I returned to find my house on the hill empty of Ruth. She had left a note. I know you won’t approve but I’ve gone back home. I felt so lonely, that’s the honest truth. (Now you’re not to feel bad for having left me here. Your godfather has to come first.)
I went from room to room checking, just to make sure that she hadn’t changed her mind and was in fact hiding in some drawer somewhere. Then I phoned her. ‘Ruth, are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. Everything’s fine.’
‘Should you have gone back? He might do it again. Is he there with you now?’
‘Eliza?’
‘Yes, Ruth.’
‘I might have overreacted.’ She rushed out the sentence as if she half hoped I wouldn’t catch it.
‘You can’t overreact to something like that.’
There was a pause, then Ruth said, ‘You can if the whole thing was really an accident.’
It was my turn to pause. ‘Right,’ I said finally. ‘Well, as long as you’re all right.’
‘I am. And, Eliza.’
‘Yes, Ruth.’
‘Thank you.’
I put the phone down and went out to the workshop to check on my patients. There were the ones about to be discharged: Annie’s jug, an early Staffordshire lion with a bubble-bath mane, and a Moorcroft vase that was my equivalent of Jacob Bauer’s ‘completely loathsome’ patient, hard to care about, yet accorded the best treatment available because that was what the job was all about, doing your best to put right what was broken because it was not your place to judge but to mend. Then came Recovery, objects bandaged with tape, bits held in place with staples, wounds covered but not fully healed: an eighteenth-century Meissen Harlequin figurine playing bagpipes, a large cockatoo with a splendid lemon-yellow comb, a Minton bust of the young Queen Victoria in a sickly shade of blue. Finally came Intensive Care, the pieces that had reached me in the most sorry state, some arriving in bits in a box, some cracked and flayed of whole fields of enamel, and all of them written off by other restorers and sent to me; the last chance saloon for the cracked and the broken.
Once I had finished my inspection and satisfied myself that nothing untoward had happened to my charges in my absence, I telephoned Gabriel and invited him to dinner.
The following day I hurried back from work, practically running from the Tube, so that I would have plenty of time to get everything ready for my dinner. I had told Beatrice, over a Willow Pattern jug not dissimilar to Annie’s, about inviting Gabriel home. I expect it was obvious from the way I looked and the way I sounded that it was more than just a dinner, because she had rushed over to me and given me a hug, saying, ‘Oh Eliza, I’m so pleased for you.’
I had looked over her shoulder at a set of tiles that I found particularly hideous, just to stop myself from crying. ‘I do love my work,’ I said.
‘That’s somewhat of a non sequitur,’ Beatrice had said, letting go of me. ‘But I’m pleased you feel that way.’
‘Oh I do,’ I’d told her as I smiled at my poor harried willow lovers.
Back home, as I showered and washed my hair, I thought how proud Uncle Ian would be of me for taking life and all its promise by the scruff and – well, doing whatever you did with a scruff.
I stood in front of my wardrobe, looking in at the rows of dresses. I had taken to wearing dresses in preference to any other clothes back at university. I had realised how convenient life became once you did not have to worry about finding a top. I’m sure that there were people for whom matching a top to a bottom did not constitute one of life’s major hurdles but for me the whole thing was a problem I could do without. Tops, were they T-shirts, blouses, sweaters or cardigans, seemed to assume a malevolent life of their own, appearing and disappearing at will, like the Cheshire Cat, never being in the place where I thought I’d left them. They even seemed capable of subtle colour changes so that what was, for example, a sensible navy, turned lilac or violet or heather or some other skittish floral shade that managed to clash with whatever else I tried to match it with. But with a dress you had no such worries.
In the end I plumped for a grey Liberty-print tea-dress. It had short sleeves, and as the evening was turning chilly I added a brown cashmere cardigan. It looked nicer than one might have thought, because there were little brown spots in amongst the grey and white flowers of the dress.
I had already prepared supper, a lamb casserole, and I had some meringues that the packet promised no one would believe were not home-made, waiting in a tin. I would mix those with cream and berries to make an Eton Mess.
