Eight o’clock. Still too early to ring Alaska or California. The flow of water was worryingly slow when he turned on the kitchen tap. After eight days of freezing temperatures the possibility of a burst pipe was very real. He switched off his water supply but the tank was in the attic in Nadine’s apartment.

The air smelled musty and the oppressive silence of an unoccupied space bore down on him as he crossed the landing. Could it still be called her apartment? It was obvious she was never going to return. Resisting the urge to enter her rooms, he pulled down the wooden staircase and pushed open the attic trap door. His hand tingled with a faint electric charge when he switched on the light. The whole place probably needed rewiring. The sight of the muddle on the floor added to his dejection. Nadine’s efforts to clear out the attic had only removed a fraction of what they had taken with them from Bartizan Downs. Sorting through everything would have to be his next project. He stepped over crates of Christmas decorations that he had not bothered opening. He recognised a box of dressing-up clothes from Ali’s fantasy childhood world and lifted out a dress dotted with diamantes. She used to wear it to bed at night, along with the matching tiara, which he would remove when she was sleeping. He hunkered down to examine Brian’s lopsided early creations. Wisps of memory escaping. They were stored in the frontal lobes of his brain – he had read that somewhere – awaiting the right trigger to free them. Today they needed no prompting. Nadine must be feeling the same way. Something so strong had to have a magnetic pull. But the time difference… he stepped around two broken computers, a treadmill and exercise bike, broken musical instruments.

He found the stopcock on the tank and closed it off. He inspected all the pipes and the boiler. Everything seemed in order and well insulated. The slow flow must be due to an outside problem. Relieved he reopened the stopcock. He sneezed, dust clogging his nostrils, cobwebs quivering. Nadine’s half-finished paintings were stacked under the eaves. This was where she had hoped to establish her studio but the sheer volume of her family’s possessions had defeated her.

The twins’ trophies clanged sharply when he accidently kicked against a black, plastic sack. They were tarnished, long neglected. He carried the bag from the attic and climbed backwards down the folding stairs. The front door of his apartment had blown open. He had obviously not closed it properly yet his fear that someone was waiting inside was palpable.

He shook off his disquiet. Karin Moylan was gone from his life and he was safe within frozen banks of snow.

He googled how to polish silver and made a paste of baking soda, which he found at the back of a press. The trophies were cleaned and lined up in front of him when the twins rang from Alpine Meadows. Breathless from the rush of snow in their nostrils they wished him a merry Christmas then rushed off to meet their friends on the snowboarding slopes.

At midnight Nadine answered her phone.

‘Happy Christmas.’ He enunciated each word with the precise concentration of the very drunk.

‘Happy Christmas, Jake,’ she replied.

‘Where are you?’ He could hear voices in the background, music, laughter.

‘Daveth’s house,’ she said. ‘He invited some friends to Christmas dinner.’

‘That’s nice.’ He batted away the image of Daveth Carew basting the turkey and wearing a ridiculously festive apron. ‘I’d better not keep you from your host.’

‘I’m okay for the moment. Is the snow bad?’

‘It’s brought the country to a standstill. I was in the attic earlier checking for burst pipes.’

‘Any danger of a leak?’

‘No. All sound. I’ve just polished the twins’ trophies. Baking soda and water. You should see the shine.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘A few glasses of wine with the pancakes.’

‘You made pancakes for dinner.’

‘Beats turkey any day.’

‘You should go to bed.’

‘Nadine… I need to tell you something.’

‘What?’

‘It’s over.’

She remained silent. Only for the background voices, he would believe she had hung up.

‘Did you hear me?’ His voice was louder than he intended.

She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, I heard you.’

‘I don’t know where to begin… can we talk sometime soon?’

‘What’s left to talk about?’ Her tone brought their conversation to an end. ‘I’m sorry, Jake.’

He found his favourite Bruce Springsteen album and placed it carefully on the turntable. Tonight was the time for vinyl and scratching The River would be an unforgivable crime. The lyrics released a backwash of nostalgia… down by the river… a girl of seventeen, a boy of nineteen, caught in the spiral of youthful passion. The fire turned to ash, like the ash of their youthful passion, and the room grew cold. Finally, stiffly, Jake rose to his feet. He stepped over the trophies. Whiskey was not a good idea when the frontal lobe was involved, he decided as he collapsed onto his bed. His last image before he fell asleep was of the seagull suspended like a white cross against the black sky.

Chapter 41

Nadine

The smells of herbs and spices trail familiar plumes around me as Daveth removes the turkey from the oven. His cousin Nessa, her husband Ryan and their three children have joined us for dinner. I know my way around his house now. Olga’s presence is everywhere. She was into crafts, rugs and wall hangings, but she is a gentle ghost and I’m happy here. Daveth has asked me to stay on, to cruise alongside him on Eyebright for the next season. I thought about it for a day but I knew, as I suspect he did too, that ours is just a snatched encounter.

Dinner is ready to be served. Each dish is greeted with cheers as it’s carried to the table. My presence seems to add an extra bounciness to the atmosphere. They’re curious about me, particularly Nessa, who must find it difficult to understand how I can laugh so easily when I’m separated from my family on Christmas Day. Her own three children howl with scorn over the jokes in the crackers, don the funny hats and politely pass the serving dishes around the table. Daveth raises his wine glass in a toast to absent loved ones. We drink and toast Olga, who stares down at us, smiling from a photo on the wall, and remember Stuart in the silence that follows.

When the dishes have been cleared away I sit with Nessa in the room that opens out into a balcony in the summer. It’s a small, warm space with well-worn armchairs and crowded bookcases. Nessa lights a cigarette and tells me I’m the first woman Daveth has brought into his house since Olga’s death. She looks disappointed when I tell her I’m moving on in the new year. She’s easy and kind, and we exchange brief life stories, as strangers do when they know they won’t meet again.

‘Where are you heading after you leave here?’ she asks.

‘To Vancouver to visit my friend, Jenny. Then on to California to see my twins.’

I tell her about Brian’s pottery. How stressed I was when he dropped out of college but how unimportant it seems now. She’s involved in amateur dramatics and interested in hearing about Ali’s play. I’ll miss the opening night of The Arboretum Affair. It’s all Ali talks about when she rings. Tina, queen of the sylphs, her first leading role. I thought it was a fairy story but she says it’s a bitingly savage satire on capitalism and corruption.

‘How long before you return home?’ Nessa asks.

‘A month. But I’m not going home. I’ll settle in London and study art. That’s what I intended on doing when I met my ex-husband. He was in a band that was going stratosphere, or so we believed. We were dreamers. That’s all we had in common.’

‘You stayed together. You reared a family. You need more than a dream to do that.’