Ever since Jo was a child, she’d looked forward to the time when she would be a mother herself. When she was eleven, not long after her dad left, the lady next door gave birth to twin girls and Jo had quickly become besotted with them, going next door at every opportunity, offering to help, probably making a nuisance of herself, now she thought about it. But Auntie Pat, as Jo had been instructed to call her – her mother said it showed respect – had always welcomed her and what’s more, had treated her like an equal instead of like a child. One day, she’d been telling Auntie Pat that she couldn’t wait to grow up, get married and have babies herself. ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry,’ Pat said, bending over a sink full of hot water and soap suds, her short, permed hair plastered to her face by the steam, the skin on her arms and hands reddened by the heat. ‘I got married at sixteen, and look at me now.’ Jo looked at her, a dumpy figure in a shapeless dress, bare legs and swollen feet pushed into grubby carpet slippers. ‘Old before my time.’ With a pair of wooden tongs, she lifted a greying nappy dripping from the sink and then she wrung it tightly until she could get no more moisture out of it.
‘How old are you now?’ Jo had asked innocently. She’d always assumed that Auntie Pat was about the same age as her mother, and all mothers must be roughly the same age – about thirty-five. ‘Eighteen,’ Pat had said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.
Eve wouldn’t be old before her time like poor Pat. In fact, Eve was looking better and better every day; her eyes were clear and bright, her skin was glowing, especially now she had a golden tan. A thought flashed into her mind; had Scott only wanted to sleep with her because Eve was pregnant? Maybe you weren’t allowed to have sex when you were pregnant. She walked over to the open window and looked out. Did that make it better or worse? She shook her head; she couldn’t think straight any more.
Scott was still working away in the garden, his back a deep brown colour now, almost mahogany. She and Eve had good tans, but next to them, Scott no longer even looked English. She watched the muscles in his back moving as he sanded the piece of wood he was working on. It was only when he paused to hold the curved wood against what she’d thought was to be a storage box that she realised what he was making. The curved pieces were rockers; he was making a wooden cradle. Seeing the cradle made it suddenly seem more real, somehow. There was going to be an actual baby whose arrival needed to be planned for. Jo felt her blood quicken; she’d be able to help; Eve wanted her to help. She could babysit again, and take it out in its pram. She felt a little thrill at the thought. Perhaps she could knit or sew something for the baby to wear. When Pat’s twins were two, she’d had to make a child’s garment in Parentcraft at school, so she’d hand-stitched a little sky-blue summer dress and trimmed it with white ric rac braid. She got a good mark for it, so she went straight out and bought more fabric out of her own money and made another one, and when she gave the two dresses to Pat, Pat hugged her and told her what a clever and thoughtful girl she was. Maybe that was one of the reasons Jo always spent so much time next door rather than at home with her own mum, that and the fact that she was allowed to help with the twins, obviously. She’d loved babysitting them and sometimes, when Pat and Derek were out, she would pretend that she was their mother. Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the weight of their little bodies as she held them; Lisa’s chubby legs; the silky softness of Lynne’s hair as she rested her head against Jo’s shoulder.
Yes, she told Eve when she went back downstairs; of course she would stay and help with the baby.
*
Over the next few days, as she thought about the impending arrival of Eve’s baby, she began to wonder more and more what would happen if she too were pregnant, if she and Eve would have babies within a few months of each other. She’d watched a film at school once, when she was about fourteen, about an African tribe where each man had several wives who all lived happily together, caring for each other and looking after the children between them. The female interviewer asked a group of native women how many wives their husbands had: three, some said, or four. ‘I am number one wife of five,’ said one woman, her chin tilted upwards with pride. Then, giggling, one of the women asked the interviewer how many wives her husband had. When the interviewer explained that in England we had monogamous marriages and that bigamy was a crime, the cheerful, carefree chatter and laughter was replaced by shocked faces and a sudden outbreak of serious muttering. ‘But what happen,’ said one of the women, a horrified expression on her face, ‘when the wife have a child? Who help with the child? Who care for the mama?’
