The Family Holiday

by Elizabeth Noble

  ‘Delighted.’

  ‘Did the others say yes too?’

  ‘Apparently. Dad sent me an email saying they were all coming. We’ll be a full contingent of Chamberlains. All together. For ten days. In an English summer.’

  ‘That’s good, right?’ She was choosing to ignore the sarcasm. He loved her all-American optimism. The whole have-a-great-day thing. The broad toothy smile. The can-do attitude. All stereotypes, he knew. All true as well. Just a little infectious. A sunny yin to his instinctively cautious yang.

  She’d only met them all en masse twice. At their wedding reception, and at Carrie’s funeral. Both distinctly different, of course, but similar in their ‘best behaviour’ social mores. She didn’t have a clue what she was dealing with. But then again, he reasoned, neither did they. His siblings hadn’t come up yet against her relentless, energetic cheerfulness, or her endless capacity to see the best in everyone and everything. She’d blow through them like a tuberose-scented breeze. It was almost exciting to think of it.

  He brightened. They’d left the A road, and were less than a mile from home. ‘I’m sure it’ll be a blast, as you say, darling.’

  Home was reassuringly as he’d left it. Scott dumped his suit-carrier gratefully in the front hall, and shrugged off his jacket, throwing it over the newel post.

  Heather put both arms around him and held him for a moment. He rested his chin on top of her head.

  ‘Welcome home, babe.’ Her voice was at its softest.

  ‘I need a shower.’

  She pulled away to look at him, and he knew at once what was on her mind. ‘May I join you?’

  ‘You look clean to me.’ Raised eyebrows. So un-English. But he’d taken her by the hand and was walking towards the stairs.

  She let herself be led, although it was all her idea. ‘Well, maybe I’d like to get dirty again.’

  7

  When the phone rang in the hall, Nick always jumped. It happened so seldom. People had called Carrie at home. They didn’t call him, which was fine. He’d never much liked people’s disembodied voices. He liked to see faces when he spoke to them. Carrie had laughed at him about it when they were first together. She’d goaded him into calling her, and at first, to him, their chats had felt stilted, awkward. He couldn’t shake the fear that this gorgeous girl must have better things to do than talk on the phone to him. Within weeks they’d been talking for hours, the receiver held between his ear and his shoulder while he cooked, or moved clothes from the washing-machine to the tumble dryer, or just lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. Those long, meandering, getting-to-know-you conversations where they’d found out all about each other. But that had just been Carrie.

  ‘Nick?’ It was Ed, Carrie’s dad. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m okay. You?’

  ‘We’re doing well. You know …’

  He did. They were doing as well as they ever would, was what he’d meant. ‘Farm in good shape?’

  The question was essentially pointless. Nick knew next to nothing about the farm, except that, beautiful as it undoubtedly was, it was incredibly hard work, and that, although Carrie had left it for university at eighteen, seeking bright lights, big city, she still felt, in some ways, that it was home. He’d always felt just a little out of place there: his own upbringing had been resolutely suburban.

  ‘Yes, yes. All good. Thank you. Lambing’s pretty much done. Didn’t lose any.’

  Carrie would have been there for that, if she could have made it work. She couldn’t get enough of it. She’d gone with Bea last year and taken an amazing photograph of her, sitting down holding a new lamb, all shiny and slimy, her face alive with joy as she looked up at her mother in wonder. It was one of his favourites. ‘That’s great.’

  It was always a bit laboured and unnatural now. Like they were both afraid of the huge weight of what they wouldn’t say.

  ‘And how are the kids?’

  He scanned his brain for details to share. ‘Bea lost a tooth. First one.’

  Ed chuckled. ‘That’s great. Bless her. Did the Tooth Fairy come?’

  ‘Sort of.’ He’d remembered at three a.m. Texted Fran at six to get the going rate. Slid two pound coins under Bea’s pillow just before she woke up. Didn’t find the tiny milk tooth until he stripped the bed a week later to wash the sheets. He’d placed it in a small box, in his bedside drawer, next to the velvet pouch where he’d put Carrie’s engagement and wedding rings.

