Left and Leaving Read online

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose he must have done. Weren’t all adult males called up?’

  She could see that Gil was surprised by her ignorance.

  ‘Yes. Unless they were unfit. Asthmatic or short-sighted or flat-footed.’

  ‘He’s none of those. Was your father in the war?’

  ‘He was born in thirty-six,’ he said, seeming almost embarrassed to let slip that his father was much younger that hers. ‘Dad and his sisters were evacuated to Wales. They were those little kids you see in old news reels, with luggage labels tied to their coats.’

  ‘It must have been grim.’

  ‘Not at all. They landed up with a terrific family and had a wonderful time.’

  Whilst they set the table, Gil told her what he’d found out from the nurses.

  ‘They’ll make a final assessment on Monday and operate on Tuesday if everything’s looking okay.’

  ‘That’s almost a week since he fell.’

  He paused. ‘Sometimes old people don’t last more than a few days after a fall like your dad’s. The medics can’t afford to waste time operating on someone who’s very likely…’

  ‘To die?’

  He nodded. ‘Like most things, it boils down to hard cash. And they’ve got their stats to consider. They can’t have too many patients dying on the operating table. It doesn’t look good for the hospital.’

  ‘You’re saying they don’t operate on no-hopers.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  Their meal was delivered by a figure – distinguishable as a man only after he’d spoken – in a bulky hooded jacket. He arrived in what looked like a Land Rover. Gil rummaged in his pocket but Vivian insisted on paying. ‘No. This is on me. You got the cab.’

  They prised the lids from the foil containers and as the aroma of garlic and spices escaped, she wondered what her father would make of this culinary invasion of his meat-and-two-veg territory. The food wasn’t exceptional but it was well cooked and there was plenty of it. On her way from the Tube, she’d picked up enough groceries to see her through the weekend – bread, milk, eggs, a carton of pea and ham soup – imagining she would be eating alone tonight and going to bed early. Looking for something to complete the meal, she raided the cupboard and found a tin of peaches and another of evaporated milk.

  ‘What’s a “cling peach”?’ she said.

  Gil explained that peaches could be classified into ‘freestone’, when the flesh separated easily from the stone, or ‘cling’ when it didn’t. ‘Cling peaches are firmer. Better for canning.’

  ‘I’ve never met a peach buff before,’ she said.

  ‘My mate grows them. He lives in California. We spent a holiday there. You can learn a lot about peaches in two weeks.’

  Her phone chirruped. The text was from Nick. He hoped that her father was okay and that she was safely back at his house. He’d speak to her tomorrow. He didn’t mention where he was or what he was doing but she suspected he was at Sadler’s Wells. It would be interval time about now and she pictured him in the foyer, drink in hand, ‘new client’ by his side.

  They bundled the debris from the meal back into the carrier bag. ‘This needs to go in the bin,’ she said.

  Snow had drifted against the back door and, when she opened it, a miniature avalanche cascaded onto the floor. It was still snowing, the flakes smaller now, less dreamy and more businesslike. She flicked on the outside light. What had, a few hours earlier, been a small garden dotted with nondescript shrubs was now an icy desert, punctuated with glittering snow-dunes. The only sign of life in the silent world was a trail of footprints – cat? fox? – running diagonally across the garden. Where the snow lay dinted. Dinted. Was that the word?

  Gil came to stand behind her. ‘Jeez. Too cold to build a snowman.’

  ‘We can do it in the morning.’

  He paused before replying ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘You can’t set off home now. You’d die of hypothermia.’ She tossed the bag of rubbish towards the dustbin then closed the door. ‘Let’s mop up this snow before our feet get wet again.’

  Gil followed her into the living room. Were he at home, he would certainly insist a guest stay over on a night like this, even if it meant sleeping in a chair. Vivian had asked him to stay because it was the sensible thing to do. He must keep that firmly in his mind.

