Brother and Sister

by Joanna Trollope

  "Like what?"

  Marnie took a breath.

  "I want you to know," she said, "that as David's mother, you are very welcome to join in our family. But please don't

  think that there was a gap here, waiting for you to fill it.

  Because there wasn't."

  Petey appeared in the doorway. He was holding Daniel's

  outgrown baby cricket bat, clasped in his arms, like a teddy bear. Carole didn't glance his way. She was looking at Marnie.

  "What makes you think," she said, "that such a thought ever crossed my mind?"

  Marnie leaned forward.

  "I just want you to know," she said. "I just want there to be no doubt about it. You're very welcome, but on our terms."

  "Bat," Petey said loudly.

  "You poor girl," Carole said to Marnie. "You poor girl.

  You really love him, don't you?"

  It was so strange, Lynne thought, to consider the things that gave you comfort down the years, and how something that could once be utterly relied upon for consolation later turned out to be of no use at all. There'd been a time—a long time, it seemed then, a reliably long time—when contemplation of a cake baked for the weekend, or David's

  rugger kit successfully washed, could bring with it a sense of extraordinary fulfilment, and peace. But of course, that time had passed. It had passed not just of its own accord, but also, Lynne was sure, egged on by Nathalie who had wanted an end to dependency, an end to this child life of routine and small, sweet comforts. Lynne had sometimes had visions of Nathalie deliberately unpicking this careful structure Lynne had made, partly to test its strength and partly to test her own capacity to do without it. Lynne couldn't, in her heart of hearts, blame Nathalie for wanting to grow up and away, but she had always blamed her—unreasonably, she knew—for not leaving anything behind to take her place.

  That was where, Lynne knew with a degree of shame, that television came in. She was sure that there were thousands and thousands of other people like her, people for whom television had become a boon companion, a source of friendship and fantasy. It wasn't that Lynne spent whole afternoons watching old Hollywood movies with a bottle of what her mother had witheringly called grocer's

  sherry, but more a creeping addiction to home and garden-improvement programs. She didn't want love and improbable romance: she wanted an escape from the present, a magic carpet back to the place where she was the power in the land, the wife and mother, the heart of the household.

  Sitting watching these shoddy and theatrical transformations of rooms and spaces of earth, and seeing the touching hope for an echoing transformation of their lives on the faces of the participants, took Lynne back to a time when she knew she'd been happier than at any other time, a time when two clean, well-fed, sleeping children upstairs had, for a while, made her believe that she not only had a purpose, but that it was a purpose she was wonderfully fitted to fulfill. There'd been moments—or more than moments, maybe—when she had almost been reconciled to infertility, to not going through a pregnancy, and now, bizarrely, watching stage-set bookcases stapled up against a hastily painted wall on screen, she could recapture a lingering taste of that peace of mind, see a fantasy brought down like a balloon on a string until you could hold it in your hand. It was pathetic, she knew, but why should pathos diminish the real capacity of cheap nonsense, in whatever form, to help?

  She preferred watching her programs when Ralph was out of the house—right out, not just tinkering on in his workshop. He'd joined a chess club again—not the superior one where David played, but a more random group, including several asylum seekers from the old Soviet republics, who met in a pub near Westerham Station and were tolerated as long as they bought a drink each an hour.

  Ralph didn't say why he'd started wanting to play again, and Lynne didn't ask him. It was, on the contrary, something of a relief to see him go off, two nights a week, with an air of purpose that, in its turn, set her free for—the television. Settling down in front of it gave her the feeling, every time, of putting down a burden, of giving herself a respite from something arduous and demanding.

  "You can't," David's voice said from the doorway, "be watching that."

  Lynne gave a little scream.

  "David!"

  He indicated the screen. Two cheerfully blethering men and a big girl in a boiler suit were positioning boulders and cacti across a blond carpet of gravel.

  "Mum, it's rubbish!"

  "I know—"

  "That garden'll last ten minutes, and where did they get those plants? Those are desert plants. They ought to be in Arizona."