On the surface of it, the thought that the two of them could be pregnant by the same man was absurd; but it wasn’t so ridiculous in other cultures. And she found she was thinking of the possibility with increasing warmth and pleasure – hope, even. She imagined the unconventional little family they would be, she and Eve helping each other to care for their children, like sisters. Briefly, she thought of asking Eve to read her tea leaves again, but there was probably no point – the last couple of times she’d asked, Eve hadn’t seemed keen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sheffield, 2010
As I hurried down the paved slope towards Sheffield station, spray from the fountains and the steel water-feature landed on my face, making me think of the sea. I was on my way to Hastings. The two weeks were up; today was Scott’s deadline and I’d run out of excuses. Hannah was a lot better, so much so that Duncan was on at me again to tell her that Scott was here. ‘As soon as possible,’ he’d said last night. ‘Because even if he’s not staying there permanently, the fact that he’s using a hospice means it won’t be long.’
It was a lot of travelling in one day but I’d never been back since it all happened and now I had a powerful urge to go there, to stand on the beach and watch the waves, to see the house where we spent that summer. I suppose what I really wanted was to talk to Eve, to ask her what I should do; but anyway, I felt as though somehow just being there would help me to feel clearer.
Since I’d seen Scott in the hospice, I’d been dreaming about him every time I went to sleep. The other night I dreamt that he wasn’t ill at all, that I came home from work and found him on the doorstep, talking to Duncan; last night I dreamt he was in Hannah’s kitchen, sitting there at her table, telling her everything while he jiggled Toby on his knee. Hannah had been asking about him again lately, so maybe that was why I had that particular dream. It seemed Duncan had been right about her wanting to explore her roots; barely a day went past now without her asking me something about Scott or about when she herself was a baby. Some things I could answer truthfully, but every time I couldn’t I felt as though I was trampling on her. Over the years, I’d told as few lies as I’d been able to get away with, and they’d been practical, functional, necessary. But these last few weeks I seemed to be wading through them like piles of dead leaves; they clung to my feet as I walked, and as the whole situation had become more complex, more convoluted, lying had become second nature.
As I boarded the train to London St Pancras, I reflected on the fact that I’d bought an expensive train ticket for a journey that was going to take four and a half hours each way, in the vague hope that, by going back there, I’d have some sort of revelation that would somehow help me decide what to do. Once I was in my seat, I sent Scott a text to say I hadn’t forgotten, and that I’d be in touch later. I took the tube from St Pancras to London Bridge to pick up the train to Hastings, and before long, I was settled in a window seat with a cup of coffee and a free newspaper. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is the 13.23 South Eastern service to Hastings, calling at . . .
I tried to read, but I couldn’t take anything in, and after Tunbridge Wells, my concentration vanished completely and images from the past started jostling for position at the front of my mind. By the time the train pulled into the station, my stomach was doing somersaults. People gathered their bags and newspapers and started to leave the train. I sat there, c
lutching my empty coffee cup. This was crazy; why had I come here?
‘This is Hastings, ladies and gentlemen,’ called the train conductor. ‘All change, please. All change.’ He made his way down the carriage, closing windows as he went. ‘End of the line, madam. All change, please.’
I was momentarily surprised at being called ‘madam’, but then I reminded myself that I was a grandmother now, not the young girl I’d been when I boarded the train at this station all those years ago. ‘Yes, sorry. I was miles away.’ I got up and put my coat on, but my legs were trembling and I fell back into the seat. The conductor walked back along the carriage towards me. ‘You all right there, love?’ He leaned over me. I could smell the tobacco on his breath, and see the speckling of crumbs that were lodged in his thick grey moustache.
