Brother and Sister

by Joanna Trollope

  Lynne took a breath. She pushed a tumbler towards Nathalie.

  She said, in a voice whose firmness quite surprised her, "In Steve's case, a bewildered and unhappy man."

  Nathalie's head whipped round.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He couldn't get through to you. None of us could. You were going on this mission, and whatever effect it had on anyone round you, you weren't going to stop."

  Nathalie stared at her mother.

  "Are you saying that Steve screwing around was my fault?"

  Lynne picked up her drink.

  "There's no need to use that disgusting language to me."

  "Oh, for God's sake—"

  "But if you want my view, dear, you didn't exactly drive him to it, of course you didn't, but you gave him a very strong impression that you didn't want him, that you didn't need him. You'd got David and you'd got this mission, and you didn't need anyone else."

  "So in your opinion, that excuses screwing around?"

  Lynne put her glass down. She turned and looked full at Nathalie.

  "As he appears to have slept with the girl once, and feels terrible about it, I would say yes."

  "And what would you know about such things?"

  "Enough," Lynne said crossly, "to try and get you off your silly high horse."

  Nathalie took a breath. "Stop it—"

  "I'm not afraid of you, dear," Lynne said. "I have been, in the past, but I'm not now. You've had terrible things happen to you but you've had wonderful things happen too. I haven't helped in the past, either, I know, because I was so insecure about a lot of things, but all this, the last few months, has made me feel a bit better about life in general. I know I can't lose you now, however angry you are with me, and if I can't lose you even if you won't speak to me, I can get on with loving you without worrying."

  Nathalie stared at her.

  "Of course," Lynne said, "I'd like to punish Steve for what he's done. Just like I'd like David not to have married a Canadian, so he hasn't got this option. But even more, I'd like to see you really take stock of what you've got, and make something of it."

  Nathalie was still staring.

  Hardly moving her lips, she said, "Like what?"

  Lynne shifted. She smoothed the front of her overshirt, aligning the buttons.

  "Well," she said, "you could start by seeing that what Steve did was wrong but part of what you did was wrong too. You don't betray people just by sleeping with someone else, you can betray them by taking someone else, not them, into really important confidence."

  Nathalie dropped her glance.

  "I think," she said, "I've had enough of this."

  "I expect you have."

  Nathalie shifted on the bench.

  "I think I'll go now—"

  "All right, dear."

  "I think I'll go before you tell me that if I'd married Steve in the first place, none of this would have happened."

  Lynne glanced at her.

  "It hadn't crossed my mind."

  "No," Nathalie said, "too many other little homilies crossing it already." She stood up. "Nothing's as simple as you make it look."

  "No?"

  "No!"

  "It only has to be a drama," Lynne said, "if you want it to be."

  Nathalie flung her head back. "Look who's talking!"

  "Maybe," Lynne said, "but we can all learn."

  "Platitudes," Nathalie said, "cliches. All you ever do—"

  "Then why did you come round? If I'm so unsatisfactory to talk to in every way, why did you come to see me?"

  There was a pause. Nathalie clenched her fists, then unclenched them, and said, in a low fierce whisper, "Because you're my mother."

  Lynne stood up slowly, too. She put her hands together, and held them, to prevent herself from putting her arms round Nathalie.

  "What about your real mother, then? What about Cora?"

  Nathalie looked away.

  "I don't know—"

  "Are you going to just drop her now? Are you going to let all that effort and pain and discovery go to waste? Are you going to tell her that now you've got what you wanted, you've no more use for her?"

  "Mum—"

  "Well," Lynne said, "I can't do any more about you and Steve. I've said all I'm going to say, and it's up to you two. But I'm not going to let that poor woman languish up there in Northsea, thinking nobody cares."

  "Mum—"

  "Think what she's been through. All these years. Think."

  "I do think," Nathalie said, "I do. But I don't know what to do."

