“Absolutely not,” said Lucy. “I’m going to go back to bed for a while. Read the paper. Stretch out and think about what I’m going to do with the rest of my week.”
“Find another job?”
“I don’t think anyone’d have me, to be honest,” Lucy said.
“Write a best-selling novel about our family?” Cat saw the look that flashed across her cousin’s eyes. “Oh! Oh, I’m so right. What a guess! You are. You’re going to write a novel. Can I have a good name?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lucy took her plate over to the sink grumpily. “I’m not, and even if I were to, I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone about it.” She dropped the cutlery into the dishwasher with a clatter.
“Okay,” said Cat, disbelieving. “Well, good for you. Can I be called Jacquetta? I’ve always wanted to be called Jacquetta.”
“Look, for the last time, stop going on about it.” Lucy was bent over the dishwasher. “I’m not going to. Anyway, I’ve got enough on at the moment, what with Dad and Karen. I’ve said I’ll help out with Bella when they’re back from her mum’s.” She rolled her eyes. “Wherever they end up. And I said I’d help Gran field everything for Southpaw’s exhibition. It’s moved to October now, and already people are asking me about it. Then find a new job that I don’t hate.”
“You know, no one likes their job when they’re starting out. Or loads of people don’t. I think you’re too hard on yourself.”
“Believe me, I’m not.” Lucy poured herself some more coffee and stood in the doorway. “Honestly. Don’t worry about me. I just have to figure it out. I know what it is, I just need to wait a bit. Like Liesl in The Sound of Music. I know I want to be a writer, but I’m not sure how I’ll do it yet. Some people are born knowing what they want to do, like Dad being a doctor. Or Southpaw being an artist.”
“Southpaw told me once that he absolutely hated his job at first. He wanted to be a serious artist, and he kept getting asked to do these cartoons to go with theater reviews of John Gielgud in Richard II or pictures of ladies waiting at the vet with their sick parrots. And he wanted to tell the story of where he grew up, and no one was interested. And then he came up with Wilbur, out of the blue.”
“Well, he owned him already, he was his dog,” Lucy said.
“Yes, but he had the idea to make him into a cartoon, I suppose. All I mean is, he got a bit sick of Wilbur over the years. I remember him in tears when his arthritis was bad, saying he couldn’t do it anymore. But he kept on, didn’t he? He loved it because he knew how much other people loved it. He was a real people-pleaser, Southpaw.”
Lucy opened her mouth to say something.
“What?” said Cat.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Lucy. “It was about Wilbur. I think he had a trick to get by toward the end. If that helps. Anyway, what’s your point?”
“Oh. Well . . .” Cat felt as though there had been an eddy in the conversation that she’d missed, and she wondered if she had gone too far, teasing Lucy. “I just mean we don’t all have our dream jobs. Someone to love and someone to love you and enough to eat and enough to drink, isn’t that how the saying goes? That’s all you can hope for, that’s more than most people.”
“Okay, thanks, coz,” said Lucy solemnly, and she nodded. “Deep.”
“Very deep,” said Cat. She slung her bag across her body. “See you later, coz.”
• • •
Cat loved the walk to work. Down the winding lane from Winterfold to the village, the hedgerows heavy with summer green, wood pigeons cooing in the midday haze. She cut through the field at the bottom, swinging her long legs over the stile, glancing at the blackberry bushes fringing the road. The fruits were still tight and green, but a few showed a hint of pinkish-purple. Joe had said they’d go out to pick blackberries in a few weeks, for crumbles, jam, coulis. He was supposed to be coming up to Winterfold next week to look at the apples—Martha had told him he could have as many as he wanted when they were ripe. Not for a month or two now, but soon. Autumn was coming. Not now, but it was coming. Nearly a year since Gran had sent out the invites. A whole year, and everything had changed.
Much as she loved working at the pub, she knew she needed a project, something that gave her a future here. Apart from anything else, she didn’t want to live off her grandmother forever. Lovely as it was at Winterfold, it wasn’t her home, though to wake up in that old room every morning, to come down to breakfast and look out over the hills and touch the warm wood, to watch Luke run himself ragged with whoever was around in the garden, was a dream she never wanted to wake up from. But she wanted her life to feel real again, for the first time in years. She wanted a stake of her own, because she knew she and Luke belonged here, in these comforting green hills.
