Mothers and Daughters

by Howard, Minna

  Freya shrugged, ‘Perhaps he chases after other women to punish me.’

  Alice laid her hand on Freya’s arm, her eyes wide with horror, ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ she said, thinking that he probably would.

  ‘It’s complicated.’ Freya began. ‘He… didn’t make it in the art world and I have… though he’s great with gardens. He needs an awful lot of attention.’ She sighed, ‘It’s the old story, crap parents, put themselves first, kept abandoning him. There was something sort of lost about him when I met him at Art school, and I imagined, foolishly,’ she smiled sadly, ‘that I could save him, love him enough, but in truth no one can replace the love a mother is supposed to give her children. One of the reasons,’ Freya glanced at Lexie who, seemingly oblivious to their discussion, was quietly bossing about her toys, ‘I’m determined our children will have as a secure upbringing as possible.’

  ‘But don’t they know. I mean, don’t they hear the gossip?’ Alice asked, knowing there were older children in the family but not sure of their ages.

  ‘Yes, but as long as we are together at home, which we are, it doesn’t seem to affect them, not yet anyway,’ Freya said.

  There was a moment’s silence between them, both waiting for the other to speak. Alice felt enormous sympathy for Freya, a good woman in love with a hopeless man, struggling to keep her career and home life on track while Nick sabotaged it, playing the little boy who couldn’t help himself, causing mayhem. And now her daughter was caught up in it, bringing yet another child into his dysfunctional world.

  Seeing her expression, Freya said, ‘He won’t leave me, you know, even though he professes to love these women at the time, it never lasts. He won’t leave me and the children.’

  ‘No, I don’t expect he will,’ Alice said quickly, not wanting Freya to think she hoped for that, she didn’t. Who’d want their daughter to set up home with a man who so obviously didn’t agree in remaining, or even trying to remain, faithful to his wife and children?

  ‘And now, after all these years of hard graft, I’ve got this commission from the V and A and I won’t give that up. I accept I’ll have to make some sacrifices – mostly putting up with Nick’s love life, but I’ve told him no more children. The women can look after themselves, but these children can’t.’ Freya regarded Alice intently. ‘I’m so sorry Julian is gone and you’re on your own, Alice, but I’m sure you’ll look after Evie and the child, so that might be one less mucked-up kid in the world. Nick will visit it, pay something towards it, but he won’t see it enough to be a proper father. I’m afraid Evie will have to find a father figure elsewhere.’

  ‘I understand,’ Alice said, having sussed that out for herself already. She didn’t want Nick in Evie’s life, but what about the child? Surely it had a right to know its father, even if he was a dysfunctional Casanova.

  16

  Despite Evie’s frantic text messages – her mood becoming ever more the tragic heroine – Nick did not come to the cottage to say goodbye to her. Alice said little, her heart aching for Evie’s distress but burning with anger too at Nick’s treachery with her daughter and his own family.

  She had not yet told Evie about her meeting with Freya the day before and that she’d been left in no doubt at all over Nick’s idea of commitment for Evie and his coming child. He’d sown his oats and was not going to hang about to nurture his offspring, though, she supposed, he would appear from time to time with presents and a brief onslaught of love, namely because he was proud of his virility and the beautiful babies he fathered.

  But even if he wanted to do more he’d have to choose between Evie and Freya, and there was no doubt that he’d choose to stay with Freya and their children, Freya was convinced of it anyway and that’s how it had been with his other affairs, and though she was furious with his cavalier attitude to her daughter, Alice accepted that staying with Freya and their children, was the right thing to do.

  ‘Let the dust settle, darling,’ Alice said. ‘We must set off or we’ll never get home. You must think of your own health and the baby’s, and it’s probably it’s a good thing to have a rest from all this. Have you got all your paints and stuff for your illustrations?’

  ‘Once I’ve gone he’ll forget me,’ Evie said dramatically as she checked the old vanity case she’d snitched from her grandmother where she kept all her painting equipment.

  ‘No one could ever forget you, darling,’ Alice said gently, ‘it’s just that he had no right to seduce you when he has a wife and family already.’

