by Jan Ruth
She strode purposefully across the field, arms folded, during which time Al remained sitting in her car, staring out through the windscreen. When she tapped on the driver’s side window, his trance was only marginally broken. He turned to look at her and wound the window down, but his eyes were glazed, a trademark unlit cigarette stuck to his lip.
‘Freddie Fun Pants, I presume?’ she said.
‘Oh… yeah, keep meaning to ditch that.’
He climbed out of the car and dropped the keys into her hand. ‘It must be eight, maybe ten years since my pants exploded for fun.’
‘Fascinating,’ she said.
‘Sorry, I er… I had some news last night and I’ve been a bit stunned ever since.’
She tried to look a little more solicitous at this. ‘Oh. Well, nothing serious I hope?’
‘It is pretty serious actually. Best serious news I think I’ve had in eight, maybe ten years.’
She watched him retreat towards the house, hat at a jaunty angle. It gave him a rakish, slightly theatrical air. No thanks for the lend of the car, no apology for his late return, and when she eventually set off for her mother’s house it was to find a virtually empty fuel tank.
Al’s arrival had been interesting at first, but overnight it had turned into a wet blanket. The previous day at the horse fair had been fun, although when she’d got back to her room and looked at her wild reflection, Kate wondered what on earth she’d been thinking, flirting with a man who not only had a girlfriend, but also an estranged wife tucked away somewhere too. So much for a cosy week with Fran, having a heart-to-heart about Greg. On the one occasion they’d managed to be alone, Fran had mostly filled her in about Al’s impending divorce and how much she disliked his current girlfriend. George had remained closeted in his study for much of the time and the atmosphere was, not strained, but not exactly comfortable either. It was tempting to dream up some emergency and not return to Chathill; too easy given the phone calls from Annemarie, but then it would feel like her sister had control of her holidays as well. If you could call a week at Fran’s place a holiday.
Half an hour later, she pulled into the communal car park at Rhos House. The flats were in a small block, a short stroll from the seafront. She pressed number 21 on the keypad by the door, and waited a full minute before repeating. Her mother’s voice came over the speaker.
‘Who’s that? Is that you, Annemarie?’
‘It’s Kate.’
‘Late? I’ll say you are. I’ve been waiting for over an hour.’
‘Mum, it’s me, it’s Kate. KATE.’
‘Oh. You should have said.’
The security lock released, and she pushed open the heavy communal door. Her nostrils were immediately assaulted by old cooking smells. No matter how careful residents were, last week’s lunch seemed permanently trapped in the lift. Two short flights of stairs and she was already tapping on the door before her mother had replaced the entry phone and shuffled down the hall.
‘Well, this is a surprise,’ her mother said, as if she’d not set eyes on her for weeks. Kate embraced her bird-like frame, shocked by how prominent her bones were. As well as the macular degeneration, she had problems swallowing food and often regurgitated her meal. Every time another problem came along Annemarie hovered like the spectre of death. The triple-heart-bypass five years ago had been the catalyst for all manner of hysteria from her sister.
‘This’ll kill her, this will!’
But she had survived it, that was six years ago. It was Kate who did the three months of aftercare, Annemarie was too preoccupied with finding herself pregnant at forty and in the midst of a relationship crisis.
‘I thought you were Anne,’ her mother said, still refusing to add on the ‘Marie’ part of her name - her sister’s addition. Her mother automatically filled the kettle, from the hot tap, Kate noticed. ‘She was supposed to be taking me shopping but there’s no sign of her. Will you ring her, see if she’s all right?’
‘No, I’m sure there’s no need. So, you’ve recovered have you?’
‘What from?’
‘Annemarie made it sound like you were choking to death.’
‘Lot of fuss over nothing, I was all right after a drop of gin. Took the taste away,’ she said, stirring hot water onto half a teaspoon of cheap instant coffee. The milk followed, far too much of it and from the look of the carton, possibly out of date. The mug was passed over and Kate repositioned it on the tiny work surface of the kitchen. Her mother went through all the cupboards to locate an ancient biscuit barrel.
