‘Oh, hooray,’ exclaimed Jean, delighted to be looking in the right direction as the ball bounced, momentarily forgetting poor dear Jasper, whom Charlotte had forced her to leave tethered to the bicycle. ‘Hooray indeed. I just wish I could clap. Oh, and I’ve got something for you – that cheque. Were you ever going to tell me I’d forgotten to put it in the envelope, you dear silly girl? Could you fish it out of my bag? These things are so much easier when you’ve got two hands. It’s in an envelope – there, that’s it. In fact, it’s just as well I did forget it as, thanks to the maturing of one of Reggie’s little schemes, I was able to make it out for a bit more than I’d originally planned. I say, is that nice lady over there offering us tea? I think she is, Charlotte dear. Look, she’s waving and pointing and I can’t think who else she means.’
But Charlotte couldn’t speak. With recent events she hadn’t given her mother’s oversight with the cheque a moment’s thought. Even as she eased her finger under the flap of the envelope, her focus had been more on the joy of Sam’s astonishing throw. ‘Mum, I can’t take this,’ she murmured at last, staring in disbelief at the figures in the box, which, like the words – and in spite of being made out in Jean’s uncertain, old-lady scrawl – made absolutely clear her intention to pay the bearer on demand the sum of sixty-three thousand pounds.
‘Of course you can. It’s only sensible. It turns out Reggie had a terror of dying in penury. All sorts of investments he made have been coming good gradually for years – most of them a surprise to my accountant, let alone me. And I can assure you I’m acting on his advice, because of the tax side of things, living seven more years and so on. Call it an early birthday present, Charlotte dear, if it makes you feel better. Oh, look, now she’s coming over. The lady inviting us to tea – she’s coming over, and a man in a horrible shirt. Is that her husband?’
‘Mum, I – Thank you.’ Charlotte slipped the cheque into her pocket as Theresa and Henry approached. ‘Wow – we need sunglasses to look at you,’ she quipped, trembling still on account of the cheque, and glad of the shirt, as a talking point and because it was so glaring and endearing, so typically the old Henry, that the silliness in Suffolk felt buried for good.
‘I can’t believe we haven’t met,’ exclaimed Theresa, sweetly, grasping Jean’s good hand during the introductions, ‘and I’ve been waving you over because we’ve made too big a picnic as usual, haven’t we, Hen? Charlotte, you should have told us your mother was coming,’ she scolded, her eyes blazing with warmth. ‘She didn’t tell us!’
Jean smiled, delighted at the fuss. ‘She didn’t know. It was a surprise. I wanted to see how Sam was doing for myself – after that horrible business the other weekend – and to collect Jasper at long last,’ she added quickly, not wanting to darken her mood or anyone else’s by instigating a postmortem on her grandson’s recent trauma. ‘I feel up to walking him again now, you see. The dear little chap does love his walks. I should think he’s quite worn you out, hasn’t he, Charlotte?’
‘As I’ve tried to tell you many times, Mum, I’ve loved every minute.’
‘She has, honestly.’ Theresa looped her arm through Charlotte’s, fearing from her friend’s somewhat dazed expression that some of the old mother-daughter prickliness might have been reasserting itself. ‘But tell me, Charlotte, are you quite sure now was the best time to acquire a bicycle?’
‘It’s not mine,’ Charlotte corrected her, laughing. ‘It’s Mr Beasley’s – the bloody car finally chose this afternoon to conk out in earnest. I was getting cross because he was watching me through the curtains and then he goes and wheels that out of his front door. It belonged to his wife, apparently, so I’m very honoured.’
‘You’ll be needing Mr Jarvis the mechanic, then,’ said Henry, latching on to what he imagined to be the safest of subjects. ‘I never gave you the number.’
A long moment followed. At least, it felt long to Charlotte, still dizzy because of the money and trying not to grip Theresa’s arm as she laboured for a response that would keep everything from blowing apart. A lie never went away, she realized, never blunted, never lost its power to be discovered and inflict pain. ‘Oh, but you did, Henry,’ she managed, keeping her voice dull and steady. ‘You kindly phoned, remember? The day Theresa and I met for lunch? Although, needless to say, with all that’s been going on, I couldn’t find where I’d written it down so I’ll probably have to ask for it again anyway.’
