A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  ‘Eighteen years,’ said Tina, as she popped a forkful of New York cheesecake into her mouth. She was full, but determined to finish. Cheesecake was one of her particular favourites. And she didn’t like to leave food on her plate.

  ‘And you don’t have kids, I think you said?’ said Kath.

  She was a little nosy, but it was all right. Nosy people were interested people. Tina knew that there were those who would be interested in her. Psychological types. Psychiatric, in fact. Her brush with that sort of thing a few months ago had put her off forever. Her sessions with Virginia, her short-lived counsellor, had done little to help. Virginia had been very nice and very earnest, but the experience had left Tina broken and confused. It hadn’t been Virginia’s fault and Tina was wise enough to understand that. Yet the upshot was Tina was even more guarded and reluctant to talk.

  Tina hesitated. Kath paused awkwardly with a forkful of her own dessert halfway between her mouth and her plate. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Me and my big fat mouth. It’s none of my business,’ said Kath.

  ‘Oh no, it’s fine. It’s just… we… I… I don’t think I’m ready to be a mother.’

  ‘Oh. But you’re older than me aren’t you?’ Kath laughed, and topped up both their glasses with the rest of the bottle. Tina wasn’t offended; it was funny. She already knew Kath spoke her mind. She was also a good listener.

  ‘Forty-six is getting on, I suppose,’ said Tina, and it was strange to hear herself speak her own age. It did sound old. If not old, certainly not young any more. ‘But I don’t think I’m mother material,’ finished Tina. It was lame. She was lame – pathetic.

  Last month, for the first time in her life she’d missed a period. For a few days she’d wondered if she might be pregnant. She’d wondered so much that she’d popped to Boots to buy a test kit. Shy and self-conscious, she had left the shop with not only the kit – the last item she’d picked up – but also a can of body spray, a packet of hair nets and a tube of arnica tablets. She had used none of these things in her life, including the test kit. At home, she’d carefully studied the instructions, her hands and neck clammy. It had felt like the beginning of an adventure. She’d found herself in tears when the kit had revealed the truth to her. Yet she had felt relief too. She’d said nothing to Keaton.

  ‘Why aren’t you mother material?’ asked Kath.

  ‘I haven’t got what it takes,’ said Tina, lifting her chin.

  Kath hesitated for a second or two. ‘I bet you have,’ she said. She took another swig of wine. ‘What about your husband? How does he feel about kids?’

  ‘Oh, he wants a child more than anything in this world.’

  The pause was awkward, but not prolonged. Tina had never voiced this thing before. She felt like a headmistress confiscating a wrongly accused child’s favourite toy. But Kath shrugged. ‘Do you have any nieces or nephews? I bet you’re a good aunt to them.’

  ‘I don’t. Although that would have been nice.’

  ‘I take it that’s beyond the realms of possibility?’ said Kath, smiling. She was certainly easy to talk to. She was a gentle digger.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Tina.

  ‘You don’t have brothers or sisters?’ asked Kath, and her ingenuousness was touching, and not new to Tina. She had fielded such questions before, and had a stock of set answers to draw upon, depending on the questioner and the circumstances. It was never easy to decide which way to go with it, which route to take. On more than one occasion she’d found herself denying Meg’s existence, omitting her entirely from her story. On another, she’d talked about how close she and Meg were, how they had always been close, and how they were godmothers, as well as aunts, to each other’s children.

  ‘I have a twin sister,’ Tina said, and took another sip of wine.

  ‘Oh, you’re a twin! Do you feel that you’re two halves of the same person?’ Kath drained her glass and beamed across the table at Tina.

  ‘Not really,’ said Tina. She looked out of the window, but all she could see against the backdrop of night was her own vague reflection and the lights of the restaurant, mirrored and multiplied. ‘We were born on different days. A few minutes apart either side of midnight.’

  ‘How lovely.’

  ‘I don’t know. It is what it is.’

  ‘So does your sister look like you?’

  ‘Oh, God no, she’s nothing like me. She’s taller and a lot slimmer and she’s always been the pretty one even though she wasn’t ever girlish… Actually, she’s beautiful. She really is. But I don’t see much of her these days. She’s unwell.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Kath. ‘Do you mind my asking… is it serious? Tell me to shove off if that’s too much of a question.’