‘So who was there, at this party?’
‘I don’t know, I didn’t know anybody, except that man from the bank, you know, the very tall one. Nice of Anne to ask me over though, sit here staring at the bloody walls some days. Even if I could see what was on the telly it’s all rubbish, all that shouting and screaming.’
‘Why was the bank manager there?’ Kate asked. Thomas Clayton wasn’t one of her sister’s drinking partners.
‘Oh, he just came to say hello and we had a chat about all the accounts, and before you get cross,’ her mother said, wagging her finger, ‘it was my idea.’ Kate followed her through to the lounge and sat like stone on one of the chairs. Everything was a shade of beige, other than the animal-print cushion Annemarie had gifted her, which looked faintly ridiculous on the Dralon three-piece suite. The coasters were located, removed from their tatty box and placed on the nest of tables.
‘What was your idea?’
‘Every time I go in that bank they want to upgrade me. Then they want to know about your dad’s insurance and some car insurance, and then it’s the Internet. What do I want with the Internet?’ she said, horrified. ‘And then there’s all the numbers you have to remember.’
Half an hour later, Kate pulled onto her sister’s driveway. It was a mere two-minute walk from the flats, a prestigious avenue of Victorian semi-detached properties, most of them with five or six bedrooms and at least two cars. Some of them - mostly those belonging to elderly residents - were in need of serious renovation, but the costs of keeping the many wooden window frames in good condition, or of keeping the roof in good repair, was often unfeasible. The same ‘For Sale’ boards had remained in place since the previous autumn.
Kate parked behind her sister’s enormous 4x4 vehicle, and went to open the porch door. The sweet scent of vanilla and rose hung heavy in the air as she collected up a huge bundle of mail from the mat. Robyn, her sixteen-year-old niece let her in with barely a word, and Kate followed her into the kitchen, where she was making sandwiches with a noisy Jake, age six.
Her sister’s house was beautiful, but it was also a dirty mess, and Kate resisted the urge to start wiping and clearing some of the work surfaces. Empty bottles were stacked up by the back door, clear evidence of a good night.
‘Where’s your mum?’ she said to Robyn. The girl shrugged, eyes heavily made-up, pouting red lips and a mass of tousled hair. She coated the bread with chocolate spread and gave it to Jake, who poked his tongue out at Kate, before ramming the whole piece of bread into his mouth. Robyn laughed as he posed for her, and she took picture after picture on her mobile phone.
‘Robyn!’
‘I dunno. Might be in bed, might be out. Look, can you watch Jakey for a bit?’
Kate ignored this and marched up the stairs, then listened outside the door to her sister’s bedroom. It was open a tiny crack, dark inside with an overpowering smell of stale alcohol filtering through the gap. She was about to tap on the door, when the sound of a man grunting, followed by a low female laugh, froze her hand.
What was she supposed to do now? Burst in, demand she take proper care of her children? Demand an explanation as to why Annemarie felt the need to be their mother’s power of attorney, with no discussion? She did neither, she stared at her feet, then trod heavily back down the stairs. Jake was running around the sitting room with his fingers in the pot of chocolate spread, pausing only to
drain all the dregs of drink from the mountain of beer and wine glasses littered across every surface. The potpourri was scattered beneath the table like confetti.
Kate closed the front door behind her and sat in her car. She looked up at the bedroom window, wondering who the suitor was, not the bank manager, surely? Her mobile rang.
‘Is everything all right? You’ve been a while...’
‘Fran. Look, I’m not sure if I should come back-’
‘Oh, don’t say that! Al’s cooking dinner for us. He’s had some sort of news, dying to know what it is, but he’s acting all weird. So, er… what’s the problem?’
‘Annemarie.’
‘Oh her. Leave her! Kate, you are not to spoil your break. I’ll expect you in an hour, okay? Okay?’