‘You all right there, love?’ The porter was hurrying along the platform towards us. Scott had already climbed into the carriage and was hauling the two tightly packed shopping trolleys in after him. ‘Here, let me take that,’ the porter said. He took my bag and slipped his arm under my elbow to help me up the step and onto the train. ‘There you go, treacle. When are you due, then?’ I opened my mouth to speak but Scott put his hand on my back and guided me into the carriage. ‘Any day now,’ he said to the porter, who grinned and winked. ‘Best of luck to you, mate,’ he said. ‘Got two nippers of me own, bless ‘em.’ He leaned into the carriage. ‘Hope it all goes well for you, darlin’,’ he called in. ‘Yes, well,’ Scott said. ‘Thanks for your help.’ He pulled the carriage door closed behind him and it flashed through my mind that the man must think us rude, but he didn’t seem to notice, because he called cheerio and touched his cap before turning on his heel and going back along the platform, whistling as he went.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ the conductor was saying.
I blinked a couple of times. ‘Yes, yes, I’m okay. Just felt a bit dizzy, that’s all.’
‘There’s a qualified first-aider on the station.’ He took a walkie-talkie from his pocket.
‘No, really. I’m absolutely fine, thank you.’ I got to my feet and allowed him to help me onto the platform. I smiled, thanked him profusely and made an effort to look fully recovered before heading towards the ticket barriers. The station looked so different – not surprising after thirty odd years, I supposed. As I went out of the main entrance the wind lifted my hair and lashed it at my face. There was a new community college with lots of shiny glass right by the station; there were new shops, concrete planters full of daffodils; flights of steps and an underpass I was sure hadn’t been there before. It seemed that Hastings had been ‘regenerated’. I looked left and right but the only things that were recognisable right now were the scraggy seagulls that darted and swooped and glided across the muddy sky. Instinctively, I headed down towards the seafront, and things started to become more familiar. The old public loos were still there, but they’d been smartened up; the bikers’ pub, the Carlisle, was still open, looking just the same as it had back then, with a board outside advertising the bands that would be playing on Friday and Saturday night.
The sea was as muddy as the sky, and it was flat today, uneventful, just rolling in and breaking on the shore with the gentlest sound of shifting shingle, despite the blustery wind. Bor-ring, Eve would have said with a mock yawn. She’d liked the sea best when it was crashing onto the beach in an extravaganza of white foam, or when the tide was in and the waves were rocking and chopping against the sea wall, making the dark water look thick and muscular and dangerous. I crunched down the beach towards the shoreline, the salty air stinging my eyes. There was hardly anyone else around at the moment. Not surprising on a chilly Thursday afternoon in March. As I walked along towards the pier, I passed a man fishing by one of the groynes and a couple of women walking their dogs. The clouds parted and for a moment a shaft of silvery winter sunshine fell on the water before disappearing again and leaving the place feeling even more bleak and lonely. It was very different from that one summer, when the beach had been so packed you could barely find space to put your towel, and even late into the evening there would be people swimming, lovers holding hands as they walked along the water’s edge, groups of friends sitting on the warm pebbles until long after the sun had gone down. I felt the sadness swell inside me as I remembered the many evenings the three of us had sat here, enjoying the residual warmth of the day and the constant rhythmic wash of the sea as we talked late into the night.
Eve was always so full of enthusiasm, always so sure things would get better and better for all of us. I missed her so much. Being here, standing on the beach where we’d spent so much time talking, laughing, making plans – it did make me feel closer to her, but at the same time it made her absence all the more painful.
There was a fine mist coming in off the sea, making my hair wet and salty so that it stung as it flicked about my face. I tried in vain to push it out of my eyes as I walked, then I stopped in my tracks. The blackened skeleton of the pier loomed in front of me, its charred remains silhouetted against the murky sky. I’d heard about the fire, of course, but I’d forgotten, and I was surprised to find that my eyes filled with tears as I looked at the result. This once-magnificent structure, the proud centre of entertainment for everyone who lived here and visited the town, was now a poor, abandoned ghost. Briefly, the sun came out again and at the same moment I had the sensation of someone standing very close behind me, but when I looked over my shoulder there was no one there. As I turned and walked away from the unbearable sight of the ruined pier, my shadow felt thick and heavy.
