The Secret Art of Forgiveness

by Louisa George

  It was the most she’d said since she’d arrived and she clearly wasn’t happy. ‘But what’s happened? Sorry, I shouldn’t pry, it’s really none of my business.’

  Matilda sighed, her shoulders looking as if they were weighed down. ‘He’s not the man I married. I mean, we all change, right? It’s called growing up. He used to adore me, you know. Couldn’t get enough of me. But now he never has a good thing to say to me or about me. Nothing drastic. He just can’t see any positives in me and… well, I can actually. I’m a nice person. He’s always ridiculing my art, but I have sold a few paintings. My website gets lots of hits every month and there’s a gallery in Cheltenham which said I could show some work. When I told him he just laughed and said no one would buy anything and how embarrassing that would be.’ There was another, heavier sigh. ‘But I want to try. It’s a step. It’s a shot at what I want to do.’

  Oh, poor Tilda.

  Emily had never thought she’d think that, or feel it, but she did. All these years she’d snubbed them, and they her… but now she found herself wanting to know more about them. Slowly she was being pulled further into their lives. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. ‘I had no idea. I’m so sorry, that must hurt.’

  ‘No. Well, it doesn’t do to complain, does it? Sometimes if a thing isn’t working, you’ve just got to call it quits.’

  Something in that sentiment resonated with Emily at a deep level. ‘You’re right. So why don’t you come and live up here with Dad?’ Dad. It still felt strange to say that, but it felt right, too. ‘There’s more room here than anywhere in the village. And you can keep an eye on him and spread out your canvases. It’s the perfect solution.’

  Tilda smiled. ‘Except the last time I brought some work here, I popped out for a few hours and when I got back Daddy had painted over it, thinking he was in the middle of his own artwork. You know, I don’t remember him having done any. He’s too hard to be around with precious stuff. And I need to be able to breathe and think.’

  God, give me strength. Which was an uncharitable thing to think, because what did she know about being artistic? Or leaving a marriage? Or being Matilda? ‘Oh, well… in that case we’ll definitely have to use some of the money for a carer then. Just get as good a price as you can, Tamara.’

  Tam looked across at her, her features hardening again. ‘And we’ll keep you informed, is that it? You’ll go back to America and wash your hands of this whole problem.’

  ‘I’m going to come back.’

  ‘When exactly? Next decade? When you can be bothered? His funeral?’

  ‘That’s so unfair, Tam. You didn’t even tell me he was sick. I’m going to come back as often as I can but I do have a job, too. And a life.’ And with that she stood up, her heart thundering with indignation. And possibly because her sister was right – she hadn’t done enough, nowhere near enough. But they hadn’t let her in. They’d never let her in. ‘I don’t want to argue. It’s my last night with The Judge and I want it to be happy. There’s some lasagne in the freezer, I’ll heat it up and we can have a nice dinner. Together. As a family.’

  ***

  ‘What the hell have you done to his hair? He looks like… I can’t even… it’s…’ First time ever Tam had been stuck for words. Her eyes were popping as she looked at him. Her mouth taut in a fixed grimace. ‘He looks like… something from The Walking Dead.’

  ‘It’s not that bad.’ Emily tried not to laugh. ‘I was going for the tufted look, but… well… he kept getting distracted and I…’

  ‘Can’t cut hair?’ Tam growled and pressed her lips together as if she was holding in a roar or scream or something. ‘Another mess for me to sort out?’

  ‘I like it. It makes him look younger.’

  ‘It makes him look lopsided. Like he’s had a little stroke or something. I mean… Emily Jane, can’t you ever get anything…?’ She was clearly past trying to control her mouth and for a moment it curled into a smile. An actual smile that bordered on a laugh.

  Almost.

  Then she laughed and Tilda with her.

  And it was a surprising punch in Em’s chest. She’d never made her sisters smile before. ‘Use the gel in his bathroom to tuft it up a bit; it looks better like that. But you have to approach him from behind and do a quick slick and stick, otherwise he flat-out refuses.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ Tam shook her head. ‘And I’m not attacking him with gel. I’ll get Sally to fix it.’

