Late in the Day Read online

  Dedication

  For Mum and Dad

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Tessa Hadley

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  THEY WERE LISTENING TO MUSIC when the telephone rang. It was a summer’s evening, nine o’clock. They had finished supper and Christine was listening with intensity, sitting with her feet tucked under her in the armchair; she recognised the music although she didn’t know what it was. Alex had chosen it, he hadn’t consulted her and now she stubbornly wouldn’t ask – he took too much pleasure in knowing what she didn’t know. He lay on the sofa in the bay window with a book open in his hand, not reading it, the book dropped across his chest; he was watching the sky outside. Their flat was on the first floor and the sitting-room window looked out over a wide street lined with plane trees. A gang of parakeets zipped across from the park, and the purple-brown darkness of the copper beech next door fumed against the turquoise sky, swallowing the last light. A blackbird silhouetted with open beak on a branch must be singing, but the recorded music overrode it.

  It was the landline ringing. Christine was dragged away from the music; she stood up and looked around her, to see where they’d put the handset down when they last finished with it – probably somewhere here, among the piles of books and papers. Or in the kitchen with the washing-up? Alex ignored the ringing, or only showed he was aware of it by a little irritable tension in his face – always liquidly expressive, foreign, because the eyes were so dark, outlined as if they were painted. This effect was more striking as he was growing older and brightness was leaching out of his hair, which used to be the colour of tarnished dark gold.

  It was more likely to be her mother on the phone than his – or it might be their daughter Isobel, and Christine wanted to talk to her. Giving up on the handset, not bothering to fish in her bare feet for her espadrilles, she hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time – she could still do it – to where the phone extension was, in their bedroom in the attic. The music carried on without her in the room behind, Schubert or something, and as Christine dropped onto the side of the bed and answered the phone breathlessly she was aware of the sweetness of a tumbling succession of descending notes. This room they had made under the sharp angles of the roof held in all the heat of the day and was thick with smells – traffic fumes, honeysuckle from the garden below, dusty carpet, books, her perfume and face cream, the faint body-staleness of their sheets. The prints and photographs and drawings on the walls – her own work, some of it – had sunk into the shadows, obliterated, and only the pattern of their framed shapes showed against the white paint. Through the open skylight she could hear the blackbird now.

  Sweetness.

  — Yes?

  There was some confusion of noises at the other end of the line, as if the call was coming from a public place like a station, where it was difficult to speak. Intently someone was asking for her. — Can you hear me?

  — Is it you, Lyd? Christine felt herself smiling pleasantly, sociable even though she couldn’t be seen, sitting on the low bed with her knees pressed together. She thought that Lydia must have been drinking, which wasn’t unheard of. Her voice was heavy, slurring as if something in it had come loose. — What are you up to?

  — I’m at the hospital, Lydia shouted. — Something’s happened.

  — What’s happened?

  — It’s Zachary. He was taken ill at work.

  The room quaked and its stillness adjusted, a few dust motes came spiralling down from the ceiling. Unheard of for anything to harm Zachary. He was a rock, he was never ill. No, nothing so numb as a rock: a striding cheerful giant with torrents of energy. Christine said she would call a cab at once, be with Lydia in half an hour at the most. — Which hospital? Which ward should I come to? What’s the matter with him?

  — It’s his heart.

  — He’s had a heart attack?

  — They don’t know really, Lydia said. — But they think it’s his heart. One minute apparently he was in the office at the gallery, perfectly fine, talking to Jane Ogden about a new show, the next minute he keeled over. Hit the desk, everything went flying. Maybe he hit his head when he hit the desk.

  — And what’s happening now? Are they going to operate?

  — Why aren’t you listening, Christine? I told you, he’s dead.

