How to Measure a Cow

by Margaret Forster

  It was enough. Tara felt armed. She drove back to her hotel, ready.

  It wasn’t, after all, a sunny day. Claire always saw the reunion taking place on a sunny day, with the sun doing what it so often could, lifting the atmosphere with all its light. But it was a grey day, not exactly raining but with an intermittent drizzle depressing everyone. The river looked black and sullen when only the day before it had sparkled in the sun. At least nothing out of doors had been planned, though she’d envisaged them all having a Pimm’s in the pub garden first. The table she’d booked was in the far corner of the long dining room, beside a window with a view of the river, though today this view was dreary, the willow trees hanging limp over the damp lawn. But the table itself looked cheerful, with a white tablecloth overlaid with a smaller pink one and in the centre a small jug of tiny roses which had not yet opened out. Pretty. And the table was round, which felt friendlier, less formal … Oh, she was fussing, it was silly to fret over tables and weather when none of it mattered. It was just that she wanted everything to be perfect in all the details so that this reunion would have a chance of being a happy occasion.

  She had come half an hour early, deliberately, thinking that once she’d checked the booking she’d have a wander round the garden and maybe a little way along the tow path, but the drizzle made this uninviting, so she went into the bar, where coffee was still on offer, and sat reading, but not reading, just flicking through an old magazine someone had left, about cars, in which she had no interest at all. All the time, she was looking at her watch, and then at the clock over the bar. Calculating when Molly was likely to arrive. She was usually, but not always, on time. Liz would be late. She always was. Not very late, but late. And if Tara did come? They might all arrive together, and sitting here in the bar she’d miss them and the whole thing would get off the ground without her. Claire got up and slapped the magazine down on the table so loudly and unnecessarily that it looked like some sort of statement, and the barman stared at her, annoyed.

  I am tense, she said to herself, tense when I should be relaxed, and why am I tense? She knew perfectly well why.

  Because she was afraid of Tara coming.

  It would be a mile walk. Tara was too dressed up. She couldn’t totter along the towpath in shoes with delicate heels, even though these were not too high. They’d stick in the mud. So she drove, but didn’t park in the pub’s car park. Instead, she drew up beneath a tree 100 yards away. She didn’t know why. Then she sat in the car for a while, composing herself. No thudding heart. She couldn’t bear to have a thudding heart or a queasy stomach. She had to be sure she could be calm or she couldn’t go through with this meeting.

  She lifted the flap in front of her and looked in the small mirror. Her eyes were quite clear, her eyelashes nicely delineated with mascara which she’d used sparingly. The shadows underneath were still there and, she supposed, would never entirely go, but she hadn’t used anything to disguise them. Let them be seen. Let them tell their own tale. Her cheeks had filled out in the last few months, and she didn’t look gaunt any more even if she didn’t look as Tara used to. This would be expected, it was nothing to feel self-conscious about. She got out of the car, locked it, and began to walk along the road. She was on time, but walked slowly. Claire would be waiting. She was always early just as Liz was always late. Molly varied, so did Tara. Thinking this kind of thing, droning on to herself, steadied her. No thudding heart, but she did after all have a slightly queasy stomach now. She turned the corner and there was the old pub, its front spruced up dramatically – so much white paint, so many window boxes bursting with geraniums, and a new sign with a varnished painting of a bull hanging above the door. Somehow, this transformation of an old, neglected pub into a modern gastropub helped. It made her feel that far from going back in time, to face her younger self and mourn for her, she was walking into a place stripped of memories, a place clear of all associations.