  ‘I was going to ask her, but you got back too soon to…’

  ‘Cover your tracks?’ Tam’s eyebrows rose and the laughter was just a memory, but the mood was lighter. That was something for their last night at least.

  It was ten-thirty by the time the lasagne had thawed out enough and heated properly for human consumption. The conversation had frittered between mundane and humdrum and Emily had worked hard to steer clear of any bumps that might take them towards an argument. She didn’t want The Judge to witness that on her last night. Plus, she didn’t have the energy to bicker. It had been an emotional day and exhaustion was seeping into her bones.

  ‘You all have some, I’m not very hungry now.’ Emily tore off a bit of garlic bread and ate it. It settled like a lump of acid in her gut. These were her last few moments here and that thought made her heart hurt.

  ‘Don’t let it go to waste.’ The Judge handed his plate over and licked his thin lips.

  ‘You’re a human dustbin. I can’t believe how much you eat.’ Emily laughed and saw with surprise that her sisters were laughing again, too. ‘Have a big piece. Have two.’

  She looked at her watch. ‘Look, I haven’t packed a thing yet. There’s a cab coming in six hours. I really do need to go and sort myself out, and get some sleep.’

  Matilda nodded. ‘It’s okay, you go, we’ll clean this up and get him to bed. I think we’ll crash here, too. It’s too late to go home now.’

  ‘That’s my fault. Sorry about the cooking.’

  Tilda shrugged. ‘It’s a good excuse not to go home and face Stuart anyway.’

  ‘Okay. Well, I guess this is it then. I’ll say my goodbyes now.’ Emily’s throat filled as she watched her dad tucking in to more lasagne. ‘I’m going to go now, Judge.’

  ‘Okay. See you tomorrow.’

  She bit her lip. ‘No. No, you won’t. I’m going.’ Please don’t ask me to explain, again. ‘Can I have a hug?’

  ‘Of course, my dear.’ He put down his knife and fork and turned to her, and she could see something akin to affection there in his eyes. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m going to miss you.’ She stroked a finger down his lined cheek and planted a kiss on it with wobbly lips. Then she laid her hand on his chest and patted, hauling in a deep breath of his woody scent. He smelt as a father should. Smoky and spicy and… of hair gel.

  And she also knew there would never be these kinds of days again, because who knew when the next time she saw him would be? If he would even be alive. This could be the last time… No. No. No. She’d already lost two parents; she wasn’t ready to lose another one. Her chest constricted at the thought of him not being around. Stop it. She’d be back again soon. ‘Right. Okay. Now, be good, Judge.’

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. The first kiss he’d ever given her. ‘Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  She glanced over to her stepsisters and gave a tiny shake of her head. Don’t say anything. Don’t say a word. And they didn’t. They just let her walk out of the kitchen and up to the bedroom she’d had for what felt like a thousand years, and begin packing for her journey home.

  Chapter Ten

  The alarm was shrill and tight in her ear. Emily woke and peered one-eyed at the clock. Not wanting to oversleep she’d jerked awake at regular intervals in a panic, then finally fallen into a deep sleep. An hour ago.

  So the last thing she felt like doing was getting up, but New York was calling. She was going home.

  Home. Back to normal, to the way
things were. Or at least to a new way, where she was just a little different from before.

  ‘Urgh.’ She dragged herself out of bed into the darkness and hurriedly dressed, her body aching a little as if her very bones were filled with the weight of her heart.

  But, she would be seeing Brett in a mere few hours. She waited for the little zing of excitement at the thought of holding her fiancé again. And waited.

  What am I going to do? There’s no zing.

  The zing would come back the moment she saw him, she told herself, and she’d know that marrying him was the very right thing to do. The way she’d felt when she’d stepped into that elevator, the second she’d seen the ring in the champagne glass.

  She had to marry him. He loved her. She loved him. She thought she did, anyway, and that should be enough, right?

  It was the single most important thing she should do in her life.

