The Other Family

by Joanna Trollope

Scott put the phone back against his ear.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Sue said. ‘Jeez, what a family. I thought mine was a byword for dysfunction but the Rossiters run us a close second. Text me your address and I’l let you know the delivery date.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Is it too much to ask,’ Sue demanded, ‘that you say, “Thank you so much, stranger lady, for restoring my birthright to me”?’

  Scott considered. Who knew if this woman was a miracle-worker or a meddler? He remembered that she had cal ed him an oaf. A peculiarly Southern insult somehow.

  ‘Yes,’ Scott said decidedly, and flipped his phone shut.

  * * *

  That night, instead of slamming a curry or chil i con carne into the microwave, Scott cooked dinner. He paused in the little Asian supermarket on his way home and bought an array of vegetables, including pak choi, and a packet of chicken-breast strips, and a box of jasmine rice, and when he got home he made himself a stir-fry.

  He put the stir-fry on a proper dinner plate, instead of eating it out of the pan, and put the plate on his table with a knife and a fork and three careful y torn-off sheets of kitchen paper as a napkin. Then he stuck a candle-end in an empty bottle of Old Speckled Hen, and put a disc in the CD

  player, a disc of his father playing Rachmaninov, a disc that had never sold in anything like the numbers that his covers of Tony Bennett songs had.

  Then he sat down, and ate his dinner in as measured a way as he could, and reflected with something approaching pride on having stood up to Bernie Harrison, not al owed himself to be grateful to that rude cow from London, and succeeded, at last, in taking Donna out for a coffee – not the drink she would have preferred – and tel ing her that he was very sorry but she was mistaken and nothing she could do was going to make him change his mind.

  He had feared she might cry. There were long moments while she stared down into her skinny latte with an extra shot, and he had been afraid that she was going to opt for tears rather than fury. But to her credit, she had neither wept nor shouted. In fact she’d said, after swal owing hard several times, ‘Wel , Scottie, I’l be thirty-six next October, so you can’t blame me for trying,’ and he’d squeezed her hand briefly and said, ‘I don’t. I just don’t want you to waste any more time or effort on me.’

  She looked at him. She said, with a gal ant attempt at a smile, ‘Rather have a piano than a relationship, would you?’

  He said, ‘At least you know where you are with a piano,’ and they’d grinned weakly at each other, and then she bent to pick up her bag and stood up and said she was off to see the girls from work to drown her sorrows. Or, as it was only Wednesday, to half drown them anyway. She bent and gave his cheek a quick brush with her own.

  ‘It was nice being wanted for my body—’

  ‘Great body,’ Scott said politely.

  Then she had clicked out of the coffee bar on her heels and he had gone to the Asian supermarket and bought the ingredients for a proper meal.

  Which he had now prepared, and cooked, and eaten. And washed up. He put the kettle on, to make a coffee, and then he strol ed down the length of his flat and contemplated the space he had cleared – but not swept, recently – where the piano would sit.

  It was very, very wonderful to think that, within ten days, it would be sitting there, huge and shining and impregnated with memories and possibilities. Now that it was actual y on its way, Scott could permit himself to acknowledge how much he wanted it, how hard it had been to say that they should not let it go until they were ready to let it go. It had been hard, but it had been worth it, both because it gave Scott the sense of having behaved honourably in an awkward situation and because the joy of knowing it would soon be on its way north was so very intense by contrast.

  The joy was, Scott thought, an unexpected bonus. It gave him an energy of pleasure that he couldn’t remember feeling about anything much for a very long time. The only element that tempered it – and Scott had not al owed himself to consider this ful y til now – was that a deception was being practised on Amy, and on her mother and older sister, in order that he might have the Steinway sitting where he was standing now, with the night view of the bridge, and the Gateshead shore shimmering away beyond, outside the uncurtained window.