She reversed the car and drove on autopilot, a billowing cloud of guilt following behind like a drogue parachute, a familiar feeling. When she parked the car at Chathill, she slammed the door with childish force. Almost instantaneously, Al opened the front door wearing a pink apron. He followed her wordlessly into the kitchen. Kate threw her keys and handbag down and accepted a large glass of wine from him. He watched her gulp down half of it, then went to stir something on the hob, glancing round warily as she pulled her jacket off.
‘My sister is a… spoilt. Selfish. Bitch!’
Al nodded, slightly open-mouthed, refilled her glass then went back to the hob. ‘I’m sorry about the car. Sorry I was late back with it. And I’ll fill it up tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Fine!’
She slumped into a chair at the table, surprised by her own venom, and watched his back view as he hunkered down and hunted through the kitchen units, a huge pink bow slung across his backside. The dividing shelf inside the pan cupboard collapsed, and the resultant crash made her smile.
‘This kitchen needs a remake, like my life,’ she said, then sighed. ‘And like my manners. Sorry for snapping.’
He scrambled to his feet with a section of chipboard in his hands. ‘Almost the same here, but I feel I may have just turned a corner, come to a crossroads anyway. Not sure if there’s a choice in there, but it seems better than the usual, well-travelled route.’
Fran appeared at the back door, her arms full of halters and buckets. ‘What crossroads might that be? I hate it when you talk in riddles,’ she said, helping herself to wine. ‘Don’t throw that away, Al.’
‘It won’t fix back in, it’s warped.’
‘I know, but it will do for a pig-board, its perfect.’
‘Well then, that’s saved your bacon,’ Kate said.
Al smiled, and held the eye contact just a second longer than was comfortable. He was attractive, in an off-beat way and she couldn’t help feeling pleased that the girlfriend had gone home. She needed funny banter more than anything, in fact, she’d almost forgotten how to laugh. The way Al had turned her mood on its head was… attractive.
Greg hadn’t shown much of a sense of humour. Towards the end, he’d always taken her sarcasm the wrong way and her quips had occasionally resulted in a major sulk; although he preferred to call it depression. She’d tried very hard over the five years of their union to understand how much his beloved bike shop had defined him, both as a man, and as Greg. She couldn’t deny that being made redundant at forty-three, just a few months into their marriage too, had left a black hole in his life, but had she, Kate, really counted for so little?
And then the cycling had started.
Al’s roast beef was surprisingly good, and even George kept any scathing remarks to himself. Fran seemed preoccupied, in fact she never lifted her eyes from the table other than to refill her glass, although once the food was consumed, and George went back into his study, she slowly came to life.
Becca moaned about homework. ‘I hate Sunday nights.’
‘Me and your dad used to be a mean team,’ Al said. ‘He’d do our maths and science and I’d do our English and art. So, what have you got?’
‘Physics and trigonometry.’
‘Ah.’
Everyone smiled.
The plates were sided, stacked up by the sink with a considerable selection of pans and oven dishes. Kate, Al and Fran collapsed in the sitting room.
‘So, come on, Al, tell us your secret!’ Fran teased.
‘It’s still kind of private.’
‘You’ve got a daft grin on your face, come on! Have you inherited a load of money from all those famous relatives?’
Kate tuned out and half closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about money, and relatives. The idea that her feckless sister had access to their mother’s accounts was highly disturbing. Anyone who continued to draw benefits in the shape of family support and whatever else she could get away with, rather than seek work was not going to be adverse to borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. The house was mortgage free, the legacy of her first marriage to a builder who’d bought it for a song and made it into a palace for her, Levi and Jewel. So far as she was aware, said builder was still trying to get his share. It could have been resolved years ago, but Annemarie clearly thrived on all the conflict it created.
‘Kate? You’re miles away…’ Fran said.
‘Thinking.’
‘Is this about your bloody sister?’
Kate nodded, but before she could change the subject Fran ran through a brief resume of Annemarie’s life, presumably for Al’s benefit.
‘Sounds like the synopsis for something by Jackie Collins,’ he said carefully. Fran exploded into loud, hysterical laughter, clearly borderline drunk. ‘You can talk, what about your life, mister?’
Al gave her a hooded look, ‘How much have you had to drink? Shall I make some coffee?’
