The Restoration of Otto Laird (6 page)

She looked alarmed, momentarily, and he sought to intercept her fears as they surfaced.

‘Please don't misunderstand me. There'll be
many
more years, I hope. The journey of my life hasn't yet reached its terminus, even if the buffet car has closed. I just need to feel that I'm doing more than marking time.'

Anika nodded, as though in confirmation of some private and long-standing doubt.

‘You're unhappy,' she said. ‘I knew as much, if I'm honest with myself. I just didn't want to admit it all this time.'

Otto realised just how his explanation must have sounded and immediately felt terrible for having spoken. Taking hold of her hands – slightly callused, from practising her topspin – he sought through touch to reassure her. Suddenly,
he
was no longer the child. It happened like that, sometimes.

‘Of course I'm happy,' he told her, gently. ‘Very happy indeed. I didn't mean it to sound as significant as it did. I just want to do something different for a while, embark on a new adventure. And besides, it's hardly a trip to outer space I'm undertaking. It will all be over and done with in no time.'

And his words appeared to work.

‘Well, I hope you know what you're doing,' she said, her signal that she was about to concede defeat.

So do I, thought Otto, stroking her hands apologetically.

But he replied to her with a cheerful: ‘I'll be fine.'

Five

Otto's fingers were stained with blackberry juice as he crouched before the hedgerows lining the garden. He had already filled one plastic bag with berries, and was about to start on a second, when he raised his head to contemplate the ripening season. Autumn's tones were dominant now in the depths of the forested slopes: soft reds, wilting browns and bright explosions of yellow, immersing summer's green.

‘There's no dissonance in nature,' he remembered Cynthia once telling him, searching the hedgerows for blackberries in another place and time. ‘There's no bad taste, or excess – not a single colour jars. Left alone, its elements always harmonise.'

When Anika appeared at the french window and saw her husband at the bottom of the garden, her heart gave a little jump. Otto was kneeling before the hedgerow, his head bowed forwards and his body completely still. She made her way quickly across the lawn, calling out his name, and was relieved when he turned and looked towards her. By the time she reached him, he was struggling to his feet with the help of his cane. A fistful of crushed blackberries had slid to the ground beside him.

‘Otto,' she said. ‘What on earth are you doing? Didn't you hear me calling from the house?'

‘I'd forgotten about the blackberries.'

‘There isn't time for the blackberries. You're going to miss your flight!'

‘But it may be too late by the time I come back. Some of them have rotted already.'

‘
I'll
do them while you're away in London. I'll put them on my to-do list.'

Otto wanted to tell her that this wasn't the point; that it wasn't about the blackberries themselves. The important thing was that
he
should gather them, as he had done every year since building the villa. He couldn't believe he had forgotten to do it, something of such significance. How on earth could the matter have slipped his mind?

‘Please, Otto. Don't just stand there staring at the hedgerow. You
have
to get a move on. You have to go and make your documentary. Go and get changed at once. I'm really not sure we'll have time to get to the airport.'

Otto hobbled up the garden path beside Anika, who fished in the pocket of her cardigan and removed his letter to Pierre.

‘I found this in your study. Would you like me to post it on for you?'

Otto reached out with unusual swiftness and took it from her hand.

‘I'll deal with it later.'

He slipped the letter into his pocket. He must remember to put it into the bin before he left.

‘Oh, and do try to keep your study in a more hygienic condition,' Anika added, sliding back the french window and shepherding him inside. ‘It's starting to smell quite horribly of rotten eggs.'

*   *   *

By the time they arrived at the airport in Geneva, the atmosphere between them had grown tense. Due to a number of conferences taking place across the city, there were no spaces left in which Anika could park.

‘It's okay,' Otto told her. ‘You don't have to see me all the way onto the aircraft. I can find my own way there. Why don't you just drop me off outside the Departures building? It's getting late.'

And whose fault is that? thought Anika.

But she held her tongue.

