Ivy and Abe Read online

  There was something about the flow of the river, fast at that particular bend, that absorbed me. It seemed to reflect the fleeting nature of life, as it carried flotsam towards the sea. It mirrored my own heightened consciousness that we’re all flowing in an inevitable direction. The closer we get to the open sea, the faster the current seems to be.

  Maybe that was why I’d chosen that spot: to remind me that Richard hadn’t been singled out for an early death but that it would come to us all, sooner or later.

  And then I saw him. At least, I saw someone of about the same height and build, somewhere between bald and balding, walking towards the bench, in rapid pursuit of a toddler on a bike – one of those bikes with no pedals. He walked fast to keep pace but without breaking into a run. Then the child looked round. ‘Granddad can we –’ He fell off, landing in a heap at my feet.

  I was part of a triumvirate, involved in solicitations towards a crying child.

  ‘Oh dear,’ the man beside me said.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Jump up, little man.’ The man who had reminded me of Richard picked the bike up with one hand, extending the other to his grandson.

  The child stopped crying, reassured and a little embarrassed. ‘I fell off because I was trying to talk to my granddad at the same time,’ he said, lest the two of us on the bench were in any doubt about his cycling prowess.

  ‘It’s hard to go straight when you’re looking behind you,’ the man beside me said.

  I didn’t say anything because there was a lump in my throat.

  ‘Off we go.’ The grandfather set the bike down, nodding briefly to us.

  I was still getting used to the way grief raises its head at bizarre and inappropriate moments. What had triggered it this time? The similarity in stature had made me do a double-take when I first saw them, and that he was with a grandchild had got me going.

  Richard had not lived long enough to help any grandchildren learn to ride a bike. I wasn’t aware that I was crying until the man beside me asked if I was all right.

  ‘Oh, yes, no. I’m sorry,’ I felt foolish but unable to stop now that I’d started. ‘It was just that man. He reminded me of someone.’

  ‘Here, have a tissue.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I smiled, and wondered if he had already taken one from his pocket and blown his nose when he sat down, out of habit.

  ‘I don’t want to intrude,’ he said, as I handed back the packet, ‘but it can help to talk.’

  ‘That’s kind of you but I’ll be okay. Thank you.’ I looked at him properly for the first time. He was about my age, with a thick head of hair, not yet grey, salt-and-pepper, with dark eyes. ‘I was just thinking about my late husband.’

  ‘It’s a good spot to think. That’s why I come here.’

  His voice was soft and gentle and there was kindness in the way he spoke that made me tearful again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you further.’

  ‘You haven’t. It’s not you. But thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For being nice.’

  He laughed, shifted slightly, and we lapsed into an awkward silence, broken when a small bird landed where the boy on the bike had been and began pecking at the ground. ‘You could almost be in the country here,’ he observed.

  ‘It’s peaceful,’ I agreed, just as an aeroplane roared low overhead.

  ‘Well, some of the time.’

  ‘It still doesn’t feel like London,’ I said, as the plane descended in the direction of Heathrow.

  ‘Have you always lived in London?’ he asked, and although I’d wanted to be alone I found I didn’t mind his questions.

  ‘For most of my adult life,’ I told him. ‘But I lived in south-east London, until recently. I moved here after my husband died.’ I swallowed.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He’d noticed my reaction. ‘I’ve stirred up difficult memories again.’

  ‘No, it’s not you. It’s just the way I’m feeling today.’

  ‘Would it help,’ he said, ‘if I bought you another cup of tea? Yours must be cold by now.’

  I looked at the cup on the ground by my feet, forgotten, and found myself saying, ‘Thank you. That would be nice.’

  ‘Shall I bring it here or would you like go to the café?’

  ‘Let’s go to the café.’ Moving would stop me dwelling.

  ‘Do you want to get that table in the corner,’ he asked, ‘while I go to buy the tea? Would you like anything to eat?’

  ‘No, thank you. Here, let me give you some money.’

  ‘I’ll get it. You grab the table.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, again, when he returned, carrying a tray.

  ‘I’ve ordered a couple of scones too. Just in case you’re hungry.’ He sat down. ‘I won’t be offended if you’re not … hungry, that is.’

  ‘I am, actually.’ I’d not had anything after swimming and it always made me hungry, even though I’d thought I could wait until I got home to eat something.

  ‘I’m Abe, by the way.’ He put out his hand.

  ‘Ivy.’ I took his outstretched palm and we shook before he opened the lid of the teapot and stirred, with measured deliberation, as if trying to achieve just the right strength of tea.

  His dress was careful, not showy but presentable. He was wearing a pale grey shirt, a taupe cardigan, and his shoes, I’d noticed, were freshly polished, as if, for him, it was worth making the effort, even for a stroll in the park. Polished shoes always remind me of my own father, lining his up on a sheet of newspaper on a Sunday evening, a box of brushes to hand, then polishing several pairs so that he could have a change during the week, asking my mother, when he’d finished, if hers needed cleaning or any of ours.