  ‘Delilah? Arthur?’

  ‘They’re well. I mean, the normal snuffles and stuff but, yeah, they’re fine.’

  Ed paused, small-talk apparently over. Nick heard him exhale. Then it was Maureen’s voice. ‘Hi, Nick.’

  ‘Hi, Maureen.’

  ‘We were … we were just wondering, I mean wanting to ask … have you had any thoughts about sorting out some childcare?’

  So that was it. The purpose of the call. This again.

  ‘Maureen …’

  His mother-in-law’s voice grew a little sterner. He could see her, in his mind’s eye, drawing herself up. She adopted a particular posture when she felt she’d held her tongue long enough. He’d seen it first over wedding planning, once more over breastfeeding, again about potty-training. She seldom held her tongue as long as Nick, and even Carrie, wished she would: they both knew her motives were pure and kind, but still …

  The childcare thing was none of her business.

  Except it was, of course. If not theirs, then whose? He grudgingly acknowledged, just to himself, that his own mother would have been saying very similar things, had she still been around. Dad didn’t – it had never been his style: he dreaded interfering above all things, however much he would probably have agreed with Mum.

  He knew things couldn’t go on like this. He was killing himself.

  Work had been fantastic, to start with. Everyone was incredibly shocked and sorry and, yes, of course, he could take as long as he needed to get himself sorted out. But they didn’t mean that. No one realistically could. People rallied around, all good intentions and kind impulses, and the hastily appointed person covering for him at work did the best they could. No one was indispensable. But some people were more indispensable than others and, a few months in, it became clear he was one of them. His role as head of graphic design at a trendy, next-big-thing advertising and marketing consultancy couldn’t be handled indefinitely by his team. He had client relationships, and he was a key player in pitches and meetings. Comments were made. It became clear, eventually, that he had a choice to make. Come back to work, or leave.

  He needed to work. The mortgage had to be paid. Carrie hadn’t been working when she died, but all their sums had been predicated on the fact that she would want to, once Arthur was at school. What they owed on the house was eye-watering, and he had shoes to buy. Every few weeks, it turned out.

  And he might very well have gone completely mad if he hadn’t gone back to work. But leaving the children had been an extraordinary wrench, and he hadn’t yet managed to do it properly. He worked from home most of the time, at a computer set up on an IKEA trestle table in the front room, where he and Carrie used to watch TV, drink red wine and fool around after the kids had gone to bed. He tried to push everything else away when he sat there, be incredibly efficient, but he didn’t always succeed. He was surrounded by his memories. Arthur went to the childminder, two streets away. Delilah was at a nursery a five-minute drive from home, and Bea at the local primary school five minutes beyond that.

  Nick worked frantically in the hours they were out of the house, getting up to shove loads of laundry into the washing-machine, and far more, once they were in bed.

  He felt he failed all the time. At work, he dropped balls. People were still being kind as they tried to catch them, but just a tiny bit less so, and the irritation in their voices was less well disguised when it happened. At home, he was racked constantly by guilt. Had he spent enough time with them? Had he cuddled them for long enough? Had he read enough?
Was he enough?

  He knew Ed and Maureen were right when they said it was unsustainable. He needed proper help. He needed a substitute mother. A stand-in wife. At least, that was how it felt when he tried to think about it.

  The last time they’d come down, they’d tried to open a conversation about getting some full-time, live-in help, about him going back to work properly. He’d tried to listen, and be reasonable, but he’d ended up shouting at them that they had no idea how he felt, and that it was none of their business how he chose to make this new, awful, life work, and the visit had ended badly, although Maureen had held him briefly when she left, and Ed had had tears in his eyes when he’d shaken Nick’s hand.

  He’d felt dreadful immediately they’d gone. They’d lost their daughter. He knew they only wanted to help him. Worst of all, he knew they were right.

  ‘Now, Nick. Please don’t get angry. We’re sorry about the way we handled things, when we were with you.’

  ‘Maureen …’

  ‘No, I need to say this, love. You need to know that we’re only ever trying to help you.’

