Brother and Sister

by Joanna Trollope

  She stood up. Neither of them took any notice. She picked up her handbag and moved quietly out onto the floor, and across it until she was standing behind Titus. Justine was staring at her, excited and guilty.

  "Not clever," Meera said to Titus.

  He didn't turn round. He went very still.

  "And don't accuse me of spying," Meera said. "This is an open-plan office."

  "I wouldn't dare," Titus muttered.

  "And you wouldn't dare behave like this if Steve was here."

  Justine ducked her head. Titus turned his head slightly.

  "Try not to be priggish, passion flower."

  "Shut it," Justine hissed.

  Meera turned and walked steadily across the floor and through the door to the stairway. Titus didn't look at Justine.

  He said, staring ahead of himself, his jaw tight, "If Steve was here. If Steve was ever bloody here—"

  Justine's shoulders drooped.

  "Where is he?"

  "You don't want to know," Titus said furiously. "And neither do I."

  Lynne sat on the edge of the cream leather sofa in the upstairs sitting room of the Royal Oak, holding a teacup and a triangle of shortbread.

  "Only packet, I'm afraid," Evie said. "I don't seem to get round to much baking nowadays."

  Lynne took a bite of shortbread and looked hastily down at the carpet for crumbs. The flowers and trellises around her feet bore the sweeping signs of having been freshly hoovered.

  "I shouldn't think I've baked a cake since the children left home—"

  "If I baked one," Evie said, "Ray'd only eat it and he's eighteen stone already. Don't you mind about crumbs. I should have given you a plate."

  Lynne put her shortbread in her saucer.

  "It's nice enough of you to see me."

  Evie regarded her. She'd been much surprised when Lynne telephoned, and even more surprised when Lynne had asked to come round. It wasn't so much that she and Lynne didn't get on, but more that she was aware that Lynne couldn't quite forget the difference between living in the Royal Oak and living in a detached house on Ashmore Road. Also—and Evie's antennae were even more sharply attuned to this distinction than the social one—Lynne had always allowed Evie to know that, as the mother of the mother of the grandchild, she was unquestionably, in the subtle ranking of these things, the first grandmother.

  But the sight of Lynne now on the edge of her sofa worrying about crumbs on her carpet—who else, of Evie's rare visitors, ever had the grace to concern themselves with such details—inspired in Evie nothing but pity. Never mind the past, never mind the unsubtle jockeying for precedence over Polly, never mind any kind of insecurity-induced silliness, the woman sitting on Evie's sofa looked both lost and unhappy, and it smote at Evie's heart. She leaned forward.

  "Make yourself comfortable, dear."

  Lynne looked doubtfully at the sofa.

  "Once you get yourself back into it," Evie said, "it's ever so much better."

  Gingerly, Lynne inched herself backwards across the leather surface. Evie watched her, with the indulgence she used to watch Polly with, when Polly attempted her first climbs up the ladder to the slide in the children's playground behind the Royal Oak.

  "There now."

  "I expect," Lynne said, allowing herself to half relax against the sofa's unyielding gleaming cushions, "I expect you wonder why I've come."

  "Well," Evie said, "I've a bit of an idea—"

  "I'm not sure myself, really," Lynne said. "I mean, I knew I needed to talk, I knew I needed to talk to someone who knows the situation. But I don't really know what I'm after."

  "We're all a bit on edge," Evie said. She lifted the lid on the teapot on the tray beside her and peered inside. "Well, when I say all, I'd have to exclude Ray. Ray's never on edge, not really, not unless it's to do with the business. Ray does good mood, bad mood, finish. It depends on the day's trade."

  Lynne leaned across the sofa and put her cup down on the seat two feet away.

  She said suddenly, "Ralph hasn't a clue."

  "No."

  "He can't see it—"

  "No."

  "He can't," Lynne said, her voice abruptly loud, "he can't see how I feel having both my children do this, together, at once. He can't see what it does to me, seeing them so excited. Evie," Lynne said, turning towards her, "I can't remember when I saw them so happy. Happy."

  Evie put the teapot lid back on.

  "It's early days—"

  "What for?"

  "For being happy," Evie said. "They haven't met these mothers yet."

