‘My mum will love that you like dogs,’ Spencer had said. ‘She always wanted a dog but Annie’s allergic.’
‘Well then,’ Kate had said, ‘it’s going to be perfect. Daisy won’t realise how far she’s walking if the dogs are with us. Good for the lungs.’
‘And it will be good for the in-laws to meet.’ Spencer had grinned. Kate nodded and grinned back, but she’d had that feeling that she gets sometimes. It’s as though she’s slipping down a gravel bank and everything is going, suddenly, very fast. Or that she and Spencer are a trapeze act that hasn’t practised with the net enough before having it taken away. But when she hears him let himself into the flat, when he and Daisy are laughing over his terrible colouring in, when he reaches for her even when he’s asleep, she wonders why she ever worries.
*
Spencer’s parents look pale and tired, but they are full of smiles when they arrive at the flat. After the introductions they all stand and look at each other, no one quite sure what to say. Daisy has gone to put on her wellies, as instructed; they all watch her trot off to her room, and then stand in a smiling circle, waiting for someone to start a conversation.
‘I’d be as fat as butter if I lived this close to a bakery,’ Sally Swanson says. Kate cannot imagine this. Everything about Spencer’s mother is wiry, from her dark curly hair to the spring in her step.
‘Well, I’m half a stone heavier than I was when we moved in,’ Kate says, ‘and Daisy has to eat a lot of high-calorie food, so I’m pretty much doomed.’
Sally looks puzzled for a second, and Kate’s about to explain, but then John says, ‘Ah, a few good walks is all it needs.’ His voice has a sing-song cadence that, Kate imagines, makes him impossible to argue with: no matter what he says, it would always sound like poetry. Daisy listens to him with fascination, and Kate sees her storing ‘aye’ away for future use. According to Spencer, his father is the mild one, his mother more prone to temper and what she calls ‘plain speaking’. Spencer obviously gets his height and length from his father. When the two of them stand side by side they make twin silhouettes. Spencer’s parents belong to a rambling club and take walking holidays. Kate notes their well-worn-in walking boots and hopes that she’ll be able to keep up.
It all works out quite neatly. Blake and John stride ahead with Hope, the greyhound, at their heels; Spencer walks with Richenda; and Kate, Daisy, Sally and Beatle bring up the rear. Sally talks to Daisy about Beatle. ‘He’s the same number as me,’ Daisy says in response to a question about her age. ‘We are both five years old.’
‘Well,’ Sally says, ‘that makes you both quite grown-up.’
‘Beatle won’t get as old as I do,’ Daisy adds, ‘because he’s a dog, and he’s already a grown-up dog, but I’m a child, and I’m not a grown-up yet.’
‘I see,’ Sally says. ‘I’ve always wanted a dog, but we live in a city and it isn’t really fair. I’d like the sort of dog who would want to be in a field.’
‘Like a sheepdog?’
‘A sheepdog would be just the thing for me. And some sheep too.’
‘Yes,’ Daisy agrees. And then she’s off to catch up with Richenda and Spencer. Kate and Sally watch as they turn, smile, and offer a hand each, swinging her along.
‘She’s a sweet girl,’ Sally says.
‘Yes,’ Kate says, ‘she is.’
‘Spencer says she’s had a rough time of it lately.’
‘She’s had pneumonia,’ Kate says. ‘She’s been quite poorly. But she’s almost back to her usual self. Then the PICC line can come out.’
‘Ah, that’s what it’s for,’ Sally says, then adds. ‘And it’s the holidays now, so that helps. School’s hard for the wee ones, I think.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Kate says. ‘Hard for the parents, too. I can’t get used to her not being at home with me.’
Sally smiles, but it’s an inward, sad smile. ‘Ah, well, not all parents are like you.’
Daisy makes it to the top of Beau’s Heights with no problem. She takes a puff of inhaler at the top, and is introduced to Kendal Mint Cake by John. She rides most of the way down on Blake’s or Spencer’s shoulders. Kate talks physiotherapy with John – ‘I’m a slave to my back,’ he says, and looks at her, hopefully, as though just by considering physiotherapy training, she is qualified to help him. She asks Sally about Edinburgh. They go back to Blake and Richenda’s for coffee, as the fair-weather walkers, as John calls them, have taken over the café. Kate does not admit to being a fair-weather walker herself, although she supposes that her trainers give the game away.