  ‘We fell in love, and I still love him,’ Evie retorted as though that explained everything, and perhaps it did, for love broke all rules and, more often than not, brought suffering with it.

  Evie slept most of the way back to London and Alice, glancing at her from time to time, her face so childlike in repose, was suffused with love and fear. What would really happen once the baby was born? It wouldn’t stay a baby for long, decisions over school and home and childcare would have to be made and, like it or not, Evie would have to give up a lot of her freedom to raise it. Alice must now, before it was born, make it quite clear that though she’d help out, she would not take over.

  Laura turned up at the house that evening, almost as if she was staking her claim to being part of the household too, and Alice was glad of it. Perhaps Evie could unload some of her feelings of injustice onto Laura, confide things to her that she felt her mother would not understand. Perhaps Laura could make her see sense, give up Nick and somehow get on with her own life and meet someone better who’d take on the child too.

  But watching the two sisters together Alice became even more convinced that Laura thought herself in love with Nick as well, and although shocked at her sister’s predicament, part of her was envious. Evie saw Laura as the lucky one, getting married, though she wouldn’t want someone she thought as worthy as Douglas for her husband.

  ‘You should have known Nick never commits,’ Laura said as they sat over supper. ‘I don’t suppose he loves anyone but himself.’

  ‘That’s not true, you don’t know anything about it, about him,’ Evie retorted and Alice saw the quick dart of pain in Laura’s eyes, the tightening of her mouth.

  ‘Let’s forget him for this evening and talk about Frank instead,’ Alice said firmly. ‘He’ll be here in two days then he’s taking us all out to dinner. It will be fun to see him again; it’s been so long. Do either of you remember him?’

  ‘No I don’t,’ Evie said. ‘Have you got some photos of him, Mum?’

  ‘I suppose I have, I never thought of that.’ Alice got up from the table and went into what she still thought of as Julian’s study. It was a small, cosy room snitched off another larger one, with lots of book-laden shelves and cupboards.

  Alice saw that Evie had taken the room over with her art things. She’d cleared the desk by the window and laid out the illustration she was working on and the paints and pencils around it. It would please Julian to know that his daughter was creating her beautiful drawings here, but guiltily she worried that it was a sign that Evie was moving back in.

  Julian enjoyed taking photographs and had made up yearly albums. She took a couple of relevant albums out of the cupboard; these were taken before most people stored their photographs on a computer and she preferred them this old way, in a book, browsing happily through them.

  She hadn’t seen the pictures for years. After Julian’s death they’d been too painful to look at, but now the three of them, her in the middle and a daughter each side, sat close together on the sofa looking through the book.

  ‘But you’re so young, and look at your figure, Mum, in that bikini, so thin,’ Evie exclaimed. ‘And Dad, so fab looking,’ she added wistfully.

  Alice made herself look at them. There was a bright-faced Margot in skimpy shorts showing off her long legs, and Petra with Hugh, whom she’d married and later divorced, and Julian, the most attractive, gorgeous man in the group, his arm round her, and how happy she looked, dazzling because sh
e was in love for the first, the only time in her life and, she remembered, with a stab of loss, they had just started sleeping together.

  ‘Is that Frank?’ Laura asked, pointing to a dark-haired young man who was laughing at something Petra had said, or anyway looking her way.

  ‘Yes.’ Alice studied him; he was in some of the other photographs too. He was tanned, his face expressive with full lips creased in a smile, his thick dark hair, worn slightly long, his large eyes dark too, ‘like liquid chocolate’ someone had teased him and he’d retaliated saying one of his ancestors was Italian, possibly a pirate, he’d added mischievously.

  She remembered him now, as he was then, a man of adventure, completely the opposite of Julian who was more cautious, but then Julian was older.

  What was Frank like now? They’d soon find out, he’d be here in a matter of days and she hoped she’d be able to prise him away from her girl friends long enough to discuss the wedding arrangements with him, although they were still almost three months away from it, and Douglas and Laura seemed to have it under control.

  Alice left the plan of meeting up with Frank to Laura; they were now texting or emailing each other frequently. She wasn’t going to ask what they discussed; if he wanted to talk to Alice he easily could and she felt a little miffed that he had not.