I looked out of my bedroom window but of course he was not there yet. He wasn’t due for another quarter of an hour. Then I thought Gabriel might find it odd that I’d picked for my bedroom the small room at the top of the house with its peeling paint and wallpaper when there was a comfortable and freshly decorated one on the floor below. So, with my heartbeat speeding up like the steps of a lover, I grabbed the bedding and rushed down to the room where Ruth had slept. I remade that bed and then I hurried downstairs and out to the front garden to pick some early roses to place on the bedside table. As I searched for the blooms Jacob Bauer drove up in his big bad car and barely a minute later I saw Gabriel approach on his bicycle. He had a determined look on his face as well he might; there was a long steep hill to negotiate before you got to the square. I waved at him with my secateurs but he wasn’t looking in my direction but at Jacob Bauer, who had got out of his car, stretching and pulling a face as if his back hurt. He should follow Gabriel’s example, I thought, and cycle for a change. That would get rid of the beginnings of a belly as well as make him more popular in the neighbourhood.
Gabriel jumped off his bike and called out something and Jacob Bauer turned round, and seeing who it was he raised his hand in a wave and came over. The two men were standing not twenty feet from my garden. I wondered if I should join them but I decided not to. I enjoyed watching Gabriel. I used to do it all the time, not spy on him or stalk him, just sit happily at a restaurant table or wait in some foyer at the theatre or the ballet, watching him stride though the throng, so tall, so handsome, so mine. Of course he was mine no longer. But who knew but that after tonight he might be mine once more. Jacob Bauer had to feel a bit short and plain and heavy-featured when standing next to Gabriel. Though if he did, it didn’t seem to concern him. He had a nice smile, though, I noticed. He was smiling now as he was telling Gabriel about something, describing with his hands, even doing a little walk about with a put-on limp. It was work talk, obviously, and I grew impatient, wishing my neighbour would stop monopolising my guest. But Gabriel listened and nodded and smiled back and shook his head and interjected and I thought that at this rate the evening would be halfway over before he had even stepped over my threshold. It used to drive me mad, the way Gabriel would be endlessly polite and attentive to someone he barely knew at the expense of someone close to him, someone like me, for example, who was waiting for him.
Next Gabriel pointed over his shoulder to my house and they both turned round. I ducked and walked, knees bent, head down, to the door, and slipped back inside. I went and sat down at the kitchen table. I started counting to a hundred, thinking that by the time I had got there Gabriel would have torn himself away. But there was no ringing of the doorbell so I thought I’d write my email to Uncle Ian. I had spoken on the phone to Katarina earlier in the day. She had told me he was reasonably well, though tired and spending the day in bed. So I wrote and said I hoped he would be up and about soon and that everything was fine with ‘our’ house. I finished by telling him that following our last conversation I had invited Gabriel for dinner as getting back with an ex-husband had to count as first-rate recycling, the very opposite of waste.
Once I’d clicked on ‘send’ I shut down the laptop and went back to the window. It was getting dark but the two men were still chatting. I was about to go the bathroom – not because I needed to but because usually when you waited for the phone to ring or for someone to arrive, you only needed to get into the shower or sit down on the loo and there it was, the ringing phone or the knock on the door – but then I saw Annie running down the path in the twilight. Her father turned round and waved at her, a wide grin on his face, and then he gave Gabriel a pat on the shoulder before hurrying off. I smiled to myself as he picked his daughter up as if she weighed nothing at all and carried her back up the path to their house.
I had seen the back of Jacob Bauer but I half expected Archie to appear and possibly have some sort of seizure just so that Gabriel would be further delayed. But nothing like that happened and at last the doorbell went.
‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ He pulled off his helmet and tossed it on a chair. ‘I got chatting to Jacob Bauer. It’s funny how these things happen. I mean, before you told me he was your neighbour I had hardly exchanged two words with the guy but now we seem to bump into each other all the time.’