  After washing her face and cleaning her teeth she carried her bag down the stairs as quietly as she could, tiptoeing over the floorboards she knew creaked. She had a tumbler in one hand and, leaving her bag in the hallway, slunk across to the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher.

  The embers in the fire were still glowing, and there was a welcoming warmth to the room in the unseasonably cold night. She said her silent goodbyes to the kitchen, stroking her hand across the soft worn wood of the table and remembering the times she’d had in here with The Judge and with her friends.

  ‘You off, then?’

  Emily’s heart almost stopped, and she turned in the direction of the voice. A figure was huddled in the shadows by the fire. ‘Shit. Tamara? You made me jump. What the hell are you doing in here in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Trying to sleep. And failing.’

  ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘I came down for some milk and ended up sitting here.’ She sat forward and Emily could see her face silhouetted in the firelight. She looked haunted. Gaunt. Tracks of mascara ran down her cheeks. Tamara, her ferocious and scary older stepsister had been crying. That, more than finding her here at this odd time, made Emily jump. Tam peered up at her and shrugged the kind of shrug that was as far from ferocious as it could be. ‘I guess I lost track of time.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Emily went closer, uncertain as to how to approach this new, deflated Tamara.

  Her stepsister shook her head. ‘Nothing for you to worry about. Your taxi’s on its way. You’d better go outside and be ready for it. You don’t want it to beep its horn and wake everyone else up.’

  There was something in the flat voice that scared Emily. The way it had no emotion, no feeling. Nothing. ‘Maybe you should try to get some sleep. In a bed would be better, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, you know what it’s like; sleeping in a strange bed never works well.’ Tam’s back stiffened and she pulled the rug round her even more tightly. ‘I’m fine.’

  She was far from fine. Em glanced at her watch. ‘I have a few minutes. D’you want to talk?’

  ‘No. I most definitely do not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, Emily, there are things you simply can’t do anything about.’

  But Emily couldn’t leave it like this. Couldn’t leave her like this. ‘Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Tam, but the day I left Little Duxbury I vowed never to show anyone my emotions ever again. I really did. I tried hard at it, too. And that works for a while… but the thing is, all the locked-up things start to come out eventually one way or another.’ She gave her stepsister a halting smile. ‘What I mean is, it’s good to talk. Really.’

  ‘Lovely. It all sounds very lovely, but even if I did want to talk to anyone…’ Tam’s eyes caught her gaze and they were empty, too. It was so unlike her to show nothing at all. Anger, rage or even disappointment would have been better than this. ‘…you would be the last person I’d choose.’

  ‘Why?’ Em’s eyes closed for a second as she controlled the stuttering in her heart. ‘Why do you hate me so much?

  ‘I don’t hate you.’

  ‘You’ve never tried to like me.’

  Tam shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t. Why would I want to like you? It became a matter of principle; to keep you at arm’s length.’

  ‘You were always so… disappointed with me. At least, that’s what it felt like. Have you any idea what that feels like? To be the reason someone is angry. To be the cause of that pain?’ The truth hurt like a sharp knife twisting and twisting. ‘You were always in the right, always…’ For some reason she tried to get Tamara to smile again. ‘Always so bloody perfect.’

  ‘Of course. I had to be perfect. I could never let you see me as anything less than that. I was his perfect daughter.’

  ‘Why? Because, believe me, I’m sure we’d have got on a lot better if you’d fought with me, argued, shouted…’

  Tam sighed. She looked so weary and tired. ‘My father and mother split up and I, like you after your mother’s death, was bereft. Everything I knew was flipped upside down. And my mother left us here while she went gadding about in France with her new lover. She didn’t want us with her. As for Father, well, he was too busy working to try and fathom out what two girls needed –’

  ‘I know exactly how you felt, believe me.’

  ‘But, unlike you, I was brought up not to show any emotion. So I locked it all in. Then you came along with all your riotous crying and screaming and drama. You were trouble and disruptive and my father started to give you – or the problem of you – a lot more attention than he gave us. You became the problem. You were our problem, sucking all my father’s energy, and you wanted to make everyone look at you, so I made sure I didn’t. I pretended you weren’t there. If I didn’t acknowledge you, you didn’t exist, right? You didn’t get your way. You certainly didn’t get me.’

