The Gap of Time Read online

  She wanted to adjust her pillow.

  What had happened to the cushion stuffed with the angel’s feathers?

  The door opened. The nurse deftly fastened the wide band round MiMi’s upper arm and took the blood-pressure reading. The machine beeped.

  “Do you believe in angels?” said MiMi.

  The nurse was African. She belonged to an evangelical church. “Let me show you something,” she said. She pulled back the curtains. MiMi could see the old church outside the window. “Look up high,” said the nurse. The church had a clock tower. On top of the tower, one at each compass point, were four stone angels. “You see?” said the nurse. “How they see it all? The cars going by, the men and women on the streets. All the hope and the heartbreak. Yes, that is what they see. And though the earth is lost, she will be found.

  “Whatever is lost will be found.”

  Leo was talking to his gardener, Tony Gonzales.

  “Fifty large, Tony; you can retire. All you have to do is take the baby to Xeno.”

  Fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money.

  Leo was persuasive. He had the story all worked out. Start again. He couldn’t raise another man’s child, not when it was his best friend—his best man at his wedding—who had betrayed him. MiMi was ill, guilty, distracted. She didn’t know what to do next. Surely Tony could understand that? Yes, Leo said he had spoken to Xeno. Yes, Leo said Xeno had agreed to take the child.

  But still Tony looked puzzled. It was all moving too fast. He was a gardener. Nature takes time.

  “So why does he not come himself?”

  “Tony, Tony, how would you feel in my situation? I never want to see Xeno again. And I never want MiMi to see him again. Understand?”

  Tony understood. He was sixty-two. His parents had come to England from Mexico in the 1950s. They had eloped together in Xalapa—she from a convent school, his father from the military. His father had found work slum-clearing for housing in the East End of London. He had been killed on a building site when Tony was two. Soon after, too soon after, his mother married the foreman of the site—and Tony always believed that man had killed his father; there are many ways of killing someone—a block of concrete falling from a crane is just one.

  There were more children. Tony was neglected. Then beaten. His stepfather didn’t want him. His mother couldn’t protect him. The blues and yellows in her Xalapa soul had dirtied down to English grey. She was indifferent, then depressed. Tony had left home at sixteen, slept in a hostel and got a low-paid job sweeping leaves in the royal parks. But he loved plants and he soon learned. He studied for a horticulture degree at the Open University. He never married. He didn’t trust human nature. Plants were better. When he retired from the parks at sixty, as a senior gardener, he had taken a part-time job with Leo and Sicilia.

  He managed the garden in Little Venice and the planting and landscaping at the offices. Lately, he had been working for Pauline too. He liked Pauline. When he worked in her garden he tied up a bouquet of stems, leaves, flowers, whatever was in season, and left it in water in the watering can by the back door. She made him think—almost—that…perhaps.

  And Pauline liked Tony. He was built like a small bear. Strong arms. Hands that were never quite clean. He always wore a tie—checked shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows and a wool tie neatly at the collar and tucked in at the third button. He was a man from another time.

  Pauline was a woman of her time. She hadn’t had the leisure for a relationship. She had been a career woman all her life. She noted there was no such thing as a career man. She had made her choices. No regrets. But there were losses. There always are.

  —

  “You get it, Tony, don’t you? New starts for old.”

  “But Xeno has his own son. He has a wife. What will she say?”

  “She’s not his wife. They have an arrangement. You want to give me a lecture on family values or will you take the cash and do the job?”

  “When do I have to leave?”

  “That’s more like it! I’ll fly you Business Class. Book a decent car at the airport. Get you a new suit. Looking the part is half the battle. Say you’re her grandfather. Be confident.”

  “But when do I leave?”

  “Soon. Soon. And, Tony, if you say anything—one word—to Pauline, no deal, OK?”

  Tony felt uneasy. He trusted Pauline. He didn’t trust Leo. So why…? But he put the thought aside.

