After You Left Read online

  ‘I better get off,’ I tell her. Sally is self-employed, so time might not be much of a concern to her, but I am already fifteen minutes over my lunch break.

  ‘Call me if you hear anything,’ she shouts after me.

  I nod. I trot away. I don’t look in her eyes and give her the usual, genial goodbye gaze. I sense her staring at my back, for a beat or two.

  Scorpio! It’s so stupid. Sally always puts such great stock in superstition and that sort of thing; that’s one way we’re very different. But I play over that brief description. Admittedly, some of it does sound like Justin.

  THREE

  When I see the name in my email inbox, I almost forget who it is; that’s how far removed I now feel from anything to do with my wedding. Aimee – the photographer – is sending me a link to the photographs. I’m supposed to go through them and tell her which ones I want and in what format. I stare at the link, but can’t bring myself to open it. Not here. Instead, I pick up a folder containing applications to our summer internship programme; my assistant said she’d flagged up the best ones, but she wanted my quick input. I get halfway down the first one, then have to put my head in my hands.

  This is hopeless, so I wander into the gallery instead.

  Art can play havoc with my mood. Landscapes suit me best. My mind and airwaves seem to open up in their presence. I am revitalised to face new challenges. Portraits bother me most. I am never fully at ease with them. Something to do with the fixed nature of light, shadow and perspective that gives the eyes their uncanny ability to follow you. I understand it from a technical standpoint, but the illusion of reciprocity bothers me on a more vital level. Here are real human beings trapped forever on canvas, on the wings of time. They have no say in the way they are being scrutinised. You can very often tell they’re displeased. And I feel so bad for them. I can never hold their eyes for too long. Perhaps because I sense they see things about me, too, that I wish to keep private. It’s an unnerving two-way street.

  Today, though, as my feet echo on the wooden floor, I am entering a hallowed place of melancholy silence, a temple of human solitude that’s both eerily familiar and pleasantly disquieting. I look first at Hopper’s Morning Sun, on loan from the Columbus Museum of Art, in Ohio. A woman sitting alone on a bed in an austere, cell-like room, with sunlight streaming in from an open window that overlooks an uninspiring building. She is dwelling in her solitude, and the morning. But you don’t know if she’s happy or sad, if she has lost something, or someone, or if she has found an enviable contentment away from the drill of everyday life. Nighthawks, all the way from the Art Institute of Chicago. Three unspeaking strangers who are drawn to an American diner in the middle of the night, perhaps self-medicating their inability to face going home to nobody. Office in a Small City: the ordinariness of a man as he sits alone, daydreaming out of a window in a tall building.

  I can’t help but think about the concept of loneliness, of having no one – how tangible melancholy is. If the artist were to paint me, I’d be a young woman standing alone in a room full of paintings about lonely people. A faceless figure captured from behind; her loss, palpable. Perhaps someone would speculate she is entirely on her own for the very first time – without a mother, a stepfather, a blood father; without a husband. They might sense all she has is questions, endless questions, and never any answers. And they would be right.

  I’m so flooded with the naked reality of this, that at first I don’t notice that someone else is here.

  She’s standing in front of Christina’s World. A slim, well-dressed little thing, perhaps in her early seventies, with the effortless carriage of a ballerina. She’s so passive and subdued that she could be a painting herself.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ I cross the room and stand beside her, leaving a respectful distance between us, and I look at the painting.

  At first, she doesn’t seem to hear. Then she says, ‘Yes. It’s haunting. Christina is haunting.’ She glances at me now, and she has the loveliest green and almond-shaped eyes. I notice that she studies me for a beat or two longer than usually happens with strangers.

  ‘So you know the piece?’ If you polled most people in England, they probably would have never heard of Andrew Wyeth, let alone Christina’s World.

  ‘Of course. Wyeth’s most famous work. Bought in 1948 by the Museum of Modern Art for $1,800. One of the greatest bargains in the history of American art.’ She gives me a coy, self-satisfied look that says, See, it’s not just you who knows her stuff. Her hair is a halo of platinum, a perfectly cut bob that frames her spectacularly pretty, heart-shaped face.

