Full Circle (25 page)

‘Leo Carter, from Lexleigh. He's staying with you for the night.'

‘Is that his mother? I didn't recognize your voice, Mrs Carter. But I expect we all sound different after all these years. How are you?'

‘She's been dead for ages. I'm his wife. I thought it was you he said he was with in Reading this morning and you were taking him home for the night. It must have been another name.'

‘Fancy Leo married. We haven't heard anything from him for quite fifteen years. And neither have we been to Reading market except to buy bits for the machines. We gave up livestock years ago.'

But Bella wasn't listening. Gently, she replaced the receiver. Leo wasn't there … he'd lied to her … he probably hadn't even been to Reading. She stepped back from where the telephone was attached to the hall wall and sat on the bottom stairs. She knew he spent many hours with Louisa, and she had never felt a bit jealous. She knew they were both far cleverer than she was – both of them interested in things that went on in the world. She couldn't compete with all that; she didn't even want to. She'd found all she wanted in Ali … and warm tears escaped to roll down her cheeks. Then she pulled her mind back to Leo. Louisa was with her parents – wasn't she? – but if she knew about Ali she would come straight home. Bella was ashamed that she could be so weak, but she couldn't face the night alone here. If Louisa didn't say she would come back this evening, then Bella would lock herself in Ali's room. Dad would be home. She didn't want to see him.

Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she got up from her seat on the stairs and went again to the telephone. Directory Enquiries would tell her the Hardings' number if she gave them the name of the town and the road where they lived.

And so a few minutes later she was answered by a none-too-friendly male voice. When he heard that it was Louisa she wanted, he told her, ‘She was on the road by just after nine this morning. She must have reached home by lunchtime. Try her there. Now, if you'll excuse me, I had just turned on the wireless for the early evening news.'

She found herself again sitting on the stairs with no recollection of how she got there. Louisa must have known she was only staying in Newquay for one night … Leo had lied about the Gibbins … Louisa and Leo …

Yet she felt they were removed from her, just two people she had been fond of –
was still fond of
– but were removed from the thing that had taken the foundations away from her world.

‘Bella, is it all right if I come in? Did you get Leo on the buzzer?'

She shook her head. ‘No. I can't contact him.'

‘Look m'dear, there are things that have to be done. Not things for you to see to. If you give me the certificate the doctor has left with you, once the Registry Office opens in the morning I can get things sorted for you. If Leo is away all night we shan't see him before midday tomorrow and there are arrangements to be made. Let me be the one to do all that for you, won't you?'

‘Doesn't seem real, Ted. Does it to you?'

‘I'd give my right arm for it not to be true, and that's the honest truth. But it's no good our wishing and pretending. The little lassie needs us to look after things. We'll do her proud, just see if we don't. If she could see the pair of us – and I tell you, I've had a few tears too – but if she could see us, I reckon she would be a bit scared. This isn't the mum she calls when she wants something, no, and no more is it the old Ted she always had a smile for. We've got to keep going, child, make her proud of us, eh?'

So how was it that when, at his words, her body was shaken with sobs and he sat by her side and held her in his arms, his cheeks were also wet? She believed her tears were all for Ali, for the loss of all the years of childhood, of adolescence, of growing into a woman, for the unfairness that it should have been snatched from a little person who had brought nothing but joy to the world. But they were for more than that, because in the moments after she spoke to Louisa's father she had faced what in her heart she had been aware of for a long time. Leo had never really loved her; he had married her because of the baby. Those visits to The Retreat were what gave his life purpose.

Limp and weak from her bout of crying, Bella forced herself to face what had to be done. She was thankful for Ted's offer to register the death in the morning and call at the undertaker's on his way out of town.

‘Then there's the guv'nor,' he said, conscious that she seemed to draw back at his words. ‘Me and Eva had a word with him. Told him you weren't feeling too good and with Leo away it would be best he kipped at our place.'

‘He killed Ali.' The words came out hardly more than a whisper; certainly she didn't speak them as if to someone other than herself.

‘He's not himself, Bella. His body may be strong, but he doesn't know what he's up to. You know that better than anyone, the hours you watch over him. He loved Ali. He wouldn't have hurt a hair on her head. But you can't be expected to have to take care of him here until after Leo gets back from these friends of his. Are you going to ring the number again later on? They may have been out looking round the farm. Even later still – say they go out to dinner and you don't get hold of him till they get home – he'll get straight in the car, you can be sure. I wouldn't want his drive after what you'll have told him. Poor lad.' Nearly forty years old but still a lad as far as Ted was concerned.

