Before We Met: A Novel (10 page)

Back in the kitchen, she smoothed the statement out on the table and went through it item by item, Biro in hand. There were the new shirts, the gas bill, their supper at Mao Tai last Tuesday, the tickets for
La Bohème
. There was a payment to the delicatessen at the top of the street, and then the butcher’s shop next door for the ribs of beef they’d had a couple of weeks ago. Lea & Sandeman, the wine merchants, and the private gym Mark used in Chelsea; £25 to W. H. Smith at Heathrow Terminal Three, for books, no doubt. She could identify almost everything, and by the time she reached the end there were only two transactions with Biro crosses next to them: a payment on the second page to someone or something called Trowell and then, near the bottom of page three, another to or at ‘Woodall’.

Reaching for her laptop, she typed ‘Trowell’ into Google. The first hit was a link to Wikipedia, the snippet of text underneath telling her that Trowell was a village in Nottinghamshire. She scanned down, seeing links to a garden centre, a definition of ‘trowel’ in an online dictionary, and then links to social networking sites and people with the surname Trowell. She looked back at the statement. There were no initials, no obvious indication that the payment had been made to a person, though that didn’t rule it out.

She typed in ‘Woodall’. This time the first hit was a link to a site of motorway service stations. She skimmed down the page. The next was a Wikipedia entry for William Woodall, politician, 1832–1901, and the third another Wikipedia entry, this one for Woodall, ‘a small hamlet in the civil parish of Harthill, with Woodall situated in the metropolitan borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, UK’.

She went back to the search bar at the top and added ‘Trowell’. When she hit return this time, the first thing she saw was a link to a trivia site, and a line of text underneath that read: ‘Which motorway has service stations named Woodall, Trowell and Tibshelf?’ The answer, which appeared straight after the question, eliminating any fun to be had in guessing, was the M1.

Hannah stood up and went to the pinboard. She unhooked the calendar and brought it back to the table. The payment at Trowell had gone out on 12 October, the one at Woodall on 26 October, both Fridays. In the little squares for both days, Mark’s large, confident handwriting read
Germany
–
Frankfurt
.

Chapter Seven

Though it was nearly eight o’clock, Knightsbridge was still clogged with traffic, no more than two or three cars at a time making it through the lights. The couple in the seat in front were riding the bus like a bumper-car, leaning against each other, their feet up on the plastic ledge that separated them from the glass expanse of the enormous windshield, his feet encased in grimy trainers, hers bare in a pair of canary, yellow patent-leather heels that Hannah, feeling like an old woman, thought she’d regret within the hour. Thermals from the heater underneath their seat carried back a woody, masculine scent that Hannah recognised as Gillette body-spray: she’d had a boyfriend at college for a week or two who’d worn it.

The boy turned to look out of the window, adjusting his arm beneath the fake-fur trim of his girlfriend’s hood. The bus was now inching its way past Harvey Nichols, where the windows were already dressed for Christmas. Against a backdrop of glittering silver cloth, a mannequin in an exquisite gothic lace dress swung on a trapeze with an insouciance suggesting she was already several glasses into the bottle of champagne dangling from her stiff plastic fingers. In the next window along, another sat astride a golden reindeer in nothing but flimsy silk underwear and heels, a male mannequin in full evening dress, shoes and all, pressed indecently close behind her, the sex pest at an absinthe-fuelled office party.

How long was it now until Christmas? Six weeks or thereabouts. God, she’d barely given it a thought. Last year, they – she and Mark – had spent the holidays with her mother in Malvern. As children, she and Tom had alternated between their parents, spending Christmas Eve and the day itself with one, moving to the other’s house for Boxing Day and the rest of the long week that stretched towards New Year’s Eve, changing the order the following year. Since they’d been adults, however, and especially while she’d been in America, Hannah had felt that she should spend the day itself with her mother. Dad had Maggie, and Chessa and Rachel, her two daughters from her first marriage, who always turned up in what Dad called their ‘charabancs’ with their own blonde daughters, two apiece, and their husbands, and the collection of semi-wild dogs that Chessa serially adopted from animal-rescue centres.