  All she knew was that Frank would be taking the three of them out to dinner on Saturday night. She did not sleep well the night before the outing; somehow Frank coming and making concrete arrangements for the wedding confirmed that it was going ahead, that he was taking Julian’s place because he was not here, would never be here again.

  Her life had been devastated by Julian’s death and in the matter of a few months it would be changed again by one daughter becoming a mother and the other a married woman and stepmother, and her a granny, not, as Evie teased her, so much a glammy one as a reluctant one.

  She spent much of Saturday outside pruning her shrubs. There seemed to have been a growth spurt in the small garden and the plants were struggling for space with each other. Evie asked to be left undisturbed while she worked in Julian’s study on her illustrations and Laura sorted through her clothes, discarding the ones she no longer wanted to wear.

  When life got complicated Alice liked to prune the plants. It soothed her mind, cutting off branches, perhaps cutting off problems. The escallonia had got too big again and she began to cut it back, climbing up into the thick branches, stretching to pull them down with their shiny green leaves and few remaining white flowers. She lost track of time, enjoying the task, the smell of the sap and the leaves, the easy way her secateurs cut through the wood and a better shape to the shrub began to emerge.

  ‘Mum there you are, I thought you’d gone out, or were sleeping,’ Laura called her from the kitchen step. ‘What are you doing massacring that tree? You look such a mess and Frank is here. He rang and I told him to come straight over.’

  ‘Frank?’ Oh, no, not already, it couldn’t be dinnertime yet. She tried to see him through the branches, feeling hot and bothered, her hair was all over the place and scattered with leaves, and her face was surely dirty. She felt as ungainly as an elephant as she began her descent. He was supposed to be coming over this evening when she’d showered and brushed up and put on something pretty.

  ‘Alice.’ His voice was deep and warm. He came out into the garden. ‘Just like you to be up a tree.’ She heard the laughter in his voice, and it echoed with something far away in her distant memory. He came over and stood under the shrub.

  ‘I didn’t expect you so soon,’ Alice said lamely, struggling to get down. She bent, scrabbling at the trunk, trying to find a place to put her foot.

  ‘Let me help you.’ She felt his hand on her back, guiding her down, she slipped and fell the last bit but he caught her and for a second she lay against him and the feel of him and his masculine scent reminded her so painfully of Julian she almost wept. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be in a man’s arms and reluctantly, and rather embarrassed, she moved away from him.

  ‘Frank, how good to see you. Sorry I’m such a mess, I had a sudden urge to tame this tree.’ There was a slight look of defiance on her face, knowing how hideous and grubby she must look.

  ‘I’d say you’ve overdone it, one side’s thicker than the other,’ he smiled at her, his eyes appraising her. He was older now, of course, his dark hair feathered with grey, his face lined, but somehow that gave it a nobility; he’d certainly give George Clooney a run for his money.

  ‘You have made a mess of it, Mum,’ Laura scolded her. ‘Well, Frank it’s good you’re here, she’s been test-driving sports car and told my stepson she’s going to go paragliding and he won’t stop talking about it, wanting to go with her. Now you’re here I hope you’ll be a calming influence.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Frank said and the look he gave Alice made her heart flip, or more likely it was just protesting at her climbing trees.

  Alice pulled herself together, ‘Let’s have a drink out here, what would you like Frank, it’s lovely and sunny so we can sit outside and catch up on everything. Laura will see to it while I go and spruce myself up. I’m longing to hear what you’ve been up to all these years.’

  ‘You look fine as you are,’ Frank said. ‘Let’s drink the champagne I’ve brought with me to celebrate us being together again. I’ve been cooped up travelling most of the day and I’d like to sit outside.’

  Alice and Frank sat on a bench in the corner of the garden; Evie sat on a chair and Laura on a cushion on the ground. It was Laura who asked the question Alice longed to know but wondered how to put.

  ‘Are you married, Frank, and have children?

  ‘Yes to both questions,’ Frank said and Alice was engulfed in a wave of loneliness. She was getting used to it now, the feeling hit sometimes when she was with couples, reminding her she was now on her own.

