VII
Tom stood looking at the house. His eagle eye saw the missing slates, the warped window frames, the bulging wall of the kitchen where the guttering had long vanished and rainwater trickled down the mossy green brick.
It was his house, and his home now, and his responsibility.
They had taken his mother from here, torn her away, ripped her from the place she loved best. He swallowed. He was here now.
‘I am here,’ he said, softly to himself.
Suddenly the front door opened and a girl came out. She was in a long skirt and knitted jumper, her hair tied up in a scarf. She carried a cup of coffee. He could smell it from here. Proper American coffee.
She started shaking out a sheet or a rug of some kind, all the while singing quietly, ‘Yesterday’, her voice lilting over the notes.
He walked towards her and she looked up at the sound of his approach. Her face broke into a smile.
‘Tom darling,’ she said. She smiled at him.
‘My God!’ was all Tom could find to say.
‘I asked your father to keep it as a surprise.’
Her dark hair was long, tied back with a raspberry-red silk scarf, gold hoops in her ears. Her face was tanned, and thin.
‘Celia,’ Tom said, dropping his voice. ‘What –’
‘Tom,’ she said. ‘How beastly. You don’t look at all surprised. I’ve practically escaped jail to come and find you, you know.’
She came towards him, and he saw how nervous she was. She caught his hands in hers, then swallowed, her eyes fixed on his, brushing her hair out of the way so that his hand could touch her face, in an echo of another time, another place, and it was deadening.
‘Celia,’ Tom said. He could not stop looking at her, in part because he did not know where else to look. ‘My God – darling –’
‘Are you surprised?’ his father said, as if it were the most wonderful present. ‘She arrived last night.’
‘It’s wonderful to be back here,’ Celia said.
Her arms were wrapped around his waist, and she gazed up into his eyes.
Her tanned face, her eyes that were liquid amber, her incredible, sparkling energy that had intoxicated him – he could feel it working its magic again. She tightened her hold on him.
‘It’s funny, being back here. With clothes on,’ she said into his ear. ‘God, I screwed it up, didn’t I? Can you ever forgive me?’ She stepped back. ‘My father says that should be engraved on my headstone,’ she said to Tom’s father, who smiled indulgently at her.
‘And how marvellous! You’ve made some coffee,’ Edward said, rubbing his hands. ‘Why don’t we go inside? I must say, it’s wonderful to – oh. Someone else is here, are they?’
They looked over to the path, where, framed by the blackened apple trees, a girl in a dark ochre cape was walking with a vast knapsack on her back, her hair tied into a knot on the top of her head, a thick knitted green scarf round her neck, her cheeks flushed in her pale face as she stared at the group.
‘Hello! Who’s this?’ said Tom’s father in a friendly way.
‘I’m Alice,’ the girl said, and she reached forwards to shake his hand. ‘I know Tom, Mr Raven. How do you do? We spoke a couple of weeks ago –’
‘My dear, of course,’ Edward said, holding her hand in his. ‘You’re Tom’s friend from New York. Heavens, I’d forgotten you were coming.’
‘I wrote you to say it’d be today,’ she said, swallowing and smiling.
She slid her hands into her pockets. ‘But I don’t think the postcard arrived.
My friend Dolores didn’t hear from me either, and she’s in London.
I suppose postcards from Spain aren’t the best way of communicating your arrival time.
But I’m so glad to meet you, Edward. Thank you for having me. ’
She turned to Tom and Celia. ‘Hey, Tom,’ she said.
She sounded so American, in this English place.
He hoped she didn’t notice; he hoped she was warm enough, and that her feet weren’t wet.
He could see how thin her face was, her skin tanned and clear.
She looked free, in her cape and boots and knapsack.
His heart, as always with Alice, seemed to ache at the sight of her.
‘Alice,’ he said, letting his arm drop from where it had been around Celia’s waist. ‘I didn’t know –’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ she said, and she smiled at him as though she couldn’t believe he was there, and his heart dropped into his boots, then rose again, like a fairground ride.
‘I’ve really screwed up with Dolores too, so if I may I’ll leave a bag here, beg some lunch from you, then head back into London to meet up with her.
I telephoned earlier; she’s furious with me. ’
‘You must stay the night!’ Edward cried, waving away this convoluted explanation. ‘Ask your friend to stay!’
‘I’ll gladly have lunch, and possibly a nap after lunch, and then I’ll go,’ she said, turning to him with a smile. ‘I just wanted to see the place. And I can see you have a lot of catching-up to do.’