  She didn’t go into the main entrance, suddenly remembering that there used to be a side door leading into a small bar off the main one. If she entered this way, no one would be able to spot her until she’d seen them. Quietly, she slipped in. The layout was the same. She could see into the main bar, which was busy. She scanned the people and knew none were Claire, Molly or Liz. No matter how much they would have changed, she was quite certain they were not among that throng. So they were either in the lounge or already in the dining room, waiting. It gave her the chance to have a drink. It took a while, but at last she had a glass of white wine in her hand, and sipped it carefully. It was a long time since she’d had any alcohol, though there’d been no reason why she couldn’t have bought herself a bottle of wine. Even Sarah could have the occasional drink, couldn’t she? But staying teetotal somehow went with being Sarah, so she didn’t drink anything but tea or coffee. The wine was delicious, cold and clear, and she savoured every small mouthful. Now she was ready, fortified, and made her way steadily from the bar and along the passage to the dining room. She was smiling.

  They stood up, all three of them, Molly catching her skirt in a bit of wickerwork in the side of her chair and struggling to be upright. Sorry, she was saying, sorry, and Liz was freeing the skirt but at the same time almost knocking a glass over. Claire stood up and said, ‘Tara!’ in far too loud and hearty a voice. She held her arms out but with the table between them it was a pointless gesture, and Tara slipped into the vacant seat quickly so that Claire was left standing. Then a waitress came with menus and though Claire tried to wave them away, saying they weren’t ready to order, the others seized them and began reading and suddenly they were quiet, the confusion over. Tara’s arrival was disappointingly undramatic.

  Orders given, they all stared at Tara, who looked at each of them in turn, and waited.

  ‘Well,’ Claire said, with a false little laugh, ‘well, here we all are. Twenty-five years, can you believe it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Molly.

  ‘Easily,’ said Liz.

  Tara said nothing. Her face was beginning to ache with smiling.

  ‘You look well, Tara,’ Claire said, and knew at once it was the wrong thing to have said, and it was a lie anyway.

  Tara’s smile weakened. ‘And so do you, Claire,’ she said. Her voice sounded throaty, and she cleared it, and repeated what she’d said.

  ‘I’ve put on such a lot of weight,’ Molly said. ‘Seeing you, Tara, reminds me I was once as slim as you still are.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ said Liz. ‘You were never as slim as Tara, Molly.’

  An argument began, a good-natured bickering.

  Tara’s face was a shock. They had all made up their faces carefully before they came, even Molly who rarely did so, and looked so unlike herself with a fiercely pink mouth. But Tara wore no make-up except for mascara. She was pale, unnaturally pale, an underground-living look. They were reminded of how she looked years ago, when she was twenty-something and in hospital with what turned out to be a ruptured appendix. They’d all visited her, organising a rota so that she wouldn’t have more than two days without one of them at her side. The nurses had been impressed – ‘Such friends!’ they’d said. When she was better, Molly had wanted to take her back and look after her, but Tara wanted to go home to Tom. Except Tom wasn’t at home. He was abroad ‘on business’, as he so often seemed to be. But Molly’s offer was still resisted. Tara went back to her flat on her own, and they all felt bad.

  But at least the red dress was like the old Tara, dramatic, close fitting, and yet looking odd with the too-white face. She’d always been the gamine type whereas they were all what they liked to think of as ‘womanly’. These days, ‘womanly’ meant fat. Not obese fat, not bulging everywhere fat, but plump fat, controllable, responding well to a discreet compression with the help of some Lycra here and there. And there was Tara, so slender, not an ounce of fat on her, and yet she didn’t look frail. They all saw a strength in her, a tension that radiated from her slim frame and made it seem somehow threatening,
as though her body was prepared to spring into action if it needed to.

  When Liz and Molly stopped talking, the sudden silence was uncomfortable, but they were rescued by the arrival of the food, which released another welcome stream of chatter about who used to cook and who didn’t, and what their favourite foods had been twenty-five years ago. Not much wine was drunk. They were all being careful, and not entirely because everyone except Claire would be driving later. It was a pity, this abstemious attitude, Tara thought. Wine, more wine, would have relaxed them all, surely. They’d drunk a lot when they were young, often been hopelessly drunk in each other’s company.

