Chapter 40
40
T he sun was strong, Helen’s neck pickled with heat, and her bra strap slipped under the flimsy chiffon of her dress. Straightening up, she blew the feather fascinator from her eyes and pushed the bike forward only for the wheel to jump as if it had hit brick. Ouch! The vibration of the impact stung her hands. She pushed again, but the bike didn’t move and suddenly, despite the heat, despite her itchy neck and damp back, she felt the coolness of Deja vu, that overwhelming oddity of living a moment she knew she had lived before.
Of course! She looked up. This rut in the road was always where the bike had stuck. And never mind just once, she would have lived this moment hundreds of times. Months and years in which her belly would have been swollen with first Libby, and then Jack. When her front basket would have been loaded with nappies waiting to be filled, and vegetables waiting to be pureed. How strange then, she was thinking as she put the back of her hand to her brow, how odd to stumble across this younger version of herself, at a junction that never changed. A turning in the road where, at this time of the year blackberry brambles would always show pimples of reddish-green, and the green canopy of the horse chestnut would always spread above her head. A place where the milestone stood, silently marking every version of Helen that had ever passed: London: seventeen miles.
Reading it, Helen smiled. If only she had access to a similar marker to measure her own life. How straightforward, for example, if she knew how many more Helens, she ran the risk of stumbling into? Or how many were left? Helen, the child, the teenager, the young woman, the new mother, the wife, the divorcee … Helen the grandmother? She was already there. Helen the adventurer? Was that over before it had even begun? Helen: mark seven… mark eight …
Tensing her arms, she gave a tremendous push forward and the front wheel jumped free. As it did, she swung one leg over the frame, pushed down on the pedal, flicked the battery power to maximum and breezed up the hill towards her old home, swift as Mary Poppins and her umbrella. How easy, she was thinking, as the wheels turned and her neck cooled in the breeze, how easy an electric bike would have made her life in those days of babies and vegetables.
As she reached the top, the ground flattened out. She slowed the bike down, brought it to a halt and dismounted. Who was she fooling? An electric bike wouldn’t have made a difference. The Helen who had schlepped home with a kilo of unwashed carrots, instead of buying a pureed jar, had also been the Helen who had insisted on using washable nappies. Insisted on packing a school lunch, insisted on organising, hosting, catering every birthday and every Christmas of a picture-perfect life, in a picture-perfect house. All to keep busy. So, so busy. And standing for a long moment to look back down the hill, Helen’s eyes narrowed, focusing on a point by the chestnut tree. As if she was still there, as if she could still be seen: the burdened young woman she had passed along the way.
Five minutes later, and the first thing she saw as she wheeled the bike into the driveway was the blue and white For Sale sign stuck amongst the roses. So, it was true then? Although she’d had no reason to doubt Libby, she hadn’t contacted Lawrence to confirm the news that he was selling. Why should she? It wasn’t, strictly speaking, anything to do with her. And yet here she was, evident in every flowerbed and every window. Those lemon curtains, the magnolia tree she had planted when Libby and Ben were still in primary school. These colours, these living things, framed her as well as any photograph could.
She parked the bike and walked to the door, the gravel (as it always had been), painful through the thin soles of her sandals. As she raised her hand to knock, the door swung back.
‘Helly!’ Lawrence was in his running gear (unspeakably tight Lycra shorts over pale hairy legs and a neon green vest), hands on hips, panting like a Labrador. Grinning, he leaned in to plant a sweaty kiss on her cheek. ‘You look marvellous,’ he said. ‘Big day today!’
Helen nodded. There was a wet patch on her cheek now, messing up her make-up.
‘What’s this?’ He pointed at the bike.
‘An electric bike,’ she said tightly. ‘I bought it before I went to the states.’
‘An electric bike!’ Lawrence guffawed. ‘That’s not cycling, Helly! You should have asked me. How much did it set you back?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Come in! Come in!’ And as he raised a sweaty arm to let her in, Helen felt wobbly, stepping over the threshold, back in the scenery of what had been her life.
‘Look at you!’ Lawrence exclaimed, as they entered the kitchen. ‘All that walking has done you good, Helly. You look wonderful.’
Walking? A three-day hike across Yellowstone: walking?
‘ Libby’s upstairs changing Ben.’
‘OK.’ Helen nodded. She hadn’t seen her daughter since the evening at Libby’s flat, and she felt a sense of dread at their imminent meeting. At some point, Libby would be expecting a conversation, a dialogue between them that would include Helen confirming the fact that she wasn’t going anywhere. Something she hadn’t managed to say to either Fiona Chambers, or herself. ‘And you’re sure you’re going to be OK with him?’ she said, more to distract herself than anything else. The arrangement couldn’t be changed now anyway, Lawrence was taking Ben for the day, while Libby accompanied her to Caro’s wedding.
