On the promenade below Talarn Castle, where Cardigan Bay curves its way between Harlech and Aberystwyth, taking in the glories of Trawsfynydd nuclear power station along the way, the Mabinogion café was still half-deserted.
‘By the window, don’t you think,’ remarked Gwenan Evans, leading the way inside. ‘It always was a good view over the sea.’ The few diners turned instinctively at the decisive tones. The sight of the tall, well-built woman with strongly defined features, whose expensive suit and short, firmly styled hair had defied all attempts of the sea winds to ruffle them, sent them scurrying straight back to their plates.
‘That looks fine,’ replied Carys, hastily. The desire to run and not have to face this – at least not now, this minute – was stronger than ever.
‘Just so long as there’s not a draft,’ put in her younger sister Nia, pulling her faux fur collar more closely around her.
‘We can always move,’ retorted Gwenan. Her eyes rested on a small round table, conveniently set for three and far enough away from the majority of the diners to ensure some measure of privacy. She pulled out the nearest chair with brisk efficiency. ‘I take it this is okay?’
‘Fine,’ said Nia, tucking her neat figure gracefully into the chair nearest the window and crossing her slender legs.
‘Yes,’ murmured Carys.
‘Good, good.’ Gwenan removed the laminated strip of menu propped between the glass salt cellar and a small vase of silk freesias and frowned at its unpromising contents.
With the arrival of the waitress, whose first language appeared to be Polish rather than Welsh or English, tea and coffee were ordered. The sisters sat awkwardly, with nothing to occupy their hands while they waited, the urgent business of the day hanging like a steaming cauldron between them.
At last, the tray arrived: tea in a little metal teapot, with a matching pot of hot water and a miniscule jug of milk. The coffee, rather surprisingly, came in the sophistication of its own miniature cafetiere; the effect was rather spoilt by the garish mugs with an assortment of kittens on their sides, and the sugar in the kind of small sachets that invariably find their way into pockets to lurk back home ‘just in case’, until so stiff with moisture that their only possible last resting-place is the bin.
‘Well?’ demanded Gwenan, in her undisputed position as eldest, dispensing tea, coffee and milk in the correct order.
‘I thought she looked remarkably well,’ said Nia.
‘Of course she’s well. They wouldn’t be considering releasing her,’ returned Gwenan.
‘I was only saying.’ Nia sounded hurt.
‘She did look much better,’ put in Carys, gently.
Nia smiled, her ever-sensitive feelings soothed. ‘Mam seems happy in the nursing home. And the staff are very nice, and she has all that physiotherapy,’ she added, brightly. ‘I suppose, really, the sensible thing would be for her to stay there. After all, she has made the break; it wouldn’t be like her going into a home from her house, would it?’
‘Have you any idea how much a home like that costs?’ Gwenan was frowning. ‘Even if we sold Willow Cottage, we couldn’t keep her there for many years. Not even with the way houses have gone up: she isn’t that well off, you know.’
‘There must be cheaper ones.’
‘Have you seen them?’
The silence came steaming up between them once more.
‘Mam did say she wanted to stay at home for as long as she could,’ said Carys, at last. ‘And she’ll be able to get help. They are very keen on keeping people in their own homes, nowadays.’
‘But she’ll need constant assistance for the first few weeks. Months, even.’ Gwenan stirred sugar into her second cup of tea. ‘Mam’s recovering from a broken hip, for heaven’s sake. That’s a serious business. She can’t just be left to cope on her own. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘No,’ agreed Carys, slowly. She gazed out through the window onto Talarn beach, where she had once spent the hot summer days of her childhood. Endless days, when Mam and Dad were always there in the background and always would be: solid, unchanging, the firm and perfect centre of her world.
Her eyes followed the children straying as far as they dared from the secure circle of their parents, running back every now and again for a quarrel to be adjudicated or a grazed knee kissed, before setting out again into the vast expanse of beach.
