Sitting there, huddled against the cold of a pre-spring day on a mound of sand and flotsam piled up by the tides on the border between land and sea, I’d reached a crisis, a turning point, a nowhere-to-hide face-to-face confrontation with myself. At last I could no longer allow myself to lie, but I didn’t yet have the courage to speak the truth.
The silence of Cordelia.
Edward stood up, brushed himself off, straightened his mac, stared down at me and said, ‘William.’
He was right, but I couldn’t even nod.
‘William Blacklin,’ he said. ‘You felt like that about him. Yes? … Cordelia? …’ He bent down and kissed me on the top of my head. ‘A nod is as good as a wink.’
I nodded, once, just.
‘And you still do.’
One more nod.
‘But he’s gone. Isn’t yours any more.’
If I’d replied even with a nod I’d have burst into tears, and I was determined not to cry.
He turned and faced the sea. Took the couple of paces to the edge of the water.
‘You’ll spoil your shoes,’ I said.
‘To hell with my shoes,’ he said, deliberately allowing the next wave to cover them.
I stood up and went to him. Linked my arm through his. Stared, like him, at the horizon. Gulls swooped and cried above us.
Edward squeezed my arm with his.
‘I’ll just say this.’
I said, ‘No. No more. Please.’
‘Just one thing. If you live with me, you’ll always come first. Except for David and Linda of course.’
I smiled to myself. ‘Except for your children.’
‘You can divorce a wife. But there’s no divorce for fathers. Once you’re a father, you’re a father for life. And no matter what, your children have to come first. It’s natural.’
‘And once a mother always a mother.’
‘Of course.’
‘So what about your children? If I lived with you, what would happen to them?’
‘I don’t know. We’d work it out. I’d have to see them. Have them with me for at least part of the time.’
‘And me? I’m not ready to be married and I’m even less ready to be a mother. A stepmother least of all. You know what they say about stepmothers.’
‘That’s nothing but fairy tales. You’d be a wonderful mother, step or otherwise.’
I shivered.
‘You’re getting cold,’ he said.
But not from the weather. From his thoughts. The thought of Edward divorced, the thought of his children always coming first, and the thought of me as their stepmother. No no no.
‘Let’s go back to the hotel,’ he said, leading me by the hand.
It was over. I knew it was over. Left on the beach with the rest of the sea’s discarded flotsam.
We walked along the prom, neither of us saying anything. I wanted to let go of Edward’s hand but didn’t want to disappoint him. The fatal desire to please. The salt from the air was sticky on my lips. I felt sick.
Back in our room, I undressed straight away and stood under a hot shower for ages. Edward wanted to join me but I said no, not just now.
When I came out he was working on his laptop, sending emails. I looked at him, his straight handsome back, his strong neat round head with its close-cropped black hair, his ears as neat as the rest of him, and saw through him as if I were x-raying his mind.
I thought, It isn’t really his children who come first, it’s his work. That’s really what he lives for. The rest of us, his wife, his children, me too, we’re only attachments.
I dressed in clean clothes, brushed my wet hair and put on a beanie, stuffed my things into my backpack and placed it by the door, and paused for a moment.
Edward was still working, unaware of anything I’d done, his elegant agile fingers tapping away. His power of concentration was one of the qualities that had always impressed me; I’d even found it erotic; and when he turned it on me with complete attention I couldn’t resist him. Now, suddenly, it irritated me. Little C whinged; Big C fumed. How could he ignore me, how could he be so calm, how could he sit there tapping at such an important time and after such a morning?
I opened the door and pushed my bag into the corridor with my foot. Still he didn’t turn to see what I was doing.
‘Edward,’ I said.
‘Yes?’ Still tap-tapping away.
‘I’m going out. I need to get something.’
‘Okay.’
Tap tap.
‘Edward?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thanks.’