After coffee, Spencer and his parents drop Daisy and Kate home, and they arrange to meet at 6.30 at their booked table in the restaurant. Kate tries, and fails, to get Daisy to take a nap, but gets some peanut butter and crackers into her to tide her over to her later dinner time. She catches herself just before she worries that tiredness, excitement, and too many people might get the better of Daisy, and mess things up for her. Daisy matters more than impressing Spencer’s parents. Leaving Daisy watching TV, she takes a quick shower, and puts her long floral dress and denim jacket on. She decides against the cowgirl boots and slips on her silver plimsolls.
Dinner is convivial – there’s enough goodwill to make it work, even at the moments where the conversation stutters.
‘It must be difficult, managing Daisy on your own,’ Sally says, in the space between starters and main courses.
‘She’s not on her own, Mum,’ Spencer says. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
Sally rolls her eyes and smiles at Kate. ‘Kate knows what I mean. It must have been difficult, managing Daisy on your own, before Mr Knight here turned up on his white charger to rescue you.’
Kate chooses not to pick up the whole ‘being rescued by a man’ aspect of this, although she would have done had Daisy been listening. She could get hooked on the idea of her daughter needing ‘managing’, too, but instead she chooses to answer the spirit of the question, which she imagines every mother would want to ask if her son introduced a girlfriend with a five-year-old daughter: what about the father?
‘Daisy’s father died before she was born,’ Kate says, ‘so I’ve always been a lone parent. I have a lot of support from my family.’
John nods. ‘Family’s important.’ Kate and Spencer look at each other; the same look, that says: that was straightforward.
Daisy looks up from her colouring book and adds, conversationally, ‘My daddy’s name was Michael and he was a policeman. When he died he was saving my mummy.’
‘I see,’ Sally says, with a look at Kate that says she doesn’t, at all. Kate isn’t going to go into any more detail, not with Daisy here. Not ever, if she can help it. The dreams where she’s drowning have intensified since she and Daisy left hospital. Spencer has to wake her sometimes, and she clings to him as though he is the one who has pulled her from the freezing water.
Then the main courses arrive, and the conversation moves on to safer topics – eating fish if you live a long way from the sea, how different fresh pasta tastes to dried pasta – and everything feels all right again. Although there’s no immediate change in atmosphere, Kate feels Sally’s gaze on her, quietly, a lot of the time, and her appetite has gone. She forces herself to breathe deeply, and watches Spencer for signs of discomfort. He seems happy enough, holding forth on the subject of childhood holidays and making everyone laugh with his misrememberings.
Kate takes Daisy to put her to bed, leaving the others to finish the wine. They arrive at the flat after a tactful forty-five minutes, when Daisy is sleeping and Kate is ready for the next round of getting-to-know-you chat. This is something else that, she reminds herself, is normal for a new relationship, although it seems odd to her. It feels as though everything she does will have an amplified existence: Kate likes dogs, and tiramisu, Kate’s going to be a physiotherapist, Kate is quiet when there are a lot of people around. Kate’s daughter is quite blasé about the fact that her father died rescuing her mother.
Soon Annie, Spencer’s sister, will have all of these details reported to her. Kate supposes that, if she changes her mind about her studies, she will become ‘Kate who was going to be a physiotherapist but decided she couldn’t cope with the hours away and works in a café instead’. Every conversational gambit has been noted. Of course, she’s doing the same thing. She will always think of Spencer’s parents with this weekend as the baseline: dark purple jackets, accents that mesmerise Daisy, John loudly declaring that he’ll always opt for an alcoholic pudding if there’s one on the menu.
Spencer had said he would pay the bill; Kate wishes she had insisted on leaving the money for her and Daisy’s meals. She might be better off than Spencer, but his parents might make assumptions.
Kate thinks about how carefully Sally looks away from her and her son when Spencer touches her, reaching for her hand or slinging an arm around her shoulder. Sally had almost winced when Spencer kissed Kate’s cheek and the top of Daisy’s head as he held the restaurant door open for them when they left. But then, John and Sally barely touch each other, or Spencer. When introduced to anyone, they shake hands, and when Spencer and Richenda had greeted each other with kisses on each cheek Kate had remembered how Spencer had told her he’d never seen that happen, ever, as a greeting until he moved south after his degree. Cultural differences, then, no more.