  Scott moved over to the window and leaned his forehead against the cold glass. He supposed that part of him felt that Amy’s mother and sister could look out for themselves. He had, after al , had no contact with them except cold looks at the funeral and an unpleasant brief telephone exchange with Tamsin. But Amy herself was another matter. Amy had had the guts to ring him, had spoken to him as if the bond between them didn’t just exist but should be respected and, for God’s sake, she was only eighteen, she was only a kid, but she had shown an independence of mind that would do credit to someone twice her age.

  Scott took his phone out of his trouser pocket, and tossed it once or twice in his hand. If he rang her, and told her about Sue’s cal , she might wel flip and refuse to let him have the piano. He looked, for a long time, at the dusty space where the piano was going to sit. He walked across it, and then back again. He weighed his desire for it to be there against his peace of mind. He flipped his phone open, and dial ed Amy’s number.

  Her phone rang four times, then five, then six. Then her voice said hurriedly, ‘This is Amy’s phone. I’l cal you back,’ and stopped, as if she had meant to leave more message, and suddenly couldn’t think what more to say.

  Scott looked out at his view.

  ‘Amy,’ he said, ‘it’s Scott. I’m cal ing on Wednesday night. It’s about the piano. There’s something we should talk about. Could you cal me when you get this? Any time. I mean, any time.’

  She rang back at ten past two in the morning. She sounded odd, but she said that was because she was under the duvet. Apart from being a bit muffled, her tone was normal, even neutral.

  She said, ‘What is it? About the piano?’

  Scott, lying back on his pil ow, his eyes stil closed from the deep sleep he’d been in, told her briefly about Sue’s cal .

  ‘Oh,’ Amy said.

  ‘Look,’ Scott said, ‘it doesn’t have to happen, not if you—’

  ‘It does have to happen. It’s not that—’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘It’s not you having the piano—’

  ‘Oh,’ Scott said.

  Amy said, ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Are you? ’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said.

  He waited for her to ask if she’d woken him, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, ‘I won’t let my phone out of my sight now.’

  ‘No.’

  There was a silence. He longed to say more but couldn’t initiate it.

  Then she said, ‘Night-night. Thanks for tel ing me,’ and the line went dead. Scott looked at the clock beside his bed. Two-thirteen and he was awake now. Wide awake.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tamsin was keeping her eyes and ears open. It was completely obvious, from the agents who were being summoned into the partners’ rooms and coming out looking as if they’d been hit with a bucket, that a fair number of redundancies were going on. There had been a confidential memo sent round saying that the present economic climate and resulting effect on the housing market meant that there inevitably had to be a certain amount of restructuring within the company, but that for the sake of al those concerned the partners requested that al members of staff should behave with as much discretion as possible. Which meant, Tamsin knew, that none of them were supposed to gossip when people were got rid of.

  And people were being. People were going out of the building by the back door, carrying boxes and bin bags, with the contents of their desks in them, and a lot of company cars were beginning to sit idle, day after day, in the company car park.

  Tamsin had said to Robbie that the fact that she wasn’t paid much more than the minimum wage might work either way. The partners
might think she was extremely expendable, or they might think that she was very good value. Robbie said he thought the latter would be the case and that she should work on that assumption anyway, so Tamsin was going into work having made an extra effort with her appearance every day, and was conducting herself with increased alertness and alacrity as wel as a wide and confident smile every time she encountered a partner. If she was made redundant, she reckoned, she’d make sure she left with a glowing recommendation.

  The reception desk, Tamsin decided, was where she was going to make her mark. It didn’t take much to realize that the first face of a business that a customer saw was also the one that made the significant first impression. So Tamsin was making an extra effort to greet everyone, including the least prepossessing of the courier delivery boys, with a wide smile and an air of being completely impervious to any possibility of suffering in the current crisis. It was annoying, therefore, to turn from a switchboard complication to greet a new arrival and find that she was wasting warmth and charm on her sister Amy.

  ‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?’

  ‘Revision period,’ Amy said. She was wearing jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt and chequerboard sneakers.

  ‘I’m working,’ Tamsin said. ‘Can’t you see?’

  Amy leaned forward.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to you—’

  ‘About what?’

