‘So the visits to the gallery, Christina . . . You’re doing it because you want him to know it’s not over?’
Evelyn gives me an enigmatic look, then smiles.
THIRTY-ONE
Mark
London. March 1984
When the letter came, Evelyn was in hospital. She had a cyst on her ovary that they discovered was cancerous. The doctors removed her womb, to be on the safe side. The stay in hospital was protracted because she had lost a lot of blood. While she was there, the magazine forwarded the limited contents of her postbox to her home address, along with flowers and a note saying, As you don’t drop in for messages like you used to, we thought we should send this letter on to your home.
Mark received the delivery. He took the flowers into the hospital for her, of course. Evelyn loved flowers, and filled their home with fresh ones weekly. But the letter, well, that was a different matter. He hadn’t opened it. He wouldn’t do that, not even when it was addressed to someone who had once betrayed his trust. But he had seen the postmark. It was easy to guess who it was from. She was recovering from major abdominal surgery. They had begun to put all this behind them. Giving it to her now just didn’t seem like the helpful thing to do.
THIRTY-TWO
Alice
A couple of days later, we arrive at the entrance to Sunrise. Evelyn was right about it being a pleasant place. I’ve only once been in a care home, when my stepfather’s mother was admitted to one, but it hadn’t smelt as nice as this one. A receptionist greets us, and Evelyn enters our names in a guest book. ‘Is Michael in?’ I ask the girl.
‘He just went for lunch. Probably be back in an hour,’ she says. And then, to Evelyn, ‘He’s in the garden. Lawn day.’ She takes the flowers that Evelyn brought, says, ‘Oh gosh, aren’t these lovely?’ and gives her a fond smile.
Evelyn leads the way down a narrow hall that exits through a glass conservatory, where three or four elderly men sit around a small, antique table playing a board game. They look up and greet her as she passes, their curiosity quickly turning to me. Evelyn nudges me. ‘Careful. You’ll be setting off heart palpitations all round. And, in here, that’s a frightening prospect.’
We find a seat on a wooden bench overlooking a large, well-manicured lawn, with flowerbeds, and two parallel oak trees, like goalposts, either side. It’s extremely private and pretty, and the air is spiked with the scent of flowers and a salty sea breeze. The gardener is riding his lawnmower, and, sitting beside him, his frame towering over the gardener’s, is Eddy. The man waves when he sees Evelyn.
‘Look at him! He’s so happy!’ The sight of him makes me smile.
‘This is what he loves most, just being out there with the gardener.’
We sit quietly for a while, just watching him, listening to some squalling birds having a fight at a feeder on a nearby tree.
‘How are you feeling?’ Evelyn asks.
‘I still don’t know. I’m in a daze, in some ways. I suppose work is keeping me busy, and when I get home I’m tired and I sit down and start thinking about it, but my mind just goes blank again. Then, the other day, I came across a small cream photo album with a little red lotus motif on it – Justin brought it back for me from a business trip to Florence. I flicked through the empty plastic sleeves and thought, God, not a single picture in it! Not that there probably should have been; we’d hardly had time to set about filling it, and who actually develops film these days, anyway? Nonetheless, it says something, doesn’t it?’
I glance at her – at her little pink ear with its tiny diamond bezel set in gold.
She catches me studying her. ‘Can you honestly say that, in your heart and soul, you believe you were meant to be with Justin? And that you feel that way, even after all this?’
It’s a direct question, which takes me aback at first. ‘Well, considering everything I’ve heard of your love for Eddy, and his for you, I can probably say that, no, not in the same way. I may have thought it earlier. Though I distrusted it – I distrusted his certainness. Perhaps because he was ready for everything too quickly. Marriage, children . . .’
At the thought of children, something new occurs to me: if his baby had been born perfectly normal, would he have still left me for them?
‘At the time, because I’ve always been romantic deep down, it all felt like it was the real thing. But then Justin isn’t a romantic. He’s a pragmatist. So you see’ – I look at her again – ‘I can’t make proper sense of it.’
With the beating of the sun on my face and the stillness of the garden, with only the drone of the lawnmower advancing then subsiding, I feel oddly peaceful with this intimate conversation. I could never have said all this to my mother, who lacked a certain emotional objectivity when it came to the topic of men. ‘I don’t believe many people have the kind of certainty that was between you and Eddy,’ I say. ‘I once got so annoyed at Justin when he couldn’t just say, yes, he was in love with me. But, in a way, now I see his point. But then how do you know when someone is The One? Is it because you know all the others definitely weren’t?’ I laugh a little. ‘Maybe being in love is one part circumstance, another part faith and the other part imagination.’ I meet Evelyn’s interested eyes. ‘Yet you knew Eddy was The One.’
‘I think what fully brought it home to me was when I saw him quite by chance in the Ballroom five years later. He probably should have long since forgotten me by then. But when I saw how his face was so flooded with what might have been . . . I will never forget that overwhelming, profound regret I suddenly had. How much I wanted to run to him, yet there I was standing across the room with Mark! It was a very bleak feeling for a young married woman to be having. I would not wish that on anyone.’
‘I wish I’d known Eddy. In some ways, he reminds me of Justin, even though they’re very different.’