‘Ted, I got through to the Gibbins. They haven't seen him for years.' She made herself look directly at him, willing him to meet her gaze. ‘So I phoned Louisa's parents so that I could talk to her. She only went for one night.'

There was no escaping what they were both thinking. His only comment was a grunt, while he thought that the local gossip Eva had picked up seemed to have been nearer the truth than they'd wanted to believe. And what about this poor girl? Pure gold she was and let down not just by her husband but by her friend too. It wasn't right.

‘I can look after the guv'nor if you'd like Eva to come over for the night. She could bring a sleeping bag and put it on top of a spare, no need to make a bed up. She'd come like a shot, you know she would.'

‘I know, Ted. And I'm grateful for the offer. But, no, I've got to face it by myself. You know what you said about us having to do Ali proud. So for
her
, I'm going to show that her mum isn't a wimp.'

Later, when she could see from the window that the lights in the workers' cottages had been put out for the night, she got ready for bed. But the thought of climbing into her side of the double bed and sleeping was impossible. She pulled on her thick dressing gown and crept back into Ali's room, half expecting to see the little girl had moved, changed the way she was lying, even though reason told her that could never happen. And so started the longest night of Bella's life. She lowered the side of the cot, letting her hand take Ali's in its grasp. How cold she was to touch. Of course she was cold, all she was wearing was her best sunshine dress and socks … and her new shoes … not the first time they'd been in the cot with her, for the first night she'd had them she'd been so proud of them that she had kept them on her pillow.

Reaching to lift her from her cot, Bella was shocked at the change in the feeling of the little body. Whenever she'd picked her up Ali would wrap her arms and legs around her, would nuzzle against her neck; but now the inert body lay stiffly in her arms. It was Bella who nuzzled, hardly aware that she was crying, her wet face against Ali's. She had never felt more at one with her, shut off from everyone, her tears damp on the baby-soft face. This was grief that belonged just to the two of them, something that would stay with Bella as long as she lived.

The put-u-up where she had slept for the first months of Ali's life was barely used through that long night.

So much happened the next morning. True to his word, Ted registered the death and then called at the premises of the undertaker, glad that he remembered the firm Harold had used for Alice. So by the time Leo's car parked at the front of the house, Ali's little body had already been taken away.

Bella was upstairs in the nursery bedroom when she heard him come, but she made no effort to go down. Sitting in the low nursing chair near the empty cot she was removed from anything that went on, held apart from it by a wall of misery. She knew he was searching, arriving home ready to play his role and tell his endless lies. Although the image seemed distant, as far away as though it were a dream, she pictured his disappointment that no one was there to greet him. There was nothing attractive in her smile.

‘Hello? Where are you all? I'm home,' he shouted from the hall.

She was glad to think of his disappointment, or as glad as it was possible for her to be when she was numb with misery. Then his footsteps on the stairs. Her mouth felt dry. In seconds she would have to tell him; she would have to form the words that her heart refused to accept.

‘Didn't you hear me call? Whatever's the matter, you look awful. Are you ill?'

Bella shook her head.

‘Where's Dad? And Ali? I didn't see them when I parked. Bella, for Christ's sake, what's the matter with you?'

‘Ali,' she managed to get the word out even though her tongue was almost too dry to form the right sound, ‘dead.'

‘What are you saying?' He must have misheard her. ‘It sounded like—'

‘Dead!' This time she shouted. She needed to yell, to hit out as if by hurting someone else she would ease her own pain. ‘He killed her, Dad killed her.' Her voice rose hysterically as loud sobs shook her body.

‘What are you saying? Where is Dad? For Christ's sake, tell me what's happened.'

Bella tried to find the words, but when she spoke it came out a jumbled mess. ‘Ask
him
. Promised to look after her, just playing ball … then they were gone … he took her … I want to die … please, God, let me die …' Bella, gentle, kind, pure gold, but in those moments she was screaming, bellowing as she cried. When he shook her it made no difference. His hand hit her sharply, leaving finger marks on her cheek. It made her gasp and that gasp broke her hysteria, leaving her trembling and weak, her strength gone as she flopped back into the nursing chair.

‘Now, quietly tell me exactly what happened. And where is she? Was she taken to hospital?'

