No, I thought. I don’t think we could come for supper. I don’t think Eilish and Luke exist as an entity any longer.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again. This time it was Kate’s voice. Listening to my daughter was far, far worse.
‘Anyone there? Mum . . . Mum? Can you pick up the phone, please? Okay, you’re obviously out gallivanting . . . I was wondering if you’d heard from Dad. I thought we could take the same train but he’s switched his phone off or something. I can’t get hold of him.’ A sigh. ‘Okay. Well, can you call me if you get this?’
I stood up, intending to look for Eilish. We’d taken care of each other through every crisis in our lives. This was another one. I’d reached the stairs when she appeared on the gallery above me. She was wearing a bright, summery dress. I knew it well. In fact—and I’m not proud of this—I’d tried it on several times, but it didn’t do anything for me. It looked much better on her. Not today, though. By contrast with its vivid flowers her face was pallid, the freckles standing out unnaturally. Her mouth seemed weighted down at the corners. Her hair wasn’t brushed, and it frizzed around her head.
‘No,’ she said, stopping me with a raised hand. ‘Don’t come up.’
‘Eilish, I—’
‘And don’t say any more—not to me, not to anyone. I don’t want to hear a word of this . . . this absurdity. There’s a lot to do. Kate’s arriving sometime today, and tomorrow your mother and Simon and Carmela and Nico and Wendy, and they’re all going to be—’ She broke off.
The tree-planting. Of course. ‘I’d forgotten,’ I said.
‘Had you?’ She began to walk down the stairs. Her steps seemed steady, but I saw how she gripped the rails on both sides.
‘I think you should talk to someone,’ I said. ‘What about Stella? She’s off to Cornwall—just left a message about the cat—but she won’t have gone yet. She’ll come round. I don’t mind if you tell her.’
‘No.’
She stepped around me, careful to avoid any accidental contact. She was in survival mode. I’d seen it before, when we lost Charlotte. In those first terrible hours we sat in the bedroom, holding our baby—now dressed in the stripey suit we’d so happily bought for her—weeping until we had no more tears. It felt as though Eilish and I were one person: one grieving, shattered person. Then Charlotte was taken away for an autopsy, and Eilish insisted on getting out of bed and putting on her clothes. She said she had a funeral to arrange and it was bloody well going to be a good one. She faced the world, though the world did not expect her to.
On the day of the funeral I looked like a scarecrow. My eyes were bloodshot, my suit crumpled. I’d cut myself shaving. But Eilish was beautifully turned out in navy linen, her hair in an immaculate French pleat, her face closed and rigid. She never noticed, and nobody mentioned, that her shoes weren’t a pair. One was a blue court shoe, the other a sandal. I admired her even more, because those mismatched shoes were a window onto her courage.
She had that same closed look now, as she opened the chest freezer and began hauling things out of it.
‘This can’t just be ignored,’ I said. ‘You must have a thousand questions, and we have decisions to make. Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything to make this easier for you. I’ll leave immediately, if you want.’
‘Sleep in the study tonight, will you? Tell the children you have a cold.’ She was piling the contents of the freezer onto the bench top; piling things up, higher and higher and higher in a tottering pile, without even looking at them.
‘Please stop!’ I implored her. ‘Let’s cancel the family. It’s only planting a tree for Dad. We can tell them we’ve gone down with flu.’
‘Please don’t mention this thing again.’
I was baffled. ‘What, never?’
‘Not until after tomorrow.’
‘But it’s going to be impossible—’
‘No, Luke!’ She slammed the freezer lid. ‘No. I’m asking you to let me keep my dignity for another forty-eight hours. My dignity. For pity’s sake, is that so much to ask?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Anything.’
I watched as she took a kitchen knife and slit the wrapping off a frozen leg of lamb. Her movements were quick and jerky.
‘I think you’re deluded,’ she said savagely. ‘Perhaps by tomorrow you’ll have found your sanity again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go and get Kate’s room ready.’
‘Can I help?’