  The room felt cold after the fug of the kitchen. ‘Can we light the fire?’ he said. ‘I’m a sucker for fires. We could make paper sticks.’

  The coal scuttle, a grey metal affair, was half-full of coal. Split kindling was wedged on top of it with a box of matches balanced on top of that. This was evidently a functioning hearth, nevertheless Vivian insisted on holding a twist of smouldering paper at the base of the flue to make sure the chimney was drawing. He watched her, thinking that whatever she did, she did meticulously. Any building she designed would stand for a thousand years.

  They were setting the fire – paper sticks first then kindling and finally a few lumps of coal – when Gil’s phone vibrated, signalling an incoming text. For once he was happy to see Irene’s name on the screen, relieved that it wasn’t Feray demanding to know where he was.

  ‘Irene. Again,’ he said. ‘“God keep you safe and warm in this dreadful weather.”’

  Vivian sighed. ‘She really is getting to be a pain.’

  ‘She’s lonely,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t have a lot going for her. Or a lot to look forward to. She must be anxious about what the future holds for her.’

  ‘I’m sure my father’s been lonely and anxious too but he’s just got on with it.’

  ‘There’s no comparison. Your father’s lived a full life. He’s had a wife. A career. And of course he has you. You may not like the idea but he must find that reassuring.’

  She shrugged, grudgingly conceding his point.

  ‘The bomb was probably the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to Irene. That was almost a month ago now. I think she’s trying to keep the excitement going by staying in touch with us.’ He expected Vivian to mock his cod psychology.

  Instead she said, ‘You think I’m being mean?’

  ‘No. But maybe it helps if we understand why she’s the way she is.’

  ‘She doesn’t help herself by being so…needy,’ Vivian said. ‘If she backed off a bit, I’d be more sympathetic.’

  ‘Really?’ he said.

  She laughed. ‘No.’

  It took several matches to get the fire going but soon it was convincingly alight, the room smelling of soot and sulphur.

  ‘Let’s watch the news,’ she said, ‘find out how bad the snow is.’

  She switched on the television, apologising that the set was ancient and only received analogue services.

  ‘Your dad’s going to need a new one when they switch over,’ he said. ‘Maybe good to get that organised while he’s in hospital. He’ll be housebound for a while.’

  ‘How long will they keep him in?’

  ‘They’ll have him up and walking as soon as they can. If everything’s looking good, he won’t need a lot of medical attention and they’ll move him to rehab.’

  ‘Rehab?’

  ‘He’ll need to regain his confidence.’ He paused, recalling wards full of frightened people whose hope of active old age had been snatched from them by a fall or a stroke. ‘He’ll be using a walking frame for a while.’

  She shook her head as if to disperse morbid thoughts and he guessed that she wasn’t ready to consider what lay beyond the next few days.

  The news showed the country at a standstill. Trains cancelled, motorists stranded, airports closed. The Met Office talked of another day of heavy snow and advised people to stay at home. High street retailers were already calculating the loss in pre-Christmas sales.

  They switched off the lights and pulled the sofa close to the fire, sitting one at either end, watching the flames and taking turns to add lumps of coal. Were it not for the television, it would be easy
to believe that the world stopped beyond these four walls.

  ‘Tell me about you,’ she said.

  ‘You know pretty much everything.’

  ‘Were you born in Australia?’

  ‘No. London. My parents emigrated when I was one. Ten pound Poms.’

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘You’re too young,’ he said. ‘Next question.’

  ‘Why “Gil”? Is it short for something?’

  ‘Gillon. I know. Weird. He was the hero in a book Mum was reading the week I was born.’

  ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘The name and the reason for it.’

  ‘Good. Next.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Divorced. Quite a while now. One daughter – twenty-two. Twin sons – seventeen. Mother alive. All still in Coffs. Moved back here five years ago. Said daughter threatening to disown me if I don’t return to Oz.’

  It sounded like a walk in the park when he told it like that.