‘Of course.’ Lawrence smiled. ‘Me and babies, Helly. You know me and babies.’
Did she? Helen frowned. The baby years she remembered were the years Lawrence had left the house at seven and come back at seven. They were the years of extended trips every summer when he went off to climb a mountain or cycle the length of a country. ‘Well.’ She smiled and left it at that. It was all water under a distant bridge now and there was no point in trying to scoop even the smallest bucket back. If he was proactive in his grandson’s life, that was only good. Besides, she was increasingly distracted by the smell of something cooking, something delicious. She turned to look at the Aga where Lawrence now stood, pulling on a floral oven glove she recognised as hers. An everyday item she had used on an everyday basis, for years. Something she hadn’t taken with her and hadn’t missed! In fact, it was possible to go further. Until this moment, she had forgotten the glove even existed. ‘You made a casserole?’ she said, staring at the glove.
Lawrence grinned. ‘It’s pretty easy, Helly. You just throw it all in. I thought Ben and I would have it later with these.’ He held up a clear plastic bag of green beans. ‘I found them at the bottom of the freezer.’
‘Right.’ Helen nodded. She’d grown those beans herself, in this garden. Seeded, harvested and frozen them. Turning away, she grabbed a tissue from her handbag and held it to her nose. She should have taken a taxi directly to the town hall, she should never have accepted Lawrence’s offer of a lift, never have come back into a house that was no longer hers. A house she had brought her children home to as new-born babies. The house where she had sat with a three- day-old, Jack, that long sunny afternoon Libby and Lawrence had made the biggest mess over a ham salad dinner. The afternoon, she’d been painting the French windows and turned to see Libby crawling towards the road. The winter of heavy snow when they had pretended to be snowed in. The Saturday, Libby had sulked up the drive having failed her driving test. The watermelons she had tried and failed to grow. And those darkest times when her first born hadn’t come home, when her mother had died. Days and weeks in which she had closed her door on the world and this house had been her sanctuary. As she pressed the tissue harder, her eyes stung. She didn’t want to cry, she didn’t want to spoil her make-up, but leaving was a river in flow. It was not an action that could be completed in one step. Things got left behind, things she hadn’t even known she’d left. Like that stupid oven glove, those beans, the pieces of her heart she had painted and nailed and dug into this house. ‘So …’ she said as she pretended to blow her nose. ‘You’re selling the house?’
‘I am.’ And reaching to a cupboard, Lawrence pulled out a tin of protein powder. ‘Excuse me a minute. I need to get this down quick while the muscles are still warm.’
Numb, Helen watched him scoop powder into a glass of water. She used to do this for him. His power drink, or recovery drink, or whatever it was. ‘You could have told me,’ she said. ‘I had to hear it from Libby.’
‘Oh.’ The slackness of surprise on his face was genuine. It hadn’t, she realised, even occurred to him. ‘Should I have?’
Helen shrugged. No. Legitimately speaking he had been under no obligation to inform her about the sale of a property she had no interest in, the sale of a property where the roses and clematis that she had planted still bloomed, where the bones of two cats, and at least one gerbil whose burials she had overseen, now decomposed. Unable to stop herself, she shrugged again.
‘I thought it was time,’ Lawrence said. ‘Lib has her own place now.’
‘And Jack?’
‘Jack’s due back three days before university starts.’ Lawrence took a spoon and stirred his drink. ‘And then he’s talking about a gap year.’ He dropped the spoon in the sink, raised the glass and swallowed the contents in almost one gulp. Job done, muscles still warm, recovery in progress.
‘I was surprised,’ she said as she watched him. ‘That’s all.’
‘Well to be fair, Helly,’ he said as he put the glass on the counter, ‘we haven’t been in touch much, have we?’
‘I suppose not,’ she said. She used to do that do as well. Move the glass from the counter to the dishwasher, move it back from the dishwasher to the cupboard. ‘No,’ she said, looking at the glass, wondering how long it would sit there. ‘No, we haven’t.’ Since she had left, Lawrence had periodically sent her an email with news about the kids (of which she was already aware, and to which she had responded, because it was polite). But over time even this communication had tailed off; something Helen had taken as a good sign. A signal perhaps, that he was beginning to accept his new reality. It had after all been nearly a year since their divorce was finalised, and, as the hardest part of leaving had been knowing how much she was hurting him, she had remained alert to any signs that might begin to relieve the guilt. Snowdrops of hope that he was recovering, maybe even meeting new people? So how ironic. How strange that far from a snowdrop, this oak tree of a sign that he was moving on, should feel less like a blessing and more like a wound.
Lawrence raised his hands, a genial gesture. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I’m rattling around like a spare part in this place. And it’s not as if anyone will ever be homeless. The kids will always have a bed at yours or mine.’
‘I suppose so,’ she conceded.
