Sea Music

Later, when she could think straight, she realised Richard must have known for months that his wife was coming. An estranged wife does not travel thousands of miles with a small child, just hoping they will be welcome.

Kate gets off the bed, picks up her cooling tea and goes to the window. Why did Richard, thousands of miles away, after months of silence, decide to ring her at that particular moment, in the middle of a storm, his voice finally ending a life she could not let go of. Somehow she knew it would be him. Kate believes in karma.

– Kate, it’s me, Richard.

– Richard. Is something wrong?

– Darling Kate, I just needed to hear your voice. You don’t even sound surprised.

– No, I’m not surprised. Not in the least.

– Kate, you sound so … cold.

– Not cold, Richard. Sensible. It is what you wanted me to be, wasn’t it?

Silence, Then – You are angry with me. I’ve hurt you, Kate. I’m sorry.

Kate was not angry, she was furious.

– Richard, I lived and worked with you for two years. You told me your marriage was over. Definitely over. Your wife rings you out of the blue to announce her return, and you suddenly tell me you must try again for the sake of your child … And, oh, by the way, as you have to go back to England because your mother is dying, maybe, it is better, easier, if you don’t come back. Isn’t that how it was? Tell me if I have got it wrong!

– I thought you agreed it was the best thing, Kate. I thought I had to try once more …

– So why are you ringing me now?

– Because I miss you very much and because I don’t know if I can make this marriage work.

– I see. You want to keep all your options open, in case you get bored trying to piece together a relationship for the sake of your child?

– For heaven’s sake, Kate, you seem intent on twisting everything I say.

– No, Richard! I flew home because my mother was dying and suddenly things became very clear. I saw things as they really were, not as I wanted them to be. You never stopped for one moment to consider our relationship before you leapt back into your marriage. You never rang me once to see how I was or to find out if my mother had died …

Kate felt the tears behind her eyelids.

– I thought we were close friends, but I was only a stopgap. An aid worker passing through. Unimportant, or you would have told your wife that it was too late, you had met someone else who meant something to you. Anyway, anyway, it doesn’t matter.

– Of course it matters … Kate, please, I’m sorry, really sorry. I have made a big mistake …

– Tough.

– Can I at least fly home and talk to you?

– No. It’s much too late, for me, anyway. Just for once, think about someone else. Your wife and child. Make your marriage work. After all, it was important enough six months ago to end our life together. I hope it all works out. No! I don’t want to hear any more. I am going to put the phone down …

She felt Marjorie’s arms round her shoulders as her heart jumped painfully.

– Well done, favourite niece.

– I’m your only niece.

– True.

Marjorie threw two books of maps onto the table between them.

– Where is it going to be this time? Which country?

– You old witch. England. For a bit anyway.

They placed the map on the floor. – Close your eyes and point.

– Have I told you, you are absolutely my favourite aunt?

– I am your only aunt.

Marjorie turned the map round. Kate closed her eyes and randomly stabbed her finger somewhere. She expected to land in the sea, but when she opened her eyes her finger was right on the toe of Cornwall.

– Very apt, Marjorie murmured. – All the nuts land in the toe.

Now Kate gets off the bed and goes to the window. How do you ever know you have done the right thing? She is drawn to caring for strangers, when she could not reach her own mother in any meaningful way.

She is about to become peripheral, drawn into lives that have nothing to do with her. People living, not with actual death, but loss, all the same. A small sneaky death of the mind. Is this too soon after Dora?

Against the backdrop of purple sky a fisherman in waders digs for eels, seemingly oblivious to the coming storm. The tall figure of a girl walks slowly along the foreshore with an elderly-looking dog. Her dark hair, streaked with random blonde strands, is caught up in a slide. She is young, coltlike, with an innocent elegance. She wears a cropped black T-shirt with bare midriff and white cut-off jeans. She stops on the shingle, looking up the estuary, out to where white waves are gathering on an incoming tide. Seabirds wheel in the wind over her head and curlews swoop low, calling out, flying inland against the coming storm. How bleak and lonely it is out there, the weather turns so capricious, changing quickly and suddenly.

The girl stands very still for a long time, and something in the slight and vulnerable figure catches at Kate. She knows suddenly it is a leave-taking, a long silent goodbye. Sadness starts up inside her, a strange pull at her heart. The girl must be Lucy; Kate recognises the dog.

It is as if she is watching a small private lament. As if she is watching herself grieving for something she cannot change.

Kate stands at the window like a sentinel, as motionless as the girl below her silhouetted against that violent collecting sky. Another rumble in the distance, far away over the sea, and a flurry of fat raindrops lands in gusts against the window.

The girl moves slowly, the dog gathers its legs and jerks upright after her and they disappear slowly together round the point, leaving Kate watching the empty foreshore.

Chapter 15 (#ulink_9622a3d5-01a9-57e8-b199-7ccc89f00dd8)

Berlin

He sits in his flat studying a street map of London. He stares down at the tiny row of houses where Hans has told him the woman lives. He circles the house, the law courts and her chambers in the city with a soft lead pencil.

He makes another little circle on his English map, right down in the toe of England where the woman grew up. Far from London, but London is not far from Berlin, London is only a few hours away.

He pours coffee, then goes to open the glass doors and sits on the small balcony. If he took up Scheffell’s offer he would have a valid reason for going to London. A two-week seminar would be good for him, keep his hand in, stop his brain from atrophying.

He looks across the swathe of park in front of him to the city glinting below. The faint roar of muffled traffic comes to him from the autobahn. He thinks of his working life, the years flying by too quickly, the time so easily taken for granted. That time when you are young and single-minded. Striving to get to the top of your profession. Strands of a life gathered up in careful calculated threads. Career, travel and women. In that order. Each thread separate, unless he wished it otherwise.

Academically fulfilling years. Exciting. Because of the power. Every surgeon becomes aware of the seductive power in his hands, the thrill of learning, teaching, becoming expert. Healing tired, diseased and broken bones. Mending, stapling together, piecing like an intricate jigsaw smashed limbs. Devising new ways of operating and post-operative care. Becoming eminent. All this, behind him.

Every doctor, at some time, abuses that aura of godlike status. Not necessarily with his hands as he heals, but with his heart, as he so casually picks up and discards the people who pass through his life.