A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  And so it was that Lucia was not in the best of humours on this hot, late August morning. The long summer was tired of itself, and she was tired of it too; how she longed for a crisp, bright morning with autumn’s shivery fingers in the air. What a relief that would be.

  Edward sauntered into the kitchen, whistling. He didn’t feel like whistling but it was his habit, his way of going on, and he wanted to talk to Lucia, and to do that he needed to put her at ease. The small transistor radio in the corner babbled its nonsense, bacon fizzled in the pan, the kettle boiled. His sister was motionless at the sink, looking out of the expansive window, staring across the fields. The day was already hazy and lazy. Lucia looked thinner than ever in her brown slacks, and the horizontal stripes on her tunic could never make her look fat. Edward joined her at the window. She had lines on her face and her skin was pinched and dry, and surprisingly pale, considering the summer they were enduring. She looked old before her time. She needed a holiday. Had she ever had one? He couldn’t recall. Perhaps, once he’d found a new job, he should offer to take her and Mum away somewhere. The Lakes. Scotland? France? No, not France. A song came on the radio, which was an improvement on the moronic ramblings of the DJ. Edward thought the song was by the Swedish group called Abba. Simone liked Abba. Lucia continued to stare out of the window.

  ‘What are your plans for the day?’ he asked, turning his attention to the bacon, flipping it over. He poured oil into the other frying pan for eggs.

  ‘We’re jam making,’ said Lucia in her brittle voice, as dry and parched as the summer. ‘The girls and I are going to pick the plums, and they’re going to learn something useful.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. I’m sure they’ll help out. They’re good girls, Loose Ear, if you give them a chance.’

  ‘Are you saying I don’t?’ she asked, watching her brother as he inexpertly cracked eggs into the pan. The fat wasn’t hot enough yet and the eggs swam around, effacing themselves gradually and slowly – too slowly. He was going to ruin them. One of the yolks had broken. He picked out a piece of shell. “That was the new song frrroooorrmmm Abba! Abba with a backwards B, of course. That’s cool isn’t it? The song is ‘Dancing Queen’ and it’s going to be a huge, huge hit; a classic to be sure. Mark my words… you heard it here first.”

  ‘Heaven knows you work hard for them,’ said Edward. ‘But you—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You could try to do it with a smile sometimes.’

  ‘They’re ungrateful little wretches. Especially Marghuerite. Nobody knows the trouble I go to, and now I can’t even discipline them, can I? You bought those books for Christina.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Burning a child’s books… that wasn’t a punishment, Lucia.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  ‘Well, if I’m honest, it was rather inhumane.’

  ‘Spare me the melodrama.’

  ‘All right. It was nasty.’

  ‘I was nasty? What about Pamela?’

  ‘She shouldn’t have hit you. That was uncalled for. But yes, I’m afraid you were unkind. Those little girls deserve gentleness. They’re your nieces for heaven’s sake. They’re wonderful little people.’

  ‘Ha! And I’m Princess Margaret I suppose?’

  ‘You’re as bitter as her, it seems.’ He knew as he spoke it was the wrong thing to say, utterly. Lucia stiffened.

  ‘I know depression,’ said Lucia, pouring the boiled water into the teapot. ‘Yet I still manage to get up in the morning and get on with my life.’

  ‘Do you?’ The question gathered like a dark cloud, threatening heavy rain and lashing winds. But the mood between them remained as sulky as the morning air. “It’s still hot, hot, hot out there listeners! What a summer… we won’t forget this one, right? There are just some things we never forget… and this dude won’t forget his special night. It’s ‘December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)’…” and the DJ, clearly attempting to sound wholesome yet lascivious, merely sounded puny and cheap. But his words, and now the song, emanated around the kitchen. Everything seemed to hang in a dreadful hot suspense. Edward stared at the bacon and then busied himself turning it again, although it didn’t yet need turning. Oh, what should he do? He thought the song was by The Four Seasons. A popular song, a rather good song, and another of Simone’s favourites. Unbearable now. He started to sweat. He moved to turn the radio down, but Lucia got to it first and furiously pulled the plug from the socket. An embarrassed silence hung over the kitchen, broken only by the fizzling of the bacon and eggs.

  ‘Do you have any plans for today?’ asked Lucia eventually. She opened the kitchen window as wide as it would go, to let the awkward moments evaporate in the morning heat.

  ‘I’m hoping to hear about a job. I applied for one on Monday.’

  ‘Let’s hope you get it,’ she said. Her tone was unreadable, but he didn’t like it.

  ‘Thanks. We’ll see. Just be kind to those girls, please,’ said Edward, flipping the now spitting eggs. He’d turned up the heat. He, and the girls, liked hard yolks. ‘Or one day it will come back to haunt you. Children don’t forget easily. Bugger!’ Splashed by oil, Edward continued to curse.

