Space Hopper Read online

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like how she felt about certain things. I asked her what she’d thought of me as a child, and she asked me what I thought she thought. I made a rough guess, and I was pretty much correct.’ He took a long sip of wine, and I just waited for him to go on.

  ‘She said she understood the need for me to clarify certain things, but when it came to how she felt about me and the things I’d done, she said that if, in future, I wondered how she felt and it was too late to ask, I was to always assume that her overriding feelings were of pride, love and joy.’ Eddie’s voice cracked on the word joy.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Emotional?’ He nodded, pinching his nose between his eyes to stop the tears. ‘Oh, Eddie,’ I said, laying my hand on his.

  ‘But it made me realise something else,’ he said, sniffing but composed again. ‘We never talk about your mum. I know it’s a great sadness to you, losing her so young.’

  I sat up straighter, wanting to tell him, wanting to cry. My nostrils flared and I inhaled deeply, the oxygen squashing my secrets down inside.

  ‘Why do you never talk about her?’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing to say. I don’t remember enough, just a child’s memories. Unreliable.’

  ‘Aren’t all memories unreliable?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, staring into the bottom of my glass. ‘But whether they’re reliable or not, there’s not many of them.’ I had almost forgotten the little I knew before; the tiny collection of snippets I had of my mother pre-time travel. As I lied to Eddie I could see all the new memories I had made in the past couple of months, and longed to share them with him.

  ‘Well, what do you remember?’ he said, prompting me.

  I could only tell Eddie what I remembered from early childhood, the ones that had now been superseded by my newer memories.

  ‘Working backwards, I remember missing her when she died, she got a cold, a chest infection; she used to get those, I think, every winter. The way I remember it she got a cold, and then, well then she… died.’ I tried to picture it, and it was like a blank page in a photo album; I couldn’t make the images appear. I could remember the facts, insubstantial as they were, but I couldn’t see them like I could the new images.

  ‘That’s vague,’ said Eddie, not unkindly.

  ‘If I’m honest, I can’t really remember that time clearly. I went to live with Henry and Em, down the street, and at some point they adopted me.’ Eddie knew this part. ‘They were in their late fifties when I went to them and I think, at first, I thought it was temporary. I think they thought it was temporary, that was how it felt, but maybe it became permanent when we all got along; they were sweet. I remember when they decorated my bedroom, and some of my old things were given back to me.’ I paused, picturing the Space Hopper in the corner of my old room.

  ‘I remember asking them what had happened to my mother, and they sat me down. They kept looking at each other as though they would prefer it if the other explained. I honestly think, if I’d never asked them, they would have pretended nothing had ever happened, and that one day I would forget all about her, for my sake.’

  ‘They were trying to be kind,’ Eddie said.

  ‘I know.’ I stared into the middle distance, seeing Em and Henry as if on an old film recording, black and white, silently moving about, laying things for a roast dinner on the table and smiling into the lens from the past; then seeing them in technicolour, the newer memories more vibrant and accessible.

  ‘They said she’d got a cold, fell ill, and died. I never saw her again. I guess they thought that was for the best, for everyone involved, whoever that was. I don’t remember her body being taken out of the house. I was protected from it all.’

  ‘If two animals live together and one of them dies,’ – Eddie glanced at me, checking I was okay; I nodded a fraction – ‘you’re supposed to put the body of the dead one near the one that’s still living, for a few hours, so they realise their partner is gone. If you just remove the body, the other one will wait and wait for the other one to come home. They can pine, get depressed; they will always wonder where their buddy is. It’s the same with humans, I think.’

  ‘Do you think I’ve been waiting for my mother all these years?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know, I suppose it’s different. Not waiting exactly, but maybe pining. Did you ever ask Em and Henry about her when you grew up?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to upset them, or rock the boat. I don’t think I ever asked them any questions, they didn’t seem to like me doing that. And what could I ask? I thought I knew her better than they did, I didn’t even tell them how much I missed her. They took me to her grave when I was young, but only twice, maybe three times; I took flowers from their garden and laid them there. Then that all stopped. I remember asking if we could go to the grave again, but there was always some reason we couldn’t go, and eventually I stopped asking, because I got the feeling they didn’t like it. I really think they thought I would forget about her, at least for the most part.’