  Amy glanced round. The office was open-plan, and several people were plainly not as absorbed by what was on their screens as they were pretending to be.

  ‘Can’t tel you here.’

  ‘Amy,’ Tamsin said again, ‘I’m working. You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Amy said. ‘Tel them it’s family stuff. It is family stuff.’

  Tamsin hesitated. There was her natural curiosity and, in addition, there was the aggravation of not knowing something that, by rights, she should both have known and have known first.

  She said, ‘I’l ask Denise.’

  Amy nodded. She watched Tamsin go across to talk to a girl with dark hair in a short glossy bob. The girl was typing. She neither looked up nor stopped typing when Tamsin bent over her, but she nodded, and then she stood up and fol owed Tamsin back to the reception desk.

  ‘This is my sister Amy,’ Tamsin said.

  ‘Hi,’ Amy said.

  Denise looked at Amy. Then she said to Tamsin, ‘Fifteen minutes, max. I’ve got a client at twelve and he’s my only client al bloody day.’

  On the pavement outside, Amy said, ‘Is she always like that?’

  ‘Everyone’s worried,’ Tamsin said. ‘Everyone’s wondering who’s next.’

  ‘Are you? ’

  ‘No,’ Tamsin said.

  ‘Real y?’

  ‘I’m cheap,’ Tamsin said, ‘I’m good. It’d be a false economy to lose me. Now, what is al this?’

  There was a sharp wind blowing up the hil . Amy pul ed her sleeves down over her knuckles and hunched her shoulders.

  ‘Can we get a coffee?’

  ‘No,’ Tamsin said. ‘Tel me whatever it is and go back to school.’

  Amy said unhappily, ‘You won’t like this—’

  ‘What won’t I like?’

  ‘I thought I wouldn’t tel you. I thought I wouldn’t say. But I think not tel ing you is worse than tel ing you. I don’t know—’

  ‘What, Amy?’

  Amy looked at the pavement.

  ‘The piano’s going.’

  ‘It—’

  ‘Next Thursday. It’s booked.’

  ‘Does Mum—’

  ‘No,’ Amy said. She flicked a glance up at her sister. ‘No. That’s the point. Sue’s done it. Sue’s organized it with Dil y while Mum’s out, next Thursday. The removal people wil just come and take it.’

  Tamsin said nothing. Her mind raced about for a few seconds, wondering what aspect of this new situation she was most upset about. Then she said furiously, ‘How do you know? Did Sue tel you?’

  ‘No,’ Amy said.

  ‘Dil y?’

  ‘No,’ Amy said.

  ‘Then—’

  Amy sighed. She said reluctantly, ‘It was him.’

  ‘What him?’

  ‘You know,’ Amy said. She stretched her sleeves down further. ‘Him. In Newcastle.’

  ‘ What?’

  ‘He rang me. Sue had rung him to ask for his address. Dil y got his number off my phone. He rang because he thought it shouldn’t be behind our backs—’

  Tamsin snorted.

  ‘It was nice of him!’ Amy cried. ‘It was nice of him to warn us!’

  Tamsin seemed to col ect herself. She leaned forward and gripped Amy’s shoulders.

  ‘Let me get this straight. You are tel ing me that Sue, with Dil y’s connivance, has arranged for the piano to be taken away next Thursday while Mum is out of the house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you only know about it because Newcastle Man rang you?’

  ‘He’s cal ed Scott,’ Amy said.

  Tamsin let go of her sister’s shoulders.

  ‘I’m not sure who I’m going to kil first—’

  ‘It’s good the piano’s going,’ Amy said. ‘It’s good. It’l be better for Mum. It’l be better for al of us—’

  Tamsin wasn’t listening. She was looking away from Amy, eyes narrowed.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I’l start with Dil y.’

