It Was You Page 5

  I said nothing, but instead picked up my tea and blinked back a tear. He turned to look at me. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, darling. I don’t mean to upset you.’ He looked anxious. ‘I’m not at all unhappy. I just mean I think about her. I remember her. Remember is a better word.’

  I smiled but he still looked uncomfortable, before embarking upon what seemed like yet another swift change of subject.

  ‘So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ he began. ‘How is Jon?’

  ‘Jon?’

  ‘Yes, Jon.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘How is he getting on?’

  ‘He’s well, but very busy at work,’ I said. ‘I saw him a couple of weeks ago for a drink and he’ll be at book group on Tuesday.’

  Dad nodded, smiled, took a breath as if to speak, exhaled and nodded again.

  I felt intrigued. ‘What brings him to mind?’ I asked.

  He drank his tea. ‘Oh, no particular reason. Although, you did mention that it was his wedding anniversary recently. I remember having a long chat with him a good while ago: it was at your book group dinner, I think. Such a lovely chap. And a very handsome fellow. We have a lot in common.’

  I laughed. ‘Yes, both lovely and very handsome.’

  He looked at me and smiled. ‘That’s not quite what I meant, darling.’

  ‘I know. But it’s true just the same. And like you, he’s not short of admirers – or so his PA says.’

  He looked at me over the top of his teacup. ‘You’ve not talked to him about it?’

  I shook my head. ‘But I’m sure he’d tell me if there was anything to tell.’

  He said nothing, his expression remaining uncharacteristically serious.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about him, Dad,’ I reassured. ‘He’s like you. He’s not at all unhappy.’

  He nodded slowly, as if deep in thought, and then smiled. ‘Well, how could he be anything but happy, with you for a friend?’

  I rolled my eyes and smiled, and then, deciding that a change of subject and mood might now be a good idea, I asked, ‘So, how about a walk?’

  He gasped and looked at his watch. ‘My goodness. I didn’t realise how time had marched on.’

  ‘There’s still plenty of time,’ I assured him. ‘I’m not in a hurry to be away, if you’d like a walk.’

  ‘I would, I would. A leg stretch is an excellent idea,’ he said, suddenly standing up. ‘I, er, just have to make a two-minute phone call and then we can go and blow away the cobwebs. And while we’re out,’ he said, getting up and heading into the hallway, ‘I can explain the benefits of my new slipper insoles in greater detail.’

  Chapter 7

  Both my digestive system and my hair had just about recovered from Sunday lunch with Dad by the time I arrived at Connie’s Clifton home for our book group meeting two days later. Depositing and locking my bike behind the side gate of the ivy-covered, redbrick house, I made my way back round to the white front door, rang the bell and waited. After just a few moments, the door opened and I was greeted by Connie’s husband, Greg.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t our Alice,’ he boomed, in his Lancashire accent, addressing me, as he always did, as if I was a hard-of-hearing toddler, with an extremely limited grasp of my surroundings. He moved his rimless spectacles to the top of his head. ‘Well, and if it isn’t my neighbour, Jonathan, too,’ he added, looking over my shoulder and grinning broadly.

  I turned to see Jon walking up the path towards us. ‘Hi,’ I said, whilst immediately noting how tired he looked. Despite more than one attempt to drag him out, I hadn’t seen him since our drink with Miriam, Craig and Romy. He had continued to protest work as the reason for his unavailability, and I was disappointed to see that the longer office hours were perhaps now taking their toll.

  ‘Hi.’ He smiled at Greg and myself and then, as Greg waved us inside, followed me into the hallway.

  ‘Welcome both!’ cried Greg genially. ‘Of course, I bump into Jon regularly, but I said to Connie last week, I haven’t seen our Alice in a long time. How is she?’ I glanced down the hallway, just in time to see Connie stick her head round the living room door and offer us an anxious but smiling wave, before almost immediately disappearing again. Meanwhile, Greg wasn’t pausing for breath. ‘And I forget what Connie said exactly,’ he continued, ‘but I got the impression that you’re on the prowl for men, Alice.’ He made clawing motions with his hands, whilst growling. ‘Grrrr… Alice on the hunt. Well, I tell you what. You just think of me as a lame gazelle and we’ll see how we go.’ He put his arm around me and squeezed hard, revealing, as usual, zero appreciation for both his own strength and the concept of personal space. ‘Ah, but you know I’m only teasing, don’t you?’ He released me from his constrictor grip, but kept his arm extended behind me and poked Jon who was now standing alongside me. ‘I say, Jon, she knows I’m only teasing.’ He recommenced the clawing. ‘Grrrr…’

  I smiled weakly.

