I didn’t know how to respond; I felt my deceit must be written across my face. I made an indeterminate sound and stared at my hands, my ringless finger.
‘What I was going to say,’ Frances continued, ‘is that I know David was talking to you but I wanted to ask you formally if you’d think of staying on.’
‘Here?’ I asked stupidly.
‘That was the general idea.’
‘I’ve given you the wrong impression,’ I said. ‘I’m just a teacher taking a bit of time out.’
‘I like having you around. Most people irritate me. You don’t.’
‘Thank you.’ I couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘But I don’t think it’s possible.’
‘Don’t say no at once. Think it over at least. Are you in tomorrow?’
‘There are things I need to do.’
‘I’d be grateful if you could manage an hour or so in the morning. I’ve got to go out.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now I ought to leave. Things to do.’
‘But before you go, I think I should pay you for the last few days.’
‘Later.’
‘Gwen! Anyone would think you were doing this for nothing.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not a saint.’
‘Johnny seems to think you’re pretty perfect.’ My face burned. l heard myself mutter something unintelligible. ‘Don’t worry. He hasn’t said anything to me. He’s pretty discreet. I’ve just seen the way he looks at you.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I managed to say, and dashed out.
I told myself I mustn’t go back, but it had become an addiction. I had to go back, just to look through the rest of Milena’s emails. I arrived home in a restless and agitated state. My answering-machine was flashing but I didn’t bother to listen to the messages. I made myself a cup of tea and drank it while I paced round the house. I opened the fridge and had one of the liquid yoghurts Mary had brought. She said it would be good for my digestion; it tasted of coconut and vanilla and coated my tongue. I went into my neglected little garden. Darkness was drawing in, giving everything a mysterious air. I noticed the drifts of sodden leaves on the lawn, the nettles growing up against the back wall. There were a few yellow roses left on the bush by the back door. The bedraggled little blackbird was singing its heart out in the gloom. I reminded myself that I still had time to plant bulbs for spring. The previous autumn we’d planned snow-drops, winter aconites, daffodils and red tulips. Greg had loved tulips – he said they were the only flowers that were as beautiful dying as they were unfurling. I realized that I no longer had any difficulty in thinking of him in the past tense. When had that happened? On what day had he slipped between the cracks of memory to lie with other departed people in the deeper places of my mind?
Back in the house, I laid my two charts on the kitchen table and looked at them, my brain tingling uselessly. I took my notebook out of my bag and stared at the two addresses. What should I do now? The phone rang and I didn’t answer it. I waited to hear the message but there wasn’t one. Then it rang again, but still I didn’t answer. It rang yet again. It was like a game of chicken. Finally I gave up and answered.
‘I knew you were there.’ It was Fergus.
‘Sorry, I was tired.’
‘I wanted to ask you for supper. Jemma’s put a chicken in the oven, I’ve lit a fire.’
‘As I said, I’m a bit tired.’
‘If you don’t come, we’ll put the dinner in the car and drive over to you. And if you don’t let us in we’ll eat on your doorstep and embarrass you in front of your neighbours.’
‘All right, all right, I’ll come.’
‘I’ll come, thank you.’
I laughed. ‘Sorry for being so rude. Yes, thank you for asking me.’
Jemma was very, very pregnant. Every so often she winced as the baby kicked her. At her invitation, I put my hand on her belly and felt it writhing and jabbing. She told me it kept getting hiccups.
‘There are so many things people won’t say to me,’ I said, after two glasses of wine.
‘What do you mean?’ Fergus leaned forward to top up my glass but I put my hand over it.
‘Well, for example, you two don’t talk to me about the baby unless I press you. You think it might upset me – because of Greg, because we never managed it and now it’s too late. And of course it upsets me, but it’s not as if I forget about it until you remind me. It’s much better to say things, otherwise I feel shut out from life. Mary used to go on about Robin at every hour of the day – his snuffles, his nappies, the way his fist closed round her finger – and now she barely mentions him. Gwen used to tell me about her love life. Joe would regularly complain to me about having a cold or some bloody rich client. Not any more.’
‘In that case,’ said Fergus, glancing sideways at Jemma for her approval, ‘we wanted to ask you something.’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you be its godmother?’
‘Godmother?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you don’t believe in God.’
‘Well, that’s not really the point.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘Is that a no?’
‘Of course I’ll be its godmother! I’d love to.’ I was crying, tears sliding down my cheek and into my mouth. I wiped the back of my hand across my face and held out my glass for more wine. ‘Here’s to whoever-it-is.’
‘Whoever-it-is,’ they echoed.
Fergus got up and hugged me. ‘I’m so sorry about everything,’ he whispered.
I shrugged.
Chapter Twenty
When I got home, I had decided what to do. It would have been easy to send emails from Milena’s account, simply replying to the messages she had received from old lovers, but that felt too risky. Even if I stayed anonymous, it would have to be sent by someone who knew Milena’s password. It might even establish a connection with Milena’s computer or her office. The safest idea seemed to be to set up a hotmail account for myself. I had no idea how easy it was to trace emails, but I probably wasn’t dealing with computer experts here. Creating the new email address, I simply jabbed randomly at the keyboard and ended up with j4F93nr4wQ5@hotmail.co.uk. I entered my first name as J and my second name as Smith. As a password I wrote out a sequence of numbers and upper- and lower-case letters. When I was done, I sent myself an email, just to check. There was just ‘J Smith’, the subject line, the date and time and the address. That seemed safe enough.
I entered the first of the email addresses I had retrieved from Milena’s computer, wrote ‘re’ beside ‘subject’, and then, after a few moments’ thought, typed: ‘Dearest Robin, I am LONGING to see you and…’ I tried to think of a plausible name. ‘Petra’. No – wasn’t that a dog’s name? And a tourist destination. ‘Katya’. Sounded a bit exotic. I realized I was thinking of names that sounded too like ‘Milena’. I looked at the books on the shelf. ‘Richmal’. Hopeless. ‘Elizabeth’. Was anyone called that any more? ‘Eliza’. ‘Lizzie’. ‘Beth’. ‘Bessie’. They all sounded ridiculous. Anyway, what did it matter. ‘Lizzie’ would do. And then I remembered. No, it wouldn’t do. The name needed to start with a J. Jackie then. ‘Jackie again after all this time. Ring as soon as you arrive, love Jackie xxxxx PS I hope this is your email address and if it isn’t will whoever is reading it let me know!!!!!’
I read it over and then again. I pressed send and it was gone. I wrote the same message to the second address as well and sent it. I thought of when I was a child and sometimes I had been afraid to post a letter because when I pushed it through the slot and heard it fall, I would realize it was still there, a few inches away, but lost to me, beyond change or recall.
The next morning, when I arrived at the office, Frances was talking on the phone. She was preparing a party for a firm of City lawyers that was being held in an old warehouse by the river. As I switched on Milena’s computer, she slammed down the phone and strode over to me. ‘They want a Shakespearean theme,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know what that means.’