She shook her head and disappeared upstairs. I wandered into the study. It was tidy; unnaturally tidy, because I hadn’t intended to return to it. There were no sticky notes on the filing cabinet, no chaotic piles on my desk. In the top drawer lay a sheet of paper with notes for my executors. There was also a list of everything Eilish might need to know: my online passwords, the location of the stopcock in the flat, the addresses of everyone I wanted to be informed. I wasn’t supposed to be here.
I stood with no purpose, in a future I hadn’t expected to see. I was an impostor in my own life. Through the window I could see Gareth trudging, his head bent under the rain, as he moved cattle out of the sloping field. He’d be calling to his animals, and they would follow him through the gate in the thick hedgerow because they trusted him; which was ironic, really, as some of them were going to end up in our freezer. Lucky Gareth. He had a perpetually happy girlfriend, and his own small son ran around the farm with him at weekends and on holidays. Rain ruined his haymaking some years, and his tractor was always breaking down, but Gareth knew who he was. He fitted his boots and overalls. Always had, always would.
The phone on my desk rang. I picked it up without thinking.
‘Dad!’
The sound of Kate’s voice made my breath catch. I was glad to be here, talking to her, after all. I was glad she hadn’t just lost her father.
‘Hello there,’ I said. ‘Welcome back to Blighty.’
‘Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’m after a Dad-hug.’
I smiled. She used to get Dad-hugs when she was tiny and skinned her knee, when her schoolfriends were bitchy, or when she woke in the night and screamed at the sight of a face at her window. The first few times this had happened, I crept outside with a cricket bat in one hand and the other clutching my pyjama bottoms. Finally we worked out that the culprit was the full moon.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
‘Owen turned out to be a complete knob. He had a one-night shagathon with a slapper called Gwen, just before I went to Israel. And then—check this, Dad—he claimed it was all my fault because I made him feel insecure!’
‘No! What a . . . um, complete knob.’
‘Exactly. So I cut a few pieces out of his favourite shirt. You know, the mushy-pea-coloured one. Fake satin.’
‘You did what?’
‘Dolly shapes, all holding hands. So that when he put it on he’d have dancing ladies across his chest. Very arty, very tasteful. I never liked that shirt.’
I was astonished to feel an explosion of laughter in my chest. My marriage was over, and maybe my life too . . . yet somehow I could still appreciate the image of Owen with dolly shapes across his irritating shiny front. Funny thing, human resilience.
‘You vandal,’ I said.
‘I thought that was pretty mild, in the circumstances.’
‘I suppose you could have mutilated things that would have caused him more pain.’
‘Exactly!’ Her laugh was wicked. ‘Then I went on the dig, and I thought we’d make it up—because for God’s sake, Dad, we’ve been together two years—and guess what he’s done? Cleared out my bank account! Reckons he’s owed for rent and vet’s bills and damage to his frigging shirt.’
‘The man’s a cad. D’you want me to call him out?’
‘My champion! Yes, please, call him out and run him through. Or you could just collect me from the station at half-past one.’
The house seemed to echo after she’d rung off. No sounds at all. Suddenly anxious, I climbed the sta
irs and looked into Kate’s room. The bed was made, the pillows plumped, bath towels folded at one end. Books and ornaments on the shelves had been straightened. It took me a moment to spot Eilish, sitting in the rocking chair by the window. Her eyes were shut, and she was hugging Kate’s polar bear—Mr Polington—in both arms. As I hesitated, a gasping sob burst out of her, quickly smothered when she pressed her face into the bear’s soft flank.
I crept away. I had shattered that brave woman’s life. The least I could do was let her grieve unwatched.
‘Okay!’ Kate threw her backpack into the boot and stowed herself noisily in the passenger seat. ‘What’s happening at the old homestead?’
The end of the world was happening.
I searched for a reply as we drew away from the station. ‘What’s happening? Well, we’re planting Grandad’s tree tomorrow.’
‘Mm, I know.’ She sounded gloomy. ‘Simon and the clothes horse will be putting in an appearance, I suppose?’
‘What’s wrong with Carmela? I rather like her.’
‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you, because you’re a man and she has a massive bust and a sexy Spanish accent that she exploits shamelessly. She hams it up, you know. Men can’t see past those things. She doesn’t patronise you. She doesn’t bombard you with advice on how to live your life.’
She yawned, stretching out her legs and complaining of a hangover. Kate is blessed with Eilish’s colouring—auburn hair, pale and given to freckles—and is as skinny as a rake. On this particular day she was wearing black lace-up boots, black tights and a black tunic over—I glanced sideways—a charcoal T-shirt, and had on heavy earrings of impressive ugliness. The garnet in the side of her nose was the only colourful glint. Her hair was cut short but asymmetrically, longer on one side than the other. It was as though my glorious daughter—who has regular features, blue eyes and a knockout smile—was trying to erase all the advantages nature has given her.
‘D’you miss Grandad Livingstone?’ she asked.
I thought about my father. ‘He’s been gone for a year,’ I said. ‘And he didn’t have much of a life for a long time before that. But, yes, I miss him. He was a good father. I didn’t deserve him.’
‘I’m sure you did.’
We’d turned into the network of lanes that crisscross our part of Oxfordshire. Our road curved around the foot of Yalton Hill, muddy and narrow between lush hedgerows. The rain had stopped. As I wound down my window, the countryside rushed in—opulent and humid, heavy with after-rain smells of earth and wet vegetation. I’d taken my father for a drive out that way exactly a year earlier, the day before he died. We’d stopped in the Yalton Hill car park and eaten cheese sandwiches with Branston pickle, and talked. We both seemed to know it was our last talk. I wanted him to know that I loved him. He wanted me to know that he was proud of me.
I lied, right up until the end. I let him be proud of me. It was my last gift to him.
‘Dad climbed a tree once,’ I said now. ‘To rescue me. It was the day of my fifth birthday party. I’d climbed up there, and I wouldn’t come down. He was afraid of heights but he got a ladder and he climbed right to the top of the tallest tree in our garden. That must have taken every bit of courage he had. I wish I’d said thanks.’
Kate reached out and took my hand. I squeezed her fingers as I drove. When you know, I thought in panic, I’m going to lose you too.
‘You said thanks in practical ways,’ she replied. ‘You did all that work on their house when he got ill. You put in the ramp. You took care of them.’
‘I was only able to do that because Dad taught me everything I know about joinery. He also taught me how to play cricket, how to shoot, how to plough in a straight line . . . above all, he showed me what it means to be a decent human being, even if I wasn’t able to be one myself.’
‘You are a decent human being! You’re the best!’
‘No.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her head turn to look at me. Of course she’d be surprised: I rarely revealed myself in any kind of depth. If people pressed me I always made some light remark before turning the conversation back to them. I knew this made me seem guarded, but it was a self-preservation thing. My secret was immense, and I’d been hiding it for half a century. I couldn’t take risks.
‘I’m sorry about you and Owen,’ I said.
She folded her arms. ‘God, he’s such a jerk.’
‘What exactly happened?’
She told me the long, sad tale, peppered with indignation and obscenities. I tried to listen properly, but Eilish’s misery kept crowding into my mind and blotting out everything else. I tuned in from time to time. I heard about the savage, unforgivable things Owen and Kate had said to one another, and more about how she’d wreaked vengeance on his shirt.
‘He made me promise not to tell anyone, but I’m going to anyway,’ she said. ‘He’s got a tattoo of a sailing ship on his arse.’
‘Stop right there! That’s way too much information!’
She giggled. ‘Mum wouldn’t be shocked. Granny certainly wouldn’t be shocked.’
‘Well, I am!’ I spluttered. I wasn’t at all. In fact, I was amused; but I knew what role I was expected to play. I was the straight man in our family.
‘I lived with the guy,’ said Kate. ‘It can’t be news to you that I’ve seen his butt.’
‘There are some things a father would much rather not think about.’
She rumpled my hair. I could see in the mirror that she’d left a tuft sticking up.
‘I do love you, Dad.’