  Getting a passport for Perdita was easy. Leo was on the birth certificate as her father. MiMi had registered the birth. Even the photograph was simple because Pauline kept emailing them to him.

  Leo hadn’t seen MiMi for three months. Milo spent half his time at Pauline’s with his mother and the other half at home with Leo. Leo explained this as MiMi needing time to get better.

  “Why can’t she get better with us?”

  “She will do…soon.”

  —

  “So, Leo,” said Pauline, barging into his office as she always did, the cunt, “how long is this going to go on?”

  Leo didn’t look up. “Is that a real question?”

  “Can you stop behaving like a schmendrick and get a DNA test so that we can all stop this?”

  “I didn’t start it. I can’t stop it.”

  “You need to know the truth.”

  “I don’t need to know what I know.”

  “You some kind of psychic?”

  “Can’t you ever shut up?”

  “Why don’t you ask me how your wife is? Or do you know that via your spooky psychic powers too?”

  Leo got up. At least he was much taller than Pauline.

  “How’s MiMi?”

  “How do you think she is?”

  “I have no idea—you told me to ask—so tell me.”

  “She’s fragile, hurt, humiliated. I’d never talk to you again if I were her.”

  “She isn’t talking to me.”

  “She’s still there for you, Leo, even after all the murdering. Why won’t you take a DNA test?”

  “So that MiMi can have her humiliation written on a piece of paper?”

  “What, you want to hang it round her neck with a giant letter A for Adulterer written on it?”

  “The baby is Xeno’s.”

  “I don’t know how to handle this madness, Leo. Look, just come over later, will you? Sit down. Talk. Please…”

  “Does MiMi want to talk to me?”

  “Just come over.”

  —

  Leo left work early. He picked Milo up from school. “Is Mummy coming home with us today?”

  “Not today. I’m coming with you to see Mummy.”

  Milo was pleased. They talked about football in the car and Leo promised to take him to a game at the weekend. By the time he got to Pauline’s he had almost forgotten, or some part of him had forgotten, that MiMi had left him, or had he left her? He couldn’t remember.

  As he parked the Range Rover and Milo went running up the steps, Leo saw MiMi in the window. The short, dark, heavy hair. The red lipstick. She was wearing an oversized check shirt. He stood still, just looking at her. He realised his face was wet. Was it raining?

  “Daddy! Come on!”

  Leo followed Milo in. MiMi bent and kissed her son, ruffled his hair. “Go and get changed and see you in the kitchen. Go on! Dépêche-toi!”

  Milo hesitated—his father still at the door, his mother at the foot of the stairs.

  Neither parent spoke. Milo stood between them like a lighthouse between the rocks and the shipwreck.

  —

  MiMi opened the door into the drawing room. Leo followed behind her. He lifted his hand, put it down. He lifted his hand and touched her shoulder. She flinched. She doesn’t want me.

  She took something from the console table, turned and gave it to Leo. It looked like a letter.

  “I can’t talk to you, Leo. Not yet. Pauline…she only wants the best for us. I said I’d see you and then I realised I can’t. I wrote you thi
s.”

  Milo came running down the stairs in his tracksuit. He saw his parents. He felt it all. His open face closed. He went quietly down to the kitchen.

  “He’s confused,” said MiMi.

  “I want him to live with me,” said Leo.

  “Pardon?”

  “I want custody of Milo.”

  Even as Leo was saying what he said he couldn’t believe that such idiot words could come out of the idiot mouth in his idiot face when all he wanted to do was put his arms round his wife and cry until his tears made a river that would float them both away from this landlocked place.

  MiMi left the room.

  Leo opened the letter.

  Dear Leo,

  Does time make fools of us all? I was not easy to marry, I know that. I tried not to marry you because neither of us have a happy-ever-after story written inside us. We both come from broken families. We are wary as wild animals.

  You made your way the way men do in the outside world. I was lucky because I have music. Music is the world inside me. I am a performer, but whether or not I perform, the music is there.

