Good Girls
Amanda Brookfield
To my darling Ben and Ali, you are why the world makes sense.
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part II
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part III
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part IV
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowedgements
Book Club Questions
More from Amanda Brookfield
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
‘I am no bird. No net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will.’
Jane Eyre
Part I
1
January 2013
Eleanor decided to take a taxi from the station, even though she knew it would cost ten precious pounds and mean a wait. Being so rural, only a handful of cars served the area, but she didn’t want to be a bother to Howard, her brother-in-law. She texted both him and Kat to say she would be there within the hour and stayed as warm as she could in the small arched station entrance. It was a cold, dank morning, not raining for once but with air like icy metal against her skin.
The taxi driver who pulled up some twenty minutes later exuded an attitude of reluctance that made Eleanor disinclined to make conversation. When they hit a tail-back, thanks to a loop round the old Roman bridge, still not fixed from the heavy flooding over the New Year, he thumped his steering wheel. ‘A bloody joke. We can land men on the moon and still it takes three weeks to fix a few old stones.’
Eleanor murmured agreement, but found that she didn’t mind much. The fields on either side of the road were still visibly waterlogged. After the grimy mêlée of south London, it was a visual feast – ethereal, shimmering silver bands engraved with the black reflections of leafless trees and smudgy January clouds.
The usual criss-cross of feelings was stirring at being back in such proximity to the landscape of her childhood. Just twenty miles away, her father was a resident in a small care home called The Bressingham, which he had once included in his rounds as a parish priest, days long since lost to him through the fog of dementia. Howard and Kat’s substantial Georgian house was ten miles in the opposite direction, on the fringes of a town called Fairfield. They had moved from Holland Park seven years before, a year after the birth of their third child, Evie. At the time, Eleanor had been surprised to get the change of address card. She had always regarded her little sister and husband as life-long townies, Kat with her posh quirky dress-making commissions to private clients and Howard with his big-banker job. It was because they saw the house in a magazine and fell in love with it, Kat had explained at one of their rare subsequent encounters, in the manner of one long used to plucking things she wanted out of life, like fruits off a tree.
But recently life had not been so cooperative. A small tumour had been removed from Kat’s bowel and she was in bed recovering. Howard had reported the event earlier in the week, by email, and when Eleanor had got on the phone, as he must have known she would, he had said that the operation had gone well and that Kat was adamant that she didn’t need sisterly visits. No further treatment was required. She would be up and about in a matter of days. Their regular babysitter, Hannah, was increasing her hours to plug gaps with the children and he was taking a week off from his daily commute into the City.
‘But I am her sister,’ Eleanor had insisted, hurt, in spite of knowing better. ‘I’d just like to see her. Surely she can understand that.’ Howard had said he would get back to her, but then Kat had phoned back herself, saying why didn’t Eleanor pop down on Saturday afternoon.
‘Nice,’ said the driver, following Eleanor’s instructions to turn between the laburnums that masked the handsome red-brick walls and gleaming white sash windows and pulling up behind the two family cars, both black, one a tank-sized station wagon, the other an estate. He fiddled with his satnav while Eleanor dug into her purse for the right money.
I am not the rich one, she wanted to cry, seeing the visible sag of disappointment on his sheeny unshaven face at the sight of her twenty-pence tip; I am merely the visiting elder sister who rents a flat by a Clapham railway line, who tutors slow or lazy kids to pay her bills and who has recently agreed to write an old actor’s memoirs for a sum that will barely see off her overdraft.
Howard answered the door, taking long enough to compound Eleanor’s apprehensions about having pushed for the visit. He was in a Barbour and carrying three brightly coloured backpacks, clearly on the way out of the house. ‘Good of you to come.’ Brandishing the backpacks, he kissed her perfunctorily on both cheeks. ‘Brownies, go-carting and a riding lesson – pick-ups in that order. Then two birthday parties and a bowling alley. God help me. See you later maybe. She’s upstairs,’ he added, somewhat unnecessarily.
‘The Big Sister arrives,’ Kat called out, before Eleanor had even crossed the landing. ‘Could you tug that curtain wider?’ she added as Eleanor entered the bedroom. ‘I want as much light as possible.’
‘So, how are you?’ Eleanor asked, adjusting the offending drape en route to kissing Kat’s cheek, knowing it was no moment to take offence at the Big Sister thing, in spite of the reflex of deep, instinctive certainty that Kat had said it to annoy. At thirty-eight she was the big sister, by three years. She was also almost six foot, with the heavy-limbed, dark-haired, brown-eyed features that were such echoes of their father, while Kat, as had been pointed out as far back as either of them could remember, had inherited an uncanny replication of their mother’s striking looks, from the lithe elfin frame and flinty-blue feline eyes, to the extraordinary eye-catching tumble of white-blonde curls. ‘You look so well,’ Eleanor exclaimed, happiness at the truth of this observation making her voice bounce, while inwardly she marvelled at her sibling’s insouciant beauty, utterly undiminished by the recent surgery. Her skin was like porcelain, faintly freckled; her hair in flames across the pillow.
