that she had travelled widely for work and for pleasure, that when I had last seen her, she had had a lover and friends and a rich, full life. It came to me, sitting on that bench surrounded by office workers, that actually Fred wasn’t always right, that sometimes my desire to please him had held me back, that all those years ago, I wouldn’t have minded doing the gyrating and the goodness knows what myself.
I tried to smile. ‘I’ve become very fond of her, and her children – the boy Max particularly. I want to help her.’
‘I just think you’ve got enough on your plate.’
‘Like what?’ I noticed the thinness, then, of his upper lip. ‘What have I got on my plate?’
He didn’t answer, just churned his mouth in circles, his eyes pained and kind. ‘People take advantage of you,’ he said.
‘No one is taking advantage of me,’ I said.
He was jealous, I told myself, as I strap-hung on a sweltering Tube home. Our relationship was based on convenient lies. He said he didn’t want me to be lonely, but it suited him to think of me as dependent, and sad and small. Well, things changed. People moved on. Maybe I’d had enough of Fred. Maybe it would be a good idea if we didn’t see each other for a while.
Chapter Fifteen
Swallows and Amazons series: incomplete set (Pigeon Post missing). Jonathan Cape. In publisher’s green cloth bindings, some with illustrated dust wrappers.
Suspended Animation, noun. The temporary cessation of most vital functions without death, as in a dormant seed or a hibernating animal.
Ailsa says it’s because of me that her work on my house stopped. It’s not true. The only time I barred her path was when she tried to take away the box of Arthur Ransomes. No, she may not like to admit it, but she got bored.
It was gradual, now I look back on it. Her visits had already tailed off, though it was that week when I realised it was over.
It’s awful how the walls compress when you’re waiting. She sent me a text on Tuesday asking if I would be in. I’d replied, ‘Yes, all day!’, which was too vague. Her response, ‘Good. Will pop in’, equally so. I didn’t think it mattered at first. I was working on ‘clever’ – a juicy little word – a surprising late arrival in our vocabulary, cited in 1682 by Thomas Browne as peculiar to East Anglia; probably related to the Middle English ‘clivers’, meaning claws, talons, clutches (which casts the phrase ‘clever devil’ in an altogether different light). Normally, it would have absorbed me but as often happens when Ailsa is concerned, concentration evaded me.
I waited all day. I’m not a big believer in intuition but I do associate a sense of dread with this day in particular, a deep, dirty, stagnant anxiety, a teeming or gnawing under my ribcage. I’d told myself I wouldn’t tell her about Tom – I’d decided Fred was right – but I needed to see her to reassure myself it was the right decision. While I waited, I felt useless. I scrunched and unscrunched my hands, cracking my knuckles, squeezing the flesh on my fingers. The house seemed to respond, to seep and rot, a sweet meaty odour caught at the back of my throat. The pile of plastic bags that had collected over the previous week came alive in the heat, tiny shifts and adjustments. When I moved a Toby jug containing pens, an earwig unfurled. Maudie was scratching to reach something under the sofa. Behind the wainscot I imagined I could hear scuttling.
I took the key from the tin where I’d hidden it and went upstairs to Faith’s room. It was a long time since anyone had tried the key and the lock rasped, stuck. I jiggled, finally getting traction; it released and, pushing, I caught sight of a few inches of flock wallpaper, before the bottom of the door snagged on a fold of carpet. I nudged it harder, but it wouldn’t move; I’d have to get down on my knees, and wriggle my hand under the door to free it. I thought for a second and then I closed the door, locked it, and returned the key to my pocket.
Mother’s room was still crammed: her piles of paste jewellery on the dressing table, her plaid gown on the back of the door, a cream quilted garment referred to always as her ‘bed jacket’ on the pillow; knick-knacks, an