A Place for Us

by Harriet Evans

  He laughed. “Fat chance. My mother texts me every fifteen minutes. ‘Did you know Di Marsden got married? Did you hear Steve was on Look North with his rabbits?’ No, Mam, I didn’t. It’s my son,” he said abruptly. “It’s him I miss.”

  “Of course. He’s called Jamie, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “In York, with his mum. That’s a tactful way of asking the question, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve had practice, you can tell. When did you break up?” She stopped. “Sorry, I’m being nosy. You don’t have to say.”

  Joe rubbed his fingers. She saw he had a long, thin new scar on his left hand. “I don’t mind. He was one. Just a baby really.” He was staring at the ground, and then his head snapped up and he said firmly, “She’s with someone else now. A good guy. He can give Jamie everything he needs.”

  “You’re still his dad.”

  “Yes. Of course I am. But maybe that stuff doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” Cat moved away from him, retreating into the darkest corner of the porch. “It shouldn’t matter, but it does. He’s your family.”

  My mum’s still my mum, she wanted to say, part of me will always love her no matter what, but she found it impossible. She rubbed her hands along her rib cage, as though comforting herself. “What I mean is, you can’t replicate blood. He’s your son—doesn’t matter if for a few years you don’t see him as much, he’ll always be your son. Even if you’re away, you can always come back.”

  “Like you did, you mean.”

  “Like I did. But it took a while.”

  Joe said quietly, “Suppose sometimes that must be hard.”

  Cat stamped her feet, moving farther into the darkness. Don’t be nice to me. “I wasn’t talking about me. I’m used to being on my own. I don’t know my mum, or my dad really. Don’t have any brothers or sisters. I just got on with it, I had to.”

  She wanted to bat him away as she’d done with Mrs. Lang, but he just said, “You’ve had a time of it, haven’t you?” and his voice was so kind.

  Her eyes swam with tears. “Oh, it’s all right. That’s the way it goes.” Cat swallowed; she had to move things along. “Anyway, enough about me. Maybe she’s better off without you.”

  “Who?”

  “Your ex.”

  “I’m absolutely sure about that, Cat.” Joe gave a grim laugh.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Cat was mortified.

  “I know what you meant. And it’s true.”

  “I meant you weren’t right for each other. No point in making each other unhappy.”

  “We did make each other unhappy. But I should have been able to push that all to the side and get on with it for Jamie’s sake. He deserves two parents who . . . you know what I mean?”

  “No,” Cat said, shaking her head. “No, no. It’s not true. There’s no way it would have been good for me to stay with Luke’s dad. Not good for me, not good for Luke.”

  There it was. Right there. The guilt, pushing down on her all these years, just lifting off her shoulders and floating away into the night. It was true, and she shrugged to see it go.

  “It’s funny, being on your own, though, isn’t it?” His face turned toward hers. “You think you’re okay, and then suddenly you realize how sunk into yourself you’ve got. You sit there brooding on all these things that don’t really matter.”

  “You shouldn’t, Joe, it’s not good for you.”

  “I don’t, not really. It’s only evenings, bedtime. If I’m not working. I think about Jamie. I used to read him a story every night. Jemma didn’t like reading him stories. I’d read him this book—over and over and over again he wanted it. The Runaway Bunny. I bet you’ve never heard of that one, either.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “I’d love to see what books you have in France. Honestly. The Runaway Bunny is great.” His soft voice was warm in the darkness. “You know, it’s about this bunny who—”

  “Who runs away?”

  “No. He sets up an investment bank. Yes, he runs away.” He smiled, and she thought how different he looked when he smiled. It changed his face.

  “So this bunny—”

  “I hate stories like this,” said Cat. “Will it make me cry?”

  “Probably. It makes me cry. Every time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the bunny keeps saying, ‘I’m going to run away and turn into a fish.’ And the mummy bunny says, ‘If you turn into a fish, I’ll turn into a fisherman and catch you, because you’re my little bunny.’ So he says, ‘If you turn into a fisherman, I’ll turn into a rock, really high up,’ so his mummy says she’ll learn to be a mountain climber, and climb all the way up there . . . and you get the picture. Wherever the bunny goes, his mummy says, I’ll always come and find you.”