  ‘How very right you are.’ I look back at the painting. ‘Wyeth was fascinated by this house and the girl who lived in it. He had a summer home in the area – in Cushing, Maine – and he became very close to the family. You know Christina was paralysed? He used to watch her. Wyeth said that each window is an eye or a piece of the soul, and a different part of Christina’s life.’

  ‘It was Christina’s lifelong home. That’s why she’s looking up at it with such reverence and longing. She’s enraptured by her memories.’

  We stand there, together, not saying anything, just observing the enigmatic Christina. For some reason, the easiness between us makes me think of my mother, by contrast – how lacking in harmony we were when we were together, how stilted the conversations. It was always there between us. The distance. Her disappointments. Things she should say, but was never going to say. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe she’s been gone for four years, and other times it feels like she’s still here, loosely in my sphere, still as much a mystery to me as any of the women in these paintings.

  ‘I’m under the spell of her,’ this lady says. ‘Aren’t you?’ She’s a good five inches shorter than me, and cute in a way that makes me imagine her having been the lead singer in a 1960s all-girl group. Yet despite the apparent soft centre, there’s a certain fortitude and forbearance about her. The combination is slightly infatuating.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Actually, Christina is more real to me than anyone I’ve encountered in art. I just feel like I want to ask her about her life. I want to know what it is that she’s so nostalgic for, because there’s something. I can feel it.’

  It’s an oddly intimate confession between strangers. Most visitors to the gallery ask very predictable questions or make superficial observations; they never actually connect with you on a level beyond the obvious, so she is refreshing. ‘I forget who it was that said everyone you meet loves something, longs for something and has lost something. Maybe that’s why she’s so easy to relate to. Because we see ourselves in her.’

  Suddenly, Justin’s absence hits me with belting force. It’s like the way you hear bad news – that swoop to your senses, the felling that comes right before you’ve had a chance to disbelieve it. Good God. Panic rises from my feet and disperses to every cell of my being. I don’t want to see myself in Christina – alone and somewhat thrown down in the middle of nowhere, staring at memories of a past happiness I can’t find my way back to.

  This woman is observing me as though she has the gift of reading my thoughts. ‘Have you looked at all the other works? The Hoppers? Wyeth’s Helga?’ I ask, quickly glancing down the room so she won’t see the horror or despair or whatever the hell it is that must register on my face.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m only interested in Christina.’ She turns her eyes back to the painting. Somehow, with the calmness of her demeanour, and her quiet focus, my terror subsides. I gaze at the girl in the pale pink dress. ‘You know, someone who once wrote about Wyeth’s work said you notice the flint first. You have to get close to feel the fire.’

  She says nothing. But I know she feels the fire. We are strangers, but I know.

  ‘I often wonder if she was in love with Wyeth.’ I find myself dreaming again, slightly. ‘How they spent their days . . . I can imagine it would be quite easy to fall for someone who was so fascinated by you that they were prepared to
immortalise you in art history.’

  ‘Or, maybe, like many of us, she was in love with a time. A time when she was loved.’

  Her words – or perhaps it’s the way she looks at me, with a certain explicit tenderness and longing – give me a small aftershock.

  What about the time when I was loved?

  ‘I think I should probably leave you and Christina alone now, and get back to work,’ I tell her, almost unable to get the words out.

  ‘It has been lovely speaking with you,’ she says. ‘I do hope we repeat this. I intend to come back.’ Before I can say, You too, her gaze has already returned to Christina. I look at her for a moment, at the angelic line of her face in profile, but she doesn’t seem to register me any longer.

  As I walk away, I happen to notice she’s wearing the kind of excruciatingly pointed kitten heels that even I gave up on years ago.

  I can’t help but smile.

