‘Yes… fine.’ Where to start? What to say? Just, I wanted to hear your voice. I really want to see you. ‘Have you heard about Mary? She’s had to go away. I don’t know if she told you.’
‘Yeah…’ He hesitated and I knew immediately that he knew her reason. ‘Yeah, she cancelled our film club so… so, I was aware.’ He wasn’t going to betray any confidences that was for sure. There was silence for a moment.
‘And you, Tab?’ he said. ‘How are you? And Rosie?’
‘She’s not… she’s not so good.’ I could feel my whole body unfold as I began to confide. ‘Red, she hasn’t been doing any work. None at all. She’s just been sitting there in her room, writing over and over again that she hates her life.’ He was silent as I spoke and all the worry I had been feeling for the last months bubbled up and I started to cry. ‘It must have been so awful for her. I feel that it’s my fault. I didn’t ask any questions. I just assumed she was okay and she was upstairs in her room and I didn’t bother to check on her. I should have done. And now Michael thinks milk is the answer. And so…’
‘I’ll come round,’ he said, firmly. ‘We could go for a walk.’
That was exactly what I needed. I breathed out in relief. ‘Thank you Red. I’ll just check on Rosie and see if she’s okay with me popping out.’
If I could turn back time, I would never have gone swimming. And I would have told Red from the moment I found out I was pregnant. But then I became someone else, the girl who lost a grandmother and an unborn child within a week. And if I could turn back time, I would have noticed what was going on with Rosie. I would have seen it, she wouldn’t have been so alone.
Red wasn’t my answer, my knight in shining armour. And I could never tell him about what had happened. I should have told him years ago, when it happened, but it was too late now.
But we could still try and be friends. Not friends friends but acquaintances who shared a special history. That counted for something, didn’t it? And I wanted to see him. In fact, I wanted to see him more than anything, however awkward and strange and weird it all was.
Rosie was sitting downstairs, watching television when I got home.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘You’re looking… better.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. How are you feeling?’
‘A bit better.’ She gave a smile.
‘Well, then, that must be why.’
‘Would you be all right, if I went for a walk. With Red?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, I think I’ll survive.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
Doorbell. I ran to open it.
*
‘We could go down to the harbour? It wouldn’t take long,’ he said.
‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
We began to walk, side by side, the closest, physically, we’d been in years. I was so aware of his body, one that I used to know every inch of. His arm brushed mine for a moment and the warmth, the intimacy of that movement was all too fleeting.
‘So, Rosie…’ he began.
I remembered how this felt, talking and walking. One of us listening, while the other unburdened or entertained or explained or whatever we used to do. He was a good listener, was Red. All those years away had not dimmed his ability to listen as though there was only one thing in the world he was interested in, and that was what you were saying. And with everyone else, you were just imparting information, bringing them up to speed on certain life events. With Red, it always had been, an unburdening, an opening up. And he was there, listening with his whole body.
We sat down on a bench, just inches from each other, overlooking the sea where the trawlers and the small fishing boats were tied up for the night. Him, as he always sat, right ankle resting on left knee.
‘I should have known how bad it had got, Red,’ I said. ‘I mean, all the signs were there.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ he said kindly. ‘People need to ask for help. All too often, we just try and cope on our own, thinking that that is the best way. But it’s really the worst.’ He smiled at me. ‘It’s the least effective way of getting better.’
If you only knew, I thought. ‘Yes, yes… but sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we don’t know what to do. And it’s easy for me – for us – to sit here and say you should talk, when we’re rational and not in the middle of some crisis. When you are… well, it’s hard to do all the right things.’
He nodded. ‘I know. But you shouldn’t blame yourself.’
‘She’s always been a perfectionist, always wanted everything to be nice and good, always had the best marks in school, just so easy. But when Jake finished with her… that was a bit of a point of no return… a kind of loss of innocence that life can be really awful.’
‘I suppose it builds resilience,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘The school have told me that she doesn’t have to sit the exams this year but that we should have a total rethink about next year. Reapply to different colleges, make sure she’s on a course that she really wants to do.’
‘You’re a really good mother, Tab,’ he said. ‘I always wondered what…’ He trailed off.
‘What?’
‘Nothing…’
I let it go. I was loving talking to him, as though nothing bad had ever happened, that we were still Red and Tab, that there was no painful elision in our lives. And that in a moment, I could lean over and he’d put his arm about me and we’d sit there and watch the boats and the sea, together forever, as we’d always meant to be and there was no way I was going to spoil this moment by talking about the past.
‘She’s sort of lost her footing… you know?’ I carried on.
‘I’m still losing mine, all the time,’ he said. ‘Literally and metaphorically. We were rehearsing the songs from Annie and I ran down the steps from the stage and misjudged them.’
‘Not in front of the girls?’ Red always made everything better. I should have remembered that.
‘Oh yes… how they laughed,’ he said, grimacing. ‘And I had to pretend that I wasn’t embarrassed and that I hadn’t bruised my arse.’
I laughed. ‘And metaphorically?’
‘Oh you know, in the way that we all do, us humans, doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, wondering if the life you are living is the life you are meant to live, that kind of thing.’ There was a look in his eye that I couldn’t quite read.
‘Why? What makes you think you’re not?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Just a typical ongoing existential crisis. I just wonder sometimes. But you have Rosie. You have her.’
We looked at each other, unable to break eye contact, a huge swell of feeling washed over us, so much unspoken, so much unresolved emotion. The detonating of our relationship had been brutal for both of us.
‘Red…’
He looked away. ‘It’s been tough, you know,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m a grown-up now. And I’ve learned to live with it.’
‘With what?’ I said gently.
‘The disappointment,’ he said. ‘It never went away, the disappointment.’ It was clear he meant only one thing.
‘Red… I’m so sorry.’
He shrugged it off. ‘Part of me was frozen, numb,’ he went on, looking out to sea, as though I wasn’t there. ‘When you didn’t come to San Francisco, when you didn’t answer any of my calls. When there was no explanation. You should have just told me. If you had met someone else, or if you’d just gone off me. Or whatever.’ He said sadly, as though resigned. ‘That would have hurt, sure, but it would have been better than nothing.’
‘I know… I’m sorry.’
‘What’s done is done. I don’t blame you. I’m not angry. I’ve never been angry. I was just so bloody sad about it. It was like it took root, this sadness. I mean I went out, I was sociable, good to be with, made jokes, the usual Red, like I am now but I was never able to shake the sadness’ He shrugged again. ‘It doesn’t matter now. But I’ve always wanted to tell you how I felt. I mean, I know you were grieving for your grandmother… that must have been hard. But not to tell me. To just disappear like that.’