Mothertime

by Gillian White

  The sun wakes the children on these golden mornings; it peers in through their clematis-tangled windows, kissing them with its fluttery light, settling down on the patchwork quilts which Mummy helped them to make. Sacha and Amber won’t be parted but the others have their own rooms. Vanessa’s is in the attic: its two tiny windows are embedded in thatch, it runs across the top of the house so it’s more of a den than a bedroom, and she’s done it up exactly as she likes it.

  In this weather it’s a bit too hot to be travelling, especially with a squalling baby in a carrycot on the back seat. Suzie drives. They have taken the Peugeot because, if Holly grizzles on the journey, Robin is so much better at calming her down than the nervous, uptight Suzie. ‘It’s probably because I’m used to children, unlike you. It’ll come, Suzie, you’ll see, if you persevere. The trouble with you is that you are trying too hard. Holly does love you, you know, it’s just that babies feel so much safer if they are treated with confidence.’

  Suzie hangs her head like a child.

  Of course the journey would be more comfortable if they had taken the Jag, but think of all the stops, searching for suitable lay-bys so that Robin could stop the car, get out, and comfort the baby. Robin won’t let Suzie drive his car. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, darling. Everyone knows that women are better drivers than men. I think it’s to do with the legacy of Caroline. God, you should have seen her trying to handle a car. The roads are much safer since they removed her licence.’

  It was all extremely fraught. They can’t put the roof down because Robin says that Holly will catch cold and Suzie’s scared to open the window too far in case he goes into one of his long, laborious sulks. Suzie feels guilty because of his moods. She wants the weekend to go well so that, at long last, he might be able to come to terms with the fact that his children no longer need him… not in the desperate way that they used to.

  ‘We’re a family now,’ she says. ‘Your new family. You’ve got to let that other one go.’

  ‘They are still my children.’

  ‘Of course they are, Robin. Of course they are.’

  ‘And I have to make sure they’re being raised properly.’

  ‘That’s a funny, old-fashioned way to put it.’

  ‘Caroline cannot be trusted. She never could be trusted. Oh, by the way, Suzie—did you put the spare feeding bottles in the box as I asked you?’

  ‘I only brought the one. I thought we could wash it afterwards.’

  ‘You forgot! I specifically asked you, and you forgot! Sometimes, I know it’s extraordinary, but sometimes I think you do it deliberately. Proper sterilisation is so important. Children of Holly’s age are so susceptible to germs—surely you don’t still need to be told.’

  Suzie stiffens but says nothing, there’s no point. Robin is watching her every move, his right foot is directly connected to an imaginary brake on the passenger floor, his jaw is set as he stares before him and his arm is lodged rigidly across the back of the driver’s seat. Every now and then he breathes out, which is deeply disconcerting, as if he’s emerging from a dangerous dive only to take another breath in order to return down under. Suzie touches the kerb, something she’s never done in her life for she was always an expert driver, and fear shoots through her. She winces, she grips the steering wheel with hot, sweaty hands. She used to enjoy journeys but now even her choice of car is wrong. ‘There’s just no room in this to stretch out properly. When we make a change perhaps an estate would be more sensible. Caroline used to drive an estate, much handier to fit all the family gear in the back—prams, and the shopping.’

  She wanted to wear jeans but Robin reminded her she’d be too hot. ‘You want to get your legs brown, don’t you?’ She didn’t protest although no, actually, she didn’t particularly. She wanted to wear jeans because she always used to wear jeans at Poppins—she can never remember being out of them.

  Neither of them realised that Poppins was the house Caroline was buying until she had actually moved. There was no contact between Robin and Caroline, only a strange and rather unnerving silence coming from Camberley Road as moving day approached, as if Caroline had suddenly ceased to care—the game was finally over. They moved out of London in July and it was Vanessa who sent Robin the card, responsible Vanessa—she would, after all, be the one to handle the change-of-address cards. Caroline wouldn’t be bothered to think of anything like that. She’d ring up her friends on the spur of the moment when she realised they didn’t know where she was.

