‘Are they with their . . . father tonight?’ He hesitates and frowns over the word
father
.
‘Yes.’ I nod and gulp my water so I don’t have to say anything else. Mixing Murray into our conversation so soon has thrown me. Thoughtfully offering me a reprieve, David insists on fetching me something more interesting to drink from the bar. He brings back two menus and a pineapple juice.
‘Have you been here before?’ He glances around, seemingly satisfied with the choice of venue. It’s busy, warm, cheerful and filled with the smell of home cooking. Just the kind of place I can really get to know David. Now I’m alone with him, I’m stating to sense there really could be something special between us.
‘Never,’ I admit, and for a moment I see Murray sitting beside the fire instead of David, his features highlighted by the flames, his neck arced over the menu, his finger running down the meals.
‘Their steak melts in the mouth. But the whole menu’s good here. You can’t go wrong.’
‘Do you own shares in the place?’ I joke.
Now we are out of Northmire, now he’s not visiting Mum, I don’t know what to say to him. My conversation feels awkward. I am a soon-to-be divorcee on a date with a man who I have met only half a dozen times. I try not to notice his razored hairline as it dips beneath the collar of his shirt or the way his eyes narrow when he smiles. His hair is speckled with grey and sits in a slightly tousled, longer style on the top. He clearly takes care of himself and his clothes are stylish. I wonder if he notices how many women in the room have glanced at him since we’ve been here.
‘No, I don’t.’ He laughs. ‘I just like eating out and discovering new places.’ He sips his wine, barely letting any into his mouth. Murray would be on his third glass by now; thinking about ordering another bottle. ‘Besides, it gives me somewhere to bring beautiful ladies.’ He passes me a menu.
I press my toes into the soles of my boots, the only things I am wearing that aren’t new. I can’t help but smile.
‘Lad
ies
,’ I tease. ‘How many are there?’
‘Aha.’ He laughs and gentle lines flicker around his eyes. ‘Hundreds,’ he jokes. ‘Seriously, though, I’m not seeing anyone. No one special.’ He looks at me intently. ‘To be honest, when I’ve finished work there’s little time for socialising. I expect I’ll meet lots of lovely women in the area soon enough.’ He sips more wine. ‘Hey, I already have.’ He gestures at me and I’m not sure if I can swallow any more compliments for the time being. He’s trying to tell me that he’s available, that he’s interested, that he wants to take things further.
‘I’m going to have the crab cakes. Have you decided?’ I change the subject.
‘The fillet steak, of course. And it must be rare.’ His eyes twinkle at the thought.
Suddenly, all I can think of is Grace Covatta lying in the field, covered in blood. There is a moment’s silence, broken only by the crackling log on the fire. I must look miserable because he’s staring at me quizzically, wondering what’s wrong. ‘I’m sorry if I seem maudlin from time to time,’ I explain before he has the chance to ask. ‘It’s been a strange couple of weeks.’
‘I understand completely,’ he says, resting a hand on mine. But because it’s not Murray’s hand, because it’s an unfamiliar hand, I freeze – feeling guilty for liking it – and my whole body tenses.
David squeezes my fingers and goes to place our order at the bar. I watch him standing there – at least six feet tall, maybe more – telling the young waitress how he likes his steak, ordering more drinks. I also notice the way his body language suggests to me that he could be flirting, making her giggle, knowing exactly how to get his steak the way he likes it. It’s harmless, I tell myself, and stare at the flames as he returns to the table.
‘All sorted,’ he says, placing a new drink in front of me. I want to ask if he knows the young girl but that would be rude. He’s a doctor; he’s bound to know people of all ages in the community.
We chat nonstop. About where we’ve travelled, what our favourite books and films are, what sport we like – a kind of skirting around each other’s lives in a mix of genuine laughter and warmth but so far at a safe distance. Our meals soon arrive. We eat, glancing up at each other with food balanced on our forks – me trying not to spill anything and David tucking into his rare steak. Conversation flows as if we have decades of catching-up to do.
‘So am I your first?’ he asks. The crab falls off my fork and splats into the salsa. ‘Meal out since you and Murray separated,’ he says, underlining what I should have known. He didn’t say
date
, I notice; no implication of any strings attached. I feel slightly empty.
