After You Left Read online

  Looking at it now, I realise exactly when it must have been taken. We had just been standing for photos alongside the upturned former fishing boats, once part of one of the largest herring fleets to sail off the east coast of England.

  ‘You were right, it’s so beautiful here,’ he had said. His voice had a woeful quality to it. His hand was both light and firm in the small of my back; I can almost still feel it. We were officially husband and wife. I had always wanted to be married. Friends were happy to live together. To me, that felt like keeping a door open – one of you clearly must be reluctant to make the ultimate commitment. I’d longed to meet a man who wanted that door firmly closed. That, to me, was the very definition of romance. Perhaps it was because I had never agreed with my mother not wanting to marry my stepfather, despite him asking regularly, despite his profound disappointment every time she said no. Because my real father had been a lying, philandering bastard, she vowed she would never tie herself to another man again. I’d thought that was so petulant and selfish – if he was good enough to live with for a lifetime, he was good enough to marry.

  ‘Maybe we’ll buy a place here,’ Justin had said. There was a quality to his voice that I couldn’t quite pinpoint: wistfulness? Or was it sadness? Why would he be sad? ‘Once I pay off some of my debts, we can get a weekend place. Somewhere our children will enjoy – when we have them.’ He smiled at that. ‘Maybe we’ll get a boat, even.’ The photographer asked him to try not to talk. I chuckled. Justin always had to be planning, thinking ahead, putting every moment to good use.

  Out of the blue, it started to rain. I remember us running back inside. The clutch of his hand round mine. ‘I’m happy,’ I remember telling him. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘More than you might ever know.’ He stopped briefly, and looked at me solemnly for a moment. I thought he was just intensely moved. I remember Sally running up behind us, off the beach. ‘My God, this is quicksand!’ She laughed. Previously, she’d been a little peeved with me. I hadn’t used her to plan our wedding. I had wanted to keep it casual and without fuss. But all was well between us now.

  She’d thought we’d been wrong to marry in spring. ‘You don’t want rain on your wedding day!’ she’d said. ‘You know what that means!’ I hadn’t. ‘Post-wedding tears that will be cried,’ she went on to tell me. Sally had a superstition for everything. I didn’t believe it, but, nonetheless, I’d experienced a sudden vision of myself crying in my wedding dress, and I’d had to push it away and vow not to listen to any more negative stuff, because clearly I wasn’t immune to it.

  But look – it had rained – and Sally had been wrong. And all I remember is that the air was spiked with the scent of the sea, and the rain clung to my face and hair, and I was the happiest I had ever known I could be.

  Inside, the staff brought around champagne and Lindisfarne mead, and tiny crab sandwiches, an island speciality. I mingled with the forty or so guests, as a man strummed ‘Greensleeves’ on a Spanish guitar. ‘Where’s Justin?’ I whispered to Sally.

  Her pretty green eyes glistened with tipsiness. ‘I think he took a phone call. I saw him walking toward the library.’

  I slipped away, and followed the small corridor that led to the room with the tall windows, with its comfy seats and bookshelves, but when I went in there, the only sign of life was a fly that kept hitting the window in its frenzied attempt to get out. When I returned to the main room, Sally was holding two champagne flutes. ‘Here. Best you get your fair share, as you’re paying for it.’ We had joked earlier about how some of Justin’s friends were knocking it back. She passed me a glass. ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘No.’ We chatted, but I was on a mission. Where could he have gone for all this time?

  Well, this is where he’d gone.

  In this one last photograph, Justin is standing outside with Rick, his friend from his Oxford days, who had come up from Gloucester with his wife, Dawn. They’re on the small stone balcony that overlooks the sea. It’s raining heavily, but clearly they are not minding that. Rick’s eyes are fixed on Justin, and his face is serious. I can only see the back of Justin’s head, but I can’t take my eyes from it. What were they talking about? I can almost feel secrets in the air, as though I am right there, back in the moment, watching them from the very vantage point where Aimee must have been standing.

  I remember them coming back in, drenched, and Rick saying something about them having gone for a walk.