They tried to persuade her, but she was adamant, and in the end she had lunch with them, a huge, warming stew that Celia had made, with apple crumble and cream afterwards, and Alice ate two portions of both, because, as she said, she hadn’t had a square meal since September.
She was so cold that she kept her handknitted jumper and scarf and cape on, and sat hugging herself under these clothes, eating heartily, chatting to Edward and charming him.
Gracefully, once, she alluded to Teddy, and her father, and did it in such a way that Tom was reminded yet again of her grace and lack of gaucheness – he could never have pulled it off.
After lunch Tom showed her upstairs, and they were alone for a minute or so. She wanted to leave a bag of summer clothes behind, she said, which she wouldn’t need in London.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he said, wanting to say more, wanting to ask more. He sometimes thought the summer, the madness of it all, had been a dream. He wondered if it made him feel better about losing her, to think that it was all a dream.
Alice nodded. ‘I made it here.’ She smiled at him. ‘Hug me, Tom. I missed you. I’m sorry it was such a messy ending. I’m sorry for all of it.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Don’t be sorry, Allie.’
She was holding the bag in front of her, which got in the way of the hug. They smiled at each other.
‘That’s Celia,’ she said, and he could see her looking round the tiny, low-ceilinged, warm room, her hands pressing on the render, the old oak beams. ‘I’m happy for you, Tom.’
She put the clothes in Tom’s bedroom, in the cupboard. He didn’t know it then, but the treasures were hidden in the bag, at the bottom of it, and they never left the house again.
Edward was driving Alice to the station. As he started the car, Alice shook Celia’s hand.
‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ she said. ‘I heard your name an awful lot this summer.’
‘Really?’ said Celia, turning to Tom with disarming frankness.
‘We shared a house,’ said Alice, getting into the car. She didn’t look at Tom. ‘He talks in his sleep.’
As she climbed in, and Tom watched her, the hands that had once held him whitening at the knuckles as she reached into the back of the car to put something on the seat, he saw her cape fall open. She deftly pulled it over her jumper again, but not before he also saw the rounded, neat bump.
He stared at her. She looked down, grasped what he’d seen and opened the car door.
‘It’s not yours,’ she said. She smiled at him. ‘I’m with someone new. I met him after Merlin left. You don’t have to worry, Tom.’ She glanced at all of them. ‘It was quite a summer.’
‘Oh,’ Tom said. He felt like Bugs Bunny in the cartoon, when the rabbit stands on a rake and it hits him in the face. ‘Congratulations, Alice. Where is he?’
‘He’s meeting me in London,’ she said. ‘We’ll go back together.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m a little tired, but hey.’ They held each other’s eyes a moment more.
‘I love babies, how exciting,’ said Celia. ‘Have you got any names lined up?’
‘Robert, if it’s a boy,’ she said. ‘And I like Emma, if it’s a girl.’
‘Emma,’ said Celia. ‘That’s perfect. Oh, Alice, I do hope all goes well.’
‘Thank you,’ Alice said, and she smiled happily.
‘We’d better be off, I’m afraid, if you’re really catching that train,’ said Edward, as though he hoped she wouldn’t catch the train.
Alice pulled the door shut and waved through the window at them both.
Tom waved back, thinking for the first time that waving was idiotically strange – waggling the bones in your hands from your wrists.
Why? Why do it? His whole body seemed to be alternately water and fire.
They drove away, and he carried on waving.
Celia, standing behind him, slid her arms round his waist, and together they watched the car disappear into the rosy glimmer of sunset.
He could smell her lovely hair, feel her wiry, fine body against his. He rested against her, not sure how to say what he had to say.
‘You slept with her, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘It’s fine, really, it is.’
‘I did,’ said Tom.
Celia made a murmuring sound of assent, then said, ‘She’s lovely.’
‘She is,’ he said.
He was still staring after the car.
‘Is that baby yours?’ Celia said.
‘I’m pretty sure it is,’ Tom said. He turned towards her. ‘In fact, I’m absolutely sure it is.’
Celia stroked his arms again, pinched his face, messed up his glasses. ‘Dammit, Tom darling.’ She kissed him. ‘Well, then. You’d better go after her, hadn’t you? Isn’t there a bike in the shed? Can you ride it?’
‘Yes!’ He was nodding and running at the same time. ‘Yes,’ he shouted again, slithering down the path and into the house, where the treasures were, running to fetch his coat, and wallet, and bike pump, and whatever else he’d need to chase after Alice and bring her back, back here, back home.