My briefcase was lying on the back seat, immediately behind where she was sitting. My mind flicked unhappily through its contents: dictaphone, laptop, files, periodicals. The farewell notes I’d written and not yet destroyed, just in case they might still come in handy. Gold fountain pen. Flash drive. A couple of squash balls. The Christmas-tree angel Nico made out of toilet rolls and tinsel at nursery school and gave to me as a very special gift.
It wasn’t those things that made me burn with shame.
There was a small zip at one end of the lining. You wouldn’t even know it was there unless you looked very carefully. Anyone discovering this secret pocket might be puzzled when they saw what was inside: blusher, mascara and a plum-coloured lipstick.
Seven
Eilish
My mother-in-law arrived on cue the following morning. I hurried to meet her, just as she climbed out of her new car. It looked like a giant ladybird.
‘Hybrid,’ she announced, in her smoke-roughened voice. ‘Top notch for fuel economy.’
‘Marvellous! Welcome, Meg. And you’ve brought this heavenly weather with you!’
I was struggling to keep up appearances. All through that terrible night, my brain had been spinning Luke’s secret around and around. It chanted that he’d never loved me; it whispered that I’d known all along, and had been complicit in my own deception. My eyes felt as though they’d been scrubbed with sand. From time to time the tears would rush into them, but I’d managed to control myself so far, and intended to keep it that way. I still hoped this thing would disappear, if I ignored it. Like a pimple. Or a headache.
Meg glanced towards the house. ‘Luke not at home?’
Even hearing his name brought on a wave of panic. ‘He’s gone to collect Wendy from the station. Come on in . . . That must be Robert’s tree on your passenger seat? Let’s get the poor hot thing into the shade and give it a drink.’
The sapling was about a metre high, its roots wrapped in a sack. I lifted it out and led the way inside, nipping into the cloakroom to stand the tree in a bucket of water.
‘We’ll leave it there for now,’ I said, emerging.
Meg had sat down on the antique settle in the lobby. I joined her, laying my hands on the cool wood of its seat. I like Meg. We don’t have a lot in common, but we respect one another. She’s never indulged in the one-upmanship her role traditionally involves.
‘Funny,’ I said. ‘See
ms like only a week ago pairs of tiny red wellies lived under this settle.’
She was squinting at me. ‘Look at you! Pale and pasty, and downright wobbly. What’s up?’
‘I’m absolutely fine. Just got a bit of a cold.’
Her lips pursed. ‘Hmm. Change of life?’
‘Possibly.’ I tried to smile, and almost cried. ‘Quite possibly.’
Bless her, she patted my arm. ‘If you’ll take my advice, love, you’ll accept every hormone they offer you. And eat lots of soya. Japanese women don’t suffer like we do.’
Meg had just celebrated her eightieth birthday, but you’d never know it. You’d never guess she’d been widowed a year before, either. She was wearing cream trousers, a fuchsia shirt and lipstick to match. Diamantés shimmered in her ears. Her figure was tidy, her hair a shade of grey that could almost be blonde. She skipped around an eighteen-hole golf course three times a week, rain or shine, pulling her clubs behind her.
‘Now,’ she said, rubbing her hands as she got up and led the way into the kitchen. Lunch was ready, the table laid. ‘What can I do?’
‘Nothing. Kate’s been helping me. Just have a drink.’
I was opening a bottle of wine when Kate’s face appeared over the gallery rail. ‘Granny!’ she yelled, her footsteps clanging on the metal staircase. ‘Thank God!’
‘This is a lovely welcome,’ said Meg, as a human whirlwind shot off the last step and enveloped her. ‘Nearly knocked me down, you hoodlum. Let’s have a look at you—ah, Kate, love! Why all this morbid black? It doesn’t suit you. And take that thing out of your nose, it makes me feel queasy.’
‘And what’s this?’ Kate plucked at her grandmother’s shirt. ‘Shocking pink! On a woman of your age! A dowager should dress more seemly and sober.’
Two days earlier, I would have laughed to see the generations sparring so amiably. But now their pleasure in one another intensified my sense of nightmare. These two women had no idea of the horrible truth; no idea at all. The father of one, the son of the other . . . How would they bear it?
The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone Page 5
