by Karen Clarke
‘Well, what did you tell her last year?’
‘We were in the Swiss Alps last year, and sort of glossed over Christmas. She was too young to understand it all, anyway.’
‘Oh, Bee, you’re never too young to understand Christmas.’ I leaned forward and placed my chin in the V of my hands. ‘Don’t you remember how lovely our Christmases were growing up? The lengths Mum and Dad went to, to make sure it was special?’
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘Maybe for you,’ she said. ‘Remember, I’d long grown out of Christmas by the time you were old enough to appreciate it.’
‘It was still a lovely time, though.’
I knew there were photos in big fat albums on the bookcase in the living room and was about to leap up and get them, keen to capitalise on her good humour about Seth, when she said, ‘I know Mum and Dad really tried, but I suppose what sticks in my mind are the miscarriages before you came along.’
My mind stilled. I knew there’d been lost babies in the ten years before I was born, because Mum had explained when I’d asked her once, why I didn’t have brothers (convinced they’d be better than sisters, as Bridget was so unsuitable). She’d skipped over her explanation, referring to it as ‘trying hard’ and rounding off with ‘It was all worth it when you came along, sweet pea.’
‘The miscarriages weren’t my fault,’ I said, surprised to hear a slight wobble in my voice. Cassie’s pregnant. What must it be like to lose a baby? Not once, but four times? I’d never discussed it with Mum, and she never referred to it either. It wasn’t something you brought up over the dinner table – especially as Mum was such a happy person, and had never given any signs of someone suffering. But then again, why would she, once I came along?
‘You didn’t see her then, but I had to live with it,’ said Bridget, as though she’d read my mind. ‘Two Christmases our parents were all excited about a new baby, and two Christmases were ruined because it didn’t happen. Mum was all mopey, and even though she tried to be excited for me, I’d catch her crying in the kitchen, or her bedroom.’
I looked at Bridget – saw sadness etched in the fine lines round her eyes. ‘She tried, though, because that’s how much Mum cared about your happiness.’ I paused. ‘And I saw her crying plenty, after you left home.’
Bridget’s fingers, which had been absently plucking at the loaf of bread, froze in mid-air. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know how much Mum and Dad missed and worried about you. It’s not like she never mentioned it.’
‘I was old enough to look after myself.’ Bridget’s voice held a trace of old defiance. ‘I didn’t need them.’
‘No, but you cut yourself off so completely, were so independent, it left them reeling, Bee. Especially Mum. You were her grown-up girl,’ I said. ‘That’s what she used to call you. My grown-up girl, in the city, meeting god knows who.’
Bridget’s eyes went glassy. ‘I thought… because she had you…’ She stopped and chewed her lip.
‘It was never a competition,’ I said. ‘There was room for us both in her heart, but I was here and you’d gone.’ Before she could respond, I leapt up. ‘Wait here a minute.’
I left the kitchen and made my way to Dad’s office, pausing to glance in the living room. Romy was curled in the armchair, cuddling her teddy, her eyes reflecting the glare from the television. EastEnders had finished and she looked engrossed in DIY SOS, which I figured was harmless enough.
In the office, I stood for a moment, breathing in the familiar scent of leather, books and a faint hint of Dad’s ‘Eau Sauvage’ aftershave, which I once overheard Mum say ‘drove her wild’. His trophies lined a shelf – one for heading up a successful housing redevelopment in the eighties, another for his work on a yachtsman’s house making use of natural light – and the duck-egg blue walls (painted by me) were lined with framed certificates, and cards from grateful clients over the years. I felt a pang of missing him; his smile, which pulled me in like a cuddle, his gravelly laugh – never far from the surface – and the way he prefaced his sentences with As Oscar Wilde once said… or To quote a man wiser than me… Dad was well read, as evidenced by the stuffed shelves, which was probably where I’d got my love of reading growing up.
I picked up a photo from his leather-topped desk, of him and Mum sitting on the flowery sofa in our old house – where Dad’s parents had lived before they moved to Canada. Mum’s hair was over-bleached, and Dad’s shirt had enormous lapels, but their happiness crackled from the glass. They’d fallen in love that summer, according to Mum, when she’d gone to work for his father’s building company as a secretary, and had been inseparable ever since.
