Any more of that, young man, and you’ll get your bottom smacked. I mean it. The mother was clearly struggling, and Kate had to look away. She was picturing a favourite little jacket Daniel had. Darker blue but with similar contrast stitching. The image was so vivid that she could feel a tightening in her chest and so tried to busy herself.
Half an hour later Kate was queuing in the pharmacy for some shaving foam for Toby – it was a lemon and lime version you couldn’t buy anywhere else – and through the doorway she saw them again, the mother and two children, across the walkway outside a toy shop opposite. The little boy was lying on his back on the floor and the mother was shouting, reaching for his hand to lift him back onto his feet. Yanked him much too hard, Kate felt, so that he was lifted right off the ground for a moment.
Several women queuing with Kate watched then as the tin of shaving foam dropped to the floor and she ran across to scoop the child into her own arms, marching in the opposite direction from the stunned and now panic-stricken mother. Very soon there was a lot of screaming. The mother and the little boy too. A security guard from the toy shop came to check out the commotion, and all the time Kate was shouting that she was a social worker, formally cautioning the woman, waving her ID from her bag.
‘I should have taken much longer off work.’ Kate smooths the fabric of her dress. ‘There was no excuse. I let myself down. And I let the profession down.’
‘You were under a lot of pressure, Kate. We understand that.’ Emily pushes the notes away.
The mother called the police. There were no charges. But there was a formal complaint. A suspension initially, and then the mutually-agreed sick leave.
‘The thing is, I don’t want to rush you. To put you on the spot. I realise the path to getting back to work won’t be entirely straightforward. But I just wanted to introduce myself here and to let you know that my aim, in the long run, is to get back to work. Once I’m completely strong.’
The relief on Emily’s face is tangible. ‘Well – you know how short every council is of good social workers. You don’t need me to tell you that, Kate. So – in time. Yes. When you’re completely strong. When your doctor is happy. We could talk about a new assessment. Some retraining. Supervision.’
‘Supervision?’
‘Sorry. I know it sounds a little heavy-handed. But there would be quite a few boxes to tick.’
‘Of course.’ Kate is surprised at how offended she feels. Whenever she thinks of that incident in the arcade, she is truly mortified. That poor child. So confused and screaming for his mother. She would never, ever let anything like that happen again. But the thought of supervision? Everyone knowing that she is no longer trusted?
‘But I’m glad you’ve made the first step. Introduced yourself here. Look – I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m due in a meeting very soon. Maybe, as I said, we could talk again properly, at greater length, say after Christmas?’
‘That sounds good.’
‘Your line manager— ’ Emily glances down at the file to confirm the name. ‘Louise. She speaks very highly of you. The service can’t afford to lose good people. Yes. After Christmas. Why don’t you ring in January and we’ll fix a longer chat.’
And then, as Kate stands up, she feels it. The flicker of awareness. A change. A dampness. She glances away to the window, understanding the coffee now. Eager to be gone.
Five days since she met Toby. Five days of regret and shame; of constant worrying and wondering.
She had thought that the stomach pangs this morning were nerves about this meeting. In the toilet cubicle now she sits, heart in overdrive as she pulls quickly at her clothing to confirm the stain – large enough to have seeped through ever so slightly to her dress.
So just a late period after all?
Just?
She has been willing this moment since meeting Toby. Lying in bed at night willing it. And waiting for it. And praying for it. And now?
As she fumbles in her bag for tampons, she is surprised to feel wetness on her cheeks. Unexpected tears not just of the relief she had imagined but something else.
No baby.
No mess to explain to Toby. No terrible decision to make. A lucky reprieve.
But also.
No baby.
And as she sorts herself as best she can, the silent tears now dripping onto the fabric of her dress leaving dark, circular rings, she is thinking something else.
It is a thought that is unexpected.
That she is never going to be a mother again.
And the thing is, she thought she was already resigned to this, and sure of it. That it was the right decision for her life. Her punishment. Her reckoning.
