The past was solace, but the future stretched ahead barren, hopeless, hostile. A place of thorns and bones and sinking sands. Andrew decided the trick was not to think about it, not to look ahead, beyond. Not to imagine.
They had lost a date palm. The brutal frost left it scorched and black.
‘We should get rid of it,’ Val said. ‘It looks awful.’
Andrew tested it with the saw. The dead wood was fibrous but not too tough. He began to cut it into sections, and Val put the perished leaves in the recycling bin and hauled the pieces of trunk over to the drive – they’d go to the tip.
Garrington. Still there as he drove the saw to and fro, the pungent smell of sap in the air and a burning in his shoulder, still a little tender from falling when he’d chased after them.
Val brought out tea and he took a break. Sat beside her and gulped hot mouthfuls, his fingers smearing the mug with dirt.
‘Nearly done.’ She nodded at the stump.
‘The roots’ll be the worst bit, spade and fork job.’ He thought of their ragtag procession for Jason. The coffin and the tree, the spade and the watering can.
‘I’m going back in on Tuesday,’ Val said.
He nodded. He’d already decided for himself that he’d start back then, but Val had spare holiday left that she could have taken.
The phone went. He’d reconnected it eventually, and they hadn’t been pestered by the press since. He groaned as he got up, his muscles stiffening already.
‘I’ll get it,’ Val offered.
‘No,’ he said, moving towards the house. ‘It’ll be my mother, or Colin.’ They rang every day. ‘They said they’d do a meal tomorrow.’
‘Hello?’
‘Hi. Is Jason there, please?’
Andrew went dizzy; he felt as though he’d been kicked in the skull.
‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice, young, an unfamiliar accent.
‘I’m sorry, there’s been…’ His words were thin and dry. ‘I’ve, erm…’ He faltered.
‘I can’t get him on his mobile.’
‘I’ve some very bad news,’ Andrew said. ‘Jason died on the seventeenth of December.’
‘Died?’
‘Yes.’
‘But… Oh God!’
‘He was attacked when he tried to stop a fight; he was…’ Andrew didn’t want to say killed. ‘There was a knife.’
‘Oh God.’ She sounded shell-shocked.
‘I’m sorry, we told everyone we could.’
‘I’ve been home – Denmark.’
A foreign student? ‘You knew him from university?’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’
‘No, no, that’s fine.’ And of course it wasn’t.
‘The funeral was last Thursday.’
‘Yes. Yes, I see.’
He heard her breathing change and understood as she quickly ended the call. He replaced the phone. Allowed his mind to swoop around those unforgettable images: the crimson snow, Jason’s blanched face as he sat in their lounge, his body in the hospital anteroom. Then he forced himself back outside to dig up the roots of the palm. He continued even when the drizzle came and made the spade slippery to handle. Even as the crumbs of soil sneaked into his gloves and rubbed against the skin. He tugged out the last of the roots and discarded them. Broke up the clods of soil and forked it over. It was dusk by the time he’d finished.
He showered while Val prepared a meal. He complimented the food, hoping to entice her to eat more.
‘What time are we round at your folks tomorrow?’ she asked him. He hadn’t told her that the call had been from one of Jason’s new friends.
‘Six,’ he invented. He would call and fix that up with his mother after tea. If it didn’t suit them, then he could easily tell Val the plans had altered.
Garrington. Like a splinter under his nail. The more he tried to disregard it, the more it nagged at him.
He lasted until late in the evening. Val had gone up, and he was having a nightcap, ostensibly watching a rerun of Coast, the documentary series about the British coastline.
He moved abruptly, went through to the study and wrestled the phone book from the stack of directories.
Frost… Gane… Gardner… Garrington. One entry: V, 22 Waterford Place, M20. He felt a shiver of excitement, a sort of sickly triumph. He tore the page out and folded it up. Put it in his pocket. The thrill of discovery beating inside him like a new heart.
Louise
Carl had brought vodka. Cherry vodka. From the distillery near his village, he said. The Poles were big on vodka, Louise had learnt, usually flavoured with fruit or herbs or honey. He’d brought duty-free cigarettes too. It was good of him, but within half an hour of Carl being there, Louise found her mind wandering. It was hard to concentrate on his stories from home; she felt irritated at the way he shook his head when he chuckled.
Driven to distraction, she thought, that’s what it feels like: everything’s popping up and zipping about and none of it is important any more. Too much clutter in her head, and all that mattered was Luke and Ruby.
She looked at Carl, the broad cheekbones, the honey colour of his skin, blond hair, his eyes, cat-like, wonderful eyes, and sighed. ‘I think we should give it a break – us, I mean.’
He looked dazed. ‘Really?’
‘It’s not you, Carl, it’s me, Luke, everything.’
‘But I want to help.’
‘There is no help.’ She turned her glass to and fro on the table. ‘It’s all I can do to give Ruby the time she needs, with work and hospital.’
‘You make it sound as if I am work for you,’ he complained. She saw petulance in the set of his jaw.
‘I don’t mean to.’ She didn’t want to get into it. Her mind was made up and nothing he could say would shift it. She didn’t want to pick over it, analyse it. Or hurt him any more. ‘You’ve been really good. I’m sorry.’ She frowned, pinched at the bridge of her nose. Now please, go.
‘You want us just to be friends?’
Did she even want that? ‘Yeah,’ she answered. Though she couldn’t really imagine it.
That tightness in his jaw again, then he cleared his throat. ‘Very well,’ he said, stiffly, formality his way of coping.
‘Please take these.’ She pushed the bottle and the cigarettes his way.
‘No, they are yours,’ he objected, getting up.
She stood too, awkward now, not knowing whether to approach him, to thank him. A farewell hug. He made no move, and she took her cue from him.
She was relieved when he had gone. She’d always known that she and Carl were a time-limited affair. Had realized that it would not lead to them moving in together or, God forbid, babies. She thought he had too, but perhaps he’d harboured hopes for more.
There had never been that wild, desperate attraction she’d felt for Roland, and later for Eddie. She’d been misguided with Roland, but she’d have married him in the blink of an eye if he’d asked. And with Eddie it was pure joy, as the dizzy, chaotic sensations of being in love settled into a deep love and respect, a delight at being together. She wondered if Roland had married his African fiancée, and if he’d stayed true. Perhaps he had taken other wives, as was legal in his part of the world.
Would it have made any difference to how Luke had turned out if he had known his father? Would letters or a clutch of meetings have been enough to temper his alienation from school, his waywardness? Occasionally Louise had Googled Roland’s name, but she never found any reference to him. She had asked Luke directly when he was twelve or so, ‘Would you like to try and find your dad, make contact?’
‘No,’ he’d replied, his lip twisting with derision. ‘What for?’
Her attempt to prolong the discussion had led to him walking out of the house.
Had Roland ever given a second thought to the child he’d left in Manchester? He knew she’d been pregnant, but had already left when Luke was born. He never knew whether he had a son or a daughter, or even twins. She found it hard to conceive of that level of indifference. And given how he had treated her, at the end of the day perhaps it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that Roland in Luke’s life might have made things worse, not better.