  ‘It is serious. Yes.’

  ‘I ask because I’ve been there. My brother was unwell. He died four years ago.’

  ‘He died?’

  ‘He had cancer. He was only thirty-four. Sorry. I’m sorry, Tina. I still get upset…’ Kath rooted around in her handbag for her compact. She flicked it open and dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. Tina said nothing. She was paralysed and had nothing to say. How she feared for Meg. It was frightening, how much she feared for her sister. Death was all around, as dark and unavoidable as the night trying to push through the windows, trying to swallow her up in blackness.

  Kath recovered, and smiled bravely. ‘So, back to my original question, which I think was…?’

  ‘I was saying I don’t want children. I still don’t,’ said Tina. Kath laughed and Tina was glad she was able to lighten the mood. ‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ she said, remembering the things that people said when an untimely death was discussed. Everybody was sorry, whatever that really meant. Kath glanced away from her, just for a second, and Tina feared she had done wrong.

  But Kath’s face softened and she smiled apologetically at Tina. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up. It happened. It’s over. And whether you want kids of your own or not is none of my bloody business, right? So tell me to get stuffed. I’m too nosy.’

  It happened. It’s over… Tina wondered at the simplicity of those words, the minuscule philosophical statements that seemed to simply end the matter. She was envious of Kath, with her easy-flowing tears and her ability to accept. Why couldn’t she feel like that? Tina knew she was blanking out, staring at Kath and thinking about what she’d said, it happened it’s over it happened it’s over and she needed to speak, to say something, to be normal. ‘No, you’re not nosy at all. It’s just… we women should want a child shouldn’t we, and I don’t. I just don’t. I think it baffles some people.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as “should”,’ said Kath.

  Keep going, Tina heard. Meg – her voice, insistent and pure. Don’t give in to this woman and her questions. She is nosy, like she says. But she’s all right, as her type go. Tell her to get stuffed, anyway. She said you could. It’s not over, Tina. It’s not over, not over, not over…

  ‘No,’ whispered Tina.

  ‘What?’ said Kath, and the waitress was at the table asking them if they would like coffee.

  They had coffee, but Kath asked no more questions about children and carefully avoided any further talk about her own, although her conversation had earlier been peppered with anecdotes about ten-year-old Zack and eight-year-old Joe. They were their father’s sons apparently, which Tina took to mean they looked like him and behaved like him. They were good kids, Kath had said. They fought at times, but show her a pair of siblings that didn’t.

  At a quarter past ten, after most of their fellow diners had left for home, Tina texted Keaton and asked him to pick her up at half past. Kath booked a taxi, despite Tina offering a lift with her and Keaton. She liked getting taxis, she said. It made her feel like a proper grown-up person. Outside the diner they hugged eac
h other goodbye, and Kath promised to call before December’s reading group meeting.

  Keaton pulled away from the kerb and glanced at Tina.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really. Not sure.’

  ‘But you had fun?’ Keaton changed gear. He was good at changing gear. She liked watching him drive. He was smooth and assured.

  ‘Yes. Kath’s great. We had a lot of fun.’

  ‘So…?’

  Tina turned to look at her husband. She made her movement definite, defined. She was usually so slow and quiet – undecided in her actions. But tonight she felt different.

  ‘What is it, Tina?’ Keaton asked gently, keeping his eyes on the road. He was ever the careful driver.

  ‘It’s high time I got over Meg, isn’t it? Properly, I mean. She’s dead, isn’t she? She’s long dead. It happened. It’s over.’

  Six

  September 1954

  Now that Edward had gone off to do his national service, Lucia could relax again. Those last couple of weeks of the summer holidays, he’d watched her closely and she knew it, so she had done the only sensible thing, which was to desist in her hate campaign against William. She took to being nice to him instead, playing with him for hours – no toy-breaking, no pinches. That’s not to say she wasn’t tempted, because she was. But she knew Edward would tell of her, and she might get into trouble. She couldn’t bear the thought of her mum and dad being cross with her. They were proud of her. They were also proud of Edward, but she knew he was the eldest, so that made him special too. He was clever, the cleverest of them all. He’d scored A grades in all his exams. Robert and Ambrose were nothing to him. Neither was William. Oh, how it riled her that William was younger than her, and therefore sweeter and more deserving. But at least Edward had gone away now, and when he came back he would soon go away again to study at his precious university, somewhere else far away and she would again be free of his watchful eye. Eight years old, clever too in her own way, not Edward-clever, but Lucia-clever. Nobody would ever know all the things she felt and thought.