  ‘What’s this, Robin?’ Suzie waddled to pick up the post on her way through to the kitchen. She was heavy then, clumsy like a penguin, not quick, not deft any longer. She screwed up her eyes as she read the card and her fingers fluttered around her lips. The kitchen was darkened, shiny with yellows and greens, and she held the card to the natural light. ‘What does this mean, d’you think? It must be Vanessa’s attempt at a joke!’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Robin sat at the breakfast table shuffling the rest of the mail. He leaned on the cheerful, fresh green cloth while Suzie squeezed his orange juice, while Suzie prepared his coffee. ‘It says they’re at Poppins! That’s strange. It gives the same telephone number, too—your mother’s old number.’

  Suzie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘You don’t think…? Surely, it can’t be…’

  Robin’s laugh was caustic. ‘No, no. Why do you always have to jump to the wrong conclusions? Why must you be so damn dramatic?’

  She shouted, ‘Well, what am I supposed to think?’ She leaned forward and beat the card with a desperate finger. ‘That’s what it says, damn you, it says they are at Poppins! Caroline could easily have bought it, we wouldn’t know! And Mummy never knew who the purchaser was. Oh my God! Oh my God! This is just too awful. This is the end!’ And Suzie sat heavily down on her white kitchen chair—bang—and began to shudder and dribble, calling out unpleasantly for help.

  Robin said, ‘Suzie, don’t cry! Please, don’t cry. After all this time, after all this time and we had such good reason to think that Caroline was over the worst. Now we see that she has been conniving all the while, determined to hurt you as deeply as she could. She has bought this house for no other reason than to try and upset you. Even I, knowing her as well as I do, even I am horrified that the woman I once loved could go to these malicious lengths.’

  But no matter how he sympathised he couldn’t conceal his gratification, as if this was the proof he’d been waiting for, proof that the woman still loved him. Because for what other reason would she do this? Why else would she do anything so cruel? Why else would she continue to hate poor Suzie so?

  ‘Well, she’s clever,’ Suzie sobbed, hugging her little unborn lump. ‘I’ve got to give her that. She’s clever and she’s far more sensitive than I ever gave her credit for, because she understands how much Poppins means to me, and there’s only one way she could ever have worked that out. She must have been listening to the children. They have come, like little spies, to my house, carrying back messages for Caroline to decode. I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe the slyness, the viciousness of it all!’

  ‘Poppins was going to belong to somebody else, anyway.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ wept Suzie. ‘But to them! It feels as if they’ve finally won.’

  ‘It was never a battle, Suzie.’ Robin picked up his fat, overflowing filofax, prepared for work.

  ‘Not to you it wasn’t, no.’ Suzie had nothing to do all day. Not even the dentist. Nothing at all.

  ‘She won’t stick it for a week…’

  ‘Oh, I hope not. I so hope not. They’re not coming here for Christmas, Robin, I’m warning you now. I’m never going through that again.’

  But while the vengeful Caroline sticks it out at Poppins, Robin still knows that he hasn’t lost her. And he hasn’t lost the children, either. He’s always sending little gifts to Vanessa—mostly religious things, a leather bookmark, some incense sticks, meaningful verses he has found. Suzie knows Holly will be brought up in Robi
n’s faith; she never imagined otherwise, and until lately she didn’t really mind. But now she sees it’s a kind of subtle collusion, not deliberately done, she’s sure, full of so much secret mumbo jumbo it’s designed to create outsiders.

  She asked him once, only once, way back at the very beginning: ‘Would you prefer it, would you like me to convert? I only ask because you’ve never mentioned it and sometimes, you know, because your religion is so important to you I feel a little bit excluded.’

  He gave her a wry, disapproving look. ‘That’s the worst reason for changing faith that I have ever heard of.’

  So she didn’t mention that again.

  But now they are nearly there. After waiting for the invitation that never came, Robin has invited himself to stay at Poppins for the weekend.

  ‘You haven’t! Without asking me? How could you! If Caroline had wanted you she would have suggested it. Well, I’m not going. Surely you can’t expect me to go into that den of thieves. There is no reason for me to go and I refuse. They are nothing to do with me, never have been. You go.’