  "Mothers," Lynne said. "Mothers. How am I supposed to compete with two mothers?"

  Evie got up. She walked across her hoovered carpet to the leather sofa and removed Lynne's teacup. Then she sat down.

  "It's not a competition, dear," Evie said.

  Lynne sighed.

  "You brought those two up," Evie said. "You took them into your home and you looked after them and schooled them and taught them how to live in the world. You mothered them. No one can take that away from you."

  "But I didn't give birth to them. I didn't give birth to anyone."

  "That's only the beginning," Evie said. "It counts, but it doesn't count for everything. It's the going on afterwards that counts, the going on you did for Nathalie and David."

  Lynne fished in her pocket for a tissue.

  "It isn't the same as belonging. Nothing will make them belong to me like they belong to them."

  "Nonsense," Evie said.

  "All very well—"

  "Don't you start on that," Evie said. "Don't you even begin. Take my Verena. Just take Verena. I gave birth to her all right, but if you asked her now if she thought she belonged to me she'd laugh in your face. We don't belong to nobody in the end. Nobody but ourselves."

  Lynne bent her head.

  "It just all reminds me—"

  "Course it does."

  "And I find it hard to see them so excited—"

  "Well," Evie said, "try being just irritated about that. You try seeing it as childish. Don't let it upset you."

  "No."

  "They're not halfway there yet. Not even a quarter of the way."

  "No."

  "They know their names. They've heard them on the telephone. It's like a Lonely Hearts column, if you ask me."

  "One's an art teacher," Lynne said. "The other's a retired company director. In London."

  Evie sniffed.

  "Could mean anything—"

  "It means, in both cases, something utterly different to what they've known. I'm not artistic. I couldn't run a business to save my life."

  "I told you," Evie said, "this isn't a competition." She looked straight at Lynne. "You're their mother, you brought them up, and that's that."

  "But, Polly—"

  "Polly lives here. We live here. We've known Polly since she was four hours old."

  "Yes."

  "I tell you," Evie said, leaning forward, "if there's any funny business with Polly, they'll have Ray to deal with and they won't like that. Nobody does."

  Lynne smiled again, faintly.

  "Heavens—"

  "You're to stop worrying."

  "I know—"

  "It'll all pass," Evie said. She put out a hand and patted Lynne's nearest one. "They'll go haring off and fill in all these blanks they're so obsessed by and then it'll all pass. You'll see."

  Lynne looked up. She turned her hand over so that she could grasp Evie's.

  "Thank you," she said. "Thank you."

  Evie smiled at her. She returned the pressure of Lynne's hand. It was good to see her looking better, but it was also time for a tiny triumph.

  "I've got Polly coming Saturday," she said. "That's two Saturdays running. Two on the trot."

  Petey sat in his bath, slowly filling an empty shampoo bottle with bathwater and then squirting it dangerously close to the edge of the bath so that sometimes, thrillingly, the water arced out onto the bathroom floor. There w
as, after all, no one there to supervise him for the moment. Daniel had been sent to watch him, and had begun by being quite participatory, kneeling on the floor beside the bath and aiming the shampoo bottle directly at Petey's tummy button and making him squeal. But then Petey had found three of Ellen's glitter hairclips lying in the soap dish, and had wanted to put them in his own hair and Daniel, for some reason neither comprehensible nor acceptable to Petey, had wanted to prevent him. Petey had insisted, Daniel had objected, Petey had screamed, Daniel had shouted and then stamped out of the bathroom. When he had gone, Petey arranged the clips in a clumsy clump above his forehead and resumed the water game with the shampoo bottle.

  "Where's Daniel?" Ellen said. She was standing in the doorway in jeans and a pink sweatshirt top, which Petey much admired, with a hood and "Sugababes" printed on the front, in sequins.

  Petey crossed his eyes and put the neck of the shampoo bottle in his mouth.

  "Don't drink the bathwater," Ellen said, swooping.

  Petey beamed up at her. He put a coy hand up, to finger the hairclips.

  "You look ridiculous," Ellen said. She turned and yelled over her shoulder, "Daniel!"

  David said, from further down the landing, "He's in the kitchen."

  "He's supposed to be watching Petey."