  "You gave me such a fright," Lynne said. She aimed the remote control at the television, and the screen sank into blackness.

  "If I'd rung first," David said, "you'd have killed the fatted calf and cleaned the bathroom."

  "I like—"

  "But I didn't want you to," David said. He bent over her chair and kissed her. "I wanted to see you and I didn't want a whole lot of cooking and stuff to get in the way."

  Lynne looked away.

  "Oh."

  David sat down on the sofa close to her chair.

  "Dad's chess night. You watching telly. Perfect."

  "Do you know," Lynne said uncertainly, "I don't think I'm up to any more revelations."

  "Nor me."

  Lynne looked up.

  "Let me get you some coffee."

  "No."

  "David—"

  "No," David said, "I don't want anything. I didn't come for anything like that."

  "I like to do it."

  "I know." He looked at the blank television. "Mum, I know."

  Lynne said in a small voice, "I've been so frightened."

  "I know that too."

  "I thought—"

  "Yes."

  "I don't know what happened. When—when you went to see her I thought perhaps you, or Nathalie—"

  "That's why I'm here," David said.

  Lynne nodded.

  "You don't need to worry," David said.

  She shut her eyes tightly and held her hands together hard, in her lap.

  He said, "I kind of liked her. She's impressive in a way, sort of polished, accomplished is perhaps the word. She gave me a lot of answers about my father and stuff. But—"

  He stopped.

  Lynne didn't open her eyes.

  "There's no connection," David said. "Or at least, not the one I might have been looking for. There's something there, but it's feeble, sickly. Mum," David said, leaning forward so that he could touch her clasped hands, "it's at least twenty years too late."

  Lynne began to cry. David watched as the tears seeped slowly out from under her lids and slid down her cheeks.

  "I was terrified—"

  David leaned forward.

  "But not now. Nothing to be afraid of now."

  Lynne said unsteadily, "Find me a tissue, dear. On the side."

  David stood up. A box of tissues stood on the cabinet which housed—had always housed—Ralph's set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. He put the box in Lynne's lap.

  He said, "Seeing her laid some ghosts."

  Lynne blew her nose. She looked up at David, damp-eyed.

  "Like what?"

  "Like who my father was. What my name is."

  "Your name is Dexter."

  "That's Ralph's name," David said, "Dad's name. It's

  not yours or mine or Nathalie's."

  "Why does a name matter?"

  David sat down again.

  "It matters."

  "So," Lynne said, attempting a weak smile, "your mother doesn't matter but your name does?"

  "Don't be daft. You're my mother. I came to tell you that. That's why I'm here."

  Lynne pulled out another tissue.

  "Don't start me off again."

  "I don't mind—"

  "You're a good son," Lynne said fiercely. "A good son."

  David spread his hands.

  "I'd hope so—"


  "And your father?"

  "Dad?"

  "No, not Dad. Your birth father—"

  "I know his name," David said. "I don't know anything else."

  "Do you want to?"

  "I don't know."

  Lynne said softly, "I wonder how Dad would feel."

  "Yes."

  "This chess club—"

  "Yes."

  Lynne put the tissue box on the little table by her chair.

  "There's no dress rehearsal for anything, is there?

  There's no chance to practice anything."

  David leaned across to give her a little nudge.

  "Very philosophical, Mum."

  She smiled at him.

  "Thank you for coming."

  He moved his hand so that he was holding her wrist.

  "There may be changes ahead, Mum, more changes. But there's one thing that won't change. Are you sure of that?

  Are you sure of that now?"

  Lynne looked up at him.

  "Nathalie—"

  "Forget Nathalie," David said. "It's me we're talking about. Yes or no?"

  "I'll try," Lynne said.

  "Not good enough."

  She looked down at his hand on her wrist.

  "Yes," she said.

  Betty paused outside Cora's door. There was a line of light under it, but no sound. Betty had been up to bed at her usual time, and had lain there counting the exasperating rhythm of Don's snores for over an hour, as wakeful as anything, and could then stand it no longer. So she had got out of bed and put on her dressing gown and formidable slippers—running a bed and breakfast taught you never to emerge onto the landing in only a nightgown—and padded downstairs to Cora's door.