  I know you find me hard to read. We used to joke that you never learned to read music. You said right at the beginning of our relationship that men find women impossible to know. Do you remember?

  Do I know you? I thought I did. I know the way you are vulnerable and fearless all at the same time. The way that nothing seems too hard for you. The way you grab life. Your big mouth.

  I have felt safe with you and that was unexpected. I don’t feel safe anymore and that is making me ill.

  Did you not want this baby? Why not? Why did we not talk about that? I thought when you saw her you would love her.

  These last few months I was sure you were having an affair. You have been so distant. And all the time you thought I was having an affair. And all the time neither of us spoke. I guess I had decided to wait until you got over it. Or came in one day to tell me you were leaving.

  I am married to you, Leo. I would not use Xeno to end our marriage. If I no longer loved you I would leave you. Do you not know that about me? Not even that?

  And do you not know that about him?

  Is it because you would do such things that you imagine it is what I am doing to you? What he is doing to you?

  When did I lose your love?

  Leo put down the letter. There was an old note folded in the envelope. A wine stain on the back. He opened it. It was his handwriting.

  1) Can I live without you? Yes.

  2) Do I want to? No.

  3) Do I think about you often? Yes.

  4) Do I miss you? Yes.

  5) Do I think about you when I am with another woman? Yes.

  6) Do I think that you are different to other women? Yes.

  7) Do I think that I am different to other men? No.

  8) Is it about sex? Yes.

  9) Is it only about sex? No.

  10) Have I felt like this before? Yes and no.

  11) Have I felt like this since you? No.

  12) Why do I want to marry you? I hate the idea of you marrying someone else.

  13) You are beautiful.

  —

  Leo stood in Pauline’s wide-windowed drawing room. There was a piano in the bay. Pauline had played since she was a girl. On the music stand were some practice pieces of Milo’s. Then he saw the manuscript paper. MiMi was writing a song. What were the words? “Abandon ship, baby. Before it’s too late. Jump ship, baby, don’t wait. The threat’s not yours, it’s mine. We’re caught in a gap of time.”

  Scribbled on the top was “PERDITA.”

  Leo took it.

  —

  A week later Tony was gardening at Pauline’s when she came out of the house carrying the baby. “Is Leo home? He isn’t answering his phone.”

  “He’s home,” said Tony. “Keeps himself to himself these days, y’know.”

  “There’s an old saying,” said Pauline. “What’s past help should be past grief.”

  “That’s Shakespeare,” said Tony.

  “The Winter’s Tale,” said Pauline.

  She went down to the Audi on the drive. Tony put down his fork and, coming after her, said—too suddenly, because he had been thinking about it for days—“Would you like to go to a movie tonight?”

  “Do you mean me?” said Pauline.

  “Yes, I do,” said Tony.

  “Because you were looking straight into that bush,” said Pauline.

  Tony looked at the gravel. “There’s a Lauren Bacall season on at the Everyman. Tonight is To Have and Have Not.”

  “I’d like that,” said Pauline. “Yes.”

  —

  Tony watched Pauline drive away. He could feel his heart beating.

  —

  Leo opened the front door. Pauline was holding the baby.

  “I told you not to try any sentimental stunts,” said Leo.

  Pauline handed Leo the sleeping baby. Leo held her away from him like she was on fire.

  “I trusted them and they betrayed me.”

  “You trusted them because they love you.”

  “One big, happy family. In your dreams, Pauline.”

  “Why are you obsessed with this madness?”

  “Madness? You call it madness. You say they don’t love each other? The way they touch, talk, whisper, dance? When he’s here he’s always with her. And I liked it.”

  “So what if they are a little bit in love with each other?”

  “You admit it, then?”

  “Would you rather they disliked each other? Were indifferent to each other? Is it because you have slept with both of them?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Xeno’s quite open about it.”

  “Well, I’m not. We were schoolboys.”

  “Are you jealous of him or of her?”