There was another photo of me as a young child, on a tartan picnic blanket on a stretch of grass, playing with a plastic tea set, a dreamy smile on my face, and another of Bridget dressed for a birthday party as a princess, scowling into the lens.
Turning away, I grabbed what I’d been looking for, and took it back to the kitchen. Bridget was still at the table, tracing circles in the wood with her finger, looking pensive.
‘Here.’ I laid down a slim plastic case with a handwritten label on the front. ‘Dad edited and transferred our home videos onto this DVD a while ago. Have a look at it sometime, there’s a player in my bedroom.’
‘Why?’ She touched the case gingerly, as if it might evaporate.
‘Because you’ll see that your memories have become distorted, and there were some happy times when you were a child.’
‘Oh, I haven’t got time for trips down memory lane.’ She pushed herself up from the table, but her eyes stayed on the disc as though magnetised. ‘And neither have you,’ she added. ‘What time do you have to be at the cottage tomorrow?’
‘I didn’t arrange a particular time.’
She huffed out a little laugh. ‘Still not treating your job like a business.’
I could feel a pulse beating in my throat. ‘I’ll be there at ten, OK?’
‘Good. I’ll text you my mobile number.’
Typical that she had mine even though she’d never used it.
As I rose, and headed back up to my bedroom, jumping when Romy shouted ‘HOUSE!’ I sent up a prayer that Seth was ready to meet a woman with a chip the size of New Zealand on her shoulder.
Chapter Eleven
‘Morning!’ I held up a bag of flaky croissants I’d bought from the Old Bakery on my way to Seth’s. ‘Time for some breakfast before we start talking swatches?’
‘Morning, Tilly.’ Seth glanced over his shoulder, then came outside and pulled the door closed behind him.
‘OK, I suppose we could eat out here.’ I gave him a puzzled smile, and made as if to open the bag of croissants. ‘What’s going on?’
‘There’s, um, been a development.’ He shoved his hands in the pockets of a grey sweatshirt and hunched his shoulders. There was a bracing wind skating across the sea and tossing our hair around. Snow was still forecast, but I’d given up believing it would happen.
‘What sort of development?’ I asked as I hoicked up the hood of the ancient duffel coat that had been sufficient to see me through several cold winters in Vancouver. ‘You need the roof replacing, or the bathroom’s sprung a leak?’
‘Not that sort of development.’ He looked over his shoulder again, as if checking the door was shut. ‘You know I told you my mother was staying for a few days?’
I nodded, but before he could elaborate the door was flung wide and a haughty voice said, ‘For heaven’s sake, Ainsley, what are you doing out there?’
Ainsley? Seth interpreted my look of horrified amusement and flinched with embarrassment. ‘Seth’s my middle name, after my paternal grandfather,’ he muttered. ‘My mother’s the only person who calls me Ainsley.’
‘Because that’s the name you were christened with.’ She was clearly in possession of superhuman hearing. Peering over Seth’s shoulder, the first thing that struck me was that she was wearing pearls. Who wore pearls these days, apart from the
Queen and Michelle Obama? She was probably Mum’s age, with ash-blonde hair swept back from a widow’s peak above a faintly lined forehead. Her eyes were vividly blue like Seth’s, but arctic, where his were warm, and her long nose gave her a hawk-like air. I was instantly reminded of my old headmistress at Kingsbridge Academy, who’d taken an instant dislike to me – probably because I’d been expelled from the grammar school Mum and Dad had sent me to, for being too ‘daydreamy’. That wasn’t the word they’d used, but it had amounted to the same thing. I didn’t concentrate in lessons, always had my head in a book, homework was never handed in, et cetera, et cetera.
‘What on earth are you doing out there, in this weather?’ His mother passed a glacial look from me back to Seth. ‘For goodness sake, where are your manners? At least invite the woman in, Ainsley.’
I couldn’t stop a snigger escaping, and the woman’s high-arched eyebrows came together. ‘What’s your name?’ Her voice was clipped with shortened vowels, like an upper-crust snob in a period drama.
‘Tilly Campbell.’
Once again, her eyebrows moved. ‘Campbell?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that Scottish?’