‘No worries.’ Henry coughed into his hand.
‘Tea anyone?’ Theresa sensed awkwardness but was prepared, in her new state of happiness, to overlook it. She and Henry were closer than they had been for years, agreeing about the children, laughing at the same things, making love like newly-weds at mad times and in new positions. It wouldn’t last, she knew. It was a manic patch, before humdrum normality reasserted itself, the product of a mutual, tacit celebration of Henry’s return from an invisible leave of absence that had swept through their happy home like a cold wind. Something had almost happened, then not. Theresa wasn’t sure what or with whom and no longer cared. They were in the same groove again, going forwards together, not looking back as surely as vertigo sufferers know never to look down.
∗
Gathering for the grand finale of the sprint races, Charlotte noticed, but managed not to point out, that Sam’s plaster was showing a smudge of leaked blood. Her mother was leaning on her now, visibly tired having been introduced to her friends, including Naomi and Jo, who had charmingly insisted that she organize a return visit to coincide with one of their mah-jong sessions. ‘Such lovely friends, dear,’ Jean had murmured. ‘A girl needs good friends.’
Spotting Dominic again, this time with the young woman from the restaurant, Charlotte was glad she had colluded in their private game of mutual avoidance. The brother was there, too, attracting undercover stares because of his famous face, but doing a good job of appearing not to notice. The girl stood between them, her loose blonde hair streaming. She wore high-heeled gold sandals and a denim miniskirt cut high enough to reveal the splash of a large café-au-lait birthmark across the back of her left thigh. She held a tiny crocodile-skin bag in one hand and a mobile in the other, pink and slim as two fingers and flecked with glitter.
Charlotte offered Sam the thumbs-up and checked on Jean, who had left her side to perch on a shooting-stick Theresa had kindly fetched from the boot of the Volvo. There was a false start and a second. Then the line of runners blurred as Charlotte’s thoughts ricocheted back to the birthmark and the suddenly crucial question of whether or not Dominic had placed his lips upon it. That soft, broad mouth travelling over one’s skin… what would it feel like? She gripped her bare elbows, aware of her body goose-bumping in spite of the now belting afternoon heat.
The race was over and she hadn’t watched. Sam had come third – or was it fourth? He looked happy, she saw with some relief, panting, wiping the sweat off his forehead, patting the shoulders of his competitors as if they had survived a battle on the same side. Catching his eye, Charlotte pulled a face of exaggerated sympathy. Sam shrugged, then dived into his kit-bag for a wad of papers he started hurriedly to press into the hands of the now dispersing crowd.
‘Advertising Dad’s concert,’ he confessed, grinning guiltily, as he skipped past. ‘I’ve had them for ages. George has asked me to tea, is that okay?’
‘Of course.’ Charlotte laughed at the tatty flyers. Having agreed to drop Sam off, she had lately been pondering whether to attend the event herself. Martin singing Mozart… she had to see it with her own eyes. And she was rich! The thought popped into her head like an exploding light.
‘Excuse me. Do you have a moment?’ Dominic had appeared from nowhere. She was pleased to notice that, close to, he was messy, unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes – a far cry from the alluring figure invading her thoughts a few minutes before.
‘Oh. No. I mean… This is my mother.’ Charlotte tripped over the words as she remembered Jean who, clearly restless
to be gone, was now back at her side. ‘Mum, this is Dominic Porter, the father of Sam’s friend.’
‘Ah, Charlotte has told me all about you, the man who saved our Sam.’ Jean gripped Dominic’s arm with her good hand. ‘You bought that house she liked. And now you’re buying the bookshop.’
‘Mum…’
‘I’m not sure that’s an entirely fair summary,’ Dominic muttered, flinching.
‘But there’s Bill,’Jean cried next. ‘He’ll be double-parked and he’s been waiting so long, Charlotte, I’ve really got to go. I shall gather Jasper on the way.’
‘But what about his bed and things?’