  I watched Abe as he focused on the tea. He had a nice face. I imagined he was handsome when he was younger, perhaps intimidatingly so, but his face was softened by age and the lines etched around his eyes indicated kindness and a predisposition to smile.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked up, aware that I’d been studying him. ‘I didn’t ask how you like it.’

  ‘Strong! Carry on.’

  ‘It used to drive my wife mad.’ He smiled at me now. ‘I always used to forget that she drank her tea so weak it resembled dishwater.’

  ‘You’re widowed too?’ I asked, as he poured tea into one of the cups and pushed it towards me.

  ‘No. Separated.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s been seven years now, so I’m used to it.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’ There was something about him – the solicitude he had shown towards me and the care with which he appeared to operate – that made me feel sad he was on his own.

  ‘It was my fault,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘I messed things up. I caused my wife a lot of pain. I think Lynn’s happier now and we’re still friends, good friends.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again,’ was how we left it, after our first encounter. No asking for numbers or anything. And there was no reason we should. He was just someone who had shown me kindness and consideration when we’d found ourselves in the same spot at the same time. And yet I had warmed to him in a way that made me want to see him again.

  ‘Where are you, Mum? It sounds windy.’ Lottie had called when I’d gone back a couple of days later at the same time.

  ‘I’m having a cup of tea by the river.’ I felt as if she had caught me out, somehow, yet I wasn’t doing anything I didn’t normally do. As I said, I felt it was ‘my’ bench and I often went to sit there. Except this time I had gone hoping that Abe might be there too. I had lingered a little longer, bought a second cup of tea and taken it to the bench, even though I was beginning to feel cold. And I had been disappointed out of all proportion when I didn’t have to share my bench with anyone.

  ‘Are you okay, love?’ I asked Lottie.

  ‘I’m on my way to visit a client in the area and wondered if I could pop in on my way back t
o the office. It’s my last call of the day so I don’t need to rush away.’

  ‘That would be lovely.’ Lottie was a social worker, which didn’t altogether surprise me. She’d always been caring and unfazed by extreme circumstances. Perhaps the extremes of my own family’s illness, which she’d experienced at first hand with my mother and Jon, helped her take things in her stride.

  I hadn’t been enthusiastic about her decision when she’d told me, not because I didn’t think she’d make a good social worker but because I wanted her to be free of having to care. Max worked as a sports psychologist, which married his intellect with his own sporting prowess and put two fingers up to the way his life might have gone, if he’d carried the gene that had destroyed my mother’s and brother’s physical abilities, rendering them incapable of doing anything without help.

  Max’s work was a world away from that. Lottie’s felt somehow closer and I wondered if she would be happier to be free of it too. But she was adamant. She could see herself doing it. She worked with families now, families who found it hard to cope with whatever life had thrown at them – children with physical or psychiatric conditions, refugee or homeless families. She saw and heard a lot of distressing things, but her capacity to give of herself never seemed to diminish.

  Sometimes I felt guilty for having moved to London, hoping my children didn’t feel obliged to fit me into their lives.

  ‘But if you want to get back to the office and finish off for the day, don’t feel you need to call in just because you’re near,’ I said to Lottie now.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, and I could almost hear her smiling. ‘I want to see you, as long as you’re not busy?’

  ‘No. It’ll be lovely.’

  I stood up and glanced around, still willing Abe to materialize, as I’d half expected to see Richard the last time I was there. Honestly, Ivy, you’re behaving like some love-struck teenager, I reprimanded myself, and began to stride along the path beside the river towards home. I tried to remember the name of the boy whose house I had circled on my bicycle when I was a teenager. There was a route of a few blocks that took me past it and I used to ride by again and again, hoping each time that he might emerge from the front garden and I could pretend it was a chance encounter, that I just so happened to be passing his house as he came out.

  Sometimes Fate throws someone in your path; at others you have to tempt it.

  I looked back as the path forked to the left, giving the bench one last glance, and saw someone sitting there. Was it Abe? It might have been, and I was tempted to turn and walk back. And do what? I asked myself. Act as if you’ve just turned up, when you’ve been sitting there for the best part of an hour? Why? What are you hoping to get from him?

  I had no answer to that, and if I did go back and he was there, I’d miss Lottie.

  I went there a few more times, during the week, and each time was less disappointed by Abe’s absence, so that when, the following week, I sat down with my tea and my thoughts, and a voice asked, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’ it took me by surprise. After that we swapped emails and arranged to meet, rather than bumping into each other accidentally on purpose.

  When I got home I began behaving like a teenager again, checking my emails more often than I otherwise might have done.

  Although I was slowly winding down the travel PR company I’d set up when the children were in their teens, I still worked for existing clients. I hadn’t taken on any new ones for several years and wouldn’t. Eventually there were a couple of work-related emails in my inbox but nothing from Abe. I opened one of the work ones and was flicking idly through suggestions for a spring media campaign I was working on when his name popped up in the corner of my screen, attached to a message with the subject: Meeting up.

  I delayed opening it. I went to do some washing up and pottered in the kitchen, savouring the anticipation of the moment when I would read and reread the few brief lines.

