A Perfect Home (26 page)

She wondered where he was, what he was doing. She had nowhere to picture him. He knew exactly where she was. If he thought of her she would be in the house, the village, the town that he had seen her in before. Trapped in her domesticity; forever walking through rooms, down lanes, down pavements, down aisles, while he could be anywhere in the whole world.

Two days after she had last seen Stefan, Claire had gone to a run-down petrol station on the other side of town. Guiltily, she asked the bored teenager behind the counter for a packet of cigarettes. As he fetched them down she looked out of the smeared glass window at her children waiting in the car on the forecourt and felt ashamed. She added three packets of chocolate buttons and hid the cigarettes in a zipped compartment in her bag.

At home she put on a video and while the children sat engrossed in front of it she went outside, stood behind the summer house, and smoked two in quick succession. Briefly, the nicotine took away the pain.

As each day passed, she felt as though she was losing Stefan – losing him in her mind, in her memory. Bit by bit his face seemed to slip away until after a week it was a blur beneath the dark waves of his hair. She tried to recall their conversations. At one time she could remember so many things he'd said – little things, insignificant things, huge things – but soon she doubted her ability to recollect and wasn't sure what things were real or simply hoped for. Sometimes a brief image would flash into her consciousness: his hand on a glass, the curve of his fingernail, a tiny brown mole on the side of his neck. Then the image would be gone and though she'd try she could not bring it back. As her memories drifted away, her heart seemed to ache more with the loss, until she wondered if one day she would be left with no memories, no recollections at all, only pain.

Cigarettes became a kind of refuge. Something to look forward to. Something that eased the pain, if only for a few minutes.

She smoked guiltily, secretly – round corners, crouched beneath windowsills, leaning against the back of the summer house. Instead of having an illicit affair with Stefan she was having one with nicotine.

One rain-dreary August afternoon, Claire slipped the button necklace into a padded envelope and wrote Stefan's address on the front. Before she could change her mind she bundled the children into raincoats and walked them down to the village post-box. They squabbled over who would post the envelope through the slit in the red Victorian box on the corner of the green. Finally it was Claire who put an end to the argument by posting it herself. Immediately she regretted it and wished there was some way fishing it out; but it was done, the necklace was returned, line drawn, a definite end. As Claire trudged the damp children back up the hill she knew that sending back the necklace made no difference, it couldn't end so easily, there was no simple cure for the aching in her heart.

Sally was kind, but there were only so many times that Claire could tell her that she missed Stefan, that she thought her heart was breaking with sadness. William seemed to notice nothing; he was too tied up with his own distractions, too tired to wake up to the sound of Claire's nocturnal wanderings, too engrossed with building the summer house to notice how silent she had become.

Cornwall was the last place Claire wanted to be. Every day she hoped that Stefan might just appear or text or email or write or come in his lovely car and take her away. She didn't want to go too far from home, just in case. Cornwall seemed too many miles away for Stefan to find her if he changed his mind.

Chapter Twenty-four

‘Organised disorder has its own intrinsic charm …'

With a sinking heart, Claire drove south; the children squabbling and then finally sleeping in the back of the car. Endless miles of motorway gave way to dual carriageway, then smaller roads, threaded with villages and farms, then lanes, narrow and green with ferns and long grasses.

Claire stopped and consulted her mother's directions. She drove on down tightly bending lanes. Occasional flashes of silver on the horizon reminded her that she was headed for the sea. She reached a holiday resort – little white apartments piled up the steep valley slopes and static caravans lined up along the cliffs in the distance. Her mother's directions took her out of this village through even smaller lanes until, just as she was sure she'd gone too far, she saw a sign for the cottage. She pulled onto a gravel drive lined with pots of scarlet geraniums. Claire looked around for her mother's small brown Mini. All she could see was a bright red motorbike with a silver sidecar.

She hardly had time to wonder about the motorbike before her mother appeared in the doorway and ran towards Claire's car. As Claire got out, stiff after the long drive, her mother embraced her so enthusiastically that they almost toppled over together.

‘Look at you,' Elizabeth said, holding her daughter at arm's length. ‘You look terrible. Are you ill?'