But suddenly, clearing up the mess and wiping her tears onto her sleeve, it does not feel like something she is so sure of at all.
It just feels like a huge and horrible deep, deep hole into which she is falling.
An hour later, and she decides against the bus home and instead walks through the centre of town.
As the receptionist phones through to the back office, Kate watches the shoppers through the steamy glass – some weighed down with plastic bags, others struggling with umbrellas and leaning forward into the wind.
After a few minutes her regular stylist appears, brushing the evidence of crisps from her skirt as she walks.
‘Right. Sorry to keep you, Kate, quick trim, is it?’ She is leading the way to the middle seat of a row of three, adjusting the height of the chair before Kate sits down.
‘No, Sandra. I want a change.’ Kate takes a deep breath. ‘Short. All off.’
‘Cut it off? Oh, Kate – I’m not sure about that, love.’ She is addressing her via the mirror now, drying her hands on a towel before handling Kate’s hair gently, stroking the long ringlets which have tightened in the rain.
‘I always recommend stages for something this dramatic. How about a bob first? Shoulder length for a few weeks. Get you used to the wind around your neck.’ She folds the hair up and turns Kate’s head to the side to show her the suggested length.
‘No. I’ve made my mind up, Sandra.’
‘Oh, but Kate. It’s such a signature, isn’t it? Your hair. We are always saying when you come in— ’
‘Please, Sandra. If you won’t do it, I’ll only go somewhere else. And if they make a hash of it, I’ll be really upset. I trust you.’
Sandra takes a deep breath, staring unblinking now at Kate through the mirror.
‘You’ll have to stay with the curls. Once the weight’s gone, it will be harder to straighten.’ She is pulling the hair back in a ponytail. Tilting her head. ‘Well, you’ve certainly got the cheekbones, Kate. You can take it.’
‘Good. So let’s do it. Short. Layered but casual.’
And so Sandra is finally smiling her agreement while Kate in contrast lies back against the sink, eyes closed, fighting hard.
Do not cry, Kate.
Do not cry again. Not here.
36
The last time Martha saw her father he was unaware that she was watching him. It was three months into her stay at Millrose Mount, and he was writing the letter she is now holding in her hand in Kate’s box room. Determined finally to destroy it.
It is not the first time she has decided this. Many times she has thrown it away, only to change her mind later, and the single sheet of blue Basildon Bond bears testament to her struggle – stained with coffee, tea and leftover food from the various bins in which it has assumed temporary residence down the years.
It was a long time after Millrose Mount that Charles Ellis died. Martha was abroad, settled in to a nomadic existence, and she had learned too late, via a few column inches on the music pages, so was spared the agony of deciding whether she should attend the funeral in her mother’s memory. It was drink, apparently. His liver. Ironic, that – given he had once so disapproved of the weakness in others. Martha often wondered if guilt had in the end played a part in his decline, but guessed deep down t
hat it was more likely to have been his ego. The downward turn in his career.
And now only the letter remains.
What I did, I did for you, Martha. One day you will see that…
He had looked uncomfortable to Martha that final day – fidgeting in an armchair in the visitors’ reception at Millrose Mount, which she could see clearly from her second-floor ward across the courtyard. When finally a doctor appeared, they talked for five, maybe ten minutes, and then he was left alone to write the letter at a desk before it was collected by a nurse.
She had refused to see him. And for this he chastised her in the letter. I know you are angry, Martha. It is perhaps understandable. But I believe still that what I did, I did for the best.
He was moving to Austria, he explained. A job he could not turn down. He wrote that he was torn and had never dreamt she would be detained in Millrose Mount for so long. He had imagined a smaller clinic somewhere. For just a few weeks, until she was better. He had even investigated the possibility of a transfer to a private establishment, he said, but had been reassured by the staff at Millrose Mount that it was the best and the safest place for her.
She winced at that.
