The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  ‘I thought it was a birthday party?’ Tom says, confused. ‘You can only have a birthday party if It’s on your actual birthday. Otherwise it has to be called a party.’

  ‘My seventy-fifth birthday is actually tomorrow,’ Django says. He looks at his watch and counts down the seconds with theatrical nods of his head. ‘No. I tell a lie. It’s now today. I’m now seventy-five years old.’

  ‘So it is a birthday party,’ says Tom, dreading his father hearing all this talk about what the time is.

  ‘Whatever you’d like to call it, I had an absolute blast,’ said Django. ‘And now I’m going to bed.’

  DEREK

  Often, a great party is defined less by the event itself, than by the calibre and longevity of subsequent reminiscences. A balmy May Sunday morning in the idyllic setting of the house and grounds at Farleymoor, provided a conducive carte blanche for lounging, lazing and recounting. Of course, this could not be done on an empty stomach, nor with a hangover, so Django had prepared his remedy for both – a vast breakfast of sausages, eggs, bacon, champ and beans, all flooded with Henderson’s Relish and roofed over with slabs of toast plastered with marmalade. His family lolled about outside, turning their faces to the sun, chatting. Behind them, the Blakes of Chesterfield marquee seemed to breathe; its sides swelling rhythmically in the gentle breeze, as if still sleeping off the excesses of the night before.

  ‘You said “fucking” seven times!’ Tom whispered to Cat who winced, covered her eyes and apologized profusely.

  ‘Did anyone video the speeches?’ Fen wondered, hovering her hand an inch above Cosima’s head so that the baby’s downy hair caressed the palm of her hand.

  ‘Video?’ Django balked. ‘Gracious no, though the Ravellas brought their Super8. Doubt whether it had film in it. They’ve taken that thing everywhere with them over the years, amassing a footage that runs into – well – minutes on account of their forgetfulness.’

  ‘Bibi’s dancing deserves to be documented for posterity,’ Ben marvelled. ‘She’s more loose-limbed than Josephine Baker.’

  ‘Actually, she really was a contortionist in her prime. That’s how we met. It was some festival or other. She was doing frightfully bendy things whilst saluting the sun, or the moon, or something similarly yogic. However, she ended up making quite a few bob as many people presumed she was busking for tips.’

  ‘What a character,’ Pip said warmly. ‘I hope she pops in sometime today, to say goodbye again.’

  ‘Look, here are Ferdy and Gregor!’ said Cat.

  ‘No banjos,’ Tom remarked sadly.

  It took some time for the couple to kiss everyone on both cheeks. They then made much of how ghastly their headaches were and that the least Django could do was provide hair-of-the-dog by way of compensation. Zac’s constitution was far too delicate just then, to withstand an explanation of the term to Tom, though Matt promised the boy he’d tell him later, when his own headache had subsided.

  ‘Will you be having an eighty-fifth birthday party?’ Tom enquired. ‘In a decade?’

  Django considered the question carefully. ‘I can’t see why not,’ he reasoned, ‘as long as I’m still relatively hale and hearty.’

  ‘I’ll be nearly twenty by then!’ Tom said. ‘How fucking amazing is that!’

  ‘Tom!’ everyone remonstrated, before levelling accusatory glares at Cat.

  ‘Goodness me, I need a cup of tea,’ Django declared.

  ‘I’ll make it,’ offered Pip.

  ‘You stay put, darling,’ Django ordered. ‘I may be old, but I’m not incapable.’

  ‘Can we just have Darjeeling, please?’ Fen requested as diplomatically as she could.

  ‘She means not that weird purpley stuff that smells like stewed grasses,’ Cat laughed.

  ‘I didn’t bring you up to be dull,’ Django protested, though he had to privately agree with the stewed-grass analogy. ‘Might you settle for Lapsang?’ he asked. They’d have to.

  ‘Do a flikflak, Pip!’ Tom implored his stepmother. Pip looked at the lawn: soft, level and inviting. It was where She’d taught herself all manner of tumbling over the years, but she didn’t much feel like demonstrations today. She had a hangover and what she wanted was to have a private moment with Zac so she could say Did you mean what you said last night? Because, actually, I meant what I said. But Zac had been infuriatingly cheerful all morning, tactile and attentive, thus allowing her no recourse to challenge him.