  Later that morning Tina and Meg argued, over what Tina didn’t really know. It might have been Lucia’s food and Meg’s mad conviction that there was poison in it. Tina was tired of it. She wrote to her pen friend, and tentatively asked her sister if she’d walk to the post office with her to post the letter and buy some sweets. Tina had a few pence to spend. And Uncle Edward would give her the money for the stamp, if she asked him. They could get a Panda Pop. Meg was bored, and hungry and thirsty, yet she refused to accompany her sister. So Tina went off alone to the post office in the village, kicking up the ubiquitous dust as she went. Today was a strange day. There was something new coming, a change in the atmosphere. Tina could feel it pressing, looming, whispering. She walked as quickly as she could to the post office, clutching Elizabeth’s letter.

  Lucia thought it was becoming obsessive, this letter writing, and there seemed to be little waiting for replies. She understood Christina had been writing to this girl for several months now. Presumably it had been facilitated by Robert and Edward. That rankled. The American girl could scarcely be described as family. Robert obviously had no idea what family meant and for years he’d kept himself distant from all of them apart from Edward. She didn’t understand why Christina chose to write to this Elizabeth, and Lucia thought the habit should be discouraged. But nobody else minded. Edward supplied money for postage, which was typical of him. This morning he’d also given Christina money for sweets and treats. He spoiled those girls. Christina was so secretive, not allowing anybody to read her cousin’s letters. Lucia had read some of them though, of course, rooting through the girls’ things while they were out across the fields. She had found one or two recent letters, and they had seemed harmless enough, if peppered with Americanisms. Christina was a sweet girl, dragged off-centre by her sister, who was odd; naughty, defiant and unpunishable. And Edward now, sticking his oar in, telling her how to take care of those girls. He should tell Pamela, not her! Pamela was the one who did precious little for them, her own daughters. Lucia did everything and got complained at, complained about, even slapped for her trouble. Edward lecturing her… and buying all those books for Christina, undermining her authority. She was beginning to think he could go the way of Ambrose and Robert, for all she cared. Not that she relished that thought. In fact, she hated it. Oh, why couldn’t things be different!

  It was so hot, but as Lucia washed up the breakfast things, it looked as though clouds were building up in the distance, for the first time in weeks. It felt strange and ominous. Would it rain? At last? Would the rain come and break the atmosphere, change things, perhaps forever? Lucia felt a change was on the way. The clouds were gathering, their darkness as milky and muted as a Turner painting; a gentle breeze bat
hed Lucia’s face as she hung out laundry. Later, she made her mother a cup of tea, and one for herself and Edward, whom she refused to look at as she wordlessly passed him his cup and saucer. She needed the stepladder from the shed, but she would not ask Edward to fish it out for her. She would do it herself after she’d finished her tea. Mum said she was too tired to pick plums so she’d sit and read her book for a while and help with the jam later. Had Lucia found the pans? Did she have enough sugar? And lemon juice? Lucia told her not to fuss, she had all she needed. Be careful on that ladder, chided Mum. Then – was it going to rain? It felt like rain. Wouldn’t that be lovely? She’d almost forgotten what rain was like.

  Lucia lugged the stepladder up to the top of the garden and positioned it alongside the tallest of the three plum trees. She heard Christina walking back from the post office, scuffling along the crusty lane beyond the hedge, talking to herself in her skittish, sing-songy voice. Christina was innocent and sweet, Lucia had to admit to herself. She was a lonely little girl, in many ways. Marghuerite really wasn’t the ideal playmate for her.

  Lucia considered as she picked the ripe, soft plums, what may have happened to her by now if she hadn’t had to take care of her mother all these years, and now the twins. What could she have made of herself? She was thirty years old and her life was empty and barren. She allowed herself to imagine how different everything may have been if Sheila had not fallen pregnant with Clive’s baby all those years ago. She and Clive would have dated, she was sure of that. They would have danced at the New Year’s Eve dance. He probably would have walked her home, helping her through the snow. Perhaps he might have come into the house for a cup of tea, or even some rum, and met Edward. They may have married and then she would have had children of her own. Normal children. Healthy children. Proper children.

  But somehow, she told herself, that idea did not appeal. Children were a nuisance: they took over a woman’s life and made her fat. And, thank heavens, she’d never had to suffer the pains and indignities of childbirth. She’d overheard the horror stories.

  A fresh vision of Clive as he’d looked years ago, handsome and suave, drifted into her mind and she allowed herself to stare at him, something she had not felt able to do at the record shop, refusing always to allow herself to appear gormless and silly. Perhaps that had been the problem, perhaps he hadn’t realised how much she had— But what did it matter? It was all so long ago. She wondered what Clive looked like now… thinning hair, billowing stomach, lines deep and rutted on his once handsome face?

