Breaking Light (40 page)

‘Oh.' Mrs Ludgate did not know what to say, but knew the name had brought them closer.

Mrs Sarobi looked up at her and smiled. ‘Would you like to come back to my place for a cup of tea?'

‘All right, go on then,' she said, casually, feeling suddenly short of breath.

‘I have got something I would like to show you …' Now it was Mrs Sarobi's turn to hesitate. ‘It's a letter.'

‘Okay …'

‘I found it, you see, in my cottage, when I moved in … This may sound odd, but I think it might relate to Mr Askew.'

‘The professor?'

She nodded. ‘But I'm not sure … I don't want to bother him with it, if it's not relevant. I can trust you, now, can't I?'

‘Yes,' she said, and then again with emphasis, ‘Yes, you can.'

‘I thought so.'

*

The cottage had style, Mrs Ludgate realised as Mrs Sarobi turned on the lights and ushered her into the sitting room. The walls were painted light and a large Afghan rug covered the polished floorboards.

‘Make yourself at home,' Mrs Sarobi said, removing her headscarf.

Mrs Ludgate stared for a moment at the thick, black braid, before taking possession of herself. ‘Your face,' she said, shyly, ‘it looks so different now that I can see you hair.'

But Mrs Sarobi laughed. ‘Ah, well, you know …' she said gaily, as if such beauty was irrelevant and quite
ordinary
.

By the time Mrs Sarobi returned with the tea, her new friend had composed herself.

‘Right,' Mrs Ludgate said as she accepted a cup of tea, ‘let's see if I can get this right. You're telling me that you have a letter relating to the professor.'

‘Well,' Mrs Sarobi blushed, ‘I think it might be … I found it in a bundle of letters – love letters – from the time of the war.' Her cheeks were aglow. ‘But this one was different – it's from a later date.'

‘And they had all been opened?'

‘Yes.' She was surprised at her own dishonesty. ‘No, actually – not this one. I opened it,' she admitted, staring down at the teapot in her hands.

‘Did you, now?' Mrs Ludgate said, but let it be at that.

‘Anyway, here it is.' Mrs Sarobi put down the teapot on a side table and pulled a letter from a pocket inside her embroidered jacket.

Mrs Ludgate looked at the broken envelope.
To my son, on his eighteenth birthday
. She licked her lips and pulled out the letter. It was written with a neat, dense hand, the letters sloping ever so slightly to the right.

Oakstone, May 1948

Mrs Ludgate looked up. ‘Are you telling me that no one, except for us, has seen this letter?'

Mrs Sarobi, who had been watching her closely, nodded. ‘And the man who wrote it, of course. The father …'

Mrs Ludgate drew in her breath. ‘Ah, now I get it,' she said, shaking her head. ‘Poor, poor boy.' And then, ‘Poor Professor.' She folded the paper gingerly and put it back inside the envelope. ‘I
think you ought to give this letter to the professor straight away – I don't want to read any more … You read it all?'

‘Yes.' She was ashamed, but not altogether sorry. She felt closer to him than before and, at once, she was grateful to Mrs Ludgate for not reading on. She took the letter from her hands.

‘You should take it to him straight away,' Mrs Ludgate repeated. ‘He needs to see this letter.'

‘I'll bring it over tomorrow.'

‘No, you should go now.' She stood up, looking at her watch. ‘I need to catch the last bus, anyway. Let's walk together to the top of the lane.'

As they reached the bus stop, Mrs Sarobi said, ‘I was just thinking, perhaps you would like to come over for Christmas dinner?' The thought had only just occurred. ‘I'll invite Mr Askew, too,' she added quickly.

‘I'd love to.'

Mrs Sarobi started walking away, but turned after a few paces. ‘You will be all right, Doris?'

Mrs Ludgate looked up. ‘Of course.' She smiled, her eyes dazzled already by the glow and tinsel of their Christmas. For a long time she stood looking after Mrs Sarobi, who walked into the snow, towards Oakstone. This is like living again, she thought, as she heard the bus coming up the high street.