  On her way to tell Alex, Christine paused outside the open door of her studio, where the shapes of her work waited faithfully for her in the dusk: bottles of ink, twisted tubes of paint, the Chinese porcelain pot with her pens and brushes, the pinboard stuck with postcards and pictures torn from magazines, feathers, stained cloth, scraps of weathered plastic. Creamy sheets of thick paper, laid out on her desk, waited for her mark; primed canvases were stacked against the wall, pieces in progress were on the easel or pinned onto boards. She came to this scene of her labours each morning like coming to a religious observance, performing little rituals she had never mentioned to anyone. Her strongest desire these days was to be at work in there – standing up at the easel, or head and shoulders bowed over the paper on her desk in concentration, absorbed in her imitation of forms, her inventions. But now the idea of this work – the fixed point by which she steered – was sickening. It seemed fraudulent, the sticky project of her own vanity: she closed the door on it quickly. Then she opened it again – there was a key in the lock which she turned sometimes when she didn’t want to be interrupted. She took out this key and locked the studio from the outside, put the key in her jeans pocket.

  The music was still playing in the front room.

  — Was it your mother? Alex asked.

  Her heart lunged in thick beats in her chest, she didn’t know if she could speak. It was terrible to have to ruin his happiness with this news, standing over him where he lay propped up on cushions on the sofa, untroubled – or no more troubled than usual. — It was Lydia.

  — What did she want?

  — Alex, I have to tell you. Zachary has had a heart attack. It sounds as if it was a heart attack.

  — No.

  — He’s dead, he’s gone.

  For a moment Alex was exposed to his wife in his raw shock, vivid against the brilliant red of the cushions. — Oh no, you’re kidding. No.

  Usually he seemed so completed and impervious, with his springy compact energy and pugnacious sharp jaw, shapely head alert and sensuous like an emperor’s.

  — She rang me from the hospital, UCH. I’m going to her now. I’ve called a cab.

  His book fell to the floor and he stood up in the darkening room. — It can’t be true. What happened?

  — One minute he was at his desk in the office at the gallery, talking to Jane Ogden, perfectly fine, the next he keeled over, hit his head perhaps, everything went flying. Hannah tried CPR, the paramedics tried everything. Before they got him to the hospital, he was dead. Jane had to phone Lydia, she was out shopping.

  — What time was this?

  Christine wasn’t sure, some time in the late afternoon or early evening.

  — I can’t believe it, Alex said. — No, it’s impossible. When I saw him at the weekend he was fine.

  — I know. It’s impossible.

  When Christine moved to stop the music on the CD player he told her to wait, it had almost finished. — Let it end.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, detaining her, comforting her. His touch was kind, only she couldn’t let herself feel it. They stood confro
nted. Alex was stocky, medium height – she was probably an inch or so taller than him, even in her bare feet, only he’d never believe it. At first she chafed in his grip. — I have to hurry. I don’t know if she’s at the hospital alone.

  — The cab’s not here yet, wait. Listen.

  It seemed artificial and forced, waiting until the music was over. Her thoughts were racing and she couldn’t hear it, hated its offer of complexity and beauty. Then she began to yield, under the steady weight of his hands, to the violin and piano and cello as they went hastening to their finish. They unlocked something clenched inside her. She realised that her arms were hugged across her chest as if she were protecting herself, or holding herself tightly shut; at least they hadn’t put on the lamps in the room. They held each other. There were tears on Alex’s face, he cried easily. He had a gift for ceremonies which she didn’t have, they embarrassed her. Now this moment felt ceremonial, and her consciousness hushed and paused. She thought directly about Zachary for the first time, the reality of him. But that wasn’t bearable.

  — Let me come with you to the hospital, Alex said. — I’ll drive you.

  Christine thought about it. — No, it’s best if I go alone. If it’s just the two of us, at first. I’ll bring her here. You could make up the bed for her.