  He was watching the coals, glowing orange, red and purple, but he was conscious that she was looking at his face.

  ‘Why did you come back?’ she asked.

  He picked up the tongs and placed three more lumps of coal on the fire, watching as some kind of chemical reaction took place, releasing green-grey smoke to spiral up the chimney.

  ‘I suppose I imagined I’d catch up with the Gil Thomas I might have been if my parents hadn’t emigrated. Have you seen Sliding Doors?’

  She frowned. ‘But there already would be one Gil Thomas in London, living that alternative life. That was the point of the film. There couldn’t be two. It wouldn’t work.’

  Again, her scrupulous attention to detail. ‘You’re right. It wouldn’t. But my life in Australia wasn’t working either.’

  ‘Has running away solved anything?’

  ‘Up to a point.’

  He expected her to berate him for cowardice but instead she said, ‘Maybe I should run away to Australia.’

  ‘You’d hate it.’

  ‘D’you think so?’

  ‘I know so.’

  She was tenacious. ‘You must still have family in this country. Are you in touch with them?’

  ‘Nope. Did you know that Thomas is the ninth most common surname in the UK? I have the perfect excuse not to find them. What about you? D’you have family in Germany?’

  ‘Yes. But…’

  ‘See,’ he said. ‘Loners, both of us.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re no loner. You’re a people person. D’you have a girlfriend?’

  The question caught him off guard. ‘How d’you mean?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  She disappeared to dig out bedding for him. He’d offered to sleep on the sofa, making out that he liked the idea of spending the night by the fire, thinking that by his sleeping downstairs any ambiguity would be removed from the situation.

  He heard her footsteps as she moved about overhead and he wished he’d been straight with her about Feray.

  He checked his phone. Feray had texted an hour ago, asking if he was okay. It was late but not too late to phone her, especially as she was concerned for him. He hesitated. The conversation would start with a casual inquiry but then she would ask where he was and he would end up lying, pretending he’d gone to visit Kevin and been stranded by the snow. Instead he texted. Meal with mate. No buses home. G x It wasn’t so far from the truth.

  18

  Vivian drew back the curtains to reveal a cloudless sky and a startlingly white world. The sun had barely risen and the garden was in blue-white shadow. The lower half of the windowpane was etched with fractal forms of ice-crystals. She touched the glass with the tip of her tongue. It stuck for a fraction of a second, first burning then freezing as the ice melted to leave a peephole.

  Farleigh Road lay beneath the flight path to Heathrow. The grumble of jet engines was the backing track to this area of south London, yet today there was no sound of planes, no vapour trails. She guessed the airport was still shut. Last night’s news had shown footage of despondent travellers stacking up in the terminals. She felt some sympathy for them but their temporary inconvenience was more than compensated for by the beauty of unsullied skies.

  The house, too, was silent. There was no hint of the snoring that had been coming from the living room when she stood on the landing at midnight, listening.

  When her father moved here, the bathroom had contained a leaky shower, not much more than an articulated hose looping up from the taps to a bracket on the wall. He agreed it had to go but when she’d suggested he install a walk-in cubicle, he refused. What did he want with a shower? She didn’t waste energy trying to persuade him. Now, as she ran her bath, she tried to work out how she was going to wash her hair, eventually kneeling in the bath, dipping her head forward, dousing it with water from a plastic beaker.

  When she went downstairs, the living room door was open and Gil was in the kitchen making tea.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘How was the sofa? Were you warm enough?’

  ‘Terrific. I woke a couple of times and stoked the fire. I felt like John Wayne, sleeping out on the prairie. Without the coyotes.’

  She made them bowls of porridge then watched Gil write his name on the surface of his with a trickle of syrup.

  ‘That looks fun,’ she said.

  ‘It’s how I learned to write my name.’ He nodded towards her bowl. ‘Give it a go.’

  ‘My name’s too long.’