She agreed to Otto's suggestion, but sought at the final moment to establish a compromise. Pulling up in front of Departures, she helped Otto out with his case and then attempted to wheel it on his behalf into the building. It was the last of these stages that got to him.

‘I'm fine,' he said, as they began to wrestle for control of the gently rocking case. ‘I'm
fine,
I tell you. Get back to the Bentley, or the bastards will tow it away!'

Still Anika persisted, refusing to let go of the case. Her strength was more than a match for his, these days. Gaining a grip on its extendable handle, she fended off his feeble efforts to prise her fingers free, and looked around for someone in a uniform to ask for assistance.

‘Don't be silly, Otto,' she said to him. ‘If you won't allow me to take it for you, at least let me find someone else who can help you. There must be a member of staff around here somewhere.'

Otto's temper finally snapped.

‘I can pull a fucking luggage case, for heaven's sake! Why do you have to treat me like an invalid all the time?'

He sensed the jolt that his angry words had given Anika. He had overreacted, he knew, but he was worried about missing his flight. His irritation had been worsened by the amused glances of one or two passers-by.

‘As you wish,' Anika answered calmly, choosing to retreat.

Letting go of the handle, she stepped forward to kiss him, formal and frosty, upon both cheeks. Then she turned and walked back to the Bentley, not even glancing back as she settled behind the wheel and shut the door. Otto sighed as he raised the handle of his case, turning and wheeling it slowly – and with more effort than he had anticipated – in the direction of the glass doors of the Departures building. They were just opening for him when a kerfuffle behind caught his attention. He turned and saw Anika running towards him, waving a holdall in her hand. It had been left on the back seat of the Bentley. She had glimpsed it in the rear-view mirror as she was pulling out.

‘Otto…' she was calling to him.

It was unusual for Anika to forget any detail like that. Normally she organised their lives with military precision. It was a sign that she was not quite herself today. Otto waited on the pavement for her to reach him. She handed over the holdall, containing a thick ream of notepaper he had been unable to fit into his suitcase, together with a photograph of the two of them standing arm-in-arm before the Matterhorn. Anika had put it there herself.

Suddenly, she threw her arms around him in a tight and unforeseen embrace. He felt a painful compression on his midriff, weakened by the surgery, closely followed by a mysterious gurgling sound.

‘My stomach!' he cried hurriedly (and yet awkwardly, almost an apology), causing Anika to jump back with a sudden gasp of remembrance. The handsome bone structure in her face appeared to disintegrate.

‘I can't even hug you properly any more,' she said, her voice now cracking completely.

It was the tipping point Anika had been working hard to avoid. She had tried throughout that day to remain composed, determined to maintain her usual decorum. But now her breath began to catch because of the tears she was suppressing, and suddenly it all went badly wrong for her. She surprised even herself with the loud and wrenching sob, a sound that was not quite her own. The emotion was released along with a great strand of mucus, which she hastily wiped from a cheek in mortification. She quickly regained her composure; it was almost instantaneous, but too late to stop the message that had been sent. For a moment Otto stood looking at her, shocked and embarrassed on her behalf. She had always been such a graceful person, an archetype of elegance and bodily control. Even in the deepest throes of their lovemaking she had always exhibited an underlying restraint. He couldn't quite believe what he had just seen, and in a public place as well. But then he was stirred, at a deeper level, by this sudden sign of vulnerability, written across and then cleared from Anika's face. It was a similar feeling of compassion, he realised, that had caused her to hug him so tightly just now, and it took him an effort to avoid reciprocating the gesture. Instead he gently stroked the offending cheek.

Otto's intestines and Anika's snot: two unlikely catalysts for the rediscovery of love. Yet each felt oddly moved now by these signs of the other's humanity; by the body's secrets, cruelly exposed. They stood gazing at each other in empathy – not quite sure how to express the depths of what they felt. Then a quick peck on the cheek and she was on her way back to the car.

‘Phone me when you get there,' she called from across the bonnet.

