Other People's Children

by Joanna Trollope

‘It’s like talking to someone who can’t hear me,’ Elizabeth said. ‘First Dale, and now this. No, he says, smiling and kind and immovable, no. No baby. We don’t need a baby, we have each other, we have our work, we have Rufus whom we both adore – true – and we don’t need a baby.’ She took a gulp of sherry and then said, more wildly, ‘But I do! I want home and hearth and a baby!’

  Duncan turned the tea glass round in his fingers.

  ‘Do you imagine the present difficulties with Dale—’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk about them,’ Elizabeth said, blowing her nose again. ‘You can’t imagine, you can’t conceive of how demanding she is and how passive he seems to me in response! And I have to behave so beautifully, I have to be so restrained and careful and courteous and tactful, and never expose my true feelings while Dale thrusts hers in your face because she always has, no one’s ever told her not to, she believes she has every right to impose her own needs and desires all over everyone else, and insist upon our sympathy, all the time, about everything, because once upon a time she lost a mother whom I am beginning to detest with an intensity that amazes me.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Duncan said.

  Elizabeth took another gulp of sherry and made a face. ‘It’s such a relief to say it.’

  ‘And the brother?’

  ‘I rang him,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I probably shouldn’t have, but I was at the end of my tether and I had this mad idea of asking him to stand up for me in this business of Dale moving back in. But when it came to it, I couldn’t ask him, I couldn’t say. He—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He sort of implied I’d got to sort it out for myself and of course he’s right.’

  ‘But can you?’ Duncan said. ‘Can you disentangle all this if Tom can’t help you?’

  Elizabeth sighed. She reached out and put the tea glass, still half full of sherry, on the copy of Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary that Duncan used for newspaper crosswords.

  ‘I love him,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I see how hard it is for him, I see how torn he is, I see how he is burdened with this sense of responsibility he’s had ever since Pauline died. I just wonder – if he can see how hard it is for me, too.’

  ‘I expect he can,’ Duncan said. ‘And doesn’t know what to do about it.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘Did you do that? With Mother?’

  He smiled.

  ‘Why do you keep bringing her into it?’

  ‘Because I keep wondering what she’d do in my place, what she’d tell me to do.’

  Duncan watched her. The glow he’d noticed at Christ mas, gilding her like a nimbus, had dimmed a little.

  ‘I said to Tom,’ Elizabeth said, her voice a little hoarse, as if tears were still not very far away, ‘I said, “Can’t you see, we are all lonely in this about-to-be family? There’s a sense in which we’re all excluded from something and another sense in which we’re all powerless to change things. But we’ve got to try, we’ve got to put the past behind us and try.”’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Elizabeth picked up the pink tea glass again.

  ‘He said you can’t alter the past, but because of the past, everything that comes after is altered. Something happens, a deed is done, and the consequences just go rolling on. He made me feel—’ She stopped, bit her lip, and then she said, ‘That I had lived too sheltered a life to know.’

  ‘A little patronizing, perhaps.’

  ‘But true, too. I’ve been a bit like a book on a shelf that no-one’s really wanted to take down and read avidly until now.’

  ‘Elizabeth,’ Duncan said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re in a corner, aren’t you, up a cul-de-sac—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My dear. What are you going to do?’

  She lifted the tea glass and drained all the sherry out of it in two swallows. Then she put the empty glass back on the dictionary.

  ‘I’m going to ask him,’ she said. ‘Ask him to stand up for me.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Huntleys’ farmhouse rose redly out of the red Herefordshire earth as if it had, over the centuries, just slowly emerged from it. It was built on a slope, with carelessly arranged barns here and there beside it, and a stream between it and the lane over which Tim had laid a crude bridge made of old railway sleepers. As Becky crossed the bridge, two sheepdogs tethered with long, clattering lengths of chain just inside the entrance to the nearest barn raced forward, barking and leaping. They couldn’t reach her by yards, but all the same, Becky kept to the far side of the bridge and made at speed for the gate into the little farm garden. She didn’t like dogs.

