Omega

I put on my towelling robe and tidied everything as best I could. I set the photograph back on top of the dresser by my bed. It was the only one there, another relic that Tanya must have salvaged from my hous. The empty house whose phone might be ringing even now, with Lyneth calling, wondering where I was. No that was ridiculous. Tanya or someone else would have told her I was here. So why hadn’t she rung, or at least put the girls on the phone to speak to me? Had she taken all the family photographs when she left? Had I done something so terrible she’d shut me out of her and the girls’ life completely?

I went back into the bathroom and pulled the plug. The right arm of my robe was now wet to the elbow. I stood there in the steam and spicy bubble-bath fragrance, watching the mountain range of foam slowly collapsing as the water drained. Tanya and Lyneth. Lyneth and Tanya. The two fixed emotional points of my adult life that I’d orbited like a planet around a binary star. I just hadn’t been able to stay away from Tanya.

About six months after she’d married Geoff I phoned her at home one weekend, ready with a cover story in case Geoff answered. But she took the call, and in no time I was confessing that I yearned to have regular contact with her. Was it possible that perhaps we could meet on an occasional basis, just as friends, just to keep in touch?

She sounded mildly amused but remained noncommittal, saying only she would think about it. A month later she phoned to say that she would be in London in a few days’ time and would I like to meet up for lunch?

By now she had learnt that Lyneth was pregnant again and must have known that this had prompted me to call her in the first place. I expected her to warn me off completely, but in fact we spent three hours at a pavement cafe near the British Museum over toasted sandwiches and endless cups of coffee.

Tanya was genuinely pleased that we were having another child. She made it plain that she intended to do nothing to compromise her marriage to Geoff, or mine to Lyneth. At the same time she admitted to having missed my companionship and said that she would be happy to see me when circumstances permitted. I suggested that it would be better if we said nothing to Geoff or Lyneth about such meetings; Lyneth in particular would not have reacted kindly to them. Tanya agreed but insisted we didn’t pretend we were doing something that wasn’t deceitful.

So we began what I suppose was a chaste affair, though it was certainly far from platonic. Tanya and I never disguised our continued attraction for one another, but we never quite articulated it either. We talked of Geoff and Lyneth only in passing, though Tanya was always interested in the doings of the girls. She would have made a terrific mother.

I was still in the bathroom, wiping my arm on one of Tanya’s towels, inhaling its smell of her. It was far more familiar to me than Lyneth’s, which I couldn’t bring to mind. Poor Lyneth, whose loyalty and industry I’d always taken for granted. Sara and Bethany, her finest creations. They’d been gone for months. But I still didn’t know why.

I unhooked the showerhead and rinsed out the bath. I went back into Tanya’s bedroom and stood at the bay window. No cars on the driveway. Tanya had driven to the station, and Geoff was always up at six each morning so that he could get into work before the rush hour. I had a recollection that he was attending a conference in Nortmpton, would be staying overnight.

Two o’clock. Nothing living was moving, outside or in. The house felt unoccupied. I had a sense that even I was not truly there, had become my own phantasm.

THIRTY-THREE

The snow kept tumbling down. It was already up to the ankles of his boots. Owain tugged at his cap brim, wishing he’d picked up something warmer from the stores after dropping off the Panache.

A squad of cadets from a youth brigade was doing manoeuvres near the Guards Memorial in St James’s Park, their drill sergeant forcing them to hunker down in the snow with their replica rifles and submachine guns. The wooden weapons used by recruits were usually crudely carved, making splinters as much of a risk as chilblains or sprains. In his youth they had been weighted with lead shot or horseshoes. He’d done his early training on the Brecon Beacons, under conditions far more desolate. According to a report he’d seen recently, forty percent of the brigades were now made up of female conscripts.

He crossed The Mall. The missile battery at the Admiralty Arch looked deserted, everyone doubtless huddled around the nearest stove.

Ghostly figures were emerging from a ruined building, spilling out of its rubble-strewn entrance. They flooded forward, passing through him, blurred images talking soundlessly to one another, as insubstantial as smoke. He shut his eyes and kept walking until he knew they would be gone. Nothing was going to hinder him. He wouldn’t allow it.