He leant down and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I hope I’m all right like this.’ He looked down at his jeans. I assured him that he was.
‘I said to Jacob that I can’t believe you two haven’t met properly yet. In fact I suggested he come over and have a drink with us now but he said he had to help his daughter with her homework. I told him to pop over later if he felt like a nightcap.’
I was on my way into the kitchen and I said, over my shoulder, ‘Well, I hope he doesn’t.’
‘Do you have to be so antisocial?’ Gabriel said. ‘You never want to see anyone.’
I swallowed and blinked away the hurt. ‘White wine all right?’ I asked. ‘Or would you prefer a vodka and tonic?’
He told me wine was fine.
I grabbed the bottle from the fridge and led the way upstairs to the sitting room.
‘No, he’s a nice chap.’ Gabriel sat down on the sofa and accepted the glass I handed him.
‘He’s not terribly popular with his neighbours,’ I said. ‘He drives that great big car and refuses to attend the Residents’ Association meetings, plus I know for a fact that he doesn’t recycle.’
‘Neither do you.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘You put batteries in with the normal rubbish.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You take them to the recycling point, do you?’
‘Almost certainly,’ I said. ‘His daughter’s nice, though. A bit pushy but with a father like that . . .’
‘Jacob Bauer isn’t especially pushy. Why do you have to be so judgemental? You don’t even know the man.’
‘All right,’ I said, trying to get the evening back on track. ‘Fine. I’ll wait until I do know him and then I’ll be judgemental.’
Gabriel didn’t look amused. I thought I might tell him that it was only with him that I appeared so critical. There was something about his unreserved enthusiasm that made me want to counter by being negative. It was one of our little ying and yang things, I suppose.
‘As I said, the man’s actually quite shy.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, really.’
A silence followed. I looked down at the rug, counting the embroidered flowers. I got to thirty-three before Gabriel spoke.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to snap.’
I smiled at him. ‘It’s all right.’ And my smile grew bigger. ‘It’s nice to see you.’
He laughed softly.
‘What?’ I said.
Gabriel shook his head.
‘What?’ I said again, coming over all coquettish, looking up at him sideways, giving a little shrug.
‘Oh, it’s just something Jacob said.’
I sat up straight on the sofa and put my feet back down on the floor. ‘Jacob?’
Gabriel nodded, and still chuckling he started telling me a seemingly endless story involving a geriatric patient, the man’s son, a motorcycle helmet and a very angry staff nurse. I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I watched his face as he talked and gesticulated. He was very beautiful. Not many men could be said to be beautiful but Gabriel really was. My mother had made me angry by saying he looked like a male model when she first met him but in the end she had to admit that he had character as well. I realised that Gabriel had finished his story and was looking at me expectantly.
I laughed, assuming the ending of the story had been as amusing as the beginning was supposed to be.
‘You think that’s funny?’ Gabriel looked puzzled. ‘I think it’s terrifying. If it hadn’t been for the staff nurse God knows what might have happened.’
‘Did I laugh? Sorry. I do sometimes when something’s really sad or terrifying. Don’t you remember?’
‘No, not really. Anyway.’
I waited but nothing followed. I was growing desperate. Here I was, all set to make the most of life, grab it, hold it, kiss it, remove all its clothes and jump into bed with it, yet nothing was going my way.
‘Don’t waste any more of your life, Eliza,’ I heard Uncle Ian’s voice. ‘Be a candle not a black hole.’ That wasn’t much to ask, was it? No, but could I do that one little thing for him? No, it appeared I could not.
Gabriel sat back against the cushions. ‘As I said, Jacob and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other lately. We’re both involved in a study on bone density. The holy grail, of course, is to encourage bone regrowth rather than just halting the decline and we’ve had really very good results.’
‘I think Uncle Ian might be suffering from osteoporosis,’ I said. ‘People don’t always realise that it can happen to men as well as to women. You do, of course. It’s your job, knowing those kinds of things but generally I don’t think people are aware of it.’
Gabriel listened politely before asking, ‘And how is he doing apart from that?’
