Chapter 16.
Later that afternoon, I call in at Mum’s.
Ralph is in the kitchen, heating soup on the Aga. He doesn’t have a family of his own. He does have a cat called Maisie, and a small group of acquaintances. But no kids, or spouse, or even ex-spouse, as far as I know.
‘Hello,’ I say. I always make the effort to be pleasant to Ralph, because he is only occasionally afforded the same courtesy from my mother. ‘Where’s Mum?’
‘A little worse for wear,’ he says, enunciating delicately, as if he’s the one with the hangover. He tilts his head towards the ceiling. ‘Having a lie-down.’
‘Pub?’
He shakes his head. ‘Wedding. Open bar.’
‘Ah.’ Mum always gets emotional at weddings, I assume because her own marriage didn’t work out. ‘Hence the soup?’
‘Oh, no, this is for me. Late lunch. She still can’t keep anything down, bless her.’
I wonder why Ralph’s treating Mum like she’s been struck down with norovirus, rather than a hangover that’s entirely self-inflicted.
He decants the soup into a chipped bowl and takes it to the table, sits down and begins to eat. He’s a creature of habit, Ralph. I’d wager he’s had soup for lunch every Saturday of his life.
I survey the kitchen. It looks like it’s lived in by students who’ve already written off their deposit. The tap drips non-stop. Empty bottles, plastic cartons and ashtrays litter every surface. One pane of the sash window has been replaced by cardboard, and I know for a fact that none of these lightbulbs are working. There are three dead plants by the sideboard, their leaves virtually dust. A few floor tiles are cracked, too – no doubt from when Mum’s been drunk and dropped or dislodged something – and are patched together with duct tape. I know Ralph would sort it all out if he could, but Mum gets snippy with him whenever he tries to help.
There is a small bunch of wild flowers stuffed into a jam jar in the middle of the table. My mum doesn’t do things like pick her own sweet peas from the jungle that is her back garden, so either they’ve been thoughtfully collected by Ralph, or Duke’s reduced his budget for bouquets since I was last here.
I take a seat at the table opposite Ralph, rubbing at an old red wine stain in the woodgrain with my thumb. ‘Can I ask you something?’
I’ve been thinking all morning about sharing what I know – or think I know – about Ash. My first inclination, still, is to call Lara, because she had that gift of making even my most outrageous confessions seem tame. With her, the lack of judgement always felt permissive and comforting.
I sometimes wonder who relies on her friendship these days, who enjoys the pleasure of simply knowing she’s in the world. But Lara’s not my wing-woman any more, and she won’t ever be again. Some clocks you can’t turn back.
There’s no point talking to my mother about the idea of walk-ins – I’d probably get more sense out of that murdered cheese plant than I would from her – but Ralph has always been a good listener, thoughtful, and pragmatic. He is a tug boat of a man, always trying to guide everyone around him to where they need to be.
It does feel slightly strange, to be about to confide something so objectively odd. But if I can trust anyone not to laugh, or ridicule me, or be dismissive, it is Ralph.
And maybe a tiny part of me is testing the water, too. Seeing how my fledgling theory sounds, once it’s out of my brain, and into open air.
‘Of course.’ Ralph nods, sets down his spoon and wipes his mouth. He is slight, with greying hair and kind, steady eyes. Looks-wise, I suppose he is fairly unremarkable. So different to my father, who is the kind of guy women would stare at when he walked into a room.
‘I . . . I’ve started seeing someone,’ I begin.
‘Ah. Well, good for you.’
Ralph met Jamie a couple of times. He knows the basics of what happened to him, courtesy of my mum. But we’ve never directly discussed him, just the two of us.
‘The thing is . . . I can’t help wondering if . . . Jamie’s come back.’
Ralph blinks twice, then reaches for his soup spoon again. ‘Come back?’
‘I know it sounds weird, but... This guy I’ve met. It’s like he’s Jamie, nine years on. It’s almost as though... he’s the person Jamie never got to be. If that makes sense.’
Ralph swallows his mouthful with a gulp that makes him sound almost comically alarmed. He pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. ‘It doesn’t entirely, no. I’m sorry, Neve. Can you explain what you mean?’
From upstairs, I hear the creak of floorboards. My mother moving around. I think guiltily that it might be nice if she stayed in bed just a little while longer so I can try to soak up some of Ralph’s soothing energy before the court-jesting starts.
The next thing I know, I am telling him everything. In fact, I give the poor man the whole damn lot. I fill him in on the architecture and the apartment and the books and London Grammar and Nighthawks and Ash’s accident and... well, everything. I explain what I found online, how terrifyingly plausible it seemed, how the whole idea made a warped kind of sense. Like taking a telescope to the night sky and unmuddling the stars.
‘Do you think I’m mad?’ I say, when I eventually finish, my voice small.
‘No,’ he says, firmly. ‘Not at all.’
‘Do you believe in... any of that stuff? You know, souls and the afterlife and things like that.’
‘I think... your mind can convince you of anything, if it serves what you’re looking for in that moment.’
‘Then you do think I’m mad.’
He frowns and shakes his head. ‘Do you want to know why I spend so much time here with your mother, Neve?’
He doesn’t need to tell me. It’s because he loves her. And I do get why: my mother is charming and beautiful in a way I can imagine makes her infuriatingly easy to adore. ‘You love her.’
He nods. ‘Yes. But it’s also because I believe Daniela – your mother – loves me.’