Her mother’s ashes had been scattered here too. Perhaps a scintilla of her was in the air she breathed. In her, in Luke, on the leaves of the apple trees, in the daisy bank, settling over the house. Daisy had been cremated a week after the magistrates’ court had fined Martha and released her. They had scattered the ashes in the garden. Cat had been home a week when the ceremony, if it could be called that, had taken place. She’d been weeding the vegetable patch when Martha had stood at the kitchen door and called out, “I think we should do it now.” So Cat had gone up to her room, her mother’s room it had been too, and changed out of her jeans into a dress. Silly, but she felt she ought to. Some kind of observance for Daisy, who’d chosen this way out, but who’d never had a proper good-bye. And when she came downstairs again, Natalie the lawyer, Kathy the vicar, and Bill were all in the garden too.
“I asked them,” her grandmother had said. “I thought it would be right.”
They stood quietly, and Bill smiled at Cat and squeezed her arm as she passed him, and she was suddenly very afraid of the whole thing. Because Gran asked her to, Cat took the first handful, fumbling fingers feeling the cold metal and then the gray powder, throwing it gingerly out into the breeze. So little ash for a whole person.
She’d handed the urn to Martha, and seen her grandmother’s unreadable expression. Grim, her mouth clamped shut in a straight line. She stayed still, not moving, and Cat didn’t know what to do; but Bill had reached forward, taken the urn, and said quietly, “Good-bye, Daisy. Rest well now.”
He shook the contents of the urn into his palms, and then ran forward. They were facing the orchard, down toward the valley. Bill threw his arms up in the air, and the afternoon sun picked up the motes of ash as, like a swarm of bees or wasps, it glided, almost golden, airborne for a few seconds, then sank into nothing.
Now there was nothing to show Daisy had ever been here. It made Cat sad, in a way, and in another way she finally understood the truth, which was that Daisy hadn’t really ever existed properly in this place anyway. She hadn’t ever really been Cat’s mother, or Bill’s sister, or Gran’s daughter. Had she ever been herself somewhere else, or not? And still it terrified Cat, though she couldn’t say this to anyone. Was she like her mother? Was there something, something stopping her? She thought often of how successfully she had convinced Joe that she was over him. How easy it was to push him away, suppress her feelings. Because it was easy to keep yourself covered up, and very, very hard to peel down to that layer, the one that smarted in the sun, shrank from touch.
• • •
Cat leaped over the final stile and crossed the lane toward the pub. It was quiet when she entered, no one in the bar except for the radio, playing “Call Me Maybe.” She could hear Sheila, out in the garden at the back, singing along. Cat followed the noise.
Sheila was on the tiny pub terrace, bending over and snipping rosemary off a tiny plant, slipping the sprigs into her apron pocket, all the while miming a call me motion with her hand as a substitute phone. “Hello, my love. We’re short-staffed again. John’s off again. Says it’s his varicose veins, but I don’t believe it. He’s twenty-eight, he don�
�t have varicose veins. He heard it off Dawn complaining about hers, I bet you. He’s hungover. The little tinker.” She suddenly yelled out, “ ‘Call me maybe!’ ” There was a long pause, the music playing in the background; then she bellowed again, “ ‘Call me maybe!’ I don’t know the words,” she said as Cat watched her, laughing.
“You know some of the words,” Cat said.
“Oh, what a song. What a song. Better than ‘Blurred Lines,’ all that nasty talk in the rap.” She tunelessly hummed the chorus, making it into complete gobbledygook. “What can I do you for, my dear?”
Cat looked round for Joe, but he wasn’t in the kitchen, and she peered into the bar, but couldn’t see him there either. She took the scissors out of Sheila’s hands, playing for time. “You shouldn’t be doing that with your back. What else do you need?”
“Very kind of you, my dear. What did I do before you came along? We need some thyme. Parsley, big bunch of it. And some tarragon.”
