Flight (11 page)

‘Bloody hell, my head hurts,’ the new lad announces, shoving his hands deep into his skinny jeans pockets. ‘What happened last night?’

‘Thought you might be able to tell me,’ Ben replies, and they laugh, shaking their messy heads and simultaneously turning to Rob as if he might be able to shed some light on the mystery.

Rob tugs at the top button of his shirt, which suddenly feels too tight. ‘So, do you think that might be OK? To have a quick look around?’

‘Sorry, mate!’ Ben says brushing his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘Course you can – help yourself. The other two are out at the moment, but I’m pretty sure they won’t mind.’ And he turns back towards the kitchen where he and his friend huddle beside the kettle waiting for it to boil.

With a lurch of energy Rob heads straight for Wren’s old bedroom, smiling back over at Ben and his friend, trying to appear casual, though they’re not even looking in his direction. The double bed has gone, replaced by a single – in fact, all that remains of the room as he remembers it is the sliding built-in wardrobe, where Laura was apt to hide after a few late-night drinks, poised to leap out on Rob
or Wren when they were least expecting it. The carpet is different: gone is the geometric hangover from the 1970s, in favour of a nondescript oatmeal from a decade or two later. On balance, he thinks, at least the ugly Seventies flooring had character. Taking a glance back into the main flat, he sees the lads are still in the kitchen, safely occupied in the mechanics of tea-making, and he runs a hand over the plywood door of the built-in cupboard, slipping his fingers into the concave hand groove, giving it a little push to test the runners. A flash of memory hits him hard: of Laura embedding their photograph beneath a loose floor panel in the back of the cupboard, Wren and Robert standing over her, watching her actions in a mood of happy-sadness at the ending of an era. It had been their last day – the night before they’d all moved out.

‘Cup of tea, mate?’ Ben asks from the doorway.

Rob retracts his hand from the wardrobe door as if burnt. ‘That’d be great,’ he replies. The moment Ben walks away Rob is on his hands and knees in the cupboard, pulse racing, feeling along the floor for the finger slot Wren had described to Laura as she hunted for the secret opening. There! In a moment he has the board up with one hand, as the fingers of the other claw around in the cobwebs and dust balls. Just as he thinks there’s nothing to be found, a square corner catches his thumbnail.

Lifting the photograph out of its hiding place, he takes it over to the light of the window, where he blows away the dust and dirt of nearly thirty years. As he leans against the low ledge of the windowsill, Rob is barely able to believe that their totem has survived, buried in this place for all these years. It’s a black and white passport photo, showing Wren in the middle, with Rob and Laura on either side – an exact
match for the one he carries in his wallet to this day. Wren’s direct smile is like the Mona Lisa’s; Rob’s eyes are on Wren; and Laura looks like an advert for the loony bin, her tongue lolling to one side, her eyeballs crossed. The picture was one of a strip of four taken on their day trip to Camden Lock, soon after they’d sampled Charlie Lyons’ recommended margaritas – and it had lived on their fridge, intact, for the remaining two years of college, before they’d had to pack up their belongings and move on. That final sultry June evening, they’d eaten salmon and eggs in the dappled sunlight of the living room, drinking French beers and gin as they sang along to ‘The Love Cats’ and ‘Johnny Come Home’ and ‘Nellie the Elephant’, laughing and commemorating their last few hours in Victoria Terrace. At midnight, damp with the sweat of dancing, Laura pirouetted to the kitchen, where she took down the strip of photographs and carefully separated the four identical images with a pair of nail scissors. She handed the pictures out, one each, with one to spare.

‘Swear you’ll carry our photograph with you wherever you go –
whatever you do
.’

‘Swear,’ Rob and Wren replied, exchanging a smile at Laura’s expense.

She slapped Rob on the arm. ‘I’m serious. So what shall we do with the spare one? We should do something symbolic – like burn it!’

‘You can’t burn it,’ Wren said, scowling at the suggestion. ‘You’ll curse us forever, you witch!’

‘Float it down the Thames?’ Rob suggested.

‘Or bury it in the garden?’