I looked away, feeling tearful all of a sudden. ‘Not so good. When I left yesterday I suddenly had this overwhelming feeling that I wouldn’t see him again. At least not in this life. I don’t know what it was exactly but he seemed to grow smaller even in those last few minutes, as if he were disappearing already.’ I shook myself and cleared my throat. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be morbid. Katarina mentioned an operation but . . .’ I shrugged.
‘Surgery on the elderly is fraught with risk; that’s the problem. In fact that was exactly what Jacob and I were talking about just now.’
‘Gabriel.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we please stop talking about Jacob Bauer?’
Gabriel frowned. Then he shrugged. ‘Sure. What do you want to talk about?’
I swallowed an urge to say, ‘Me,’ and got up instead. ‘Why don’t we have some dinner?’
On the way to the dining room I checked myself in the hall mirror. I thought I looked like someone dressed for the funeral of a distant relative, suitably glum while not all in black and upstaging the real mourners.
I served the food and sat down. I wanted to be light and cheery, gay, in the old-fashioned Nancy Mitford sense. I wanted to be a woman as light as air in a light as air frock, a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other, throwing back my face and laughing. Then, when I was old I would tell our grandchildren, ‘Oh daalings, we were so frightfully gay, Grandpa Gabriel and I.’
I tried to think of something of interest to say. Something uncontentious. ‘You know Mrs Turnbull who lived next to us at number five? Well, she died last week.’ And I threw back my head and laughed, so frightfully frightfully gaily.
‘Are you all right, Eliza? Forgive me for saying so but you’ve been rather odd all evening.’
I drained the red wine, hoping that following the two glasses of white, it might render me unconscious. ‘I’m fine. Just a bit tired, perhaps.’
‘This is very good.’ Gabriel raised his fork on which was speared a piece of lamb.
I forgot the green beans,’ I said, getting up from my chair. ‘I’ll go and put them on now. They only take a minute.’
‘Really, don’t bother. There are vegetables in the casserole. And we’ve got the delicious bread. Really, this is lovely.’
So I sat back down again. ‘Uncle Ian gave me several of his mother’s notebooks,’ I told him. ‘They’re filled with stories: fairy tales, myths. He wants me to illustrate them. I never liked the man she used for the published volumes. His work was very seventies brown and orange and almost Stalinist in its lines. You know, the prince sticks his chin out and raises his sword to the skies. And the trolls look rather evil, which I think is wrong. Ugly, yes, cross, yes, but misunderstood I’d always say, rather than evil.’
‘Maybe you should do it,’ Gabriel said.
‘Do what?’
‘The new illustrations.’
‘I’m too rusty. My technique’s not up to it.’
‘Don’t be defeatist.’
‘I’m not. I’m realistic.’ But then I remembered Uncle Ian and I said, ‘Though I could go back and do some evening classes.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Gabriel said.
I beamed at him.
Silence fell.
After a while I asked, ‘So how have you been?’
‘Fine. Busy busy busy.’
‘I don’t suppose it can be much fun coming home late to an empty flat after a hard day’s work and having to cook and . . .’
He looked down at his hands and then back at me. ‘Actually, I’m not coming back to an empty flat.’
‘You’re not.’ I swallowed hard. The odds on Gabriel having got a cat were low.
‘I’m seeing someone.’
‘Ah.’
‘She, Isobel, is a registrar at the hospital.’
‘Ah.’
‘She’s divorced, too. She’s got a little boy, Edward.’
‘Edward,’ I repeated. ‘Is it serious?’
‘We’re not living together yet, not officially, but they stay over most of the time. We’re looking to get a place together.’
Now he’d got over the hurdle of breaking his news to me he seemed unable to stop talking. They were hoping to find a house in this very neighbourhood as that would be the most convenient both for the hospital and for little Edward’s school. Edward was a real bright spark. Just like his mother. Who had this amazing energy and joie de vivre. In spite of the fact that her life had not been easy.