This was one of the real moments of growing up, she thought. One they didn’t tell you about: not like having sex for the first time; landing your first job; signing the mortgage on a house; having kids of your own, even: all the things that are supposed to be the rites of passage to the adult world.
There were things that weren’t supposed to happen in life. For Mam, it would be to outlive any of her daughters. For them, it was to find Mam after her fall as suddenly no longer Mam, but a small, shrunken creature with frightened eyes, who had no control over her own future, and who had, in an instant, so it seemed, become the child while they had stepped into the parents’ shoes.
Of course, she could walk away. Run. Carry on with her life and pretend this had never happened. She was an independent adult: no one could force her to do anything. And yet –
This was Mam’s life: her one and only life. Just because she was becoming frail – and the very fact of tripping over in the street had frightened her, let alone the surgery to replace the hip broken beyond all saving – didn’t mean they could just abandon her. As if she didn’t matter.
And it was only for a few weeks. Maybe a month or two.
‘Obviously, for me it is out of the question.’ Gwenan was still stirring her tea, slowly, and with care. ‘Not with these new stores we’ve just taken over. It’s a critical time: I really cannot leave the business at this moment, and I have little enough time to spend with Charles and the boys as it is, and with Tim starting his A levels. I can still take Mam out for days, and for holidays when she’s well enough. Of course, later on, when things quieten down with the business, I’ll be more than happy to do my bit.’
Nia put down her spoon. ‘Well, I can’t leave William and Alexandra, not with Alexandra’s GCSEs this year, and William making the move to secondary school this September. And Sam is under terrible strain, you know. It’s not easy being a Head Teacher these days: he needs all the support we can give him. I’ve got to think of my family. This is their entire future we’re talking about. I’m sure Mam wouldn’t want me to abandon them.’
‘We could share it,’ said Carys. She looked up to find herself the centre of attention, with two pairs of brown eyes fixed firmly on her and no signs of looking away again.
‘It could be a good opportunity for you,’ said Gwenan.
Carys blinked. ‘Opportunity?’
‘I thought you’d been talking about moving into something different. Smallholding, or something? That was the point of that gardening course of yours, wasn’t it?’
‘Horticultural,’ muttered Carys, between her teeth. ‘Horticultural Course.’ ‘Gardening’ made it sound like a hobby, rather than the soul-searching, life-changing decision it had been.
What was it about a woman who didn’t have children? Mam had treated Gwenan and Nia as equals ever since their babies had appeared, but she still seemed to see Carys as a child. Which, Carys always considered in irritation, was hardly fair at all, given that she held down a successful career for years, paid her bills, and was now the proud half-owner of a stylish flat in one of the better parts of Chester, and had definitely grown-up sex with Joe, thank you very much.
So what if she and Joe had decided from the outset they didn’t want children? They weren’t the only couple to make that choice. She had friends with children, and friends without, and both were equally happy and fulfilled in their choice. It wasn’t some kind of failure or laziness. Many people envied their freedom, their ability to pack their bags and simply go with the latest last-minute bargain for a fortnight in Venice, or the carefully planned motor home trips around New Zealand and A
merica. It was her choice and Joe’s, and nobody else’s business.
‘I always swore I would never have a child unless I passionately wanted one,’ she had tried to explain to Mam, when her mother was in one of her why-don’t-you-and-Joe-get-married phases. ‘And where I had the kind of life I could build around them, not simply dump them in day-care and pretend they hadn’t happened. What’s the point of that?’
‘Your dad and I, we had nothing, not even a house, when we had Gwenan,’ Mam had said. ‘You’re not getting any younger, you know. One day, you’ll regret it.’
‘Plenty of women have babies in their thirties,’ Carys had replied. ‘Their forties, even, nowadays. Once they’ve got their career off the ground.’ But Mam had turned away, without saying anything, the slight tightening of her lips a sure sign that she saw this as Carys avoiding the issue in a very Carys kind of way.