  ‘How do you think she died? It’s strange, isn’t it, you not knowing a little more than that.’

  ‘I think adults just protected children from stuff they thought they couldn’t understand back then. But what they gave me was a lot of unknowns, and that’s worse. I guess she died of cancer or something. Maybe, I don’t know. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but she smoked.’

  ‘Did she?’ Eddie said. ‘I wonder why you remember that. Perhaps the smell.’

  Of course, I hadn’t known or remembered that she smoked before my visits through the Space Hopper box. This was new information; I was being careless.

  ‘Have you thought about speaking to Henry again, and asking him more about your mother?’ Eddie said. ‘Before it’s too late.’

  Em had died more than ten years ago and Henry, who was nearly ninety, lived in sheltered accommodation. I don’t visit very often, I’m ashamed to admit, but now and then I do.

  ‘I don’t know, Eddie.’

  ‘It’s pretty much now or never, you know that,’ he said. I looked at my husband, his eagerness to make sure I live with as little regret as possible, now that he had got into the idea of it himself. ‘If you don’t speak to him before he dies, you’ll think of something you wished you’d asked. Maybe he can tell you more about your mum now you’re all grown-up. You won’t know unless you try.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. We sipped our drinks in the darkening garden, and Eddie lit a lemon-scented candle to keep the midges away. The flame danced: ducked and rose, searching for air and then retreating from it. It was mesmerising and I stared into its blue centre.

  ‘My mum was right,’ Eddie said after a while. ‘A lot of the questions I asked her, I knew the answers already. And I think it’s a good idea if you adopt that sentiment in terms of your own mother.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘What I mean is,’ he went on, ‘your mum loved you, she cared about you. She’d be so proud of you, and the girls.’

  ‘I know,’ I whispered.

  ‘But do you?’ he said, intent on making sure I believed in what he was saying. ‘You don’t need to remember your mother or the things she said to you in order to know that she loved you as deeply as we love our own sleeping beauties.’

  ‘I’m starting to get there, starting to understand that,’ I said. Obviously I hadn’t got to that understanding in the way Eddie would imagine. I had real confirmation, proof, and that felt good. But Eddie was correct, and the truth remained, and it was this: even if I had not returned to speak to my mother I could have depended on her love. I could have trusted in that.

  For a while we both just looked out into the garden, our own little pocket of the world felt safe and complete. It was comforting – misleading though it was – to imagine for a moment that this was all there was to the universe.

  ‘To be able to trust in someone’s love is a wonderful thing,’ he said, breaking the peace. ‘I’ve always tried to trust in yo
u and the way you feel about me. But sometimes I worry, Faye. Recently you seem so far away. I’ve never felt like that with you before. You’ve always been right here.’ He held his palm to his heart. ‘But lately – I don’t know – am I losing you?’

  I set my drink, half full, on the table and got up so I could snuggle into his lap. I wrapped my blanket around him too. ‘I have been distant,’ I said. ‘I know that, but you’re not losing me.’

  ‘You’re not telling me everything, and I can’t work out why. I don’t want to ask, but I have to. Is there someone else?’

  There was someone else. There was my mother. But I knew what Eddie meant and I kissed him long and deep, to reassure him that there was no other man in my life.

  He pulled away gently. ‘Am I putting you under too much pressure by going into the clergy? Mum says it must be really hard on you, and I think I’ve been trying to ignore that.’

  ‘I’m coming to terms with it,’ I said, pressing my lips to his cheek and letting them linger. ‘I think there’s more to God than the big beardy feller in the sky. I know that God is on earth, in people, in good deeds. God is in the big things and the small things. He’s under the fingernails of our daughters, and he’s in all the kindnesses we show people. I know that what people call “God’s work” can be called “lightening the burden” for another human being. My kind of god might be a bit different from yours; maybe that’s all.’