  She had few friends in school. Nobody liked her much, was the simple truth. She looked down her nose at most of the children, and those who she looked up to looked down on her. So she spent playtimes alone mostly, wandering around the yard, planning her next course of action at home. ‘That girl is nothing like her brothers,’ Lucia overheard one teacher say to another. ‘The older one so bright, destined for great things, and the other two, such a pair of happy-go-lucky lads, active – not eleven-plus material of course, but to be fair, not far off it. But Lucia Thornton, she’s an odd one.’ The words had stung, and Lucia, agonised, had wrung from them every drop of their meaning.

  Lucia couldn’t even badger Robert and Ambrose at school. She might have asked them to play with her, even though she would have brought down upon her head a hard rain of scorn, but they were much older than her and had already left the village school by the time she started. And now Robert had left school completely and Ambrose was in his last year at their secondary modern, threatening to leave any day, and Dad insisting he stay put, at least until Christmas. Lucia was an embarrassment to her brothers, she knew, as little sisters were apt to be. Well, she’d show them, she’d show them all, even William. Yes, even the new golden child would one day see what his sister was like, what she could do, and who she could be.

  Mum was in the back garden picking what remained of the rhubarb. Later, she knew her mum would ask her to help chop it. Mum would stew it for their tea and she wouldn’t put in enough sugar. Being “prudent” with sugar was a habit she’d learned during the war years and after, she said, and she hadn’t yet let go of the custom. She would always watch in consternation as Tom, Edward, Robert, Ambrose and Lucia ladled more sugar onto their rhubarb, their apples, their goosegogs.

  Lucia was at the dining table, colouring with William. In a surge of impatience, she snatched a crayon from his chubby hand.

  ‘You little brat,’ said Lucia as she snapped the crayon in two and threw it on the fire. William began to wail.

  ‘Shut up, you nasty little boy, or I’ll throw you on the fire.’

  ‘Me not want to be in fire!’ cried William.

  ‘Then be quiet and don’t tell Mum. I’m bigger than you, William, and much, much cleverer and Mum likes me best so don’t forget it.’

  ‘Me want Nedwood!’

  ‘Edward’s gone to be a soldier, so there.’

  She wondered what her other brothers were up to. She barely saw them. During the last week of the holidays they had argued, and Ambrose had been punished and made to stay in for two whole days. Lucia had tried to play with him, to talk with him, but she had been brushed aside, and she’d cried until he had grudgingly given in and agreed to do a jigsaw puzzle with her. Her brothers had argued because Ambrose had been the ring leader of a group of boys who had, using sticks, beaten to death a fox cub. Robert had become upset and he’d eventually tried to stop the carnage, but too late. Then Ambrose had turned on Robert with his bloodied stick. Robert had told their father, and he’d asked Ambrose, was it true? And Ambrose had said yes, it was true, all of it, and what’s more, it had been fun. Dad, furious, had taken his strap to Ambrose. Lucia had listened to her brother’s yelps of pain. Their father had belted him three times. For a day or two the usually inseparable brothers had not spoken. Then they did speak, and Ambrose’s sentence had been served; things were back to normal. Now it was the weekend, and the brothers were off out again, all day long, nowhere to be seen.

  Lucia toyed with the idea of throwing another crayon on the fire, but she thought she had better not. So instead she coloured with William, and helped him to draw a robin, until Mum came through from the kitchen with her handful of rhubarb, her bowl and her chopping board. She sat in her favourite chair by the fireplace and began the topping and tailing. After a while, she began to cry. Lucia and William stared at her, uncertain of what to do or say. In the end William slid off his chair with a clumsy bump and toddled over to his mum and stood beside her. He put his hand on her knee. Lucia left the table, and kneeling beside her mum, took up the chopping knife and began, carefully and silently, to chop the rhubarb.