  ‘How is work, Greg?’ Jon asked.

  ‘It’s funny you should mention work, Jonathan, because that’s another thing I wanted to say to Alice…’ He beckoned us to follow him. ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll sort you out with some drinks. So yes, another thing, Alice, is that if you’re after a man—’

  ‘Well, I—’ I held up a hand but he didn’t pause.

  ‘I actually work with a very personable one. His name is Stephen and he has a Morgan.’ He looked at me significantly.

  ‘Ooh…’ I said, uncertainly. ‘Wow…’

  ‘Alice doesn’t know what a Morgan is, Greg,’ said Jon. He had walked over to the bottles of wine and soft drinks already open on the black granite work surface, and was now standing with his back to us. ‘You don’t mind if I help myself, do you? I’ll just grab a drink and go and say hello to everyone, while you tell Alice all about the Morgan.’ He poured a glass of red wine and then turned and walked towards the kitchen door. ‘And about Stephen,’ he added, as he exited.

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ called Greg. ‘You carry on, Jon. But yes, Alice, he has a Morgan 4/4, four-seater, with a walnut dash and a five-speed gearbox.’ His eyes widened and he nodded at me excitedly. I realised it was my turn to speak.

  ‘Oh, I see, it’s a car,’ I said, smiling.

  His smile dropped momentarily and he looked at me, clearly stunned by my ignorance. ‘Yes, of course it’s a car. And not just any car.’

  ‘No?’ I said, trying desperately to appear intrigued.

  ‘No.’ He stared off dreamily into the middle distance. ‘Its power to weight ratio is—’

  ‘Hey, Alice.’ I turned to see Sophie, my saviour in a bright red dress and four inch heels, standing in the open kitchen doorway. ‘Stop annoying Greg. Connie’s just told me he has somewhere else to be tonight.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’ Greg checked his watch. ‘She’s right and now I’m verging on late.’

  ‘Yeah, so come on, Alice,’ said Sophie, walking towards me and taking my hand. ‘Let Greg get on with getting on, and you come and talk books.’

  * * *

  Discussion of Ethan Frome, when it began, was lively, with everyone, apart from myself, having read it and loved it. Having read only the first fifteen pages the previous evening, before being too easily distracted from the tale’s wintery gloom by a phone call from Dad, I somewhat shame-facedly, took on the role of assistant hostess, hoping to deflect attention from my silence by busying myself topping-up drinks and passing round the nibbles.

  And it was as I did a second round with a bottle of red wine, that Connie half raised her hand and coughed lightly, as she always did when wishing to make a point. We all turned towards her.

  ‘I adored this book,’ she began hesitantly, in the gentle transatlantic murmur which I always found strangely calming, no matter what she was saying. ‘But Zeena seems such a wholly unsympathetic character that I found myself wanting to read it a second time, to see if I could spot one shred of goodness in her.’ She cleared her throat and looked down, adjusting the cuffs of
her white shirt. ‘Because I did have a little difficulty with Ethan’s choices and loyalties – no matter what the financial circumstances.’

  Abs nodded. ‘You’re so right about Zeena, Connie. I must read it again too, because as far as I can remember, her only show of emotion was over the broken pickle dish.’ She wound a strand of her long, dark hair thoughtfully around her finger. ‘I teach some very difficult and troubled children, but I do believe there’s some good to be found in everyone, if you look hard enough. And it’s interesting to think that giving Zeena just one or two sympathetic moments, might change everything for us. If she cared for Ethan, but he still wanted Mattie, how would we have felt then?’

  ‘Well, that would be a totally different story,’ said Miriam flatly. ‘I’d lose all sympathy for him. We all have faults, marriages aren’t perfect, but if one person is trying, then the other person should too.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d lose all sympathy,’ said Sophie. ‘I mean, you can’t always help who you fall for, can you? Even if you think you’re happy and even if you’re living with a saint. You can’t control everything and situations are never black and white.’