  ‘Please do a flikflak?’ Tom pleaded. ‘It makes sense to do flikflaks before you have a cup of tea.’

  ‘I wasn’t actually considering doing any after,’ Pip pointed out. And then she looked at Tom’s disappointed little face and flikflaks suddenly seemed a tiny price to pay for his smile. ‘I want applause,’ Pip stipulated, ‘cheering and whistling, if you please.’ And off she went, executing a perfect line of four.

  ‘I used to be able to walk on my hands,’ said Ben. Rolling his head, giving his wrists and ankles an energetic shake, to gasps of admiration, he found he still could.

  ‘I can cartwheel!’ said Cat, scrambling to her feet and doing just that.

  And when Penny Ericsson came through the garden gate, That’s the scene that greeted her: a laughing bunch performing amateur acrobatics in the early summer sunshine.

  No one knew who she was. Why should they? But the appearance of a stranger didn’t surprise them. People had been calling in all morning to thank Django for the party and wish him many happy returns. Some hadn’t even been present the night before, but still they came with their birthday greetings. So the group on the lawn didn’t bat an eyelid at the woman. She was just another friend of Django’s, wasn’t she? Someone from his dim and distant past, from some far-flung shore, no doubt. Relatively conservatively dressed for a friend of Django’s. Silvering blonde hair cut close. Small tortoise-shell glasses. A tunic top and cropped trousers in the same honey-coloured linen. Sensible sandals. Interesting jewellery. She had stopped some distance away. She raised her hand. Fen raised hers.

  ‘Hi,’ the woman called.

  ‘Hullo!’ called Cat.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, coming nearer, ‘hi.’

  An American. Django had plenty of friends from the States. Perhaps this was the famous Toni from Squam? Or the infamous Rayner from Sausalito?

  ‘Hi,’ she said, once again, slightly breathless, squinting in the sunlight.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Fen. And Cat. And Pip. And the men. And Tom.

  It is often a peculiar surprise to hear the sound of one’s voice on a recording. The sound doesn’t make sense. I Don’t sound anything like that. Sometimes, a mirror presents an image so far from one’s perception of oneself that the reflection could well belong to a stranger. But That’s not how I feel I look.

  However, for Ben, Matt and Zac, a glimpse of the future, of seeing how their partners might look in twenty-five years’ time, was immediate. But that wasn’t the shock of it. The fundamental shock was that this woman’s resemblance to their girls was so striking that there could be but one explanation. And yet the girls obviously hadn’t noticed a thing.

  But what when they did?

  What then?

  The three men could do little more than glance at each other and feel their heart rates thud like the countdown to a detonation.

  ‘So,’ the lady said, ‘where is the birthday boy?’

  ‘He’s making tea,’ Cat said. ‘he’ll be out in a mo’.’

  ‘He always makes plenty,’ Fen assured her.

  ‘Sorry – were you at the party last night?’ asked Pip.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no.’ And she fingered the cord of silver around her neck while being smiled at.

  Tom wondered whether this new lady might be interested that Cat had said ‘fucking’ seven times.

  ‘Here he is,’ Fen said, before Tom had a chance to find out.

  Django was far too busy balancing the tray with all the cups and saucers and teapot and plates piled high with biscuits to n
otice his guest at first.

  ‘Hi Derek,’ the lady said, ‘happy birthday.’

  Derek?

  Who’s Derek?

  I Don’t think we know a Derek.

  There’s no Derek here.

  In severe electric shocks, it is impossible to let go. Such shocks are, literally, riveting; they simultaneously root you to the spot while they decimate you. Django didn’t drop the tray, he didn’t faint or fall to his knees and he didn’t wail or gasp. He couldn’t. He couldn’t make a sound, let alone say a word. He couldn’t drop the tray. He couldn’t move. He stood there, momentarily paralysed.

  ‘This is Django,’ Cat was saying to the lady, ‘Django McCabe.’

  ‘If You’re lost, there are loads of Ordnance Survey maps in the house,’ said Fen helpfully.

  ‘I think They’re in that trunk in the shed, actually,’ added Pip.

  ‘Girls,’ said Django, and the pureness of his audible pain was not for himself, but for those he loved most on whom he was about to inflict it. ‘Girls.’ Carefully he put the tray down. He did not know in whose eyes he should look. So he looked at her. ‘Girls. This is your mother.’