  17

  Laura blossomed as she talked to Frank, her face glowing, her eyes shining, her hands swooping like graceful birds while she spun him stories of her life. Alice had not seen her so animated since her father’s death. It was as if she’d been starved of the attention only a father could give her and she needed to offload all her achievements and fears, craving his approval and support. Did she shine like this when she was alone with Douglas? She had a feeling she did not. Frank seemed to bring light and life to them, while Douglas, kind though he seemed, held his emotions in check as if they were wrapped tightly in cling film, and he was afraid to unleash them.

  Now and again Alice wondered if she should butt in and tactfully curb Laura’s deluge. She kept expecting Evie, who hated to be in her sister’s shadow, to interrupt, but she did not; she looked tired, drained of her usual bright energy, though she watched Frank with fascination.

  Alice caught Frank’s eye and, as if he read her intention to curb Laura’s verbal outpouring, he responded with a tiny shake of his head, so she sat beside him, still and quiet, studying him surreptitiously.

  He was toned as if he played a lot of sport, his skin lightly tanned. He wore well-cut grey trousers and a mid-blue shirt open at the neck, and a navy jacket, surely Italian chic. He sat slightly sideways on the bench, one arm was elegantly draped over the back of it, the other held a glass of the champagne he had brought – ready chilled – to toast their meeting after so long. On his ring finger glinted a wedding ring. Where, and indeed who was his wife?

  ‘So,’ Laura finished at last, ‘I’m marrying Douglas but I find his family, or anyway his mother, Elspeth, such a pain. How can I cope with that?’

  ‘In-laws can be a curse to a happy marriage.’ Frank turned to Alice, ‘Remember Sybil?’

  Alice grimaced, ‘I’ll never forget her.’ Julian’s mother was highly organized, too organized. She remembered Cecily’s description of how it annoyed her and how she’d crept downstairs at night to mess up her immaculately kept doll’s house. Sybil was always bossing Alice to do far more than stay at home, ‘playing’, as she termed it, with
her interior decorating business, and looking after her family. She had died soon after Evie was born so neither girl had known her.

  ‘His mother was a frustrated director of a huge company if ever I saw one,’ Frank said. ‘She could have run anything, the treasury or even the country. She was on every sort of committee, studied another language while she cooked the supper, and ran her family like a boot camp.’ He laughed, turning to Alice, his eyes tender. ‘One of the things that fascinated Julian about you was your untidiness. He found it a breath of fresh air after Sybil.’

  ‘Mum, you’re always on at us to tidy up,’ Evie complained.

  Alice ignored Evie’s comment mortified by Frank’s remark about Julian being drawn to her by her untidiness. ‘Oh, Frank. Did it really? That’s hardly very romantic,’ Alice said. Early on in the marriage she remembered Julian asking her quietly if a pile of clean laundry perching on the back of a chair waiting to be put away was to be a permanent fixture of the living room as it had been there some time. Her own mother had always been too busy doing other more amusing things to worry about keeping the house in pristine order.

  ‘But why didn’t she get a high-powered job if she was so good at running things?’ Laura asked.

  Frank shrugged, ‘I think she tried, but it was harder in those days for women to get decent jobs in the more male-orientated companies, and she was quite difficult, being much cleverer than most of the men and she showed it too. A story went round that she was in the office of some chairman of a huge company and she ridiculed the firm’s figures, pointed out mistakes and told him in no uncertain terms how he could improve the efficiency of the company.’

  ‘Sounds just like her,’ Alice said. ‘And she was probably right too.’

  ‘Poor Julian,’ Frank looked thoughtful. ‘I wish I’d seen him more often these last years. We kept in touch though; through emails and phone calls, and then he got so ill and died quite suddenly it seemed. I… well, I was going through a bit of a tough time myself and I was working in India and I couldn’t get back for the funeral and I’m really sorry about that, Alice.’ He faced her, his eyes touched with pain. He put his hand on her shoulder a moment. ‘He was always afraid he’d die young like his father did, though he had regular check-ups, didn’t he?’