Carys hadn’t brought up the subject again and made sure she quickly turned the conversation the moment she found it straying towards dangerous waters. Not even in the long months last year when the dream of a more self-sufficient lifestyle, with home-grown veg, chickens, and maybe even the odd goat or so, had begun infiltrating itself into her mind, bringing with it possibilities of another kind.
But it was a bit too late to mention that particular vision now. Carys looked up to find Gwenan watching her closely.
‘What I mean is that if you’re serious about a smallholding, Carys, this would be your chance to take the time to look around.’
‘Round here?’ Carys stared at her in dismay. ‘I was thinking more Devon or Cornwall, or somewhere like that. This is hardly growing country. Unless you’re a sheep. And in any case, when I said I wanted to change direction, I did not mean into full-time carer. And what about Joe?’
‘Oh, but it’s not forever, and we’ve said we’ll help,’ said Nia.
‘When we can,’ put in Gwenan.
Carys eyed them in exasperation. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t be the one to look after Mam. I just don’t want it to end up a permanent thing. I do have a life, you know.’
‘A couple of months,’ said Gwenan. ‘That’s all. By that time we’ll know if she can cope or not. Meantime I’ll have a good look at nursing homes, see if we can find one that’s more reasonable, so that if she can’t cope she will have somewhere to go.’
‘We’ve got to at least give her the chance,’ said Nia, plaintively.
Carys winced. In one way, her sisters were quite right: you couldn’t just abandon children, whatever call came on your time. She didn’t have their responsibilities.
It was only a few months. And, let’s face it: what was there in her own life at this moment that couldn’t be put aside for a month or so when – unlike Mam – she still had a lifetime ahead of her? But what if Mam never got better? What if she couldn’t cope? Mam had always been so independent. Irritatingly, exasperatingly independent, refusing even help in her beloved little garden.
Carys felt her stomach knot. The walls of the café suddenly seemed to crowd in around her, making it hard to breathe. What would happen if one day she was faced with the choice of continuing, or Mam being carted off to some gloomy place of vacant starers propped up in armchairs until they were wheeled off to be fed, or to the indignity of the toilet or being cleaned, as if they had never been anything more than babies? How, then, could she be heartless enough to abandon Mam and put her own life first?
She’d never had much sympathy for Victorian spinsters, expected to attend on their aging parents. And not just Victorian, either. Several of Mam’s friends had never married, looking instead after invalid mothers, or widowed fathers, until marriage and career seemed out of the question at all.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ she’d always told herself, like the child who knows the monster isn’t going to get her. ‘You can always find ways. There are always ways out.’
Of course there are, came the thought stealing into her grown-up mind: but somebody, somewhere, always pays the price.
Carys quickly shoved such thoughts away. Mam’s long-term future was a bridge they would have to cross later; there was nothing she could do about it now. Instinct told her that the longer Mam was in the nursing home with everything done for her and not even the washing-up and tomorrow’s meal to focus her thoughts and keep her body moving, the harder it would be to get her back to her former independence. The problem Mam faced was now, this moment. The rest would have to wait.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she conceded. ‘I need to talk it over with Joe, and see if I can arrange things with work and college.’
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she felt her sisters relax.
‘Good for you,’ said Gwenan.
‘You’re such a star,’ murmured Nia.
‘There’s only so much I can do over the Internet,’ said Carys, sharply. ‘I’d still need to go back to Chester for meetings. Plus I can’t just completely abandon Joe, you know.’
‘We’ll make a rota,’ said Gwenan. ‘Nia and I will come and take over for a couple of days when you need it. That’s fair.’
Nia nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, yes of course. We’ll do all we can to help, Cari.’
Spots of rain had begun hurling themselves against the window, sending the last remaining families on the beach scurrying for shelter. Within minutes, an entire throng, complete with sandy feet and buckets and spades, made their way in through the café door with the exasperated nagging of parents and the loud shrieks of a small child deprived of the sea.
Gwenan finished her tea and began stacking the mugs neatly on the tray. ‘We’ll go back and tell Mam, then.’