  The door to the house opened before she reached it. Mrs Huntley, whom she had never met, stood in the doorway and regarded her without smiling.

  ‘We wondered when you’d be coming.’

  Becky swallowed. She put a hand, with its chipped blue-painted nails, up to her hair and pushed it off her face.

  ‘I’ve been looking after Mum.’

  Mrs Huntley surveyed her. She looked at her un-brushed hair and her jeans jacket and her long, grubby skirt and her unpolished boots. She said, as if making a concession, ‘You’d better come in.’ Becky followed her. The kitchen was low and small and shabby and clean. On a plastic-covered table by the window were several egg boxes holding weirdly sprouting seed potatoes, and, to one side of them, sat Tim Huntley, in his stockinged feet, eating something from a steaming plate. He gave Becky the merest glance and indicated the chair opposite him.

  ‘Sit down.’

  Becky sat. She folded her blue nails out of sight and put her fists in her lap. Mrs Huntley poured a cup of tea from a pot on the range and put it on the table within Becky’s reach. Becky didn’t drink tea, hadn’t ever, really, had recently made a point of not drinking it, out of defiance.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ Tim said. ‘What have you got to tell us?’

  Becky looked at her tea. She would have liked something to hold, but she wasn’t sure her hand was steady enough to expose to the Huntleys’ gaze, lifting a cup. She said, ‘I – I don’t know what happened.’

  Mrs Huntley said, ‘What did your mother say?’

  Becky hesitated. Nadine had been unable to tell her exactly but had done a good deal of hinting. She’d been wildly upset, she said, at hearing of Becky’s running away and then outraged at Matthew’s refusal to let her come …

  ‘He didn’t,’ Becky said wearily.

  ‘He did, he did, he forbade me!’

  … and then Tim had brought her a lamb and she thought she could cope and then she heard about Becky and panicked and rang Tim and he came and she was hysterical and then he slapped her and lugged her upstairs to bed and then …

  ‘What?’ Becky said.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Did he try anything? Did he start mucking you about?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nadine said, ‘I can’t remember, I just know he scared me, he was rough, I didn’t know what was going to happen.’

  Becky looked away now from both Tim’s and Mrs Huntley’s gaze.

  ‘She – she’s not very clear.’

  Tim snorted.

  ‘We don’t want any nonsense,’ Mrs Huntley said. ‘We don’t mind looking after her, a bit of food and that, but we don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘I came,’ Becky said, loudly before her courage went, ‘to thank you for that, to thank you for getting the doctor.’

  Tim shrugged.

  ‘She was hysterical.’

  Becky said nothing.

  He put a mouthful in, chewed a while and then said, ‘She was on the floor when I got there and when I tried to get her up, she went for me. So I slapped her. Slapped her to shut her up.’ He took a swallow of tea. ‘Then I took her upstairs. She was screaming all the way.’ He gave Becky a level look. ‘I put her on the bed. Then I went down and rang the doctor.’

  Becky looked at her cup of te
a. It was thick, milky brown. She said, ‘She’s better now.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  Mrs Huntley said, ‘Did she ring you?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘Who brought you? We saw a car, a red car—’

  Becky hesitated.

  ‘My – stepmother.’

  ‘That was good of her,’ Mrs Huntley said.

  Becky nodded. It had been good of her. It had also been deeply disconcerting, not so much the journey itself with the disquieting forced intimacy of being alone in a car together, but more when they got there and Josie had offered to come into the cottage with her.

  ‘No,’ she’d said. ‘No, it’s OK.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’ll come out,’ Becky said. ‘I’ll come out if there’s anything—’

  Josie had looked up at her, out of the car window.

  ‘I’ll wait here.’