“Oh.” Cat started cutting. She looked up at the fence. “Hey, Sheila, I was thinking something.”
“Oh, dance here,” Sheila said. “I love this bit. She’s got a great way about her with a song, hasn’t she? I love dancing.”
“Me too,” Cat said, beaming. “Me too!”
They danced round the garden a bit, clapping their hands and singing, laughing together, and eventually Sheila leaned against the windowsill and turned the radio down. “Ooh, my sides. You have brightened this place up, Cat, you really have.”
“Oh, right.” Cat shrugged, trying not to show how much this pleased her, and pulled her cardigan off. “I wanted to ask you, Sheila. I’ve talked about this with Joe, but it was a while ago now. Have you ever thought of extending the garden? Making a vegetable patch down the back, putting some tables out under an awning?”
“Well, we were going to, this summer. But it got away from us, what with one thing and another. Now I’m off to Weston tomorrow, and he’s ever so cross with me. Doesn’t understand why I want a holiday.” Sheila crossed her arms. “Ooh, the way he is at the moment, it’s work, work, work. He wants everything yesterday, that’s his trouble. Well, he’ll have to wait.”
“Joe’s lucky to have you.”
Sheila chuckled. “My dear, I’m lucky to have him. Bless his heart. For all his moods, and he’s a right pain at the moment, isn’t he?”
“How do you mean?” Cat kept her voice level.
“Oh, Cat, you know. He’s like a bear with a sore head lately.”
“Karen?”
“Of course. He’s devastated. Never known him like this.”
Cat moved on to the tarragon bush. “I just—I thought maybe he’d be glad. I never knew—right, that’s . . .” She knew Sheila was watching her curiously, and she swallowed, trying to sound normal, any earlier jollity all gone. “It must be very hard for him.” As she handed Sheila a bunch of herbs, she was alarmed to feel her cheeks flaming red. She changed the subject. “What about the herb garden, kitchen garden, then? Should we choose a time when you’re free to talk it over properly?”
Sheila nodded, watching her. “Good idea.” She leaned against the window ledge and banged on the window, which Cat now saw was open. “He’s back. Hey, Joe! Get out here! Cat’s telling us how we ought to do the garden. You should have a chat with her. I’m sure she’s right.”
A few seconds later Joe appeared in the doorway. “Hello, Cat.” He nodded at her.
“Hi,” she said. Any easy communication they’d had earlier in the summer was gone since Karen had left, and the past fortnight he’d barely spoken at all. The one time Cat had stopped him and ventured to ask how he was, in the dark passageway out to the garden, Joe had stopped, fists clenched, and stared at her. “Fine, thank you for asking. Why?”
“Oh. No reason. Just—been a while since we talked.”
“Yes. I’m in the middle of something, Cat, I’m sorry. Best get on.” Then he’d pushed open the door to the gents’, leaving her standing in the passageway feeling like an unwelcome smell.
Now he stood in front of them, his arms crossed. “Sheila, the portobellos weren’t in the veg box this morning. Can you call the suppliers and find out what’s happened to them? Otherwise we’ve only got two main courses today.”
“I’ll murder them, I will. That’s the third time this month.” Sheila heaved herself off the window ledge. “Cat, you come and find me later,” she called. “Joe, get her to tell you her idea. It’s a good one, it is. Stop this from happening again.”
The two of them were left standing on the shaded patio, where the sun hadn’t yet arrived. “Excuse me, will you? I need to check the soup,” Joe said, and he turned back inside.
Cat followed him into the cluttered white kitchen. She watched a buzzing fly, dangerously close to the ultraviolet insect killer, high up on the wall. “It’s quiet today for once,” she said, wishing she was better at small talk.
“It’s July. I’ve got two people away and a reviewer and a party of ten in for lunch. You’ll be busy, I should think.” He said it with almost grim satisfaction. “So, what’s up, then?”
Cat looked around for a place to stand. She felt in the way, and she didn’t want to talk to him if he was going to be like this. She’d thought he wasn’t the type to be moody, the kind who liked watching others squirm because he dictated the atmosphere—she was wrong, though. How could he be acting like this?
