by Jane Davis
'Put it this way,' he told me over a drink, 'the conversation ended with Mrs Albury saying, "Laura's made her bed and she'll have to lie in it," and me saying, "Well, if that's how you feel, then perhaps you'd better stay away.'' '
'Sounds as if it could have gone better.'
'I'm in the doghouse now. I was on the sofa last night and my back's killing me. This married bliss isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know. Mrs Albury always seems to have liked you. What's your secret?'
'I use a suit and tie as a disguise.'
'I tried that for the wedding and it didn't work. I'm afraid she's going to have to get used to me the way I am.'
The next news was that Faye had left town, no doubt driven away by her mother, and that Laura had been sent to bring her home. Laura found Faye and stayed for two weeks but returned alone. She wouldn't tell her mother where to find her.
'She's staying with some college friends for the summer,' she said simply. 'She just needs some space.'
'Space?' Mrs Albury argued. 'Where could she possibly find more space than at home now that there's just me rattling around on my own?'
She blamed Laura for driving the family apart, completely ignoring the fact that she lost her job for taking unauthorized leave. Although the decision had had nothing to do with me, and I couldn't have influenced it in any way, I felt both responsible and angry.
'Laura was the best secretary we had,' I tried to speak up for her. It was no good.
'She could be the best secretary in this whole damn town and it wouldn't matter,' the senior partner replied. 'Nobody is beyond the rules of the firm.'
'It's probably for the best.' Laura was infuriatingly logical when I reported back to her. 'I probably would have had to give up work when the band go on tour in a couple of months anyway.'
'I didn't know there was anything definite.' I was surprised at this latest news. There were always plans – always had been – but they very rarely came to anything.
She had her back to me when she said, 'Oh yes, it's full steam ahead. All of the university towns.'
'That's fantastic news.' I tried to sound enthusiastic, wondering if this was a show of bravado on her part.
When I congratulated Tom, he seemed less certain than Laura that they would pull it off, but I took this as modesty. He had been this close too many times to let himself celebrate before the actual event.
I was spurred on to take some action in my own life. With everyone else putting down new roots, I decided that it was time for me to move out of my family home. My salary had been steadily increasing and I had been saving without any particular plans. I put down a deposit on a house that was one of a new development being built. Unlike Tom, the thought of restoring something old terrified me. I was happy to wait three months for it to be finished to give my parents a little time to get used to the idea. I was almost twenty-five and, apart from my spell at university and law school, I had always lived under their roof. My father was not a well man and looked ten years older than his age, but he had given up on life long ago. My mother could have been a very attractive, lively woman, but she was like a bee who had flown through a window by accident and spent her days desperately crashing against the glass, trying to find her way back out.
Laura and Tom left in the band's van for an 'advance recce' and promised that they would be back in a few weeks, or that news would be sent about where the others were to meet them. As the band's official photographer, I harboured hopes that I would be invited to join them on tour, although this would have been completely impractical given my job. I heard nothing for weeks.
'Any news, Steve?' I asked when I bumped into him in the pub.
'How should I know?' He shrugged. 'I'm just the drummer.'
A rushed call from a telephone box later confirmed that the plans for the tour had stalled but that Tom had some work in a recording studio doing some engineering work,
'He's doing really well, making lots of new contacts,' Laura told me. 'I don't suppose you've seen anything of my mother lately?'
'Not since the wedding.'
'I know it's asking a lot, but could you find the time to nip over and see how she's doing?'
I didn't like to say so, but I had no particular desire to incur the wrath of Mrs Albury.
'Where are you staying?' I went for a quick change of subject.
'Oh, you know, just some cheap place.' She was vague. 'We can't afford much.'
'Do you think you'll make it home before the tenth?' I asked. 'I'm moving in and I was thinking of having a housewarming.'
'Oh, hang on.' I heard tapping. 'My money's running out. I think the—' The pips went and she was cut off.
Eventually, news was in such short supply that I visited Mrs Albury. She was curt with me before she shut the door in my face. 'I thought you of all people would have known. I seem to be the last person to be told anything. Laura's pregnant and can't travel, so they won't be home until after the baby's born. So now we know why he married her. It's just as well my husband's no longer with us, bless his soul, otherwise he'd have a few choice words to say to that lad, I can tell you. He thought it was bare-faced cheek not to ask for her hand, but it's no wonder given that he'd already taken liberties. But just you wait! Over my dead body will I have a grandchild of mine brought up in a damp flat over a fish-and-chip shop. Mark my words, there are going to be a few changes around here when that girl gets home.'
Part Three
Faye's Story
Chapter Twenty-three
'That's another fine mess you've got me into, Stanley,' my mother keeps repeating endlessly. 'That's another fine mess you've got me into, Stanley.' I haven't got a clue whom she's talking to today, or who she thinks she is for that matter, but, God Almighty, I know how she feels. I just don't know her any more. I have absolutely no idea who she is. 'Let's talk,' she says. 'Why can't we talk about it?' Talk, I ask you! You can't solve all the problems in the world with words.