  Where were you when Princess Diana died? What were you doing when the planes struck the World Trade Center on 9/11? Were you sitting down to Christmas Day leftovers when you learnt about the Asian Tsunami?

  On Django’s seventy-fifth birthday, Cat, Pip and Fen wouldn’t have had a clue where they’d been on those landmark moments. For them, history ceased to be defined by such events. On Django’s seventy-fifth birthday, history was retold.

  Our mother ran off with a cowboy from Denver when we were small.

  And then she came back.

  THEN WHAT?

  Then what? No one could actually say a thing. Time had stopped, the temperature had dropped and Pip, Cat and Fen were paralysed in a state of frozen panic. If the magnitude of the situation was beyond belief, it was certainly beyond words. They had never imagined this occurrence, never craved it, never dreaded it. Therefore, they had never bothered to prepare fanciful speeches in the event of their mother showing up. They’d never even wondered ‘What if?’ This sudden reality was so far from their expectation that they were utterly ill-equipped to deal with it. They could only sit and stare, with time suspended while their hearts thumped with disbelief. No one wanted to break it. In the silence, they were still safe. If anyone moved or any sound was made, time would have to resume. Nothing would be the same again. This they knew. And yet Cat, Fen and Pip hadn’t ever wanted anything to change in the first place.

  Penny stood there and deduced which daughter was Cat, though just then she didn’t know Pip from Fen. It also occurred to her, with unexpected pleasure, that she appeared to be a grandmother too. The particulars of her gene-pool were immediately legible; her three daughters had paired up and had two offspring between them. The bare facts were pleasing. The girls appeared in good health. Their men looked nice. Everyone seemed happy. It was a soothing scene to behold but one she suddenly wished she was seeing as a fly on the wall. Home seemed very far away.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, focusing on the baby, ‘and aren’t you a cutey?’ She stooped to Cosima who was gurgling and bashing her pudgy legs with her little fists. Penny offered the baby a finger. ‘Hi, hi, cutey-pie.’

  Fen grabbed her baby away before she could grasp her grandmother’s finger. She staggered to her feet, the brittle rubber of one flip-flop ripping away from the sole as she did so. Her face glowering with mistrust and animosity. ‘What the fuck?’ she managed in a hoarse whisper.

  Tom gave a delighted gasp. ‘Fen said f—’

  ‘Tom!’ Zac hissed, now in no quandary over whom to protect. He took Tom away, to the tyre swing at the outer edge of the garden. He could only touch his wife gently between the shoulder-blades as he went.

  ‘You’re Fenella?’ Penny deduced. ‘And look, you have a daughter!’

  Fen couldn’t respond, she could only hold Cosima protectively. What did all this mean? What was going on? Matt rose and stood oak-like and silent behind his family.

  ‘You’re Philippa?’ Penny asked Pip.

  Pip was unable to give much more than a childlike shrug. Where was Zac? Where should she be? By her sisters? But they had their partners. No one was looking to her for help. They were each in a constrictive space of their own. Pip felt entirely alone. Zac was in another space, protecting his son. She was surrounded by a family in splinters and for the first time she had no idea how to go about putting it all back together again. She felt very cold.

  ‘And I guessed you were Catriona,’ Penny gave a small smile. She turned to Django. ‘She has your eyes, hey?’

  1960S AND ALL THAT JAZZ

  If ignorance had been the background to the bliss in the McCabe sisters’ lives until that moment, knowledge was its polar opposite and it suffused them with panic and pain. In desperation, they tried to plead ignorance. If they pretended they didn’t know what she meant, everything might be all right.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said Pip.

  ‘Who’s Derek?’ said Fen.

  Say something Cat. Quickly. You need to say something naive and pedestrian. Why not tell that woman she simply has the wrong family. But Cat’s voice was horribly noticeable for its silence. Her sisters turned to her. She looked back at them, imploringly. ‘What does she mean about me having Django’s eyes?’ said Cat, capable of little more than a whisper. They turned to Django who was staring at Penny. They turned to Penny who was gazing at the three of them.

  ‘I had to come,’ Penny told them. ‘I know it must be a shock and all. But could we talk? Might you listen?’

  The sisters turned to Django but his head hung low and his eyes were fixed on the ground.

