About six months after she’d married Geoff I phoned her at home one weekend, ready with a cover story in case Geoff answered. But she took the call, and in no time I was confessing that I yearned to have regular contact with her. Was it possible that perhaps we could meet on an occasional basis, just as friends, just to keep in touch?
She sounded mildly amused but remained noncommittal, saying only she would think about it. A month later she phoned to say that she would be in London in a few days’ time and would I like to meet up for lunch?
By now she had learnt that Lyneth was pregnant again and must have known that this had prompted me to call her in the first place. I expected her to warn me off completely, but in fact we spent three hours at a pavement cafe near the British Museum over toasted sandwiches and endless cups of coffee.
Tanya was genuinely pleased that we were having another child. She made it plain that she intended to do nothing to compromise her marriage to Geoff, or mine to Lyneth. At the same time she admitted to having missed my companionship and said that she would be happy to see me when circumstances permitted. I suggested that it would be better if we said nothing to Geoff or Lyneth about such meetings; Lyneth in particular would not have reacted kindly to them. Tanya agreed but insisted we didn’t pretend we were doing something that wasn’t deceitful.
So we began what I suppose was a chaste affair, though it was certainly far from platonic. Tanya and I never disguised our continued attraction for one another, but we never quite articulated it either. We talked of Geoff and Lyneth only in passing, though Tanya was always interested in the doings of the girls. She would have made a terrific mother.
I was still in the bathroom, wiping my arm on one of Tanya’s towels, inhaling its smell of her. It was far more familiar to me than Lyneth’s, which I couldn’t bring to mind. Poor Lyneth, whose loyalty and industry I’d always taken for granted. Sara and Bethany, her finest creations. They’d been gone for months. But I still didn’t know why.
I unhooked the showerhead and rinsed out the bath. I went back into Tanya’s bedroom and stood at the bay window. No cars on the driveway. Tanya had driven to the station, and Geoff was always up at six each morning so that he could get into work before the rush hour. I had a recollection that he was attending a conference in Nortmpton, would be staying overnight.
Two o’clock. Nothing living was moving, outside or in. The house felt unoccupied. I had a sense that even I was not truly there, had become my own phantasm.
THIRTY-THREE
The snow kept tumbling down. It was already up to the ankles of his boots. Owain tugged at his cap brim, wishing he’d picked up something warmer from the stores after dropping off the Panache.
A squad of cadets from a youth brigade was doing manoeuvres near the Guards Memorial in St James’s Park, their drill sergeant forcing them to hunker down in the snow with their replica rifles and submachine guns. The wooden weapons used by recruits were usually crudely carved, making splinters as much of a risk as chilblains or sprains. In his youth they had been weighted with lead shot or horseshoes. He’d done his early training on the Brecon Beacons, under conditions far more desolate. According to a report he’d seen recently, forty percent of the brigades were now made up of female conscripts.
He crossed The Mall. The missile battery at the Admiralty Arch looked deserted, everyone doubtless huddled around the nearest stove.
Ghostly figures were emerging from a ruined building, spilling out of its rubble-strewn entrance. They flooded forward, passing through him, blurred images talking soundlessly to one another, as insubstantial as smoke. He shut his eyes and kept walking until he knew they would be gone. Nothing was going to hinder him. He wouldn’t allow it.
Perched in his head, I was astonished both by the phantoms and the realisation that they might actually be emanating from the ICA in my own world. Minutes before they could have been Tanya’s audience. They were fleetingly manifest in this world because of my link to Owain.
He found the Windsor easily, saw that it was a Georgian remnant squashed between the egg-box façade of a furniture repository and a big rectangular water tank on galvanised trestles. It looked as if it had been converted from some earlier use decades before, its red plastic lettering faded, the crown over the W askew. A hoppy aroma in the snow-filled air told him that there was a brewery in the vicinity.
The hotel foyer was full of dark wood, crystal chandeliers and framed photographs of young servicemen. Owain stamped his feet on the doormat and dusted the snow from his cap.
An elderly woman wearing gold-framed bifocals was sitting behind the reception desk.
“Good day, major,” she said to him in an impeccable English accent. “Isn’t it appalling weather.”
“Awful,” he agreed. “I’ve come to see my brother, Rhys. He told me he was staying here.”
She didn’t check the register but slowly swivelled her chair to glance at the rows of keys hanging on brass hooks.
“I do believe he’s at home,” she told him.
A quaint way of putting it, and rather contrived, too: as far as he could see, only one key on the board was missing.
She was in her seventies, wearing an expensive silver cardigan that long had seen better days. Blue rinsed hair and a string of what might have been real pearls at her neck. Withered, arthritic hands. A relic, like the hotel itself, of another age.
“I’ll let him know you’re here,” she said, reaching for the telephone.
“I phoned earlier,” he lied. “He knows I’m coming.”
The furrows on her brow deepened. He guessed that she had been at the desk all morning.
“I rang his portable,” he improvised. “By a miracle there was a signal. We had dinner together yesterday evening.”
“Ah.” She was mulling it over. “I do believe I remember him mentioning that at breakfast. He was rather late coming down.”
“Between you and me,” Owain said, “he’s never been much of an early riser.”
His tone conveyed sympathy with her disapproval of such tardiness. She looked mollified. Part of him was relieved to hear that his brother had returned safely. He needed him in one piece, and fully sober, if he was going to get any sense from him; but he also wanted to catch him off guard.
The keys were arranged in rows that he suspected represented the six floors of the building. The absent one was in the upper right-hand corner.
“Top floor?” he guessed.
“Of course,” she told him. “The suite. It has the best views.”
He was doing his utmost to be diplomatic and withheld his smile. The place was as quiet as a deserted barracks. It was probable that none of the other rooms was let.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to catch him,” he remarked. “The line was poor. I thought perhaps it might just be an overnight stay.”
“No, no,” she assured him, not even pretending to check the register. “Payment for three nights has already been made.”
“Ah. I’ll go straight up in that case, if it’s all right by you.”
“I’m afraid the lift isn’t working. You must forgive us. It’s such a problem these days. One simply cannot get the tradesmen.”
All this was said with an eggshell dignity. Her head was shaking slightly as if to say: What could you do? When would this intolerable state of affairs ever end?
“Please don’t concern yourself,” Owain commiserated. “I’m used to the exercise.”