I saw Gabriel, like a maiden, or like the moon amongst the stars. His hair was like a woman’s falling in long tresses…He is the most beautiful of angels…His face is like a red rose.
Ruzbehan Baqli
The roads were silent. We moved arm-in-arm, quiet as wraiths, slipping through pools of yellow lamplight, or striped by shadows of black railings, like prison bars, thrown by shafts of light from windows. Where people had forgotten to draw their curtains, tableaux of bookshelves and Christmas trees and flickering television screens could be glimpsed. Other lives, other worlds. We turned into a street where the old buildings lay dark and cold, sunk in their secrets. For a moment the mist separating past and present seemed so thin that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Laura hurrying ahead of us.
Opening the door to the tapas bar we walked firmly into the present: steamy, loud with a flamenco guitar and chatter. A couple were vacating a candlelit table in a corner behind a partition, and we took it, ordering food and drink before the waiter who came to clear had time to escape. He brought us the wine straight away.
We talked about the concert, joked about life behind the scenes at the vicarage. That morning, Jeremy had lost his spectacles and conducted an irritable hunt before his wife found them in the obvious place where he’d left them.
‘Don’t you feel you’re on your best behaviour all the time there?’ Zac asked, pouring us each more wine from the bottle. Through the candlelight he was rather Spanish-looking himself, with his black hair, dark, glittering eyes and five o’clock shadow.
‘I did at first,’ I said, ‘but not now. They’re very relaxed, really, and we’re used to each other, so it’s just the usual family rituals.’ Family rituals. Dad and I used to have our own. Now he’d gone the memories were flooding back. Every day I could think of more good things about the past; remember our special Sunday breakfasts when I was small, walks by the river holding his hand, visits to churches where he explained the wonderful stained glass. The memories were tender, and precious, too.
‘Jeremy and Sarah miss their daughters and having me with them helps,’ I told Zac. ‘I think fussing over me takes Sarah’s mind off her worries about Miranda.’
‘She’s the younger one, is that right?’
‘Yes, she suffers from anorexia. It’s very difficult for her parents to know how to help–she keeps them at arm’s length.’
‘That’s hard,’ he said.
‘Jo asked me to go and live with her again,’ I told him, ‘but I said no.’
‘Wouldn’t you feel more at home with her?’ he asked.
‘Funnily enough, no. Jo’s place still feels like her parents’ home. Anyway, I don’t want to play gooseberry to her and Dominic.’
He smiled and I thought he looked distracted.
‘What is it?’ I asked, feeling that at last all barriers were down between us. He held his finger close to the candle flame, considering, and after a moment seemed to come to a decision of some sort.
‘Fran,’ he said. He couldn’t look at me. ‘I must tell you. I’m going away.’
‘Away? What do you mean?’ I was confused.
‘It was while I was ill. I had time to think–about Olivia. I need to go and look for her, Fran.’
I tried to keep up. ‘But you said you wouldn’t ever go…’
‘…where I wasn’t wanted. Aye, I did. But it was something Amber said. She’s a wise one, that girl. She asked me if I was at peace about it–not seeing Olivia, that is. And I said no, of course not. It torments me. And she said…she said I should forget my pride, go on the journey, trust and see what happened. That if you love someone, you have to work for them. Although there’s a point where you have to stand back and wait, I needed to try my best first.’
‘Oh,’ I said, faintly. ‘But where will you look? I thought she’d moved. How long will you be gone?’
‘I’m going to start at the last address I had for them. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ve a flight booked this week. Friday, in fact. The prices rise after that, it being the Christmas holidays. I had to decide quickly.’
‘Friday,’ I repeated, dully. ‘But Zac, it’s all so sudden.’ So many questions formed in my mind, I didn’t know which one to ask first, and a feeling of panic was rising.
‘I need a break, Fran. To get away from everything. And I can’t ask you to hold the job open. It wouldn’t be fair on you. And perhaps I ought to try something new anyway. It’s been a tough time.’
‘I couldn’t have got through it without you, Zac.’ Tears were welling up now. I averted my face, not daring to let him see them. ‘I don’t want you to go. It’s awful.’
‘It’s not awful, Fran. I’m really happy about it. I’m going to look for Olivia. Of course I won’t turn up on the doorstep unannounced or anything. I’ll find out where she is and then try to speak to Shona, get her to let me meet Olivia.’
