The Love of Her Life

It was, indeed, a coffin, sleek and brown, borne gently by its bearers to the bottom of the stairs, held only at a slight diagonal angle. She stared at it as they reached the bottom step and gingerly readjusted their load.

‘Been on holiday?’ Fred said politely. He nodded at her suitcase as they walked towards the front door.

‘I’ve been away,’ said Kate vaguely. ‘Just got back, yes. This is – er – sad.’ She gestured pathetically at the coffin. ‘Who – who is it?’

‘Old lady who lived upstairs. Had a husband. Nice fellow.’ Fred jerked his head up, indicating where in the labyrinthine view they might live. Kate followed his gaze.

They passed through the front door and left her standing there on the threshold.

‘Second floor?’ said Kate, her voice faint.

‘Yep,’ said Fred, nodding kindly at her.

‘Mrs – not Mrs Allan?’

‘Yes, love,’ he answered her. ‘Sorry. Not the best welcome back for you, is it now?’

Kate loved him then for apologizing, as if he were personally responsible for Mrs Allan’s death. She smiled at him and shook her head, as if to say please, don’t worry. She followed them onto the pavement as they slid the coffin gently into the hearse – she hadn’t realized it was a hearse.

‘There he is,’ one of them said under his breath to the other. ‘Ah,’ and they looked up. There in the window, two floors above Kate’s, an old face looked out through the glass. She recognized him then, of course she did – it was Mr Allan. Mr Allan pressed a hand to the glass, looking down at the street, his face impassive. He was much older than she remembered.

The car drove off. Kate raised a hand in greeting to Mr Allan, not sure whether to smile or not. Once again, she wasn’t sure what to do, how to behave. What did you yell up to a neighbour in circumstances like this? ‘Hiya! How are you! Haven’t seen you for ages! I know, I moved to New York. So, what’s new with you? Apart from your wife dying?’

She hadn’t spoken to them since she’d left. They’d written to her in New York. Kind, sweet Mrs Allan had sent her newspaper clippings, articles she thought she might like, but Kate hadn’t written back, and the communication had dried up. Mr Allan’s face now looked down at her, grey and yellow through the sun on the glass, and she waved again, uncertainty flowering within her, and looked around to realize she was standing on the pavement alone. She pointed in, towards the flats, as if to say I’m back, and looked up – but he had gone.

‘I’ll –’ she started to say out loud. I’ll see you later. Climbing up the steps, she shut the front door behind her, picked up her heavy bag and dragged it upstairs.

CHAPTER FOUR

The lock that clicked in the door, the floorboard in the hall with the big hole in it, where you could see the Victorian pipes underneath; the sunny little sitting room down the corridor with the bay windows, the radiator in a fretwork covered box. The bookshelves, still filled with her books, gaps where he had taken his books away – all these things, stored somewhere in her memory, forgotten till now. She didn’t remember leaving her flat for the last time. She remembered scenes within it, though. She remembered coming here for the first time with Sean, the first Christmas here … waking up on a Sunday morning, in bed together, the papers, friends for lunch … as Kate stood in the living room, keys in her hand, and looked around, she smiled grimly. Every bloody couple cliché under the sun, like an advert for a sofa workshop or a kitchen sale.

The recent tenant, Gemma, was about her age, and while she’d left everything pretty much as it should have been, for a furnished flat, she’d moved the armchairs around. Frowning, Kate pushed them back to where she’d had them before, one next to the sofa, the other in front of the window. She leant against the window sill and breathed in, memory flooding over her with the smell of wood, of lavender, of something indefinable, dusty, earthy, cosy, the smell of her flat.

Funny that it should be so comforting to be back here. Funny. She put the keys quietly down on the table, almost as if she were afraid of disturbing someone, and took off her coat, putting it gingerly on an armchair. She went into the kitchen, noting with pleasure that the pots and pans hanging on the hooks she’d so lovingly put up a couple of months before she’d gone were still there. On the tiny little balcony that led off the kitchen door, no more than doormat-size, really, she could see the thyme and rosemary were still going strong. She opened the door, pulling it slightly, remembering how it always used to stick.

