by Freya North
‘We have to hold it together,’ Pip said, misreading Fen’s shaking. ‘That’s the point of family – one is duty-bound to hold it together to prevent it falling apart.’
I am duty-bound to hold it together to prevent it falling apart, Fen said to herself.
She gazed at the back of Cat’s head, the soft auburn spikes of her hair, the gold butterflies at the back of her ear lobes fixing her earrings. ‘Is it harder for you, Cat?’ Fen asked her gently, leaning forward between the front seats. ‘You know – because of—’ She paused. ‘What we found out.’
‘He’s just my biological father,’ Cat said quietly, her voice sounding new and emphatic after two hours of silence, ‘and that can’t mean much because Christ, we didn’t even suspect, let alone know, until a few weeks ago.’
‘Pit stop,’ Ben announced, deciding to pull in to the services at the last minute. There was so much stress and emotion and anticipation in the car it was now making driving difficult. Part of him was dreading the weekend, part of him wanted to take Cat back to Boulder for good, far away from her first family so that he and she could settle down and make a new one of their own. He felt slightly burdened though it had been his decision to accompany the sisters, his advice to Zac and Matt that they stay at home with their children, his offer to be the chaperon, the doctor-on-call. He loitered behind the sisters as they made their way in to the services. He observed how Pip had put her arm around Cat’s shoulder, that Fen’s arm was around his wife’s waist. And the sight released a surge of relief.
She’ll be OK. They’ll all be OK. Whatever happens, they have each other. They always will.
‘Stop!’ Cat suddenly said, anxiety riding high in her voice, as the car pulled along the one-in-ten drag to Farleymoor. Ben pulled over to the verge. The girls staggered from the car, allowing the sight of the dip and roll of the ancient and familiar dales to calm their nerves, the sweet soft air to fill their lungs and steady their minds; while goose grass, licked with flashes of silver as the sun and the wind played on it, whispered comfortingly against their legs.
‘Why don’t you three walk the last mile,’ Ben suggested. ‘I’ll drive on. And pave the way.’
Django peered at length and with theatrical curiosity into Ben’s car. He stroked at his non-existent goatee and frowned. ‘Are they dieting?’
Ben laughed. ‘They wanted to walk the last bit.’
‘Dragging their heels?’ Django asked.
‘Steadying their nerves,’ Ben said diplomatically.
‘It’s nice to see you,’ Django told him, ‘but I’m wondering whether you are here as intermediary or physician?’
‘I have many caps to wear this weekend, Django,’ Ben said. ‘Chauffeur – currently.’
‘You’re very skilled,’ Django told him, ‘and you are of course most welcome, bless you. But your services as intermediary and physician won’t be called upon. You see, I’m feeling dandy. Furthermore, I’ve made curried trout for supper. And Eton Mess. It’s their favourite. Guaranteed to break the ice and melt hardened hearts.’
From the garden, they could see the curve in the road as it started its long, meandering descent to Two Dales. And just then the sisters came into view as they mooched their way closer.
‘It’s funny how it never changes,’ Django said. ‘Whatever their age, wherever they’ve been, it’s always Pip leading the way, Fen bringing up the rear and Cat, protected, between them.’
‘Cat’s extremely nervous,’ Ben told Django, his wife’s welfare his main consideration.
‘I’m sure she is,’ said Django, ‘but there’s so much ground to cover and most of it is a wasteland there seems little point in revisiting.’
‘But they need to know,’ Ben told him, a little irritated by Django’s whimsy.
‘If they ask,’ Django said.
‘They might not,’ Ben said, polite but firm, ‘but still they need to know. It’s part of the point of this weekend – you must realize that.’ He paused. ‘How were the tests?’
‘Tests?’ said Django. ‘I’m feeling dandy, my boy – and look, here come the girls.’
The girls were now walking up the drive. Pip. Fen. Cat lagging behind. The disruption to the familiar order perturbed Django. The pace was less their usual brisk walk, more a reluctant amble, and that vexed him too. And as he watched the girls approach in this awkward, unnatural arrangement and faltering gait, he sensed it was mostly down to him to realign it all. If only life could be like jazz. If only he could gather together these disparate components. If only he could make a sweet chord from discordance, a new melody from dissonance. Perhaps he could.