  Quite naturally this was Suzie’s reaction, but Robin was adamant. ‘Think of Holly, Suzie, please. And grow up! It’s time you came to terms with the situation as it is. These are Holly’s stepbrothers and sisters and although you don’t approve of them for reasons of your own—some deep-down insecurity perhaps, which is quite understandable—they are sweet, intelligent well-brought-up kids, you won’t find better, and of course they’ve got to know each other. And it’s time this feuding between you stopped. You’re a mother now, Suzie, not a little girl. When I spoke to Caroline she said they were all longing to see you again, and Holly. They haven’t seen her yet and she is already eight months old.’

  She ranted and raved, to no avail. He was determined that they both should go.

  It is all very odd. Since the move Robin’s children have not asked to come to London for a single visit, not even for a weekend.

  Oh, how poor Suzie dreads seeing her old home being lived in by somebody else.

  Thirty-five

  ‘I WONDER IF CAROLINE’S cooking’s improved?’

  Suzie turns and stares at him sharply.

  ‘And how on earth is she coping with a garden? She doesn’t even know what a spade looks like!’ Robin chuckles knowingly.

  When they pull in beside the gate, Suzie is forced to close her eyes. The memories swim behind them, borne on the scents of the breeze. Last time she came here she sat in Eileen’s kitchen; she watched her mother’s sensible hands, she drank from familiar blue and white tea cups, she found a sense of time and place that was healing.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ she chokes, clutching at Robin’s sleeve.

  Robin says, ‘Now Suzie, don’t be so silly. You bring the bags and I’ll take Holly. You can take her for a walk if you need to get away, if you can’t stand being with Caroline. I’ll put the wheels on the carrycot, but do take care. Remember, in these narrow country lanes there aren’t any pavements…’

  He gets importantly out of the car but stops dead in his tracks when he sees Caroline. She sails down the path with her curls springing shyly from under the brim of a huge straw hat. She’s tanned, in a sky-blue dress that’s almost flimsy enough to see through. Her smiling eyes are the soft green of the weeping willow she passes. She holds out her arms in what can only be a genuine greeting and it’s all so… perfect. ‘Robin,’ she says, ‘at last! Suzie, thank you for coming, it must have been very difficult for you. It must have been agony but we’re all determined to make that right, if you’ll let us. Would you mind if I picked up your baby?’ And she stoops to reveal a curve of soft breast; she cradles Holly in her bare, comfortable, motherly arms.

  Can this creature possibly be Caroline? Suzie attempts to hide her astonishment but it’s difficult. Very difficult. Over the gate she can see the twins, naked, splashing about in the paddling pool. The fierce plastic blue is just one more patch of colour in this cradle of luscious greens. There’s a man over there who looks like Adonis in a sunhat bringing some sandwiches out on a tray and putting them in the shade, on the old wicker table surrounded by baggy, bent chairs. Dominic hangs from a rope-ladder halfway up a tree-house; he watches their arrival intently like a sturdy beast regurgitating while Camilla’s narrow, pixie face grins down through the branches. That delicate child, that pretty ballerina, looks like Tom Sawyer, more like a boy than a girl.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ The naked twins rush towards Robin, but they do not cling as they used to; there is something different, like pride. They tug at his hands and they shout, ‘Come and see! Come and see!’

  Robin clears his throat as he’s dragged along. ‘Hang on! Hang on a minute.’ He is forced into being falsely jovial. ‘I wanted to take you out for tea. I told you. I thought you’d be all dressed and ready.’

  ‘It’s too hot, Daddy. It’s much too hot and we’ve got all this food here we must eat.’

  ‘Perhaps this evening, then. We could all go out for a meal, give your mother some peace. First we must put all Holly’s things in the kitchen, away from the flies.’

  ‘Oh Daddy, don’t be so fussy, just give them to Lot.’

  Robin frowns. ‘To whom?’

  ‘Lot will look after them. Come on, Daddy, watch how we jump!’

  If this is a show put on to confuse them then it’s been expertly rehearsed. There’s no way this could be a show. Suzie stares, confounded, because it’s just how it used to be when she and Mummy and Daddy were there, and her little friends. It’s glorious, it is perfection, such a faithful representation… and the change in Caroline is startling. She glows with satisfaction. Suzie is moved to say without thinking, ‘Caroline, I don’t think I would have recognised you. You look so happy! You look so stunningly beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, I am.’

