Brother and Sister

by Joanna Trollope

  He picked up the mugs and kicked the kitchen door open. The sitting room was in half-darkness, and the daylight outside was showing, very clearly, that a greater part of the curtains hung off their hooks than on. There were plates and newspapers on the floor, and glasses on the television and half Justine's clothes lay on the sofa, strewn about in a way which, in the morning, only managed to look pathetic. Titus sighed. He stubbed his toe on a stray shoe, and swore.

  From the bedroom, he could hear Justine giggling. She'd laughed a lot the night before, through the red wine and the curry attempt, even through a lot of the sex. At the time, Titus had found the laughing rather a challenge, as if he had to rise to immense heights of inventiveness and sensation to extinguish it, but now it was only annoying. Justine's giggles were as annoying as was her inevitable girl's expectation that, as they'd had sex together, he must not only feel something for her, but also say so. He trudged into the bedroom. Justine was half-sitting up against the pillow, with the duvet pulled up just far enough to cover her nipples. Even in the gloom, he could see her eyes were shining. He dumped the tea down on the chest of drawers, out of her reach.

  "We're going to be late," he said.

  Marnie had thought about telephoning. She had thought, changing the children's bedding and replacing Petey's upstairs toys in their hamper, that she would put in a calm, reasonable call to Nathalie and ask, in the steady voice she was now managing—most of the time—to use to and about David, if she might come and see her. But it occurred to Marnie, fitting together various component plastic parts of Bob the Builder, that Nathalie might ask what the call was about, and whether they might not, whatever it was, sort it on the telephone. And, contrary to what she felt was her normal conduct, her usual, steady, reasonable conduct, Marnie did not want to have this particular conversation on the telephone. It was a conversation that needed to happen face to face if Marnie was going to derive any satisfaction from it, and satisfaction, Marnie thought, was right now not just something she craved, but something that she was somehow entitled to.

  She put Bob the Builder into the hamper and closed the lid. The older children were at school and would not be home until the afternoon. Petey, at present in front of the television with his sleepy rag, in defiance of all Mamie's long-held principles about stimulating amusement for even the youngest of children while awake, could be put into the car and taken to Nathalie's flat where he might play on the floor of her kitchen with all the amenableness he seemed unable to display at home. She could take his juice and some rice cakes, or she could rely on Nathalie having something for him, the kind of thing, Marnie thought with sudden savagery, that he would reject with screams at home but would probably eat with enthusiasm at Nathalie's. Marnie held on to the hamper and took a breath. This was ridiculous. This was in fact worse than ridiculous; this was really dangerous, building up more and more illusory reasons for resenting Nathalie when the real reason—the fundamental reason—for resenting her lay, as it always had, with David.

  She went downstairs. Petey sat, glazed and absorbed, in front of a video of Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty. At eighteen months, he had worked out how to use the video, and was now given to murderous yells if prevented. He loved buttons and plugs, switches and keys, anything that clicked and whirred and sent lights flashing and noise roaring. All Daniel had wanted, Marnie remembered, had been bats and balls and running, anything faintly connected with sport, even as a baby, and Daniel had been impervious to any other temptation.

  Marnie went back to the hall and dialed Nathalie's number.

  "Hello?"

  "Nathalie, it's Marnie—"

  There was a tiny pause, as if Nathalie was rearranging a response.

  "Oh, hello—"

  "Will you be there in the next quarter of an hour or so?"

  "Well, yes—"

  "May I bring Petey over? Just for twenty minutes?"

  Nathalie cleared her throat.

  "Of course. I haven't seen Petey for ages—"

  Marnie put the telephone down and went back into the family room.

  "Time to turn that off—"

  Petey yanked his fingers out of his mouth.

  "No!"

  "Yes."

  "No! No! No!"

  "Petey," Marnie said, stooping to heave him off the floor, "we are going in the car."

  "You OK?" Nathalie said.

