The Moment You Were Gone (32 page)

‘Yeah, on your chin, here. These eggs are great.'

‘Not done too much?'

‘No.'

‘Or not enough?'

‘No, they're perfect. Just what I needed.'

‘You weren't properly dressed for a bike ride.'

‘I wasn't thinking properly.'

‘Girlfriend trouble?'

‘Yes.' He fed himself a forkful of egg. ‘Or no. She's not even my girlfriend. Just a girl.'

‘You're sweet on her.'

‘So sweet my teeth ache.'

‘Your teeth ache!' Once again, Reginald gave a chuckle and his weathered face creased into a map of all his smiles and frowns.

‘I'm like my mother. I can't step back and take a long view. I'm no good at waiting for things to pass. I feel I have to do something
now
or I'll go mad.'

‘What can you do?'

‘That's it – nothing. Except cycle very fast until I'm completely lost.'

‘So here you are.'

‘Here I am. Can I use your bathroom?'

‘Up the stairs on your left.'

Ethan put his plate on the floor by the chair and heaved himself up. The stairs were steep and narrow, the carpet threadbare. He was struck by the oddity of being in a stranger's house, far from anywhere familiar, with night falling outside and the wind blowing over the moors. And when he looked at his face in the cracked oval mirror above the sink, he was unfamiliar to himself: young and distressed, with anxious eyes.

On his way down, he glanced into the living room on the other side of the stairway. ‘I see you've got a piano,' he called into the kitchen.

‘My wife used to play a bit,' said Reginald, joining him by the stairs. ‘Just simple tunes. It's not been touched for years. Do you play?'

‘I try to.'

‘Do you want to have a go now?'

‘No, no!' said Ethan, but he wandered into the dingy living room, which had a chilly, unused air, and lifted the lid. It had dust all over it. He ran his fingers over the yellowing keys of the upright piano. Several didn't work, only gave a dull plonk as he depressed them. The rest were tinny and out of tune. He sat down on the stool and picked out the first few notes of the Intermezzo by Schumann, which he'd played for his grade-eight exam two years ago. If he'd been asked whether he still knew the piece, he would have said he didn't – but his fingers remembered it long after his brain had forgotten, in the same way that he had remembered the words of Dr Seuss only as he had said them.

Something touched him about the thought of this ropy little piano standing unopened for years, in a room that itself was clearly unused for months on end. Probably the last fingers to have touched the keys were those of Reginald's dead wife. What had she played? Simple tunes, Reg had said. Ethan's fingers drifted out of the Intermezzo, into ‘My Old Man Said Follow The Van' and then, before the chirpy melody had properly taken hold, ‘How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down'. He stopped abruptly, closed the piano lid, using the tail of his shirt to wipe away the dust, and stood up. ‘Do you want to go now?' he asked, as he went back into the kitchen.

‘I could make us some more tea.'

‘I ought to be getting back,' said Ethan, trying not to see the need in the old man's eyes.

‘It's as you wish.'

Ethan bent down and stroked Tyson's muzzle. The dog looked up at him, then sank his head back on his paws. ‘He is a softie, after all.'

‘I told you. You shouldn't judge by appearances.'

‘It's been very kind of you.'

‘You can come again, if you want.'

‘Thank you,' muttered Ethan, knowing that he wouldn't and already feeling guilty.

‘I'm usually here in the evenings.'

‘Right.'

‘When you're feeling blue about the girl that makes your teeth hurt.'

‘I hope I won't be,' laughed Ethan. ‘They say time heals everything.'

‘They do.'

‘Don't you agree?'

‘Time and whisky.'

‘I'll remember that.'

‘Time and whisky and keeping busy. You have to keep busy. Don't stop. It doesn't really matter what you're doing, just do it the best you can and the hardest you can.'

‘Right.'

‘Chocolate's good, too.'

‘Chocolate.'

‘It comforts you. And baths – long, hot baths.'

‘Chocolate, whisky, baths and being busy.'

