‘No, wait—’
‘I’m busy.’
The door shut in Kate’s face. An unceremonious rebuff.
It was a moment before she recovered enough to walk back down the driveway. She stopped in the lane and glanced back at the house. Felt embarrassed. And that poor boy . . . was he ill?
But Becky had been here.
Why? This was a part of her daughter’s life that she knew nothing about. It might be something small, something random that had no bearing on anything else, but it was something she didn’t know. She suddenly, desperately wanted to. She marched back up the drive and rang the bell. Twice. The door opened in an irritated flourish but before Grace could say anything, Kate declared: ‘Becky was my daughter and the reason she hasn’t been in touch for a year is that she was killed in a road cycle crash last February. I’m here . . . I’m here because I think she may have been investigating something and . . . because I miss her.’
This time the door stayed open.
FIFTEEN
‘She asked us what it was like moving out to the country from London. So not really investigating anything, unless you count my horrendous baking skills. We came here when I was three months pregnant – that was nearly seven years ago now.’ Grace smiled. ‘We had this tiny little one-bedroom flat with no garden and there just wasn’t enough room for babies as well, so we went from an expensive London box to this place. Still not massive but it has a garden that you can actually get up speed in!’
Grace led Kate to the patio doors, which were open to the warm sunshine, and Kate looked out onto a lawn with a children’s goalpost at either end. The sense of space was intensified as beyond the chain-link fence stretched a field full of oilseed rape; tall green shoots about a metre high that were just starting to break into flower. It was the kind of garden that Kate had wished she could have afforded for Becky when she was little. After built-up London where you rarely saw further than the other side of the street, it was intoxicating to be on the precipice of so much space and such a vast blue sky.
‘Isn’t it wonderful? We feel very lucky. It’s so green.’
From across the lush field, with its yellow haze of just-blossoming flowers, a tractor was approaching. As it got closer to the house, the noise became deafening. ‘Spraying season,’ said Grace as she closed the patio doors, but not before Kate got a faint whiff of something that wasn’t particularly pleasant.
‘Yes, we love it here. It’s a bit harder now I’ve had to give up work but Nick – that’s my husband – he commutes up to London when he’s not at the hospital.’ She glanced across at the little boy, playing with his Lego at the kitchen table. ‘Arnie’s not been too well the last year or so but now the weather’s getting warmer, we hope to get out more. Just to the garden. He’s got leukaemia.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘He’d gone into remission last year. About the time we met Becky. But a couple of months ago he had a relapse. He’s on another course of chemo.’ Tears pricked at her eyes, but she fought them back. ‘Sorry. I feel for him . . . stuck here at home or the hospital, missing chunks of school, when John’s forging ahead. His brother,’ she explained.
‘Is he older or younger?’
‘Younger. By three minutes. John is Arnie’s twin. They’re inseparable, which makes it even harder, on both of them really, especially when Arnie just doesn’t have the energy to play. We’re waiting to hear on a donor. John wasn’t a good match; his genetic make-up is too similar. It can cause problems.’ She looked at Kate. ‘Sorry, I’ve been going on about us all the time. I’m so sorry to hear about Becky. She was fun, sparky. I liked her. So did the others.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘She got in contact with some other people in the village. Ian and Hazel Compton – they live a bit further down the lane, been here for donkey’s years. And Ben and Sunita. They’re down in Mallard’s Road. I think there might have been a couple more, too.’
Kate recognized the names from the list on the file she’d found but she said nothing. ‘Was this all for the article?’
‘Yes. Last I heard from Becky was late February. She called, said there was something important she wanted to talk to Nick and me about. We arranged for her to come down the following Monday. But . . .’
‘She died on Friday, the twenty-fourth of February.’
‘I’m really sorry.’ Grace studied her. ‘You know, you look like her. Or rather, she looked like you. Your hair.’
Kate nodded.
‘Sorry, I hope you don’t mind . . .’
Kate shook her head. ‘It’s fine. It’s nice to talk about her.’
‘You didn’t ever see it, did you? The article about how I traded accounting for baking? Becky said it was almost finished.’