I never wanted to be a mother. You might think that's selfish, but I think it's realistic. It's such an enormous responsibility and one that I never felt ready for. But suddenly I have a child on my hands. She just happens to be my mother. I know some people don't think I have the capacity to love a child – or anyone else for that matter. Peter Churcher once said to me, 'You don't know what it's like to love someone.' 'That's a terrible thing to say,' I said. But I know how I come across. If only they knew that I've had to shut those feelings off. It's hard for me to admit, but there's a very real part of me that feels as if I don't deserve a child. I seem to push away anyone who tries to get close to me. Maybe it goes deeper and I just don't think I deserve to be loved at all. It's always been easier to say that I don't want children than to think about it. I tell them that I value my independence. And I do. On a good day, I'm very content with my lot. I've got to a place where I'm comfortable with my own company. Except that I now seem to be a full-time carer. And there isn't any financial help, you know. Suddenly, you find that you can't work because your mother needs you and Social Services wash their hands. Just like that! If I hadn't volunteered, they would have had to do something, but now it seems that it's all down to me. Well, it's not on.
'Hang on in there,' her knee-patting social worker says. Don't you just hate the knee-patting do-gooders? When I want someone invading my personal space, I'll let them know, thank you very much. I'm just trying to stay busy and keep out of Mum's way, to be honest, as harsh as that sounds. She's in her own world and I'll keep to mine. In the meanwhile I'm going stir crazy. I'm a prisoner in my own home. I haven't done a yoga class for weeks and even a sighting of a Starbucks would feel like a mirage. Laura would know what to do. But if she was here now, I wouldn't be in this mess. So, in a roundabout way, if there's anyone to blame, it's her. Figure that one out if you can. God, there's so much I want to say to her. I can't believe we ran out of time so soon. I didn't see that one coming. I suppose the whole point is that you never do.
I adored my sister as
a child. I wanted to be just like Laura. I wanted white-blonde hair curled into ringlets. I wanted perfect white teeth and an infectious giggle. I wanted puffed sleeves and skirts that fell into neat pleats. I wanted white ankle socks with frills around the tops. But most of all, I craved my parents' attention. What I got was the mousy, frizzy hair, teeth that needed braces, the ill-fitting hand-me-downs and the 'Darling, can't you see your father's tired?' I wasn't cross with them. I thought that it was obvious that they would love her more. Who wouldn't?
'You're our beautiful girl,' they would tell her, while to me it was always, 'Why can't you be more like Laura? Laura's such a good girl.' She was just more lovable than I was. I always knew I would have to try a lot harder.
I thought that I could make them notice me in other ways so I worked really hard at school – to begin with. For some reason, on their bizarre system of brownie points, good grades didn't really count for anything if you were thought of as being 'naturally clever'. If you consistently got As but had an off-day and dropped to a B a full enquiry was launched. If, like Laura, you occasionally scraped a C, a cake was baked in your honour. I was in a no-win situation.
Laura wasn't blind to what was going on. She tried to sing my praises to our parents, but they would usually turn my successes into a compliment about her. 'You're so good to support your sister. She wouldn't have been able to get that grade if you hadn't spent last night testing her.' I got to rely on Laura for attention and she was just about as kind an older sister as I could have hoped for. That was enough for the first few years before I learned the phrase 'it's not fair'. Then it got a whole load more complicated.
Even early on, Laura got me out of scrapes. She knew that my parents would never be as hard on her as they would with me, so she owned up to everything that went wrong, especially if she knew I'd done it. Only Laura could admit to breaking one of my mother's precious ornaments and be rewarded with a pat on the head and an 'Honesty is the best policy', even if it was said through gritted teeth. Throughout my teens, I tested her loyalty. I came home drunk. I left a momentous cigarette burn in the living-room carpet. I stayed out all night. Her lies got less and less believable, especially for someone who looked like butter wouldn't melt. I actually thought they fell for them. But that old battleaxe in the other room now claims that she knew all along.
'Why didn't you say anything if you knew?' I asked when she let it slip. There's no way that she would have let me get away with it.
'Sisters are precious things,' she said to me. 'You shouldn't disturb that without good reason.' Maybe it was her way of redressing the balance. Laura was her favourite and there was nothing that she could do about it. You can't help the people you love the most, children included, I suppose.
Sometimes, I'm afraid of what I'd say if I really started to talk to my mother. I'm not sure I could resist asking the question, 'Would you have preferred it to have been me?' Horrible, isn't it? Hugely unfair. But she pushes me and pushes me, and it's the one question I would like to see how she reacts to. Would she avoid answering and accuse me of being cruel? Would she deny it and tell me how much she loves me? Do we feel the need to ask the hardest questions because that's what we really want to hear? And how can I still feel jealous of my sister now that she's gone?
It seemed inevitable that Laura thought she could get me out of any scrape, but I said to her, 'No, that's going too far. I can sort this one out on my own.'