‘Well, thank you, and thank goodness, because I feel extremely well,’ Kat retorted. ‘So please don’t start telling me off again for not having kept you better informed. As I said on the phone, the fucking thing was small and isolated. They have removed it – snip-snip,’ she merrily scissored two fingers in the air. ‘So I am not going to need any further treatment, which is a relief frankly, since I would hate to lose this lot.’ She yanked at one of the flames. ‘Shallow, I know, but there it is.’
‘It’s not shallow,’ Eleanor assured her quietly, experiencing one of the sharp twists of longing for the distant days when they had been little enough and innocent enough to take each other’s affections for granted. They had been like strangers for years now in comparison, shouting across an invisible abyss.
She took off her cardigan, hanging it round the back of the bedroom chair before she sat down. The room was hot and smelt faintly medicinal. Several vases of flowers, lilies, roses and carnations sat on the mantelpiece, between get well cards. Above them hung a huge plasma television screen; enough to
put her off reading, Eleanor decided, let alone any other pleasurable nocturnal activities.
‘So how did you know something was wrong? If you don’t mind my asking.’
Kat pulled a face. ‘Changes, which I have no wish to go into. Blood in the stool,’ she went on breezily nonetheless, ‘– as the doctors so delicately like to call it – being one of the many highlights, together with “going” too much, or not at all. Little wonder I was in no hurry to discuss it with our GP. But then Howard said I was an idiot and he was right. I like my husband.’ She grinned, leaning down to retrieve a pillow from the floor and slapping Eleanor’s hand away when she leapt out of the chair to try to help. ‘Sorry, but I just don’t want a fuss. Everybody is fussing and it’s driving me fucking nuts.’
Eleanor leant against the wall by the bed while Kat settled herself. Spotting their father’s old Bible on the bedside table, she picked it up, absently riffling through its pages. ‘And how are the children?’
Kat’s face lit up, as if a bulb had been turned on inside her. ‘Fantastic, thanks. Little monsters all. Annoying. Demanding. Wonderful. Luke has gone geeky and has a quiff and a last word for everything. Sophie is in love with horses, I think she would literally marry one if she could. And Evie… well, Evie is just Evie.’ She sighed dreamily. ‘On her own planet, as every seven-year-old should be.’
‘Her asthma?’ Eleanor ventured, painfully aware of how little she really knew of her sister’s family life, the result of years of learned wariness, the age-old sense of being kept at arm’s length.
‘Oh, that’s all gone. She grew out of it. Thank God.’ Kat picked up a glossy swatch of her hair and scrutinised the ends. ‘So, will you be visiting Dad? Kill two birds with one stone. So to speak.’ Her sharp blue eyes flicked from Eleanor’s face to the Bible in her hands, dancing but steely.
‘I’ve come to see you, not him,’ Eleanor replied levelly, putting the book down. As she did so an old empty envelope dropped out of its back pages. Scrawled across it in the big spider writing that Eleanor immediately recognised as having once flowed from their father’s gold-tipped desk fountain pen was a note to their mother: Darling Connie, it said, came home for a 10-min lunch. I love you. Vx.
‘Hey, look at this.’ She held the note out to Kat.
Her sister nodded. ‘Yes, it’s been there, like, for ever.’
‘Has it? Oh, okay.’ Eleanor gently replaced the envelope, giving the book a pat as she closed it shut. A part of her waited to see if Kat said anything about their mother, whilst knowing she wouldn’t, because she never did. ‘It’s nice though, isn’t it?’ she prompted. ‘Given what happened… well, it can make one forget the good things.’
‘Oh, I never forget good things,’ said Kat briskly. ‘By the way, you could borrow my car, if you did want to visit Dad.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to. Thank you. Not this time.’
‘It’s up to you.’
Eleanor couldn’t help laughing. ‘Are you trying to get rid of me, or something?’
‘Of course not. I’m glad you came. Thank you for coming, Eleanor.’
‘Don’t be silly. I had to. I wanted to. I’m just so pleased the bloody thing was harmless.’ Eleanor returned to the window, folding her arms and gripping her elbows. ‘I do go and see him from time to time, you know.’
‘I know you do.’
‘Not as much as you, but…’ Kat had been the favoured child, at least when they were little. And if it hadn’t been Kat in the spotlight, it had been their mother. Or God. When it came to the focus of Vincent’s attention, it was invariably Eleanor who had come last.
‘It’s fine, Ellie.’
‘It’s like visiting a corpse.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So. What can I do now I’m here?’ Eleanor asked brightly, wanting to wrest both of them back to the reason for her visit. ‘Tea? A biscuit? Or is there something you’d like me to do? Hoovering? Shopping? I’d so like to be useful.’
‘There’s nothing, thanks. Hannah, our babysitter, and Howard are doing a brilliant job of keeping the show on the road.’ Kat lay back against her pillows, her expression growing distant.