  ‘Oh, she is. This man down the road who does adverts on TV asked her if she’d do some sessions for a lot of money but she didn’t want to, did you, Mummy?’

  And there are no wiles about her. She’s an actress, but nobody could act as naturally as this. Nobody could act the way that Dominic comes to idle by her side, his little brown hand in hers, gently waiting. Nobody could act the way Camilla pushes so confidently forward. ‘Can we start the sandwiches now? Shall I bring out the blackberry wine, or the beetroot?’

  ‘No dear, tea will do.’

  Nobody could have baked that sponge cake, that enormously topply, creamy, swirly sponge cake with anything else but love. And nobody who didn’t like children could arrange Holly so sweetly, could have suddenly thought up the parasol and the natural windchimes of leaves and branches. The baby knows. The baby chortles. ‘Oh she’s gorgeous, Suzie. You must be so proud. She’s wonderful! Look, Camilla, hold her little fist. I’m so sorry, Suzie, I’m quite dotty about other people’s babies.’ And Caroline closes her eyes and absorbs her.

  Is Holly wonderful? Is she? Suzie has nearly forgotten. Suzie sees her baby through eyes cobwebbed with worry and all sorts of difficult questions.

  Robin stands alone, blinky and owl-like, his hands gripped behind his back as he watches the twins’ mad splashings. You could almost imagine they’ve forgotten he’s there.

  ‘Where is Vanessa?’

  Caroline’s face saddens suddenly and the shadow’s a drift of pain that lightly brushes her eyes. She takes off her hat and she fans herself with it and then they’re aware of the terrible beat of the drums. Robin looks up towards the top window—you can only just make out the blasted words: ‘INJECT THE VENOM’.

  ‘How ghastly,’ says Robin, frowning, his hands to his ears and pricked by a hot, suspicious sweat. All is not right here.

  ‘That’s AC-DC,’ Dominic explains with an eager half-smile, telling tales. ‘She doesn’t listen to anyone but AC-DC now.’

  ‘Heavy metal,’ says Caroline shortly, cramming that hat back on her head. ‘She knew what time you’d be coming. She’s really very naughty. She should have come down. I’ll call her if you like, but
maybe we ought to just wait until later.’

  But everyone can see that Robin is hurt. His little girl should have run out to greet him. ‘I told her to come down. I called her earlier, when I heard you arrive.’ Caroline repeats herself stupidly. She looks slightly nervous. ‘I’ll just go and see…’

  Caroline disappears into the house and she’s gone for a good five minutes while Robin waits, glancing at his watch, smiling weakly at the twins, at Suzie. It’s all so strange—he is so out of his depth in this alien place.

  Suzie sinks apprehensively into one of the old uneven chairs, just relieved that her difficult baby is contented and silent for once, sucking her tiny fist. She gazes around her wonderful garden remembering those happy old times. She wants to put up her arms like a boxer, to shield her brain from the force of them. None of this is hers any more and it feels as if it’s been stolen away.

  It’s such a shock! Vanessa is dressed all in black. Her hair is a row of tall purple spikes, gelled into place, like the back of some prehistoric beast. There’s a silver ring through her nose. Her skin-tight jeans have holes in the knee and her boots make her feet ugly and duck-like. Robin walks towards her uncertainly. ‘Darling?’

  Vanessa glowers out between thick black lashes. She does not even deign to reply.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  There is no response, none at all. Just a fierce, bored look and she is tapping one of her monstrous feet on the grass. Why is his daughter wearing workman’s boots?

  ‘Well, you’ve changed! Just look at you! How long has this been going on?’ He stares at his daughter with all the solemnity of a judge passing sentence but he blames his wife. It’s his first wife who must give him an explanation.

  Caroline contributes an uncertain laugh. ‘Oh, it’s just a phase, Robin. She’s fourteen now, you know. She’s been responsible for so long, she had to let go of it some time, don’t you see…’

  ‘But like this? Vanessa?’ He slaps his forehead. ‘I just don’t believe it. The girl must be ill.’