  She put her ear to the wood. No sound. Nothing. She raised her knuckles above her head and knocked gently.

  There was a faint rustling inside, and then silence.

  "Cora," Betty whispered.

  More silence.

  "Cora," Betty said, slightly louder. "Are you all right?"

  There was more rustling and the door opened. Cora stood inside, still in her orange dress, and barefoot.

  "Oh Cora," Betty said. "It's after midnight."

  "Is it?"

  "Why don't I get you some hot milk—"

  "No thank you," Cora said, "I'm not ill. I'm just not sleepy."

  Betty moved past her sister into the room. It was tidy, as if Cora hadn't been there, as if she'd just been standing on the carpet, not moving.

  "Did she upset you?"

  "No," Cora said.

  Betty peered.

  "You sure? You look all in."

  "I'm fine," Cora said.

  "Don't give me that," Betty said. "Don't tell me she didn't upset you."

  Cora gave a little sigh.

  "She didn't. I upset myself."

  "What?"

  "I wasn't what she was expecting. I'm her mother but she wasn't expecting me. And I wasn't expecting her."

  "Oh come on," Betty said. She sat down heavily in Cora's

  small, uncomfortable chair. "You'd seen her picture."

  "It wasn't the one I had in my mind," Cora said. "She was lovely, don't get me wrong, lovely to look at, lovely manners, sweet. But she's different now."

  "Different?"

  "She's not my Samantha—"

  "I told you," Betty said triumphantly. "I told you, didn't

  I? I told you you'd only get hurt, seeing her."

  "I'm not hurt," Cora said.

  "What, standing there fully dressed at midnight, staring into space—"

  "I'm working things out. But I'm not hurt. I'm upset, but I'm not hurt."

  "And I suppose madam has flounced off back down south—"

  "No, she hasn't," Cora said. "She's in the guest house, where I booked her. I left her there just after ten. She was exhausted."

  "And she's exhausted you."

  "Of course she has," Cora said. "What d'you expect?

  Important emotions are exhausting." She looked at her sister. "I think you'd better get back off to bed."

  "I need to see you're all right."

  1 am.

  "But you're upset. You said so yourself."

  "I'm adjusting," Cora said. "I'm adjusting to—Nathalie.

  I'm adjusting to everything I've felt for so long being—well, being over."

  Betty heaved herself to her feet.

  "Sometimes," she said, "you are very hard to follow."

  "Perhaps."

  "I do my best," Betty said. "I try my hardest to prevent you from getting any more knocks and you go all perverse on me and go chasing after knocks anyway."

  Cora picked at something on the front of her orange dress.

  "This isn't a knock, exactly. It's more like another version of a story I've lived with nearly all my life."

  "No more riddles," Betty said, moving towards the door, "it's too late. Was she kind to you?"

  Cora looked startled.

  "Oh yes—"

  "Not just polite. Kind."

  "Yes," Cora said. "She was very kind to me."

  Betty put a hand on Cora's shoulder.

  "I knew it," she said, "I knew it. Kind. What sort of a daughter is that?"

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The studio lay bathed in early evening light. Steve hadn't realized this when he bought the building, but the crooked rooflines outside the west-facing window were so arranged that long shafts of late sunlight could come sliding in, during spring and summer, straight, it seemed, from the horizon of the world. It gave him the same sensations that contemplating the roof beams did, the same eerie, wonderful sense of being, quite by chance, part of something timeless, and endless, and, ultimately and superbly, careless of little human things.

  He sat now just outside one of the great dust-furred beams of light, with his stool turned back to the wall. His computer was still on, the lit screen trivialized by the natural brilliance pouring softly past it, because he had promised himself he would finish his invoices for the month, so that Meera could insert them into her scrupulously detailed accounts.

