‘You phone,’ Jack tells her, already heading for the hall. ‘I’ll go out and look for her. Mo, you’ll stay here, will you? I can run you home afterwards.’
Something pulls at the edge of Mo’s consciousness, some memory she can’t grasp hold of. Something about Una, she thinks – something that she saw or heard today … She casts her mind back, retracing events as best she can, but whatever it is refuses to come.
Twenty to ten. Black as coal outside. Her fear increases.
ISOBEL FRANKLIN
Sixty.
In a few months she will be sixty.
The number has been squatting quietly at the outskirts of her consciousness since the year began, malevolent and terrifying as a Brothers Grimm witch, biding its time until 12 September when it will advance and take up residency. Sixty is the real start of old, the first stage of the slow decline.
She moves the gloomy thought aside and stretches, relishing the cool slide of the silk sheets on her bare skin. She flexes her toes, tenses her calves and squeezes her buttocks in turn. She breathes slowly and deeply, inhaling the scent of her own body, exhaling the last traces of sleep. She yawns, opening her mouth wide, raising her arms above her head, imagining everything inside her elongating and narrowing. She turns her head to one side and the other, pressing her nose to the pillow, sniffing the traces of coconut and almond that her shampoo has left there.
When she was thirty she ran away from her marriage. She ran from stability and routine and security; she ran from everything that Jack Carroll wanted to give her. She left her husband of eight years, her home and her daughter to be with a man who told her that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and that he would die without her. The drama of it had appealed to her: she was hungry for drama.
There’s a light tap on the bedroom door. She sits up, pulling the sheet with her as Alex enters, carrying a small tray. Her peppermint tea, her natural yogurt, her little dish of goji berries and pumpkin seeds. ‘Morning,’ he says, placing it on the locker, turning to open the curtains.
He smells of the cologne she gave him for Christmas, citrus and vetiver. His white shirt is immaculate, his charcoal suit single-breasted, his maroon tie perfectly knotted. His greying hair is well cut, his teeth realistic enough to fool most people. He looks good.
‘Chilly today,’ he says, looking out.
‘Is it?’ She sips tea. ‘Oh dear, and yesterday was so nice.’
‘Looks like it might rain.’
‘Does it?’
‘Meet for lunch?’ he asks, as he does every Friday – his day for showing her off to clients – but this time she shakes her head.
‘Not today, I’m afraid. Phyllis wants me to do an extra couple of hours.’
‘Ah.’ He checks his watch. She can anticipate his every move. I’ll be off so, he’ll say.
‘I’ll be off so,’ he says, bending to touch his lips briefly to her forehead, and again she inhales the aftershave.
‘See you for dinner,’ she replies as he crosses the room. She tips the berries and seeds into the yogurt, listening to the sounds of his departure. Steps on the stairs, pause while he puts on his coat and takes his keys from their drawer, soft click of the front door shutting. Car door opening, pause while he gets in, car door closing. Engine on, pause while he puts on his seat belt – the click sounds in her head – and off he goes.
He’s unfailingly polite. She wants for nothing. In ten years of marriage they’ve never had what you could call a proper row.
He is distant, and emotionally absent. She is dying of loneliness.
Why did she marry him? A thousand times she’s asked herself the question. Was love ever part of the reason, or was she frightened enough of ending her days alone to snatch at the security he was offering without dwelling too much on whether she was in love or not? Maybe in the early days she loved him: so hard to recall now.
She finishes her breakfast, throws the bedclothes aside, pads across the carpet to the en-suite. Just as well they have it – she could hardly parade naked to a communal bathroom with George around. As it is, they don’t meet in the morning: by the time Isobel is out of the bath and dressed he’s left for school.
George is sweet. In the ten years they’ve lived under the same roof she’s grown quite fond of him.
I have a son, Alex had told her, fairly soon after they’d met. He’s sixteen – and with a sinking heart Isobel pictured a sullen, spotty youth with smelly trainers and a mobile-phone addiction.