  "Isn't it simpler to do it yourself?"

  Ellen sighed.

  "That isn't the point—"

  David came into the bathroom. He stooped to kiss Petey's head.

  "You look a right little fairy."

  Petey lowered his eyelashes.

  "The floor's soaking—"

  "I'll mop it," David said.

  Ellen began to soap a flannel vigorously.

  She said, in a voice strongly reminiscent of her mother's, "There's a cloth under the basin."

  "I know."

  "Only reminding you—"

  "I know," David said.

  Ellen picked up Petey's nearest hand. It was covered with green and purple slashes from coloring pens.

  "It's always me," Ellen said. "I don't mind, because I can do it, but I do mind the assumption that I will do it."

  David knelt beside her on the floor, holding the cloth.

  "Do you mean looking after Petey?"

  "Petey!" Petey shouted, rattling his hairclips.

  Ellen picked up his other hand.

  "Well, yes. But it's other stuff too."

  David began to sweep the cloth across the pools of water on the floor.

  He said carefully, "What other stuff—"

  "You know," Ellen said, rubbing Petey's hand. "You know what I mean. At least, you'd know if you could think about anything except chess, ever."

  David got up, and wrung the floorcloth out over the basin.

  He said, his back towards Ellen, "You mean Mum."

  "Yes."

  "In what—way exactly?"

  Ellen lifted Petey to his feet in order to soap his body.

  She said crossly, "Do I have to spell it out to you?"

  "No," David said. "But nor do you have to be rude."

  Ellen turned to look at him, one hand still steadying Petey in the bath.

  "I'm fed up!" she shouted. "I'm fed up with nobody paying attention to us, with you so obsessed with chess you can't think about another thing and Mum so out of it because of you that she goes from being so much of a mother we can't breathe to absolutely no mother at all! I'm sick of having to pick up the pieces!"

  Petey dropped the shampoo bottle and began to cry. Ellen gave an exasperated sigh and let go of his hand. He sat down abruptly in the bath, sobbing.

  David came across the bathroom holding a towel—not Petey's—and bent to lift his son out of the bath.

  "That isn't his towel."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Mum—"

  "It doesn't bloody matter," David said. He straightened up, holding Petey clumsily wrapped in the towel.

  Ellen said into her chest, "I didn't mean to be rude but I did mean it."

  "I know."

  She looked up at her father.

  She said, in a suddenly much less confident voice, "What's the matter with Mum?"

  David sat down on the closed lid of the toilet with Petey on his knee. Petey was whimpering now, his fingers in his mouth.

  "He needs his sleepy rag," Ellen said.

  "He can wait—"

  "He can't," Ellen said. "You don't want him screaming. I'll get it."

  "Thank you," David said. He began to unclip the plastic bows in Petey's hair. Petey's eyes widened for a second, ready for piercing protest, but then he remembered whose knee he was sitting on and merely went on whimpering round his fingers.

  "There," Ellen said. She held out the sleepy rag. "Dad?"

  "Yes."

  "What about Mum?"

  David wrapped Petey close in his towel and held him hard.

  "I meant to tell you. I was going to tell you—"

  "What?" Ellen said sharply.

  "It isn't chess."

  "Oh no?"

  "No," David said. "I know I play far too much and you all get fed up with me, but it isn't that."

  Ellen leaned against the wall. She reached behind her head and pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt, yanking it forward until it covered her hair and shadowed her face.

  "What then?"

  David had his face against the top of Petey's head.

  "You know I'm adopted. You've always known I was adopted."

  "So?"

  "And you are quite sure you know what being adopted means?"

  Ellen sighed.

  "Course."

  "Tell me then."

  "It means," Ellen said with elaborate boredom, "that your mother couldn't keep you so she had to give you away and she gave you away to Mr. and Mrs. King and they got killed in a bus crash in France so you got given to Granny Lynne and Grandpa, who brought you up and are your parents, end of story."

  David closed his eyes.

  "Not quite."

  Ellen flicked the sequins on her front.

  "Well, there was Nathalie, too."

  "Yes, but that isn't everything. There's something else. My mother, the mother who gave birth to me, is still alive."

  Ellen stopped flicking.