The job in Austria he justified as an opportunity he simply could not turn down. He had, after all, to earn a living still, and he hoped, above all else, that their estrangement would be temporary. That, in time, she would come to understand that what he had done had not been easy but was his duty. As a father.
Martha lies on her bed in the little box room of Kate’s house and stares at the single, sorry sheet which has for so many years haunted her. Made her stand in her dreams, a child again outside his music room, longing for a different look in his eye. A different tone to his voice.
She wonders why she has been unable to destroy it and realises that its hold over her is suffocating.
Enough. Martha marches downstairs with the letter and lights the gas on the stove. If she bins it, there is a risk she will retrieve it, as she has done so many times before.
She looks at it and knows that she keeps it because she struggles to let go of the hope that one day she will read it and see something else there. Love? But that is just not going to happen. And so she holds it now over the flame, watching the corner catch initially with satisfaction but then alarm. Fragments of the letter begin to float into the air. She tries to blow on the paper to dampen down the flames, but this only makes things worse. One of the larger pieces of hot ash drifts upwards then sideways before settling against the blind at the window, and Martha is horrified to see that very quickly a singe mark appears – growing and darkening as a flame in the centre fights for breath. Instinctively she drops what is left of the letter in the sink, fills a mug with water and throws it at the blind.
Then, after pausing to be sure the crisis has passed, she puts her hand up to her mouth, surveying the damage.
Damn… Damn, damn, damn.
And then, for the first time in as long as she can remember, Martha begins to cry.
37
At the corner table of Maria’s café a court jester in full jacquard dress of red and yellow stretch jersey is sipping his coffee, the bells of his headdress jangling as he tips his head in deep contemplation of the crossword in front of him.
‘Three across. You need to get three across.’ Martha elbows Elizabeth the First, who has her hand cupped around her tea, resplendent in a most authentic costume of richly embroidered velvet – the majority of the café’s other customers batting not an eyelid. There is just one woman, unfamiliar with Aylesborough’s Wednesday Elizabethan market, who is staring at them, trying to work out why no one considers this state of affairs unusual.
‘They say it should clear up later.’ Maria has a jug of coffee in her hand, from which Queen Elizabeth and Martha gratefully accept top-ups. Maria smiles. The Elizabethan traders are loyal – always taking refuge at her café when rain scuppers trade at the nearby Market Square.
‘So – how’s the campaign going, Maria?’ Martha leans back in her chair, stretching her arms.
‘Don’t ask.’ Maria pulls a face, setting the coffee pot down on the table mat between them, its steam streaming towards the wall with the draught from the door as Sir Francis Drake appears, adjusting his tights somewhat indelicately before urging his fellow traders to budge up.
‘But the knitted tree’s looking fab, Maria. Half done.’
‘Well, according to the local paper, that’s old news. I need a new angle apparently.’ Maria sounds bitter, recalling the phone call to the reporter who explained that they’d ‘done’ the knitted tree story and needed something new.
Maria complains that the council seem to be getting space every week advertising their side of the row. Sketches of the new library. Sketches of the swish new bistro and posh new shops. Quotes from all and sundry supporting the reinvention of Aylesborough.
‘So what do they mean… a new angle?’ Martha is frowning now.
‘I don’t know. I was thinking of a hunger strike.’ Maria’s face is poker straight. ‘But Carlo says it would be months before I’d be in any danger… ’ And now she is guffawing – pleased to have caught them all out, her guests only now relaxing into the joke, with Sir Francis Drake admitting he could do with a hunger strike myself, to fit my balls back into my bloody tights.
It is then that the jester – Brian from the white elephant stall – makes a sudden move, rummaging through his bag.
‘I almost forgot,’ he says, handing over a roll of paper for Maria, muttering about a poster and her window space.
Maria sits and Martha reads over her shoulder. It is a poster for the Elizabethan Christmas market, launched annually by a procession of the best-dressed of the traders, supported by the local Elizabethan Society. Set for December 9th. The usual route from the town hall to Market Square.