  ‘But at the same time,’ Miriam frowned, ‘you can’t just do what you want regardless of the consequences. You sometimes have to set your own feelings aside and think long term and about all the other people involved.’

  ‘Which is what Ethan does,’ said Jon. ‘It’s what holds him back.’

  Sophie turned to him. ‘I agree with Connie. I was really pissed off with him for holding back.’

  I glanced at Connie, who, aside from a little rapid blinking, seemed remarkably at peace with this earthy reinterpretation of her comment.

  Jon looked at Sophie. ‘So you’d have just gone for it?’

  ‘Me? No.’ She shook her head and laughed. ‘I’m all mouth and no trousers. But I was still screaming at the page for him to just act now and think later, weren’t you?’

  ‘It’s hard to take a leap when you’re uncertain of the consequences,’ said Jon. ‘Or when you can spot potentially negative ones.’

  Sophie looked at him, her head tilted slightly, and then, sitting back in her seat and still gazing at him, she said, ‘Yes.’

  Abs then said something about the conflicts between head and heart, but as Connie rose to her feet and gently took the bottle of red wine from me, my focus remained on Jon and Sophie, each now clearly deep in thought. And as an unusually sombre Jon thanked Connie as his glass was topped up, I felt frustratingly in the dark and strangely distanced from him. It was a feeling I didn’t like and, putting it down to an inability to fathom his reaction to Ethan Frome, I found myself for the first time hugely regretting my failure to finish the chosen book.

  I was therefore very grateful when, just fifteen minutes later, everyone moved on from Ethan and his emotional dilemmas and financial woes, to the real purpose of the evening – namely the mutual extraction and exchange of as much personal information as possible within a two to three hour period. Sophie recounted, to much laughter and aw-ing, David’s near-miss with Eleanor Black, or Mrs Melons, as Sophie now called her. And, as I exited the lounge to make myself a cup of tea, Miriam was updating Abs about Phoebe’s progress at pre-school.

  I returned a few minutes later, to find Jon and Sophie discussing a recent performance at the Tobacco Factory, whilst the sofa conversation had broadened to include Connie’s three year-old son, William, with Connie confessing to Miriam and Abs a difficulty in standing firm in the face of his tantrums. I sat down on a large beanbag to the left of the sofa to listen-in.

  ‘You are such a strong mother, Miriam,’ said Connie. ‘I wish I had your courage to discipline. And Abigail, you face such challenging issues at school every single day. I know my problems must seem very small.’

  ‘Not at all. I think you are just amazing, Connie,’ said Abs. ‘I get coffee breaks and lunch breaks and my evenings to myself. You’re on call as a mother twenty-four seven. I think you’re doing a brilliant job with William. You mustn’t put yourself down.’

  I saw Miriam’s lips purse and she gave a light cough.

  ‘How is William, Connie?’ I asked.

  She shook her head despairingly. ‘Well, you know, Greg says it’s a zest for life but sometimes I think…’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘That you need to curtail his zest a little,’ said Miriam. I knew that she wasn’t overly fond of William, or the zest, which had recently manifested itself in him painting the dog green.

  ‘I think that’s exactly it, Miriam,’ said Connie. ‘The other evening, he made a cake on the carpet and I said, “You’ve made a mistake, William,” very strongly…’ There was a slight pause, during which I knew we were each struggling to resist querying the term cake, as well as to form a mental image of Connie doing anything very strongly. ‘And then I put him in his room for a time-out. But Greg said he thought that was overly harsh and that, after all, boys will be boys. So, it was a very short time-out.’

  ‘How short?’ asked Miriam. Her tone was clipped.

  ‘Ooh,’ Connie studied her lap, ‘I would say just one or two minutes.’

  ‘Right,’ said Miriam, colouring slightly. ‘Well, Connie, perhaps, as you’re the one doing the majority of the parenting, and are also the person who has to spend most daytimes with William, you should put it to Greg that maybe he should defer to your judgement in some matters. You must assert, Connie, you really must,’ she insisted.