‘Mmm,’ I say, after a couple of moments, trying not to sound dubious.
He smiles, a little sadly. ‘I have no idea if that’s true. But I do know it’s what I want to believe. Neve, life is... well, it’s wonderful, of course. Like living inside a magic show, sometimes. But the trick is to be aware of what you’re seeing. It may not be real, even though you can’t work out how it’s done. An illusion. No matter how plausible it feels. It’s how the world keeps us on our toes.’
‘Then how do you ever know what’s real?’
‘You don’t. You just have to trust, and hope, and follow your heart. That’s what love is, after all, isn’t it? Faith, and blind optimism.’
‘God. That’s depressing.’
His eyes crinkle with a smile. ‘No, it’s the opposite. Isn’t that the beauty of loving another person? How dull would life be if we knew every outcome? Part of the joy lies in the risk.’
At this point, with all the grace and timing of a debt collector, my mother appears in the doorway. She looks pale and unsteady, like she’s just spent the last twenty-four hours at sea. A powerful hit of perfume wafts into the room with her, no doubt freshly sprayed to disguise the various seeping toxins of her hangover.
‘Christ, Ralph. What is that smell ?’
‘You?’ I suggest, sweetly.
‘Country vegetable soup,’ says Ralph.
A cloud crosses her face. ‘Oh, hello Neve.’
‘How’s the hangover?’
She groans. ‘Bloody weddings.’ She wobbles to the sink, grabs a mug from the draining board and holds it under the tap. She rummages inside the only functioning drawer (the rest are stuck fast at awkward angles) for a couple of moments before turning and saying, ‘Ralph, be an angel and pop out for some ibuprofen, will you?’
‘Mum,’ I say sharply. ‘Ralph’s eating.’
He shakes his head and gets up. ‘Just finished.’
‘Mum,’ I admonish her again, once he’s disappeared and the front door has shut behind him. ‘You could have got that yourself.’
She switches on her infuriating megawatt smile. ‘Just here for a social visit, were you, darling?’
The answer’s no, of course, but I still can’t talk to her about Ash. Mum doesn’t believe other people have problems, in much the same way that she doubts the existence of God.
‘Sounds like you socialised enough for us both last night.’
‘Well, you know. My vice always has been an open bar.’
‘The bar isn’t the vice, Mum.’
At this, she winces like I’ve turned on the radio and cranked it up to top volume. ‘I really don’t have the brainpower to argue semantics with you today, Neve.’
‘Have you thought any more about... doing this place up?’ I ask her, tentatively, surveying the neglected kitchen again. I’ve long dreamed of the day when she’ll say, Yes, come on, what are your ideas? Let’s work on it together. It’ll be our project . You and me.
Before her rebellious phase, Lara and her mum used to decorate their family home together. They’d pore over colours and wallpaper patterns, scour shops for discounts on light fittings and curtains, rearrange furniture and teach themselves how to fit laminate flooring, tile walls, re-grout the bathroom. Corinne rarely had the money for holidays, and I sometimes thought that decorating was their substitute: time spent together as they created something beautiful, made memories. I always secretly envied them for it.
‘I’ve still got those paint samples we could try if you like,’ I say. ‘And... I can call a handyman. Get someone to sort the washing machine and fix the floor tiles and the tap and—’
She cuts me off with a raised palm. ‘Oof. Some other time, yes? Think I’m going to pop off back to bed.’
‘How’s it going with Duke?’ I ask, as she’s turning to head back upstairs.
She smiles, gives a coquettish little shrug. ‘Fine, thanks. He’s in Mallorca at the moment. He goes every year for two weeks. Fishing, with friends.’
I feel grimly convinced that this is why Ralph’s here. ‘But you’re still together?’
‘I told you, Neve. We’re not “together”.’
God , I think. These are the kind of meagre scraps of denial she probably tosses Ralph’s way for him to cling to, and still he maintains the whole situation is magic.
‘The flowers weren’t from Duke, then,’ I say, nodding at the jar.
‘No,’ she says vaguely, and not at all appreciatively. ‘Ralph picked them.’
‘They’re lovely.’
‘Duke does miss me, though. He’s called twice today already.’
I feel a flash of anger on Ralph’s behalf. I picture him sitting here, arranging the flowers while Mum phone-flirts with her new boyfriend in between chucking up last night’s open bar.
‘Have you made it up with Lara yet?’ Mum asks.
‘No,’ I say, defensively.
She makes an annoying, puppy-dog face. ‘Lovely Lara. Why not?’
At this, I feel my patience get up and leave the room. ‘Oh, I don’t know – maybe for the same reason that you haven’t made it up with Dad?’
I hadn’t planned to say it, and the unnecessary venom clearly throws her.
‘Sorry, Mum.’ I stand and go over to her, slip my arms around her. But she remains stiff and unresponsive.
After Dad left, Mum called him so many times she had to buy burner phones just so he’d pick up. She went to his new house, too, the one he moved into with Bev. The police kept finding her there in the small hours, banging on the front door and yelling expletives at darkened windows.
But Dad no longer wanted her. He loved Bev.
Dad knew getting Mum out of his life for good meant cutting off contact with me too. And for a long time, I blamed her for that. For behaving so crazily that she destroyed any hopes I had of retaining a father.
But when I lost Jamie, I finally understood the intensity of her pain. That animal urge to do anything – anything – for the chance to be with a person again, just one last time.