Sitting hunched with her knees apart and her arms hanging limply between them, Bella told him what had happened the previous day, ending with the visit from the undertaker this morning when Ali was taken away. Leo listened in silence. If she'd glanced up at him the sight of his face might have cut across her own isolation and she might have remembered that it wasn't for her alone that Ali had been precious beyond words. But she didn't look at him.

‘How long have you been up here? Where's Dad? He's not downstairs.'

‘He's staying with the Johnsons.'

‘But why? This is his home. He must be devastated.'

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘This happened yesterday,' he muttered. To her? To himself? She neither knew nor cared about him or anyone else. She wanted him to go away and leave her sitting silently on her own. When she'd listened very hard she'd thought she had heard Ali's laugh. Laughing, not crying. Please, God, make her happy, don't let her feel lost and frightened. Or is there nothing? If you die, is there nothing? There must be something. People you've loved must be there for you. But she was just a baby, she only knew
us
,
she'd hardly started life. Why couldn't Leo stop talking? Something about his father … going to get him back from Eva. I can't take care of him. I won't!

‘Yesterday … all those hours and I didn't know.'

‘You would have known,' she replied, surprising herself that she could answer in a voice of such cool clarity, ‘if you'd gone to the Gibbins people. I telephoned them.'

Did she imagine it or was there a brief pause before he told her, ‘I imagine they hadn't got home. My visit fell through. Someone backed into their car. I left them at a repair garage. Then, having said I wasn't going to be here last night, I thought I'd take the opportunity of looking up a fellow I was in the army with. He's a lecturer at Reading University.'

‘Don't bother lying,' she said, her voice expressionless. ‘I really don't care where you were – or where Louisa was either.' And she meant it.

‘You know very well where Louisa was.'

‘Not precisely, but I know she wasn't with her parents. Can't you understand? I don't care. I'm only here because of Ali. You had to make the best of marrying me because of Ali.'

He suspected hysteria was still very near the surface. Damn her, why did she have to make a scene now of all times – now, when all he could think about was Alicia, Ali, the most precious thing ever to have come into his life, and not Bella's own distress. Damn her, taking over Ali's room, filled with the toys she'd played with, the books he had often read to her, just as if he hadn't lost the dearest, most perfect thing in his world. Grown men don't cry, he told himself, as misery seemed to flood over him. He turned away and left the room. She heard him going across the corridor and into the bedroom they shared; she heard the firm click of the latch as he closed the door behind him and then the key turning in the lock.

It was about a quarter of an hour later when she heard him go down the stairs and out of the front door, supposing he was on his way to bring his father home. But she soon realized she was wrong. He was walking down the track. Let him go to Louisa, she thought, shocked with herself that she could be so uninterested. They would soon have been married for three years – three years in which they had never quarrelled until that day. Was she in love with him? She loved him – he was the father of her child – but she wasn't
in
love with him, she knew that now. It had all seemed so perfect, more than she could have hoped for – a husband, a child – but while her love for Ali had been real and overwhelming, had she ever been more than infatuated with Leo? She didn't understand how his mind worked, but perhaps that was the same with most marriages. The way he wanted to make love – not the way she liked it, but doing things she didn't think had anything to do with loving someone … was his way really the way it should be? Should she want those things too? Was the fact she didn't a sign that she didn't feel for him the way she should? She knew what he was suffering. She knew he had really loved Ali and always would. He hadn't tried any of those things for ages; perhaps it had been just a phase he'd been going through? Or perhaps Lou liked what he did. It's all wrong, she told herself, I can't be normal that I can think things like that and honestly,
honestly
, not care that he has a lover, or that his lover is my friend. If anything it's a relief, really, that he has one, because even when I've thought how special and cosy it has been when he has made love to me in our nice warm bed
when we're ready to snuggle up for sleep, I have always been worried that he will be leading towards something I think in his heart he would really like to do. Real love should be gentle and tender – well, that's what I think anyway. None of it matters now. Ali was the most important thing in our marriage. Ali, poor darling little Ali, she'll never have a chance to know about living. Just a baby still. And Leo was forgotten as Bella moved to the small chest of drawers and took out a pile of neatly folded clothes. Burying her face against them, she seemed to smell the sweet baby smell. Wherever she is, please, please, don't let her be lost and sad. If only I could hear her voice, or her laugh, just once.