  Dear Ivy,

  I’m glad to have bumped into you again today and enjoyed our chats on both occasions. Like you, I’m a regular visitor to the park and, while I don’t want to intrude in any way on your time, if you ever want company on your walks or someone to talk to over a cuppa then it would be good to talk some more.

  The deer were gathering as I left. I’m always moved by the sight of them.

  Hope to see you again.

  Abe x

  It was considered and considerate. I wondered how long he’d spent trying to get the words right and if he’d consciously tried to strike a balance between appearing keen to see me again but not wishing to force his company on me.

  I moved about the flat distractedly, drawing the curtains in my bedroom and the blinds in the bathroom, putting today’s newspaper in the recycling box and formulating my reply as I did so.

  Eventually I returned to my computer.

  Dear Abe,

  It was lovely to see you again too and I really appreciated your kindness towards me when we first met.

  Lucky you to have seen the deer. My route does not take me through that part of the park but, yes, perhaps we could walk there together some time.

  Ivy x

  I went to make dinner, lingering over the sautéing of mushrooms, the grilling of a chicken fillet and the boiling of rice. I sat at the table to eat, my copy of Thérèse Raquin open on the table beside me. My plan to get rid of some of the books, which were too numerous for the shelf space in the flat and towered in piles on the living-room floor, had failed. Instead I was re-reading them.

  But today the shenanigans of Thérèse and Laurent were not absorbing me. I was thinking about Abe McFadden, wondering if he would reply to my email and when I would see him again.

  I woke up my computer after dinner and saw another message in my inbox.

  I am free on Friday and the weather forecast is good, if you’d like to meet for a walk then. Ax

  I’d love to!

  We arranged to meet just near the park gate at eleven o’clock.

  ‘Ivy!’

  Abe was waiting. He waved when he saw me and kissed me, warmly, on the cheek when I drew level.

  ‘What a beautiful day,’ I said. ‘I think this is my favourite time of year.’

  The weather was as forecast and the low autumnal sun slanted through the leaves of the beeches, dappling the air beneath them.

  ‘You look beautifully autumnal yourself,’ Abe said, stepping back to take me in.

  I was wearing a mustard-coloured scarf, which Lottie had given me for my birthday, and an olive green tweed coat I’d bought in Dublin years ago. I suppose the combination and the slight rust of my lipstick reflected the burnished colours of the season.

  ‘Shall we go?’ Abe touched my arm lightly and we headed off along a path through the bracken to the woods and a clearing beyond, where about thirty red deer stood grazing in the grass. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ he said softly, and we watched them for several minutes, then moved off along the path that bordered their spot. ‘It reminds me of Scotland,’ he said. ‘I spent part of my childhood there.’

  ‘Really? You don’t have an accent.’

  ‘I know. I’m a Sassenach, really,’ he said, adopting a gentle brogue. ‘I was up there for a few years in my early teens but the family moved about a lot.’

  ‘So you don’t consider yourself from anywhere?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I grew up in Sussex but it’s not really a place people identify with. I didn’t anyway.’

  We carried on walking and talking. He told me a bit about his work, as a fountain designer, his children, Sam and Ruby, and Lynn, the wife from whom he was separated. The more we walked and talked, the more at ease I felt with him. Ease, tinged with a frisson of … what?

  Our walks became regular. Sometimes we’d go to the park, at others we’d wander by the river. From time to time we sat on the bench in companionable silence. There was something about him that I was drawn to and I suppose, if I
was honest, I found him enormously attractive. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that – if I wanted more than someone new to talk to.

  ‘How might you feel about lunch?’ Abe asked, as we walked by the river a few meetings later.

  ‘I’m generally in favour,’ I replied.

  ‘Next week?’

  ‘As long as you can spare the time.’

  ‘I can make time for you. Will you have time?’

  ‘I work for myself. I can make time too.’

  I don’t need to work now – my living expenses are moderate and Richard’s life insurance policy gives me a regular income – but I need something to keep me going.

  ‘Good. We need to spend a bit more time together.’

  His manner was assured, as if he’d already decided that we were, or would be, more than just two people who met to walk and talk. He wasn’t pushy and it felt natural. But it still unnerved me. It had been so long since there’d been anyone other than Richard, and Abe was still married.

  His phone had rung earlier, when we were walking. He’d taken it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. ‘It’s Lynn,’ he’d said to me. ‘I’m sorry. I need to take this.’ He’d hung back a little as I idled by the river, trying not to listen or to read too much into the way his face seemed to soften as he chatted, as if he was talking to someone he could relax with completely.

  ‘Okay, I’ll pop round. Yes … See you later then, love.’ He wound up the call. ‘Sorry,’ he said to me. ‘There seems to be a bit of an issue with the lock on the front door. The Chubb’s not working and Lynn doesn’t like leaving it unlocked. The house was broken into a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Oh dear. I hope nothing too important was taken.’

  ‘No,’ Abe replied. ‘Mostly electronic items. All replaceable. But Lynn’s a bit more nervous when she’s by herself now, which is understandable.’

  I tried to weigh up the significance of ‘when’. Did he still stay there sometimes? Did she have a new man in her life?