  Claire made the decision to have coffee in the little snug off the lounge. This area was not exactly private, but near enough. The chairs were comfortable and encouraged sitting back in them, the cushions firm behind them. It would have been easy to fall asleep, but they were all alert. Tara reckoned she had waited long enough. Who should she begin with? Not Claire. Molly, Molly was an easier target. Molly, plump and matronly, just as she’d promised to be in her youth. No surprise there, except perhaps in the hair, grey already though the face was unlined and smooth. How should she start? With some vague question, perhaps. Tara tried to frame a vague question in her head but what came out was not vague at all. It was shockingly direct.

  ‘Molly,’ said Tara, turning towards Molly and smiling still, ‘Molly, did you read about my trial in a newspaper?’ From her tone, she might have been asking if her friend wanted sugar in her coffee.

  Molly stared at her, opened her mouth as though about to reply, then closed it again. Slowly, a blush crept up from her neck to cover her face.

  ‘I just wondered,’ Tara said, ‘that’s all. I wondered if you did, if any of you did. That’s all.’

  With Molly apparently speechless, Claire felt she had to speak for them all. It was her role in the group, or it had been twenty-five years ago and she hadn’t knowingly given it up. She’d been expecting some sort of challenge from Tara anyway, whereas the other two thought that Tara, if she came, would not refer in any way to the trial, or the crime, or her time in prison. They were not ready for this question whereas she was.

  ‘Tara,’ Claire said, ‘of course we read about what happened. We worried about you all the time.’

  ‘Worried?’ queried Tara, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes. We worried. We didn’t know what to think, what to do.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Tara, ‘I didn’t realise it was so difficult for you all, all that worry, all that not knowing what to do.’

  ‘I was going to write, but …’ Liz said.

  ‘But?’ Tara prompted, taking care not to sound aggressive.

  ‘Well,’ Liz said, ‘it seemed … We hadn’t been in touch for a while and …’

  ‘And?’ Tara prompted again, but Claire interrupted. She had her speech ready, it had been ready for months.

  ‘Tara,’ she said, voice low and kind, ‘Tara, we all feel awful about not doing what we know we should have done, as friends, old friends. There are no excuses. We didn’t support you and were ashamed and we’re so glad you’ve come today so we can all say sorry and we hope we can put the lost years behind us and get back to how we were, good friends again …’

  ‘Christ, Claire,’ said Liz, her eyes closed, her brow tightly furrowed, ‘shut up, for God’s sake.’

  Molly let out a little moan of embarrassment, and looked anxiously at Tara, who was staring at Claire with an expression on her face which was unreadable.

  ‘More coffee?’ Claire suggested, nervous now, taking a great gulp from her own cup.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Tara said.

  This had to be brought to an end. What was the point of prolonging this awkward reunion, which didn’t feel like a reunion at all? It was a meeting of strangers, any connection heavily dependent on memories of the past, though not any ‘past’ which included Tara’s years in prison. This, it was clear, was to be regarded as a blank, something that had not happened. So Tara stood up, and said she must go. She had a long way to drive. All three of the others also stood up.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Claire, ‘don’t go yet, Tara, we haven’t got to know you again. Give us a chance, please.’

  ‘Oh, Claire …’ wailed Liz.

  Molly put her hand on Tara’s arm.

  ‘What I want to do, Tara,’ she said, ‘what I’ve wanted to do since you walked in is just hug you and say sorry. We’ve done everything wrong.’

  It was, Tara thought, becoming a comedy when really it was a tragedy. All this well-meaning concern with no attempt to tackle what lay behind it: the fear. Fear that she would accuse them of cowardice, fear that she hated them for their desertion at that critical time, fear that if they didn’t take great care she would make a scene. She’d come near to it already after Claire patronised her. But she sat down again, and so did they.

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Tara, ‘is why, after the court case, after I’d pleaded guilty and was imprisoned, none of you held out a hand. You let me drop. You were no longer friends. It was as though all those years we’d had together were wiped out by what I’d done. And even now, today, you’re scared to be with me. God knows what you thought this reunion was to be about, but it’s not what I thought it would be about. And I’m beginning to wonder if I feel anything for you, for any of you. I look at you three and I can’t believe there was ever any kind of closeness between us.’