I headed further along the beach towards Bottle Alley, where I walked a little way through the lower promenade, looking at the patterns made by the thousands of pieces of coloured glass set into the walls, a triumph of artistic recycling. The larger panels were made using glass in the more traditional ‘bottle’ colours of blue, green and brown, but these were interspersed with smaller panels of pretty, multicoloured glass chippings. The effect was more striking than I remembered. But the smell of urine was more powerful and rather spoiled the experience, so after a few minutes, I made my way back up to the street and crossed the main road. The sky had turned inky-black and it was starting to rain, although there were still occasional bright flashes of sunshine, which made the white-feathered seagulls look incandescent against the dark sky. It was the sort of eerie light that often heralds an approaching thunderstorm. I wondered again why I’d come, how physically being here was going to change anything, and part of me wanted to head straight for the station and start the long journey back to Sheffield. I thought about being at home, in bed next to Duncan, the glow of the streetlamp coming in through the curtains, the ticking of the pipes as they cooled down after the central heating went off, the alarm set for 7.15, ready for the start of another ordinary day. But I knew I couldn’t go home until I’d seen the house.
*
I wasn’t sure if I would remember the way up from the beach, but as I trudged up the steep hill, I began to recognise the road names – Cornwallis Terrace was familiar, and there was the railway bridge, then Braybrook Road, and then, yes, there they were, the six short flights of concrete steps that I’d climbed almost every day when I lived here. I set off up the steps, pausing halfway to catch my breath. I didn’t know what I expected when the house came into view, but it wasn’t what I saw. A clean, bright, freshly painted building in good repair, converted now into flats, by the look of it. Tentatively, I walked up yet more steps to the front door. There was an intercom system with a bank of six buzzers. How could they possibly get six flats out of it? I wondered. Some of them must have been bedsits, or studio apartments, as they called them these days. I went back down onto the pavement and stood looking up at the house. There were tasteful wooden blinds in one window, vertical office-type blinds in another, some of the curtains were open, some closed. There was a light on at the very top of the house, and I wondered who lived up there, and what they were doing in Eve’s work room. The gargoyl
es at the corners of the roof had been restored, and the gap in the parapet had been repaired, but the windows to the thinking room looked empty and forlorn. Maybe no one used it these days. That was a shame, because it was a lovely little space, despite being freezing in winter and hot as a greenhouse in summer. This wasn’t the only house in the road with a turret, but it was the only one where the turret jutted out and had windows on all sides so that, if you stood near any of them, you had a clear view of the sea.
I stood there for a good half-hour, just looking up at the windows; I was surprised no one reported me for acting suspiciously, but if anyone had noticed me, they were probably leaving it to someone in another flat to do something about it. The house may have looked clean and bright on the outside, but I was certain it was lonely and soulless inside, housing its six single people. It had been the other way round when we were there, broken and shambolic on the outside, but on the inside, it had been full to the rafters of warmth and love. I thought of Eve, of what she’d lost, and of how she’d taken me in and cared for me and loved me as if I were her own family. For a second, Eve’s face flashed clear in my mind; I came here wanting to feel close to her, and I felt it now.
And then the image melted away, and it was Hannah’s face I could see. That’s when I felt the tears building behind my eyes. I hated lying to Duncan, but above all I hated lying to Hannah, especially after she’d been so ill, and especially after the conversation we’d had a few days ago. She accepted that Toby couldn’t possibly know that he’d been born from a donor egg, but now she was beginning to bond with him, she was talking about telling him the truth as soon as he was old enough. ‘But why do you have to tell him at all?’ I asked her while she was changing him.
The Secrets We Left Behind Page 21