  FOUR

  The flat is eerily quiet. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how silence is a sound of its own. Walking in is surreal. Normally, just the very expectation of him coming home soon would lend a fullness to the air. I stand there stock still, barely in the kitchen, and for a moment his absence draws air from my body again.

  I can’t even tell myself he’s away, in London, on business; he’ll be back Friday. Because it doesn’t even feel like that scenario either. The numerals on the oven’s clock flash at me. The fridge suddenly ticks to life. And yet there is that same cavernous emptiness both inside and all around me.

  Absently, I pull off my jacket, and kick my shoes on to the small rug by the door. I walk into the bedroom, unzipping my skirt, letting it drop on the floor – things I would never do with tidy Justin around. His shirt-sleeve is still dangling out of the laundry bin like it was this morning. It seems to take up more space than a sleeve has a right to. If he was home, he would correct that; Justin can’t handle sloppiness. He would pair up my shoes in the cupboard, remove the hair from my brush in the bathroom. ‘How will you ever live with a slob?’ I once asked him. He said, ‘Oh, I’m quite enjoying learning every day.’ His dry-cleaning is still hanging in see-through bags behind the bedroom door: two of his best suits that he’ll need for work at some point. Doesn’t he want his things? If he is staying in a hotel – one I’ve overlooked – is he sending out his laundry? Washing his underwear in the sink? Justin would hate that. He needs order. He’ll want his things. If he’s managed to come from the airport and pick up his car, why has he left his clothes if he really is leaving me? So does this mean he isn’t really leaving me?

  My mobile rings. I realise I’m fixating on his stuff because it’s the only thing that’s bound to bring him back at some point. It’s not lost on me that his stuff might mean more to him than I do.

  It’s Sally. I stare at her name and freeze. That comment still stings. Dry, ambitionless John, who has done the same admin job at the Civic Centre since he left school. John, who only ever talks about house prices, and who rarely has an opinion on anything, but suddenly he has opinions about Justin. The thought of talking to Sally fills me with a terrible dread. I have never dreaded my friend before. It’s the strangest feeling to have.

  I listen as she leaves a message, her softly lilting North East accent filling the room. ‘Hiya, Alice. Look, just wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about our lunch today and, well, there’s some things I wish I’d said differently. I think I was just shocked, so things came out wrong. Of course, it’s not like I have any right to be, compared to you. I hope you’re not cross. I regret saying John never trusted him. It was tactless, or something.’

  I am riveted to her words. John never trusted . . . That isn’t quite what she said before.

  ‘Anyway, give me a ring whenever you want to talk. If you still want to talk to me, that is. I’m here for you. You know. Always. Okay? Let me know as soon as you get any news.’

  When she rings off, the hollowness returns. I go back into the kitchen to find something to do, to force away the small stampede of panic that starts up in me again. I stare into the fridge, but it’s still empty as I forgot to get any groceries on my way home from work. I haven’t even got any bloody milk. On the counter there’s a neatly stacked pile of takeaway menus, but the thought of going through them, having to make a decision – curry over Chinese, over pizza – is more than I can be bothered with. I walk back into the sitting room, typing as I go. I’m not cross. X. Because I’m not – not really. My text whooshes off into the ether.

  I perch on the arm of the sofa. I catch sight of our answering machine. The little red light is flashing. Very few people call us on our home line any more. I get up and press play. Justin’s mother’s voice fills the silence. ‘Hi!’ I hear her say. She sounds tentative. The line crackles, then goes dead. Brie usually rings Justin on his mobile if she only wants to talk to him.

  We have never been close. Not through my lack of trying. I was never close to my mother, so I quite liked the idea of having a good relationship with Justin’s. She has never shown much interest in me, though. Sally once said there are those mothers who welcome their son’s choices with open arms (in Sally’s case), and others who only have eyes for their boys. Justin’s relationship with his mother has frankly always been a bit mystifying to me. The midweek dinners, every Wednesday. Brie phoning her son whenever she has man problems, sometimes at 2 a.m. When the three of us were together and Brie was telling us a story, it was only Justin she would look at. Though I do feel sorry for her. She was only the age I am now when Justin’s dad died. Justin said he had a profound sense of wanting to protect her, even though he was just a little boy. He took it upon himself to try to fill the gap his dad had left. I remember him saying he could stand his own unhappiness but not his mother’s. It was all a little intimidating for a future daughter-in-law. I felt a little cowed by her, by their closeness. So no, I’d be no more inclined to ring her in a crisis than break my own kneecaps with a hammer. But if anyone will know what’s going on with Justin, it will be Brie.

