The split, p.27
The Split, page 27
Heidi looked again at the altar, trying to picture herself and Lucas getting married, being blessed. He wasn’t a believer, but wanted the full service – the full monty, he had called it, having then to explain the phrase – because she wanted it; an act of love, he called it.
Heidi did not become aware of the Chaplain until she drew level with the pew. She stiffened, but Claire Moore merely paused to nod and smile before proceeding towards the altar, where she crossed herself before settling onto her knees for some communing of her own.
Claire Moore was single, Heidi knew that from Lucas, with no sign of a partner of any gender. Had surrendering to God meant surrendering her femininity? Heidi wondered now. Or did the Chaplain have a secretly wild and vibrant private life? The thought catapulted Elias into her head: the brush of his unshaven face on her bare skin, the pleading in the phone call outside the ring shop. Heidi shivered. There had been no further communications, at her insistence, nothing to stoke the fire; but the image of their farewell had somehow remained fixed in her brain, popping up, an involuntary erotic reflex, when she least wanted it.
‘Hello, Heidi, how lovely to see you. Such good news about your wedding date.’ The Chaplain had floated back to her pew. ‘It took a little juggling, but we got there… and tell me, my dear, are you well?’
There was a sudden tenderness in her voice that caught Heidi off guard. ‘Oh, yes, most well, thank you,’ she stammered, ‘and I hope it was acceptable to come in here without an invitation.’ She stood up, a little too swiftly, as it turned out, and for a moment had to grip the smooth wooden pommel by the end of her pew while the stained-glass windows whirled.
‘Of course… I say, are you quite okay there?’
Heidi was still gripping the pommel, watching her thin white fingers and thinking how many thousands of worshippers over the centuries had clasped the same soft worn wood in their hands.
‘How about a cup of tea?’ The Chaplain spoke gently, placing a hand round Heidi’s elbow and steering her out into the aisle and towards the door.
Claire Moore’s rooms, tucked on the top floor of the staircase next to the chapel, were like a burrow, every wall lined with full bookcases, and every possible surface laden with objects. There were two levels, linked by a step that looked slightly crooked, as if the walls had shifted position over the years, which they probably had, Heidi reflected, given the famous antiquity of the place.
‘Do take a seat,’ the Chaplain urged companionably, indicating the larger of two armchairs on either side of a small fireplace. She then set about filling a small plastic kettle from a corner basin, keeping her back to Heidi as she dropped teabags into two large mugs, both blazing the message ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. ‘Milk?’
‘Just a little, thank you,’ Heidi murmured, half an eye on the mantelpiece beside her, where several official invitations fought for space among ornaments and a silver-framed photograph of a younger version of the Chaplain with her arms round a couple who, Heidi guessed, had to be her parents. Next to that was a box of tissues.
‘I love Sunday afternoons,’ the Chaplain chattered as she filled the mugs. ‘Between services and meals. An in-between time. Tolstoy talked about in-between moments, didn’t he? How, for all our grand plans, all the most important things happen in the lulls, when our backs are half turned. Sugar?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Ooh, I wish I could give the stuff up, but I can’t.’ She stirred one mug vigorously and then handed the other to Heidi, dropping into the second armchair.
‘Those are your parents?’ Heidi glanced up at the photograph.
‘Bless them, yes. And me when I was a slim brunette.’ She let out a hearty laugh, leaping from the chair to fetch a tin of assorted biscuits, which she placed on the little table between them before sitting back down. ‘Tuck in, won’t you?’ she said, taking one herself. ‘Lucas mentioned that you had a lovely visit to your parents before the start of term…’ She paused to brush a few stray crumbs off her chest. ‘That must have been nice.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Heidi said quietly. ‘I am very lucky to have a wonderful family…’ She took a swig of the hot tea, shocked to hear the melancholy in her own voice.
‘It can’t have been easy for either of you, these last few months.’
‘No.’ Heidi found herself examining the bourbon biscuit that she had selected and did not wish to eat.