Now he did stop and turned to look at me, but fish-eyed, his mind still on his work, and smiled and said, ‘Trust me, sweetheart. It’ll be all right. Promise. See you in a minute. I’d come with you but—’
‘No, don’t bother.’
‘I need to get this off. When you get back we’ll talk again.’ Returning to his laptop. ‘And do some laughing together.’ Tap tap.
‘No problem,’ I said – a phrase I hated and never used.
Tap tap.
I closed the door behind me, picked up my bag and hurried to the lift.
In the lobby, I wrote a note on hotel paper.
Sorry, Edward. I can’t do it. I’d always have to come first. And anyway I’m not in love with you. You’ve been so good to me. I am grateful. But I can’t go on. Cordelia.
I sealed the note in an envelope, and gave it to the head porter with a persuasive tip, asking him to take it up to Edward in exactly half an hour. (Between them, Dad and Edward had taught me well.)
As soon as the train left the station with no sign of Edward, I felt such relief that I started to laugh till I began to hiccup and laugh at the same time and couldn’t stop. People were giving me worried looks. I stumbled to the toilet and locked myself in.
When the fit was over and I’d returned to my seat, another fit took over. Depression.
I’d behaved badly, I knew it, and disliked myself for it. But if I’d stayed, Edward would have talked me into going on with our affair and to staying with him on any terms, and I’d have given in to please him. And that would have been a lie and I couldn’t do it. I’d made a mistake and the only thing to do was not to go on making it.
But I also knew I needed help to get over the crisis, because I didn’t know what to do next and how to end it properly. And I knew there was only one person who’d understand and not judge me too harshly.
21
I called Julie the minute I got home. As soon as she spoke I knew something was wrong. Very weary. Very down. I asked if I could see her. She said she’d rather I didn’t, she wasn’t too well. Nothing serious. But she wouldn’t say what. Had she been to the doctor? There was no need, she would be all right in a day or two, all she needed was some rest. Couldn’t I do anything? Well, yes, there was one thing. She’d run out of cornflakes and ginger ale. Would I buy some and drop them off? The back door was on the latch, I should leave the stuff on the kitchen table. I said I’d do that but didn’t say I’d leave without seeing her. (Ill and she wanted cornflakes and ginger ale?)
Is it a sign of love that news of someone being ill or in trouble drives your own worries from your mind? Because that’s how it was for me then. All I could think of was attending to Julie. She’d always been the one helping me. Now I could help her. They say it’s better to give than to receive. When love is the reason, to give is to receive. I wondered, as I raced off to the shops on my bike, whether I’d have felt the same if Edward were ill, and knew for sure I wouldn’t. And Will? No question: the ends of the earth.
At Julie’s I put the cornflakes and ginger ale on the kitchen table, along with a few other items I thought she might need – some fruit, milk, bread, a couple of avocados, and ready-to-eat salad. I’d also bought a bunch of daffodils, which I arranged in a vase and took to the bottom of her stairs, where I called up to her. I’d no intention of leaving without seeing her.
No reply for a moment before she ca
me out of her bedroom – the one room in the house I’d never been in – and stood on the landing, with her tut-tut expression on her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I had to see if you were all right.’
She was wearing a turquoise dressing gown open over a short white T-shirt. Her legs were less muscular than I remembered from our times sitting in her garden in the summer. She looked washed out and frail.
‘Lovely flowers.’
‘For you.’
‘Kind.’
‘You’re ill.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘I’ve brought what you asked for. And some other bits and pieces, just in case.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Can I bring something up for you?’
‘I can manage.’
‘But I’m worried … And I’m in a bit of a state myself.’
She smiled wryly. ‘Ah, I see.’
‘No, I mean—’
‘Some of the ginger ale would be fine. Bring whatever you want for yourself. And the daffs.’