  Marnie looked down at the floor. Petey was eating a breadstick Nathalie had given him and arranging Polly's Noah's Ark animals in a long unsteady line.

  "It's just," Marnie said, "that he screamed all the way."

  "He'll stop," Nathalie said. "They all stop. How many twelve-year-olds scream for hours? Would you like some coffee?"

  Marnie nodded. Nathalie indicated a chair.

  "You sit."

  Marnie sat. She could feel her shoulders slumping. The balance of power in Nathalie's kitchen was not what she had visualized, not what she had intended. She made an effort and squared her shoulders.

  "This isn't about Petey."

  "No," Nathalie said.

  "I imagine," Marnie said, "that you have some idea of why I'm here?"

  Nathalie paused in spooning coffee into a jug.

  "David—"

  Marnie looked at the tabletop. There was a ring on the surface, a ring left by a glass or a mug, a glass or a mug used by, perhaps, someone who had been sitting here last, talking to Nathalie.

  She said, abruptly, "How could you?"

  The coffee spoon in Nathalie's hand clanged against the glass of the jug.

  "Sorry?"

  "How could you?" Marnie said again. "How could you let him tell you before he told me? How could you let him come here first?"

  Nathalie turned slowly and leaned against the kitchen counter.

  "It wasn't a question of let."

  "What?"

  "I didn't let him," Nathalie said. "I didn't, as you imply, allow him or encourage him. He just came. He just arrived."

  "As he always has!" Marnie cried. "As he always has because you have encouraged him! You've always made him feel that no one understands him like you do, that no one can share his inner life like you can!"

  Nathalie moved away from the counter, and leaned on the table.

  "They can't."

  "How dare you—"

  "I'm not daring anything," Nathalie said. "I'm not taking anything that's yours. But there's something David and I know, an—an unhappy kind of knowledge that, I promise you, you wouldn't want, that we can't help sharing. You know that. You've always known that."

  "You're missing the point," Marnie said. She held her hands flat to stop them clenching. "You've always deliberately missed the point. You make me sick."

  Petey's face appeared above the tabletop, visible only from the eyes upwards. He reached up and put an elephant and a porcupine on the table. The elephant fell over.

  "No," Nathalie said. She stretched out a hand, and set the elephant upright. "No. You're just so possessive you can't stand him loving anyone else, you can't stand anyone else understanding him better than you do."

  Marnie said nothing. She glanced down the table. Petey's eyes, as blue and round as marbles, were fixed on her with inscrutable intensity.

  "If he came here," Nathalie said, "to tell me about meeting his mother, don't you think that says as much about you as it does about him or me?"

  "Like?"

  "Like why are you jealous of his mother? Like why are you jealous of me?"

  Petey's eyes vanished.

  Marnie said, her own gaze not leaving the spot where Petey's had been, "Wouldn't it unsettle you?"

  "No," Nathalie said.

  "If Steve came and told me things before he told you, wouldn't that drive you crazy?"

  "You know your parents," Nathalie said. "So does Steve. You both know exactly where you come from."

  Marnie gave a stifled small shriek.

  "Oh my God. It always, always comes back to this, doesn't it? It always comes back to thi
s adoption bond, to this deprivation, to this—this thing that makes you so special, so deserving of privilege, so entitled to anything you want, even if it legitimately belongs to someone else, because nothing will ever, ever make up to you for this terrible injury, this wound that's been inflicted—" She stopped, gasping slightly.

  Nathalie said, in a low voice, "It is a wound."

  "So it's OK to punish everyone else?"

  "I'm not punishing."

  "You are. You may not mean to, but you are."

  "And you?"

  "What about me?"

  "Don't you," Nathalie said, "punish David for not being able to love back like you want him to?"

  "How dare you—"

  "Don't keep saying that," Nathalie said.

  The top of Petey's head emerged again above the edge of the table. His gaze traveled slowly round to Nathalie and then stopped.

  "More bic," Petey said.

  Nathalie looked down.

  "Of course, darling." She glanced at Marnie. "Is that OK?"