‘No, she didn’t show me that one.’
‘Oh, well. Fame and fortune will have to wait.’
Kate smiled. Saw the clock – she’d been there for over an hour. ‘I’d better be going.’ She stood. ‘Thanks so much for talking to me. It’s been a comfort to know a little more about Becky’s life.’
‘No problem. I just wish I’d had a copy you could’ve read.’
Me too, thought Kate as she walked back down the drive, hiding her unsettled feeling as she waved to Arnie and Grace through the window. She thought back to the last article Becky was working on just before she died, the one she refused to talk about with her. If it was just an innocuous piece about the pleasures of living in the country, why had Becky kept it so secret?
‘It wasn’t just her,’ she said to Tim, later that evening. They were sitting at either end of the sofa, legs stretched out, Kate’s resting over Tim’s. ‘I went to see another couple, Ian and Hazel. They live in this flint cottage at the end of the lane, next to the church, just them, no kids, ever, just a cat. I kind of got the impression they’d tried for children but had been unlucky. Anyway, same thing. Becky had contacted them about her story, interviewed them, and they’d talked to her about the joys of growing their own veg. And there was the Bolton family. Bit of a shock when I knocked on the door – guy who opened it was the taxi driver.’ She giggled. ‘Think that was the second fright I’d given him that day,’ she said, recalling him starting as he saw her on the doorstop. ‘I explained to all of them why Becky had seemingly vanished.’ She paused. ‘Her reputation was important to her. I didn’t want them getting the wrong end of the stick, thinking she’d just abandoned her story.’
Tim massaged her leg. ‘Don’t blame you.’
Kate rubbed at her temples, trying to ease away the pain that wasn’t shifting. ‘I’ve got a stinking headache.’
‘That’s not like you.’
‘I know. Any chance of a foot massage?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’
‘I’ll do yours if you do mine.’
‘Deal.’
‘But only if you’ve moisturized.’
‘At my pedicure today.’
Kate sat up, amazed. ‘You’ve been for a pedicure?’
‘Have I heck,’ said Tim. ‘I’ve been on the 196.’ He started to stroke the soles of her feet.
‘Ah, bliss . . .’ She relaxed fully for the first time that day. ‘Do you know, there was one weird thing. About today.’
‘Go on.’
‘At each house I went to, there was someone ill in the family – or who had been ill. And I’m not talking just a cold. Arnie, the six-year-old twin, has leukaemia. Abby, the taxi driver’s daughter, has had another type of cancer – soft-tissue sarcoma – but is in remission now. His wife has ME. Ian, the retired guy, he’s got prostate cancer.’
‘I thought living in the country was supposed to be healthy.’
‘Yes . . . it made me wonder . . . about the other two on the list. I thought I might go tomorrow . . . see if I can talk to them. Especially as they might also feel that Becky has let them down. I’d like them to know.’
Her phone rang, and she reached for it.
&nbs
p; ‘Hello? Gregory!’ Kate sat up. ‘No, it’s not too late. Yes, I think so. Let me just check.’ She covered the mouthpiece. ‘It’s Gregory,’ she said to Tim. ‘From Fresh Foods, you know. He’s wondering if we’d like to go for dinner with him tomorrow night. He’d like to update me on the results of the risk assessment.’
‘What’s he want me there for?’
‘I don’t know. Because you’re my boyfriend? And he’s nice and making an effort?’
Tim shrugged. ‘OK.’
‘Thanks, Gregory,’ said Kate. ‘We’d love to. OK, Greg.’ She laughed. ‘See you then.’ She hung up.
Tim raised an eyebrow. ‘Greg?’ he repeated.
‘He insists, apparently.’
Tim moved his hand sensuously up the back of her leg.
Kate groaned. ‘I can’t tonight . . . sorry.’
‘What’s up? Head still hurting?’
She rubbed her temples. ‘I think I need an early night.’
He got up. Held out his hand. ‘Come on, I’ll tuck you in.’