Her bedroom had very little in it, no clutter, nothing unnecessary. Double bed with sun-yellow linen, crisp white duvet and extra pillows in strong shades of green and blue. White wood bedside table with reading lamp and little black alarm clock and the litter of a disturbed night (empty glass, used bowl and spoon, crumpled tissues and box, pills and potions, coffee mug, books, notepad, a jumble of magazines). On the other side of the bed, an old silver-oak dining chair with worn leather seat. Against the wall opposite the bed was a lovely mahogany chest of drawers with shiny brass handles, on top of which was a cluster of photographs in silver frames, among which I stood the vase of flowers. Among the photos I saw one of me I didn’t know she had. My heart missed a beat. An ivory-white thick-pile carpet covered the floor wall-to-wall. The window, opposite the door, with midnight-blue curtains, looked out over the road to the park beyond.
There was nothing on the walls, except the meditation icon, which was hanging above the chest of drawers, where Julie could see it as she lay in bed. As she was now, propped up with pillows. Her hair was a mess, but though her face was peaky, her eyes were clear and alert. I handed her the ginger ale and stood at the foot of the bed, holding the glass of orange juice I’d poured for myself, and feeling awkward.
‘Thanks,’ I said, for something to say.
‘What for?’
‘Letting me come up.’ A privilege, I knew.
She drank half of the ginger ale, put the glass down on her bedside table, folded her hands together and, ‘Going?’ she said. ‘Or staying?’
‘Staying. If that’s okay?’
‘If you don’t mind me being off colour.’
‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’
‘Cordelia!’ She laughed. ‘What a question! Why d’you think I might be?’
‘Being off colour. Thought you might have morning sickness. And wanting cornflakes and ginger ale. Doesn’t seem like you. I mean, you’re so diet conscious. Thought it might be – what-d’you-call-it? – that pregnant mum’s craving thing.’
She smiled. ‘No, I’m not pregnant. Unless it’s an immaculate conception. Cornflakes are the only thing I can eat when I’m feeling like this, and ginger ale seems to settle my tummy. Don’t ask me why.’
‘Are you often like this?’
‘Not often.’
‘You seemed all right at school.’
‘It’s my job to seem all right, whether I am or not.’
‘So what’s the matter? If it’s okay to ask?’
She nodded towards the bedside table. ‘Sorry about the mess.’
‘What mess? You should see my room when I’m ill. Or any time, compared with yours. Yours is lovely.’
‘I like it. And I’d like to see yours.’ She meant it, which pleased me, and added, ‘I’m glad you’ve come, after all. I’m feeling better already.’ Which flicked my mood switch from awkward to relaxed. ‘Sit down and tell me why you’re in a state.’
‘O that! It doesn’t matter.’
I wasn’t lying or minimising. Just the fact of her being there, of her presence, and attending to me, made me feel protected. And that day I wanted to protect her.
‘I’d rather hear about you,’ I said.
‘I’ll tell you my troubles, if you’ll tell me yours.’
I placed the chair facing the bed and sat.
Julie said, ‘Mine’s simple. Since the start of this term I’ve marked fifty or sixty essays and exercise books a day, average, completely revised and updated the department handbook, page one to page one hundred and thirty, redone the display boards in the English corridor in preparation for the school inspection next term that has us all going off our heads and will be a complete waste of time, produced the school mag, with a little help from a friend, attended three parents’ evenings that take from seven till ten, arranged two theatre trips, which requires hours of form-filling, permission-gathering, money-collecting, coach-hiring, and more bureaucracy than getting a motion through the United Nations to start a war, written the minutes for our weekly departmental meeting, tutored four pupils who’ll fail their exams if I don’t, attended an exam board meeting and written a report on it for my colleagues, marked the mock exam papers, arranged and attended the creative writing club on Wednesdays and the book club on Thursdays, not to mention preparing and teaching twenty-nine lessons a week or my latest minor domestic crises such as the central heating going on the blink and my fridge giving up the ghost and having to be replaced, and the fact is that by last night I’d had enough of my job and the world at large and was so MPO I knew that if I didn’t give myself a weekend of DBA I’d turn into a zombie or end up in a ward for terminal psychos.’