  Eddie pushed me away, so that he could look me in the eyes. ‘You’ve been giving this a lot of thought,’ he said.

  ‘I have, and I’m on board.’

  Eddie nuzzled into my neck, and when I felt the heat from his breath against my skin I knew he would carry me upstairs and we would make love quietly, so as not to wake the girls. I sensed – as I had many times before – that everything I really needed was well within physical reach. His arm hooked round my waist and I closed my eyes as he moaned softly and I weaved my fingers into his. Then he stopped. He held his breath, and so did I, knowing in that instant the mistake I had made. His fingers in mine moved almost imperceptibly while the rest of our functions – even our heartbeats it seemed – paused. He pulled away, his lips still slightly parted from our kiss, and held my hand in his, looking at it momentarily before fixing me with a quizzical stare.

  ‘Where is your engagement ring?’ he said.

  I shifted in his lap, wishing I was further away, in my own seat. I would have preferred to deliver my explanation from a slight distance. They say weapons are easier to administer the more remote they are; when this grenade went off we were both going to explode.

  ‘I, uh, lost it,’ I said.

  He leaned back, squinting as if making sure I was in focus.

  ‘What do you mean, you lost it? Where is it?’

  ‘If I knew that, I’d have it,’ I said. A logical response that he didn’t appreciate.

  ‘Where do you think you lost it?’ he said, irritation making him more specific.

  ‘In the house, I think. When I was cleaning.’ But I hated this excuse, because I made a point of not taking my rings off, not for anything. Eddie shoved me off his lap and stood.

  ‘You lost it? I don’t believe you!’

  I peered up at him, barely daring to make eye contact. ‘Do you mean you don’t believe me as in you can’t believe I’d do something so stupid?’ I said.

  ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I actually do not believe that you lost it cleaning. I mean, I think that you’re lying. Is that clear enough?’ His pointed glare could have pinned me to a cross like a nail.

  ‘You’ve been lying to me about a lot of things, for a long time,’ he said. ‘I’ve been patient, but that’s enough. I want to know the truth. Who is he?’

  I understood, of course I did, and yet I felt indignant. Why couldn’t my husband just believe me? I know I was lying, but his implication was what? That I’d taken my rings off to go and meet a stranger for sex and lost one of them? For him this was just the simple worry that I was having an affair. Well I wasn’t. It wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t tell him the truth.

  ‘I think I’d be a little more clever if I was sleeping with someone else, don’t you?’ I said.

  ‘All I know is that you’re lying, and the simplest explanations are often the right ones.’

  ‘And yet you won’t accept that I just lost it when I was cleaning.’

  ‘When I say “simple” explanation, I don’t mean “stupid”. No wonder you wanted us to go to France,’ he said. I looked at the table with our wine and the candles, the discarded blanket on the floor, and how this evening had been spoiled. Tears of frustration welled in my eyes, and I flicked one away as it fell down my cheek.

  ‘What would you say,’ I said quietly, feeling brave and looking straight at him, ‘if I told you I’d swapped my engagement ring for a handful of magic beans?’

  Eddie stepped towards me, and leaned down. His beautiful face inches from mine.

  ‘I’d say fuck you,’ he said. Then he turned and looked out at the dark garden. He walked forward a pace or two and leaned on the railing of the deck, his head hung down and he shook it like a captain who knew he’d sailed in the wrong direction and was looking out at an ocean that held no answers, or at least none he wanted to hear.

  ‘Eddie,’ I said, but he held up his hand and I stopped.

  ‘Unless it’s the absolute truth, I don’t want to hear a single word,’ he said. And I respected him enough to say nothing.

  After what felt like minutes, but was probably seconds, he turned to look at me over his shoulder. His eyes were glistening. I held the blanket up to myself like a child with a make-believe shield and I anticipated his forgiveness for whatever it was he thought I’d done. I predicted his trust that he would know that I loved him and would never betray him. I believed that he would know me well enough to trust that whatever I was hiding, it wasn’t this sordid, ordinary type of betrayal. I looked at him with all the love and loyalty I felt for him in my very bones.

  ‘Eddie,’ I said again.