  "Well, I'll do it," Lynne said. She unclasped her hands, and folded her arms instead. "I'm going to telephone her."

  On the coffee table close to the wing chair in the sitting room, Connor had left a brochure for Elegant Resorts. He had left it there especially, pointing it out several times, and telling Carole that she was entirely free to choose, that whether this special holiday he was planning—he hadn't actually uttered the words "second honeymoon" but he intended them as plainly as if they had been stenciled on his forehead—took place in Mauritius or Thailand or the Maldives was a matter of absolute indifference to him. The point was, he said, holding Carole's gaze with his deliberately significant one, that she should be taken somewhere entirely to her liking, somewhere that could, in a blur of white sand and blue sea, gently, completely and finally erase the deeply disturbing few months and land them back on the serene shore of all their familiar former securities.

  Carole had opened the brochure a few times. She had looked at pictures of vast white beaches and vast white beds and supine people being restoratively massaged in bowers of frangipani. She had remembered previous holidays of this nature with Connor, holidays of extraordinary, immediate routine in a cocoon of improbable comfort, almost stifling in their regularity and impeccable, unbearable service. She remembered coming out of the sea once, the warm, clear, aquamarine tropical sea, to find yet another respectful immaculate boy waiting, crisp in the hotel's livery, holding both a towel for her and a glass of iced water on a tray, complete with an orchid, thinking to herself, This is completely, utterly idiotic.

  So in her view was the purpose of the brochure. It was idiotic to suppose that anything could be changed, or retrieved, by going somewhere else, by living in a bubble of la-la land for two weeks. It was idiotic to suppose that she was the same person, that their marriage was the same institution, that Connor could, just by shelling out thousands of pounds, reinstate himself in the place he presumed he had been all these years, the place he had chosen to see as both acceptable and unassailable to her. And it was the most idiotic of all for her just to go along with it all, just to get carried off on a plane and be dumped like a helpless parcel for a whole lot of indifferent people, directed by Connor, to unpack.

  She picked up the brochure and looked at it. Then, still carrying it, she went across the hall of the flat to Martin's closed bedroom door. She knew he was behind it. Because it was Saturday afternoon, he had refused to play tennis with his father, and had announced loudly, in the injured tone he adopted habitually now, that as he couldn't afford to go out day and night on weekends he preferred to economize during the day and just stay at home.

  Carole knocked.

  There was a pause and then Martin said, "Come in."

  He was lying on his unmade bed, trainers on the duvet, reading a copy of GQ. Carole held out the brochure.

  "Did you see this?"

  Martin snorted. His eyes didn't leave his own magazine.

  "All right for some."

  Carole sat down on the edge of the second bed, pushing aside a heap of Martin's clothes to make room.

  "I don't want to go."

  Martin's body tensed.

  He said with elaborate indifference, "Oh?"

  "No."

  "You always used to like it—"

  "No, I didn't. I went along but I didn't like it."

  "Lucky old Dad then."

  "He liked it. He wanted to
go. He booked those holidays. He wants to book this one."

  Martin looked sideways at her.

  "Why're you telling me?"

  Carole dropped the brochure on a pile of sweaters.

  "I want you to help me tell Dad."

  "What?"

  "I want you to help me tell Dad that I don't want to go on this holiday. I want you to help me tell him that this won't make any difference, that we can't pretend what happened didn't happen, and just go back to where we were. Or where we thought we were."

  Martin put the magazine down and eased himself into a sitting position.

  He said sourly, "I don't need you sucking up to me."

  "If that's how you choose to see it—"

  "I do. You'd have gone on seeing David if I hadn't made sure you didn't. I know you would and don't try and tell me otherwise. And don't try and get round me now."

  Carole looked down at the floor.

  "I know I can't see him."

  "What?"

  "I know I can't see David. I don't know if I wanted to see him for him or because he's so like his father to look at. If it's any consolation, he didn't feel like my son, he didn't feel like my child. He just felt like someone I'd been missing, someone I can't have, so it's better not to pretend I can. I'm grateful to you for putting a stop to it, I'm grateful."