  But, clearly, they hadn’t gone for any walk. They had been immersed in conversation on a balcony. And whatever they had been talking about was private enough for Rick to feel he couldn’t quite be honest about it.

  SEVEN

  My assistant, Victoria, pops her head around my door. ‘You’ve got visitors from Sunrise Care Home.’

  It takes me a moment, then, ‘Oh! Right!’ The old folk. The phone call with the woman, right before our wedding. Some neurologists believe that looking at visual art can awaken the memories of those suffering from dementia. The woman’s polite, well-pitched voice. The pent-up, tremoring quality in it, like an interviewee who was trying not to show how desperate they were to land the job.

  We thought we might be able to help our elderly friends who wander lost in their minds. We hoped Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper might be able to help them find a way back.

  It had sounded almost rehearsed. Yet it touched me. Her intensity had.

  I step into the foyer and come face to face with the elderly lady who was in the gallery the other day. She is with a man probably around my age. He’s stocky and not particularly tall, with a pelt of unruly hair and kind brown eyes.

  The woman is already extending a hand. ‘I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself on Monday. I’m Evelyn Westland, and this is Michael Morretti—’

  ‘Evelyn’s chauffeur,’ he says. He rumples his hair, languidly, like he’s just woken up from a long nap, then offers me his hand.

  Evelyn tut-tuts. ‘He’s not my chauffeur! Michael is a nurse at Sunrise Villas. But he did drive us all here today, so I suppose he has a point.’ She sends him a teasing, almost flirtatious little smile.

  A nurse? I wouldn’t have thought. He looks more like a tough guy not given to complex self-expression: a B-list actor in a mob movie, perhaps.

  ‘We’ve got them in a van outside.’ He flicks his head toward the door. He’s standing, somewhat rigidly, with his hands crossed in front of his crotch. ‘We wanted to check with you before we brought them in. To make sure you’re ready for us. If you can ever be ready for us.’

  I can’t help but smile. I remember telling the woman to bring them on a Wednesday afternoon – the day when the gallery is least busy. ‘How many of them are there?’ I ask. I forget what she’s told me before.

  ‘Only three,’ Evelyn says. ‘Ronnie, Martin and Eddy.’

  She is impeccably dressed in wide-legged cream trousers, and a cream, three-quarter-sleeved cashmere jumper. ‘Go on!’ she gives Michael a not-so-subtle nudge.

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’ he salutes her, then glances at me and there’s a twinkle in his eye. ‘I bet you can guess who wears the trousers in this relationship,’ he says. Then, ‘I better go get them before they break out and ransack Eldon Square.’

  In the room that houses the paintings, Ronnie and Martin appear agitated, even a touch afraid, giving me doubts that this initiative is going to be a success. Somehow, though, Michael manages to coax them into sitting on the bench in front of Hopper’s Morning Sun, and they settle down a little, thankfully.

  The tall, slim and no doubt once handsome man – Eddy – is different. He doesn’t appear to be bothered by being here at all. In fact, he seems lost in a world of his own. Evelyn catches me looking at him.

  ‘You know, Saul Bellow said that everybody needs their memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.’

  ‘That’s beautiful!’ I say. ‘Or tragic. I’m not sure which.’

  ‘It’s both.’ Because she isn’t very tall, she has to look
up at me when she speaks. With her appealing intensity and sweet little face, it’s like being won over by a tiny pocket angel. ‘When you think about it, all we really have is our ability to place ourselves in the context of meaningful things – the family we were born into, the people we have loved. Those things are our emotional compass. If we don’t have that, we have nothing.’ She stares at the backs of the three men sitting on the bench, lined up like soldiers waiting for a train to war.

  Suddenly, I am filled with thoughts of Justin. Of life without him. Of the end of my life without him.

  ‘What do you think of when you look at this painting of a woman sitting on a bed in the sunshine, Ronnie?’ Michael says. He has a nice voice. It’s calm, and somehow brings me back to the present.

  ‘I think of a woman on a bed in the sunshine,’ Ronnie parrots him.

  ‘Would you say she looks happy?’ Michael ruffles his hair again – clearly a habit. I imagine it’d be either endearing or slightly irritating if you got to know him. ‘How do you think she feels, sitting alone in this empty room?’