Eventually they came up with the idea of hiding it somewhere in the flat, the backdrop to their recent years of life and love and pleasure and pain. Wren told them about
the hideyhole where she kept her rent money, thick envelopes of cash her mother would hand her on the rare occasions they managed to meet up. So it was agreed: the photograph was entombed within the floor of the cupboard of Wren’s bedroom of Flat B, 3 Victoria Terrace.

‘And here it will stay, until they pull the place down,’ Laura announced in solemn tones.

‘Amen,’ said Robert and Wren.

Now, Ben reappears with his cup of tea, and nods at the photograph in Rob’s hand. ‘What’ve you got there?’ he asks.

Rob holds up the picture for Ben to see.

‘God, I love those old-fashioned photos,’ he says. ‘
Retro
.’

Rob laughs, tucking the photograph into his wallet next to its twin. ‘Actually, Ben, I’ll skip that tea after all. I’ve got to dash. But thanks for letting me see the old place.’

Ben offers Rob a fist bump and walks him to the door. ‘No sweat, mate,’ he says. ‘Be lucky.’

Laura was always so vibrant and confident, it was easy to think that she really didn’t have a care in the world, that she had never suffered fear and loss and uncertainty of any kind, unless you knew her the way Rob did. In contrast to Laura’s exuberance, Wren was wise and steady; between them they represented everything that Robert valued in a person. Sometimes, when she wasn’t aware, Rob would watch Wren, study the way in which her eyes followed people, resting a while as she processed her thoughts. There was a depth and colour to her that he found lacking in others, an intangible something she held within. But, despite this bright flame within her, when Laura was not around Wren’s light would flicker like a fading bulb, growing faint
with her absence. Rob came to know this by way of a slow, stealthy understanding, and there formed a silent agreement that the circle could never be broken, at least not in any permanent way.

After moving out of Victoria Terrace at the end of college the trio remained inseparable, although they deeply missed living together and spent most of their spare time hopping between Rob and Wren’s place in New Malden and Laura’s bedsit a short bus ride away in Surbiton. Life took on a new, more adult shape, as they completed their teacher training and Laura continued to date a string of new lovers while Rob and Wren made more sturdy plans for their wedding. When the wedding itself had come and gone, they flew off to Oregon on their honeymoon trip of a lifetime, and Laura went too. Friends and family frowned in surprise when they heard of the arrangement, but Rob and Wren laughed it off, replying that they would have far more fun with their best friend there than without.

‘You know your mother thinks we’re in a
ménage à trois
, Rob,’ Wren joked as they fastened their seatbelts and sipped champagne aboard the BA flight to Portland.

Rob, sitting in the centre seat, made a retching noise and told Wren his mother wasn’t capable of such warped notions. ‘She knows I’m a good boy,’ he said and he waggled his eyebrows, turning first left then right to kiss them each in turn. ‘
My lovely wifeys
.’

‘Urgh, don’t even suggest it!’ Laura shuddered, leaning past him to make faces at Wren. ‘At least she doesn’t think you’re a “raging woofter”, like my old man does.’

Wren spluttered into her glass, catching her tiny bottle before it fell from her tray. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, bringing her face into sober repose, ‘but he’s
my
raging woofter.’

Laura raised her hand and pushed the steward button to requisition more champagne.

In Oregon, their hotel was exquisite, a haven on the rural west coast, with panoramic views looking out over acres and acres of deep red clover, a strange and beautiful foreground to the distant misty mountains beyond. They had booked two rooms with a connecting door, but Laura insisted she would only use it when Rob and Wren left it unlocked and clearly ajar. ‘You are honeymooners, after all,’ she said, giving Rob a light punch on the arm, as the three of them stood at the vast windows of the bridal suite, gazing out across the rolling fields of red. ‘I’d hate to barge in on you consummating your vows. Really, I’d have to punch out my eyes to obliterate the memory.’

Wren held open her arms and Laura stepped into her embrace, a gesture so natural as to be that of mother and child.

‘Love you,’ Laura sighed, reaching back a hand for Rob.

Rob looked on as Wren pulled her tighter, deeply breathing in the scent of her hair.

A new email from Ava is waiting in Robert’s inbox when he arrives home from Victoria Terrace. It’s getting dark outside, and he draws shut the curtains to his study and sits behind his desk for half an hour or so before he can bring himself to open the message.