‘Yes.’ It sounds as if I’m confessing to having no experience at a job interview. ‘Murray and I have . . . well, we were together for a long time. Meeting other people isn’t so easy when you’ve . . .’ Do I admit Murray was my first and my only lover? ‘When you’ve only had . . .’ I can’t do it. ‘Murray and I were childhood sweethearts.’ David seems intrigued by this bit of news. ‘You can understand that it’s hard for me to . . .’ I’m trying to let him know I see this evening as a date – the first of many, I hope. But I just can’t say it outright, in case he doesn’t feel the same.
‘Of course I understand.’ His eyes say it all. They are full of compassion. ‘So, I imagine that Murray would know you better than anyone else.’ He rests his knife and fork down.
‘I guess,’ I reply, drenched in my husband once again. A deep breath, half a glass of pineapple juice, a visit to the ladies’ – it all helps me not think about Murray. I have to concentrate on why I am out with David, and really, it shouldn’t be so hard.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ I say to myself in the mirror above the washbasin. I wipe off the remainder of my lipstick. I don’t want it to smudge. ‘So stop being so bloody stupid.’
One glance at him across the room rights my feelings as I return to our table. I get on with my meal – him offering me a mouthful of the legendary steak
on his fork
; me tentatively asking if he’d like to try a crab cake. We laugh when it falls on to the table. All the while I can’t help wondering how the evening is going to end.
An hour or so later, David helps me into my coat and we leave the warm pub for the windswept street. The cold air is welcome after the crowded bar. Anything to blow away the moment when we part, don’t part, kiss, don’t kiss. ‘Look, do you fancy a ten-minute walk?’ He’s drawing it out. He starts walking anyway, as if it’s a given.
‘Sure,’ I say too quickly and he hooks his arm through mine when I catch up.
The streets of Burwell are quiet. It’s a pretty place, with everything you’d expect in a Cambridgeshire village; a place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens. Except maybe tonight.
‘You’ve changed your name already,’ David says.
I recall the fuss that Murray kicked up when I chose to keep my maiden name after we married.
‘I’ve always been Julia Marshall,’ I reply. With hindsight, it was the right thing to do. I don’t have to worry about changing names now the divorce is underway.
‘When did you and Murray actually separate?’ David looks down at me.
‘Last July,’ I say. ‘Saturday the fifteenth at three twenty p.m.’
‘That precise, huh?’ He tugs on my arm. A belated gesture of sympathy.
‘It was the exact time the locksmith finished changing the locks. Murray wasn’t even around. He was at . . .’ I stop. Not yet. Don’t colour David’s picture of me with the stain of Murray’s drinking. ‘Well, he just wasn’t there, that was all. It was for the best.’ I remember Murray at the bar, the look on his face when I approached him. By then, he didn’t even know who I was, let alone that he was supposed to have picked Alex up from the ice rink.
‘Have you ever been married?’ I ask. David’s been carefully protective of his past. He’s more interested in finding out about me, my childhood, than revealing his own story.
‘No,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I’ve always managed to put it off, wriggle out. There have been women . . . a woman.’ He swallows and his pace slows; drags almost. ‘But the time has never come.’ He stops walking. ‘It obviously wasn’t meant to be.’ I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. We are beside a bus stop. He turns me to face him. ‘I think we have a lot in common.’ A breath, a pause, and then he leaps. ‘I’d like to see you again.’ Then, ‘I want to know all about you.’
‘That would be nice,’ I say far too quickly, without even considering what it all means. I grip his forearms, giddy with pleasure, because they are the nearest things – strong, supportive, just where I need them – and suddenly his hands are holding me in return. In a flash, I am seventeen again, when Murray and I finally got together properly. He was strong. He was there. He was everything I’d ever wanted.
‘I’m not quite thirty,’ I say absurdly, perhaps thinking of all the roadblocks that we will encounter. I am completely unable to remove the grin from my face. He wants to see me again. Surely he knows there’s an age difference. It’s ridiculous but the only thing I could think of to say.
‘Lucky you,’ he says, laughing. There is no shock.