  ‘I do know, Maureen.’

  ‘Carrie would be furious if we fell out.’

  ‘We’re not going to fall out, Maureen.’

  ‘No, we’re bloody not.’

  He laughed at the defiance in her voice, so typical of her. She laughed too, and it broke the tension. They’d always been friends. An easy, warm relationship had existed between them since he’d first got to know them as a young man. It had been part of the charm of a life with Carrie – that understanding. It had deepened, with marriage, and then again, wonderfully, as he and Carrie became parents themselves, and made Ed and Maureen grandparents. Layers of love. He’d always been proud of it. His mates moaned over pints at the pub about domineering fathers-in-law and manipulative mothers-in-law, and he never had shocking anecdotes to share. Maureen even got on with Daphne, for God’s sake.

  ‘We wanted to tell you we think you’ve done a brilliant job, since – since she went. We’re very proud of how you’ve handled yourself. She would have been too. You know that, right?’

  God, he hoped so. ‘Thank you, Maureen.’

  ‘But it’s okay to accept help. You know that too, right? You don’t have to do it all on your own.’

  ‘It’s hard.’

  ‘We know.’ Her voice broke. ‘We do know. It’s hard for all of us.’

  ‘Maureen …’ He heard her sniff, pull herself together. ‘I will think about it, about getting some more regular help. Something permanent. At home. I promise. Okay?’

  ‘If you mean it, and aren’t just saying it.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘That’s good enough for us, then.’ She was obviously relieved. ‘For you and for them.’

  Nick wanted to change the subject before she demanded details and a timeframe. ‘Ed says the lambing went well.’

  Maureen admitted defeat, and let herself be led away from the childcare issue. ‘Very well. The weather’s been kind too. Unusually mild. The kids would have loved it. I’ll never forget Bea’s face last time, bless her. Just like Carrie used to look. When d’you think you might be able to bring them up, for a proper stay? You could leave them for a few days. Ed would come down and get them.’

  He knew how sincerely the offer was made. He just couldn’t imagine leaving them. Not yet. ‘I was thinking maybe Easter? We could come up for two or three nights?’

  ‘Three nights?’ Granny-hearing, rounding up. ‘That’d be grand. Good Friday to Easter Monday?’

  He let himself be swept along. ‘That sounds great. If you’re sure.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Course we are.’ She sounded excited, and he felt guilt, his usual companion, that he hadn’t been up for ages. ‘We’d love it. I can do an Easter egg hunt.’

  8

  Stepping out of the car into the chilly day, Laura forced her shoulders down from their habitual hunch by her ears, pushed her shoulders back and took deep, deep breaths of the fresh air. She stretched out her arms, parallel to the ground, then raised them slowly, her palms touching in prayer above her head.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Her friend Mel – her very best friend – had been bent over on the other side of the car, tying the laces of her walking boots. She straightened and looked at Laura with amusement.

  ‘Being mindful.’

  ‘Oh, Jeez. Not you as well. Everyone’s at it.’

  ‘At what?’

  ‘Mindfulness. They’ve just introduced an after-school club in it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And!’ Mel scoffed in reply. She was a semi-professional scoffer, often indignant about something, but there was never spite or malice in it.

  ‘Well, peace, sister, to you too.’ Laura smirked.

  ‘It’s not the stretching I object to. It’s the new name for it. Mindfulness. What the heck? If you tell me you’ve discovered the calming power of colouring in, this walk is not going to go well.’

  Laura laughed. That was why she was here. The mindless or mindful yomp, the fresh air, and the cake with tea that would certainly follow were just fringe benefits. She was here because Mel made her laugh. She always had.

  They’d been friends since they’d met in their local NCT class. They’d waddled into a community centre in Tooting one dark, drizzly evening all those years ago, six and a half months pregnant with Ethan and Mel’s son Jack, and within the first hour had recognized in each other a kindred, irreverent spirit. The other expectant parents had been a serious and sober lot, taking careful notes and asking detailed questions, Mel and Laura the only gigglers in the room, the only ones, apparently, attuned to the silliness of a room full of pregnant women and anxious men. And the only ones without husbands in tow on that first occasion. It had been fairly obvious, even before they sloped off to the pub next door, while the others enjoyed a cup of tea and a biscuit in the centre’s foyer, that they would be friends. And so it was.