‘Yup. You have to find ways of filling the time. When my wife died, I spent the first few months waiting for time to go by. Every morning I'd wake early, and I was looking out over the day and it was a desert. It stretched
ahead with nothing in it except flatness and grief, and I didn't know how to get across it. I didn't even think to call it grieving – all I knew was that she'd died and now I had to get on with it on my own. One day and then the next and the next. What did they mean, all these days, going on and on and I couldn't see the end? When I was young, I used to long for time to relax and do nothing, like you now, and when I had it, I found it was horrible. All the things you do together and take for granted. Habits that used to irritate you. Who makes the tea in the morning. Who washes the dishes. Who takes the dog out at night. How thick you spread your marmalade. Which bit of the paper you read first. What you both remember about the past. Silly jokes. Getting on with little things together. Being in the room and not having to talk. Making arrangements. Even the little squabbles are part of it. When all of that goes, there's this great big space you have to fill up. And not just with memories and tears.'

They stood by the door, looking at each other.

‘So you have to keep busy,' said Ethan, lamely. He wished he could think of the right words, the ones that were like a thick blanket on a cold day, sun in winter, cool running water in the endless desert that Reginald had described.

‘And have a dog,' said Reginald, recovering, trying to smile. ‘Dogs are good for lonely old men like me.'

‘Dogs, being busy, whisky, chocolate, long baths,' said Ethan. He put his hand on the door knob. ‘And growing your hair, maybe.'

‘And that thing you said.'

‘That thing?'

‘The kindness of strangers.'

‘Yes.'

‘Come on, then, let's be getting you back. You need a good night's sleep.'

When he reached his room, he didn't see the note that had been pushed under his door – just a scrap of paper torn out of the back of a diary. It was half hidden under the pile of notes he'd been working on from the night before. So he didn't read, ‘7.30 p.m.: I came to see you but you were out – if you want to see me, please call a.s.a.p. Lorna xxx.' He stumbled into his bed, pulled the pillow across his sore eyes and plunged into sleep, like a patient going under before surgery, sinking into a deep shaft of unconsciousness.

Stefan knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped in through the front door and saw how tidy everything was. That wasn't like Gaby. Even after Connor had thoroughly cleaned a room, she managed to put her mark on it at once – maybe a scarf trailing across the floor, shoes left at the bottom of the stairs, the contents of a bag emptied on to the kitchen table, mugs unwashed on the mantelpiece. It was as if blank surfaces bothered her and she had to mess them up, just a bit, to feel comfortable. But this evening, the living room was immaculate and in the kitchen everything was clean and ordered. The orange and bronze chrysanthemums that Stefan had brought stood on the bare table. Even the fridge, when Gaby pulled open its door to bring out a bottle of white wine, was half empty and pristine. It felt as if Connor and Gaby were going abroad for a long while and had left the house ready for strangers to occupy.

‘Are you going away?' he asked.

Gaby looked startled. ‘I don't think so.'

‘It's so tidy.'

‘Oh – that. I know. It's surprising, isn't it? Wine?'

‘Please.'

At first, Gaby had planned to be out when Stefan arrived. She thought it might be easier for Connor to talk about
what had happened without her present, and perhaps it would be easier for Stefan as well. Yet what had happened had involved her as well as him. She was part of the story. And she wanted to be there to comfort Stefan if that was what he needed. Connor had always wanted her to be there – not to make things easier for him, though, rather the opposite. He seemed intent on not sparing himself, like a medieval flagellant welcoming pain. So she had returned home from work to the unfamiliarly tidy house, hung her coat on its hook in the hallway, rather than slinging it across a chair as she normally did, and waited for the two men to arrive. Connor had said he would cook, though Gaby couldn't imagine how anyone would eat a proper meal this evening. She felt both hollow and nauseous, as she had for several weeks now. Her clothes hung off her and her face, which usually glowed with health and vigour, was thin. Sometimes she would stand in front of the mirror and be shocked by the middle-aged woman who looked back. She felt furious with her appearance – she was like someone who had suffered, like a hollow-cheeked victim of a disaster. That wasn't her at all, to lose her greed and her delight. She tried to continue as before, eating chocolate in the bath, making herself bowls of pasta that she couldn't finish, pouring large glasses of wine that she pushed away. She painted her toenails, daubed red on her lips, hung jangly earrings on her lobes, wore her most colourful clothes and ridiculous shoes. But it couldn't disguise the change in her.