  Her life was brighter now that Edward had returned home, notwithstanding his ticking off of her this morning. He seemed to have taken it upon himself, since his return, to police her life, her feelings. Yet Edward, despite everything, was the one person whom she could honestly say she loved. If Marghuerite and Christina had been his daughters, she wouldn’t have objected to taking care of them. Edward’s daughters… a lovely thought. And the idea that had haunted her all these years. Had… it… been a daughter? The… the thing she had… but she would never know. There was no point in dwelling on it. Yet, perhaps it would have been all right? Had she acted in haste? Hardly. She had been well into the pregnancy by the time… but of course Simone had been to blame for that. Rushing her into it, everything arranged within a week of Lucia confiding in her. Wanting her to be thin for the wedding. Selfish. Frivolous. Simone had it coming. It was true. And to Lucia, it was fair, it was obvious. A few people counted, most people didn’t. As she repositioned the ladder – the ground was uneven, clumpy – she felt a faint twinge of guilt. She had quite possibly wrecked her beloved brother’s marriage. But Simone had never been good enough for Edward and she didn’t like Simone, so it was all right. Lucia could not forget the look on Simone’s face when she had spoken with her last month, on that July Saturday afternoon when the girls played with Meg’s new clackers. The clack of those damned things! She would never forget that sound. Clack-clack-clack. Lucia could still see the shock and confusion on her sister-in-law’s face. Had it been wrong? Should she have let those dark days simply slip away into obscurity? The past belonged in the past, didn’t it?

  Who could tell? Sometimes good things came from the bad. The saving grace was that her plan had worked, and Edward was home and Simone was gone. All as it should be. Yes. Yes, she felt peace in her heart.

  Christina came through the gate. It clanged shut behind her. ‘Come on!’ called Lucia. ‘I need your help.’

  But Christina ignored her and trotted up the steps and into the house. Two or three seconds later, Lucia heard her cry out. There were shouts, both girls’ voices raised in anger. Lucia hoped Mum might see to them but the angry exchange continued, and Lucia sighed heavily and descended the stepladder. She put down the trug and made her wearisome way back down the garden towards the house. She stopped short of the steps as Christina, crying, ran from the house and almost fell down them. The distraught girl pushed past Lucia and through the gate.

  ‘What on earth…?’ said Lucia, and she entered the house.

  How dare she? They were private; they were hers! Elizabeth had told her all sorts of secret things and now they weren’t secret any more and she had told Elizabeth all sorts of secret things and now Meg would know the kinds of things they wrote to each other about.

  ‘Who wants to read about stupid boring books?’ Meg had said, her face angry and red. ‘Who cares what you call your soppy doll!’ and, ‘You big scaredy cat!’ and Meg had laughed at her, laughed, and not in a nice way. She was a baby, Meg had said, pointing at her. A big, fat baby. Tina had shrieked something back about jealousy.

  Well, Tina would show her. She would. She knew what to do. She did! So she ran, ran hard. She didn’t stop even though her sides hurt and she felt she might burst open, because she didn’t run much and she didn’t run often but she would run all the way there. She had to go there, all the way to the oak tree that Meg had long ago conquered and Tina had not.

  ‘Marghuerite?’ Lucia stalked into the lounge. ‘What on earth is going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Meg, red-faced, hiding something behind her back.

  ‘Tina has just run off in tears so please don’t tell me it’s “nothing”. Don’t fib.’

  ‘I read her letters. That’s all.’

  ‘Those letters are not for you to read.’

  ‘But it’s all right for you to read them, isn’t it?’

  Lucia coloured. How did this girl always know so much? ‘I’m going to pick plums and I want you two girls to help me. We’ve a busy afternoon ahead. Please go and find your sister and apologise to her.’

  ‘I will if you will.’

  Lucia was too hot to feel disconcerted. ‘Just find her, Marghuerite. Do not play games with me.’

  And the most horrible thing about it was that Tina knew it was going to happen. Three, four, five steps up… five stages of grabbing and pulling and pushing, already trembling, breathless, and she knew she would not get back down, not on her own. And she knew, right there, she could see it played out before her, the sequence of events that she had put in train, unfolding in her mind’s eye. Like a silent black and white film; flickering images she knew would haunt her forever more.

  What had she been trying to prove? That she could climb the oak as well as Meg? Of course she couldn’t! And that hadn’t needed proving. Now she was five, six feet up and the only way was further up. She had to make it to the big branch that Meg liked to sidle out onto – the branch she loved to sit on, swinging her thin legs, nonchalant. Tina was not nonchalant; she was dizzy already and her knees were oddly floating around outside her legs.

  She climbed again and again, pushing with her knee-less legs, reaching up with her trembling hands – pushing, hauling – and finally she was there; she had reached the big branch. But she didn’t wriggle out across it; she crouched and clung onto the trunk, whimpering, crying. What had she done? What on ea
rth had she done?

  She saw Meg running across the first field. It was cut, and when Tina had pounded through it the stubble had pricked cruelly at her bare fleshy legs. But Meg had jeans on, of course, and she was nothing if not fearless; Tina watched her sister pelt across the stubble field, free and wild. Often Meg seemed to feel no pain. Tina saw her reach the bramble hedge and shoot through the gap that she and Tina liked to think of as their own, but in truth had been forged many years ago by their uncles and their father. Meg ran effortlessly and soon she was halfway across the second field.

  ‘No! No!’ called Tina. ‘Go back! Leave me alone! It’s not safe!’