A Family Affair

by Janet Tanner

  ‘I want to be really better before we get married,’ she had said. ‘I want to enjoy every minute of our wedding day. And in any case, I wouldn’t feel like a proper wife until we can live together, and you can’t get married quarters as a National Serviceman, can you?’

  Carrie had visited her too in hospital, and restated her pledge that Jenny could come home with the baby.

  ‘We’ll just hold our heads up high and show them,’ she said, a flash of the old Carrie showing through. ‘I’ll look after Sarah for you and you can pass your exams and get a good job.’

  She was still managing things, Jenny thought wryly, but this time her mother’s plans coincided with her own. She might never now be the career journalist she’d dreamed of being, but it could only be an advantage to gain her qualifications whilst she had the chance. After that – who knew? Her brush with death had made Jenny aware of the slimness of the thread upon which life hung and demonstrated how fate could take the most unexpected turns.

  When Jenny had unpacked her things, she went back downstairs. Carrie was in the kitchen making a cup of tea for the two of them – David had gone back to work as soon as he had dropped her off. The familiar feel of the kitchen enveloped her, the trappings of home that she had missed so much, and she bent to fondle Sally’s silky ears. Sally had been so excited to see her! But Jenny sensed an edginess in Carrie.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ she asked, leaning against the corner of the cooker. ‘You’re not having second thoughts are you.’

  ‘No – no, it’s too late for that.’

  ‘You are having second thoughts.’

  ‘I’m not. You and Sarah are both going to be all right, and that’s all that matters.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve got to talk to you though, Jenny. There’s something I have to tell you, and I only hope you’ll forgive me.’

  She crossed to the dresser, opened the drawer and took out the pile of letters.

  ‘These are yours, Jenny. I should never have done what I did. I thought I was doing it for your own good. I know now I was wrong.’ She looked up, sheepish but defiant. ‘I suppose you’re shocked.’

  Jenny held her gaze steadily. ‘No, Mum, I’m not shocked. I knew.’

  ‘Our Heather told you?’

  ‘No, she didn’t need to. I guessed.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Not at the time, of course. But as soon as I talked to Bryn. Letters don’t usually go astray. And keeping them from me … well, I knew it was something you’d do.’

  ‘Oh!’ Carrie was totally nonplussed. Not just that Jenny had known for some time and said nothing but that she should consider such behaviour typical of her mother when it was something of which Carrie was deeply ashamed. For one of the few times in her life Carrie wanted to say she was sorry, but words of apology had never come easily to her and they didn’t now. Admitting she had been in the wrong was the closest she could come.

  ‘I was only thinking of you,’ she said, a touch defiantly.

  ‘I know,’ Jenny said. ‘I do know that. And what you’re doing now … well, you’re being brilliant. Only please, promise me – no more secrets, and no more trying to run my life for me.’ She could hardly believe she was speaking to Carrie like this. The last months had changed her more than she had realised.

  Carrie nodded. ‘We’ll try and make a fresh start.’

  The kettle was boiling; she turned to switch it off, wanting only to put this conversation behind her.

  ‘Now, let’s have that cup of tea.’

  Jenny was not the only one to feel that the time for secrets was over. Heather, too, had realised that keeping them under wraps was no way to deal with problems. So much in their lives had been hidden, one way and another, and it had caused nothing but trouble.

  One morning at the beginning of August she queued for Helen’s surgery and when she was called in she came straight to the point.

  ‘You remember I talked to you before about Vanessa’s nightmares and you said you thought she should have some sort of help to get her over it?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘Well, I’d like you to go ahead and arrange it.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Helen said, ‘but you were so much against it. What changed your mind?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know …’ For a moment Heather sounded a little like Carrie, defensive and impatient. Then she smiled warily. ‘Yes, I do know, Doctor. We’ve been too fond in our family of sweeping things under the carpet. I don’t want to do that any more. If you think it would be better for Vanessa to get it all out in the open, then that’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘I’ll make the arrangements,’ Helen said. Sometimes, she thought, there were unexpected benefits from the direst of situations.

  That evening Reuben Hobbs called a practice meeting. By the time Helen had seen her last patient and gone along to his room, Paul was already there. She was surprised – Paul usually looked in to speak to her as he passed her door. And from the way he was installed in the guest chair, it looked as if he had been there some time.

  ‘Ah, Helen, you’re here,’ Reuben said rather unnecessarily, looking at her over the top of his spectacles. ‘I’ve called this meeting because I want to discuss your future.’

  Helen’s nerves jangled. She looked at Paul; he was avoiding her eyes.

  Oh God! she thought. What is he going to tell me?

  ‘What sort of a job do you think you’ve done here, Helen?’

  And what sort of a question is that? she wondered.

  ‘I suppose I can only say I’ve done my best. It’s not altogether easy, making the jump from hospital to GP but it was – is – what I want, and I’ve tried to make a success of it.’

  ‘And how do you feel you’ve been accepted in Hillsbridge?’

  ‘Again, it hasn’t always been easy. It takes time to build up trust and in some cases I think my being a woman didn’t help. But on the other hand there have been occasions when it’s worked in my favour. Ideally, of course, I’ll feel I’ve succeeded when the patients cease to take gender into account and simply see me as their doctor, but human nature being what it is I expect that’s a long way off.’