There were people walking on the street outside; families pushing buggies, people chatting outside the little row of shops down the road. Kate craned her neck to watch them, to look down, over the wide boulevard of redbrick apartments lined with trees that were sprinkled with fat, green little buds. Beyond the shops was Lord’s cricket ground, a ten-minute walk, then Regent’s Park, the Zoo, the canal … down Maida Vale, which she could just see, was Edgware Road, leading into the park, to Mayfair, into town. All just outside. She could go out now, could be in any of those places, which she’d dreamt of over the past three years with increasing frequency. She could do that, she was back.

A loud noise from the bedroom made her jump. Kate turned and ran, relishing the size of the space that was her own, now, and she saw that her suitcase, which she’d leant against the wall, had fallen over, bringing down with it her telescope. She smiled at the sight of it, memory leading her back down a path. Her telescope! She hurried over to the corner of the room, straightening it out, setting it right again. How she had loved that bloody thing when she was a teenager. While Zoe and most of her other friends had been standing outside Tube stations of an evening with their waistbands rolled up and over, to shorten their skirts, ponytails high on their heads, usually to one side, smoking Silk Cut Menthols and chipping their nail polish, Kate had been – where? Yes, at home, looking through her telescope, high up in her attic bedroom, or curled up on her ancient patchwork bedspread, reading Gone with the Wind, or Forever Amber, or some yellowing Victoria Holt novel.

‘Hello old thing,’ she said to the telescope, stroking it gently, brushing the light film of dust from its casing. It had been so long since she’d looked through it. She caught herself, and the memory of her teenage self, and smiled, grinning widely at how touchingly and unintentionally hilarious she had probably been. Poor Dad, she thought, gazing away into nothing. What he had had to put up with, on his own, looking after this strange, solitary teenager, who didn’t understand why her mother had gone, who blamed herself for it more than anyone. Still partly did, though it was more than half her lifetime ago. Kate’s hand flew to her collarbone.

The reverberations from the suitcase crash had toppled over some photos on her bedroom shelves. Her parents on their wedding day, in black and white, her mother in a dark velvet mini-dress, almost painfully young and thin, her beautiful hair swinging about her shoulders, her father, so pleased with himself – and with his wife. They were clutching hands, so tightly that even through the years and the monochrome, you could see the whiteness of her mother’s knuckles.

It was stuff like that that got in the way, Kate thought, putting the picture back carefully on the shelf. Nice of Gemma to leave it out for her, but it was best put away, along with the marriage itself, and the photos next to it – her twenty-first birthday, taken by Zoe, her and Steve and Sean, hilariously awkward in suits, for some reason and – a sop to her new family – her stepmother and Dani, at Dani’s christening, nearly four years ago, her half-sister resplendent in a little gown and white hat embroidered with fabric flowers that made her look like an entrant in an Esther Williams look-alike competition.

Kate turned away from the photos, frowning. She felt out of kilter once again, remembering why she was here, and she went into the sitting room and picked up the phone, calling Lisa again.

‘Yes?’ Lisa answered immediately. ‘Hi, Kate.’ She added, more warmly, ‘How are you? Good flight? Everything … OK?’

‘It’s fine. How’s Dad?’ Kate said, running her fingers along the bookcase in the corner of the room, staring out of the window.

‘He’s OK. He’s having a nap,’ said Lisa. ‘He can’t wait to see you.’

‘Oh –’ Kate pursed her lips, shaking her head and looking down at the floor. ‘Oh. I can’t wait to see him. Lisa, can you give him my love? Is it OK if I come over now?’

‘Give it an hour or so, if that’s alright,’ said Lisa. ‘He’s still quite weak, Kate.’

Kate turned and looked back at the picture of her parents on the shelf behind her, perfectly still. She had spent the last three years with her mother, making up for lost time; she had always known though that once she came back here, everything that she had neglected would hit her, hard. It struck her now, that she had almost become too good at what she did: shutting out a whole area of her life. She had crossed the ocean and simply closed the door behind her on her life in London. As if, for the most part, it didn’t exist. As if she could.

She needed to keep moving, keep busy here. She’d go and get Mr Allan some flowers. Yes. She turned away from the telescope and the photos, and went into the sitting room again. She grabbed her bag and left the flat, running down to the shops on the corner of the road, marvelling at the price of a pint of Rachel’s Dairy Milk. She got some flowers, daffodils, bought the papers and some Marmite and some hummus and crisps. The old corner shop now sold posh President butter and had its own orange juicing machine.

