If you need me urgently, you can contact me via the details below.
All my love, Belinda
And then there is an email address and a telephone number.
As I scan the words, my chest contracts; my fingers squeeze the letter, bending the paper where I’m clasping it. Belinda, Ted’s wife, she wrote to Gerry; her phone number is right here in my hand. Did Gerry intend to keep this from Ted? I should give it to him, he could call her, find out where she is, finally have some closure. But then I look up at him and see how tired he looks; how emotionally draining this night has been—it’s nearly one in the morning, I’m not sure he needs to see this tonight. My mind feels paralyzed by the responsibility.
“What’s that?” Ted asks.
“Oh, nothing,” I say quickly, shuffling the paper to the bottom of the pile. “Your dad wasn’t the best at filing paperwork, was he?”
I didn’t even consciously decide to lie, I just heard myself do it.
“That’s an understatement,” he says.
When Ted goes upstairs to the bathroom, I find the letter again and stuff it into my handbag. I don’t have any kind of plan here; I just don’t want Ted to have to deal with that right now. I’ll keep it safe, give it to him tomorrow in the clear light of day.
I hear his feet on the stairs and look up to see Ted run a hand through his hair as he walks down, tilting his hips to avoid the wooden pillar at the bottom.
“Well, you’ve made more progress in a few hours than I’ve made in weeks. You’re ruthlessly efficient.” He yawns. “Maybe you can get inside my head and do the same sort of clearout.”
“Maybe I can,” I say. Then he looks at me, and for a moment, it feels like he wants something more from me.
“You need your bed. I’m going to head back to the cottage. Thanks for—” For what? What am I thanking him for? “I enjoy talking to you, Ted.”
“Me too.” Ted ruffles a hand through his hair. “Let me help you to your bed—I mean, to your house,” he says, stumbling over his words. “I’ll bring a torch, it’s dark outside.”
I smile at his embarrassment.
“Such a gent.”
He picks up my case, then grabs a torch from the kitchen and shines it ahead of me, walking with me to the cottage door.
“Thank you for tonight, Laura,” he says, looking down into my eyes. “I’m glad it was my cab you got into yesterday.” There’s an invisible pull in the air, as though I don’t want him to leave, and my mind jumps back to that moment on the beach, when I wanted to nestle my face into his beard. “Sleep well.”
“Night, Leonard,” I say, feeling on safer ground making a joke. He smiles back and I pat him on the head. “There’s a good doggie.”
“Night, Lady Muck,” he says, and then turns to walk back up the slope.
As I watch him go, I wonder at how different these two men are who I’ve spent the evening with. Jasper is energetic jazz, whereas Ted is the steady beat of a low drum. Jasper is loose-leaf oolong; Ted is a warm mug of builder’s brew. I shake my head as I open my front door, unsure why I even feel the need to compare the two.
letter RETURNED TO SENDER
23 September 1991
Dear Annie,
I’m sorry I upset you calling things quits over the phone. Whatever happens, please don’t think our summer in Jersey meant any less to me than it did to you. It was a wonderful few months—I think what made this summer so special, though, is that it was always only going to be the summer, Annie.
I’ll be in Greece for six months, then who knows where. I go where the work is and I know from experience I’m not cut out for long distance. I didn’t make any promises, did I? I never talked about the future; you can’t lay that on me.
Please call if you want to talk, I hate to hear you upset. I’d like us to stay friends.
Love Al
PS please send back my grandmother’s coin. I will repay you whatever you spent on it.
Chapter 18
My mother and I are sitting in my old bedroom, the one she turned into a jewelry workshop. The floor is piled high with trays; little compartments designed to store Christmas decorations, which Mum uses to stow her magpie finds. She’s laying out some treasures on the mottled oak desk: a golden ring with the diamond missing, a collection of hair slides covered in tiny pearls threaded onto delicate silver wire and shaped into flowers.
It’s these details that trick me, make me believe the scene is real. How does my brain furnish me with such detailed deceit? The way she tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear, but twirls it girlishly first, just for a moment. The blouse she’s wearing, with coffee stains on the cuff; her nails, always clipped painfully short; the lilt of her voice, “Laura, pass me the thingamee, will you?” And I know exactly what she means.
I have these vivid dreams less frequently now. A painful pleasure, but I would not be without them. They are a chance to see her again, to spend time in her company. On waking, when the deception is realized, I feel the sorrow of losing her all over again, but then my mind scrabbles to collect up the breadcrumbs of detail that will keep her real.
I scribble down in my diary everything I can remember: the coffeed cuff, the thingamee, the hair twirl. These are the details my waking mind forgets, but without them her memory might blur, eventually distilling her to a series of photos and anecdotes like Dad. I must hold off the distillation for as long as possible, so I’m grateful for the dreams.
After writing my notes, I can’t get back to sleep. My shin feels sore from last night, and I notice the skin on one side of the dressing is bruised purple. Since it’s nearly six, I eventually give up trying to rest, open my laptop, and stare at the screen. Belinda’s letter sits accusingly on the bedside table. Why did I take it? I shouldn’t be involving myself in Ted’s life like this; I’ve got enough of my own problems to deal with. I stow the page of her letter back in my handbag, resolving to just give it to Ted as soon as I see him this morning.
Between the dream, Belinda’s letter, and my evening with Jasper and then Ted, there’s too much swirling around my head to be able to focus on work. I skim-read a few chapters of Tiger Woman, but it only makes me feel inadequate. I am so un-tiger.
When I hear footsteps outside my door, I sit bolt upright in bed. I assume it might be Ted, also unable to sleep. Opening the front door, I squint into the dim morning light, the amber glow of sunrise still languishing behind the hill beyond Sans Ennui.
“Ted?” I whisper.
“Only me,” I hear Gerry’s voice. “Sorry, did I wake you with my shuffling feet?”