‘Though resolution, thank the Lord, was found,’ the reverend continued evenly. ‘No one thinks Lucas did anything wrong, as such. It was a lack of understanding more than anything, a miscommunication—’
‘But it has broken him,’ Heidi cried, the words erupting out of her before she could stop them. ‘He is not… the same. I don’t know if I can fix him… if I… am enough… if we have enough…’ She threw herself back in her chair and closed her eyes.
The Chaplain sighed heavily. ‘The truth is, no one can fix anyone, and in my humble experience it is invariably a mistake to try.’
‘But Lucas is so changed,’ Heidi confessed miserably, putting her mug and untouched biscuit down on the hearth. ‘He is not the man I thought I knew…’ She shook her head, unable to go on, and taking a tissue from the box the Chaplain was holding out to her.
‘I cannot – would not presume to – offer you advice, my dear.’ The Chaplain sank back into her own chair. ‘I would say only this. That getting to know someone takes a long time. A lifetime. And at some stage in any close relationship – not always at the same moment – a point is reached where each person stares into the other’s soul… perhaps not always liking what they see…’ Her voice had grown slightly distant, as if she was remembering something from her own past, Heidi decided, finding that it made her listen more intently. ‘But then, as I say, the other person may do the same. And I have no doubt that God would say that love is about being able to accept what you find, forgiving it, being loyal to it… oh, look, you’ve got me going now…’ She leant across to pull a tissue from the box, and spent several seconds trumpeting into it.
‘One of those in-between moments.’ She gasped, balling up the tissue in her hands. ‘I think we’ve just had one. Well, I have anyway. Life pouncing. Follow your instincts, my dear, that is all I can say. Don’t tell your heart off for not feeling as you want it to. Just let it speak. Then you’ll know. And now…’ She clapped her hands and stood up. ‘Having imparted my deepest thoughts, I am afraid I have to boot you out so I can think what on earth I am going to say to my Evensong congregation. And remember, God loves us, whichever way we jump.’
Outside, it was almost dark. Heidi did her fleece up to her chin and adjusted the straps on her backpack as she made her way back across the courtyard. Stepping into the street, she took a deep breath and then set off at a sprint. She would let her heart decide. She would be brave.
38
As the train slowed for the final, ugly hinterland approach to St Pancras station, Esther woke from a doze in a sudden panic that she might need her passport again. Not finding it in her handbag, she rummaged in the holdall, groping round her clothes and washbag, and the novel she hadn’t opened.
Tiredness was catching up with her, Esther realised, desperation mounting, as she plunged her hands deeper into the holdall. This time she dived so deep that her fingers found the edge of the flap covering the base of the bag, which was loose – an ideal black hole for things to disappear into. And there it was. Esther let out a small gasp of triumph as she plucked the passport free. It was half open at the mugshot page, the least favourite photo of her ever taken, by a kind chemist on a frazzled day when a family camping holiday in Brittany had loomed alongside the realisation that the expiry date had passed.
Except that it wasn’t her face, but Dylan’s that stared out from the page. Esther rubbed her eyes. She blinked. She closed the passport and turned it over. Then she opened it again, checking the date. That she had unearthed this possession from the gritty bottom of a bag used by her son was clearly not possible. Because Dylan was in Argentina. And it definitely was his current one, the photo taken in Cambridge three years before, Esther standing impatiently outside the booth while he crafted his hair into the spikes deemed mystifyingly necessary before pressing the start button. Esther held the picture nearer, recalling in the same instant, clear as a sunbeam, that her own passport was in the outside pocket of her handbag.
‘Anything is possible with technology these days.’
‘Fake postcards?’
‘Fake anything,’ said Carole airily. ‘There will be websites. You should see some of the cases I’ve prosecuted – the deceptions and intricacies that are now run-of-the-mill. Trust me, this is low level. And they’re not fake anyway, by the sound of it, just computer-generated, to look as if they have come from somewhere they haven’t.’