He was planning to be a teacher, Alex went on. He was diligent in school, got on well in his exams, had never been in any trouble. Certainly sounded good on paper. Isobel regarded the photo of the serious, dark-haired boy Alex had taken from his wallet as she tried to phrase her goodbye. Hunting for the right words, wanting to let him down gently.
Not another child, however well behaved. Not a second child, when she had failed so profoundly with the first.
But Alex had refused to listen to goodbye, refused to let her walk away from him. You’ve been on your own too long, he’d said. Don’t turn your back on this chance to be happy again. George isn’t looking for a mother – he’s practically an adult. You don’t have to meet him until you want to.
And Isobel, just five months away from the unsettling milestone that was her fiftieth birthday, had found herself agreeing to carry on seeing him. He was well-off and generous, and she was enjoying the sensation of being looked after again, after nearly two decades of short-term relationships with men who inevitably disappointed on some level.
And George, when they were eventually introduced, proved to be quite a relief.
A few spots, but not at all sullen – on the contrary, touchingly shy and polite. Decently dressed, no offensive footwear, no evidence of being particularly attached to his phone. When they told him, two months later, that they were to be married, he wished them well with what seemed to be no resentment at all. He stood beside his father in the registry office as Isobel walked towards them in her burgundy Paul Costelloe trouser suit, and later, after the elegant dinner, he tapped a fork against a glass, blushing, and welcomed her to the family with a short speech that she guessed he’d agonised over.
And so she became a stepmother, years after turning her back on her own daughter for what had turned out to be a preposterous mistake. Con Pierce – what in the name of God had possessed her?
She thought he’d give her what Jack couldn’t. He was good-looking and passionate and persuasive, and seemed more than happy to desert his wife and children for her, so she’d accepted the way out he was offering.
Leaving without Daphne had been monumental, but what was she to do? Taking her with them would have killed Jack – and, let’s face it, Con wouldn’t have thanked her either. He wanted a lover, not a mother and child.
And looking back now, considering the swerves her life has taken, didn’t she do the right thing in letting Daphne go? From the start, Jack was the one who had got up in the night when their infant daughter cried, in those first few hectic weeks and months when Isobel was struggling to come to terms with all the messiness and frustration and confusion of motherhood, all the bewildering selflessness it demanded.
And as the years went by it was Jack who had taken time off to nurse Daphne when she was sick, who’d brought her to the puppet shows and the birthday parties, who’d driven her to school each morning. In Isobel’s defence it made more sense for him to do it – being his own boss left him with far more freedom than Isobel, who was working at the time behind the reception desk of a major hotel.
But when she scandalised the neighbourhood, when she alienated her own parents by abandoning her marriage, she’d bet anything that everyone had nodded, folded their arms and said she was never much of a mother anyway. What none of them understood was that she wasn’t running away from Daphne, she was running from Jack and all he represented, and leaving Daphne in his capable hands.
But God, she missed her. She was floored by how de
eply she felt the loss of her little daughter. Daphne’s absence was a constant jagged pain, like an infected cut that never stopped throbbing. A hundred times a day, a thousand times, she thought, I’ll ring, I’ll talk to her – aching for the sound of her little daughter’s voice.
But then she imagined Daphne begging her to come home – and what could she do about that? She couldn’t go back: that simply wasn’t an option after what she’d done. Even if Jack was willing to forgive and forget, she couldn’t return to a relationship that didn’t exist any more for her.
A phone call would be selfish. It would only upset the child, make their separation harder. And undoubtedly Isobel herself would find it distressing too, however much she hungered for any contact with Daphne. So the weeks passed and she stifled her longings and never rang.
But of course she saw Daphne everywhere. Every female child of a similar age, every skipping little figure ahead of her on a street, every small head of light brown hair caused a pang. She’d hear ‘Mammy!’ in a shop and swing around. She’d search school playgrounds for Daphne, even while she knew she couldn’t be there.