  Becky had nodded. She’d put her hand on the cottage’s lopsided, rickety garden gate, and for a moment, had felt she could go no further. She stood there, head bent, looking at her hand on the gate and fighting, with every ounce of strength she possessed, the urge to turn round and say to Josie, ‘Come with me, please come.’ She’d won. It had taken her some time, but she’d won. She’d gone up the path to the cottage’s back door and in through the kitchen and up the stairs, step after step, to find Nadine lying in bed with her eyes closed. It was only then that she’d screamed, it was only then that she’d allowed herself to admit that she’d found what she dreaded to find, Nadine dead in bed because Becky hadn’t got to her quickly enough, because Becky was living somewhere else instead of here in the cottage, because Nadine now knew that somewhere deep in Becky a weary disbelief was beginning to stir about all the things Nadine said had happened, all the things Nadine accused other people of doing and saying, in order to hurt and undermine her.

  After that, it was awful. Nadine opened her eyes and said something but Becky couldn’t stop screaming and her screaming brought Josie running in from the car and at the sight of Josie, Nadine just went ballistic and there was a horrible brawling scuffle that made Becky so sickened, so ashamed that she’d gone from screaming to utter silence in a second. Josie had managed, at last, to free herself, and Becky had followed her, despite Nadine’s demands and pleadings to her not to. They’d stood, shaking, by the car.

  ‘You’d better come back with me,’ Josie said.

  Becky shook her head. She mumbled something.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Look,’ Josie said. She was leaning against the car as if she couldn’t quite stand up without its help. ‘I know any remark I make will sound to you like a criticism of your mother, but will you be safe?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Becky said. She turned her face away. ‘She’s – she’s never done anything like that before.’ She put a hand up and tugged at a strand of hair.

  ‘I can’t leave you here like this, alone with her. I must get a doctor or something.’

  ‘OK,’ Becky said. Her shoulders slumped a little.

  ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow. Maybe Dad could come—’ She stopped.

  ‘I’ll ring,’ Becky said. ‘I’ll ring and tell you.’

  ‘I’ll go and get you some food—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not.’

  ‘She wouldn’t eat it,’ Becky said. ‘Not if—’ She paused and then she said, ‘We’ve got good neighbours.’

  Josie stood upright, slowly.

  ‘But you’ll let me get a doctor?’

  ‘Yes,’ Becky said.

  She’d stood in the road, watching Josie drive away. She drove very slowly as if shock and anxiety made it almost impossible for her to let the car go forward. When she was at last out of sight, round a bend in the lane, Becky turned and went back into the cottage. Nadine was standing by the kitchen table, her hands folded in front of her.

  She said, very clearly, as if she’d been planning it, ‘I’m very sorry.’

  Becky said nothing. She went past Nadine to the sink and leaned over it to open the window.

  ‘About everything,’ Nadine said.

  Becky breathed in the air coming in from outside.

  ‘There’s a doctor coming.’

  ‘I don’t need one,’ Nadine said. ‘I’ve seen the doctor. Tim got her for me. I’ve got anti-depressants and some sleeping pills. I’d taken some of them before you came.’

  ‘Typical—’

  ‘What is?’

  Becky turned round. ‘To ring me and then take sleeping pills which are meant for the night anyway.’

  Nadine stared at her.

  ‘I said I was sorry. I am. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Becky said.

  She moved over to the refrigerator and opened the door. Inside were a few things in brown paper bags, a cracked egg on a saucer and a carton of long-life apple juice.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Nadine said.

  Becky slammed the refrigerator door shut again.

  ‘I haven’t decided.’

  ‘Will you stay?’ Nadine said. Her voice had an edge of real anxiety. ‘Will you stay and keep me company?’

  Becky glanced at her. She touched the breast pocket of her denim jacket and let her hand linger there for a moment. On the journey, Josie had stopped for petrol, and when she got back into the car, after paying, she’d handed Becky a packet of Marlboro Lights. She hadn’t said anything. Nor had Becky.