I had tried to keep a neutral to interested expression on my face while my heart lurched and twisted in my chest. In the end I couldn’t stop myself. ‘So she needed you,’ I said. ‘She needed rescuing.’
He frowned. ‘I can see where you’re going with this but you’re wrong. She’s very independent.’ His face softened. ‘Well, she’s had to be, poor little thing.’
‘Orphan, is she?’
He looked puzzled. ‘No.’ Then his brow cleared. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been banging on rather, haven’t I? It’s just, well, I’m happy. I’ve told Isobel, by the way, that you are and always will be very important to me. And she completely accepts that.’
Good old Isobel. In the midst of my misery and my anger I felt this tenderness towards him as he sat there, all excited and pink-cheeked and sparkly-eyed, and so utterly without any understanding.
‘In fact, she really wants to meet you.’ He relaxed in his chair. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you understand. Then you always were understanding.’ He put his hand out across the table and searched for mine.
‘Was I?’ I fished my right hand up from under the table where it had been scrunching my napkin into a little sweaty ball, and reached out to him. We held hands for a minute or so. Then I eased my hand out from his grip, but reluctantly. I had always loved the touch of his hands, that were warm and dry and a little bit rough. I stood up.
‘Pudding.’
He picked up his plate and was about to follow me but I told him to remain seated.
‘You’re a guest,’ I said.
‘You’ve been crying?’ he said as I returned. He stood up, taking the bowl of Eton Mess from my hands. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I thought we were OK. I thought we . . . I mean, it’s been three years.’ We stood there, looking helplessly at each other. Then I shrugged and turned away but he took a step towards me and hugged me close. I tensed up as I tried hard not to press up against him and my arms remained limp at my sides.
‘I really am so sorry,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t realise.’
I freed myself from his awkward embrace and like actors after hearing the word Cut, we simply assumed our places. Pushing the bowl towards him I said, ‘Don’t be sorry. As you say, it’s been three years.’ Then a little vial of poison burst inside me. ‘Anyway, Isobel needs you. Not to mention Little Edward.’
He gave me an uncertain look as he helped himself to the Eton Mess.
I smiled politely. ‘Of course, I myself I have gone and contracted leprosy, silly me, careless as ever, but you know how it is? One minute you’re fine, then the next your nose is falling off. Plus we’ve got this termite situation. You know termites, the little guys who chomp their way though large timber structures in the time it takes you or I to eat a spoonful of Eton Mess. They came across with a consignment of bananas apparently and then they were brought to me by Ocado. But it isn’t all bad. No, not at all. In fact they could turn out to save everyone a lot of trouble and expense now the council has applied to demolish every house in the square to make way for that much needed bypass.’ I gave him another quick smile. ‘But enough about me.’
Gabriel was staring at me. Now he put down his spoon and said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing. Only you speaking of poor Isobel reminded me of my own small troubles, that’s all.’
‘You’re being very silly.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Maybe I should go.’
‘Isobel waiting, is she?’
He got to his feet. ‘No, as it happens. She’s at her own place this week. Half-term.’
‘Well, sit down, then, and finish your pudding.’
I watched him clear his plate. He had always had a healthy appetite. After a few minutes I said, ‘You mustn’t worry, though. I exaggerated when I said my nose might fall off. Your extremities don’t actually just fall off when you’ve got leprosy. No, what actually happens is that you lose all feeling because of the damage to the nerve-endings so you simply don’t notice when you chop a finger off while cutting up the carrots or that your nose is being scorched while you bend down to stoke the fire. But as I hardly ever chop carrots, preferring to eat them raw and whole, and as I can never get a fire to take, I’m glad to say that I should be safe.’ I got up from the table. ‘Coffee?’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘I think I’m fine.’
‘I’ve got an espresso machine.’
Once he had gone I went into Ruth’s room and stripped the bed, taking the sheets back up with me to my own room. I didn’t wash or take my clothes off but just crawled into bed and lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling and pretending I was counting stars. After a while my eyes were too wet for me to see properly so I closed them and tried to go to sleep.