Connor had arrived back with salmon fillets and purple-sprouting broccoli. He'd kissed her cheek and asked about her day. She had made him a cup of Earl
Grey and asked about his. They were very polite with each other, considerate and self-conscious. While he was slicing potatoes thinly and layering them in a dish with salt, black pepper and knobs of butter, she went into the garden, because she didn't want to sit and watch him in the way that she used to – quizzing him, mocking him, flirting with him, making him feel foolish and warm.

Outside, it was dark and cold. It had been a beautiful day, one in a long, shimmering string of beautiful days, and now it was a still night, full of stars. Ethan had once told her something about how the night sky proved that the universe was infinite but bounded, because if it wasn't, all that we would see would be dazzling light. She hadn't understood that then, and didn't now. She tried now to make out the Great Bear or the Seven Sisters, but couldn't, only the North Star, just above the chimneys and trees. Looking up at the sky always made her feel vertiginous and – in a tranquil kind of way – scared. She asked herself what point there was in the frantic emotions of the past few weeks if in the end she was just a pinprick on a dot in a galaxy that was itself negligible. All the scrabbling around, the desperate search for happiness, meaning and union – while around us the millions of stars shine on, implacably distant and remote. We desire and love and hate and quarrel and deceive and weep – and in a short while we're gone and our lives leave no trace, and all those tears and all that laughter might never have happened. Even those who know us forget us soon enough, and then they are snuffed out in their turn. How strange, to care so passionately and yet to mean so little and to die alone and go where no one can follow. She
shivered and turned back to the house. She could see Connor's face through the window and it brought back the memory of watching Nancy as she stood in her kitchen, kneading bread with an expression of concentration.

She went inside. Connor had put the greens into a pan, and the salmon, covered with pulped ginger, crushed garlic and coarse salt, into an oven dish. She could smell the potatoes cooking. Three glasses were on the table and a small bowl of olives. Everything looked so civilized and welcoming. All they needed was Stefan – and at that moment the bell rang and she went slowly to open the door, knowing he would be standing there with a smile already on his face and a bunch of flowers in his hand. And, indeed, there he was, and as if it was any other day, they kissed and hugged each other and he handed over his bouquet with an awkward, ducking bow and wiped his feet on the mat.

‘Connor!' Gaby called up the stairs, before leading her brother into the kitchen. ‘Stefan's here.'

Connor had rehearsed his first sentence, but when he finally uttered it – after a swift glass of white wine and several bolted olives – it sounded high-flown and insincere.

‘Ever since I met you, I have always loved you, as Gaby's brother and my friend, but I have also done you an injury.'

There. It lay between the three of them. Gaby looked from brother to husband, then down at her wine glass. She twisted it between her fingers until she heard it
squeak. Stefan gazed at Connor with a glance of benevolent inquiry, but said nothing.

Connor swallowed hard. ‘When Gaby was ill …' he said, then stopped, putting his hand over his heart and grimacing.

‘Yes?'

‘When she was depressed after Ethan was born,' he said, looking away from both the faces opposite him, ‘I did something very wrong, which I have never ceased regretting. Wrong to Gaby and wrong to you.'

There was silence. Gaby could hear the drip, drip from the tap in the kitchen. Connor took another deep breath but before he could say the next sentence, Stefan interrupted him: ‘I know.'

‘No, Stefan, listen, will you? I – with Nancy –'

‘I know,' Stefan said again. He sounded quite calm.

‘You know?' whispered Gaby.

He turned his face towards her. ‘Yes. I'm sorry.'

‘I don't understand –' began Connor.

‘You mean, you've always known?' interrupted Gaby.

‘I suppose so,' said Stefan.

‘How?' Connor managed to ask.

‘I saw you together.'

‘Oh, no!'

‘I'd arranged to meet Nancy at yours and the meeting I was supposed to be at was cancelled so I came round earlier. I saw you through the window.'

‘But you never said – I never knew –'

‘I went away and came back at the expected time.'

‘You never told me,' said Gaby, gripping his forearm. ‘Why, for God's sake? All these years!'