When Spencer brings his parents up to the flat from the restaurant, they all seem weary.
‘I can make tea or coffee,’ Kate says. ‘Or there’s wine. Or you might be awash, I don’t know.’
‘Awash,’ John says. ‘Aye, I think that’s the word.’
‘I should imagine Daisy didn’t take much rocking,’ Sally says. ‘She did well, today.’
‘Yes,’ Kate agrees, ‘she was tired. Please, sit down.’
They do; Sally sits next to Kate and, once Spencer and John are engrossed in conversation about an old neighbour in Edinburgh, Sally says, ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, but—’
Kate braces. Why would you preamble a question like that unless you knew it was going to be badly received? She assumes that she and Mike have been discussed, downstairs, while she slipped Daisy’s nightdress over her head – she wishes she couldn’t feel her ribs so easily – and promised her sleepy girl that they’d have a big, splashy, bubbly bath in the morning, because it was a bit late for one now.
‘Yes?’ Best to get it over with, whatever it is.
‘Well – is there something wrong with Daisy? I mean’ – for the first time since Kate has met her, Sally looks unsure of herself – ‘I know pneumonia isn’t to be sniffed at, but she takes a lot of tablets. And everyone seems very keen to get her to eat a lot.’
‘We need to get as many calories into her as we can, because her pancreas doesn’t work properly.’
‘Oh—’ Sally looks more puzzled than before.
‘It’s one of the facts of life, with CF.’
‘CF?’
Kate looks from Sally to Spencer, who is still talking intently to his father, his back turned slightly away so she cannot catch his eye. It seems impossible that his parents don’t know this. ‘Cystic fibrosis. Daisy has cystic fibrosis. It’s a condition that means—’
‘Oh,’ Sally says in a rush. ‘I know what cystic fibrosis is, Kate. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise that was what Daisy has. Poor wee mite.’
‘She’s very susceptible to infections. She basically takes antibiotics all winter. And she has medication to help her absorb nutrients from her food.’
‘That’s worrying.’ Sally doesn’t look worried. She looks anxious. Scared, even. She turns away from Kate and towards Spencer, but he is still angled away from them. Kate has seen a lot of strange reactions to telling people that Daisy has CF, but never someone look as though they want to run from it, as though it’s infectious. Especially a woman as sensible, as kind, as Sally seems to be.
If Sally gives a signal to John, Kate doesn’t see it, but a second later he looks at his watch and says, ‘Well, I think we should head back. We’ve an early start tomorrow.’
‘Of course.’ Kate’s not sure whether to feel relieved or rebuffed.
When they all stand and say their goodbyes, Spencer moves to Kate’s side, but his body feels too straight. Kate tells herself to stop reading so much into everything. Perhaps they’re all just tired. Sally must have forgotten about the CF. Or Spencer didn’t make too much of a big deal of it, which is what she would always want: Daisy is bouncing, butterfly-loving child first, a girl with cystic fibrosis second.
And then, in a flurry of goodbyes and nice-to-meet-yous and quick, stiff hugs, Spencer and his parents have gone, although Spencer runs back up the stairs and kisses her again, squeezes her bottom, and says, ‘You are wonderful and I love you.’ Then the flat is quiet until Daisy coughs, which is not a happy sound, but at least comforting in its familiarity.
Chapter 18
Mid-April
‘Y
OU TWO BEHAVE.’ Kate doesn’t know why she even bothers saying it. Melissa, wearing pyjamas covered in cartoon cats and dogs, is lying flat on her back while Daisy, laughing wildly, tries to throw popcorn into her mouth.
‘We absolutely won’t.’ Melissa sits up and Daisy plonks herself into the dip made by Melissa’s crossed legs. Daisy has the best kind of colour on her cheeks: she is bright with pink excitement. Melissa nudges her. ‘What did Auntie Lissa tell you while Mummy was getting ready?’
‘What happens on sleepover stays on sleepover!’
Kate laughs. ‘OK, OK. I’m off now. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow.’ She’s going to walk down through the village, across the river, and up the hill to Spencer’s flat.