  ‘If You’re on some mission to appease your guilt, you’ve wasted your journey,’ said Pip flatly. ‘It has nothing to do with us.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Fen said so icily that Cosima wriggled and began to cry. ‘What are you implying about Cat? Why do you call our uncle “Derek”?’

  ‘You did not know?’ Penny appeared shocked. ‘Did you God-honestly not know? Your whole lives – and you did not know?’

  ‘Know what?’ Cat asked, her voice barely audible.

  The faintest of whispers coursed through Fen and Pip, but they blocked it out, not ready to listen.

  If we did not know any of this, what else might we not know? The thought was trying to sidle.

  Cat now had her hands clamped over her ears, her eyes screwed shut. She did not want to hear them and she did not want anyone looking at her eyes.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Penny said with a hand at her heart for emphasis, ‘this must be a terrible shock. Derek – could you not help me out here?’

  All eyes turned to the man in the candy-striped cheesecloth smock, the man with the moccasins on his feet, wearing patched cords with fraying seams and a faded CND patch appliquéd under one knee. Whatever his name was. There had to be an explanation. He was the man who had always made everything all right. Who had made sense of everything. He had always told them, when they were hurt, that he was there to make them better. That it was his job to kiss that bruise. That he was the world expert in cuddling away tears. There there. There there. Django is here. Don’t cry. Don’t worry. Django’s here.

  Except he Isn’t.

  Some bloke called Derek is standing in his moccasins.

  He suddenly looks very old and tired, thought Pip.

  He doesn’t look well, thought Fen.

  I hate him, thought Cat.

  Christ, this is one crackpot family, thought Ben. Bugger, Cosima needs changing, thought Matt.

  ‘I,’ Django said. ‘She.’ He paused. ‘You,’ he said, though he focused on no one. Silence fell and Django felt powerless to do anything about it.

  She took off her glasses. ‘My name is Penny Ericsson,’ she told them, ‘and I am your mother.’ Her voice was gentle and clear, tinged with reflection but underscored with relief;
a timbre that told everyone that the truth was being told. ‘I was married to Nicholas McCabe when I was a very young girl. I was seventeen and pregnant – not with you, Philippa, with another child. I miscarried. I had you. I had Fenella. I had Catriona. And I left.’

  The silence, no less heavy, was calmer.

  ‘Why do you say that Cat has Django’s eyes?’ Pip asked finally, the reluctant spokesman for the sisters.

  ‘You have Nicholas’s chin, Philippa,’ Penny said levelly, ‘Fenella has Nicholas’s eyes.’ She stopped. ‘And Catriona has Derek’s eyes.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Fen then turned to Django who finally met her gaze. ‘What is she saying?’

  Django looked around him. His home. His garden. His girls. His grandchildren. All that he loved. He was soaking up the sights, as if within seconds he’d be denied them for ever. All that he held sacred, all he had hoped to keep safe, was teetering on a precipice that was as much of his own making as of Penny Ericsson’s. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to step in as protector or if he was about to push what he held most precious straight over the edge. He stumbled, grabbed the cold edge of the curlicue garden chair and sat down heavily. With a hand on each knee, and rocking gently, he spoke with audibly heart-heavy reluctance. ‘My name is Derek McCabe – or at least That’s what it says on my birth certificate.’ Suddenly, it seemed like a good if desperate idea to fixate on the triviality of this particular revelation, to step outside the bigger picture and the graver question. A glance at his girls suggested they were almost glad of the diversion. ‘Look at me, I hardly look like a Derek, do I?’ he tried a meek smile. ‘Derek was my given name – but Django is my true name. Can we settle on that?’

  ‘Django?’ Pip enunciated the word as if it sat awkward on her tongue, as if it were no longer a name. ‘How the hell did you go from Derek to Django?’

  Django looked hurt. ‘Jazz,’ he declared, as if to prompt, ‘jazz.’ Fen and Pip nodded as if they thought they understood. ‘When I heard the music of Django Reinhardt, the colour and spirit at my core leapt free,’ he explained, ‘and in the sixties, to be who you felt was the easiest thing in the world. You think Bibi’s parents called her Bibi when she was born in 1939? They called her Doris, but what did they know? Can you imagine Bibi being called Doris, for goodness’ sake? One day she said, Hey call me Bibi, so we said, Cool. And one day I said, Hey call me Django, and they said, Cool. Feel the vibe. Tune in. Dig it.’