Desire Line, page 4
‘—?’
‘Obviously not, it’s to her parents.’
‘ —?’
‘I think it’s very good but then I would, wouldn’t I?’
The woman’s brows pinch up. My appearance makes connection with our topic hard to believe. I find it hard to believe. She’s about to be spun a line, she thinks— and anyway the dialogue never happened. One thing Tomiko insists on is a Japanese never asks a stranger for information concerning self, family, education, place of origin, occupation and current level of prosperity. And never gives it. So I stayed silent— but I’ve butted in again. Trying to be dutiful— or maybe highly-motivated— leads you into it.
Actually this is three people’s story. But what do you do if number three doesn’t want to be heard?
OK. We need to start a long way from here. ‘Sara married a man called Josh and they had a daughter—’
Named Eurwen, a Welsh name, a difficult name but to look at her, you’d never guess she’s going to cause the trouble we’re all in. Every morning, from an anonymous saloon car, a tall rangy Mr Meredith delivered the child to the school door. Bradwardine’s severe frontage disdains to broadcast it caters for Oxford’s chosen next generation. But even here Mr Meredith was a presence as he moved through the mothers and childminders, his dark suit a male put-down of multi-coloured anarchy. While other children were chivvied or coddled he ran a hand over his daughter’s chestnut curls letting her turn beneath, offering one sentence per day to exchange with the gatekeeper. Probably a bit wet for rounders? We’reenjoying The Hobbit!When he walked away eyes other than the girl’s followed him. The car might turn left in the direction of Carfax and the city centre but most often right, circling to Thames Valley Police Headquarters in Kidlington. Or at least it spent precious minutes trying to make for the seized carriageways that served Oxford as walls… and more than one mother speculated aloud that he must be so-o tempted to blast a way out with the siren.
Mr Meredith: the only rank he ever admitted to was parent. At three-fifteen a red-haired, thirtyish Mrs Meredith was waiting and she had a Christian name. ‘Sara Meredith—she wrote that book!’ ‘She’sthe clever one— a Bradwardine girl herself!’ ‘Daughter of Geoffrey Severing – he was on Newsnight again over globalisation – or it might have been something else.’
This Sara chatted with the staff and joked, sometimes at her small replica’s expense. Oftener the wit was directed at the well-groomed mothers. In faded denim her slight figure was easily shouldered aside by Human Resources mothers on flexi-time or Entrepreneur mothers with government-advisor haircuts. ‘How do they do it? I can hardly manage to shop for food, never mind shoes. What amazing shoes!’ Her intent was to provide an ear for pedagogic complaints, though trying too hard she sometimes admonished herself; the aspiration was for goodwill to be heaped on her child’s head. Not that the child was ever in need of it, Eurwen, the daughter with the Welsh name, a difficult name, one that had come to school the first day written on a scrap of paper. (‘Eurwen’ – pronounced Ire as in Ireland and wen as in when!) Fragile, beautiful, green-eyed and blessed with a watchful father and amiable mother, sweeping the years ahead clear of slips, trips and falls. What could go wrong?
Afterwards, inevitably, Eurwen’s heart-shaped face faded from school memory. But when refreshed on screen and under headlines, staff relived one special Christmas amongst themselves: the girl dressed as a fierce, miniature shepherd, hoisted laughing onto her father’s broad shoulders while the woman she would become gazed up at her, a Quattrocento Madonna… and Eurwen wouldn’t play Mary… no way. Really wanted to play a sheep, d’you remember? Now it was principal Renate Desmond’s turn to send a note. ‘All of us here at Bradwardine are thinking of you in this terrible time… and of Eurwen, of course. I can only imagine what you are going through. Staff and children alike… feel sure… are certain… think of the many happy incidents from Eurwen’s years with us. Only yesterday we were talking of…’
Another memory: a flu outbreak had forced Mrs Desmond herself to take a lesson. Twenty heads bent over, ripe berries of tongue bulged from the sides of mouths. ‘So,’ she repeated, ‘we’ve done the vowels. What I want you to do is write down all the words you know that don’t have anyvowels in.’
Circling behind Eurwen after a minute or so there in a neat, clear hand was the list: my, by, cry, fly, try, dryand beneath it the completely unexpected finale: Rhyl.