Melissa walks her to the door. ‘Just enjoy yourself, OK? Make the most of it.’
‘Thanks, Melissa.’ Kate squeezes Melissa’s arm. ‘I appreciate this. Especially after what you’ve said.’
Melissa hugs her. ‘I should have written a questionnaire for you. I’d be happier if we knew more about him.’
‘We’re ready for a night to ourselves. Though I might just go straight to bed.’ Being a good mother is exhausting. When Kate brought Daisy home from the hospital six weeks ago, she promised herself that she would never care about anything but Daisy’s welfare, ever again. And she hadn’t so much as thought about asking her mother to have Daisy to stay over. Spencer said it didn’t matter to him what they did so long as Kate was comfortable. But when Melissa offered – well, then Kate realised how much she wanted to drink a little too much, laugh sufficiently loudly to wake a restless child, have sex without an eye on the firmly closed door and an ear out for a waking cough.
And, she and Spencer need time to relax. The fortnight since his parents visited have been strange. She’d mentioned how odd it was that Sally didn’t know about the CF; how weirdly she reacted. Spencer said he thought maybe she had a school friend who suffered from it and died. She was probably thinking of that. And when Kate asked him why he hadn’t told his mother that Daisy had cystic fibrosis, he’d said that he was following Kate’s lead, that CF was not the defining thing about Daisy. Which in many ways was the perfect answer – at least until the pneumonia, and the weeks she and Daisy had spent in hospital. Spencer said he was sure he did mention it, and anyway, he had quite a lot on his mind, at the time; she wasn’t the only one who was worried about Daisy, and he had been worrying about Kate too. Kate hasn’t brought the subject up again. She’s sure he’s right; she’s probably being over-sensitive. And she really, really doesn’t have the energy for an argument about something that has already happened. Maybe Spencer should have told his parents about Daisy’s CF. Maybe he did tell his mum, but she misunderstood or didn’t hear properly. It’s not the end of the world. And nobody’s perfect.
The evening air is almost warm, and Kate pauses outside the building that houses Spencer’s flat for a moment, enjoying the quiet, and letting her breath even up before she rings the buzzer and climbs the stairs to the fourth floor. Hospital con
finement has made her unfit. She ought to take up running, or something, go to yoga with her mother, but somehow she can’t find the motivation. She never used to have to catch her breath after a twenty-minute walk; has always been painfully aware of how effortlessly her lungs work in comparison to her daughter’s. Twenty-four seems too young for the best years of her body to be behind her.
Goodness, she is maudlin tonight.
Spencer is waiting on the landing; he’s wearing jeans and a grey shirt, he’s barefoot, his hair is damp. And Kate is overtaken by a swift, sweet rush of love for him, and the certain knowledge that this relationship is perfect for her. She smiles; he smiles; they kiss. But there’s something in his face that isn’t quite—
‘What’s wrong?’
He laughs and pulls her towards him. ‘Nothing that wasn’t solved by you at the door. I made salad niçoise. Is that OK? Wine first?’
‘Lovely.’ Tuna isn’t Kate’s favourite, but she can live with it. The wine he opens and pours is crisp and cold on the ridges of her mouth.
They stand and look out over Throckton: the dip of the river, the church, the square. Spencer says, ‘I can see your house from here.’
‘Oh, yes.’ The gable-end of it, with no window. ‘I can’t see you.’
‘My lease here is only a year.’ Spencer kisses the top of her head, and she hears everything he isn’t saying: that when the lease is up, they might be finding a place of their own. They might even be able to buy a home, between her savings and his salary. Kate knows what Melissa would have to say about that, but Melissa doesn’t know everything. Kate leans on Spencer, expecting the comforting press of return pressure, but after a second he steps away. ‘I’ll get the food.’
The table, under the window in the sloping ceiling, has a candle waiting to be lit; Spencer strikes two matches that sputter out before the wick catches. It looks as though his hand is shaking.
Kate leans against the kitchen island that divides the living space. She imagines him taking the wine glass out of her hand, sitting her up on the worktop, and her wrapping her legs around his waist while they kiss. But he’s intent on the salad, adding dressing from a jam jar, tossing it through. He’s barely made eye contact since she arrived.
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