Back again, as she unlocked the front door to the building, she realized how quiet it was. She climbed the stairs slowly, listening for sounds. There was nothing from upstairs, and she didn’t know whether to go up now or wait till later. When had Mrs Allan died? Was it too soon?

The phone was ringing as she unlocked the door to her flat again; she ran for it, but missed the call and she couldn’t work out who it was. But it reminded her who else she was here to see, as if she could have forgotten. Kate picked up her mobile, fingers toying over the keypad, and after a minute she shook her head. No, it would be too weird to speak to Zoe right now, after so long, to hear her voice – she could still hear her voice – when she was going to see her later. She texted instead:

Hi. I’m back. Can’t wait to see you. Shall I come round about seven? K x

Almost immediately, so that it felt she had barely finished writing the message, her phone beeped back at her with the reply.

Seven is perfect. Can’t believe you’re back! Can’t wait! Lots of love Z x x x

She finished her unpacking, pottered around in the kitchen, still listening to the radio in an effort to cheer herself up, and then she sat on the sofa and read the newspapers for an hour, feeling like an alien, wondering who some people were, amazed that other people were still in the news. A car went past in the street now and then; the rustle of some tarpaulin sheeting, covering a balcony on the flats opposite, drifted over every now and then; a child called out in the street, but otherwise it was eerily, ominously quiet. Normal, unremarkable, mundane. God it was strange, like she’d never left.

As Kate reached for a hair tie on her dressing table, she looked up at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t seen herself in this mirror for years, and the effect was rather like coming back from holiday and seeing how tanned you’d got in the mirror you look into every day, after two weeks away. She looked – different. Older, probably. Thinner, but not in a good way. Mostly she looked tired. Her dark brown eyes were smudged underneath with circles, her dark blonde hair was longer. Had she always looked that serious? The hairbrush she’d been holding gently slid out of her hand and Kate stared at herself, silence echoing around her.

She shut her front door behind her, and as she did she remembered Mr Allan. She looked at her watch – she was expected at her dad’s. Tonight there was Zoe. She would go tomorrow. The thought crossed her mind as she slung her bag over her shoulder and tripped downstairs: what else would she do tomorrow, other than seeing her father again and seeing Mr Allan? But over the past couple of years, Kate had got very good at filling in hours of time, doing not very much, lying low, staying in the shadows.

It was getting late, and she glanced into her pigeonhole again, remembering too that she had meant to go through her post. The pile of letters was still there, undisturbed, but as she peered closer something in the compartment caught her eye and it was then that she saw the letter.

A new letter, at the top of the pile.

In handwriting she would never forget, as long as she lived.

Kate Miller

Flat 4

Howard Mansions

London W9

Kate’s hand froze in the air, the letter clutched in her fingers. Air trapped in her throat; she felt hot, boiling hot. How did Charly know she was back? And more importantly, why the hell was she writing to her?

CHAPTER FIVE

Daniel Miller had not been an ideal father to a teenage girl, in many ways. After Venetia left, his professional decline had been rapid: in 1990 The Times had said that his interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was probably the best ever – yes, ever – yet by the time Kate was taking her A-Levels, four years later, he hadn’t had a proper solo recital for months. The gigs were starting to dry up, as Daniel was late for rehearsals, argued with conductors, cried in his dressing room, got drunk at lunchtimes and sometimes didn’t turn up at all. When he’d had a reputation as being one of the best, if not the best, he had been – for a musician, admittedly – modest about it. Now it was on the slide, he had turned into a prima donna, sulking in the house in Kentish Town, skulking angrily, smoking furiously, talking, always talking to friends, on the phone, around the kitchen table.

It wasn’t as if Venetia had been the world’s most regimented mother, either; but when she’d been around there had, at least, been some semblance of order, some idea that there might be food in the fridge or water in the boiler; now, Kate and Daniel simply got used to muddling through. Dinner times were sporadic, usually set by Kate; school parents’ evenings went unattended. Daniel never knew where he was going to be on any given day, or indeed where his daughter was: it was luck on his part that his only child was a shy girl, more likely to be in her room reading Jean Plaidy than out in London somewhere, raising Cain. Sometimes Kate would come home and find him talking to the postman, eagerly, angrily, about budget cuts, about society today. (The postman read Socialist Worker and was also angry about a lot of things.) Daniel remembered Kate’s birthdays, but only after he’d been reminded by others. But he forgot to ask about most other things: when her university interviews were, when she started her exams, how she might be feeling about everything.

