Читать книгу Under an Amber Sky: A Gripping Emotional Page Turner You Won’t Be Able to Put Down - Rose Alexander - Страница 14

Chapter 4

Sophie’s mother, on being told the news, reacted with horror.

‘Montenegro? A house? Oh, Sophie, what have you done? How can you even think of leaving the country at a time like this, when you are in such a state?’

The questions were not exactly rhetorical but nevertheless Sophie did not even attempt an answer. Appalled, Helena turned to coaxing rather than admonishing. ‘I’m sure you can still pull out. There must be a clause that can be invoked. You’ve got an English translation of the contract, haven’t you?’

Sitting on the sofa in her flat, her mother in the armchair opposite, Sophie pulled her knees towards her and hugged them protectively, momentarily shutting her eyes as she mustered the energy to reply.

‘I’m sorry, Mum; I know it’s a shock. I know you think I’ve gone crazy or I’m having some sort of breakdown. But I haven’t and I’m not.’

Helena was crying and at this last remark emitted a snorting hiccup. ‘But – then – why? You’ll be all alone there; you won’t have any of your family or friends around you. Why would you do that, after all you’ve been through?’

This was a hard question to answer, mainly because Sophie wasn’t sure herself why she had bought a house and decided to move – lock, stock, and barrel – to another country. She struggled for something to say, a way to put into words without hurting her mother further what it was that had motivated her to take such a drastic step. She could hardly tell her that she had gone with Anna’s belief that it was preordained; even in her befuddled state, she knew how ridiculous that would sound.

‘Now Matt has gone, I’ll be alone no matter where I am, Mum. I can’t go back to how it was before, can’t just sink into my old life again, minus Matt. The flat, my job, this area, walks on Hampstead Heath at the weekends; they all only mean something if Matt is doing them with me. I can’t see any way forward but to change everything.’

Helena considered this wordlessly for a while. She was pursing and unpursing her lips, a mannerism Sophie had never seen in her before. She knew how much she was tearing her mother’s heart apart and she didn’t want to do that – there was enough pain floating around without adding any more – but at the same time, she wasn’t going to change her mind.

‘But what will you do for money? How will you manage?’ The stupefaction that had halted Helena momentarily dissipated as further panic on Sophie’s behalf engulfed her. ‘You know how much you love your school, all those children you teach who really need you – you’re giving up a good, secure, steady job with a decent salary and a pension, and all for what?’

‘I’ve got enough to keep going for now. The offer on the flat is excellent, I won’t have a mortgage as it’s cheap over there still, and I’ll be changing my money at a fantastic rate.’ Sophie didn’t address the comments about leaving work. She would miss it, all of it: her colleagues, the buzz of a busy school, the energy. But at the same time, she knew she couldn’t cope with it now, and perhaps not for some time. ‘When the money runs out, I’ll – well, I’ll work out what to do then.’

‘I’ve never heard you even mention things like exchange rates before.’ Helena’s retort was sharp and harsh.

Sophie ignored the implication that she didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘No, well.’ She turned to look out of the window as she fought to quell the tears. ‘There are a lot of things I didn’t concern myself with while I had Matt to sort everything out. Now I’ve no choice but to engage with them.’ She paused to sniff, fumbling in her pocket for a tissue. ‘It’ll do me good. I was far too reliant on him. I didn’t take any responsibility. I should never have let myself become so dependent …’ Her words faded away as tears overwhelmed her.

Helena, too, was crying. Taking Sophie in her arms, she buried her face in her hair and held her tight. ‘I can’t stop you from doing what you want to do,’ she muttered finally, when she had regained enough composure. ‘You know I’ll always support you. I just can’t bear to lose you.’

***

Packing up Matt’s things was even more traumatic than Sophie had envisioned. His work suits, made to measure and much prized. His unobtrusive shirts, striped or plain, in white, blue, grey, and shades in between, that personified the muted elegance and intelligence of their owner. His cycling gear that seemed to carry the imprint of his body in the Lycra fibres of each soft, dark piece, which smelt not of him but of them, of their laundry powder and their togetherness.

She put them all in bags to take to the charity shop. It was decent stuff, in good condition. Someone would probably want it, would enjoy using it. A couple of things, his favourites and so her favourites, she kept. She could not get rid of everything.

His books, journals from law school together with the odd biography – Bradley Wiggins, Mr Nice – she stacked into boxes to keep in her parents’ garage until she decided what to do with them. Her own books she would store there, too, but she hoped she’d be able to ship them out to her new home at some point.

It was when this thought hit her that she stopped, mid-piling up of paperbacks, winded as if she’d been hit in the solar plexus. She felt sick at what she was doing, poleaxed by what she had set in motion and now did not have the power to halt. She was leaving everything and everyone and she realized, in a hot, livid flush, that Helena was right and she had made a terrible mistake.