The girls stood before him.
‘Hullo, chaps,’ Django smiled. ‘Cup of tea?’
It was incongruous; to drink tea so politely, in such silence, when the tea was so uncouthly strong and served in the great clunking stoneware mugs Django had made during his mercifully brief foray into pottery in the late seventies. But they sipped away and smiled awkward half smiles while waiting for the scald on their tongues to subside.
‘Well, I think I’ll unpack,’ said Ben but immediately the girls left the table too, which had not been his intention at all. He’d assumed he’d simply be on-call, in any capacity, but he had hoped this meant waiting in the wings, a step removed, while the action played out elsewhere. Django took the teapot and poured out the amber-coloured dregs into the curry sauce, desperately annoyed at the nag of his bladder. He dropped a mug on the floor, yet not even the flagstones could break it. Django wondered if he was allowed to read into this – that something rather old and odd-looking should be so strong and resilient. He’d made the mug himself. He looked at his hands, glanced around the kitchen to check he had no audience, and then he pressed his hands hard against his heart, his brow, his groin.
Cat watched Ben unpack. ‘I wish I’d never come,’ she whispered.
Ben nodded, shook the creases from a shirt and hung it on the back of the door. ‘I’m sure, babe,’ he said, ‘but you need to stay open. Don’t close yourself off, OK?’
‘His birthday and all that – it seems a lifetime ago,’ Cat said.
There was a gentle knock on the door and then Fen came in. ‘You OK?’ she asked Cat.
Cat shrugged. ‘You?’
Fen shrugged back. ‘I thought it would be easier, I thought there’d be tears and hugs and we’d all know what to say. It’s all so formal. And awkward.’
‘I wish I hadn’t come,’ Cat confessed. ‘I thought everything would seem magically clearer, everything would be fine. But it’s not.’
‘We have to be here,’ Pip, suddenly in the doorway, spoke strongly and a little irritated. ‘Of course it’s awkward. Come on. We need to go downstairs and help.’
‘In a sec,’ said Fen and she turned to Ben. ‘Does your mobile have a signal? I want to phone home.’ Ben handed his phone to Fen. There was no signal and she looked crestfallen.
‘Come on,’ Pip said to Fen, ‘let’s go downstairs. You can use the normal phone. But we’ll lay the table first.’
‘Isn’t all of this freaking you out?’ Cat asked her.
‘Of course it is,’ said Pip, ‘but we have to do something about that. That’s why we’re here, remember.’
When Pip and Fen had left the room, Cat went over to Ben, laying her head against his chest. ‘I don’t even know where to look, let alone what to say,’ she muttered. ‘I can’t seem to look him in the eye. It might make me cry and I don’t want to. And I might see that I have his eyes and I don’t think I want to see that either.’
‘Yet,’ Ben qualified gently.
Matching cutlery had never really been a priority in the McCabe household, nor had the resultant assortment ever been particularly noticeable. Food was the all-important element of mealtimes at Farleymoor, and though the laying of the table held some ritual, the lively clatter of crockery and cutlery was in anticipation of the repast itself. Cutlery was a means to an end, a way to expedite the passage of food
from plate to palate. It was mostly irrelevant whether it was steel from Sheffield or silver from Harrods, ivory stems or antler handles; as long as the pieces could prong, scoop or cut.
That Saturday night, between silences as thick as Django’s Christmas gravy, the cutlery provided a cacophonous and alien soundtrack. On account of each piece being unique, no two clinks or clatters were the same. No one had noticed this before, but they all tuned in to it now. The racket was irritating, so annoying that everyone tried to scrape and clang their cutlery the loudest to obscure the sound of the others and perhaps signify their own unrest as well.
‘And how is little Cosima?’ Django asked Fen who nodded her answer while making much of chewing concertedly. ‘Good! Splendid. And how is young Tom?’ Django asked Pip who, for some reason, smiled her answer to Ben. ‘Super!’ said Django, turning his attention to Cat. ‘And I hear congratulations are in order, Cat.’