In other ways though, for Kate, her father was the perfect father. Kate was tall and ungainly from her teens onwards, with long spindly legs that rarely did what she told them. She was thin, flat-chested; like a stick drawing. Later, of course, she would come to see that being tall and sticky wasn’t so bad; in fact lots of other girls wished they were like that. But being tall and sticky, with an always-too-long fringe, and short nails, bitten and chewed cuticles, and no social skills whatsoever, it was a long time before she could see it. She was not particularly sure of herself, much as she longed to be, much as she desperately wished she was like her charismatic father or her mesmerizing, much-missed mother, or the confident, smiling girls at school who hung around at the Tube station. She would gaze at them shyly from under her fringe as she passed them, going down the stairs to the platform, going back to her dad, to an evening of homework, of music, of conversation around the kitchen table with Russian composers, Italian singers, obtuse German conductors … and Daniel, directing the evening, shoving his floppy blond hair back with his hand when he got excited, as young Kate collected up the plates, dumped them in the sink, drinking the dregs of the wine quietly behind their backs, alternately fascinated and bored by their conversation, as only the wistful outsider can be.

She wished she could be one of them. Not necessarily the band gathered around her father, but the band of girls outside the Tube station, gossiping about ‘EastEnders’, about who Jon Walker liked best, about whether Angie really got fingered by Paul at Christa’s party on Saturday and did her dad know because he was really strict? Whether Doc Martens were just totally over or who was going to see Wet Wet Wet at Wembley? But she knew she never would be.

Kate thought about this, how much things had changed, as she came out of the Tube station and walked towards her father’s new house. New – well, not any more, she supposed. It was a long time since the days of the house in Kentish Town. And it was years now since Daniel Miller had found himself not only a new wife, but a new career, as a recording artist doing covers of ABBA and Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, posing artfully with a loaned Strad (for the photoshoot only) in black and white, standing on a clifftop. He’d even been nominated for a Classic FM Award (and whether he had been outraged not to win or secretly relieved, Kate couldn’t be sure). Just before his health had declined a few months ago he had emailed Kate to announce that his next project was a cover album of Barry Manilow’s greatest hits.

She was proud of him – she was his daughter, how could she not be, having seen him at his lowest, and how he’d built himself up again? But Daniel Miller’s change of career had been greeted with absolute outrage in the more traditional musical world – an open letter to him in the Telegraph signed by the six biggest music critics, pleading with him to pull his album of Abba covers, offers of ‘proper’ work, third desk in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, publicized far and wide, making Daniel a scapegoat, almost, for what the more puritanical elements of the classical music world saw as the selling out of genuine talent for big bucks. Daniel had stuck to his guns, though, and his bank manager thanked him for it, and the Hello! interviews started, as did the chats on the GMTV sofa orchestrated by Lisa, who was herself in PR. For Lisa was behind it all, it was Lisa whom Kate had to – reluctantly – credit with turning her father’s life around, even if Kate didn’t love her the way she felt she should …

Now Daniel and his new wife and daughter lived in Notting Hill, in a cream townhouse off Ladbroke Grove, with a huge, clean, neutrally coloured basement kitchen (not a chaotic, eclectic basement kitchen) leading through to a perfectly manicured garden, artfully designed, with an enormous communal garden at the back of it. A distressed chandelier hung in the hallway; aluminium window boxes with ferns adorned the window sills; the 4x4 stood outside. In its careful independence it was virtually indistinguishable from the other houses on its exclusive little road. Yes, times had changed for Daniel Miller: until now, for the better, as he had frequently told his eldest daughter, almost daring her to challenge him on it.

As Kate rang the doorbell of her father’s house, just after six o’clock that Sunday evening, she was shaking somewhat, though she tried to hide it. In her hands were some more daffodils – she wasn’t sure what to bring her father, not knowing what he would or wouldn’t be able to eat. And she couldn’t remember him, couldn’t remember what colours he liked, what present might cheer him up, what books he liked reading, these days, who was out of favour with him, who was in – though, conversely, she now knew all of those things about her mother.