August
. Rob counts the months back on his fingers. If the date was uncertain, give or a take a week or two, any one of those early encounters could fit the bill. He leans on the desk, pushing his brow hard against his fingertips, concentrating, focusing, as he tries to narrow it down to that first month on his own, his first month after Laura, like Wren, disappeared from his life…

Rob’s world splits in two as his thoughts are propelled back to that icy December morning, so soon after Wren left, standing on the threshold to the spare room, Phoebe in his arms, watching Laura as she hastily grabs clothes and stuffs them into her rucksack. He sees the tears that stream down her face, bouncing off her hands as she swipes them away, averting her eyes as he begs her
please Laura please Laura please don’t go
… Powerless, he remains planted in the doorway of the bedroom that they woke in just moments earlier, and his heart weeps for everything they’ve lost, while Laura, looking broken with the shame of their betrayal, picks up her bag without a word or a glance, and leaves.

As his mind shifts back to the present, Rob becomes aware of the tears that moisten his cheeks and wipes them away. He thinks of the year after Laura had gone, during which he heard nothing from her – not a phone call or
postcard, no news, nothing. Until she arrived on his doorstep the following Christmas with tales of travel and adventure – and not a single photograph to show for them.

By the time Phoebe arrives home on Sunday morning, Robert has been up and about for over an hour, filling the time by wiping down the kitchen, and synchronising his phone so he can pick up his emails without constantly checking his PC. Laura’s been on at him to sort it out for months; she’ll be pleased when he tells her he’s got it figured out. His mind hurdles over the unspeakable questions, forcing him into the banal, the domestic thoughts of everyday life, where everything is as it should be.
She’ll be back today
, he tells himself;
it’s Sunday. Laura will be back from her weekend away, and we’ll be fine
.

As Phoebe enters the kitchen, she drops her overnight bag with a thump and scowls at him, waiting for her dad to say hello first. He doesn’t; instead he smiles nervously and turns over the phone’s user manual in his hand.

‘You’re home early,’ he says, looking at his wristwatch. ‘It’s barely eight.’

Phoebe slides her phone from her jacket pocket and scrolls through her messages before holding it out to him. ‘Laura’s been in touch – she must have sent this late last night. I’ve been trying to phone her back since seven, but she must still have it switched off.’

Rob clicks on Laura’s message, reading its contents several times, relief flooding his veins at the news that she’s back in contact. It ends,
Tell your dad I love him x
.

Laura hasn’t gone, thank God. She’s still here; she’s still with them.

‘She’s found your mum?’ he asks, looking up at Phoebe who stands at the centre of kitchen, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression a blend of apprehension and anger. ‘She’s found her?’

Phoebe blinks at Rob impatiently. ‘Did you read it, Dad? She’s given me the address –
Wren’s address
. It’s about five hours away and I reckon we could be there by early afternoon if we get a move on. Dad?’

Rob knows he must prepare himself for the possibility of seeing Wren again, of prising open the past. But this other thing, these questions he must ask Laura – the secret of Ava, the issue of her birth – all these things crowd in on one another, until he hardly knows which matters more, who matters more. He’s distracted with guilt about not replying to Ava’s email last night asking to arrange a meeting, but he just can’t focus on that right now; he has to get to Laura, to speak with her, to hear what she has to say first. He runs his finger along the edge of the breadboard, pausing to press his fingernail into a knife groove.

‘Dad? Snap out of it! Do you realise how huge this is?
Laura has found my mother
. Go and stick some things in a bag, will you? You can’t just stand there waiting for life to happen, you know. If we don’t go now, I might miss my one and only chance to speak to her, to meet her – and I’ll forgive you a lot of things, but I won’t forgive you that. Do you get it?’

She’s so strong, so unshakeable, and his love for her swells in his chest like a pain, as it did when he first held her in his arms two decades ago. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her temple. ‘Sweetheart, sometimes you’re so like Laura, it scares me.’ He kisses her a second time, before releasing her cheeks and heading purposefully for the
hall. ‘Give me two minutes, OK? You grab some drinks and snacks for the journey while I get my stuff together – I’ll be a matter of minutes.’