The doorbell rang and I rushed down the stairs, pouncing as if he were prey. He filled up the doorway with his height and the width of his shoulders. He swept his cycling helmet off and raked back his fair hair. His cheeks were pink from exercise. He exuded life and warmth. We kissed, a brush of lips on cheeks.
In the kitchen I pulled out one of the cornflower-blue painted kitchen chairs for him and poured us some red wine. I wondered if he thought about the day we’d got those chairs. We had been wandering around the architectural salvage yards in Hackney looking for fire surrounds and old tiles. The four chairs, spindle-broken and white-chipped, had been huddled together outside at the back. One even missed a leg. But I had felt certain that deep down they were good chairs, they just needed someone to bring them out of themselves. Gabriel had not been convinced but it had been the month anniversary of our wedding and he had been in the mood to agree with pretty well everything I wanted to do. It had taken me the best part of two weeks to restore the chairs, working in the evening and at the weekends, but the result had been well worth it: four French café chairs, two blue and two the yellow of the chair in Van Gogh’s painting.
‘My godfather called,’ I said as I sat down opposite him. ‘And you look exhausted.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Are you talking about Rose’s father?’
I nodded. ‘It’s been twenty-five years. Well, give or take.’
‘Right,’ Gabriel said.
‘You really do look tired.’
‘I told you I’m fine.’
‘Well, I think you look tired.’
‘Do you want me to be?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe. It would show you’re human. I know human is overrated but it would give us a connection at least. As in you’re human, I’m human; wow, whoever would have thought it.’
‘It upset you to hear from him?’
‘Well, yes it did. He was very nice and friendly so it wasn’t that.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s just that it’s brought everything back.’
‘I thought you’d dealt with all that.’
‘I had. Sort of.’
‘So the call shouldn’t have upset you like this.’
‘I know. But try telling that to the call.’
‘What?’
‘You said the call shouldn’t have upset me so I said . . . oh never mind. I shouldn’t have bothered you.’
‘It’s not a bother. I’ve meant to pop around for ages. So did he say why he was getting back in touch after all this time?’
‘He said it was Rose.’
‘Rose?’
I pulled a face. ‘I know. Is he senile, do you think?’
Gabriel shrugged. ‘I would need to examine him in order to establish that.’
‘Insane?’
‘Same answer, I’m afraid. Did he sound insane or senile to you, apart from the bit about Rose?’
I was not a weeper as a rule but suddenly, and to the surprise of us both, I was crying. It was the shock of the call that did it, that and Gabriel sitting there as if he belonged, the glass of wine in his hand, his legs outstretched, cutting the kitchen floor in half. But at the sound of crying he straightened up like a soldier at reveille and reached across to take my hand. Next he got up to find some tissues. There were none in the kitchen so instead he tore off some kitchen roll and handed it to me. I dabbed at my eyes and blew my nose. I got up and threw the ball of paper in the bin and then I washed my hands.
‘Have you eaten yet?’ I asked. He shook his head. ‘Would you like to stay for supper?’ He said he would. I asked him if pasta and tomato sauce was OK. He said it was, which was lucky as that was all I had. That and parmesan cheese.
Saving lives was hungry work and Gabriel ate a whole plateful of the pasta in near silence before saying, ‘You shouldn’t be worried about meeting your godfather. It’s pretty normal, as you approach the end of your life, to want to tie up the loose ends. I see it all the time at work on the wards. It’s as if they have a mental list of I’s to dot and T’s to cross before they feel they can let go.’
I thought how it would be to be thought of simply as a loose end in Ian Bingham’s life. Being a loose end sounded relatively benign, and eminently solvable. I reached across and topped up our wine glasses.
He put his fork down and took my hand. His fair hair fell in a wave across his forehead and his blue-grey gaze was fond and my heart beat faster. ‘You’re not drinking, are you, Eliza?’
I withdrew my hand and straightened up, about to inform him that if what he meant was, was I drinking too much, the answer was no. But just as I was about to speak it occurred to me that maybe I should take on a sad dishevelled look and tell him, eyes downcast, that yes, yes I was, but that the love of a good man would most probably cure me of my filthy addiction now as it had done in the past.
I sighed. ‘No, I’m not. Not at all. But thank you for asking.’
‘Good.’ He smiled at me the way I’d seen him smile at patients, reassuring, caring yet detached. ‘Now, what would you like me to do? To help, I mean.’
I smiled back at him. I could do detached myself. ‘Nothing at all. I just needed someone to talk to who knew the history.’