‘I’m not bloody pregnant,’ Cat retorted with her mouth full, which in the first instance irked Django far more than the facts of her answer or the sentiment by which she expressed it. ‘I meant your promotion,’ he said. She shrugged, as if it were no big deal, as if he should expect her to be capable of such accolades.
The grating scrape of cutlery; the grate of non-communication anathema to this kitchen, this family. Ben asked for another helping, not because he was still hungry but just to break the awkward silence. In the most stinging indictment Django had yet been savaged by, each girl left part of her meal on her plate.
Django fetched the Eton Mess and placed it with justified pride in the centre of the table. Pip patted her stomach as if she were full, Fen burped politely into her napkin as if she didn’t fancy it anyway and Cat wouldn’t even bring her eyes to glance at Django’s trademark triumph of a dessert. He sat down heavily and, with a great sigh, placed his head in his hands. And there they all sat, in a suspended moment of extreme unease. The silence was choking but with a cough, Django cleared his throat and let rip a roar the likes of which the girls had never heard and could never have imagined.
‘Enough!’ Django slammed his hand against the worn wood of the table. ‘Enough. My name is Derek McCabe – it’s a ghastly name and there should be a law against it. I have three daughters one of whom is biologically mine. I have cancer.’ He rose. ‘With regard to your blood lines, on my gravestone I want it said that I was a good father to my three girls,’ he almost bellowed. ‘You can punish me and condemn me for the details I withheld; put me in the proverbial stocks and pelt me with how rotten you think me. It was naive of me to believe I could protect you – but then all parents wish to protect their offspring so the whole bloody lot of us must be fools.’ He shoved his chair back. ‘You tell me – any of you – that our life thus far was not better for turning a blind eye to the finer facts of biology and fore-names.’ He smote the table. ‘Pip – you dish up, I need the lavatory. Bugger the Eton Mess and bugger my blasted bladder.’
When Django came back after an infuriating and unsuccessful trip to the toilet, the Eton Mess was still intact, or as intact as a smash of meringue, gluts of fruit and great clods of cream defining this dessert can be. He looked around the table. Poor Ben, mortified, at the periphery of his comfort zone. The girls, looking glum, staring at their laps. Slowly, Pip stood up and Fen lifted her eyes and Cat raised her head a little. ‘It’s your job,’ Pip said to Django with humility, ‘you’re head of our family.’ And she held out the serving spoon. Before Django took it, he turned his attention to Fen, who could only mouth ‘Sorry’ on account of the choke of emotion tightening her throat. Then he looked to Cat, whose tears bounced on her plate like hailstones.
‘Don’t do that, dear,’ Django chided her softly, ‘it’s the best china. And the recipe does not call for salt. Just sweet things.’ A glance back at Fen and Pip showed their tears had started to fall too.
‘Dear God,’ Django exclaimed softly, ‘I’m about to do that ghastly Hollywood thing and tell you all how much I love you, how I never meant to hurt you.’
Oh Christ – mass hysterics, thought Ben, we so don’t do this in my family.
Django went to Pip, took the serving spoon from her hand and embraced her tenderly; then went and stood behind Fen’s chair and bent down to kiss her forehead over and again before pulling Cat to her feet and straight into the warmth of his bear-hug.
But nor do we do this, Ben thought enviously and he moved quietly from the kitchen, taking his dessert into the garden, leaving the McCabes to their ways.
Bolstered by brandy and heartened by After Eights, the girls shyly gathered around Django’s armchair in the drawing-room, as if he was about to read a story though it was the truth only that they craved and that finally he was prepared to give. With the apologies and declarations of love now fulfilled, a spew of questions surfaced, though it was only Fen and Pip who could voice them.
‘Was it a shock, that she came back?’ asked Pip.
‘Yes and no,’ Django told them. ‘We’ve had no contact and yet I must admit to an inkling that at some point, she’d show up.’
‘Did he know?’ Pip pressed. ‘Our father?’ She glanced at Fen and then, apologetically, at Cat.
‘No,’ Django said emphatically, ‘he did not.’
‘So how can you be sure?’ Fen asked abruptly, having slipped her hand into Cat’s.