‘Well done, Eurwen.’ It let her favour the girl without guilt. ‘You’re the only one who’s got it. But why Rhyl?’ She didn’t bother with the suggestion of a holiday, not there. ‘A visit?’
Eurwen shook her flames of hair with characteristic energy. ‘It was where my Daddy was born in!’
And seven years later the place from where Josh Meredith shouted down the phone, ‘Sara,enough! Just go to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning,’ before the line went dead.
Chapter 4
When her ex-husband rang off it seemed easier to slide down the kitchen wall and sit, legs inelegantly splayed, the handset nursed against her midriff. There was a sort of comfort in letting it dig into the knot of muscles… soon her wrist, never trustworthy since a fall on the Merton Street cobbles last winter, would start to quiver. But before this could happen her lids closed of their own volition and the room swam: at the back of her tongue was the taste of quinine. ‘My name is Sara,’ she startled herself by saying aloud, ‘and I’m—’
Drunk. She put the phone to her ear again in case, somehow, Josh would be there to take back what he had just said. Dolt! At least it exposed her muddled state to scrutiny. Get up! She smoothed the trouser cotton to her hips and tried looking about. Obviously she had come in here with some intention that shock had dispatched; the kettle was cool to touch and apart from the white lozenge of missing plaster in the wall above it (old? new?) nothing suggested the untoward. A tad untidier perhaps… she traipsed into the hall and peered through the open study door. But not that way the still-functional part of her pleaded, recent damage enough in there. Only when she stumbled back upstairs to the sitting room did the empty vodka bottle offer an explanation: she had been down there looking for its twin. And it was late, or felt it, and she had to drive over two hundred miles now, rightnow…
…Waking crook-backed to find light beyond the shutters, Josh’s news was debatable for only a moment. Then it was awful, cruel, hideous… horrendous. No, she lacked the word for its degree of badness. She shook herself like a wet dog and agony through her temples provoked Oh, sweet, suffering Lord! as a string of yelps. Anyone watching (there was no one) would have seen her freeze up. Then blink and swallow. Time for a stock-take: head as expected and throat and lungs raw and dry as if she still smoked. But she had survived harsher bodily reproofs. Stomach… best not dwell on that. Just swallow again. The low-grade itchiness, a recent occurrence, was now more or less endemic inside yesterday’s clothes. Eyesight was apparently functional. Tremors registered as medium to severe across her torso and into her limbs but she could stretch them, could stand up now, could scrape thoughts together… all of which she needed to do and do quickly since Eurwen, her fifteen-year-old daughter, had disappeared.
Some short time later she found she was outside, steadied against a car bonnet, oblivious to its grime soiling her blazer, the hastily stuffed tote bag clutched to her chest like a buoyancy aid. Now she stared dubiously at the silver VW that had sat in its allotted resident’s parking space, unmoving for… she couldn’t state how many months. ‘Only two things to concern you, drive and reverse,’ she heard her professor-father instructing. ‘You will never want a manual shift again, believe me. Not that you’ll use it… often.’ This was his pact with the devil: giving her a new, safer car when he knew he should be taking away the keys to the battered old car and informing the authorities. Not use it often… a massive Pickfords pantechnicon rumbled into sight, already coming away from the city with its load and for a blessed moment the exit from Tackley Close was sealed, safe, bright-morninged, tranquil Tackley Close. She breathed its cool air heavy with Thames moisture, nutty garden scents and a mere hint of diesel. This Oxford enclave was not an early riser. A last look at her house, the adjoining half of which, the Peppers’ half, was still swaddled in curtains, and she slipped into the driver’s seat. To her astonishment, after its enforced hibernation the VW engine caught immediately and proved willing to edge out into the carriageway when asked. Taking a left at the corner, she was into Polstead Road almost without volition.
Mercifully it was devoid of other vehicles. Look, Eurwen! Lawrence of Arabia lived here… and in that house J.R.R. Tolkien got bored with marking exam scripts and began, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a…’ Oxford had been her only home and she could always recite the roll call of its luminaries for comfort. Instead she tried a mantra of routes: make for the Woodstock first, leave via the WolvercoteRoundabout where the exit for Kidlington had once been Josh’s. Keep going north and then west.After that she would need to… just drive, she ordered herself. Another voice said don’t but she ignored it.