Once she tailed a mother and child for three blocks just to listen to the little girl, to soak up the cadence of the chattering voice that was so eerily, so poignantly, reminiscent of Daphne’s.
And by the time she and Con had run their course, by the time he’d packed his bags and gone back to the wife he’d turned out not to have forgotten after all, nearly four months had passed. Not so long in an adult’s life, but an eternity, as she was to find out, for a six-year-old.
How is she? she asked, when she’d finally plucked up the courage to phone Jack, ten days after Con’s departure. After she’d told him it was over with Con, after she’d said she was sorry for having hurt him, and he’d listened without comment. How is she doing? Another few endless seconds of silence followed before Jack told her, in a voice that held no discernible emotion, that Daphne was doing just fine.
Can I see her? she asked, the fingernails of her free hand pressing painfully into her palm as she pictured him standing in the hall where the phone was, as she imagined Daphne sitting at the kitchen table, listening to his voice through the open door. Can I meet her somewhere? He didn’t want to go along with that: she knew well he didn’t, and she couldn’t blame him. But being the decent man that he was he eventually agreed, and Isobel came face to face with her daughter again.
The sight of Daphne, wearing an unfamiliar and unflattering green and white dress that was at least a size too big, almost reduced Isobel to tears. She ached to hug her but the child hung back, pressing into her father’s side, so Isobel crouched before her instead and kept her hands to herself.
Hello! she’d said brightly, her voice all wrong. Look at you – you’ve grown! And Daphne stuck her thumb into her mouth – a new phenomenon – and looked dispassionately at her mother, and showed no sign at all that she was glad to see her again. How could four months have made such a difference?
And all through the encounter in that cheap little café, while Isobel and Jack worked out an arrangement for the future, Isobel was aware of the child’s furtive glances from across the table. When she saw the little hand creep at one stage in her direction her heart leapt, and her own hand extended out to meet it – but Daphne reached instead for the scarf that Isobel had draped on the vacant chair beside her.
It would be all right, she’d told herself. They’d meet again regularly, they’d reconnect. Eventually, as she got older, Daphne might even opt to spend half her time, more than half, with her mother. So a schedule of visits was arranged – Every other Saturday, Jack said, sounding resolute for once, and Isobel felt she had forfeited the right to look for more – and for a long time she tried hard to reclaim her child.
She painted on a smile when Daphne emerged from Jack’s car, she bought her little treats, she took her to the cinema – the last place Isobel herself wanted to be, stuck behind its ticket desk five days a week as it was, the only job she’d been able to find. She did everything she could to make up for her absence, but the hoped-for reconciliation with her daughter never happened.
Daphne endured the fortnightly outings, that was all. She greeted her mother cordially enough, but held herself aloof while they were together. She showed no enthusiasm for any part of their afternoons, accepted whatever trinket Isobel bought her with murmured thanks, responded to questions but never asked any in return. Watched each chosen film expressionlessly, thumb stuck firmly in her mouth.
And her relief each time Jack appeared to collect her was heartbreakingly plain to see. Her face would light up at the sight of him standing in the doorway of the café. She would greet him eagerly, pushing aside the largely uneaten plate of food that her mother was paying for. Pushing aside Isobel, it felt like, until she had to endure another afternoon in her company.
In the end it became too much. Sometime during Daphne’s teenage years Isobel allowed the visits to dwindle, and finally to stop altogether. I’ll phone you, Daphne said, cancelling another visit with another excuse, and Isobel knew they would never get back to how they used to be, and the thought was accompanied by a stab of bitter regret.
These days, all the contact they have is a brief weekly phone call and an occasional lunch that’s always at Isobel’s instigation. Daphne offers to share the bill each time, but Isobel insists on paying: that much, at least, she can do.
Like the phone calls, their conversations during these lunches skip and hop, and never land on anything significant – and Isobel is painfully aware that Daphne is only there because accepting is easier than explaining why not. The knowledge is something she must live with. She turned her back on her child for a while and in the process, lost her.