  ‘I’m not your problem anymore, haven’t been for a long time.’ That was the truth of it, even though her words smacked of teenage petulance. Again. Just like that, she was defensive and attacking at the same time. She shook her head. For years she’d told herself she was the victim, but it worked both ways. She’d always thought they’d dealt with their mother’s abandonment well… but clearly not. And clearly her presence had made everything worse.

  Consumed by her own problems she hadn’t ever looked at it from their perspective. Being young wasn’t an excuse. Grieving wasn’t an excuse for over ten years of playing up.

  Emily pulled up a chair opposite Tamara and put a hand over hers. Even so close to the fire it was cold, and thin like the rest of her. ‘Okay. I don’t know how, or really even why because we’ll probably never agree on anything, ever… But, well, I’d like to be part of the solution.’

  Her stepsister sat back, pulling her hand away immediately, and shook her head. ‘You do the advertising talk very well. But not the walk, Emily. I doubt you’ll give us a thought once your plane touches down. There isn’t a solution to my particular problem, anyway. I just have to get on with it all. I just… Never mind.’ Uncharacteristically, her voice cracked.

  There was a buzz of panic in Emily’s gut. ‘Just what? Tell me. Tell me. Pretend I’m not Emily, pretend I’m Tilda, or someone you can talk to. Just get the words out, Tamara, or you’ll be choked up for ever. Sometimes you’ve just got to say things. Get them out in the open.’

  I… I just don’t know if I can do it all. There’s so much to think about, so much to do, can’t you see? I’m the daughter of a sick man who’s only going to get worse and need me more, an employee of a very busy company, a sister of someone going through a break-up, the village committee head, the main carer, the only one who can make the decisions and I…’ She dragged in a deep breath, then another, and Emily realised that the gulps had turned to sobs. ‘Everyone expects so much from me, but I don’t think I can do it anymore. I don’t want to.’

  Tam never cried. Tam coped. Tam ordered people around. Tam took the reins. Tam told everyone what to do. Tam loved telling everyone what to do. Emily
sighed. ‘You’ll be fine, Tam. You’re amazing at all that.’

  ‘I’m not. I do it because it means I’m important, I see that. I’m not stupid. If people think I’m important then maybe they might just respect me, even if they don’t like me.’

  ‘People do like you.’

  ‘Oh, I know they think I’m bossy and difficult and picky and that I don’t tolerate fools. I’m screwed up inside and underneath it all, underlining every single thing I do, I’m so scared.’

  This time, when she took hold of Tam’s hand, Emily would not let it go. She stroked the back of it with her thumb. Softly. Like a friend would. A sister. ‘Scared of what?’

  Tam looked her right in the eye. ‘That I’ll end up like him, but there won’t be a me here to do the caring. I have no one, Emily. I have nothing to show for all the work I do. I have… what if I end up like him? What if I lose my mind? And I’m all by myself.’

  Emily’s phone buzzed. The taxi driver was outside.

  She looked at her hand, and at the one holding it, gripping it so tightly, trembling. Her stepsister was frightened about the future, about coping, about becoming helpless. She was confiding in her and this was a huge step forward for them both. She ignored the phone. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. There’s a test, isn’t there? To see if you’ve inherited the Alzheimer’s gene?’

  ‘Yes, but dementia comes in lots of different forms, so who knows which one he’s got and whether it’s passed down… And I’m not going to have any tests anyway. I don’t want to second-guess my every thought and wonder if a sudden forgetfulness means I’m losing my mind. I do that anyway – a test won’t allay my worries.’

  ‘There are huge leaps in science all the time. It won’t come to that.’ It was a lame response to an understandable and natural fear, but Emily didn’t know what else to say. The taxi was waiting. She had to go. ‘I wish I could do more. I will do more, I promise. To start with, I’ll call the bank on Monday.’