‘Unlike me, my brother wasn’t very good at maths,’ Django said nostalgically. ‘Perhaps I would have told him – when the dust had settled. When a little more time had passed. But life was back on an even keel – Battersea had been left, we were all happy here together. And within two years, he was gone.’
‘Is it really really as you’ve always told it?’ Fen asked, a little accusatorily.
‘It really really is,’ Django said.
‘About everything?’ Fen pressed. ‘About all of you?’
Django nodded. ‘Though with hindsight, I suppose one can see that she was on this mission to find herself and all that transcendental nonsense which, in the 1960s, we simply accepted as right-on and far-out. Nowadays I reckon one would call her a crazy mixed-up kid.’ There was a pause as the girls tried to tag this description to the woman in her early fifties they’d met for the first time just over a month before.
‘Did you actually have an affair with her?’ Pip asked. ‘A love affair?’
‘No,’ Django admitted, ‘not technically.’
‘Just a fling,’ Cat commented sadly.
‘But did you love her?’ Fen asked, unnerved by the thought of a reckless one-night stand. She glanced at Cat but could not decipher the emotion that dulled her eyes.
‘In a make-love-not-war zeitgeisty kind of way – yes, I suppose I did,’ Django said and he could feel Cat’s eyes burning into him. He looked at her and nodded again. ‘There was a lot of love around,’ he continued, ‘between everyone in those days.’
‘Did you think she’d come back?’ Pip asked. ‘At the time?’
Django looked upset. ‘Of course I did!’ he declared. ‘Gracious, she had three beautiful beautiful babies.’
‘Did you think she’d come back for all of us?’ Fen pressed, squeezing Cat’s hand and half hoping her sister would hear that she’d asked the question as much on her behalf as for herself.
‘Of course I did!’ Django said, a little impatiently. He paused and continued in a softer tone. ‘I was mortified that she’d left – but soon enough I dreaded her returning. I didn’t want to lose you three. Especially not after my brother passed away.’
‘Was it a shock? When you realized about me?’ Cat asked. They were her first questions and her voice rang out. Django, Fen and Pip looked at her, though just then she remained unable to establish eye contact with any of them.
‘Well, yes it was. Goodness me, yes,’ Django told them all. ‘Although I didn’t know until after she’d left. She told me in a letter. A letter that was unopened for days on end because I was so busy running around after you all.’
‘But
why did she leave?’ Cat asked urgently. ‘Why did she leave us? Did she say? Do you still have the letter? Why didn’t she come back for us? All of us?’
What could Django do but shrug? What could he say but, ‘I don’t know, girls. I don’t have that answer. You’d really have to ask her that.’
TIME FOR TESTS
After an exhausted sleep in which thoughts of their mother and thoughts of cancer were banished, the family reconvened at the breakfast table where the cutlery could no longer be heard, but could be seen making swift work of the stack of panffles and maple syrup. The C word was now horribly anticipated, but none of the girls could bring themselves to articulate it. Yet it was the news of Django’s cancer that had facilitated this return home and they were leaving later that day.
Ben was acutely aware of this fact. And he was eager that the issue be broached with sufficient time to do it justice.
‘How are you feeling, Django?’ he asked, as conversationally as such a loaded question could possibly sound.
‘I had the most dreadful procedure on Friday, truly ghastly,’ Django replied in a similar tone, and he pointed his steak knife at Ben. ‘You medical men are an imaginative and sadistic lot. Pass the syrup. Thank you, Fen. They trussed me up, Ben, they trussed me up.’
‘A TRUSS?’ Ben asked.
‘Yes,’ Django regarded the girls. They’d stopped eating. They looked terrified. ‘As you know, I don’t trust technology and I’m not one for all these new-fangled gizmos. It was a camera,’ he muttered, shaking his head, ‘at the end of a medical hosepipe.’ Fen laid her hand over his wrist. He gave a little shrug. ‘Not one for the family photo album,’ he said robustly.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Pip said.
‘What’s next?’ Ben asked.
‘Toast?’ Django offered. ‘Fresh tea?’
‘I meant for you, at the hospital, test-wise,’ Ben clarified.
‘Let’s see – tomorrow, it’s something about “ice”,’ Django said.