‘MPO?’
‘Mega Pissed Off.’
‘DBA?’
‘Do Bugger All.’
We stared at each other. Then broke into laughter.
‘You catch my drift,’ Julie said.
‘And the way the wind is blowing,’ I said.
‘I know, I know! You needn’t tell me. The stress in my life is nothing compared with the stress of some people’s. I’m lucky to be doing what I’m doing. I chose to do it. I like doing it. Et cetera. But enough is enough for the nonce in mine. So when I got in from school yesterday I slumped in bed and slept and did nothing when I was awake except read something only for myself, an essential to my sanity which I haven’t done for three months. Think of it, I’m head of English and a teacher of literature to the young, and I haven’t time to read a novel or a few poems or a play or anything of any kind for myself and for my own health and development, or indeed to do anything other than bureaucratic crap and read the books set for exams, which I’ve read to death half a dozen times before. Don’t you think that’s a crazy way to run a school or an education system? And don’t answer that question. It’s rhetorical. The answer is self-evident. End of whinge.’
Pause.
‘Sorry, Cordelia.’
‘No problem.’
‘I don’t approve of teachers laying off their worries on their pupils.’
‘Better out than in, as my granddad used to say.’
She smiled. ‘It helps to say it, that’s true.’
‘And anyway I’m not,’ I said, ‘just one of your pupils. Am I?’
She shook her head. ‘No, you’re not. But still.’
‘But still nothing. I hadn’t added up what you do like that. Makes me realise I’d rather not be a teacher.’
‘Were you thinking you might be?’
‘It had crossed my mind.’
‘Don’t let me put you off. I love it most of the time. And usually I can last out till the holidays before collapsing. But recently it got a bit too much. Let’s talk about it another time. I’ll be fine by Monday. Now. I’ve had my say. It’s your turn. What’s upset you?’
I took a nerve-gathering breath and said, ‘I don’t know how to explain. I’ve made a mistake. It’s hard to talk about.’
‘Mistakes usually are. Let me guess. You and Edward Malcolm.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Because of what you told me about him and you, and the way you didn’t want to listen to me, and because of how you’ve been acting lately, and because your father is worried about you and because of the surreptitious way you disappeared yesterday after school.’
‘What! Dad talked to you about me and Edward?’
‘Wondered if I knew anything and what I thought he should do.’
‘But—!’
‘But you thought you were being very – what shall we call it? – discreet?’
Shamefaced, embarrassed. ‘Yes.’
She laughed, but not unkindly.
‘In this town? In our school? Really, Cordelia, I thought you had more savvy than that.’
‘O lordy!’
‘I know. But don’t fret. You’re not the first to make that mistake. Let she who is without fault throw the first stone. Though perhaps I shouldn’t talk about throwing anything just now.’
Which helped me to laugh. ‘That wasn’t the mistake I meant.’
‘Say on, Macduff.’
‘Well, Edward and me, we’ve been …’
‘Having an affair, and?’
‘We went away for the weekend. This weekend. Which wasn’t the first time.’
‘I know.’
‘The third, actually.’
‘Which is what I calculated.’
‘By the sea. Eastbourne.’
‘Eastbourne,’ Julie said, deadpan.
‘Eastbourne-by-the-Sea,’ I said, also deadpan.
But neither of us could hold it.
‘Eastbourne!’ Julie said.
‘Eastbourne!’ I parroted.
‘What was the silly man thinking of!’
‘Didn’t have time to find out.’
‘Ah, like that, was it?’
‘Not like that, not quite, no. The other two times were, but not this time.’
‘What was different about this time?’
‘This time I didn’t want to go. I think he thought he was losing me and taking me to a nice hotel and having another you know weekend would make it all right again.’
‘And was he? Losing you.’
‘Yes and no. But I hadn’t said anything yet. I agreed to go this weekend because I thought we might talk about it.’