Though her own plans hadn’t been negotiable – it was Tom’s turn to spend Christmas with Lydia’s family, and her mother would be left alone if she didn’t go – Hannah had hesitated to ask Mark to come with her last year. She’d wanted to spend the holiday with him but had struggled to imagine him in the little red-brick railway worker’s cottage which her mother had moved into after the divorce and had barely changed since, where even the air seemed trapped, heavy with regret and the sense of a life tentative and half-lived. The previous year, lying on the bed in her old teenage bedroom, the sound of
The Archers
seeping up through the kitchen ceiling, the word moribund had come into Hannah’s mind. What would Mark, with all his energy, think of the place? But then, she’d thought, her mother’s house was part of her, Hannah’s, life, too. It was where she’d spent half her childhood. If they were going to have a future, she had to trust Mark and let him in.

She’d waited until a Friday at the very end of November, when she’d met him at JFK and they were lying in bed in her apartment, catching up on each other’s news and ignoring the rumbling in their stomachs that indicated it was time to get up, face the cold and go round the corner for hotdogs at Westville, their habitual post-airport, post-bed spot. She’d broached the subject gingerly but Mark had pulled her on to his chest, tucked her hair behind her ears so that it was out of his face and said simply, ‘I’d love to come with you.’

‘Really?’ she’d said, sounding very surprised.

‘Of course. I was beginning to feel offended you hadn’t asked.’

‘Oh.’ That idea hadn’t occurred to her.

‘I’m joking. But of course I want to spend Christmas with you, and I want to meet your mother. Both your parents.’

Happy – and relieved – she’d kissed him and he’d slipped his hands down her spine and kissed her in return. ‘I want to know you,’ he’d said.

‘You do know me.’ She’d sounded indignant, hating the implication that he didn’t already, the distance between them that implied.

‘
Really
know you: the difficult bits as well as all the fun stuff.’ He kissed her again, for longer this time. ‘I want to see where you grew up – I want to get to know your mother. And I like the idea of being there. Not just
with
you but – you know what I mean. I know you don’t find Christmas easy. If I’m there, maybe I can . . .’

To her shame, Hannah had felt a lump form in her throat. ‘It’s not that I don’t . . . It’s just that Mum’s always so sad.’ Her voice croaked slightly and she coughed to disguise it. ‘She tries to hide it but it’s worse at Christmas, especially because she knows my dad’s mobbed with people and . . .’

Mark had tipped her sideways so she was resting inside his arm, her head on his shoulder. She’d felt his breath in the parting of her hair. They’d lain like that for a couple of minutes, neither of them talking, until it dawned on her how selfishly she’d thought about the whole issue.

‘Where do you go?’ she’d asked him quietly. ‘Normally, I mean?’

She’d felt his chest rise and fall. ‘Last year I went to Dan and Pip’s,’ he said. ‘That was fun – Pip’s a great cook, as you’ll see, and all her clan was there, and their little boy Charlie was playing in the boxes and ignoring his actual presents. You can imagine.’

She pressed further, as gently as she could. ‘How about before that?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘when I was with Laura I spent it with her – once just the two of us in London, once at her parents’ in Somerset.’ Hannah felt her usual flare of irrational jealousy at his ex’s name. ‘But last year,’ he said, ‘I was on my own. I’ve done three Christmases on my own, actually – I realise that makes me sound like a miserable bastard . . .’

‘No.’

‘I don’t know, it’s just a weird time, isn’t it? Since my parents died, I haven’t really felt like it. It was her thing, you know, my mum – she loved it, looked forward to it from about June on. She used to make so much effort: home-made Christmas puddings and mince pies and a huge
Stollen
and these little decorations that she’d had since we were children, all carefully wrapped up again in tissue on Twelfth Night.’ Mark’s profile was silhouetted against the glow of the lamp on her bedside table and she could see that the muscle in his jaw had set hard.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

‘No, it’s fine, it’s good. It’s nice to remember. Poor Mum.’