‘Coffee?’
George appeared at the door, testy and anxious. ‘That sounds like a good idea to me. Fran, I can hear you screeching through several stone walls and Beethoven’s fifth.’
‘Oh, well, we can’t have you disturbed, can we?’ she said.
‘Coffee?’ George said to his brother, and Al dutifully sloped off to the kitchen, dirty pink apron still in situ.
‘What plans do you have for the week, Kate?’ George asked, throwing more logs in the burner.
‘Some walking, and reading definitely on the list. In fact an hour alone in a bookshop would be bliss right now. Maybe even some sightseeing too,’ Kate said. ‘You know, all the things you don’t do because you live here.’
‘If you find yourself wandering into Betws at lunchtime, I’d love to have you join me for lunch.’
‘That would be nice.’
Al returned with a coffee pot and four cups. George, who made no move to help him find a space to put the tray, watched his face intently. ‘And what are you going to do to waste time? There’s a job centre in town, you may have seen it.’
‘I need to sort out some transport, the van’s had it.’
‘Well you can shift it from the drive, looks like a bloody hippie camp.’
‘I’m going to make it into a duck house,’ Fran said brightly.
‘Over my dead body!’
‘It might well be! Mr Fox is doing his rounds. Had my Muscovy drake today; just killed him and left him to bleed to death, but you don’t care so I’m not discussing any of it with you,’ she said dismissively. ‘Al, tell us your good news, come on, let’s change the subject. Is it something we can toast?’
Al looked distinctly uncomfortable, he almost rolled his eyes warningly at Fran. Kate wondered if she could make an escape to her room. Her stay wasn’t turning out quite as she’d anticipated, in fact she’d never known such an icy undercurrent and it certainly wasn’t helping to sort out the muddle in her head. She’d just needed a few days to get away from the house, the sight of Greg’s stuff all packed up in bin liners. The idea that she’d be able to talk to Fran in confidence about her marriage to Greg and her future, seemed illogical now. The status quo of the family dynamic had changed considerably since the arrival of
the black sheep.
She looked at Al over the rim of her cup. Who was he, this loved and hated adopted brother who used to be a clown? He lounged across the chair like a child would sit, with his legs dangling over the arm.
Fran had told her a little about his real mother, Ruby Martinez, a reclusive actress whom he understandably never talked about, since the woman had given him up for adoption when he was five and then rejected his olive branch in later years. Maybe this was why she sensed something in him that struck a chord in herself, although she couldn’t quite work it out, maybe a need for family roots? Greg had never been one for family either, he’d barely talked about Fran and George, let alone an errant brother-in-law. When she was a child, Kate used to love the idea of growing up and sharing secrets with a sister, and their relationship had been cosy until Anne started secondary school. Puberty had grabbed Anne like a whirling dervish, with Kate lagging timidly behind and eventually, picking up the inevitable pieces.
A wave of loneliness swept through her, taking memories and nostalgia with it and leaving an empty, hollow feeling in its cavernous place. Loneliness was a horrible state of mind, but easy enough to hide, a bit like the sad clown with the painted on smile.
George dragged the dogs off the sofa. ‘News? What news is this then?’
‘It can wait,’ Al said.
‘Oh, stop being a tease!’ Fran said, knocking his foot with hers. ‘You were singing in the kitchen earlier, so come on, spill the beans.’
‘Fran…’ he began, then trailed to a halt. He twisted round in the chair and made a pyramid shape with his hands. Something spat and hissed in the log burner, but all eyes were fixed on him.
‘All right, I suppose you may as well know sooner, rather than later… Jo’s pregnant. I’m going to ask her to marry me.’
Chapter Five
Al.
There was a pregnant pause. Al could hear his own blood pumping. He hadn’t wanted to spill the beans just yet, but Fran knew he was hiding something, and she wouldn’t stop nagging. And then there was his crazy state of mind, borderline euphoric. It seemed incredible, the best news he’d had since the lives of Tom and Maisie had begun, declared by the results on a little white stick.