  ‘I miss Edward so!’ said Mum, after a while.

  ‘Miss Nedward,’ repeated William.

  ‘We all miss Edward,’ said Lucia.

  Monday 1st December 1975

  Dear Elizabeth

  I know you havent written back to me yet because I havent given you enouth time but I wanted to write to you because I am so exited for Christmas. This morning I opened the first door on our advunt calender and Meg was jealus so she tried to open the second door and mummy told her off. By the way my picture was a star and we think Megs will be a robin. But I will open it properly tomorrow now because Meg was naughty. What do you do for Christmas I wonder? You said it was sunny and warm where you live, I cant imagine that. Look out for sumething in the post for you very soon I hope you will like it. Thank you for saying my writing is good. Nobody helps me I am just a good writer. I read a lot. I am the best in my class at school in reading and writing. I am finishing now because it is time to get ready for bed. I am going to give this letter to mummy to post for me tomorow.

  Love from Tina Thornton xx

  Seven

  December 2013

  Keaton arrived in his office at the beginning of December and found an advent calendar sitting on his desk. It was an expensive one with posh chocolates behind each window. It was his favourite brand of chocolate. Keaton looked at it for a while, and scratched his head. Did this mean…? He hoped not. Sharanne (Keaton had long suspected the original spelling was Sharon) was a great secretary. No! She was a great assistant. He supposed she was pretty, but he wasn’t sure. She was trim and petite. She wore neat clothes and kept her hair tidy and her fingernails clean and freshly polished. She t
yped dizzyingly quickly and had a friendly and efficient telephone manner. She was the ideal assistant. And she was in love with Keaton.

  Sharanne pushed open his office door with her hip, smiled at her boss and carefully placed a mug of coffee on his desk. One sugar and a generous helping of cream, as Tina had taught him, and he in turn had taught Sharanne.

  ‘Good morning!’ she said. ‘Happy advent, too,’ and she shrugged, looking at the advent calendar.

  ‘Hello, Sharanne,’ said Keaton, as he took off his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. He removed his lunchbox from his bag and placed it in the small fridge in the corner of his office. ‘Thank you for the calendar,’ he continued, pulling out his chair but not sitting on it. He rested his hands on the back, and tried to look nonchalant. It was too bad of Sharanne, really. ‘I think… actually it might be better if you… if you have this on your desk,’ he finished in a rush, feeling his cheeks reddening. Damn it. He wanted to look cool and laid back. But it was impossible. Sharanne, in a brave effort, smiled to show him she was unperturbed, and plucked the calendar from his desk.

  ‘Pre-Christmas detox?’ she said, and tried to giggle. He felt dreadfully sorry for her.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Keaton, and he sat down to begin his day of work. Sharanne backed from the office and closed the door carefully; Keaton felt he had been reproached, but wrongfully so, and he wanted to ring Tina, to hear her voice. He longed to hear her say, ‘It’s high time I got over Meg, isn’t it?’ again, but she had not. ‘Properly, I mean. She’s dead, isn’t she? She’s long dead. It happened. It’s over.’ On the Sunday morning after her night out with Kath, Tina had been quiet. Hung over, he’d suspected, so he’d made her breakfast in bed and tried to talk to her, but she’d been unresponsive. So he’d let it go, and days and now weeks had passed. He would have to bring it up again and remind her of what she’d said, before he came to believe that she hadn’t said it at all, before the words, the intent behind them, passed irretrievably into memory and imagination. He would do an hour of work, then ring her, by which time she would have showered and dressed, and cleaned up the kitchen. He had not forgotten those words of hers and he never could. They were the most sensible, real thing she had said to him in years. They were words of hope. He had grown to believe he would never hear Tina talk about Meg in such a way. His lovely wife was so under her sister’s thumb, her toxic spell, even after all these years, even though she was dead. Decades had passed since the tragedy and drama of their childhoods, yet she could not seem to let go of any of it. It was ridiculous, except it wasn’t that simple, because it was much worse than ridiculous. But now… perhaps now Tina was ready to turn a corner.