Our House(25)

On my way out, I saw a familiar figure through the glass wall that divided the reception area from one of the fitness studios: Merle. A yoga class was beginning and she’d arrived a little late, scanning the room for a space to unroll her mat. I thought of her as the most self-confident woman I knew and yet she looked in that moment so . . . so defenceless.

Not so long ago, we’d enjoyed mocking the yoga bunnies and fitness freaks of Alder Rise. Didn’t they have anything better to do? we’d said; had Emmeline Pankhurst given two hoots about muscle tone?

Now look at us. Not so immune to the virus of middle-aged insecurity as we’d thought.

Yes, that was probably my big epiphany of that whole period: we’re getting old – whether we like it or not!

Seriously, talk about navel-gazing.


Bram, Word document

When Fi arrived home on Sunday at noon to relieve me of the boys, I barely said two words before heading straight to the station to catch a train to Croydon. I found a scruffy, half-forgotten internet café on a shopping parade and quickly learned the additional details released that morning regarding the condition of the two people in the Fiat.

It was far worse than I’d hoped: both had sustained head, chest and pelvic injuries and it was believed that one of them had also suffered a cardiac arrest. Neither was reported to have yet regained consciousness.

Their names had not been published, for which I was grateful. Nameless, faceless, they were somehow less human to me, not so much flesh-and-blood victims as symbols of a more generalized injustice. As for the perpetrator, nothing new had come to light and he – he was referenced without exception in the male singular – had ‘not yet been apprehended’.

I looked up the address of the hospital – not far from West Croydon station – and headed there without clearly knowing why (to send healing vibes through the walls? To whisper anonymous apologies?). But approaching the main entrance, I spotted the CCTV cameras by the doors and turned on my heel.

Instead, I took the northbound hopper bus that served Silver Road, grimly pleased to get a window seat on the right side for viewing the accident site. Both the Fiat and the Peugeot had been removed, but the drive was still cordoned off by the police. The gate post had been obliterated, shrubbery flattened and two of the windows in the front bay boarded up, presumably shattered in the impact. A police board stood nearby – WITNESS APPEAL. A SERIOUS COLLISION OCCURRED HERE FRI 16/09 6 P.M.–6.15 P.M. – with a phone number to call with information.

It was 6.05, I thought. I’d noticed the time on my dashboard clock as I fled the scene.

Near the shrubbery lay a collection of bouquets, most still in their supermarket wrappings. You could see that each separate bunch had been placed in its spot with care.





15


Friday, 13 January 2017

London, 1.45 p.m.

Two days off, Bram’s boss Neil is saying. It wasn’t ideal, so soon into the New Year, but to be honest he hasn’t been himself since . . . well, since his marital troubles began. But anyway, they haven’t seen him since mid-afternoon on Wednesday and don’t expect him back until Monday.

‘I thought he was helping his mum put some stuff in storage?’ he says from his mobile, voice loud and bright. She can hear the Friday lunchtime laughter of a restaurant or bar in the background.

‘No, he’s definitely not with her,’ Fi says. She doesn’t tell him about the decorating ruse Bram used on Tina. The idea of storage can’t be a coincidence, though: if not Tina’s things, then surely theirs?

‘Hang about,’ Neil says, and exhales in a low whistle. ‘He hasn’t gone and checked himself into rehab, has he?’

‘Of course not!’ Even through the fog of shock, she’s taken aback by this suggestion.

‘Good, because that would be a hell of a lot longer than a couple of days. He’ll turn up, Fi. You of all people know what he’s like.’

But what if she doesn’t, she thinks, hanging up. What if she doesn’t know what he’s like? Not anymore.

‘They haven’t seen him either,’ she tells Lucy Vaughan, who is back at her kettle in a renewed attempt to civilize Fi with tea. Fi can tell from the subtle alteration to her manner since the business with the school that she thinks she might be dealing with someone of unsound mind. Not amnesiac, but psychotic. She is humouring Fi, managing her as best she can until backup arrives in the form of her husband, en route with the second van. She’s no doubt regretting telling the removals guys they can grab a coffee on the Parade while they wait.

In fact, Fi is managing herself better now. She must be because she’s started noticing details, like the fact that Lucy has a chrome kettle where hers is black, white mugs where hers are sage green, an oak-topped table instead of the industrial-style steel one Alison helped Fi choose. All items that have, like the rest of her Trinity Avenue reality, evaporated.

‘When was the last time you actually saw Bram?’ Lucy asks, pouring steaming water into the mugs and dropping the squeezed teabags into a Sainsbury’s carrier, her makeshift moving-day bin.

‘Sunday,’ Fi says. ‘But I spoke to him yesterday and Wednesday.’

The gulf between the innocent arrangements of the last few days and the nameless mysteries of today already feels unbreachable. Bram was leaving work after lunch on Wednesday to pick up the boys from school and allow Fi her early start to her two-night break, which was also supposed to involve a leisurely return this evening and an overnighter in the flat. She wasn’t due to relieve Bram of the boys until Saturday morning, a departure from their usual bird’s nest routine, but normal service was to be resumed the following week. Had she not needed to dash back for her laptop, or had she left it in the flat and not here, she wouldn’t have known the boys were at their grandmother’s; she wouldn’t have known the Vaughans were in her house. Not yet. She’d be in a state of grace.