‘This is it.’ Maria’s face is suddenly brighter.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Queen Elizabeth is helping herself to yet more coffee, half distracted again by the crossword which she is now reading sideways.
‘Let’s move the Christmas fair here. To the quay. Make the whole thing – the procession and everything – part of our campaign. We can finish the knitted tree and I could do some authentic Elizabethan food. What do you think, Martha?’ Maria’s eyes are wide with excitement.
‘Elizabethan food?’ The traders look from one to another, immediately heartened at anything which involves free grub. Especially Maria’s.
‘But the route’s all agreed with the police. The town hall to Market Square. Same every year.’ Martha is frowning.
‘Oh, sod the police.’
‘Maria!’ Martha is now looking seriously worried. ‘I hope you’re not forgetting we are supposed to be on our best behaviour.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s only two streets away. Let’s move it here. Secretly. To the quay. It’s just what we need. Please.’ She has turned now to Sir Francis Drake. ‘Say you’ll speak to the others? Please.’
‘Well – I could have a word with Andrew,’ Elizabeth the First shrugs.
Andrew is the secretary of the market and a regular at Maria’s.
‘But I really think we’d have to notify the police. They shepherd the route, Maria. Make sure we don’t get any hassle from the traffic.’
‘Oh, I’m sure we can work round that. If we ask permission, they’ll just say no. We need an element of surprise on this one. To get that “new angle” for the press – a bit of controversy.’
‘I don’t know, Maria.’ Elizabeth the First is now looking as worried as Martha.
‘So you fancy spending your Wednesdays in some fancy bistro, do you, Marj? With a fancy name and fancy prices to go with it?’
‘Don’t be daft, Maria. You know we all support you.’
‘So it’s decided then. I’ll have a word with Wendy, and Geoffrey at the piano shop. But not a word to anyone else yet. We need to make sure the council don’t get wind of this.’
Reluctantly Marth
a agrees to help check the viability of this new plan with the others. A quick glance through the door at Wendy’s as soon as the Elizabethans have left confirms it is not a good time. A small queue of customers has formed and Maria and Martha are both pleased to see one of them helping herself from the large plastic bin which contains remnants of green wool and the pattern for the leaves. Maria mimes to Wendy that she will call back later and, distracted by the poster which she is reading in more detail now, marches briskly round to the piano shop completely unprepared for the shock inside.
‘Oh no.’ Maria puts her hand straight up to her mouth, Martha a step behind her.
Matthew is over by the counter, stacking music books onto the shelves.
‘Poor, poor Geoffrey. When on earth did this happen?’
Matthew turns to Maria, his expression one of puzzlement as Geoffrey emerges from the office at the back.
‘I don’t know what to say, Geoffrey.’ Maria has now sat herself down on the wide piano stool beside a rather attractive upright near the shop window. ‘How on earth did they get in?’
Matthew now turns to Geoffrey, who returns his expression of puzzlement as Maria surveys the shopfront for damage.
‘Came in through the back, did they? We should consider alarms. I’ve often said to Carlo that alarms would be a good idea. They’re expensive, I know, but… ’
And only now does the penny drop with Martha as Matthew explodes with laughter.
‘She thinks vandals did this.’ His tone is teasing as Geoffrey pulls himself up. Defensive. And from his expression, more than a little hurt. ‘It’s all right, Maria.’ Matthew coughs to compose himself, aware from Geoffrey’s discomfort that Maria is not the only one alarmed at the current state of the Steinway. ‘I know it looks a little scary but Geoffrey assures me he knows how to put it back together.’
‘You did this?’ Maria turns her gaze towards the assortment of wood panels and unrecognisable pieces of inner mechanism spread around a large area of the floor.
Martha has to put her hand up to her mouth to stifle a laugh, not wishing to offend her friend.
Last Kiss Goodnight Page 17