  Mel’s husband, Rick, had been in the army, on a posting. Alex had been at work. He’d had the NCT class in his diary for ages, but when he’d phoned Laura half an hour before it was due to start, saying he was stuck in a client meeting, she wasn’t surprised. She loved him. But even then he’d been hopeless at the practical stuff. Ethan was ‘planned’, in the sense that they’d talked about trying to fall pregnant, and she’d stopped taking the pill and started taking folic acid, but Alex had seemed bewildered and sometimes even overwhelmed by the whole experience. She wasn’t convinced he was going to be all that helpful.

  She hadn’t really minded that because she felt so entirely ready for the baby, and considered Alex’s inadequacies even less after she’d met Mel. They became, very quickly, each other’s support system. Their mutual state fast-tracked intimacy. It was Mel she shopped with for car seats, muslin squares and breast pads, Mel she called when her Braxton Hicks were so strong she couldn’t believe (and didn’t want to) that it wasn’t real labour. Rick was delighted. Alex was relieved.

  Mel was the first person Laura had met in a long time who genuinely didn’t care what anyone thought of her. ‘Other people’s opinions of me are none of my business,’ she would say, and actually meant it. Laura had always envied her that trait, maybe tried (and probably failed) to emulate it. It seemed to her that the older they’d got, the greater the difference between them. They’d looked similar when they’d met, pregnant with their babies, glowing, with clear young skin. Laura knew she had grown thinner and more brittle, Mel rounder and even more ‘not giving a toss’. But, to Laura’s occasional surprise, the friendship had endured, rooted in the births of their children but sustained by affection for each other. Jack was born first, when Laura was thirty-eight weeks pregnant. It was the wrong way around: Jack was due several weeks later, but he came early. Rick wasn’t there and couldn’t get back in time, Mel’s mum lived in Spain, so she’d called Laura, at four a.m., and Laura had been with her, push by painful push, when Jack was born five hou
rs later. That tied you to a person with strong rope.

  When Laura’s time came a few weeks later, she had her amazing mum with her, and she’d never been more grateful for their relationship. Daphne had driven up, with Charlie, when Laura’s waters had broken, and hadn’t left her side, laser beam focused on Laura’s contractions even as Alex made endless unnecessary trips to the vending machine and to check his phone for messages. But Mel had been Ethan’s first visitor, sweeping in with Jack in a pram, and scooping Ethan out of his plastic crib, her eyes full of happy tears.

  They’d been each other’s lifeline through those first extraordinary months, comparing notes and empathizing along the steep learning curve of motherhood. Then overseas postings, and life, had taken Mel out of Laura’s everyday world as the boys toddled towards nursery school, and both had been bereft, texting and speaking several times a day until they built new lives around the hole each had left in the other’s world. To their relief, the ties remained, and the shorthand communication they’d developed stayed the same.

  When Rick and Mel had divorced, the boys were still quite young. It had been Mel’s idea, but she had stayed in the West Country, where Rick’s last posting had been, and had a perfectly amicable relationship with him and his new wife, Clare. Jack had two half-sisters, and spent alternate weekends with his other family, with seemingly minimal angst and aggravation. For the last six or seven years Mel had been living above a pub in a Wiltshire village with a straightforward, jolly man called Cliff, who thought the sun shone out of her.

  Maybe that was the difference between them. Mel basked and relaxed, warmed by the rays of Cliff’s adoration. Laura had desiccated and grown husk-like from Alex’s neglect. Mel made everything look relatively easy – even the traditionally tough stuff – and Laura felt she made heavy weather out of it all.

  Mel had been the first person she’d called after Alex had turned everything upside-down. She was still pretty much the only person Laura could really talk to about it. Mel had the knack of making space for Laura to talk into but equally easily filling it if that seemed better.