But the flat was sold, she had already exchanged, and was due to complete any day now. The stone house was signed for and she would lose the thirty thousand euro deposit if she pulled out, let alone any fees if Mileva decided to sue for breach of contract. There was no turning back.

***

Once the flat no longer belonged to her, Sophie went to stay with Anna for a few days. She couldn’t leave the country yet as she needed to tie up all the paperwork from Matt’s death; it would be hard to do it from Montenegro. Crazy, lovely, irrepressible Anna lived in a huge, rambling house in Camden Town, a place that had been designated as short-life housing some time in the Eighties and then been ignored and neglected by the council ever since, apart from intermittent threats that it was about to be condemned or sold or auctioned or demolished. Anna had inherited her flat within it from her ex: the one thing he had given her, she always said, apart from a broken heart.

Though she couldn’t admit it, Sophie was finding it harder and harder to cope, unable to function with nothing to do, no schedule to keep to. The sleeplessness and night terrors were getting worse and she was exhausted. Perhaps they might go away if Anna and Tomasz were nearby, or at least recede enough to allow her a few hours’ rest.

For so many years her life had been dictated by the school year and now without it she was adrift on a sea of uncertainty, vaguely wafting to and fro with no purpose or direction. At the same time, she was glad she had resigned and, now that it was well into the autumn term, that she didn’t have to face the classroom every day, the scores of stroppy, hormonal, demanding teenagers, many with their own problems as bad or worse than hers. She knew she wouldn’t have got through it and, more to the point, would not have been a good teacher but instead a bad-tempered, impatient, ineffectual one.

There was one thought that preoccupied her, gliding in and out of her mind on an hourly basis. It was nearly three months since she’d had a period. She had hesitated in front of the pharmacy several times in the last few weeks but not gone in and bought a test. The truth was that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be pregnant or not. She found herself negotiating the matter with Matt or God or fate or someone – she wasn’t really sure who.

‘I don’t mind not being pregnant if you just give him back to me,’ she would hear herself silently saying. ‘We’ll have plenty of chances for babies, all the time in the world, just let me have him back.’

There was never any answer, and she didn’t expect there to be. But she couldn’t stop the bargaining.

‘Did you know when you fell pregnant with Tomasz?’ she asked Anna one evening, amidst the chaos of Anna’s dining table, where you had to clear a space of post, newspapers, paint pots and brushes, mugs, toys, and books just to find room to put your elbows. Sophie didn’t tell her why she was asking. She knew she would not be able to withstand Anna’s insistence that she do the sensible thing and just buy a test, and she couldn’t face doing that right now.

‘As soon as he was conceived.’ Anna sighed happily at the memory, though it was not one of fantastic sex with a gorgeous man. Despairing of ever finding a life partner after being disappointed and let down once too often, Anna had conceived Tomasz as a single mother with the help of IVF and a sperm donor. Nevertheless, a pregnancy is a pregnancy however it occurs and Sophie didn’t feel pregnant at all.

‘How did you know?’ she pressed, insistently.

Anna shrugged. ‘I just did. Women know these things. You’ll know when you –’ Anna stopped, abruptly. ‘What I mean is, often people just … know it. That’s all,’ she continued, lamely.

Sophie looked into her cup of tea as if the leaves might have the answer. She couldn’t be pregnant, then, if she were so uncertain. And if she wasn’t now, she never would be. The bargain hadn’t been accepted, because there didn’t seem to be a baby and there wasn’t Matt, either.

Tomasz wandered in, halfway to bed, the ankle-skimming legs of his pyjamas marking his latest growth spurt. Sophie ruffled his white-blond hair as he passed. She had him, her godchild. She would always have Tomasz to love. He would be enough.

Realistically, even if she had ever been carrying a child, or the very beginnings of a child, she couldn’t be any more. Surely such extreme emotion, such terror and shock as she had experienced, would have killed it off? What minuscule bunch of cells could survive such trauma? And then giving those cells no nutrition, so many days and weeks passing when she could hardly swallow anything down without gagging, even if she bothered to get round to trying, would only have contributed to the harm. But still – at the back of her mind resided the possibility of a baby.

Despite Sophie’s gratitude for Anna and Tomasz’s company, their house was anything but restful. Sophie had not accounted for the constant comings and goings, or the casual droppings-in of the motley collection of inhabitants who occupied the other floors. On her last evening, it was even more hectic than usual; there were visits from the sound recordist downstairs who wanted Anna’s opinion on a new jingle he’d written, the penniless playwright in the attic who needed her to comment on the authenticity of a Polish character he had created, and the ‘self-employed’ (euphemism for unemployed) hipster from the flat in between who came to borrow a teabag and stayed ‘for a chat’ for three hours.

When she did finally get to bed, Sophie sank under the covers with a huge sigh of relief. She found herself longing for the stone house on the waterfront, for the peace, quiet, and solitude that awaited her there.