  ‘Hmm. And what would you say if I were to tell you that we’d decided we should let you go?’

  Helen’s heart dropped like a stone.

  ‘I would be very, very sorry about that,’ she said with all the dignity she could muster. ‘I think I can be an asset to this practice and I know that I can do as good a job as anyone else – better, because my heart is here. I suppose I would have to accept your decision but I wouldn’t accept it lightly. I’d argue my case to the very last and if I still couldn’t make you change your mind, well …’ she took a deep breath, ‘actually I think the loss would be as much yours as mine.’

  For a moment Reuben returned her gaze, frowning a little.

  ‘Well, Helen, you do feel strongly about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’

  ‘In that case …’ he removed his spectacles, holding them by the stem between finger and thumb, ‘I think I’ve kept you on tenterhooks quite long enough. Paul and I have talked at length about the way we see this practice heading and we are in complete agreement. What we both should like is for you to become a partner.’

  ‘Oh!’ Helen said, stunned.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’

  ‘Apart from calling him a complete bastard for putting you through that?’ Paul put in.

  Helen pulled herself together. ‘I must admit you have taken me completely by surprise, Reuben,’ she said, ‘but of course, you already know my answer. I’ve given it to you in answer to your questions, haven’t I?’

  ‘You’d like to accept our offer?’

  ‘Nothing would please me more.’

  ‘In that case,’ Reuben smiled slyly, ‘I think a celebration is called for, don’t you? The champagne, Paul – if you would do the honours.’

  Paul opened the small refrigerator, where a bottle of Cliquot was
on ice, and Reuben retrieved three glasses, hidden in a drawer of his desk.

  ‘To a long and successful partnership.’

  ‘To you, Helen.’ Across the rim of his glass, Paul’s eyes met hers. They promised their own private celebration later and Helen was suffused with happiness.

  The affair with Guy was behind her now. She and Paul had the sort of relationship that would grow and grow. Helen knew that she had found much more than simply the career she had wanted and worked for here in Hillsbridge.

  ‘David, I want to ask you something,’ Jenny said. She had followed him outside to where he was washing his car on the Green.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Would you be godfather to Sarah? When she’s christened?’

  ‘Me?’ David looked surprised, but not displeased.

  ‘Yes. You. You are her uncle, after all. But it’s not just that …’ She hesitated, unsure whether it was such a good idea to say the words she wanted to say. But they were there, on the tip of her tongue, so she plunged on. ‘I know it won’t make up to you for losing Linda and the babies you might have had with her, but it would sort of make her special to you, wouldn’t it? More than just a niece? And you’d be special to her.’

  A lump rose in David’s throat. He polished the car vigorously.

  ‘David?’

  ‘Yeah – all right.’ But inwardly he was pleased. He just wasn’t very good at putting his feelings into words.

  When Jenny had gone he leaned against the car, squinting in the bright sunlight. It was funny, but he thought he was beginning to come out of the black night of the soul. There were times – not often yet, but getting more frequent – when he could think about Linda without wanting to tear his guts out, days when, to his utter astonishment, he caught himself actually enjoying something, really enjoying it, and not simply pretending. Funnily enough the healing process seemed to have begun the night he’d knocked Billy Edgell down the steps of the Miners’Arms and been helped along by the baby. Somehow, it seemed to him, that having her in the house signified hope and new beginnings. And now Jenny had asked him to be godfather – and a girl had only one of those, he rather thought!

  David squeezed out his chamois leather in the bucket of soapy water. He was whistling as he went back to polishing his car.

  The pram, coach built, navy, shiny and new, stood in the garden of Number 27 Alder Road. Behind a net to protect her from stray cats, little Sarah was sleeping peacefully in the warm autumn sunshine. In a corner of the lawn Jenny and Bryn sat on the scratchy dry grass, with Sally beside them, talking about the future, whilst Joe pushed the mower over the lawn on the other side of the path. Carrie emerged from the house wearing an apron over her Sunday dress, went to the pram and peeped inside.

  Her great-granddaughter. Love and pride filled her. How could she ever have contemplated Jenny giving her up?

  Across the road, Joyce Edgell was sitting on her wall, sunning herself and watching the world go by. She looked across and though she was not close enough to see the sneer on her face, Carrie could well imagine it.

  ‘Hmm!’ Carrie removed the cat net and the covers, lifted out the small sweet-smelling bundle that was Sarah, and walked out on to the pavement. ‘Would you like to see our baby, Joyce?’ she called.

  Joyce averted her head.

  ‘There’s nothing like it, you know,’ Carrie called. ‘Nothing in the world. You’ll have the pleasure one day, I expect.’

  Jenny and Bryn exchanged a secret smile, and at that very moment Jenny’s fingers, picking at the lawn, encountered a four-leaf clover. She looked at it wonderingly, held it up for Bryn to see so that, with Carrie and Sarah in the background, it seemed to make a snapshot for her memory. But to Jenny it was much more than that. It was an omen for the future.

  Copyright

  First published in 1999 by Century

  This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-3781-5 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-3780-8 POD

  Copyright © Janet Tanner, 1999

  The right of Janet Tanner to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted in accordance

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