‘Just tired, Mum.'

‘Well, let me look after you now.'

The children woke up and were immediately excited to see their grandmother – then, after a few seconds, desperate to get to the beach.

‘Where's your car? Whose motorbike is that?' Claire asked as Elizabeth herded them all towards the cottage.

‘I'll tell you later,' she replied. ‘Let's get these poor children on to the beach first.'

Elizabeth led them into the small, neat cottage (faded dried flowers seemed to adorn every available surface) and then out through French windows at the back. They opened almost directly onto a tiny cove. Seaweed-covered rocks and pebbles lined the higher shore, but they gave way to the soft yellow sand of a completely empty beach. The children immediately took off their socks, shoes, and shorts and ran into the sea in their pants and T-shirts, screaming with delight. Claire thought how cross William would be with her for not telling them to put on their swimming things first. She didn't care. He wasn't there.

‘I'll bring you down a mug of tea,' Elizabeth said, disappearing inside.

Claire stood on a large rock, watching the children. They were playing chase with the tide as it moved lazily up and down the flat wet sand. She looked up to the cliffs above the cove and could see the outline of a man and a dog walking on the path. The man walked slowly, limping along with the help of a stick. The dog seemed to be patiently keeping the same slow pace, though every now and then he ran in front a few yards before returning to his master's side again.

Elizabeth walked towards her with two large mugs of tea. Claire noticed that she'd had her hair cut shorter. Her usually severe grey bob had been layered softly around her face; Claire thought she could detect some golden highlights running through it. The new style made her look younger, prettier. She had put on a little weight; it suited her. Her fuller figure was flattered by a long linen tunic worn over ankle-skimming jeans. Turquoise beads around her neck complemented her bright blue eyes.

‘You're looking well,' said Claire as her mother handed over her tea.

‘I am well,' said Elizabeth. ‘Very well.'

‘This is a lovely place you've found.'

‘It's even lovelier than it looked on the website,' agreed Elizabeth. ‘Just as nice as an old Italian shed. William's mother can stuff Tuscany in her hot tub and boil it and she can throw in that pedestal thing she clobbered poor Ben on the head with while she's at it.'

Claire laughed. ‘She didn't clobber him; it fell on top of him.'

‘Same difference,' Elizabeth sniffed and folded her arms across her chest. ‘If she hadn't been forcing things on you that you never wanted in your house in the first place it wouldn't have happened, would it?'

‘You know, we can only stay here for four nights,' said Claire changing that particularly painful subject. ‘The children start school again on Monday.'

‘I know, but we'll stay on and finish the week anyway.'

‘We?' said Claire, surprised.

‘That's what I wanted to tell you,' said Elizabeth, her cheeks flushing pink.

Claire sat down on the rock she had been standing on. ‘Yes, you might need to sit down, dear. Shove up and I'll join you.' Her mother sat down beside her.

‘Well, go on, tell me then.'

Elizabeth took a deep breath.

‘I've met a man,' she said. ‘A really nice man. Wonderful, actually. Well, I think he's wonderful.'

Claire was amazed. After a few seconds staring at her mother, unable to think of what to say, she managed: ‘Who is he? How did you meet him? Where is he?'

‘He's called Brian,' Elizabeth explained. ‘I met him two months ago. I've been longing to tell you but I wanted you to be able to meet him at the same time.'

‘How did you meet?'

‘I ran him over.' Elizabeth took a sip of tea.

‘What?'

‘I ran him over with my car.' Elizabeth gave a short laugh. ‘I didn't mean to. It was an accident.'

‘You ran him over?'

‘He was rather in the way,' said her mother. ‘He should have been more careful where he put his easel. He admitted that right from the start.'

‘His easel?'

‘Brian is an artist,' Elizabeth explained. ‘He and his wife used to run painting courses from their house in France.'

‘He's got a wife!' Claire exclaimed.

‘No. She died three years ago,' said Elizabeth. ‘Breast cancer. Very sad. Poor Brian hadn't painted at all since she died and then the first time he decides to get his brushes out again I come along and plough into him.' She laughed again.

