep. She gets up and goes back to the main landing and stands outside Mummy and Daddy's bedroom.

‘We have to talk about the baby,' she hears Daddy say.

The baby?
Willa's tummy does a summersault. Willa's going to have another little brother or sister, someone even smaller than Nat?

‘It doesn't change anything,' Mummy answers. ‘I'm going home.'

What does Mummy mean,
going home
? Willa rubs her eyes hard to make sure she's fully awake and then she continues to listen. Willa's never thought of Mummy living anywhere but with them.

‘It's time to leave, Adam,' Mummy adds.

Willa's legs go wobbly. She scratches her scar – it feels like it's on fire. Thinking about Mummy not being here makes Willa think of Louis and how he's not here. Willa doesn't know what she'll do if she doesn't have Mummy or Louis around.

Why doesn't Daddy answer? He wouldn't let Mummy go – he loves her too much.

Willa goes down to the lounge. Maybe if she speaks to Mummy Norah she can convince Mummy to stay. Didn't she say that they could both be Willa's mummies?

Nat's asleep on the couch, his body nestled into Onkel Walter's side, his head pushed in under his chin.

The camp bed is empty – no Mummy Norah.

A draught sweeps against Willa's bare legs. The door leading to the garden is open. Mummy Norah stands in her T-shirt, her feet bare on the wet grass. Maybe she's come to look at the foxes. But Willa knows that Mrs Fox won't come back: she's been scared off by the accident. She'll have found another place to have her babies.

The glow from a screen lights up Mummy Norah's face. She's speaking into the phone:

‘Yes, we need flight reservations for three – yes, for tomorrow morning… I know it's late notice… Yes, I realise it's going to be expensive, but we need to get home. A holiday? No, not quite. Two adults and a child. Heathrow to Berlin. First available flight.'

Willa scratches her scar again. When she lowers her hand she sees that there's blood under her fingernail.

They were meant to be a family. They were meant to stay together. Nat was going to be her little brother and Daddy has to get to know him so that he can love him as much as he loves Willa and Ella and Fay. And Willa was going to have two mummies – and now all of them are leaving.

She has to find a way for them not to leave. She has to get Daddy to make Mummy stay and she has to persuade Ella to be nice to Mummy Norah so that she'll want to stay too. And then Mummy will have the baby and they'll all be happy.