  “Right,” said Cat, embarrassed at how close to tears she was. She swallowed, then gave a half laugh. “This is stupid.”

  “Well, it is,” Joe said. “But it made me cry every time. It still does because . . . he’s my lad, you see? And he must sometimes want me, when he’s scared, or someone’s being cruel to him, and I’m not there, because I’ve left him behind. You know, I thought it was for the right reasons, give his mum and her boyfriend some space, make a new life for myself, and now I just think . . . what the hell am I doing here?”

  “Oh, Joe. Don’t say that.”

  He looked down. “When all you want to do is make people happy by cooking up some nice grub and trying to be a good person.”

  “I’m used to being on my own,” she said briskly. “Believe me, I prefer it.”

  “Oh. Right,” he said.

  She laughed. “You sound disappointed.”

  He looked up quickly. “I—”

  Blushing at her recklessness, Cat found herself shaking her head. “I wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean anything by it. Sorry.”

  He moved forward into the light, his figure casting a shadow over her face. Cat blinked in the darkness, tilting her head up toward him.

  “Look. I should go,” she said.

  “Of course. Cat?” He was facing her.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m just glad we’ve cleared the air. I’m so sorry. I’m just glad . . . you don’t hate me.”

  She could see his shadow behind him on the kitchen door.

  “You?” Her heart was thumping in her chest. She could feel her head, clearer than it had been for months, years maybe. “Why would I hate you?”

  “For—you know. The business with the car.” Joe shook his head. “I—oh, well, I won’t keep on about it,” he said under his breath.

  They were inches apart now. “I’ve forgiven you for that,” Cat said, staring straight at him, and she took his hand. “Honestly.”

  “Don’t,” Joe said, but he didn’t move away. “Cat—” He broke off, gazing at her.

  Cat could feel his bones, his fingers squeezing hers, a sweet, oddly old-fashioned gesture, and they stayed like that, pressed against each other, shivering in the cold, their warm hands knotted together.

  “I’m going to anyway.” Cat closed her eyes, leaned forward, and kissed him.

  His stubble brushed against her cheeks, his body against hers, solid and tall; but she was almost as tall as he. She kissed him first, but then she felt his hand gripping her shoulder, his tongue firm in her mouth. He pushed her against the wall of the house, and she pushed against him frantically, feeling his weight on her body, the taste of him, the sound of his breath heavy in her ear. . . .

  Then suddenly, he broke away, shaking his head. “Sorry. No.”

  Cat laughed, her mouth still full of the taste of him. She felt drunk, reckless. “What?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have. Don’t.”
r />   He was staring at her as though he’d seen a ghost. “Fine.” Anger rose within her. “What’s your problem?”

  “I—I shouldn’t have done that. That’s all.”

  Cat was sobering up rapidly. “Are you with someone?”

  “No,” he said. “Yes. I don’t know.”

  “What on earth does that mean?”

  He touched his fingers to his mouth, breathing hard. “It means I shouldn’t have kissed you. That’s what it means.”

  “I kissed you. I wanted to.”

  “I wanted you to. But I can’t.”

  Cat put her hand on the wall of the house, steadying herself. “Karen,” she said suddenly, seeing it clearly, the alcohol all at once like acid in her stomach. “Are you sleeping with Karen? Because Lucy told me she wondered if she might be . . . And when I saw you two in the pub I wondered if . . .” She trailed off. “Oh, God. Oh shit. Of course.”

  Joe reached for her hand. “Cat. It’s complicated. I can’t explain it.”

  She pulled away from him, laughing. “Wow! You really are a snake, aren’t you? Here tonight, serving our drinks . . . chatting about children’s books . . . sucking up to my grandparents. ‘Oh, Joe’s so wonderful.’ And you’re—you’re sleeping with Karen?” she hissed. “You prick. What the hell are you doing here? My uncle, my cousin—why are you here? Why don’t you just get out? Go away?”