‘It doesn't sound funny, Mum.'

‘Obviously it was a terrible thing to happen but there was a funny side to it too. When you meet him you'll realise it's very hard not to laugh around Brian.'

‘Did you hurt him?' asked Claire.

‘He broke his ankle. I think he was quite lucky. It could have been so much worse. He'd just stood up to gauge the angle of the church tower he was painting when I reversed straight into him. I don't like to think what would have happened if he'd still been sitting down. I was trying to get out of a very tight parking space in the car park. I was late for an optician's appointment. I didn't realise he was painting just behind me.'

‘Did you not see him in your mirrors?'

‘Oh, no,' Elizabeth assured her. ‘You see, he was in my blind spot. As I've said, it was a silly place to set up an easel.'

‘So you ran this man over, broke his ankle, and now you're on holiday with him in Cornwall?'

‘I know it sounds like an unlikely way to start a relationship.' Her mother smiled. ‘He forgave me almost immediately. I drove him to the hospital but I didn't feel I could leave him waiting there on his own. We were in the X-ray department for three hours until he was seen and then we had to wait another two hours before he had his ankle put in a plaster cast. We never stopped talking. He made me laugh. We found we had so much in common. It felt as though we'd known each other for years. An immediate connection. Do you know what I mean?'

‘Yes,' Claire replied. ‘I know exactly what you mean.'

‘I think I fell in love with Brian in that hospital waiting room. Hard seats and weak coffee from a machine never seemed more romantic.' She grinned and Claire could suddenly imagine what she must have been like as a girl. ‘He lives with three cats, two pigs, twelve ducks, and a dog called Buster. He's good and kind and he makes me laugh. I'm so happy. I can't believe it.'

Claire put down her mug and gave her mother a hug. ‘That's fantastic,' she said. ‘It's wonderful.'

‘Do you really think so? I've been so nervous about telling you.'

‘Why?' asked Claire. ‘I've always said you should find someone else.'

‘Have you?'

‘I'm sure I have, loads of times. I know I'm always wishing you would find someone.'

‘Someone to take care of me in my old age?' Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. ‘So you don't need to worry about me so much?'

‘Someone to have fun with while you're still young enough to enjoy it,' said Claire. ‘You only live once so you might as well make the best of it. Is that his motorbike?'

‘Yes,' replied Elizabeth. ‘Isn't it fabulous? Buster goes in the sidecar.'

‘Where do you go?' asked Claire.

‘On the back, of course. I've bought some leathers and a helmet. You should see me. It'll make you laugh. Of course poor Brian hasn't been able to ride the bike for weeks because of his ankle. So coming here was his first long ride. It was my first time on the back of a bike since before you were born. It was wonderful. The wind on my face. It's like the good times with your father all over again.'

‘I didn't know there were any.'

‘Oh yes.' Her mother looked out across the sea. ‘There were good times. That's why I couldn't understand why he always wanted other women. Why he wanted to leave.' She was silent for a while and then turned to Claire and shrugged. ‘But that was all years ago. I think it's time I let him go now.'

‘Yes,' said Claire and took Elizabeth's hand in hers, squeezing it gently.

A dog barked and looking up Claire saw the man from the cliff walking stiffly down steep wooden steps towards them.

‘Oh, here he is.' Elizabeth got up and walked towards him. She kissed his cheek and Claire could see she was telling him something. They smiled at each other, an exchange so intimate that she had to look away. The children were digging a hole for the tide to fill. They were surprised by the golden retriever running towards them. Ben screamed.

‘Gently, Buster,' the man called to the dog. ‘He won't hurt you,' he assured the children as the dog jumped into their hole and started barking and turning in circles, brushing their faces with his wagging tail. ‘He only wants to say hello.'

Claire stood up and walked across the sand to meet her mother and Brian. Her first impression was of someone solid – wide-shouldered, medium height, his stomach gently rounded over corduroy trousers pulled in with an ancient-looking leather belt. His weather-beaten face was bearded, his grey hair thick though somewhat wild. Deep lines fanned out on each side of lively eyes. You could see that he had been a very a handsome young man – he was still a handsome man.