No arguments. My starting point’s here, the first time Yori set eyes on Sara, a sunny afternoon, the last week in September.
In Rhyl. A strip of Welsh maritime wilderness began developing as a seaside resort in the eighteenth century and for the next hundred years or more it went pretty well so that the sound promised pleasure to the few and only later to the masses. But to Sara it’s more like a curse. Because this is 2008 and we’re a national joke. Rhyl – UK’s First Shanty Town, a serious newspaper christened it. Rhyl – Twinned With Soweto! its graffiti read. Yet it’s where she’s fetched up and I recognise her instantly from photographs, film clips, the book jacket, etc— and for now all I want to do is watch hoping against hope she’ll think it’s notthat bad. Beach-stuff to start, our major asset, five getting on six miles of it. I bet even she concedes a finestretch. Screw up your eyes and you could think Bodega Bay where Tippi Hedren in The Birds asks us something along the lines of Have you ever seen so many gulls? But that’s California. We’ll need The Seaquarium for the only glimpse of blue, clean water. Ours is one of those where the exhibits swim over and round the paying customers and the flick of the sharks keeps catching the eye. This being Rhyl though across the road on the main promenade – a choice location virtually anywhere else – there’s the remains of a pushed-over, burnt-out building. Wooden props span the gap so the survivors either side can lean on each other’s shoulders. Beneath them a couple are settled on plastic sheeting. He’s terrible to look at with protruding eyes and a toad’s skin. She is fortyish, near Sara Meredith’s age, and has the face of Brigitte Bardot. But Bardot at seventy, lined and weary. The woman slides off her rubble heap and into the trippers along the front— and steps straight into the road as if the traffic will miraculously part. A silver hatchback with the sunroof open has to brake hard to avoid her and its driver’s shocked expression can just be made out before the car accelerates away.
Two accidents and then nearly a third: heart hammering, Sara checked in the rear-view that the pedestrian had made it all the way across. Only then was she able to exhale and try to concentrate ahead…
Jittering neon and crude artwork combine, a linear carnival that almost overwhelms her thready vigilance. But away from the promenade’s bold signage, she was offered hints of normal urbanity. Another turn and here were businesses selling soap and painkillers and food that had not been pre-fried. On real streets carrier bags replaced buckets and spades. Up one, down another… to the beach again not meaning to, heat building in the car. Finally she chose her mark and pulled in. That girl pushing a buggy looked a safe source for directions.
That boy mumbled Av’nside was across the river, the prospect she had turned the car from already once.
Over the bridge, then, this time to find yet more pubs squaring up to each other, caravans almost to their walls… and this was where Eurwen had chosen, her father’s home. Above, the sky was an immense and hurtful radience. Cowering and peering side to side, she was allowed one glimpse of a promontory sprinkled with birds before a messy boatyard obscured it. Avonside, her destination, was that line of pinkish, meanly-proportioned houses facing across a muddy inlet to open sea, and impossible to reconcile with Eurwen’s description: ‘Mum, it’s gorgeous. There’s the river and the harbour. On a clear day Dad says you see somewhere called The Fylde, that’s a sort-of jutting out bit over in Lancashire. A naff name, isn’t it? Who’d want to live onThe Fy-ylde? But Dad says—’
She recognised his back before it was necessary to begin picking out numbers, Josh, caught off guard for once in his life, surprised in the act of opening his own front door. It had been how long? Her mind rebelled at the calculation as his tall figure swivelled loosely from the hips, youthfully. But the tanned forearm in torsion seemed older, veinier and strung with copper wires. The opportunity to see him as a new person came and went in a flash, then the familiar profile tilted at her and she almost moaned aloud. His deep, widely spaced eyes under thick brows slid off their current task. Suddenly the full face happened: symmetrical, handsome and affecting as ever. Grey lightened his hair, yet nothing could lift Josh’s basic look, that of a man who would hang your pet spaniel in the orchard. His jaw jutted alarmingly… so much so she felt moisture spread through her scalp. Strength of maternal fear, her alibi, was going to be inadequate but… but Eurwen could be back. This very hour. Innards clenching, ‘Josh!’ she called as he spun on his heel, some sixth-sense alerting watched to watcher… and she knew by his expression. She got out only because he would be at her wound down window next.