  There was a silence then, a stillness. Molly thought she might cry.

  ‘Tara,’ said Liz, ‘what do you want us to do? We can’t go back and act differently. We can’t say sorry over and over. You don’t want us to confess our shame at how we kept away, do you? Tell us.’

  ‘I want,’ said Tara, ‘to be friends again, but I don’t think we can be.’

  ‘Of course we can!’ said Claire, far too heartily. ‘We’re friends again already, just by meeting here. It’s a beginning, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ said Tara, ‘it isn’t. It feels like an ending. I never really imagined it would work, and now I know it won’t. You aren’t friends, you’re memories, good ones for years and then one big bad one.’

  ‘Oh, Tara,’ said Liz softly, ‘we have memories of you, too, and they ended with one big shock. It was no good us saying you couldn’t have done it when you said you did and all the evidence was there. But you hadn’t turned to us for help, had you? While all that stuff before, with Tom, was going on, you turned us away. You didn’t return phone calls, you didn’t reply to letters. You gave us one clear message – back off. And we did.’

  Molly looked shocked, Claire bewildered. Liz, Tara thought, had always been more astute than the other two. There was truth in what she’d said. She had indeed kept her friends away once she’d decided what she was going to do. She didn’t want her resolution weakened, she didn’t want arguments, and most of all she didn’t want to involve them even in the most indirect way. But none of them had tried to bridge the gap she’d created then, or had they? She struggled to remember, but Liz already had.

  ‘I rang you, the week before Christmas that year, the millennium year, when I hadn’t seen you for ages. I rang you to suggest that we all meet up in the New Year, do something together. Your phone was always on answerphone and eventually I left a message. You never called back.’

  Tara did remember. It was true. And Claire sent her an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party – odd, that she hadn’t rushed to mention this, or that she alone had written before the trial. It wasn’t like Claire not to show off her concern.

  Tara nodded at Liz.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I remember. But that doesn’t alter the fact that when I obviously needed support you didn’t come forward.’

  ‘Obviously?’ said Liz. ‘There was nothing obvious about it. What were we meant to do? Say we didn’t believe for one moment that you were a murderer? Say that, when you’d admitted guilt straight away?’

  ‘You could have shown some interest,’ Tara said. />
  ‘How do you know we didn’t?’ said Liz. ‘We talked about it non-stop on the phone for weeks, fretting about what the newspapers were saying, hardly able to believe it all, and yet we had to. We thought about applying for a visiting permit or whatever they call it—’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Tara said. ‘That’s the point we come back to again and again, isn’t it? You did nothing.’

  The waitress came to ask if they wanted more coffee, and to clear away the cups and saucers when they said no. The clatter of the crockery was welcome.

  ‘Tara,’ Molly said, in a whisper, ‘how are you? How has it been for you?’

  ‘She won’t want to talk about that, Molly,’ said Claire, quite sharply.

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ said Tara. ‘I’d quite like you to know how I am and how it’s been for me. I’m glad you at least, Molly, are interested.’

  She settled more comfortably into her chair, but at that moment two more people came to the doorway and looked into the room, eyeing the two remaining chairs and then deciding to come and sit in them.

  ‘Let’s go to my room,’ Claire (who was staying that night) said. ‘It’s quite big.’

  So they all got up, collected their things and followed Claire upstairs in complete silence. Her room was indeed large, with a good view over the river. There was a double bed and, in front of the window, a small sofa as well as an upright chair beside the bed. Molly took it.

  ‘Better for my back to sit upright,’ she said.

  Liz flung herself on the bed.

  ‘Better for mine lying down,’ she said. ‘God, I could go to sleep in an instant.’

  This left Tara and Claire to share the sofa, but Tara didn’t care for this. She sat on the floor, nicely carpeted, and leaned against the bed, closing her eyes.