  Chrissie had not been thinking straight. She’d begun at Bond Street Station, intending to take the Central Line to Tottenham Court Road and then change to the Northern Line to travel north. But for some reason, she had drifted down the escalator to the Jubilee Line, going northwards, and sat blankly on the train for a number of stops until the sight of the station name, West Hampstead, jolted her back into realizing that she was miles further west than she had intended to be. She got out of the train in the kind of fluster she used to watch, sometimes, in middle-aged and elderly women with a slightly contemptuous pity, and made her way up into the open air and West End Lane, thankful that no one she knew had seen her.

  Only once she was out of the station did it occur to her that she should have crossed the road and taken the overland train to Gospel Oak. But somehow, she couldn’t face retracing her steps. She stood in the light late-afternoon drizzle for a few moments, just breathing, and then she set off northwards, towards the fire station where West End Lane turned sharp right before it joined the Finchley Road, and she felt she was back in the main swim of things and might find a cup of coffee.

  At the junction of West End Lane and the Finchley Road, something struck her as familiar. The building she was beside, the red-brick building with a portal and an air of solidity, was of course her solicitor’s building, the offices of Leverton and Company, where there had been that dreadful interview with Mark Leverton in which she had had to confess that she and Richie had never been married and, inevitably, convey that this situation had persisted despite her earnest and growing wish to the contrary. At the end of the interview, when Tamsin had preceded her out of the door of Mark Leverton’s office, he had said to Chrissie, in a low and urgent voice that she was sure came from a human rather than professional impulse, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help—’ She had smiled at him with real gratitude. She had thanked him warmly and, she hoped, conveyed that, touched though she was, she had always been a coping woman and intended to continue to cope. But now, weeks later, standing on the damp pavement outside the building, and disproportionately shaken by having made such a muddle of her journey home, Chrissie felt that not only was coping something she no longer felt like doing but also it was, for the moment at least, something she simply could not do. She pressed the bel marked

  ‘Reception’ and was admitted to the building.

  The receptionist said that she thought Mr Mark was stil there, but as it was twenty past five, and a Friday, he might wel have already left for family dinner.

  ‘Could you try?’ Chrissie said.
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br />   She crossed the reception area and sat down in a grey tweed armchair. On the low table in front of her was a neat fan of legal pamphlets and a copy of the business section of a national newspaper. She stared at it unseeingly, until the receptionist came over and said that Mr Mark was on his way down. She said it in a tone that made Chrissie feel that Mr Mark should not have had his good nature presumed upon.

  ‘Thank you,’ Chrissie said.

  The receptionist’s heels clacked back behind her desk. Five minutes passed. Then ten. A smal panic rose up in Chrissie, a panic that caused her to demand of herself what she thought she was doing, what on earth should she say to Mark Leverton, and then he was beside her, in a tidy fawn raincoat over his business suit and he was bending over her and saying, ‘Mrs Rossiter?’ in the tones you might expect from a doctor.

  She looked up at him.

  ‘I’m so sorry—’

  He put a hand under her elbow to help her to her feet.

  ‘Are you unwel ?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I’m fine. I – I – this is just an impulse, you know. I found myself outside and I just thought—’

  He began to steer her towards the door. He said, ‘Goodnight, Teresa,’ to the receptionist, and leaned forward to push the door open to al ow Chrissie to go through ahead of him.

  ‘I’m due home soon,’ he said to Chrissie, ‘it being a Friday. But there’s time for a coffee first. It looks to me as if you could do with a coffee.’

  ‘I’m sorry, so sorry—’

  ‘Please don’t apologize.’

  ‘But you’re a solicitor, you’re not a doctor or a therapist—’

  ‘I think,’ Mark Leverton said, holding Chrissie’s elbow, ‘we’l just pop in here. I often get a lunchtime sandwich here. It’s run by a nice Italian family

  —’

  The café was warm and bright. Mark sat Chrissie in a plastic chair by a wal and said he was just going to cal his wife, and tel her that he’d be half an hour later than he’d said.

  ‘Oh, please—’ Chrissie said. She could feel a pain beginning under her breastbone at the thought of Mrs Leverton and her children, and maybe her brothers and sisters and parents, sitting down to the reassuring candlelit ritual of a Jewish Friday night. ‘Please don’t be late on my account!’