  "It's not like you to be late," she'd said, standing by his desk with her perfect posture, which enabled her hair to hang straight down her back in a blue-black sheet. "Not like you at all."

  "Sorry," he said, not looking at her.

  "Is something the matter?"

  He gave a rueful smile at his keyboard.

  "You don't miss much—"

  "No," she said, "specially things I don't like."

  He'd sighed. It was a moment to say something, a moment to spread out the tangle of all that was going on under an objective and practical eye, and ask for advice in sorting it out. But he let it pass. He sighed again and looked up at her. She was wearing an expression of surprising sympathy.

  "I'll get those invoices to you tomorrow. Promise."

  He had done more than half of them. It was only a question of checking, a task he knew his mind was not only suited to, but rather liked, but all the same it refused to stay focused and slid about like a raw egg on a plate, into the subject of Nathalie, and then Sasha, and Nathalie's visit to Northsea, and then Sasha, and Polly, and Polly's impending time in hospital, and then Sasha. Invoices might, in fact, have brought respite and relief, but he couldn't fix upon them, he couldn't stop the sliding, and the great sloppy burdens of anxiety and love and remorse that so heavily accompanied it.

  Sasha had wanted to see him that afternoon. She had wanted to quite insistently, quite demandingly, in a way he might, a few weeks earlier, have found flattering, especially coming from someone who made such a point of leaving people free, herself in particular. But she had rung four times on his mobile—her name had come up, almost menacingly, on its tiny screen—and then tried on his office line until he had to say no with a kind of finality he'd never had to use before.

  "What do you mean, no?"

  "I mean I have to work. I mean I have some work to finish by six o'clock tonight."

  "Then
I'll see you at six o'clock."

  "I'm going home at six o'clock."

  "To put," Sasha said, with a distinct edge, "your child to bed."

  "Yes."

  "Then have a coffee with me now. Coffee for half an hour. That'll leave you three hours still to do whatever stuff you have to do."

  "No."

  "It's this Nathalie thing again, isn't it?"

  Steve shut his eyes, holding the phone.

  He said, "It was something very big for her—"

  "Another behavioral interlude."

  "Enough—"

  "Another look-at-me-I'm-adopted moment."

  "I said enough—"

  "You're a fool," Sasha said.

  "Maybe."

  "The chances you throw away—"

  "Maybe that too—"

  "I need to see you!"

  Steve kept his eyes closed.

  "Not today."

  There'd been a pause, a highly charged small pause, and then Sasha had said, quite casually, "Bye," and put the phone down.

  And since then, he'd sat here, fiddling about on the screen, conscious of Titus and Justine answering their phones, going out on various errands, of Meera pursuing her steely purpose at the far end, of a desire to telephone Nathalie for no precise reason he could think of. Nothing just now, he thought, skimming the cursor about mindlessly, was quite on track, nobody seemed to be cheerful or simple or light of heart. Even Titus, usually so reliably and robustly spirited, appeared to be deriving nothing from his new affair with Justine, an affair that had given Steve—no use at all pretending otherwise—just the illusory permission and excuse he needed to see Sasha. Titus looked sullen, Justine looked miserable, Meera looked disapproving, Nathalie looked, was—oh hell, Steve thought, spinning his stool back, how on earth had everything become so unraveled? And how had he so departed from all the codes of conduct he had followed all his life that he now found himself in the middle of a most despicable maze with not the first idea of how to make his way back to the beginning?

  He looked at his watch. It was ten past six. Meera had left at five-thirty, Justine had followed her ten minutes later, and Titus had disappeared two hours ago without explanation, and would presumably not now reappear until the morning. He should have told Steve where he was going, and Steve should have given permission, and ascertained how long he'd be, and made a few reliably Steve-like comments about the state of his desk. But neither of them had done either. Titus had merely put the telephone down on some call, called out, "Got to see to something," and gone, followed by Meera's steady and eloquent dark gaze. Justine hadn't looked up. She'd merely kept on working, head bent, shoulders hunched, every atom of her unhappy body visibly conscious of his departure.