As he took her fare, Mr Carpenter, the bus driver, noticed that Mrs Ludgate's eyes glittered. For some reason, it made him think of the ingenuity of a magpie – a survivor. It pleased him.

‘You're looking jolly tonight, Doris. Had a good time at Chandler's party?'

‘What? Oh, that. Nah … I'm just looking forward to Christmas.'

‘Jolly good,' he muttered, somewhat embarrassed. Everyone knew by now that her husband would spend Christmas in jail. In fact, he would be in prison for quite a while, if you were to believe the rumours. ‘Jolly good.' You had to give it to the old bag – she was quite a fighter.

*

By the time Mrs Sarobi reached Oakstone, the snow had stopped falling and the lawn in front of the dark house lay silvery beneath a pattern of winter stars. She stopped abruptly, regretting coming here at this hour. But then she saw a slit of light in the curtains and walked on towards it.

He helped her out of her coat and led her through to the sitting room. Their shared awkwardness seemed to fill the large room, which would otherwise have been quite sparse. If he was surprised, he did not show it. They talked a little, too shy to really listen to each other, and all the while she was trying to get to the point. How did you hand somebody a letter like that? But, at last, he was reading it – reading the letter that should have reached him forty-five years ago. Silently, she removed her headscarf, in an effort to bare herself like him – to help him cope with this new exposure.

Gabriel Askew read the letter that confirmed what he already knew, but he had never known it in so many words. At one point, he looked up and saw that she had removed her headscarf. He smiled at her, at all her beauty, and read on:

Post scriptum

On Christmas morning, he drove to Edencombe. The day was extraordinarily still, a northern day, silenced by the cold – a Brueghel day. Up here on the higher lands, the snow had drifted into ditches and pressed against stone walls. There was a fresh sugaring of frost where the sun had not touched the heather, a few yellow gorse flowers sharp against the sky. As he crested the last hill, the sea lay deadpan before him, offering a flawless reflection of the sky, as if the world was sinking into the sea – or growing out of it. The white house on the cliffs looked like a seaside hotel or a luxury villa on the Riviera. Or the Berghof. It was not a bad location for a private nursing home. Not bad at all, he reckoned.

On entering the double glass doors from the porch, he was pleased, and a little relieved, to see that Ms Turpin was on reception duty.

‘Ah, Ms Turpin – merry Christmas,' he said, somewhat exuberantly, opening his arms like a priest. He still held the car keys in one gloved hand, a net carrier bag in the other.

‘Mr Askew – have you been tasting the port already?'

‘Oh, no, no, my dear – it's far too early for that kind of nonsense, wouldn't you say? I'm just in a good mood. 'Tis the season to be jolly, after all.'

‘Fa, la, la,' Ms Turpin replied – but managed a smile.

‘Here –' he reached into the net bag – ‘I brought you some chocolates – from the deli.' He was glad, now, that he had spent that little extra on the posh box.

‘How lovely of you to think of me!' Her dull cheeks pinked and revealed, for an instant, that stubborn young girl who never would settle for less.

‘Ah, it's nothing, really. You deserve a knighthood. How is she today?'

‘Much the same.'

Mr Askew nodded.

‘Here, give the stuff to me. I'll take it in to her later and let her know you were here.'

‘No – no, I would like to go in myself today. I … I have something to tell her.'

‘Of course …' If she was surprised, she hid it well.

‘Will she hear me, do you think? I mean, will she understand?' He looked at the brooch on her chest – a sparkling bow, or a butterfly – away from her watchful eyes and their solid grey. Too honest.

She shook her head, letting something surface in those grey pools, something he could not bear to interpret. ‘I have told you this before, Mr Askew; the doctors say it's unlikely that she understands anything at all. She's almost ninety, for Christ's sake – it's quite something that she's still here at all … It's as if she's waiting for something.' A brief pause. ‘But one can never be a hundred per cent certain …'

‘No?'

‘Look, you know the odds as well as I do … All I'm saying is that there has got to be some room for doubt in all our lives. Otherwise we'd be a sorry lot, us humans.'