She gratefully let him lead her up the stairs and got into bed. She tried to read but it hurt too much so she turned off the light. Her head really was pounding, and she didn’t often get headaches. Must be all the emotions running high – being on Becky’s patch, hearing about her. By uncovering part of Becky’s life that she’d known nothing about, it felt as if it was new. As if it had just happened. As if she was still alive.
SIXTEEN
2001
Kate’s hands were locked onto the steering wheel, her palms sweating, as they had been ever since she’d got this tiny box of a car onto the motorway. She’d only passed her test two weeks before, a miracle seeing as she’d just had a crash course of lessons, the minimum she could get away with, as she wanted to keep as much hard-saved cash as possible for her first-ever holiday with Becky.
After six years of working flat out to keep their tiny house, she’d also managed to put away a couple of hundred pounds every year, and when she’d told Becky they were going away, her eyes had lit up with so much excitement, Kate had felt bad she’d never been able to do it before. But then the excitement had become infectious and the two of them were now looking forward to it with such intensity, there was a lot of pressure on the holiday to deliver. She’d booked a mobile home by the beach in Devon and hired a car and now she was attempting to get to the former without dissolving into a sweaty nervous puddle and without Becky being sick all over the seats.
‘Are you OK?’ she called out, risking a glance in the rear-view mirror at her daughter’s grey-green pallor.
‘No,’ came back the pathetic reply. ‘It still smells.’
‘I know, Becky. It’s because the car is new,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll open the window again.’ She wiped her hand on her jeans, then quickly touched the window button. ‘Fresh’ air and traffic-roar entered the car.
‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Becky, hopefully.
‘Yes,’ replied Kate, thinking it would help neither of them if she told the truth. ‘Try and get some sleep, eh?’
Becky picked her blue toy puppy up off her lap and held it close and, mercifully, in another few minutes, was asleep.
The mobile home was a little tired, but it had bright-yellow curtains and, from one window, you could glimpse the sea. Becky delightedly bounded around, opening each door, discovering ‘the toilet!’ and ‘the cupboard!’ as if she’d never seen one before.
The weather was glorious and so they quickly got changed into their swimming costumes and shorts. Taking Becky’s hand, Kate followed the signs down the gravelly paths to the site’s swimming pool. It was every bit as good as the picture in the brochure, with a pirate-ship slide and a large fixed plastic dolphin that shot water out of its mouth, and after dumping their bag and towels on a couple of miraculously still-empty sun loungers, they got straight into the water, laughing and splashing.
By two o’clock, they were starving, so Kate wrapped Becky in a towel, and pulled on her shorts and T-shirt, then they hurried over to the cafe at the side of the pool. They ordered their lunch and two milkshakes at the counter, then took the drinks to a table.
‘I saw you in the pool,’ said a lady sitting at the table next to them. She smiled at Becky. ‘You were having such a good time.’
She looked to be in her fifties and was large and bosomy, with a towelling strapless sundress covering her swimming costume. The sundress was light blue and two large dark-blue breast-shaped patches had formed where her wet costume had seeped through.
‘I’m Audrey,’ she said, ‘and this is my husband, Phil.’
Phil was also large, a hillock of a belly stretching through his T-shirt, and the only thing that adorned his bald head was a pair of sunglasses, the string attached to the arms making two black lines down behind his ears. Both he and Audrey were tucking into a burger on a flaccid bun with a mountain of chips, washed down by cans of beer. He raised a hand in greeting.
‘Hi,’ said Kate. ‘I’m Kate and this is Becky.’
‘Very nice to meet you both,’ said Audrey. She looked up as two other people approached their table. ‘Here they are! The terrible twosome.’ She waved a hand at a late middle-aged couple in shorts, T-shirts, hats and sunglasses. ‘Steve and Debbie, this is Kate and Becky. On holiday.’ She turned to Kate. ‘When did you arrive, love?’
‘Today.’
‘We come every year, don’t we, Debs?’ said Audrey as Debbie heaved her enormous stuffed-full beach bag onto a chair at the next table, before plonking herself down beside it. ‘That’s right. Well, last couple of years anyhow.’