Esther fell silent, feeling faintly snubbed rather than comforted. Shona had excused herself to find the Ladies and without her – as always – it seemed to Esther that she and Carole were struggling. That Shona should have brought Carole along after all, without warning, had done nothing to ease her already heightened state of anxiety. To not know all over again where Dylan really was – how he was – had capsized her fragile equilibrium. On all sides, everything she had been managing – from seeing off Chris Mews to coping with Viv’s banishment – felt unmanageable. By the time she’d staggered into the hotel tea lounge, having run all the way from the station because she was late, the chance of the date with Shona had felt like a godsend. Someone to pour her heart out to. Someone who cut to the chase, and picked out what mattered. Spotting Carole, sitting in her stiff way alongside Shona at a corner table, Esther had been tempted to turn and run. She could have claimed transport delays. It would have been easy. But then Shona had seen her and stood up to wave, revealing in the process the smart black panels of what was clearly a maternity dress.
‘Cooeee,’ she cried, getting up and weaving her way, with difficulty, through the tea tables, to greet Esther properly. ‘Sorry, I wanted to surprise you on my own,’ she murmured as they hugged, ‘but I had a dizzy turn, and Carole put her foot down. Problems with blood pressure – it’s been dodgy – which is why we haven’t breathed a word. Just in case… you know.’
‘But this is tremendous… both of you… how exciting…’ Esther managed, operating mostly on autopilot as they arrived at the table, where Carole offered up her cheek in the cool way that never failed to feel disdaining.
‘We are thrilled,’ Carole declared, helping Shona settle into her chair, and then shaking out one of the table napkins for her onto her lap. ‘But there is a way to go yet, and we cannot be too careful.’
‘I’m only six months,’ Shona explained, casting a helpless look down at her swollen stomach, ‘and like I said, there have been a few swerves in the road.’
‘Perhaps best not to go into those now,’ Carole interjected smoothly. ‘We want to hear all about Amsterdam,’ she said as a waiter arrived with a trolley of tea things, including two multi-tiered silver servers, laden with cakes and sandwiches, which he transferred to the table. ‘As you were late, we had already ordered,’ she said, lifting the teapot lid and giving the contents a vigorous stir.
‘We hoped you wouldn’t mind,’ Shona chipped in.
She was the very opposite of minding, Esther assured them, inwardly marvelling that she could ever have imagined the closeness of the duo was something to envy. It had definitely got worse in the long gap since they had last met. In fact, it creeped her out. If she were Shona, she would be tearing her hair out and screaming let me do my own bloody napkin. When pressed again, by both of them, about her weekend, she had skated over Marcus and talked obligingly about how fine the art galleries were, before blurting out the baffling discovery of Dylan’s passport.
‘I need the Ladies,’ Esther said now, getting to her feet, ‘and I can see where Shona’s got to,’ she added, scooting off before Carole could say anything.
Shona was at the basins, running a comb through her hair, which had been reduced to flat curls by a recent chopping. ‘It’s gone sort of weird.’ She jabbed at the limp, floppy waves with the comb. ‘But Carole likes it.’
‘Wait for me, won’t you?’ said Esther, disappearing into a cubicle.
‘So, Dylan’s in the UK – that has to be good, doesn’t it?’ Shona said, the moment Esther reappeared. She had transferred her attentions from her hair to her face, dabbing concealer over the high colour in her cheeks between further disconsolate pokes at her hair.
‘I suppose. Except it could still be Ulan Bator for all the difference it makes.’
‘Someone must know where he is, Esther. I mean, no one just goes off-grid these days, least of all the young. They need the grid, for heaven’s sake, it’s their lifeblood – much to their detriment half the time, but there you go. What about Lily? They were always close, weren’t they?’
Esther shook her head miserably.
‘Oh, come here.’ Shona put her arms round her even though she was washing her hands. ‘He’ll be fine. That boy of yours was always one to plough his own furrow – or at least to try and plough his own furrow, despite your and Lucas’s best efforts. Sounds like he didn’t want to retake those exams, that’s for sure.’