  There was a small silence, and then Martin said grudgingly, "You're a mess, Mum."

  "Probably."

  He made a gesture towards the floor.

  "This holiday—"

  "I can't."

  "What'll you tell Dad?"

  "That it will be a terrible waste of money, that it won't change anything, that it can't put the clock back."

  Martin said unexpectedly, "He won't get you."

  Carole looked up.

  "No. And there's something else."

  Martin's knees came up, almost involuntarily, and he held them hard against his chest.

  "You're not bloody leaving—"

  "No."

  "But you've thought about it—"

  "Not really."

  "Why not?"

  She looked away.

  "Because of you."

  "Don't give me that!"

  "True," she said. "I may be a lousy mother but I am capable of attempts at redemption."

  Martin let his knees go.

  "Don't expect me to be bloody grateful—"

  "I don't. I'm doing it as much for me as for you."

  "So it's a line to give Dad—"

  Carole stood up and walked to the window.

  "I shan't even mention this aspect to Dad."

  "Well then," Martin said, "why would he buy all your reasons for not wanting the holiday then?"

  Carole swung the blind cord.

  "Because I want the money."

  "You have such a nerve."

  "I want the money he would spend on this holiday," Carole said, "to add to some of my own to set up another business."

  Martin snorted.

  "He'll never agree. Set up a business without him? In your dreams."

  Carole took the wooden acorn at the end of the blind cord in her hand, and inspected it.

  "It would be without him, certainly. But I think he'd agree if I told him it was with you."

  "Enough," Martin said.

  Carole turned.

  "I mean it."

  "You think I'm useless," Martin said. "You think I couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery."

  "But I could."

  Martin shouted, "Don't patronize me!"

  "Your IT skills are better than mine. You can do accounts even if you couldn't do a business plan. I can do business plans."

  Martin rolled over.

  "Go away."

  Carole let the acorn go.

  "I can't make it up to you in all the ways you want me to make it up to you if you won't even let me try."

  Martin said nothing.

  "We'll fight," Carole said, "we'll get on each other's nerves. We may lose every penny."

  "We fight anyway—"

  "Only," Carole said, "because you insist we do."

  "You lied to me!"

  "I lied to everyone."

  Martin rolled back.

  "So what'll convince me you won't do it again?"

  Carole shrugged.

  "There's nothing personal to lie about anymore. You know everything. And if it isn't personal, it can't hurt you. Also, I think I can say I've never told a business lie in my life."

  "Crap."

  "Well, a personal business lie then."

  Martin got slowly off the bed and stood up. He bent and picked up the holiday brochure from the floor.

  He rifled through it then said, with his back half turned to her, "When's Dad back?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Polly, Steve thought, had rather liked being in hospital. The ingenious operation had left no outward evidence and amazingly little discomfort.

  "Ow," Polly said loudly when anyone came within inches of her head. "Ow, ow, ow."

  "Point to the place where it hurts you," the surgeon said, sitting on Polly's bed.

  "Here," Polly said, pointing. "And here and here and here."

  The surgeon laid his hand on her knee.

  "And here?"

  She glared at him.

  "Sometimes."

  He smiled.

  "You'll probably have to wear earmuffs because everything will sound so loud."

  "It won't," Polly said, "it will be exactly the same."

  He gave her knee a pat, and stood up.

  "You do it your way, Polly." He glanced across at Steve and Nathalie. "It's healing nicely."

  "Ow," Polly said.

  Evie had come in with new pajamas, and Lynne had sent flowers and Marnie had made chocolate brownies the size of dice. Everyone had come to see Polly, trooping into the hospital in that half-fearful, half-respectful mood that hospitals induce, bearing grapes and jelly beans and plastic puzzles. In the bed next to Polly a sad, slablike boy who never removed his baseball cap lay and watched her visitors and tributes with open resentment.