‘What happens if she won’t let you?’ I said, bravely looking straight at him now. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t.
He took a slow sip of his wine, staring into the candle flame as though there were pictures in it only he could see. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last, unhappily. ‘But at least I’ll have tried. Better than sitting on my backside here, pining, isn’t it?’
‘When will you come back?’
‘I don’t know. The visa’s for three months. I’m keeping up the flat for the moment, but putting my stuff into storage in case. David’s looking after the glass for me. If I found a job out there, got permission to stay…well, maybe I’d do that. I don’t know. I don’t expect it would be that easy. I’ll play it by ear.’
He would be gone, out of my life. I might never see him again. I hardly knew where I was, couldn’t stop the tears now. I tried to look away, but he reached out his hand and touched my cheek.
‘Hey,’ he said really gently. ‘You’re crying. What’s the matter? It’s not the end of the world, you know.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I choked. The tears were coming thick and fast now. ‘You can’t go. Not now.’ I grabbed a paper napkin and blew my nose.
‘You silly girl. You’ll be all right without me. You’ll have Amber to help in the shop. And it shouldn’t be too difficult finding someone to replace me.’
‘It’s not that. It’s that I’ll miss
you
, Zac.’
He sat there, taking in my stricken face. I watched him work it out and it was like the glimmer of a light dawning.
‘You will miss me? Really? But you’ll have Ben, won’t you?’ The expression in his eyes was unreadable.
‘No, Zac, I won’t have Ben. It’s never really been Ben. Well, I thought it was for a bit but then I realised I was wrong.’ Whatever I had felt for him was gone now. I’d been looking through a glass darkly, but now I could see the truth beyond. ‘I didn’t know it till just now, in the church. It’s like…oh, I’m not putting this very well, Zac.’
He gazed at me across the table, frowning. I tried very hard to smile but my mouth wouldn’t do it properly. Now I’d made a proper fool of myself.
‘You don’t want me to go?’ he said quietly. ‘You really don’t?’
‘I want you to find Olivia–it would be selfish of me not to. But I don’t want you to go away. Or rather, I want you to come back. Very soon. I need you. I don’t mean at the shop. Well, I do, of course. But it’s for me.
I
need you.’
Zac stared at me for some time without speaking, a whole pantomime of emotions playing across his face. Finally he smiled, a crazy lopsided smile that became a laugh. His eyes sparkled, and now I knew that everything was all right. He reached for my hand, and we sat there holding hands, smiling stupidly at one another.
And then the waiter arrived with platters of food and merry small talk and we ate without speaking much, but still with plenty of looking at each other. Once he reached across and stroked my face. I grabbed his hand and put it to my lips, gave his finger the tenderest of little bites, which made him narrow his eyes. I held his big cool hand against my hot cheek and closed my eyes. I felt safe, protected.
‘Dessert?
Café
?’ asked the waiter when he withdrew the empty platters. Despite everything, we’d been ravenous.
Zac raised his eyebrows in question. ‘No,’ I said hastily. ‘Thank you.’
I let Zac pay the bill and help me on with my coat and then once again we were out on the street. But this time, Zac’s arm was round me, keeping me warm and safe. I wasn’t alone any more.
Round the corner, out of sight of any passers-by, he drew me into the dark porch of some office block and we kissed. They were long, desperate kisses that left me dizzy and hungry for more. I knew the feel of his hair now, thick and springy, the roughness of his jaw, the gleam of his eyes, his skin ghostly pale in the darkness. I’ve no idea how much time passed. We didn’t want to stop. When we came up, gasping for air, he wrapped me tightly inside his coat and I felt warm against the cold. Even so, I shivered.
‘What shall we do now?’ he whispered. ‘No good going back to mine, it’s all packed up. I’m sleeping on my own sofa.’
It was nearly midnight–too late to take him back to the vicarage. But we didn’t want to say goodbye, not yet.
‘I know,’ I said.
The flat above
Minster Glass
was as cold inside as it was outside, the electricity being off, but we were providing our own warmth. It seemed right somehow making it a place of love again, snuggled up together in some blankets on the sofa, trying to ignore the smell of damp and smoke.
I felt so safe in his arms, as though I’d come home, really home, and I couldn’t help but weep a little with happiness, as well as the thought that he was going away.
‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered, kissing me again. After a moment he muttered in my ear, ‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too,’ I replied wonderingly, and sat back to look at his face, strange and slightly sinister in the light from the street. I stroked his bristly cheek.