  ‘Have you tried guessing how a woman feels? If you have, good luck.’

  Michael chuckles, and glances at me. We smile. ‘Ronnie, I do believe you’ve got a point there,’ he says.

  Suddenly, Ronnie is looking at me, too. He’s eggshell bald, with rounded, almost black eyes that are soulful and make me think of a seal. ‘What about the naked one?’ he asks me.

  For a second or two, I’m puzzled. ‘Ah!’ He means the girl on the stool by the window, turning her face toward the shade. ‘That’s Andrew Wyeth’s Helga. Someone he painted for fourteen years without his wife or the model’s husband knowing. It caused quite a scandal in the art world when so many sketches and drawings of her eventually came to light.’

  ‘He’s not emotionally attached to her.’ Martin suddenly joins in. ‘If he was, he wouldn’t let everyone see her with no clothes.’ For an elderly man, his voice has a remarkable ability to project itself.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Evelyn shoots me a look that says, What kind of old curmudgeon is he? ‘She likes him seeing her naked. It empowers her.’

  Michael and I smile again.

  ‘They seem very sensible,’ I whisper to him as Evelyn trots off to the other end of the gallery. ‘Is this what normally happens? I suppose when she told me they had Alzheimer’s, I wasn’t sure what to expect.’

  ‘Well, there really isn’t any normal.’ His kind brown eyes meet mine. ‘We do a lot of creative therapy at Sunrise, in particular music and art therapy. Sometimes we paint, or we show them the work of famous artists. Paintings can help them remember things – usually things stored in their long-term memory. They’ll tell us stories, presumably about past events in their lives. They tend to remember a point rather than a period of time. They can be quite chatty and find words that they normally can’t access. It’s fascinating to hear what it can draw out of them.’ A look of pride comes over his face, which seems so sweet. ‘Their families, loved ones, they often can’t believe the transformation . . .’

  Listening to him talking, it suddenly dawns on me what’s so puzzling about him. He has a tender, compassionate side that doesn’t fit with his tough-guy exterior. In fact, he’s a bit of an intriguing contradiction altogether.

  ‘Alzheimer’s has phases. Language is very often one of the first things to go, but creativity is lost much later. So the therapies allow them to express feelings they can’t express any other way. They get to bypass their limitations and go to their strengths. It’s amazing how well they can respond to the scale, colour and vibrancy of a painting. They process it in a way that’s real and in the moment.’

  He looks at me the whole time while he talks. It’s a long, languishing gaze that’s calming to me, rather like his voice. He clearly loves his job. ‘I’ve got lots of fascinating articles on it. I’ll email you them, if you’d like.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, though, actually, I’m not at all sure I’m going to have huge use for them. ‘What about this man?’ I point to the handsome one, who is wearing a shirt the colour of ripe tomatoes. He has a fine head of silver-grey hair and a rosy-toned complexion. I think he might be a little younger than the other two.

  ‘Eddy.’ Michael smiles. ‘Eddy’s a grand fellow. We think his dementia was caused by something that happened to his head a long time ago. It’s actually a very sad story . . .’

  ‘I don’t think I can hear a sad story right now,’ I tell him. He gives me a curious look, and I realise I may have pre-empted him; that’s probably all he’d been going to say. Anyway, it would feel disrespectful talking about them as though they’re not there. I watch Eddy, though. He sits in a world of his own, where he seems happy to be left. There’s something masculine and capable about him, an echo of the man he must have been, which makes me want to know about him. He has a marvellously straight back and big, broad shoulders. He almost looks familiar, like an actor in those black-and-white films my mother used to watch. The ones in which the heroes and heroines got to perform those climactic, closed-mouth kisses at the end, to the swell of hammy music; I was addicted to them. ‘I bet he was quite gorgeous in his day.’

  ‘Evelyn seems to think he still is.’

  The way Michael looks at her could only be described as slightly in awe and doting. ‘Who is she to these men?’