‘But it’s OK. I like older men,’ I say, grinning back. And it’s true. As of now, I do, because when he walks me back to my car, he kisses me. Just a dusting of skin, his lips missing mine by a fraction. I feel the heat in them anyway, his warm breath on my cheek, the passion I know he’s holding back. He stays there for a beat too long, causing my heart to kick up in my throat all the way back to the children.
MARY
After my visit to the surgery, after all the words I wanted to scream got wedged in my gullet, the woman that I’d become over the decades quickly unravelled and fell apart. The result was silence. I couldn’t speak a single syllable. It was self-preservation of the highest level. There was no one immediately available to talk to anyway, and by the time I got home, a few hours later, the vile bung that was trapped in my throat was as stubborn as a blocked drain. And it stank as much.
Everything I ever feared had come right back at me; a full circle of horror. And this time, I had more to lose.
Initially, I don’t think Brenna and Gradin even noticed my silence. Of course, they knew that something was wrong but their already troubled minds made it impossible for them to grasp what needed to be done. They were barely able to function normally themselves. My condition certainly made them unsettled, but ultimately, they were simply content to be out of their abusive home. They still took guesses at what I’d got them for Christmas, shrugging when I didn’t reply; they still squabbled and left the bathroom in a mess and ate up all the food in the house. During the first day or so, I managed to cook for them, just enough to make toasted sandwiches, a casserole, hot chocolate, and I washed their clothes. I got through the day hour by hour.
Until the telephone rang.
‘Mary . . . it’s . . .’ There was a sigh. A hesitation. ‘It’s David . . .’ I hung up immediately.
I stood for ten minutes, staring blankly at the wall ahead. My hand was pressing down on the receiver, pinning it to the base as if that would prevent it ringing again. It didn’t. He called twice more that evening.
‘It’s for you, Mary.’ Brenna answered and held out the phone to me. She frowned when I didn’t take it; when I didn’t stir from my chair. Even across the room I could hear him.
Hello, hello?
Each word ripped out another organ from my body. Piece by piece, David Carlyle was tearing me apart.
Stunned that he’d made contact, that he’d dared to enter my home – even if it was just his voice – I fell on to my bed and wept silently.
By Christmas Eve I was even worse. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t speak – although the words inside my head still flowed at a thousand a minute trying to unravel the mess, formulate a plan – but by now, my body had lost its tone, too. A fuse had blown in my brain, short-circuiting pretty much everything about me. I transformed from an active, stubborn, determined woman into an incapable, terrified shell.
‘There’s nothing to do,’ Brenna moaned, and the pair of them lurked through Christmas Eve, grumbling that they wanted a television, some sweets, something nice to drink. It wasn’t like Christmas at all. I dipped into my purse and fished out twenty pounds. They knew where the village shop was. It would still just be open.
‘What about you, Mary?’ My catatonic state had even prompted concern in Gradin. Before this, I’d been very concerned about his destructive behaviour. Now all I could think about was mine.
Christmas morning, they didn’t care whether I spoke or not. They’d already sniffed out the gifts I had hidden away and gorged on the chocolates, played the games and even read the books I’d bought for them. They were teens acting out a missed childhood and I was supposed to be helping them. It was all I could manage to breathe in and out.
In the afternoon, Julia arrived. She found me in the blue velvet buttonback chair that was only ever sat in when something was wrong. She didn’t know my heart was bleeding.
Today she’s back to take me to the hospital. ‘Are you still willing to have the tests, Mum?’ Julia sighs – all the weight of her worry pouring out. She is doing her best under the circumstances. I can’t even bring myself to look at her. I’m scared she would see the truth in my eyes. I twitch my finger. She knows what I mean. ‘Good. It’s cold out. Let’s get you into this.’
She holds my coat in a welcoming spread in the hope I will slither into it. When I don’t, she fumbles one arm into the sleeve, then the other, then hauls me upright by the hands. She truly believes she’s helping me; that her kind actions will make me better. What she doesn’t know is that there is no getting better.
‘Let’s get you into the car then, eh?’ Suddenly, everything is
let us
, as if that familiar, uniting use of words will make everything all right.
Oh,
Julia
. They say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you.