Saving Missy. Beth Morrey
couldn’t be repaired.
After a while, I picked myself up and went to my desk, opening my Latin lexicon to prepare for my supervision. Luó; Gr λύω – to loose, untie, release, destroy. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Leo, Luó. I’d let go, when I should have hung on. But then, even then, I had a tiny shred of optimism, a hope against hope that he might call. He might.
Leo graduated and left Cambridge that summer, and it was two years before I saw him again.
I was so cheered by my lunch at Sylvie’s that the comfort of it carried me through the next few days, remembering the warmth of her kitchen, the camaraderie of perching on those stools together. Maybe I wasn’t the social pariah I’d imagined; perhaps it would be possible to build up a small circle of friends to insulate me against the loss of Leo, and of Ali and Arthur.
Continuing my explorations, I ventured into independent shops, dropped in to the library, and visited a little redbrick church around the corner from my café. I’ve never been much of a church-goer – religion was an irrelevance in our family, any reference met with baffled stares. Even my Aunt Sibby, who married a vicar, rarely mentioned it. But I lit a candle for Leo all the same, and thought of whatever twilight world he was in, whether he was happy, if he remembered me at all.
So taken up with my wanderings, it was over a week before I realized Angela hadn’t visited. Despite not even liking her that much, it was disappointing, as I wanted to see Otis again. As the days went by with no further contact, I became despondent. Perhaps I’d said something at the lunch that she objected to? She was very left-wing. Or perhaps it was something I hadn’t said? I had no witty anecdotes, knew none of the mutual acquaintances they’d discussed, and most of all I was so old, so jaundiced – who would want to be friends with me? She didn’t need to like me to let me babysit her son. But maybe she thought I wasn’t even up to that.
Once again I retreated into my cavernous house, drifting around in my nightie, unearthing old albums and wallowing in them for hours. Me, in my gown in the gardens of Newnham after my graduation, my mother’s arm around me, proud and exultant. I looked shell-shocked. We were standing next to a little stone statue of a boy holding a dolphin. He looked like Arthur – naked, as my errant grandson often is.
Then a photograph of Leo and me on our wedding day, him grinning towards the camera, and me looking up at him, my veil partly obscuring my face. I gazed at that face, my younger self; those wide eyes, unwaveringly fixed on my prize, dark hair tumbling under the net, slim in borrowed silk, unlined but not unscarred, even then.
We were married in King’s College chapel, and after the photo was taken by his friend Tristan, a fellow historian, Leo swept our guests off to The Anchor pub, where everyone got very merry. I barely sipped my wine, already drunk on the prospect of being married to this flaxen god who dwarfed everyone around him. Later, my mother took me to one side and said, ‘Darling, are you sure?’ as if anything could be done by then. It was all settled for me the moment I saw him in Falcon Yard. Alea iacta est.
I was twenty-one then, and by my twenty-second birthday was nesting in our little cottage off Jesus Green, pregnant with Melanie. I made a cake, still a luxury, and we ate it on the floor in front of the fire, because we couldn’t afford a sofa. The one we eventually bought, after the advance on Leo’s first book, was still in my living room today. And here I was, another birthday looming, but no one to spend it with.
What was this fear, this terror of being alone, when I was never a particularly gregarious being and in fact used to go out of my way to avoid social engagements? It always felt like too much of a chore to go to one dinner party or another, where I’d inevitably have to drink to relax, or worry about staying up late when I had to get up for the children. Leo was more of an extrovert, but he had his club, his golf and his books, and was mostly oblivious to the invitations I declined on his behalf. Was there another reason I said no? The more people – the more women – he met, the more likely he would realize what was lacking at home. I bound him to me, but was always fearful he would loosen the ties.
When Alistair was born, in Leo’s image, I thought perhaps the completion of our family and our new home – the oikos – might secure him, and me. But for years after, I was so tired. The dreary call of childcare wore me down, and the threads started to fray. While I struggled, he soared off – Dr Leonard Carmichael, respected historian, lauded biographer, lecturer; jetting around the world, speaking on the radio, writing for the papers. When we were out, I felt he was always looking over my shoulder for the other person he knew, just like when we met.
I don’t know why I’d allowed myself to become so maudlin. The wine, probably. Two glasses, which sounded better than half a bottle. We had loved each other. He didn’t go in for passionate declarations, but we knew we were each other’s home – knew it in the way he always set my teacup on the table the night before, ready for morning; knew it in the tender Latin poems and quotes he left around the house for me to translate; the way he called me Missy just like Fa-Fa had, and was the only one who knew why he was doing it. He didn’t need to say it. He really didn’t. Love begets love, and I had so much that there was enough to reflect back.
But now there was only the echo of it in this ramshackle old house that lacked clutter, and light, and youth, and laughter. Draining my glass and closing the album on my obscured face, I went up to bed, leaving the curtains open and watching the streetlight cast shadows on the walls until I fell into an uneasy sleep.
The next morning, my dreaded birthday, I tried to pull myself together. I’d go to the shops, buy the ingredients for a cake. Just a basic sponge to mark the occasion. Maybe I’d bump into someone on the way and could casually throw it into conversation. Just after ten, the post arrived. I ignored the bills, eagerly sifting through the junk mail to see if there was a card from Alistair. Maybe it would arrive tomorrow. It was so difficult to judge post times from Australia – the last birthday card I sent him arrived a week early. There was a Cambridge postcard from Mel, a terse scrawled greeting, which was more than I deserved after what happened last year.
There was the merest hint of spring in the air as I made my way to the shops on the high street. I bought the necessary ingredients, then decided to treat myself to a coffee. Hanna smiled at me and said, ‘for you is free today.’ For a moment I thought somehow she knew, but realized she was looking at my card, which had eight stamps. I went to my usual table and sat down, on the lookout for Sylvie, or anyone vaguely familiar. I sat there for an hour, then walked up and down the road a few times without encountering anyone but heedless strangers.
Accepting defeat, I walked home with my shopping, and after lunch set about making my cake; assembling the ingredients in a haphazard way as I’d never been much of a cook, and after all it would only be me eating it. No possibility that Angela might pop round and I could offer Otis a slice. It turned out burnt around the edges as the temperature of the Aga was difficult to gauge, but I cut myself a piece and ate it with my afternoon tea, and it was perfectly agreeable. After I’d tidied up the kitchen, I picked up one of Mel’s Nancy Mitfords and read for a while until it grew too dark. I was just going round switching lights on when there was an almighty racket at the door.
Angela stood swaying in the doorway, evidently drunk. As she pushed past me, I realized she was holding a lead, tugging along a dog. It followed her into the house and when we reached the living room, it sat in front of the fireplace, panting slightly. I was nonetheless pleased at the intrusion.
‘Have you kidnapped him as well?’ She didn’t smile, but instead pushed lank hair back from her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose.
‘No. Well, yes, sort of. This is Bob. She’s been staying with me for a few days.’
‘She?’
‘Yes, she.’
‘Bob isn’t a girl’s name.’
Angela shrugged. ‘It’s something to do with Blackadder. Bob is a girl,