  The second message is her, too. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I think my other phone died. Anyway, just ringing to see how the honeymoon was. You’ll be well and truly back to reality now. Hope your flight home wasn’t too tiring. You’ll be at work today. Anyway, hope you are both doing fine. Call me when you’re settled again.’

  She doesn’t know.

  My stomach turns, though I’m not sure it’s from hunger. I go and lie on the bed, and try to will the feeling of a meltdown away. I must nod off, because suddenly I am jumping at the ping of my email. It’s dark when I open my eyes, and the lights from the Tyne river twinkle through our huge, uncovered windows. I peer at the clock. Three a.m.

  Justin is a shitty sleeper. I can imagine him emailing in the middle of the night when he’s at his lowest ebb. It’s going to be him, and he’s going to say, Look, I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me! Can I come home? Can we pretend this never happened?

  But it isn’t Justin. It’s an old pal from Uni who works in Athens. Her idea of keeping in touch is copying me in on unfunny jokes, chain invitations to recipe swaps and YouTube videos of spaniels who polish glass doors and empty the rubbish.

  I am fully awake now, though. Before I can talk myself out of doing it, I find the last text message he sent me and begin typing.

  Talk to me. This is not fair. There’s nothing you can tell me that’s going to hurt me more than I already am.

  But I’m not so sure it’s true.

  I stare out of the window, aware of the long darkness, and the slightly jagged rise and fall of my breathing. A moment or two later, Justin is typing a reply.

  FIVE

  Evelyn

  December 18, 1983

  The newspapers were full of the story. Six people dead. Seventy-five injured. Mark was seated at the opposite end of the polished walnut dining table, with only his large hands visible around the expanse of the Sunday Times.

  ‘The bloody IRA rang the Samari
tans thirty-seven minutes before the blast! They warned them they were going to do it! So no one seems to know what took the police so long! Murderers! Daring to bomb Harrods on a Saturday right before Christmas! When will this reign of terror end?’

  He hadn’t really noticed her this morning. Hadn’t noticed the change in her. Hadn’t looked twice and detected anything that might hint at the turmoil inside her, the unstoppable thrashing of contradictory impulses in her head. Mark never noticed. That was why it was so easy to hide things from him.

  I’m sorry, I don’t know how to tell you this. I have had a change of . . .

  Plan? Heart? Mind?

  ‘I thought we might go out to dinner tonight.’ He was looking at her from around his newspaper, as though fondly enticing her back from another land.

  She still hadn’t touched any of her breakfast. She heard his voice distantly. She was aware of an out-of-body sensation. Whoever was sitting there in the Queen Anne chair was just a shell, and she, the contents of the shell, was across the room, off-camera – an onlooker seeing herself as a stranger would see her: an attractive, properly composed wife eating breakfast in a room with a high ceiling, where the air was scented with fresh coffee and kippers.

  ‘What do you think?’

  But Evelyn wasn’t following the question. Evelyn was gone. She was back home on a tidal island battered by north-easterly winds. A young girl. A loner who could waste entire mornings stamping over grassy dunes that banked a gunmetal-grey sea, humming popular melodies, dreaming of a fanciful stranger who would take up residence at Lindisfarne Castle; who would peer out of his window and see her playing aeroplanes across the pastureland, arms outstretched, the thin sleeves of her dress flapping like birds’ wings. A stranger who would think to himself, Now there is this castle’s next queen.

  ‘Evelyn? Are you even listening to me?’ The affectionate despair.