  He held up his hand as if he were about to do a magic trick, and put his ring finger in his mouth; all the way. Then he slowly slid the platinum band down his finger, looking, for all the world, like a magician who wanted to make sure my attention was just where he wanted it. Then he held it above his head and turned, throwing it into the garden. I gasped. For one moment I imagined I saw moonlight glint on its silvery surface, as it spun through the air; then it disappeared, landing silently in the black grass.

  Eddie looked in the direction of his missile. ‘If that turns into a beanstalk,’ he said, ‘feel free to fuck off up it.’

  Then he took the blanket from me, grabbed his half-empty glass of wine, and slept on the couch.

  * * *

  The girls slept in late and I was up before them. The bed, too big without Eddie, seemed to drive me out and I crept downstairs. The double doors that led into the living room from the kitchen had glass panels in the top and I peered through them. But instead of my sleeping husband, I saw neatly folded blankets, and cushions arranged along the sofa as if it had never been slept on. My throat tightened at the thought that he’d already left the house. I was scared something would happen to him before we had a chance to make things right between us.

  I padded through to the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. I leaned on the counter, inspecting the shiny bits in the marble surface, self-pity bearing so heavy on my shoulders that it was hard to stand up straight. When I found the strength to lift my gaze and look out the window, I saw him. Eddie was on his hands and knees, face close to the dewy grass. I could see he’d thrown off his jogging bottoms, which looked soaked through from the wet lawn, and there he was in his pants, like a dog looking for a ladybird. He sat back on his haunches, dolefully, and pressed his hands to his eyes. When he dragged his hands down his face our eyes met, and though I had been doing nothing much in the way of movement prior to that moment, nonetheless, I was arrested; I didn’t breathe or blink. I s
lowly straightened up, but not for one moment did I break my line of sight with him.

  He stood and walked wearily towards me, grass all stuck to his knees, which were red and engraved with lines from kneeling for so long. I opened the kitchen door and when he got to it, he put his arms around me as though he were just very, very tired.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ he said, his voice gruff, just holding me tight against his body, his hands in my hair.

  ‘I’m not having an affair,’ I said, though I assumed he believed that already, so tender were his looks and actions.

  ‘I miss you,’ he said, looking into my eyes so intently I could feel the heat of his gaze in the back of my skull.

  ‘I’m right here,’ I said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ And in that moment, I promise, it was the truth.

  23

  I could have wallowed in obsessing over Jeanie and my recent trip to see her, and meeting Elizabeth, but I tried to get myself back to normal. After all, after traumatic events – life-changing trials – people still drink tea, take showers, go to bed, go to work, eat chunks of cheese while standing in front of the open fridge door. And I did all those things. Looking after my family was easy; I’d been doing it for years.

  After a week or so I could watch a whole movie, prepare and eat an entire meal, wash my hair and get into my pyjamas, without thinking about the fact that I was a time traveller. But it was there, just below the surface: I could take a coin and scratch very lightly over my everyday life, and there, revealing itself piece by piece was my time with my darling mother. When I looked in the mirror I saw her face, so different to – and younger than – mine. When I lay in bed and closed my eyes I remembered watching her while she slept, breathing her in, and my pillow would sometimes be wet with silent tears.

  I tried to concentrate at work: did my experiments, wrote reports, did focus groups, attended meetings. It was hard, because all I wanted to do was get to lunchtime and sit with Louis and talk. We’d become closer since Elizabeth. His true belief in me has taken us both to another level; sharing a secret will do that to people. I think, for a while, Louis felt a bit jealous of Elizabeth, because she’d actually been in the past with me. I started to get a sense of that after I read him the letter she sent and described the diamond eternity ring. I’m not saying Louis was out-and-out envious, I just mean he wanted to be the bigger part of this. It felt like I was the captain, and he was my first mate, wary of new crew. And as far as I was concerned, he was my main man. I needed Louis, and I knew him too. I didn’t know Elizabeth; I’d only had two conversations with her in my whole life. However, I knew that to Elizabeth I was something very much more than an acquaintance.