Hannah hesitated before she asked, ‘What about your brother?’

He’d turned his head sharply, almost dislodging her from his shoulder. ‘What about him?’

‘I mean, you’re not in contact at Christmas? You don’t ring each other once a year, just to . . . ?’

‘No.’

Seconds passed, and through the open door she heard the last bars of the Wilco album playing on her iPod in the sitting room.

‘What?’ said Mark, and she was surprised by the brusqueness of his tone.

‘Nothing. I was just trying to imagine what it would be like not being in touch with Tom, and I can’t – he’s like this unchangeable fact of my life. In a lot of ways he’s my best friend as well as my brother.’

Mark shrugged. ‘You’re lucky.’

And without Tom, she’d thought but hadn’t said, she might not at that moment have been lying in bed with Mark, inviting him to Malvern, letting him into her life in a way she’d never done with anyone before.

Just after Christmas the year previously, before his school term had started up again, Tom had flown back with her to New York for five days. He wanted to see
her
New York this time, he’d said, not the Empire State Building and Grand Central and the Met; he’d done the obligatory-landmark circuit. So they’d spent the days walking for miles in the excoriating cold, stopping for coffee at Joe’s and Oren’s Daily Roast, hot chocolate at the City Bakery. She’d taken him to the Strand for used books and then down to McNally Jackson and the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street, which he’d loved. On his last full day, they’d had dumplings for a dollar apiece on Ludlow and then walked on down through Chinatown to join the throng of tourists on Brooklyn Bridge in the afternoon. They’d leaned on the railing beneath the great central arches, the intense winter light over the East River almost burning their eyes as it reflected off the water and the gleaming glass canyons of Lower Manhattan. Beyond, the new World Trade Center was still under construction but already dwarfed them all.

They’d stood shoulder to shoulder for several minutes, watching the Staten Island ferry ply back and forth, a small tanker rounding the tip of Manhattan on its way up the Hudson. Some brave souls were out in a yacht, its sail a sharp white triangle against the prevailing blue. A sudden gust of wind had blown the ends of her scarf into her face and Hannah had straightened up and shoved her hands into her pockets. ‘Come on, Thomas, let’s get moving. We’ll solidify if we stand here much longer.’

Tom, however, had said nothing and stayed put.

‘Did you hear me, cloth ears? Let’s go.’

He’d shaken his head. ‘There’s something I need to say.’

‘So let’s walk and talk.’

‘No, let’s stay here a minute.’

She’d squeezed in next to him at the railing again and glanced at his face. He’d looked serious, almost grim, and she’d started to feel worried. What was he going to tell her? Was he ill? Was it Dad? Mum? She’d jostled him, needing to leaven the sudden atmosphere. ‘Enough of this mystery – say your piece.’

‘Han,’ he said, turning to her, ‘I think you should stop messing around.’

‘Messing . . . ? What are you talking about?’

‘With men. Relationships. You’re wasting your time.’

She laughed. ‘Have you been talking to Mum? Has she put you up to this?’

Tom’s expression stayed utterly serious. ‘No. This has got nothing to do with her. This is what I think.’

‘Oh, no,’ she’d groaned and thrust her hands deeper into her pockets. ‘
Et tu, Brute?
Just because I’m thirty-three – there’s more to life than marriage and babies, you know.’

‘I do know. But that doesn’t mean those things aren’t worth having. You know I’m proud of you, I think your career’s amazing, we all do, but . . .’

‘But what?’ The wind whipped her voice away, made nothing of the steely note she’d put into it.

‘It’s a waste if you don’t have someone to appreciate it with.’

‘Oh, come on . . .’

‘I mean it. I want you to be happy.’

‘I am happy!’

‘But you could be happier. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone any more, Hannah. You don’t need to prove you can do everything on your own. I know it’s all to do with Mum, and making sure you’re never in her position, but—’