It could be that I’m staring so intently I’m seeing movements that aren’t even there. I blink, look away to refocus and look again. She’s gone.
Come back! I say, under my breath. But nobody comes to the window again. I suddenly realise my fingers are clenched in my lap and my back is saturated. I wouldn’t make a very good private eye.
I sit here until 6:30 – already ten minutes longer than planned – thinking, Come on, let something happen, give me a bit more than this! Because now I don’t know why I’m fixated on seeing her, but I am.
I’m just about to give up when, oh, look at this . . . The woman has returned to the window, this time with the baby. I’m given only the briefest glimpse before they disappear again. But then, miraculously, a few seconds later, the front door opens.
Right there, standing on the doorstep, as though deliberately presenting themselves for my benefit, is Lisa, with Justin’s little boy.
Seeing them is more unsettling than I anticipated. Lisa isn’t what I imagined, though I had no reason to imagine anything, given he said so little about her. She’s average height and sporty thin. She is wearing tight, pale jeans and a loose-fitting, flesh-toned T-shirt. Curtains of ebony hair hang past her shoulders from a severe, 1970s-style centre parting, like a young Ali MacGraw. When Sally had said the woman she saw with Justin in the car was pretty with long dark hair, his other girlfriend had sprung to mind: Jemima – the one we crossed paths with in town. Lisa holds Dylan preciously, as he gazes somewhat flaccidly over her right shoulder. He’s a large baby – though it’s possible he’s bloated from medication. Yes, that’s what it must be. I can’t stop the sting of my tears.
It happens all too quickly. I’m so focussed on the baby and Lisa that I barely register the arrival of a car. I’m only conscious of someone walking up the path when I realise that Lisa is walking down it. She has come out to greet someone.
Justin.
My breath catches. I cannot take my eyes off him. Justin always walks tall, like a very confident person, yet nothing about it is put on. He’s just naturally rather graceful for a man. He’s wearing his mid-grey suit and a mauve shirt open two buttons at the neck, his tie dangling out of a pocket – his purple Gucci one; last time I’d seen it, I’d packed it in the suitcase. To any passing observer it’s a Kodak moment. Dad comes home from work and is greeted at the door by Mum and big bouncing baby. Baby is passed through the air, from Mum, to Dad’s waiting arms. Dad lifts baby high; baby is suspended there above Dad’s head. Dad pulls him close and plants a kiss on him. I’m certain I can hear the smack of that kiss from the car.
I am transfixed. It’s like rewinding to the time before I knew him, when I had just caught sight of him in the bar, waving to catch the barman’s attention. In that split second of my objectivity, as he lifts his son gently into the air, I recognise him for exactly what it seems he now is: an attractive family man who belongs to someone else.
I should go. Must go.
I can’t. I can’t rally myself to leave.
I just want to sit here and watch them until the end of time.
The baby’s colour isn’t good. I see that quite clearly now. He’s pale and he’s definitely bloated. But he looks happy. Or is that my imagination?
He looked happy the second he saw his dad.
I watch Justin say something to Lisa, and then I watch them walk back to the house. Then Lisa looks across the street, though not at me. Oddly, though, it’s a look of melancholic finality, or something else I can’t pinpoint. Or perhaps I just think it is. Then she follows them inside. The door closes.
I did notice one thing, though. Justin didn’t kiss her. I’m not sure if he even touched her; I don’t think he did. His focus was all on his little boy.
THIRTY-FIVE
I’d forgotten about the envelope. Evelyn had said open it when you’re alone and feeling a little brighter, though I’m not sure I can claim to be that. I think I’ve observed a pattern. The worse I feel about my own life, the more I seek escape in Evelyn’s.
I sit cross-legged on my bed, the last of the evening sun streaming in through the bare window. I’m the woman in Hopper’s Morning Sun. After a moment or two of enjoying the warmth and the peace, I open the envelope.
It’s not a letter. Intriguingly, it’s an old newspaper cutting dated March 18, 1984. It has been folded into quarters. The fold lines are fragile, so I take care when opening it out.
My eyes go straight to the headline: Newcastle Man in Coma after Bar Brawl.
On the left-hand side of the page is a photograph, maybe two square inches in size: a face I instantly recognise.
And then I see the name.
THIRTY-SIX
‘Eddy is my father.’
I only have to look at Evelyn for the tears to roll down my face.
She nods, and tries to say something, but is at a loss for words. Instead, she steps aside to let me in. I walk into her living room and drop into the nearest chair. Since reading the article, I’ve been suspended in a state of shock – like jumping from an airplane and hovering sixty feet above earth, bracing yourself to land, but puzzled as to why you’re not moving.
I still haven’t landed.
‘He’s my dad,’ I say, as though repeating it might make it more real.
‘Yes.’ Evelyn finally speaks. ‘He is.’