  Marnie made a dismissive little gesture. Nathalie turned to the cupboard behind her and took down the box of breadsticks.

  Marnie said bitterly, "He would never eat those at home."

  "Of course not."

  Petey took a breadstick in each hand. He looked up at Nathalie and gave her a wide, gorgeous smile.

  "Marnie," Nathalie said, "I'm not his wife or the mother of his children. But I've known him since he was this size, smaller. I know about the kind of shadow we both have inside, the shadow that stops us quite releasing ourselves—"

  "Please stop."

  Nathalie straightened up.

  "OK."

  "You made him go on this journey. You made him find Carole. But now stop. Stop. This isn't to do with you any more."

  Nathalie put the breadsticks box down.

  "I can't stop him coming—"

  "You can stop him coming here first. You can stop him telling you how he feels."

  "Stop him?"

  "Yes."

  "You want that? You want David to do something just because he's been told to do it?"

  Marnie bent her face over the table. She felt suddenly insecure, suddenly tearful. She shook her head.

  "No—"

  Nathalie said, "Do you want to meet Carole?"

  Marnie nodded.

  She said, "Can I have a tissue?"

  Nathalie reached for a roll of paper towels and pushed it across the table.

  "Why d'you want to meet Carole?"

  Marnie blew her nose.

  "She's David's mother—"

  "Or do you want to fight her for David, too? Are you going to tell her where to get off? Are you going to tell her that no one has rights like a wife does?"

  Mamie's head came up.

  "You haven't been tested! You don't know what it's like!"

  Nathalie said nothing. She put a hand on Petey's head.

  "You wait," Marnie said. "You just wait."

  If her room was completely dark, Polly understood, the glow stars on the ceiling would shine better. However, if she insisted that her teddy bear night light was still on, and her bedroom door was left open enough to be wedged by her slipper, this not only represented a triumph over Nathalie's wishes, but also the opportunity to hear whatever else was going on in the flat. Mostly whatever was going on was quite boring, but sometimes, and quite a lot lately, there was an edge to the atmosphere. It wasn't anything Polly could actually have described, like Daddy shouting or Mummy crying, but more a feeling of tension or energy in the air that made her feel that she had better stay awake in case she missed out on something. The feeling also made her restless, and a bit uncertain, so that it was extremely necessary to put Nathalie to the test, over and over, by doing things which, while not exactly naughty, were not precisely good either. Polly was not particularly happy teetering on this borderline, but while things were as they were it seemed the only possible place to be.

  She lay, and looked up at her glowstars. They seemed dim and furry, and she could hardly see the points of the moon, the points that made it look like a c, which was the letter for cat and candle and car crash. Polly said "car crash" to herself, several times, savoring it. She turned her head to one side and stretched her eyes wide to see better. If she really stretched them, she could make out her doll's house and all her Barbies piled in a plastic laundry basket and her Noah's Ark in its box. When she got home from school that day, her Noah's Ark animals had been all over the floor because Petey had been playing with them.

  "You shouldn't have let him," she'd said to Nathalie.

  "Oh? And why not?"

  "He might have broked something."

  "I was there, Polly. I was watching."

  "Not all the time," Polly said. "You weren't watching all the time."

  She had gathered up the animals with elaborate care, and laid them reverently in their box.

  "Very commendable," said Nathalie, in a voice that made Polly suspicious.

  She looked at her supper. It was one of her favorites except that the carrots were in rounds, not sticks.

  "Not hungry!"

  "Fine," Nathalie said.

  "Don't like penny carrots."

  "No," Nathalie said, "nor you do. I've got something to tell you."

  "What?"

  "I can't tell you till you're sitting in your chair."

  Polly sighed. Slowly she hitched herself into her chair and absently picked up a cube of ham.

  "I'm going away for a couple of days."

  Polly let the ham fall out of her hand.

  "Just two days," Nathalie said.

  "Why?"

  "Eat your ham."