  ‘I’m going out,’ Becky said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. A walk maybe.’

  ‘Will you be long?’

  ‘No,’ Becky said.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ Nadine said. ‘We need to talk all this through.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Becky said. She went across the kitchen to the door to the outside. ‘I’ll stay till you’re better. I said I would. But I didn’t say I’d talk.’

  ‘You’ve been here a week,’ Mrs Huntley said now.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What about your schooling?’

  ‘It was the end of term today. Anyway, I’d been off school—’

  Tim Huntley dropped a wedge of bread on to his cleared plate and began to push it round with the fork.

  ‘What about your dad lending a hand with all this?’

  ‘He can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Becky looked straight at him. ‘She wouldn’t let him.’

  He put the wedge of bread in his mouth. ‘So it’s down to you?’

  Becky shrugged. She stood up, holding the edge of the table.

  ‘That’s not right,’ Mrs Huntley said. She looked at Becky. ‘You’ve got your schooling to think of.’

  ‘I’d better be getting back,’ Becky said.

  Tim Huntley stood, too.

  ‘Give us a call. Any time.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Becky said.

  She went out of the farmhouse, while they watched her, and then, at a safe distance, past the barking dogs and over the sleeper bridge to the road. The stream was full – late-winter rains coming off the mountains, the postman had said – and was really running, and the hawthorn hedge was frosted with bright-green leaves, each one neatly cut out, as if with embroidery scissors. Becky took her cigarettes out of her pocket and put one in her mouth. It was the last but one in the pack that Josie had given her a week ago. She paused, in her tramp down the lane, to light up, and then walked on, heavily in her boots, blowing blue smoke into the clear air above the stream and the hawthorn hedge.

  Nadine was sitting on the grass in the cottage garden, under a three-quarters-dead apple tree. She had her glasses on, and, in her lap, a pile of ‘Teach Yourself Greek’ books she’d found in the local junk shop. She looked up as Becky came in through the gate.

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘OK,’ Becky said.

  ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Becky said. She leaned ag
ainst the apple tree. ‘Tim was eating and they asked how you were.’

  Nadine took her glasses off.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘For now,’ Becky said. She put her hand on her jacket pocket. One left. Save it for later. She slid down the tree and sat with her back against it, holding her knees.

  ‘No, I really will be fine now. I will. I promise. Summer’s coming—’

  ‘You shouldn’t live alone,’ Becky said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. You shouldn’t live alone. You can’t cope.’

  Nadine turned on her a gaze full of distress. ‘Oh Becky—’

  ‘You can’t,’ Becky said. She looked up at the sky, through the apple tree’s black, gnarled branches. ‘And—’ She stopped.

  ‘And what?’ Nadine said, her voice sharp with apprehension.

  ‘And,’ Becky said, her gaze still on the sky, ‘I can’t live with you any more. Not permanently. I can’t cope with you either.’

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ Matthew said.

  Josie turned. He leaned in the kitchen doorway, still in his jacket and tie from work, but the tie was crooked and loosened.

  ‘They made me a long speech,’ Matthew said. ‘One of those speeches where you know they hope you won’t spot that the truth is the last thing they’re going to tell you.’

  He came slowly forward into the room, pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. Josie pushed another chair next to him and slipped into it. She took his nearest hand.

  ‘Oh Matt.’

  ‘They said that, although I had all the required experience and qualifications, they felt that because of my family circumstances this wasn’t a good moment in my life for me to take on extra responsibility. They said that kind of thing several times over in various ways until I felt so dysfunctional by implication I could hardly sit up. The injustice of it—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t mean the injustice of not giving me the job, I mean the other injustice, the weaselly insinuation that my family circumstances are too much for me now when they used to be far, far worse. And the cowardice of not being able to tell me I’m just not good enough.’

  Josie lifted the hand she held and put it against her face.

  ‘Nobody can do that unless they’re sadistic. Nobody likes that.’