‘Oh. Right. Brilliant!’ Her fumbling attempts with the key fob brought on, ‘Just press the bloody thing, will you? It does it itself.’
‘Yes. I’m… very tired.’ At least she had parked with the unmutilated wing toward him.
They glared at each other across the car’s snub nose. When she made no attempt to come closer he (too obviously) forced himself to moderate his tone, patting the air. ‘Ok. Leave the roof. I’ll come back and do it.’ Then his fingers transformed into an Inside! gesture. The house had a nominal fence and no gate. She was ushered over flags skirting a green mat of lawn that was more sand than turf anyway.
‘You haven’t found her?’
‘There’s been nothing.’ His expression hardened again. ‘I mean, d’you think I wouldn’t have called you straight away?’
‘Nothing,’ she repeated. ‘I… if I’m honest, well, straight away? I don’t know.’
He pulled her in after him and slammed the door. Tears were coming and she sanctioned them because at least their cause was irrefutable. But that moment of confusion on seeing Josh sprang from deep feeling stored elsewhere. Her secret censor hinted true maternal terror should be different, cleaner cut: if she were tenderised and plagued with nerves it was now partly for herself. What would happen next? Early in the relationship she had come to terms with the fact that her husband could be all that men are not meant to be any more, unrelenting, illiberal, combative and so long as nothing splashed back, she would not react… no, if she cared to strip off yet another layer, she would admit to being excited by it. Whereas a mote of his vexation landing on herself…
‘Sara, don’t!’ Already close in a hall the size of a phone booth, suddenly his arms were around her, his body-heat seeping into hers, his sharp male aroma all-enveloping. ‘Stop. I’m sorry – all right?’ The pattern of stubble-growth along his collar-line filled her vision and was instantly known. For a moment she could almost believe he was about to kiss the top of her head… then he pulled away and steered her into the next room and into a seat. ‘D’you want a drink?’
‘A drink?’
‘Coffee? Water?’
‘You think it’s my fault don’t you? About Eurwen? Yes?’ She put her forehead in her hands, trying to squeeze out the ache by hurting herself more and knowing exactly what she was up to and what the old Josh would do in response. But he walked away, kept her trapped in a childish attitude, wanting to break it… until a thrilling new fragrance told of his return. He was offering a heavy tumbler and she took it, took the tiniest sip she could manage: a blended malt but not too fiery or cheap. Took a gulp, groping with her tongue for its simple hit.
‘How many?’ he asked.
Once it had been Why, for God’s sake, Sara? But, How many? stood in now.
‘This is the first. As you might expect since I’ve just driven up from Oxford. A dreadful journey even before I got lost and…’
‘So how many?’
‘What difference does it make?’ In an attempt at sangfroid she glanced around the small square room for the first time and raised her eyebrows. It was a shop-display. The walls were a flat cream, bare as sheeting. Two beige sofas, the faux-wood floor, a rug patterned on a migraine and the glass coffee table all appeared new or unused. As was the slim TV on a shelf. What the room lacked was a single recognisable artefact. Three years ago the entire contents of their lovingly assembled Tackley Close interior had been spurned, (wingback chairs, the restored peacock velvet meridienne that she had coveted to the edge of ridiculousness as perfect partner to eighteenth century Florentine lithographs: good God, she had obsessed about losing a piece of furniture in an auction whereas now…) Her heart was slipping in extra beats. She said, ‘If you must know, I had just one.’
‘That big, was it? Yeah? Bigger probably. Definitely. You’ll be well over the limit… and I mean that’s before what you started with. I knew last night on the bloody phone…’ He reached for the glass but, rocking backward, she managed to preserve the contents. ‘You shouldn’t have come. It’s so—’ At least Josh was in control of his expletives still. Flinching from his obscenities was another of her frailties, one that would enrage him further. An early discovery: their shared language was not his first but an acquired one, solely for use with herself, her father and stepmother, even her friends. Obscenity-spouting Josh made milksops of student cursers. No perhaps it shouldn’t matter but it does. ‘Bloody stupid!’ he ranted on. ‘What if you’d killed somebody? You could’ve killed yourself.’