  “I wish I could.” He shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “I really don’t think anyone’ll miss you.”

  “I’m thinking about it,” he said quietly. “Honestly. Look—”

  “Oh, God,” Cat said again. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “I’m so stupid. I can’t believe it.”

  “I should have stopped it. But you have no idea how much I wanted to kiss you.”

  Cat could feel her eyes burning with unshed tears. She turned away. “I’m going in. Don’t ever—”

  “Shh.” Joe gripped her arm, turning toward the garden, alert like an animal on the scent.

  “Don’t tell me to—” Cat began, but then she froze as his grip tightened, and she followed his gaze.

  On the raised stone path beside the daisy bank and the vegetable patch, a figure appeared, hurrying quietly through the rain, making no sound. Instinctively, Cat and Joe shrank out of sight under the porch, watching as she came closer. The rain was relentless now, and it was impossible to see her clearly, until she rounded the edge of the vegetable patch and stopped. She turned back toward the dark woods.

  “See you tomorrow, darling Daisy,” she called faintly, and she blew a kiss into the night air.

  Cat held her breath, and found herself reaching for Joe’s hand again, warm, wet, and strong, before pulling away, just as Martha looked almost straight at them, her eyes glinting in the dark. Then she turned back toward the front of the house, and was gone.

  Daisy

  August 2008

  I SHOULDN’T HAVE come back.

  I didn’t realize how much it would hurt.

  I’m no good at being this person . . . oh, what kind of person is that, though? A sister who throws confetti and looks pleased for her brother. That’s who.

  So Bill marries again, and we all stand there and look happy. I find it bizarre, to be honest. I always thought he was either gay or just one of those celibate types, you know, you’d get them in detective novels, and our old vicar was like that. Just not the marrying kind, they used to say.

  I’m not the marrying kind either, I suppose. Whenever I looked at Bill and that rat-faced girl who’s got her grubby red claws into him, I wanted to laugh. It sounds so bloody silly, doesn’t it, when people are scratching around in the dirt for food, or children are dying from insect bites in their thousands, or women are being raped and murdered on a daily basis with no one so much as raising an eyebrow, and here’s this . . . civilized behavior in this Regency Guildhall on this sunny day. Everyone being respectable. My daughter is here. We smile and say, “Hello, how are you?” like we’re distant cousins at a family reunion.

  She looks nothing like me and I’m glad. She doesn’t look like her father either, but Giles was a drip so that’s a relief. She looks like Ma; good for her. Ma is getting old. Southpaw’s knee is busted, he can barely walk, and he looks done in. Bill has finally reached middle age, which is what he’s been lurching toward as fast as he can since he was a child. Florence: oh dear. Florence is exactly the same, but she keeps giggling and is wearing a floral Laura Ashley dress, which would be hilarious if it weren’t so embarrassing. I suspect she’s persuaded some idiot to screw her, and that’s what her tragic bucktoothed grinning is all about.

  Oh, God. I hate Bath, I hate being home and going down these paths again. I’m not this person. In Kerala I’m not this person, I’m just not. I get up in the morning and I know what needs doing, and no one looks at me and sniffs out the stench of years of disappointment and fear they all smell here when they come near me. Since I’ve been here I keep telling myself I’ll be back in Cherthala soon and I just need more time to make things work. Then I remember what I did, and how I can’t go back there again.

  I’m so stupid, so fucking stupid. I wanted things, I wanted more than I had. A nicer place, nicer clothes, money for a car. A couple of treats for myself, maybe? And people said I deserved those things. And, to be honest, really honest? I did deserve them, after all I’ve done for them. But I was silly about it. I have a trusting nature. I let the wrong people in, and they betrayed me, you see. I have lost everything these last couple of months, and now there’s nothing I’m good at, nothing I can do.

