‘I never wanted to tell you this, because I thought it would hurt you as much as it did me. You didn’t deserve that. But maybe I was wrong.’
From the envelope, she took out a piece of lined paper. Two rings fell out: a plain wedding band and a ring with a simple solitaire diamond. Ali turned them in her hand, then opened the paper, recognising the handwriting immediately.
Eric. Don’t come after me this time. You won’t find me. I’m giving you back my rings. Alison will have a better life without me. I love her so much but I’m not the mother I wanted to be to her, nor am I the wife I wanted to be to you. It’s better this way. I’m sorry.
Moira
‘“This time”? She’d done this before?’ The assumptions that had supported Ali throughout the adult part of her life had been whipped away without warning. She felt as if she was in free fall.
He nodded his head, unable to speak.
‘But didn’t you look for her?’
He looked so weary, so defensive. ‘Of course I looked, Al. Of course I did. What do you think I am? I was no more confident of being a good father to you on my own than she had been about being your mother. And I wanted her back.’ He paused. ‘For me as much as for you.’
For a shocking moment, Ali thought he was going to cry. But he coughed, averting his head so she couldn’t see his eyes. That was the first time Ali could remember hearing or seeing him express any feelings for her mother. She had imagined arguments, other men, affairs, fallings out of love, but never this.
‘But why couldn’t you find her?’
‘Because when someone doesn’t want to be found, they can make it almost impossible for you. That’s what she did. That note’s the last thing I had from her.’
What sort of mother could desert her only child? The shadowy figure that her mother had become over the years was taking a step towards the light. Where could she have gone? Perhaps Ali should look for her. Perhaps she was waiting to be found.
Her parents must have been in their late forties then, a little older than she was now: a dangerous age, a time when you look at what you have and what you want. Life is getting shorter. Either you act and effect a change or you settle for what you know. She understood as well as anyone what was involved and how difficult it could be. Most of all, she identified with the person she imagined her mother to be: restless, questing, searching to be the best she could. The woman wasn’t quite such a stranger any more.
Later, lying in her old childhood bed, comforted by its familiar sag, Ali thought about their conversation. Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen looked down on her from the faded posters tacked to the wall, their edges curling: the few things in the house that her father hadn’t submitted to his desire for order. Perhaps there was a sentimental old fool in there trying to find a way out after all? Otherwise any other signs of Ali’s childhood had been stashed away in the chest of drawers and wardrobe or in the attic. In all these years she had never once dreamed that her mother might have left in the misguided belief that she was acting in her daughter’s best interests.
She twisted her mother’s two rings around her right ring finger. How would she have supported herself? Had Eric given her any money? Did she have some of her own? Where could she have gone? There must be more to the story than Ali’s father was giving away. But why? Who was he protecting? Her mother? Himself? Or Ali? Had she been such a terrible child? Was she the reason that her mother left? Then she remembered how Don had taught her that no one’s actions were governed by a single reason. Life was far more complicated than that.
Imagining her father through the wall, lonely in the room he had once shared with his wife, Ali wondered whether he was lying awake, staring into the dark, like her. She wondered briefly if she was destined for a life alone. After what Ian had done, she couldn’t imagine trusting herself to anyone again. When they had finally turned in, Eric was still visibly distressed, having been unable to tell her any more. After giving her a glimpse of the truth, the shutters had come down again. She would not prise any more out of him this weekend. Ali had never tried to imagine the life her parents had together. As soon as her mother disappeared, she was encouraged to forget her and, eventually, that’s what she had almost managed to do. Until now.
7
The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed her way down the long Victorian bar, all dark wood and brass real-ale pumps. Behind it a couple of frazzled bar staff tried to keep up with the customers who were waiting, shouting orders, brandishing cash and turning away with their drinks held high so as not to spill them. The noise was way up the decibel scale and Lou was wondering why on earth she had agreed to meet Hooker here, a place where she’d have to strain to hear a word. Perhaps that was indeed the answer. She was protecting herself against his expected anger.
She had been surprised by how pleased her ex had seemed at hearing from her although, like Nic, he’d been un interested in her holiday beyond the fact that she’d come back in one piece. She had hoped her family might like to know what she’d got up to without them. Equally, she hoped he hadn’t interpreted the call, so soon after her return, as a sign that she had been missing him. She thought she’d detected a warmth in his voice that had been absent towards her for years. For a moment, her feelings towards him softened before she told herself to get a grip. Old habits, she warned herself. That’s all it was.
As soon as he realised that she wanted to meet him, he had suggested the Maryatt Arms, a pub she hadn’t visited for more years than she could count. Long ago, she came here with her brother Sam and his teammates after those dreaded university rugby matches. She used to stand with Jenny, shivering on the sidelines, united in their incomprehension at what was happening on the pitch, freezing to death, yelling their hearts out when Sam scored a try. The Maryatt Arms was where she’d first met her future husband. His keen sportsmanship was of course how he’d got his name. To everyone, including his family, he was ‘Hooker’. He’d caught her eye both on and off the pitch so when he offered her a drink and to educate her in the finer points of the game, she accepted. Wirier than some of his teammates, he had a certain twinkle in his eye that translated into a come-and-get-me charm. So she had gone and got him.
Lou couldn’t begin to count the number of nights she’d whiled away in this place, first with Sam and the team, and later with Hooker when they’d continued to come here, long after the matches had stopped and the players had moved on to life after university. Convenient to the house that he was then sharing with three other would-be lawyers, the pub was warm compared to the unheated chill of home, and convivial since someone or other they knew would usually turn up of an evening. Since then, the place had changed. The old boys and locals who propped up the bar were long gone, turfed out in favour of gastro-pub splendour.
She knew exactly where he’d be sitting. At the table by the fire, where thirty-something years ago (no, she couldn’t remember exactly: always a small bone of contention between them), he’d leaned across and asked her to marry him. Moments after accepting, she’d watched him get dragged off to a game of pool. Given the flak from his mother’s appalled reaction to the unromantic nature of his proposal, he’d taken Lou out to dinner and repeated it, organising the diamond engagement ring to be found in the bottom of her champagne glass. She accepted delightedly to a bored round of applause from three Turkish waiters.
Now she thought about it, the romance that was so absent from his original proposal had been absent from most of their married life. They had loved one another, of that she was sure, but those early years devoted to their careers and babies made it hard to carve out pockets of time for themselves. Their separate jobs – hers as a fashion journalist, his as a corporate lawyer – took them travelling to opposite ends of the country and sometimes of the world, leaving a succession of overpaid nannies to hold the fort. The money she earned salved Lou’s conscience – at least she was paying for the best childcare possible when she was away. By the time she began working from home, when Jamie was fifteen, Nic thirteen and Tom ten, the original driving force had disappeared from their marriage altogether. Almost without them noticing, Lou and Hooker’s paths began to cross less frequently