‘It is.’ I stepped past Seth into the hallway, where Digby barrelled into my legs and licked my hand before trotting off, casting Seth’s mother a baleful look. ‘A grandfather thrice-removed on my dad’s side. I’ve never been. To Scotland, I mean.’
‘You’re very tall,’ she said, as if being tall was akin to having leprosy, before shifting her attention back to Seth. ‘Are you coming in?’
As he edged past, I caught a whiff of the shower gel I’d used a couple of days ago and flashed back to meeting his startled gaze in the steamy bathroom. ‘Tilly, this is my mother, Felicity,’ he said, in a neutral way belied by his apologetic smile.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, thinking Felicity would have looked more at home in the marbled foyer of a castle, than standing in a low-ceilinged hallway the colour of a used teabag. Her tailored grey woollen skirt met low-heeled leather boots at the knee, and her fitted mustard twinset was obviously cashmere. A set of dainty earrings matched the string of pearls nestled against her neat bosom, and her rather workmanlike hands bore several plain gold rings. ‘What do you think of the cottage?’ I asked her, to break the icy death grip of her stare.
She lifted her chin as though preparing to sack a servant. ‘Not a lot.’ She clearly wasn’t the type to bother mincing words. ‘Not when my grandson could be living in comfort with me and his grandfather.’
‘Well, I think it’s lovely.’ I sensed she had a lot more to say on the matter, and decided to cut her off. ‘I grew up not far from here, and it’s perfect for children. Lots to do, plenty of open spaces and fresh air.’
‘Fresh air?’ She made it sound like heroin. ‘There’s plenty of fresh air in Surrey.’
‘No beaches though.’ Hearing Seth’s indrawn breath, I wondered whether she’d found out about Jack’s episode in the sea and I’d said completely the wrong thing.
‘No, but there’s a very good boarding school for boys there.’ She flashed Seth a pointed look, but he was saved from replying by a shout from behind one of the doors off the hallway.
‘Do you want carpet in here as well?’
Felicity gave a terrifyingly chilly smile. ‘I’ve already told him we don’t.’ Shaking her head, she moved away with a surprisingly bouncy stride.
‘What’s happening?’ I said, when she’d disappeared inside the room, noticing there were skirting boards lined up against the staircase, as well as several tins of paint in a neutral shade.
Seth curled his hand into a fist and lightly punched the wall. ‘Come into the kitchen,’ he said quietly, not quite meeting my gaze. ‘It’ll be easier to talk in there.’
As I followed him, I peered into the living room and saw some carpet swatches on the floor, and several rolls of wallpaper in a shade best described as smog.
In the kitchen, Seth was filling the copper kettle at the sink. Jack was at the table, playing on his iPad, an empty bowl by his elbow, while Digby chewed on a rubber bone by the back door. There was a radio on the worktop, quietly playing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, lending a cathedral-like air.
‘Hi,’ I said, realising they’d already eaten breakfast. I shouldn’t have spent so long chatting to Big Steve at the bakery, but he’d had a good story about last year’s Christmas party when he’d worked at Tesco’s, and his supervisor turned up with one of her boobs decorated as a reindeer, and asked him to stroke it not realising he was gay. By the time I’d phoned to check the progress of the floorboard redelivery, and swung by the café to reassure Gwen that progress was being made, it was already ten thirty.
Jack gave a brief nod I assumed was intended for me. He didn’t seem surprised that I was there, as if I’d become part of the furniture, or was someone he’d known a while.
‘What are you playing?’
‘Minecraft,’ he said, not lifting his head.
‘Oh, I’ve heard of that.’ I realised how lame it sounded. A lot of people had probably heard of it. ‘Never played it though.’ Another dumb comment. ‘What level are you on?’
‘Five,’ he said. ‘Looking for bedrock.’
I glanced at Seth, who spread his hands as if to say don’t ask me. ‘Right.’ I undid the toggles on my duffel coat. ‘Good luck with that.’
Jack looked up, as if checking whether I was being sarcastic. ‘It’s nothing to do with luck.’ He gave a little smile that revealed a cute dimple I hadn’t noticed before. ‘You’ve got to have skills.’
