There were people walking on the street outside; families pushing buggies, people chatting outside the little row of shops down the road. Kate craned her neck to watch them, to look down, over the wide boulevard of redbrick apartments lined with trees that were sprinkled with fat, green little buds. Beyond the shops was Lord’s cricket ground, a ten-minute walk, then Regent’s Park, the Zoo, the canal … down Maida Vale, which she could just see, was Edgware Road, leading into the park, to Mayfair, into town. All just outside. She could go out now, could be in any of those places, which she’d dreamt of over the past three years with increasing frequency. She could do that, she was back.
A loud noise from the bedroom made her jump. Kate turned and ran, relishing the size of the space that was her own, now, and she saw that her suitcase, which she’d leant against the wall, had fallen over, bringing down with it her telescope. She smiled at the sight of it, memory leading her back down a path. Her telescope! She hurried over to the corner of the room, straightening it out, setting it right again. How she had loved that bloody thing when she was a teenager. While Zoe and most of her other friends had been standing outside Tube stations of an evening with their waistbands rolled up and over, to shorten their skirts, ponytails high on their heads, usually to one side, smoking Silk Cut Menthols and chipping their nail polish, Kate had been – where? Yes, at home, looking through her telescope, high up in her attic bedroom, or curled up on her ancient patchwork bedspread, reading Gone with the Wind, or Forever Amber, or some yellowing Victoria Holt novel.
‘Hello old thing,’ she said to the telescope, stroking it gently, brushing the light film of dust from its casing. It had been so long since she’d looked through it. She caught herself, and the memory of her teenage self, and smiled, grinning widely at how touchingly and unintentionally hilarious she had probably been. Poor Dad, she thought, gazing away into nothing. What he had had to put up with, on his own, looking after this strange, solitary teenager, who didn’t understand why her mother had gone, who blamed herself for it more than anyone. Still partly did, though it was more than half her lifetime ago. Kate’s hand flew to her collarbone.
The reverberations from the suitcase crash had toppled over some photos on her bedroom shelves. Her parents on their wedding day, in black and white, her mother in a dark velvet mini-dress, almost painfully young and thin, her beautiful hair swinging about her shoulders, her father, so pleased with himself – and with his wife. They were clutching hands, so tightly that even through the years and the monochrome, you could see the whiteness of her mother’s knuckles.
It was stuff like that that got in the way, Kate thought, putting the picture back carefully on the shelf. Nice of Gemma to leave it out for her, but it was best put away, along with the marriage itself, and the photos next to it – her twenty-first birthday, taken by Zoe, her and Steve and Sean, hilariously awkward in suits, for some reason and – a sop to her new family – her stepmother and Dani, at Dani’s christening, nearly four years ago, her half-sister resplendent in a little gown and white hat embroidered with fabric flowers that made her look like an entrant in an Esther Williams look-alike competition.
Kate turned away from the photos, frowning. She felt out of kilter once again, remembering why she was here, and she went into the sitting room and picked up the phone, calling Lisa again.
‘Yes?’ Lisa answered immediately. ‘Hi, Kate.’ She added, more warmly, ‘How are you? Good flight? Everything … OK?’
‘It’s fine. How’s Dad?’ Kate said, running her fingers along the bookcase in the corner of the room, staring out of the window.
‘He’s OK. He’s having a nap,’ said Lisa. ‘He can’t wait to see you.’
‘Oh –’ Kate pursed her lips, shaking her head and looking down at the floor. ‘Oh. I can’t wait to see him. Lisa, can you give him my love? Is it OK if I come over now?’
‘Give it an hour or so, if that’s alright,’ said Lisa. ‘He’s still quite weak, Kate.’
Kate turned and looked back at the picture of her parents on the shelf behind her, perfectly still. She had spent the last three years with her mother, making up for lost time; she had always known though that once she came back here, everything that she had neglected would hit her, hard. It struck her now, that she had almost become too good at what she did: shutting out a whole area of her life. She had crossed the ocean and simply closed the door behind her on her life in London. As if, for the most part, it didn’t exist. As if she could.
She needed to keep moving, keep busy here. She’d go and get Mr Allan some flowers. Yes. She turned away from the telescope and the photos, and went into the sitting room again. She grabbed her bag and left the flat, running down to the shops on the corner of the road, marvelling at the price of a pint of Rachel’s Dairy Milk. She got some flowers, daffodils, bought the papers and some Marmite and some hummus and crisps. The old corner shop now sold posh President butter and had its own orange juicing machine.
Back again, as she unlocked the front door to the building, she realized how quiet it was. She climbed the stairs slowly, listening for sounds. There was nothing from upstairs, and she didn’t know whether to go up now or wait till later. When had Mrs Allan died? Was it too soon?
The phone was ringing as she unlocked the door to her flat again; she ran for it, but missed the call and she couldn’t work out who it was. But it reminded her who else she was here to see, as if she could have forgotten. Kate picked up her mobile, fingers toying over the keypad, and after a minute she shook her head. No, it would be too weird to speak to Zoe right now, after so long, to hear her voice – she could still hear her voice – when she was going to see her later. She texted instead:
Hi. I’m back. Can’t wait to see you. Shall I come round about seven? K x
Almost immediately, so that it felt she had barely finished writing the message, her phone beeped back at her with the reply.
Seven is perfect. Can’t believe you’re back! Can’t wait! Lots of love Z x x x
She finished her unpacking, pottered around in the kitchen, still listening to the radio in an effort to cheer herself up, and then she sat on the sofa and read the newspapers for an hour, feeling like an alien, wondering who some people were, amazed that other people were still in the news. A car went past in the street now and then; the rustle of some tarpaulin sheeting, covering a balcony on the flats opposite, drifted over every now and then; a child called out in the street, but otherwise it was eerily, ominously quiet. Normal, unremarkable, mundane. God it was strange, like she’d never left.
As Kate reached for a hair tie on her dressing table, she looked up at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t seen herself in this mirror for years, and the effect was rather like coming back from holiday and seeing how tanned you’d got in the mirror you look into every day, after two weeks away. She looked – different. Older, probably. Thinner, but not in a good way. Mostly she looked tired. Her dark brown eyes were smudged underneath with circles, her dark blonde hair was longer. Had she always looked that serious? The hairbrush she’d been holding gently slid out of her hand and Kate stared at herself, silence echoing around her.
She shut her front door behind her, and as she did she remembered Mr Allan. She looked at her watch – she was expected at her dad’s. Tonight there was Zoe. She would go tomorrow. The thought crossed her mind as she slung her bag over her shoulder and tripped downstairs: what else would she do tomorrow, other than seeing her father again and seeing Mr Allan? But over the past couple of years, Kate had got very good at filling in hours of time, doing not very much, lying low, staying in the shadows.
It was getting late, and she glanced into her pigeonhole again, remembering too that she had meant to go through her post. The pile of letters was still there, undisturbed, but as she peered closer something in the compartment caught her eye and it was then that she saw the letter.
A new letter, at the top of the pile.
In handwriting she would never forget, as long as she lived.
Kate Miller
Flat 4