  ‘Oh, Evelyn is Eddy’s shadow. She never leaves his side. She sits with him in the sun room, reads to him and walks with him in the gardens – he likes to ride the drive-on mower with the gardener. I think Eddy and Evelyn have some history; I’m not sure what. But you can see it in the way you will catch her looking at him. One thing’s for certain, she won’t give up on him. She’s fixed on him having some sort of breakthrough.’

  ‘Breakthrough?’

  ‘She wants him to remember. Something. Her? Himself? Something between them that happened? I don’t know what. She’s a bit of a dark horse.’ He looks back at me. ‘Because it happens from time to time, you know. The tiny miracles. The kernels of hope.’

  He isn’t much taller than me. Perhaps five-feet-nine. He has a broad upper body – one of those body types that’s either muscular or out of shape; in the unflattering sweater he’s wearing, you can’t tell. I wonder what he gets out of all this.

  ‘So they were never married?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he says.

  ‘I can see how they’d make a good couple. His ruggedness and her femininity.’

  ‘He reminds me of a cowboy. Clint Eastwood meets Burt Reynolds.’ He brings his warm, heavy-lidded eyes back to mine. ‘Evelyn used to live on Holy Island, but she moved closer to Sunrise so she can be near him.’

  When he says Holy Island, all I can hear is the distant whisper of my wedding day, ready to pull me back if I let it.

  ‘She bought a swank apartment,’ he goes on. ‘Well, swank by my standards, anyway. She doesn’t drive any more, so this way she can walk every day to see him. She’s a fixture in there, and she’s always bright and cheerful. I find her fascinating. I think beautiful Evelyn once knew a much grander life.’

  ‘Beautiful Evelyn!’ I beam a smile. ‘You sound a little in love with her.’

  He chuckles. ‘Everyone’s a little in love with Evelyn. You should have seen pictures of her when she was young.’

  I glance at the pair of them again – Evelyn, standing in front of Christina, and Eddy sitting on the bench. There is something about his face – the even, balanced features, the noble shape of his head and his fine, long neck – something that keeps me wanting to look at him, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s what Michael just said. Good-looking older folk make you want to follow the moving image of them, starting far back in time . . . ‘Do you think they were lovers?’ I ask.

  ‘Possibly. But, in a way, I think it might go deeper than that.’

  ‘Does he have any other family?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. Nor does she, I believe.’

  All I can think is she so
ld her house to move near to Sunrise. She’s here, in the gallery, because she wants him to remember something. Whatever it is, it must matter dearly to her. And, once again, I’m pulled back to Justin being gone. Who will be around to care if the end of my life has quality? It’s safe to say it probably won’t be him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I hear Michael’s voice. He is studying me. ‘You seem . . .’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Come!’ Evelyn waves us over.

  Suddenly, we are staring at the painting of a girl in a pale pink dress, almost crawling toward a house in the distance, in the middle of nowhere. ‘So who was Christina?’ Michael asks with sedate curiosity.

  ‘The girl in the painting, dumbo,’ Ronnie growls. ‘Isn’t it obvious? The painting is about the girl.’

  ‘I think it’s really a painting about a house,’ Martin says. ‘It reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. The house looks like it just landed in the picture, after the tornado, with Dorothy, in her dream.’

  ‘That’s a great image, Martin.’ Michael pats his shoulder.

  ‘Christina was paralysed,’ I tell them. ‘She had a problem with muscle deterioration. You can see how frail her arms are.’ I draw with a finger around Christina’s elbow joint. ‘She was a lonely figure, whom others might have felt sorry for, but he obviously saw something heroic in her.’

  ‘She was paralysed?’ Martin looks bemused. ‘Well, in that case, if she was ready to crawl all that way up to the house, she must have really wanted to go back there.’

  ‘I love how they put such a positive spin on things,’ Michael whispers to me.

  ‘Christina lived there all her life,’ I add. ‘Her nostalgia for her home practically seeps out of the canvas. It’s like a kind of scenery all of its own.’

  ‘I love that!’ Evelyn looks at me suddenly. She is examining me as though I’ve said something massively enlightening. ‘A kind of scenery . . .’ She smiles. ‘Well, one thing is true of life. You never forget your home and where you came from. I can attest to that.’ She lowers her eyes and seems sad for a moment.