‘They can wait till my next visit,’ she replied gaily. ‘I must see if Jill can teach me mah-jong. Bye-bye, dear. And happy birthday, if I don’t see you before, though we’ll talk soon, of course.’
‘Wow.’
‘She’s not normally like that.’
‘When is your birthday?’
‘What?’
‘She said “happy birthday”. When’s your birthday?’
‘Oh, in a few weeks…’ In the distance Charlotte could see the brother, Benedict, scooping Rose, who had won the fancy-dress race, on to his shoulders. Along with most of the crowd now, they were walking back to the street. The blonde girl was walking alongside, gesticulating with her free hand as she talked into a pink phone.
‘My mother… Something’s happened – she’s gone all cheerful. It’s odd.’
‘Nice, I should think… and maybe connected to – to what you told me that time by the church.’
‘Oh, God, that time, yes… Something of a low spot.’ Charlotte blushed. ‘Sorry you got caught up in it. Look…’ Sam had disappeared with the Curtis clan, but she was acutely aware of Dominic’s faithful little trio waiting in the street. In fact, they were the only people in the entire playing-field now except for a disgruntled-looking young assistant picking up abandoned water-bottles and items of clothing. ‘Look,’ she repeated, fed up suddenly with the pussy-footing, her own silly fantasies and the rush of embarrassment at having him stand so close. ‘For the record, not that it matters, there’s nothing going on between me and Henry Curtis – or anyone else for that matter – only a bit of a misunderstanding because he felt sorry for me, I think, which is perhaps not surprising since I seem, until very recently, to have been in a pretty pitiable state – and – and – Oh, yes.’ Her voice hardened. ‘If your real intention was to fire me the moment you sign that lease then you could at least have had the decency to offer a little warning.’
Dominic, colouring, folded his arms and began to drum the fingers of one hand on the wrist of the other. Well, obviously, I –’
‘You might like to know that I haven’t ruled out putting in a late bid for the bookshop myself. I’ve come into some money.’ Charlotte gripped her hands into fists, enjoying the sight of his astonishment, the feeling of having him on the back foot for once. ‘I might make Jason a better offer.’
‘But you’ve got Sam to think of – you couldn’t manage it.’
‘We’ll see, shall we?’ she replied, managing an archness quite at odds with her pounding heart as she turned and strode back towards her bicycle.
It was only as she swung her leg over the saddle that Charlotte remembered Dominic had approached with the appearance of having something specific to say. She peered over the fence but the street was empty, apart from the young assistant, traipsing away with his bundle of lost property. She set off, pedalling slowly, sheepishly. She wouldn’t do it, of course, the bookshop thing, she’d be sensible and put the money into a saver account instead, something with a high interest rate that couldn’t be touched for years. But the rush of power had been fun, she reflected, laughing when she recalled the look on Dominic’s face, as if she’d thrown a glass of cold water at him instead of a wild idea.
Chapter Nineteen
‘What is a requiem anyway?’
‘It’s a piece of music for when someone has died –’
‘Oh, very nice.’ Sam folded his arms and stared gloomily at the set of temporary traffic-lights impeding their progress over Wandsworth Bridge.
‘Mozart is very nice, yes. He wrote it when he was dying –’
‘Blimey.’ Sam slithered deeper into his seat, burying his face in his hands.
Charlotte laughed. ‘I think you’ll be surprised by how much you like it. I’m not, as you might know, a classical-music buff myself, but Mozart, I assure you, can be relied upon for a decent tune. And it’s for a good cause.’
‘Cancer, yeah, I know,’ Sam put in quickly, keen to avoid the horror of hearing the word ‘breast’ out loud.
‘Hey, the Beetle’s going well, isn’t it?’
‘I thought we were going to get a new car.’
‘We are. Soon. But I’m glad Mr Jarvis was able to do whatever it was he did. I like this car – it’s a friend. We’ve been through some times together.’
‘Yeah, like all the bad times of not starting,’ Sam sneered, not getting it.
‘That shirt looks nice,’ Charlotte offered next, wondering if the light was ever going to change. ‘Especially with those jeans,’ she added slyly, observing from the corner of her eye that Sam was trying hard not to look pleased.