  "She's called Carole," David said holding on to Petey, "and she lives in London."

  There was a pause.

  Then Ellen said, "How do you know?"

  David opened his eyes.

  "I've talked to her."

  "You've talked to her?"

  "Yes," David said, "on the telephone."

  Ellen turned slowly until her back was against the wall, and then she slid down until she was sitting on the floor.

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why did you talk to her?"

  "I wanted to," David said.

  Ellen put her hooded head against her bent knees so that her voice was muffled.

  "But she gave you away."

  "I know."

  "I wouldn't talk to someone who'd given me away."

  "I wanted to know the reasons," David said. He reached down and began to rub Petey's toes, through the towel. "There have to be reasons for doing something as big as that. Think of"—his tone became jocular—"giving Petey away."

  "Not funny," Ellen said.

  "No. Not funny."

  "Who gave you her number?"

  "Someone called Elaine Price. Someone who specializes in helping adopted people find their mothers—their parents—if they want to."

  Ellen turned her head a little.

  "Why did you want to?"

  "I just wanted to know."

  "Know what?"

  "Where I'd been born, what had happened, who my father was."

  "Why?"

  David lifted Petey's rag-holding arm to dry beneath it.

  "Wouldn't you?"

  "I do know," Ellen said.

  "Exactly. And if you didn't, wouldn't you want to?"

  Ellen tipped h
erself slowly sideways until she was curled on the floor on her side.

  She said babyishly, "But you've got us."

  David sighed.

  "El, this was before you. Before you were even thought of. When I was smaller than even Petey is now. This is my baby story."

  Ellen tugged at her hood.

  "What was your father called?"

  "I don't know."

  "Doesn't your mother know?"

  "I've talked to her for two minutes on the telephone. We didn't get as far as that."

  "What did she sound like?"

  "Nervous," David said.

  "Why?"

  "I expect she didn't know what I wanted."

  Ellen rolled towards him. She put up a hand and took hold of one of Petey's feet. He gazed down at her, sucking.

  "What did you want?"

  "I told you," David said, "I want to know my story."

  Ellen sat up slowly. Her hood was slipping backwards, pulling her hair off her face.

  "What'll happen?"

  "I don't know."

  She said uncertainly, "Will you tell us?"

  "Of course. I should have told you this much before, probably. Maybe I should have told you when Nathalie first thought of it."

  Ellen's head came up. She let go of Petey's foot.

  "Nathalie—"

  "Yes. The search lady has found Nathalie's mother too."

  "Oh."

  "Do you want to know her name?"

  "No," Ellen said. She stood up. She said unsteadily, "I wish it had been chess."

  He looked down at Petey.

  "Sorry."

  Ellen took a step away. She looked suddenly very young, very truly like the child of twelve she actually was rather than the one of fourteen or fifteen she usually chose to present to the world.

  "I'm going to find Mum," she said.

  Daniel withdrew his right leg from under Ellen's sleeping weight, and arranged it, awkwardly, across his left. He'd been amazed when she'd come into his bedroom, when all the house lights were off, and he was listening to Test Match Special from Adelaide, on long wave, under the bedclothes, and then even more amazed when she'd wanted to get right into bed with him and he could see, by the light of the torch he kept by his bed, that she'd been crying.

  It had admittedly been a pretty dire evening, with all this stuff about Dad's real mother, stuff that made Daniel want to go out of the room until it was all over and they could talk about normal things again. It wasn't so much the fact of Dad having a mother that upset him—even Daniel could see that everything, including hamsters, had to have had a mother to give birth to them at some point—but rather the look on Dad's face when he talked about it, over supper. And the look on Mum's face, which didn't match Dad's, and Ellen saying nothing and jabbing her fork into her baked potato until it was a flat, floury mess which you wouldn't want to eat unless you were so starving you'd eat anything. It was just that there was something wrong—badly wrong—about Dad's being all turned on by something they couldn't share in, something that was just his, and important to him. Daniel wasn't in the least keen on his mother's lectures on the importance of loyalty and communal concern in family life, but she had got it through to him that families do things together, that a family is a club you can always go home to. Dad, at supper, had looked, quite frankly, like a pretty happy little club of one.