The door was suddenly flung open. There, like an action heroine and her matching miniature doll, were Lisa, her stepmother, and Dani, her little sister, as if they’d been standing there, simply waiting for her to come along.

Lisa was standing with her hands on her hips, her tiny frame encased in an expensive brown velour tracksuit, chocolate Uggs on her feet, car keys jingling in her hand. Kate goggled at her rather stupidly, not knowing what to say. She stared at Lisa’s beautiful, unlined face, her skin moist and tanned, perfectly buffed and cleansed and possibly peeled by a team of high-tech beauticians, and just said, blankly,

‘Lisa!’

‘Kate, hi,’ said Lisa. Her expression was neutral. She pushed Danielle forward. ‘Dani, it’s your sister. Kate. Say hi.’

‘Hi-yerr,’ Dani spoke loudly.

‘Hi, Dani,’ Kate said and, bending down, kissed her.

‘Hey there! Hi!’ Dani said, showing her tiny teeth.

‘Why’ve you got an American accent?’ Kate said, peering at her half-sister as if she were an alien. Dani stared back at her, impassively, her curly blonde bunches bobbing slightly as she sucked her thumb.

‘Kate, she hasn’t got an American accent,’ said Lisa. She gave a tight smile. ‘Dani, we’re going to get you ready for bed in a minute, OK? Then you can come back and talk to Kate.’ She turned back to her stepdaughter. ‘Look, it’s lovely to see you.’

‘Oh, and you,’ said Kate. She held out the daffodils, and Lisa reached out for them. ‘Um, these are for Dad,’ Kate went on, as Lisa’s hands dropped like stones. ‘I mean, you know. Shall I show them to him?’

Lisa stared at her with something close to exasperation. ‘Whatever you want,’ she said. ‘He’s through there.’

She guided Kate with her hand on her elbow, pushing her down the cream-carpeted hallway to the sitting room, where she said,

‘Dan, darling? Kate’s here, and I’ll be back soon.’

Kate stood in the centre of the huge space and stared at the figure at the other end of the room.

‘Kate?’ came a low, raspy voice, from the sofa underneath the window, and Kate walked towards her father.

‘Hello, darling girl,’ he said, reaching up. Kate leaned over him and he put his hand around Kate’s neck, pulling her down to him as he lay on the sofa. ‘How’s my Katya? Look at your old dad, eh? Bit of a shambles, I’m afraid.’

Kate hugged her dad, kissed him awkwardly, still holding the flowers. She stuck her lower lip out, unintentionally mimicking her thoughts. She was totally, utterly knocked sideways by what she saw. His face was yellow, his hair colourless, the creases in his cheeks looked like folds, and now his hands were lifeless, crossed pathetically on his stomach, like an old lady waiting for a bus. Those hands, which once coaxed sounds of pure heaven from a three hundred-year-old wooden box, the hands that were insured for a million dollars when Kate was ten – they looked flat, deflated, like the rest of him. Where once his hair had been dark browny blond like his daughter’s, slippery and uncontrollable, his grey eyes snapping fire as he waved a fork at a friend, violently disagreeing about something, where once his tanned, healthy face smiled excitedly down at an adoring crowd, now did he smile gently at his daughter and pat the sofa.

‘Come and sit here, old lady, come and tell me how you are.’

‘God, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry…’

She trailed off, and bit her lip. A tear rolled down her cheek. Daniel looked at her.

‘Oh darling,’ he said. ‘Come on,’ and he pulled her arm so she sat down next to him. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it? But I’m having a bad day today, leaving hospital and all. I’ve been much better than this. You haven’t seen me for a while Kate, that’s all. Never mind, it’s over now isn’t it? I just have to concentrate on getting better.’

‘I didn’t realize,’ said Kate. She felt almost dizzy with sensation overpowering her. How could this have happened, how could she have known this was happening to her dad and not come sooner? Forget her mercurial, vague mother; he was, without doubt, the person she loved most in the world. How could she have shut herself off so completely? She stared at him frantically, and he looked at her.