  "What's his name?" Nathalie asked Polly.

  Polly glanced at him. She was wearing sunglasses that Ellen had brought her with frames like pink glitter daisies.

  "He's just a boy."

  "He must have a name—"

  "No," Polly said, "some of them don't."

  Nathalie went over to the boy's bed.

  "Would you like a brownie?"

  He stared at her for a moment, and then he raised one hand and slowly tipped the peak of his cap down until it obscured his face.

  "Another time," Nathalie said.

  She came back to Polly's bedside and the blue plastic hospital chair. She didn't look across at Steve but then she hadn't looked at him much. In fact, she hadn't, he thought, looked at anyone, not her parents or his parents, or David and Marnie and the children when they came. He'd wanted her to look at David and Marnie particularly so that he could see if she thought that they were changed somehow, that a sheen of confidence had gone off them, that, standing there by Polly's bed with Mamie's arm through David's, they had looked, for the first time Steve could remember, vulnerable, almost doubtful.

  Marnie had done something to her hair, too. There seemed to be less of it somehow, and instead of being in a plait, it was loose behind her shoulders, in a strange rippled curtain, making her face look younger but also less certain, as if some sort of control had slipped from her, and she hadn't yet found a replacement for it. And the way she held David's arm was uncharacteristic too, more dependent than anything Steve had seen in her before, and David had her arm pressed against his side, and when they looked down at Polly, they were looking with great intensity, as if they were trying to memorize every detail about her.

  "We're going to Canada," Daniel said to Polly, sprawling on the foot of her bed. She didn't look up.

  She said, "You always go."

  "No, to live, stupid. Go to school and eve
rything. And skiing."

  Polly said nothing. Ellen had held out the sunglasses in their pink plastic envelope.

  "I expect you'll come. To stay with us."

  "Yes," Nathalie said.

  Polly took the sunglasses.

  "I'll come," she said, "when I'm not too busy."

  "Polly!"

  "In the holidays," Ellen said. "In the summer."

  "It nearly is the summer—"

  "Well," Ellen said, "when you're free."

  Polly put the sunglasses on.

  Nathalie said, too quickly, "Polly's got someone to meet here, first, someone important. She's coming a long way to meet Polly."

  Steve put his hand on Nathalie's arm. She shook it off.

  "She's called Cora," Nathalie said.

  Daniel glanced up.

  "Who's she?"

  "She's—another granny. Another granny for Polly."

  Polly sighed. She removed her sunglasses.

  She said loudly, "I've got enough of them already."

  David began to laugh. He took his arm away from Mamie's and put his hands over his face, laughing and laughing.

  "Oh Polly—"

  She regarded him. Steve bent and kissed the top of Polly's head.

  "Thanks, Poll."

  "Ow," Polly said.

  He glanced at Nathalie. Her face was expressionless.

  "Come on, Nat—"

  David took his hands away from his face.

  He said, in the tone he used to reprove his children, "Lighten up, Nathalie."

  Marnie gave a tiny gasp.

  "It's OK," Nathalie said tightly. "It's OK." She shot David a lightning look. "It's just that there's a lot to get used to all at once, don't you think?"

  Marnie nodded.

  "You just wonder what'll work out and what won't—" Ellen's head came up sharply.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean," Marnie said, swallowing, "that Canada's a big adventure, but it's very different. It'll be very different for me, too."

  "Sh," David said.

  "I'll miss you," Marnie said, dropping suddenly to her knees beside Polly's bed. "I'll miss you, Polly."

  Polly looked embarrassed. Marnie looked up at Steve and Nathalie.

  She said, "I'll miss you, too. I'll miss all of you, I will, I really will, I didn't realize—" She bent her face into the blue cotton of Polly's bed cover and said thickly into it, "I thought I wanted to do this, I thought I wanted—"