‘I’m sure you do. I mean, I’m sure you have. Got to have skills. And that you’ve got them.’ Seth’s face twitched with amusement. ‘I’ve no idea what I’m talking about,’ I said, as if it wasn’t obvious.
‘I know.’
The corner of Jack’s mouth lifted further at his Dad’s reply. His eyes were back on his screen and his hair was falling in his eyes. He still had his dressing gown on – a wine-coloured affair that looked too grown up for him – and I wondered what he did all day, when other kids his age were at school.
‘He’s starting school in the New Year, aren’t you, Jack?’ It was as if Seth had heard my unasked question. ‘We thought he needed a bit of time off to… well, to adjust to things being different.’
‘He means not living with Grandma and Granddad any more.’ Jack’s deadpan voice made it hard to assess his mood, and I couldn’t work out whether he minded or not.
‘Sounds sensible.’ I cringed inside when he didn’t respond, and pulled out a chair to sit next to him. He didn’t stop playing his game, but didn’t move away either. I put down my croissants and slipped my coat off. ‘So, what’s with the paint and wallpaper samples?’ I looked at Seth, who’d been watching Jack with a look of tender fear.
‘That’s the development, I’m afraid.’ He held up a jar with tea on the side and gave me a quizzical look.
‘Milk, no sugar.’
He switched on the kettle to boil again. ‘My mother has taken it upon herself to get this place redecorated as a Christmas present for me and Jack.’
It took a second to sink in, even though it had been pretty obvious what was going on. ‘Oh.’ I deflated like a bouncy castle. ‘So, you don’t need an interior designer?’ Top marks for observation, Tilly.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, pouring milk from a carton into two mugs. ‘She’s still set on, you know,’ he gently inclined his head at Jack, and I guessed he meant gaining custody of her grandson and sending him away to boarding school, ‘but thinks in the meantime that we should at least make this place respectable.’ He gave the word respectable quote marks with his voice, shaking his head. ‘My mother’s all about what’s respectable,’ he said, and in those few words I could read their whole relationship. The word rebelling featured heavily. It was probably why he’d become a racing driver instead of, say, a barrister. I’d spoken to Felicity for less than a minute, and knew she wouldn’t have approved of her
son’s career choice. ‘I’d have loved you to do it after Christmas, but once my mother’s set her mind on something there’s no stopping her, I’m afraid.’
I wanted to say that he could have said no but understood that, under the circumstances, the last thing he wanted to do was ruffle her feathers. ‘Well, it’s kind of her to want to help out,’ I said, for Jack’s benefit. It would hardly be fair to criticise his grandmother in front of him – or at all, I reminded myself. I may have been thrust into the epicentre of his life, but that didn’t give me the right to comment on it. ‘I’m sure she’ll do a good job.’
‘She’s got a company up from Surrey, she calls them her team.’ Seth removed the teabags from the mugs and dropped them on the worktop. ‘They did the house there.’
‘The house where you grew up?’
He nodded as he handed me a mug with ‘I’m a Mug’ stamped on it. ‘It’s nice, but I prefer being by the sea.’
‘Grandma thinks the cottage is too small.’ Jack, who’d given no indication he was listening, was clearly absorbing every word. ‘She wanted to send a gardener and a maid to help us, like at her house.’
Blimey.
‘We don’t need staff, and the cottage is big enough for us, and for Grandma and Granddad, if they want to come and stay.’ Seth sat opposite, and plucked a croissant from the paper bag, and I knew he was thinking, like me, that he couldn’t imagine his mother and father staying at the cottage – and I’d never even met his father.
‘But where would they sleep?’ Jack’s fingers had momentarily stilled, as if he too was trying to picture it.
‘I’m sure we could throw a mattress on the floor,’ said Seth, and looked gratified when Jack chuckled.
‘You could always send them to us,’ I offered. ‘We’ve plenty of room at our house.’
Jack looked at me. ‘Are you the lady that left a message on our phone calling Dad a shit?’
‘What?’ I looked at Seth who’d closed his eyes and was biting his bottom lip. ‘No! Of course I didn’t, I wouldn’t, I mean… it wasn’t me,’ I finished, somehow giving the impression I was lying. ‘I only met your dad two days ago.’