She runs water into the bath, thinking how sad today will be for Daphne. Now there was a match made to last – you only had to look at her and Finn together. Not that Isobel had seen that much of them; she hadn’t laid eyes on Finn until Daphne was already his fiancée, and introducing him to her mother became pretty much unavoidable.
But she’d been to their wedding; she’d witnessed the pure happiness blazing out of Daphne that day. She’d seen the way Daphne had looked at her new husband as they were joined together.
She’d seen it and she’d been glad, even as she acknowledged the sad truth that no man had ever made her feel that happy, caused her to glow like that. Maybe Jack had briefly, in the early days, but those were long gone. And none of the men after him had lived up to expectations – not Con, or any of the men she’d dated and slept with and holidayed with in the months and years that followed her split from Con – and tragically not Alex either, her husband by then of six years.
But for all its intensity, Daphne’s happiness didn’t last: it was snatched away abruptly in the middle of an April afternoon. How cruel that had been, how inexplicably, savagely cruel.
Isobel’s phone had rung that evening, and she’d seen Jack’s name in the display, and she’d known it must be something to do with Daphne, for when else did he ring her? But Daphne’s birthday and wedding anniversary were still four weeks away; too soon for the call to be about that. And Isobel had suddenly thought, She’s pregnant – and that thought had collided with Why isn’t she telling me herself?
And then she answered.
Are you at home? Jack asked. And without waiting for her response, he added, Is anyone with you?
Isobel sensed instantly that something was badly wrong, and she clutched at the edge of her chair in terror. Daphne, she said, hardly able to get it out – but he said quickly, No, no, and then he told her it was Finn, not Daphne, and while the news of her son-in-law’s death had shocked her deeply, the relief that it was someone other than Daphne was almost overwhelming too.
Her first instinct, of course, was to be with Daphne.
Where is she? she asked, and Jack told her they’d just left the morgue – the word ghastly, the sound of it obscene. He gave her directions to Mo’s house, and Alex drove he
r across the city to the narrow street of little terraced redbrick houses.
And Daphne’s face, her devastated face, when Isobel arrived. Her hollow, empty eyes, the light gone from them. So still, so white, so completely ruined now that Finn had been taken from her. Slumped against her father on the couch, wanting only him. Nodding at Alex and Isobel when they entered the room but not really seeing them, seeming unaware of any of the people who were crowded into Mo’s little sitting room, most of whom were unknown to Isobel.
George called around to Daphne’s house later, after Jack had brought her and Una home from Mo’s. He took a bottle of gin and a tub of ice-cream with him; he stayed there pretty much the whole night. Isobel heard him coming in around five the next morning, only to disappear again as soon as he rose before noon. Such a big, generous heart he has.
Today will be so hard for Daphne, the date dragging all the memories back with it. And Una: how does the girl endure the fact that she lost her father on her birthday? Sixteen today, or is it seventeen? Hard to keep track when they meet so rarely. Quiet child, Una; nice-looking. Wonderful hair: she could have modelled for Botticelli. She could be advertising shampoo.
Isobel will get flowers when she’s in town. She’ll visit Finn’s grave today. It’s not much, but she’ll do it.
She pours oil into her bath. She wraps her head in a towel, applies a cucumber mask to her face and steps carefully in: fifty-nine-year-old bones mightn’t knit back together that easily if she were to slip. She lowers herself into the scented water, lies back, closes her eyes.
Maybe she should call Daphne this morning, see how she’s doing. But today is Friday: she’ll be calling her later anyway. She’ll wait till then – Daphne might prefer it. Still walking on eggshells with her daughter all these years later, still putting on a front when they talk, making believe that everything is fine between them. A long punishment she’s enduring.
She reaches for the soap and begins to wash, listening to the drone of some engine – a plane? a helicopter? – outside the bathroom window.
Two Fridays in April Page 12