‘Besides,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’m thinking of doing the same as you. It’s one of the reasons behind all this.’ And he turned and waved an airy hand at the kitchen, the hall beyond, the house in general.
‘The same what?’
‘A gap year, Helly!’ He grinned. ‘I’m thinking of taking a gap year. Like you.’
Helen couldn’t speak. Her jaw dropped and her mouth gaped. ‘Like me?’ she gasped. ‘I took six weeks, Lawrence! That’s not even a quarter of a year. And now I’m back at work.’
‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘How is the job?’
‘The job?’ she echoed. Had he even heard her? Dazed, she pulled off her wrap and fell into a chair. ‘It’s shit if you must know. It’s boring and unfulfilling and …’ Pausing, Helen took a deep breath, watching for any sign that he had heard, that he understood. There was nothing. ‘I was only meant to be there a year,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been there ten.’
‘Ten?’ Lawrence pushed his lips together. ‘That long?’
‘Yes,’ Lawrence. That long.’
‘Why?’
‘ Why?’ She stared at him. ‘ Why?’ And before he could answer, she put her hands to her face and dropped forward on her elbows. ‘Let me see?’ she said, through her hands. ‘How about the fact that the hours worked with school? Or that it was close to school, in case one of the kids fell down a well and we were needed, and you weren’t around because you were climbing a mountain. Is that why enough for you?’
‘Helly …’
‘Or’ she seethed as she turned to look at him. ‘How about the fact that it worked for you, because it meant I was around to make dinner and make sure homework was done and hair was washed and be a parent to our children. Our children, Lawrence.’ Folding her wrap into an angry square, Helen stood up. ‘And by the way I want them.’
‘Helly!’ Lawrence raised his hands. ‘Want what?’
‘The curtains,’ she snapped. ‘Those lemon curtains in the front bedroom.’
‘You can have them.’
‘Good.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No!’ She turned to stuff the wrap into her handbag. It wouldn’t fit. ‘Yes,’ she cried, as she yanked it out again. ‘You can’t go on a gap year, Lawrence. You can’t!’
‘Why ever not?’ he said, a look of genuine confusion on his face.
‘Because …’ Helen threw her hands up. ‘Because,’ she started. ‘Because it’s not fair, Lawrence!’ And collapsing back into the chair, she slumped forward again, the feather of her fascinator, bowing in sympathy. ‘I’ve been offered a job in Bolivia.’
‘Bolivia?’ Lawrence drew his own chair out.
As he did, Helen looked up. ‘It’s a six-month contract.’
‘Helly!’ Lawrence smiled.
‘Very similar to what I do here,’ she said, sounding thoroughly miserable.
‘That’s marvellous.’
‘Is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No.’ Helen shook her head. ‘No, it isn’t, Lawrence. How can I go?’
Leaning back, Lawrence stretched his arms. ‘I’m not sure I see the problem,’ he said drumming his fingers on the table.
‘Libby is the problem,’ she said flatly.
Lawrence didn’t speak. Frowning, he pushed his chair back, went to the fridge and took out a bottle of champagne. ‘I had planned,’ he said as he poured two small glasses, ‘that we could have a tiny, tiny toast to Caro. But it sounds like we should have one for you as well.’
Numb, Helen looked at the glasses. ‘Did you even hear me?’ she said.
‘I did.’ He handed her a glass. ‘But you’re over-thinking this, Helly. You really are. Libby is fine. She has her own home now. She’s a young woman. A very capable one. She doesn’t need us. Cheers.’ He raised his glass.
And in return Helen raised hers, silent as she watched the champagne bubbles popping in a hundred harmless explosions. She could take a mouthful – she did – and they could go on exploding and it wouldn’t harm her one little bit. But the image of Libby did. The picture she held in her mind of her daughter, head on the table, crying and begging her not to go, was a knife that sliced to the marrow. It was not the image of a capable young woman. It wasn’t a picture of a daughter who didn’t need her parent.
‘I think this is a great opportunity,’ Lawrence said. ‘It’s time for all of us to move on. Like, Caro’s doing today. Time for all of us to spread our wings, don’t you think?’
Slowly, Helen turned to him. From the day she had met him, Lawrence had done nothing but spread his wings. Thirty years of flying he’d have the wingspan of an albatross by now, and still it wasn’t enough? Still, he wanted more? ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?’ she said, her voice thick with resentment.
‘Easy?’ Lawrence smiled. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that, Helly.’
‘No.’ She nodded. He couldn’t see the problem, because in his world there was no problem. He would, she knew, sell the house without a second thought, buy himself a one-way ticket to Tasmania and leave. It’s what men did. Women stayed; men left. And if he left, she couldn’t. She took off her fascinator and held it in her lap. The feather, so jaunty when she had set off, had folded in on itself as if it had accepted its fate, and given up. Which was, she was beginning to think, what she should do to.