  I frowned up at her. Miriam was frequently strident in her opinions, but not often impatient.

  ‘That’s just what the instructor says to me every week, when I take Jello to doggy training,’ said Connie, looking, I thought, a little cowed.

  ‘Ooh, doggy training. How fascinating!’ exclaimed Abs.

  ‘And how is Jello getting on?’ I asked, glancing at an unusually stern-looking Miriam, and keen to keep the conversation off parenting.

  ‘Well, he’s now doing so much better off the lead,’ said Connie. ‘And he’s stopped menacing elderly people with walking frames.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Abs. ‘It must be amazing to see things progressing like that.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Connie uncertainly. ‘Although, he’s still eating a lot of things he shouldn’t.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, he does eat his own…’ Connie hesitated and pointed downwards ‘…poop,’ she mouthed soundlessly. ‘And two weeks ago he ate a fridge magnet and a loaf of bread, still in the bag. That took a visit to the vet to put right. But fortunately, we have pet insurance,’ she concluded brightly.

  Sophie leaned forward in her chair. ‘Did I just hear you say that your dog is eating his own sh—’

  I braced myself.

  ‘—his own poo, Connie?’ She looked at me and I rolled my eyes at the near miss.

  ‘That is correct, Sophie,’ said Connie. ‘Apparently, it’s not uncommon, you know.’

  Sophie’s face crumpled and she made a gagging sound. ‘I am never, ever getting a dog.’

  ‘I sometimes think I’d quite like a cat,’ I mused. ‘Except I wouldn’t want to be labelled single saddo with cat.’

  ‘Rather than just single saddo?’ asked Sophie.

  I pointedly ignored her.

  ‘Well,’ chipped in Abs with a grin, ‘maybe you won’t be single for long, Alice.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ gasped Connie. ‘Did it go well with Hugh then?’

  I managed a smile as my heart sank. ‘We went to a lovely new coffee shop on the Gloucester Road,’ I said, deciding to stick to a policy of minimal information.

  ‘Would anyone mind if I had a pretend fag?’ asked Sophie, rummaging in her bag. ‘And yes, I’m doing very well on the quitting front, thank you very much everyone for asking.’

  ‘Well done you, Sophie,’ Abs beamed. ‘But, getting back to Hugh…’

  Sophie’s attempt to divert the conversation having failed, she shot me a sympathetic, side-long glance and commenc
ed sucking on her plastic cigarette.

  ‘…he is just lovely,’ continued Abs. ‘He has so very many fascinating facets to his personality, it’s hard to believe.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I murmured.

  Abs nodded enthusiastically, Miriam pressed her leg into my shoulder and Jon looked at me with something approaching disapproval, before turning to Abs. ‘So,’ he said, ‘remind me how you know Hugh?’

  ‘He studied with Pete at King’s,’ she explained. ‘And Pete is so over the moon to be back in touch with him.’

  I looked at Abs and wondered, not for the first time, about the criteria she used for judging her partner’s levels of excitement. Peter Goodwin was an anaesthetist most notable for his serenity. He and Abs had been together for just over two years and I was always uncertain whether to put his calm disposition down to a refusal to be seen as attempting to compete with his partner’s boundless energy and enthusiasm, or to the daily seepage of anaesthetic gases. But, either way, he was placid beyond belief, and the contrast between his own personality and that of his girlfriend was one which I found almost as fascinating as Abs found Hugh.

  ‘And is Hugh an anaesthetist too?’ asked Jon, leaning forward in his armchair and smiling at Abs. ‘What does he do?’

  I looked at him and silently cursed his polite curiosity for extending the conversation.

  ‘Well,’ Abs clasped her hands together in childlike delight at an opportunity to sing Hugh’s praises, ‘his specialty is forensic pathology and he was top of his year in absolutely everything. He’s the same age as you, Jon, thirty-five, and he’s from Edinburgh originally. And his accent is just fabulous,’ she continued excitedly. ‘He went back up to Scotland when he graduated and then did a stint in London, but he’s now in Bristol and,’ she turned to me and beamed, ‘I thought he and Alice would get on very well and they did! He’s so gorgeous, so interesting and so very clever; just like Alice.’