  She had imagined herself hurrying up and down hospital corridors in search of Lydia, who might be with Zach’s body behind drawn curtains, or might have been ushered into some room set aside for the newly bereaved. But as soon as Christine came in through the glass doors of the main entrance of the hospital, Lydia stood up from one of the blue plastic chairs set out in rows in front of the reception desk, where she had been sitting among the others waiting. She had her air of a disgruntled queen, haughty and exceptional in a sky-blue velvet jacket with a fake leopard-skin collar; when Christine hurried to embrace her, people turned their heads to stare. Lydia was often mistaken for someone famous. Voluptuous, with coiling honey-coloured hair and a swollen, pouting lower lip, she devoted serious attention to her make-up and clothes to achieve this arty, sexy, theatrical look. Her pale skin was blue with shadows, like skimmed milk.

  — Where have you been? I’ve been waiting forever!

  — Only half an hour. I had to call a cab.

  Christine realised that she had dreaded this meeting, imagining Lydia would be made more domineering somehow by the blow of Zachary’s death: now she was ashamed and stabbed with pity, because Lydia only looked displaced and lost. Putting her arms round her friend she felt how she held herself rigidly, as if she were hurt; Lydia’s hands, stiff with rings, were cold and inert. It would be her task, Christine thought, to surround her with care from now on, not to fail her. — I can’t believe they’ve left you here alone!

  — I wanted to be alone. I sent everyone away. I can’t stand Jane Ogden anyway. You could see how she couldn’t wait to tell the story to everyone, with her at the centre of it all, naturally. I said I only wanted you and Alex. Where’s Alex?

  — He’s at home, making up a bed for you.

  Christine had been crying in the taxi; she had been determined not to cry when she was with Lydia, in case she seemed to usurp Lydia’s grief, which had priority. But now she began again, mopping her face with a wet tissue from her sleeve, knowing how ugly and foolish she looked in front of all these strangers watching – her face flushed red, mouth working helplessly open, dragged down like a baby’s. — I can’t believe this. It can’t be true. Are you sure?

  — Of course it’s true. The shittiest thing is always true.

  — Lyd, where is Zachary? Have you seen him? Was he still alive when you got here?

  — No, and I don’t want to see him. It’s not him, is it? So what’s the point?

  She said this rather loudly and people turned to look at her. Christine reassured her, she didn’t have to do anything if she didn’t want to. She knew that Lydia was afraid of Zachary’s body, shying away from the idea of it with an animal revulsion. And it was terrible, imagining him lying somewhere alone in this eerie impersonal building, which was lit up in the night like a ship at sea. Christine was afraid of Zachary’s body too. The idea of it made her sick with dread. Yet in Lydia’s place she’d probably have chosen to see it, to give a form to her fear – or at least, she’d have been even more afraid of regretting not doing it afterwards. This was one of the differences between them: Lydia acted superstitiously and followed her instincts, while Christine tried to bargain with them.

  — Let’s get out of this place, Lydia said.

  — Don’t you have to sign forms or something?

  She’d signed the forms. There had to be an autopsy, she said.

  — And does Grace know? Where is she?

  The idea of her daughter made Lydia panic. — I’ve tried to ring her but she doesn’t answer. She’s somewhere in Glasgow, I suppose, doing whatever it is students do. Of course she’ll blame me, you know how she adores her father. Everything’s always my fault.

  She looked challengingly at Christine, to see if her selfishness was shocking. And Christine was shocked: she was sure that her own first thought in such circumstances would have been for Isobel, protective of her, dreading Isobel’s loss even more than her own. But things had been raw recently between Lydia and Grace; and Lydia had always complained, half-joking, that she was left out because her husband and her daughter were so perfectly attuned. She couldn’t reinvent herself and her relationships in one instant of change.

  — I thought that perhaps you could tell her, Lydia said. — You’re better at that sort of thing.