“Joe—it’s about the garden—but it doesn’t matter today.”
“Not today?”
“No. Another time.”
His tired eyes narrowed to a flinty stare. “Have you been talking to Lucy?”
“Lucy? Yes, why?” Cat said, surprised.
“You Winters. You stick together, don’t you? I should have remembered.” He looked at her angrily, something like disgust on his face, as if she were a grub on a fresh green lettuce.
“What’s Lucy got to do with it?”
“You know perfectly well, Cat. You waltz in here making a racket dancing round the garden with Sheila, trying to get her into your little gang too. ‘Hi, I’m one of them, everyone loves us, we’re better than the rest of them.’ ”
Cat felt as if he’d slapped her. “What the hell does that mean?” she demanded. “You’ve got totally the wrong idea about us. We’re not glued together like some clan.”
“ ‘Clan.’ Very posh.” His expression was ugly.
“Oh, shut up,” Cat said, fury suddenly uncoiling inside her. “It’s all in your head, whatever it is. These past few weeks, the way you blow hot and cold. Stop going on like you’ve got some chip on your shoulder about—”
“Chip on my shoulder?” he shouted, and she stepped back, astonished. “That’s funny, Cat. I could almost laugh at that.” He looked away and covered his eyes with his arm, then looked back. “You should all be glad to kiss my boots—that baby’ll grow up and one day she’ll wish it had been the other way. That I was her dad. But I’m not, am I? She’s stuck with you lot. What a life.” He turned his back on her, and began grinding garlic cloves with the head of a wooden spoon.
“Oh, Joe.” Cat cleared her throat. “Is it little Bella?” She bit her lip. “Joe? Did they get the tests back?”
He didn’t answer, just carried on pounding the garlic, pulling the skins off and smashing the cloves to pulp. Cat watched his curved back slump. Her eyes stung. She could hear his breathing.
“She’s Bill’s, isn’t she? Joe, I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t see his face. “Why are you sorry? I’ve not met her, I don’t know her.”
“I thought it’d be nice for you if she was—” That sounded completely wrong. “I—I just wanted you to be happy.” The atmosphere was excruciating. She wiped her hand across her brow. “Look, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”
“No.” Joe put the spoon down, back still to her. “I�
��m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry for yelling like that.” He stared out the window. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, you . . . Never mind.”
“You really wanted her to be yours, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
Cat reached forward and gave him a tiny pat on the back, then stepped back. He hung his head, hand up to his eyes.
“It’s silly things. Seeing Luke . . . every time I see him around, I think of Jamie. And I think, Oh well, Jamie’s met Luke, they played together, so at least when I’m looking at your son there’s a connection to mine even if he’s—he’s two hundred miles away. ’Cause I miss him that much. Does that sound mad?”
When Daisy came home when Cat was eight, for a week, Cat had memorized everything she’d touched in the house. The William Morris print book. The orange casserole dish. The phone. The chair on the right of Southpaw’s in the kitchen, painted blue many years ago, worn at the edges. She still sat in that chair out of habit, every time. That was why. It occurred to her only now that that was why. “I know what you mean, Joe.”
“I thought it’d be different with this one. And there it is, I’m not even her dad.” He turned round and gave her a small smile. “I only found out this morning. Came in the post. Old-fashioned . . . and I wasn’t expecting it. Just a bit of a shock . . .” He trailed off, his head hanging. She thought he might be crying and moved toward him, patting his arm softly.
“It must be really hard.”
This time he didn’t stop her. He said quietly, “I went to work one day and I said bye to her before I left, and she looked at me and said, ‘Thanks, Joe.’ And I thought it was weird. ‘Thanks, Joe.’ I get back and she’s gone. Nothing left of her.”
“Do you want to see her? See Bella, anyway? I’m sure she’ll be back. You never know, this thing with Bill . . .”
But he gave her a strange look. “They’ll be all right together. I knew it all along. Always.”
“Really?” Cat said.
“She needs an older man, Karen does. She needs someone who’s a different pace from her. He can look after Bella and she can take on the world.”
A Place for Us Page 42