  “Spare me the TV psychoanalysis.”

  “Leo, you are the father of this child. MiMi is faithful. Xeno is your friend. Take a DNA test. And put things right. There is still a chance to do right.”

  Leo heard her. Chance to do right. Chance to do right. Chance to do right. The baby woke and struggled in his arms. He passed her back to Pauline.

  “Why is she called Perdita?”

  “It means little lost one.”

  “I’ll come to the house tomorrow. We’ll go and take a test. OK?”

  That evening Pauline and Tony went to the Everyman Cinema.

  Pauline was wearing a pretty dress and Tony had brushed his sports jacket. He bought the cinema tickets even though Pauline could have bought the cinema.

  They sat upright and formal in the comfy couple seats. Pauline realised that she never went to the movies because it made her feel sorry for herself. She thought about her mother’s parents, fleeing Nazi Germany and starting a salt-beef bar in the East End. It was a hard life but a happy marriage. Her mother trained as a nurse and married a dentist. Pauline had gone to an academic girls’ school, then to university, then into investment banking. Refugees to riches in three generations. But she hadn’t met anyone she liked well enough to be with. She knew her parents worried about her; about being lonely, old, uncared for.

  Now, sitting next to Tony studiously watching Lauren Bacall and making sure his body was a clear three inches away from hers, she suddenly moved close to him. Very slowly he took her hand.

  Afterwards, walking back down the hill from the cinema in Hampstead towards Pauline’s house in Belsize Park, she asked Tony what he liked to do at weekends. “Go walking,” he said. “I feel better outside. I’m going to Kew Gardens tomorrow.”

  Pauline did not really believe in walking; first there were legs, then there were bicycles and now there were cars. But she thought she might give it a try.

  At her front door Tony thanked her for the evening. They agreed to meet the following day. They stood smiling at each other under the street lamp. Neither of them knew what to do next. She touched his arm, nodded and went up the path to the fro
nt door. He watched till she was safely inside.

  Pauline looked at herself in the hall mirror. She thought she’d pop to the chemist in the morning and get a new lipstick.

  —

  When Tony got home, strangely, or not strangely, light-hearted, there was a message on his answer machine.

  Tomorrow. Heathrow. Twelve noon.

  —

  The next morning Leo got up early. His mind felt clean and clear. For the first time in weeks, months, he could stop thinking because at last he knew what to do.

  The emptiness of the house that had seemed hateful to him now seemed like a space to create something new. What had happened could unhappen.

  —

  Leo arrived an hour early at Pauline’s. He was shaved, dressed; he seemed different, better.

  Pauline was wondering if she needed walking boots to go to Kew Gardens. And what were those things people wore in the country? Barbours?

  “Kew Gardens is a park,” said Leo.

  “Well, all right,” said Pauline, “but Jews don’t do rain. It makes us nervous. Look what happened to Noah.”

  “Who are you going with?” asked Leo.

  “I’ve got a date. What’s it to ya?”

  “So you’ll be out all day?”

  Pauline nodded. “MiMi’s taken Milo swimming. She won’t be back till eleven.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  “Leo—I’d like to pop up to the chemist before we go for the test. Will you look after Perdita for half an hour?”

  “No problem, Pauline. Give her to me.”

  He was charming Leo, smiling Leo, persuasive Leo. Pauline grabbed her handbag and went on her errand.

  As soon as he was sure she was out of the way, Leo let himself out of the house and got back into his car. In his car was a wine box with a blanket in it. He laid the baby down. She started to cry. He put the radio on.

  —

  Tony was waiting at the entrance to Terminal 5. Leo gave him the passport and a bag. “Nappies. Formula milk. Clean clothes. Rash cream. All the shit. You know how to change a baby, don’t you? If not someone on the plane will help you. I’ve texted you Xeno’s address and phone number. You’re booked on the return flight on Monday. Call me if there are any problems. Better go—plane leaves in an hour.”