Otto gave a little wave of acknowledgement.

Six

It was a shock when he first saw her. The same pale-blue eyes, lightly hooded, sharply intelligent; the same small crease beside the mouth as she smiled; and then a flash of teeth, behind the full lips, followed by a downward tilt of the head and an upward glance of the eyes, suggesting a well-hidden shyness. The hair was different, though – what did he expect? It was almost sixty years later. Shorter, messier, no soft wave falling across the forehead. It was uncanny, though. It was uncanny.

I think this is going to be rather difficult, thought Otto, rising to his feet for the introductions.

They were about to dine in a restaurant on the South Bank, where Angelo had suggested they meet.

Otto had felt surprisingly nervous on the plane across from Geneva; not from any fear of flying, but a fear of what he was flying
to.
It was twenty-five years since he had left England. He had no idea how he had managed to avoid it for so long. Or had he been avoiding it? Was it just the way things had worked out? He didn't know the answer to that.

Throughout the short flight he experienced a strange inner turbulence. He had a queasy sensation that he was reestablishing a connection with the past; flying backwards into his own memories. He would no longer be experiencing them from a distance, but in the city where they had once been real.

At least you'll have some time to acclimatise, he told himself. You can relax in the hotel for a couple of nights. You're not moving into Marlowe House immediately.

As he pondered the days to come, Otto shifted about uncomfortably in his seat. The air pressure in the cabin unsettled him. He began to worry that he might encounter problems with his stomach, and tried relaxing to some anodyne music station, the most soothing thing he could find on the in-flight entertainment menu. But every few minutes he would take off his headphones and listen for tell-tale gurgling sounds. Everything was fine, it was just his paranoia, but he could tell from the glances of the air steward patrolling the aisles that he hadn't covered his agitation as well as he had hoped.

Arriving at Heathrow, he felt a little better. The familiar rhythms of transition – escalators, ambient music, the steady churning of the baggage carousel – began to soothe him. By the time Angelo had met him at the gate and ushered him into the passenger seat of his car, Otto was feeling quite chatty. The mood stayed with him throughout that day: hotel, café, sightseeing along the Embankment. Even as they sat in the restaurant, awaiting their evening appointment, Otto found himself enjoying a light-headed nostalgia. It washed softly through him like the Thames below their window.

And then
she
walked into the room.

Feeling sick as he climbed to his feet, Otto reached out a hand. He heard, as through a haze, Angelo's voice addressing him.

‘Otto – this is Chloe, your director.'

She took his hand. The touch was different … Thank God for that. It meant he could speak, at least.

‘Delighted to meet you, Chloe.'

‘Hello, Otto.'

The voice, too, was different. Lighter, less serious. The giddiness was dispersing now.

‘These are the other members of my film crew – Simon and Paul.'

In his shock, Otto had not even noticed there were others. Now he saw their faces. Young, kind, compassionate; the eyes meeting his, the hands outstretched.

‘Hello, Otto.'

‘Nice to meet you.'

Their faces now turned away from him – the hands reaching out to Angelo.

As they retook their places and prepared for the opening volley of conversation, Otto felt her eyes upon him. But he could cope with no more than a glimmer of contact, the merest of smiles, and then he had to look away. He reached for his glass of water, welcomed its coolness in his throat … seized the chance to briefly shut his eyes.

Their switch into the preliminaries was effortless. Angelo was good at these rituals, and the others seemed practised, too. Otto felt grateful for their conversational polish. He could take a back seat in all this. Just the occasional interjection. Yes, the flight was fine – about twenty-five years now – yes, it certainly had changed – he had caught only a glimpse of the Shard earlier, but he hoped to see it properly tomorrow. He soon established his role. If they were a small orchestra, then he was the timpani player, sitting tight on the sidelines and making his presence felt with an occasional well-timed flourish. His age was a help (he didn't often think that, nowadays) and they were perhaps a little overawed by his natural gravitas.