‘There was also a girl, who broke his heart,’ Esther murmured, ‘another thing I’ve only just found out and Lily didn’t know about.’
‘Well, there you go,’ said Shona stoutly, ‘he’s a typical teenager. Like we were, once upon a time. Telling our families anything – are you kidding? He’s licking his wounds. Till he gets fed up and appears on the doorstep.’
‘Thanks, Shone.’ Esther tugged a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser and dabbed at her hands. ‘And you’re all right, are you?’
‘Oh, yes…’ She circled her belly with her arms.
‘No, at least, I mean, between you and Carole. Is all well? I mean… I am always here if…’
‘If what?’ said Carole, poking her head round the half-open door.
‘I think Esther’s making a pitch for godmother, darling,’ Shona answered quickly, ‘but she’ll have to join the queue, won’t she?’
‘I’m just glad the pair of you hadn’t been kidnapped,’ Carole said dryly. ‘I’ve settled up. My treat, Esther.’ Her face flexed in and out of a smile. ‘All set, Shona?’
At home an hour later, Esther’s distraction was temporarily broken by a surge of guilt at the sight of her new pet, his stomach more of a barrel than usual thanks to the quantities of food she had left down to cover for her absence. He was probably ready to return to the freedoms of coming and going through a cat-flap, but the chance of losing something else now felt even more unconscionable.
‘Soon, puss, soon,’ she muttered, dumping the bag at the bottom of the stairs, before taking Dylan’s passport out of her handbag and placing it, photo page open, on the kitchen table.
She poured and drank a tumbler of water, and then a second. Her fatigue had entered a new phase; her head pulsed, hyper-alert, but empty. Dylan. She tried to find him with her mind, to think him into being, but all that arrived was more shame at her selfish blindness, for two years so ensnared by her own challenges that she hadn’t looked hard enough at her son’s. Her son. And Lucas’s. Esther studied the little photo seeing as never before that, for all the differences in eye and hair colour, the likeness between the two of them was uncanny; the shape and set of Dylan’s eyes, the broad forehead, the contours of the cheeks and jaw – he was the spit of Lucas. And both so handsome. Lucas. Longing flooded into the emptiness inside her head. A timeless longing, for the father of their beautiful offspring, for what they once had, all of it now shattered.
Carefully, Esther found herself crossing the kitchen and reaching up to the top shelf of the dresser for the mended pot. Such an early gift from Lucas, presented with all the early courtship worry as to whether she would like it or not. She ran her fingertips over the hardened baubles of glue now holding it together. Life, for precious objects, for people, was so fragile, so cobbled together. From mess-ups like Chris Mews, to marvels like Viv, no one had an easy ride. All that mattered in the end was kindness. To see this so clearly felt not just new to Esther, but vital; something to be shared. With Lucas most of all. She needed to speak to him anyway. He didn’t yet know about Mei Lin, let alone the passport.
She picked up her mobile and hesitated. To want – so badly – to talk to Lucas was odd. She didn’t quite trust it. She began to key in the number, manually, so as to give herself time to think, and then stopped as a new notification arrived.
Thx for the great visit. M
Esther tapped back quickly.
Yes, thx, it was fun. In other news: found D’s passport so he can’t be abroad and ‘Sheena’ is expecting. Babies everywhere. Happy filming. E
Esther returned to the phone’s keypad, but the moment had passed. She turned off the lights and took her holdall upstairs instead, resolving to bring both Lucas and Lily up to speed the next day.
39
Lucas wondered how long he had been sitting on his sofa. He was still in his running gear: an old tracksuit top and the black Lycra leggings Heidi had given him the previous year, before their relationship was common knowledge. His feet were encased in new trainers, bought for a mind-blowing sum of money from a sports shop recommended by his physiotherapist. The shoes were exactly the sort of show-off gear he had vowed never to own, and so curiously light that, answering the door to Heidi that afternoon, he had found himself almost tripping over his own feet.
‘You could have used your key,’ he had said, the annoyance of the stumble still with him as she’d stepped inside.