‘Hey, guess what, I have just been commissioned to write another memoir,’ Eleanor blurted. ‘This time it’s that actor, Trevor Downs? He’s really old now but…’ She broke off, feeling foolish, as Kat’s eyes fell shut. Her sister’s skin looked starkly pale suddenly beside the white January sunlight, now spooling into the room through breaks in the cloud and falling into misty pools on the silky grey carpet. There were marbled veins at her temples that Eleanor had never noticed before, threading under her cheekbones like the blue in a soft, pearly cheese. It made her want to stroke Kat’s face, show the protective tenderness which always hovered but which never seemed able to come out.
She moved towards the bed but stopped as Kat puckered her lips, seemingly in preparation to speak, but then her mouth fell still again, the lips slack and slightly open.
Eleanor turned back to the window, feeling at a loss. The garden spread beneath her was ridiculously huge and orderly, comprising not just terraces of well-tended lawns and flower beds, but an all-weather tennis court and the smart black rectangle of a covered swimming pool. Kat had been such a wild child that there was something about this tidy state of adult affluence that Eleanor still found hard to buy into.
Yet she was hardly in a position to be critical, she mused, the cul-de-sac of her decade in Oxford coming back at her: the pitiful hanging on because of Igor, the Russian academic who had asked her to write his life story and then swept her into an affair before returning to his wife in Moscow; the subsequent abandoned and useless efforts at fiction; the ad-hoc tutoring to pay bills. Not to mention a social life which, in the three years since moving to London, had somehow deteriorated into a state of lurching oscillation between abject indolence and a sexual promiscuity that she couldn’t have confessed to anyone, least of all her self-contained, snugly nested little sister. A recent nadir had been reached in the form of opening her flat door to the husband of her oldest and best friend from university, dear Megan.
Eleanor dug her fingernails into her forearms as the shame flared. Billy had been in London for a stag do. They had said drunken farewells through a taxi window after a chance encounter in a nightclub. Megan had been many miles away, safely ensconced with their three boys in their Welsh home. ‘No,’ Eleanor had said. But when Billy had reached for the zip on her dress, she had turned, lifting her heavy tumble of hair to make his task easier.
Eleanor had tiptoed as far as the bedroom doorway when Kat’s eyes flew open. ‘Actually, there is something I want, Ellie… something to show you… I don’t know how I could have forgotten. Hang on a minute, while I…’
Seeing the grimace of determination as Kat manoeuvred herself out of bed, Eleanor sprang back across the room to help, only to be met with a warning hand to keep away. She took a step back, aware of the deep, buried reflex of looking after her little sister stirring again.
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Kat assured her tetchily. ‘It’s good to move. The doctors said. No one is supposed to lie around after an operation these days. They get you up and about as soon as possible.’ She stood, pausing to let the crumples in her long white nightshirt fall free, and then moved steadily to a dark green and orange silk kimono hanging on the back of the bedroom door. She slid herself into it with a quick graceful shake of her shoulders, deftly knotting the cord into a big floppy butterfly-bow off her hip. ‘We’re going to my study. Prepare to be surprised.’ She tapped her nose and grinned, looking so restored and pleased with herself that Eleanor did not have the heart to do anything but follow her downstairs.
Kat’s study was a cosy end-of-corridor room containing a desktop computer, a voluminous orange beanbag, an oak chest spilling with sewing equipment and a tailor’s dummy swathed in a sari of lilac silk. Kat went straight to the desk and plucked a sheet of A4 out of the tray of her printer. ‘My surprise
is this.’ She shoved the paper under Eleanor’s nose, beaming. ‘It arrived this morning. Talk about a blast from the past. I want to hear your views.’ She pronounced the word as if it was a great joke, sliding past Eleanor and settling herself on the beanbag, from where she began to adjust some lower folds in the lilac silk, her small, nail-bitten fingers working nimbly. ‘I printed it off so it was easier to read. Take your time,’ she mumbled, managing, in spite of having several pins between her lips, to communicate impatience.
The paper was an email. Noting who it was from, Eleanor leant back against the desk in a subtle bid to steady herself, marvelling both at the timing of its arrival and the reminder of her little sister’s relentless and unfailing ability to wrong-foot her.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Greetings
Dear Kat,
This is just a friendly enquiry to ask how the hell you are. Something perhaps to do with the big Four Ohhh being on the imminent horizon, wanting to take stock, etc. Where did twenty years go? That’s what I keep asking myself. I hope you are well and happy. Are you well and happy?
As for me, doctoring took me to dermatology and for the past ten years I have been working as a consultant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital here in Cape Town. (Hence the above email address!) I have a South African wife, Donna, and two beautiful daughters (they take after their mother!), Natalie and Sasha, aged fifteen and thirteen. We are lucky enough to live in Constantia, a beautiful area outside Cape Town (in case you didn’t know!), in a house with a big garden, pool, etc., and views across the valley towards the city and the famous Table Mountain.
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