‘Yep.’ Sam gave in and grinned, holding out his arms to admire the shirt, which was long-sleeved, collared and striped blue and white. His mother had plucked it off a shop rail the previous weekend, and he had been astonished to find that it actually suited him. The same shopping expedition had seen the acquisition of the jeans, weathered, low-slung, baggy, which – with even more astonishment – he had found himself encouraged to wear that evening. Sam had gawped at himself in the mirror, unable to believe how good a set of clothes could look, how good it could make him feel. And because of his granny’s cheque he was going to have an allowance, his mother had announced that evening, not poxy pocket money but an allowance – thirty pounds a month – for anything not to do with school, except his phone, which his dad was paying for so long as he kept each bill under twenty-five pounds.
Charlotte, sensing the contentment radiating from her no longer small companion, not caring that it was (and would be for a while yet, probably) often withheld from her, returned her attention happily to the road. In the creamy evening sunlight the river water looked blue for once, instead of brown. A small flock of birds was zigzagging across it, swooping and climbing, their shape shifting yet always miraculously – mathematically – precise. She gripped the steering-wheel as a surge of faith in the ordered beauty of the world swept through her. Just a few months ago life had appeared so fiendishly random, so beyond comprehension and control. The same water had shimmered like a malevolent blackness, capable of swallowing her son – her own happiness – whole.
But it wasn’t the physical world that had changed, Charlotte realized, accelerating over the bridge as the lights changed at last, so much as human perceptions of it. Similarly, the energy – the optimism – with which she now got out of bed each morning was not because of any metamorphosis in the unedifying facts of her existence but simply because of her improved understanding of how they had come about.
There was a parking space almost outside the church, not easy, but just big enough. Charlotte manoeuvred into it, feeling again the benign order of the world. And she had been a bad wife. Yes, there was that, too. She yanked on the handbrake with a gasp as this new, still discomforting truth surfaced for attention – no more palatable for her having attempted to apologize for it. Obsessively loving, then neglectful, self-pitying, complaining, dining out on her misery as if it was the only thing capable of defining her. There had been reasons, of course, there were always reasons, but no wonder Martin had formed close relationships with other women, sex or no sex.
In spite of such broad-minded self-analysis, the sight of Cindy stepping on to the conductor’s podium to deliver a speech of welcome – a stunning S shape in hugging black silk – caught Charlotte off guard. She looked ex
traordinary, not just for being undeniably beautiful – her blue eyes shining with emotion, her hair gold under the lights, her voice low and strong – but because pregnant, sincere, moved but articulate, with the orchestra and the choir, similarly attired in black, ranged behind her, she exuded a raw pulling power that had everyone shifting to the edge of their seats. Charlotte, equally spellbound, allowed herself a moment of quiet acknowledgement that Martin, in pursuit of a second soul-mate, had chosen well.
‘It means so much to me and my sister, Lu…’ necks craned and heads turned as Lu, slighter than Charlotte remembered and wearing a subdued outfit of mushroom brown, was pointed out in the front row ‘… that so many of you have come, so many friends and friends of friends…’
It was the church rather than the occasion itself that was getting to her, Charlotte decided, raising her eyes to the vaulted marble ceiling in a bid to clear the tears that had gathered by the time Cindy had retreated to her place among her fellow choristers, and the gentle, haunting opening bars of the Kyrie had begun. A vessel for the seminal events of human life – memorial fund-raisers, funerals, requiems, weddings, baptisms, confirmations – a church was bound to stir emotion. Especially one of such beauty, Charlotte reasoned, trying to focus on practical matters like stonemasons and architectural styles as her gaze moved from the clusters of angels and cherubs topping each pillar to the trumpeter’s balcony housing the organ loft. Instead the music, washing through her, over her, each note floating upwards in whispered echoes, seemed determined to summon every recourse for joy and sadness that she had ever known: marrying Martin, burying her father (who was not her father), christening Sam – he had screamed, Charlotte remembered suddenly, then quietened at the touch of the priest’s wet fingertip, out-staring the man with amazed blue-black eyes.
Life Begins Page 35