‘Well.' Stefan blinked and took a sip of wine. ‘That's a complicated question. There are lots of answers to it, and some are more important than others. Do you know? I can barely believe I'm having this conversation. I've had it in my head so many times. I wanted it and dreaded it – dreaded it more than wanted it, I guess, because every time I thought I had to speak to you, I found I couldn't. I quite simply couldn't. One answer to your “Why?” is that you were so wretched and frail that of course I couldn't say anything at the time, and then later – well, later it was too late and I couldn't see that it would serve anything except some abstract, rather cruel principle of openness. Another is that I thought – I hoped – that if I said nothing and never let on to anyone, it would die down and disappear and we could go on as we were: me and Nancy, you two together. Which half happened anyway. And then I persuaded myself that it was for Connor and Nancy to decide what to do and I tried to behave as if I hadn't stumbled across their secret. It was something I should never have seen, a bit like reading someone's diary. It was easier than I thought it would be, actually. It slipped away into the background until I pretty much forgot.'

He frowned. ‘No. Maybe that's not quite true. I remembered, I always remembered, but the memories gradually became like a background to my life, rather than vivid, painful things that would stab at me, as they were to start with. I suppose you could say that I learnt how to live with them and in the end I almost forgot what it had felt like, before I knew, before I saw you together and before Nancy left me. It was a different life, and a different me who was living it. Does this make sense?'

He stared at Connor, biting his lip.

‘I did once almost confront you, as a matter of fact. Nancy had left me, and you and Gaby seemed back on an even keel. She was Gaby again.' He turned to Gaby and smiled at her with great charm. ‘Sorry – not
she
,
you
. You seemed happy again. I had been sitting alone in my room and I'd had a few glasses of wine. I guess I had been brooding over things and suddenly it seemed to me intolerable that you, Connor, who had behaved so badly and caused such suffering, should get away scot free, while I –' he faltered ‘– I, who had tried to be good, to do the right thing by everyone, should still be unhappy, should still be alone. It was as if everything I had pushed down inside me, pretending to myself and to everyone else that I was all right, was finally erupting. I felt as if I should explode with terrible anger and despair if I did nothing. I actually ran all the way to your house. I remember it was a wet night and the rain was pelting down on to me and I still felt as if a fire was blazing inside me. I got to your house and it was the strangest thing. I heard Gaby laughing. She –
you
– have a lovely laugh. And I couldn't do it. I still felt full of anger and misery, but I literally couldn't bring myself to do anything to jeopardize her.'

He gave a smile.

‘I beat your shrub to the ground with my umbrella instead,' he said. ‘I don't think it ever recovered. And then I knocked at your door and you let me in and we had a pleasant evening together.'

I saw you
, thought Connor.
I saw you on that evening. I should have known. I should have guessed.

‘The fact is,' said Stefan, ‘you two seemed happy. I thought I'd made the right decision and that time had proved it so. You were happy, weren't you?'

‘Yes!' cried Connor, in a voice of agony. He looked across at Gaby.

‘Yes,' she agreed, wistfully and quietly. ‘We were.'

‘I don't get it,' said Connor. ‘I don't understand anything. I thought – I always thought – Christ, Stefan, didn't you hate me?'

‘Of course not.' Stefan was genuinely shocked.

‘Why not? I hated myself.'

‘I knew that. I could see it. Maybe that's why I couldn't,' said Stefan. He looked across at Gaby and asked, ‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Kind of. Better now you're here.'

Connor saw the way they smiled at each other as if no one else was there. He poured himself a second glass of wine, took a deep draught of it, then got to his feet and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Stefan half stood up to follow him, but Gaby held him back. ‘Let him go,' she said. ‘He'll be back in a minute. He's pretty near breaking-point.'

‘Is he?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you? Have you been near breaking-point too?'

‘No,' she said. ‘I don't think so. I've been worrying about you. I feel a bit more peaceful now I know that you know, I'm not quite sure why. Are you all right? Your hands are shaking.'

He held them out in front of him. ‘So they are. I'm fine. Gaby, you do understand, don't you, why I didn't –?'

‘Yes. Yes, I do. Every time I think about it, it has a different meaning. To begin with it felt very close, too close to see properly, and very painful. Right now, it all feels far off.'

‘How did you find out?'

‘It's a long story – which, now I come to think of it, shows me behaving in exactly the way you decided not to behave all those years ago. I pried and snooped and went to see her and dug up old secrets – oh, I behaved very badly all round because I couldn't bear not to know. It's what I'm like. I can't leave well alone. That's what Nancy said to me when I went to see her and she was quite right. Once I knew a bit I had to know everything. Pandora's box. Everything flew out, all the things that would have stayed under the lid if it hadn't been for me. But listen, Stefan, there's more to this story.'