'But you don't understand,' she said to me. 'I need this baby. We can't have any of our own.' She was on the point of begging. Turns out that Tom was not quite the stud that we thought he was after all. I had been planning to have the baby adopted. The difference was that I had never intended to see the baby at all, let alone watch her grow up. I meant to make things as easy as possible for myself. I told her I would think about it. 'OK,' she said. Just 'OK', but she stuck around for a couple of weeks. Made herself useful. 'Promise you won't tell them,' I said to her. I insisted that Mum and Peter could not know that I was pregnant. That was the deal. When she came back with Tom, I said to her, 'You can never tell the child or anyone else who its mother and father are. Especially Peter. As far as everyone is concerned, this is your baby.'
'What if it looks like him?' she said to me. None of us was worried that the child would take after me. We all knew cousins who looked more alike than brothers and sisters and we all knew children who didn't look like their parents at all, no matter how much other people insisted they did.
I told them, 'People are pretty blind to things that are right in front of their noses.'
'Whatever you want,' they said.
I was right. For the first ten years of her life, nearly everyone who met her told her how much she looked like Tom, and she couldn't have been happier about it. What they really meant, of course, was that there wasn't an ounce of Laura in her.
I think she knows. I think that my mother has guessed the truth and will think that she can mend everything with her words. Get it all out in the open, with no thought of the effect that it will have. 'Let's have a nice chat,' she'll say, 'with everyone round the table.' I can see it all now. She just can't see that it's far too late for the truth. We have all become what we have become.
We set up house for the duration in a flat that I was house-sitting for old college friends in south London while they were travelling. Last Tube stop on the Northern Line. Funny place, but one where I wasn't recognized every time I stepped outside and could be a no one – or I could just be myself, depending which way you look at it. Laura had sold everyone a story about a possible tour for the band that fell through, but the truth was that Tom took full advantage of his time here and made some good contacts. Before long, he had found himself a job in a recording studio. He started the day as a delivery boy, took an interest in the address on a parcel, asked if he could stick around for a while, made a few useful suggestions, and found himself helping out. By the end of the day, he had job number two. You had to give him his due, he worked his socks off. 'Got to save some money for the baby,' he said to me. We had this joke: 'This one's free, but I'm going to have to charge you for the next one.'
It was Laura who nursed me through the morning sickness, made sure I was eating properly, came to the hospital appointments, cried when she heard the baby's heartbeat, read all the baby books. Talk about obsessive, I swear the girl almost thought she was pregnant. I drew the line when she wanted to sing the baby to sleep every night. 'Give me some space, for God's sake!' I had to say to her at times. But I knew full well that I would have had a horrible pregnancy in a flat on my own. Even though I was miserable about being pregnant, it was good to have people around me who were positive about it. I had a reason to go through with it. I don't think that, once I got my head around it, I ever had a doubt about letting Laura and Tom take the baby. No one else was going to love her more, that much was obvious.
I don't know why they were surprised that I couldn't go home with them. They must have thought about what it would mean for me. To give a child up for adoption and get the occasional photograph is one thing. To see her every time you pop round for a coffee is another. Laura cried when I spelled it out for her. 'But you'll come home after a while?' she asked.
'I've got no plans at all,' I said to them. 'I might try to get a job here.'
I needed them to leave as soon as the baby could travel. I knew that I wouldn't change my mind, but it was too confusing for all of us. Throughout the pregnancy and birth, I hadn't felt the least bit maternal. When they looked at me and asked me what I wanted to call her, I told them it was customary for the parents to name the child. For one horrible moment I thought that they might try to sneak Faye in there as a middle name. I was relieved when she was named after Tom's grandmother, Andrea. She was the one who made the legendary shortbread.
Laura had deliberately put on a little weight over the last couple of months. With a padded bra and a loose fitting dress she looked the part of the young mother. Instant family. Just add water.
I refused to hold the baby while they packed. I couldn't bring myself to wave them off in the van and stayed inside reading a book. I watched with mixed feelings from behind the net curtains as it moved slowly off down the road. Unable to decide whether to dance round the living room or weep, I turned the stereo up loud and let myself cry, then I washed my face in cold water and removed every remaining trace of baby from the flat. I had to be hard with myself. It was the only way to get through it.
It was clear to me that I could never go back home. My plan was to earn some money for a while and then travel. Later, when Andrea was old enough to know that she had an aunt, I thought that it was wrong that I never saw her. I didn't allow myself to feel any emotional attachment, but the poor girl looked just like me at the same age. It brought back memories of myself as a child and in my early teens, feelings of insecurity that I thought I had got over. I only ever allowed myself to be an occasional visitor to my old life, bringing presents from wherever I had been, sending postcards, but I could never bring myself to be physical with her. I envied how easily Peter threw her up in the air and swung her round by the arms, sending her into spasms of giggles. He could only afford to be that close because he didn't know. It was obvious that Laura and Tom had kept their side of the bargain. I never imagined that it would be so hard for me to keep mine.
Part Four
Andrea's Story