  Christine was about to protest, but you’re her mother, then she stopped. Who knows: if anything had happened to Alex, she might have found herself behaving just as selfishly – towards Sandy, for instance, Alex’s son by his first wife, Christine’s stepson, whom she struggled to love. Everything is provisional, she warned herself. In the next hours our perceptions will change over and over in a speeded-up evolution, as we adapt to this new torn-off shape of our lives. At every point our duty is to watch out for these stricken ones, for Lydia and Grace, not to say or do anything to hurt them. Then she thought, but I am stricken too. We’re all stricken, Alex and Isobel and I, even Sandy – and all the people at the gallery. Without Zachary, our lives are thrown into disorder. Of all of us, he’s the one we couldn’t afford to lose.

  In the back of the taxi the women hardly spoke. They didn’t want the driver to know what had happened; their news wasn’t ready to go into the world yet, it was still inside them, hard as stones. Seizing Christine’s hand in the darkness, Lydia pressed it into her velvet jacket against her stomach, bending double over it, crushing Christine’s fingers against the metal buckle of her wide belt; Christine smelled the musky, wood-notes perfume her friend always wore. — Do you have a pain? she whispered. Lydia nodded, not letting go. They were vaguely aware of the driver’s apprehension, thinking she was drunk and might throw up.

  The lights were on in the windows at home, and Alex was standing looking out for them. By the time they got upstairs, he had the front door of the flat held open. He opened his arms to Lydia and she stumbled into them.

  — It can’t be true, it can’t be true, he cried. He stood stroking her hair for a long time, in the same absorbed way he used to stroke Isobel’s when she was a child, and he reached out his other hand for Christine. — But it is true, Lydia said flatly, eventually, pulling herself away.

  Then she searched for her lipstick, checked her eyes in her handbag mirror. — Am I grotesque? I look such a fright. She waved a twenty-pound note. — Here’s what I need, Alex darling. Buy me twenty Bensons.

  He protested. — Lydia, cigarettes aren’t what you need. You don’t want to start that slavery again after all these years.

  — You don’t know what I need, you’re the famous puritan. Anyway Jane Ogden gave me hers, I just remembered. They’re in here somewhere.

  — We need a drink, Christine said.

  They poured out vodka
from a bottle in the freezer; in a broken voice Alex toasted their dear friend. Dearly loved, he said and couldn’t finish.

  — Shut up, Alex, Christine said shakily. — You sound like a headmaster.

  He couldn’t sit down, he wouldn’t, as if something were burning him up, keeping him on his feet. Lydia lit up a cigarette with hands that trembled. She complained that the vodka tasted like poison. Didn’t they have any red wine? Alex found wine for her, poured it solicitously. When she wanted to try Grace’s phone again, saying she wished Christine would talk to her, he was horrified. He insisted they couldn’t announce her father’s death just like that, over a mobile phone.

  Lydia submitted bleakly. — You’re right of course.

  He would drive up to Glasgow to find Grace, and tell her himself. Wasn’t he her godfather? Her unofficial godfather, it wasn’t a church thing. If he set out now he’d be there by early morning. — Zach will have her address written down somewhere, Lydia said. — I don’t know where. He’s always the one who knows.

  Alex phoned Hannah, the gallery administrator, who’d gone to the hospital with Zachary in the ambulance. She said she’d call in to the gallery, the address must be somewhere in Zachary’s desk or on his phone, she’d text it to Alex in half an hour. Hannah’s voice was thick with crying. Alex asked her to contact everyone who knew, get them to keep it under wraps until he’d found Grace and told her. — Imagine if she found out on Facebook.

  — Keep it under wraps, Christine murmured. — I can’t believe he really said that.

  He paced around forcefully between the lamps, making these arrangements; the women, dazed and collapsed, were grateful to him really. He was fearless and competent, he knew what to do. He told Christine to telephone the school where he worked in the morning, explain why he wouldn’t be in. Before he left he kissed both the women, touching their faces with his fingertips in that intimate way he had. But they also knew that he was craving movement, couldn’t bear the idea of staying there in the flat with them while they mulled over this sorrow, fermenting it.