  Catherine is very thin. She has shadows under her eyes and she smiles in this shy way, as if she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to enjoy something or not. She has just started living with a boyfriend in Paris and she has a job in fashion. Which is funny, because she seems to me to be a solitary person. I can’t work her out. Never could. “Fashion doesn’t seem to suit her,” I said to Ma, and she only said, “That’s a terrible pun, Daisy. Oh, darling, do you really not see why she’s doing that job?”

  Oh, darling. Course I don’t, because I don’t understand anything.

  If I could only get some help, something to calm me down, something to make everything distant and fuzzy again. I hate the idea of marriage too, how it chains you to someone else and you stand up there and actually admit to it, in a room full of people who supposedly love you. But then I hate the fact that they think they have a claim on me too.

  I’m very tired, to be honest. Very tired of it all. I don’t think anyone understands, either. I shouldn’t have come back.

  When Karen threw the bouquet—awful plastic gerberas—Lucy caught it, jumping up like some plump puppy. Everyone laughed and clapped, Karen kissed Lucy, and everyone was saying, “Keep it in the family,” and being jostled on the steps by the next lot of idiots going in to tie the knot. Well, I thought I might just walk off then. I went and stood by the entrance to some sports shop opposite. These little oiks inside staring at sneakers, they all turned when my family started cheering. I’m there in my smart dress, half in that world of light and confetti and smiling, half in this normal one, gray, sad, boring. The photographer lined them up, started shouting, “Immediate family, please.” There they all were. Grinning, humming with something.

  And no one looked for me, no one said, “Where’s Daisy?” I stood back against the racks of sneakers and watched them all, and they didn’t even notice I wasn’t there.

  That’s when I realized they wouldn’t notice if I went. I watched them all, and I wanted to hurt them, to make them feel just a bit of pain the way I feel it, to make them hate themselves the way I hate myself. Most of all I just wanted to feel nothing. To know it’s all over.

  Saturday, 24 November 2012

  AT EXACTLY 1:00 p.m. the day after the party, Martha stood in the doorway of the sitting room and ra
ng the gong.

  “Please go through to lunch,” she said, gesturing, and then she turned and walked through the kitchen, and the rest of the Winters followed her in silence. Cat was the last one out of the room. As she put her hand on Luke’s shoulder, propelling him through the kitchen, she looked up to find Joe’s steady gaze on her, his hands mechanically drying a metal bowl.

  She stared back at him, her tired, slightly hungover brain clicking over and over. Suddenly she wished she could close the door on the rest of her family, seating themselves carefully at the long oak table, chairs scraping, murmuring quietly, quiet panic on their faces. They all knew something was coming, like a twister over the plains. Somewhere, someone was having a perfectly nice, normal Saturday, a trip to the shops, maybe playing in the garden with their children on this unseasonably sunny, golden day.

  The heavy crystal champagne flutes sparkled in the gleaming autumn sun; the untouched champagne in the glasses glowed like honey in a jar. Plump, snowy linen napkins, glistening silver cutlery, and the ancient Wedgwood dinner service, bought after David’s first Wilbur syndication deal. The pattern on the plates—blue and white trim, yellow and coral at the center—was vaguely Chinese, now worn to pastel, the china veined with a hundred tiny lines after years of family meals ladled onto it, of Christmas goose and baked potatoes on Bonfire Night and roast chicken on birthdays and fish pie on Fridays.

  As she sat down, Cat noticed the great green vase of wintersweet at the center of the table, the sparky yellow flowers splashes of sunshine against the dark wood paneling. Her grandmother had taken her seat at the head of the table, facing down the room toward the kitchen doors. Southpaw was opposite her, staring down at his empty plate. Bill was unreadable, scanning the room. Florence was in her own world, it seemed, buttering the bread and pouring water, but there were bruised smudges below her eyes. Lucy was quiet, breaking bread. She looked scared and young. Next to Southpaw sat Karen. Cat thought how pretty she was without makeup, a grave, boyish kind of beauty at odds with her usual coral lipstick, her boxy suits, her determined manner. Her small hands raked her cheeks, the nails leaving streak marks on the pale skin. She started when Martha stood up, and Cat turned to see Joe in the doorway.