Steve squeezed Audrey’s fleshy shoulder before joining his wife. ‘Always try and leave you behind on the motorway, never quite manage it,’ he joked.
‘Is it your first time?’ asked Debbie, as she lifted her bleached-blonde hair off the back of her neck and flapped it to let in some air.
‘Yes,’ said Kate.
‘It’s all right, actually. Better than some. You gotta keep an eye on the pool. Gets a bit manky sometimes. Have to say, you never got that at our hotel in Marbella.’
Audrey groaned. ‘Oh, don’t bring that up again, Debs, you’ll only get him started.’ She looked at her husband and, sure enough, Phil was disgruntled.
‘I told you we should’ve gone back to Spain.’
‘Phil, you know we can only afford it every other year,’ said Audrey.
‘Yeah, but next year we won’t be able to afford it because the bloody euro will be in and the thieving bastards will all be racking up their prices.’
Kate glanced anxiously at Becky, but she seemed oblivious, tucking into her cheese sandwich that had just arrived. Audrey flicked a hand on Phil’s arm. ‘Oi, watch your language. There’s kiddies about.’ She turned to Kate. ‘Sorry about him.’
Kate smiled politely, realizing that, once again, she seemed to be mixing with people two or three times her age, and she wistfully wondered if other twenty-one-year-olds came to campsites like this, almost immediately knowing the answer. She suddenly had a slump of energy, felt old before her time.
Audrey glanced about. ‘Are your mum and dad here?’
Becky, thinking she was the one being addressed, looked puzzledly at Kate, as if to check, then said, pointing: ‘Mummy’s there. And I don’t have a daddy.’
Silence reigned. Audrey’s eyes widened, then her features settled into barely concealed disapproval. ‘Oh, right,’ she said, and Kate saw Debbie was pretending not to look but was staring at her through her dark glasses. Audrey, too, was peering at her again, trying to do some maths.
‘I had Becky when I was fifteen,’ said Kate defiantly, partly to shock them further, partly because being constantly stuck with the wrong generation made her want to scream.
Phil stopped eating, but didn’t look up. A moment passed then his jaw began moving again.
Becky looked at the plates of food that had been brought out to Steve and Debbie and their mountains of chips. ‘Mummy, can I
have some chips, please?’
‘No, not for lunch,’ Kate said gently. ‘We’re going out for chips later, remember?’
‘That must’ve been hard,’ said Debbie, with an overly sympathetic tone to her voice, ‘what with your exams and all that.’
Kate knew she was fishing for gossip, nuggets of Kate’s life that she could take away with her and regurgitate and judge when they were all four together later that evening. ‘It was.’
‘Did you manage . . .? You know, to get your GCSEs?’
Kate bristled. Audrey’s line of questioning was too personal; she suspected that Audrey was waiting for her to fail, wanting her to. By some miracle she’d managed to get English and Geography, but she’d failed the obligatory Maths and her only other respectable pass was in RE. ‘A few,’ she said evasively, hating being on the spot. She would have got up and left there and then, but Becky was still eating.
‘Well, I think exams are overrated anyway,’ said Steve. ‘Look at that Richard Branson, he’s done all right, hasn’t he, and I don’t think he even finished school. Now he’s rich as Midas and hangs out with all sorts. Celebrities, politicians. He’s even mates with Tony Blair, isn’t he?’
‘Another good man,’ said Debbie. ‘I’m so glad he won again. Proves he’s the one the country wants.’
Kate didn’t particularly follow politics, but she had an aversion to Tony Blair and his fake promises and fake smiles. She thought Debbie’s proclamation was short-sighted. ‘I don’t think he really was the one the country wants. Loads of people didn’t even bother voting. It was the lowest turnout in voting history.’
Debbie frowned, perhaps not used to being challenged by someone so young. ‘What?’
Kate blushed, but continued. ‘Well, it was only 59.4 per cent. That’s quite a few short. Um . . . 40.6 per cent.’
It was a moment before anyone spoke. Then Phil looked up from his burger. ‘I’m not being funny, love, but you don’t seem like the type to know much about this kind of stuff.’
The Daughter Page 8