  ‘You could write “Viv”.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’

  She liked her name now but, as a child, she’d hated it. Particularly the shortened version. Whilst Roses or Chloes or Isabellas were told they had ‘pretty names’, hers was, ‘unusual’. When she’d quizzed her mother on her choice, she’d said that her favourite film was Gone With the Wind. ‘Why not Scarlett?’ she’d asked. ‘Your father,’ was her mother’s reply.

  ‘There’s a towel on the stool if you’d like a bath,’ she said.

  He went upstairs and she heard the rush of water. The washing festooned around the radiators was still damp and she did the rounds, turning everything over. With luck it would be ready to put away by the time she left.

  Gil’s satchel was on the armchair, alongside the pile of folded bedding. She flipped back the top of the bag, pulling it gently open – not prying, simply looking to see what a man like Gil Thomas chose to carry with him. A shabby A-Z. An airmail envelope with an Australian stamp, his name and address in old lady handwriting. Black socks. A pair of boxer shorts. It seemed he’d come prepared for an overnight stay and she was cross at his presumption, remembering after a few seconds that she’d suggested he come back to the house.

  She was washing the breakfast things when he reappeared.

  ‘Is there anything needs doing? Fetching? Carrying?’ he said.

  ‘It’s all under control, I think.’ She paused. ‘We could make that snowman.’

  She rummaged in the cupboard under the stairs and found a pair of wellingtons and the old walking boots her father used in the garden. She wondered if Gil would object to wearing an old man’s boots – she was squeamish about that sort of thing herself – but he laced them up without appearing to give the matter a second thought.

  It was cold – well below zero, she guessed – but there was no breath of wind. The air felt pure, as if the snow had imbued it with medicinal qualities. The area of garden nearest the back door was in full sun and they chose a spot right outside the kitchen, deciding their snowman should peep through the window.

  As they plodded about, scooping up snow, she regretted destroying the perfection of the garden but that was soon forgotten as their creation took shape. It was the right kind of snow for the job, each handful melding firmly to the evolving form. Within no time at all they had fashioned a stylish figure, tall and lean, with human proportions. They rejected coal eyes and carrot nose, instead modelling his features directly from the snow, burnishing his white
face with the back of a tablespoon until it was as smooth as human skin.

  When they were done they stood with mugs of coffee, admiring their achievement.

  ‘He’s a cut above your average snowman,’ Gil said.

  ‘He is. He’s more…a man of snow.’

  Gil suggested that, before he left, they clear the front path. They searched the shed for suitable tools, Vivian trying not to think about the rats. Eventually they unearthed a stiff broom, a spade and a short-handled coal shovel. They also came across two heavy-duty plastic sacks containing coal.

  ‘They must weigh ten kilos,’ she said. ‘How on earth did he get them here? He can’t have carried them.’

  ‘Your dad’s obviously a resourceful man,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll put one by the back door. Could come in handy over the next few weeks.’

  They started clearing the path. The untrodden snow was easy to sweep away but the trail of footprints leading from gate to front door was compacted ice and hard to shift, and it wasn’t long before the noise of chipping and scraping brought Mrs Francks out from next door.

  ‘I thought I heard voices last night,’ she said. ‘How’s your dad going on, dear?’

  Vivian gave her a bulletin and explained that she wouldn’t be back until the following weekend. The woman’s glance kept straying over Vivian’s shoulder towards Gil and it was evident that she was more interested in him than in Philip Carey.

  ‘I could pop in now and again if you like,’ she said. ‘Put your mind at rest.’

  Vivian imagined her father’s reaction were she to allow anyone, even the woman who had saved him from freezing to death, to poke around his house. ‘That’s kind of you, but there’s no need.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.’ She gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘You’re making a good job of that,’ she called to Gil.

  He looked up and raised a finger to his forehead. ‘I’ll do yours for a tenner, missus.’

  Vivian contained her laughter until the woman had closed her front door. ‘What was that accent? Polish? Russian?’