  Polly bent down to her plate and seized the ham in her teeth.

  "Polly!"

  Polly smirked.

  "How disgusting."

  "Dogs do it," Polly said.

  "And are you a dog?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, be a good Fido and eat another mouthful and I'll tell you."

  Polly picked up her fork and speared a piece of carrot.

  Nathalie said, "I'm going away to see a friend."

  "Why?"

  "Because I haven't seen her for years and years."

  "Since I was born?"

  "Long before that."

  Polly chewed her carrot.

  "Are you going on an airplane?"

  "No," Nathalie said, "on a train."

  "Am I coming?"

  "No. You're staying here with Daddy. Daddy and the grannies will look after you."

  Polly threw her fork across the table.

  "No!"

  "It's only two days. Two days and one night."

  Polly thrust her lower lip out.

  "Like," Nathalie said, "you having a sleepover with Hattie."

  "Why are you going on a train?"

  "Because it's a long way."

  Polly screwed up her eyes.

  "As long as—Australia?"

  Nathalie retrieved Polly's fork and handed it back to her.

  "Not quite."

  Polly flicked her fork about.

  "What's her name?"

  "Who?"

  "What's your friend's name?"

  Nathalie looked away. Polly watched her. The mood had suddenly gone from one thing to quite another thing. Polly gave her plate a shove and morsels of food scattered across the table.

  "Cora," Nathalie said.

  Going back to the flat had become, Carole decided, something almost to be dreaded. It wasn't the place itself, the place that had once been such a pleasure to decide about, to choose things for, but more a question of what she might find there. Once she had known it would only be Connor. Connor whom she knew, and knew how to manage, Connor back from a game of something or an auction room, or a meeting with somebody's respectful son seeking advice on the basic principles of setting up a small business. Now it was certainly still Connor, but a more unpredictable and vigilant Connor, a Connor on the lookout for any tiny te
lltale sign in her that she had been anywhere or contacted anyone that he should know about.

  And if Connor was out, then there was always Martin. Work kept Martin occupied until the early evening, but he never now seemed to do anything after that but come home. He said he had no money, and he didn't want to see his friends because he couldn't face them. Carole had tried to say that one of the essential elements in friendship was that it was there when you really needed it, in bad times, but Martin had looked at her as if she didn't know what she was talking about. On the whole, she preferred that look to his other one, the slightly suspicious version of Connor's new alertness, which suggested strongly to Carole that she was being tested, in every detail, for any change she might display in demeanor or attitude since producing David and introducing him to the family.

  It was exhausting, having their eyes upon her in this way. Even if she felt, to some degree, that Connor's behavior was justified, Martin's only maddened and sometimes alarmed her. She felt that he had already judged her, and come to his own conclusion, and was merely watching her to obtain evidence of the verdict he had pronounced already. He had, it seemed, decided that David, on account of his looks and his provenance, and the fact that he had been her private secret for all these years, had risen effortlessly to the head of the list in her affections. He was her eldest son, her firstborn. He was successful enough to run his own business. He had produced two sons of his own. He must be what every mother hopes and longs for, and Martin was going to keep his eye on his mother for as long as it took to prove himself right.

  "Have it out with him," Euan said. "Get it out in the open. Tell him."

  Carole twisted her wedding ring.

  "He takes everything I say the wrong way—"

  "Oh," Euan said, "that's just Mart. Perfectly balanced, chip on each shoulder. Tell him David's just an add-on."

  Carole looked at him.

  "Would you come too? Would you help me?"

  Euan hesitated. He wanted to help, he wanted his mother and brother to find some solution to their age-old difficulties, but the fact was, he was a bit tied up just now. He'd spent so much time with his family recently, what with the David business, that Chloe, who was as demanding as gorgeous girls so often turned out to be, was beginning to kick up a bit of a fuss, check up on him, want treats and compensation. David's arrival had been pretty shaking, for God's sake, but the thought of Chloe being dissatisfied enough to get restless was very much more so. He scratched his head.