‘I’ve loved you such a long time, Fran.’
‘How long?’ I asked, though I knew now. So many things were starting to make sense. Zac’s surliness. His deep misery. I’d put everything down to Dad or Olivia, but it hadn’t just been them.
‘Oh, only since you walked back through that door in September,’ he said. ‘Sad, eh?’
‘Oh, Zac.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t notice me, did you? Not really.’
Why had I not seen it? Why do we never see these things? Because we’re looking somewhere else, for something else, that’s why. When what matters is right there in front of us.
‘I didn’t know for sure then,’ he went on. ‘Frankly, you got on my wick. I wanted you. I wasn’t sure I liked you though. You seemed selfish.’
Selfish. Three months ago I’d have resented that. Now, it still hurt, but I saw why he might have got that impression of me. I had been closed up inside, like an unripe nut. ‘You’re a dark horse, Zac McDuff,’ I told him. ‘And you’re horrible. Not liking me indeed.’
He threw back his head and laughed then, his eyes flashing in the golden light.
‘But all that time I was with Ben…’ I remembered. That must have hurt so much.
‘I couldn’t believe you didn’t see through the guy,’ Zac said savagely. ‘He’s got “flake” written all over him.’
I thought about that. Poor old Ben. Yes, he was ‘poor old Ben’ because, for all the ways in which he used people, he couldn’t see himself clearly. He was blinded by the flame of ambition that fascinated him and, in the end, burned him. Still, it must have been hard for Zac to watch me with him, feeling unable to say or do anything. Certainly, I’d have put him in his place if he’d tried.
Amazingly, despite the cold, we fell asleep together until the sun rose next morning and hunger for food drove us out. We parted, promising to meet that evening. I sneaked back to the vicarage, let myself in and crept straight up the stairs, though I could hear Sarah clattering about in the kitchen. Only Lucifer, sitting by the radiator, saw me. He paused in his washing, with one leg in the air, his eyes gleaming accusingly. He was used to me now, but I couldn’t say he approved of me. Jeremy and Sarah said nothing about my absence. But then perhaps they didn’t know I hadn’t been to bed.
We spent every hour we could together over the next few days, though what with rehearsals for a concert I was to play in at the Wigmore Hall during Christmas week and Zac needing to sort out final arrangements for his trip, the hours didn’t add up to much.
‘I’ll be gone for just as long as it takes,’ he said, stroking my hair. It was the Tuesday afternoon and we were sitting on a bench in St James’s Park, the same bench where I’d seen Michael all those weeks ago. ‘Then I’ll be back. I promise.’
I opened my mouth to complain, then saw his face. He was holding back deep emotion and I knew I must say nothing. Although this was difficult for me, it was far more difficult for him. He was going alone on a journey into the unknown, and I needed to support him. I hugged him without speaking, and he held onto me so hard it hurt.
On his last night, Zac came to supper at the vicarage. Jo came too, with Dominic in tow. Although nothing was actually said, it had become obvious to me that my new surrogate parents had grown fond of Zac during the previous few months. When I explained somewhat shyly about the shift in our relationship, Sarah, with great tact, immediately took him under her wing as well, offering the address of some friends of theirs who lived in Melbourne, who might offer him hospitality. She also mended a tear in his elderly jacket, a task that was utterly beyond me, let alone Zac.
Both Jo and Dominic had, in their different ways, changed. Jo seemed happier. In fact, she was almost back to the Jo I’d known at school, though there was something, a slight wariness, there now. Dominic seemed less anxious. He was back at work and life was less stressful now that his mother was in a home. Jo, being in between jobs, was to spend some time down in Horsham helping his sister Maggie clear out the family home as Maggie tired easily at this stage in her pregnancy.
‘What are we doing at choir next term?’ I asked Dominic at one point.
‘The
Messiah
,’ he replied. ‘It always brings in the crowds and the music’s easy to get hold of. I’ve been looking through everybody’s questionnaires, by the way.’
‘And?’
‘Mixed bag,’ he said. ‘Ben will feel on the one hand encouraged–everyone appreciates his talent as a conductor–and on the other hand disappointed. Most want to aim for high standards. There are some who definitely share his vision, wanting to expand. But there are far more, I’m afraid, who think we should keep things pretty much as they are. Several grumble that the subscriptions are already too high.’