‘She’ll be so pleased,’ smiled Nia.
‘Mmm,’ said Carys, wondering if it was still not too late to run away. Of course, Mam would be pleased. No, not just that: relieved. The fear would fade from the back of her eyes. She would protest that there was no need for any of her girls to do such a thing, she could manage very well and Carys was young and had a life to lead.
But the fear would have gone, all the same.
Bill split and duly paid, Carys followed her sisters outside into the car park. Salt brushed her lips. The air was cool, edged with the damp scents of grass and the sharpness of seafood. And in truth, thought Carys, suddenly, she was doing this for Mam, but maybe she was also doing it for herself.
‘The past is always with you, until you turn round and face it, and then move on again,’ her best friend Poppy, who had a philosophical streak, was fond of saying. In recent months, Carys had come to agree with her.
Poppy’s past was a troubled one, that had ended up in a children’s home and then foster care. Carys’ past was here, amongst the mountains rising up behind the shabby little seaside town. And in the smaller – and even shabbier – time-passed-by village in the hills, where every road and path led towards the rambling grounds of Plas Eden.
‘Ready?’ called Gwenan, pressing her key fob, sending her Volvo into a paroxysm of flashing lights and clicking locks.
Carys nodded, and hurried through the sun-streaked rain to join her sisters.
Chapter Two
‘But I really don’t see why it has to be down to you,’ said Joe, just slightly plaintively, stacking the dishwasher in his usual methodical fashion.
Carys took a deep breath. ‘I can’t just abandon her. She’s my Mam.’
‘I thought you didn’t get on with her. You were always telling me how you couldn’t wait to get out of there, once your dad died.’
‘But she’s still my mother. Family, you know? Messy things. Don’t always go to plan. They’re very nice at the Home, and it’s lovely. But you can tell she hates it. She hates being dependent, and she hates having no control over her life. You should have seen her, Joe. She looked so scared. Not like Mam at all. At least if we can get her back home, she has a chance of being able to fight for her independence. Even if that means having carers coming in every day for the rest of her life, and us spending more time visiting h
er. Me and Gwenan and Nia, I mean,’ she added, as he looked up, his dark eyes wide with alarm.
‘Well, I still don’t see why you’ve ended up with it all.’ He straightened, pushing the dishwasher door shut and setting the cycle churning. ‘I don’t see why you let Gwenan and Nia get away with things like that. You really ought to stand up to them more.’
‘That’s all very well in theory. But the reality is that they both live miles away and they have children settled with school and friends, and exams coming up. So what am I supposed to do? Punish Mam?’
‘Surely there has to be somebody else. Some aunt, or something.’
Carys finished sorting the baskets of laundry and began feeding the washing machine with last week’s whites. ‘It’s not like that anymore,’ she replied, doing her best to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘There aren’t just loads of old aunts stashed away looking for something to do. Not even in Pont-ar-Eden. Everybody works. Even pensioners, nowadays. Haven’t you been into B&Q lately?’
‘Then maybe she would be better off in a Home.’
She was tired. Her shoulders ached from days of tension and the strange bed of the B&B, followed by the drive back to Chester. She had a hundred and one things to do before work tomorrow morning, and her emotions were a rollercoaster, rendering her patience more than usually thin.
‘Is that what you’d do, if it was your mother?’ she snapped. He frowned at her, as if affronted by the suggestion. ‘Elaine isn’t that much younger than Mam,’ she added for good measure, feeling her temper dangerously close to getting out of hand. ‘And it could well be, one day.’
Except, of course, it wouldn’t. She saw his eyes slide from hers, as he turned to fill the kettle. Joe was a man. The one with the career. The one rising rapidly through the ranks of Morley and Westcott, on track to be partner before he was forty. Morley, Westcott and Young, Chartered Accountants. That was the future, written in stone.
It would be Joe’s sisters, Anna and Phyllis, mothers and career women both, who would step in, should anything happen to his parents. The assumption was there, unspoken.
Eden's Garden Page 3
