Song of the Skylark

by Erica James

  Until now.

  As much as she wanted to pretend she was imagining it, there was no getting away from the fact that just lately there had been friction between them. She was conscious of frequently saying the wrong thing, or more precisely, not saying what he wanted to hear.

  ‘Here we go then,’ Lizzie said, staring at a mound of ingredients that had been piled on the work surface. ‘What shall we do with it all?’ she asked. She sounded like one of those irritatingly jolly girls at Freddie’s nursery who were relentlessly bright and cheery. Ironically, that jolliness would be a welcome balm in eight days’ time when the nursery reopened. Yesterday morning they had received an email letting them know that the damage caused by the flood was in the final stages of being put right. Ingrid longed to resume their old routine; she missed seeing Freddie of an evening, of enjoying a bath with him and then reading to him.

  Surveying the pile of food, she said, ‘I’ll make a watermelon and mint salad. Pass me that packet of feta, will you?’

  ‘How clever you are,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’d never have thought of that. I’ll chop some cucumber and tomatoes and then just throw it in a bowl with that bag of lettuce, shall I?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Ingrid, evenly.

  On Saturday, when Luke had come off the phone after telling his parents about the nursery reopening, he’d told Ingrid a family barbecue had been proposed by way of celebrating Lizzie’s new job. Ingrid’s initial reaction had been to flag up the work she had to do, and suggest he went and enjoyed himself while dropping Freddie off for the week ahead – his last week with his grandparents. But Luke had vetoed her suggestion before she’d had a chance to get the words out. ‘I told Dad we’d go,’ he’d said.

  She’d balked at what she saw as his high-handedness. ‘You might have checked with me first,’ she’d replied.

  ‘And had I done that, what would you have said?’

  She had known from the look on his face that it would have been reckless to give him an honest answer, so she’d fudged it by saying it would have been nice for her to be included in on the conversation. She’d then made her point by getting up extra early that morning to do the work she’d planned to do at a more civilised time. Annoyingly, instead of facing the day fuelled with a sense of virtuous energy, she’d felt deflated as well as mean and petty, especially when Freddie insisted on her playing with him as well – he was not to be fobbed off with just Daddy, or Peppa Pig, the usual saviour in such situations. ‘Mummy play,’ he’d said, trying to drag her away from her laptop by her arm. ‘Mummy and Daddy.’ He’d beamed when the three of them were kneeling on the floor putting his Duplo train set together. With the memory of her mother’s singular lack of maternal instinct never far away, Ingrid had thrown herself into amusing Freddie – her son would not grow up thinking his mother hadn’t cared. Whatever else he might think of her, it would not be that she didn’t care.

  ‘Damn!’ she suddenly exclaimed. She’d been so deep in thought she’d managed to slice her finger while cutting the watermelon into cubes.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Lizzie, coming over to look.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said crossly. ‘Just me being clumsy.’

  Lizzie pulled a face. ‘That’s more than nothing.’ She grabbed some kitchen roll and wrapped it around Ingrid’s finger. ‘Stay there and I’ll get the box of plasters.’

  Wishing Lizzie would stop making such a fuss, she winced when she saw that the paper towel around her finger was fast turning red.

  ‘Here we go,’ Lizzie said, brandishing a box of Mr Bump plasters. ‘Mr Bump was always my favourite of the Mr Men, probably because I was always falling over or bumping into something.’ She tipped the plasters out of the box onto the work surface. ‘Funny that it should be you who cuts yourself – that’s normally my job.’

  ‘My mind was elsewhere. That one should do,’ said Ingrid, not trusting Lizzie to pick the right size plaster.

  ‘Which was yours?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Which was your favourite character from the Mr Men?’

  ‘I didn’t have one.’

  Having ignored Ingrid’s advice, Lizzie was now applying an enormous plaster to her finger. ‘Is that because you didn’t like the books?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t have them.’

  ‘Were you more of a Beatrix Potter girl? Or maybe Winnie the Pooh was more your thing?’

  ‘Neither. Pippi Longstocking books were what I read. It was the Swedish influence.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I had a bit of a thing about Pippi when I was seven – I used to get Mum to plait my hair just like her.’

  A memory Ingrid hadn’t thought of in a very long time flashed into her head. ‘I used to plait my own hair, and then put pipe cleaners inside my plaits so they would stick out,’ she said.

  ‘Genius! Now why didn’t I think of that!’

  Ingrid suddenly smiled at the recollection of standing in front of her small dressing table mirror in her bedroom and turning herself into a blonde version of Pippi Longstocking, imagining, of course, that she too had extraordinary superpowers.

  ‘There, that’s you done.’

  Her cut finger almost forgotten, Ingrid looked at the plaster, which, much to her surprise, had been far more neatly applied than she’d expected. ‘Thank you,’ she said, picking up the knife she’d been using earlier. She washed it and was about to get back to the task of chopping the melon when Lizzie passed her a glass of white wine. ‘I’d better go easy,’ Ingrid said, ‘I expect I’ll be the designated driver later.’

  ‘Would you prefer a soft drink?’

  ‘No, this is fine, I’ll just make it last. Thanks.’

  And there was another example of the niceness she was being treated to, thought Ingrid. And for that matter, when had she and Lizzie ever been in the same room together without anybody else around? Chopping the mint for the salad now, she supposed the situation in which she found herself was alien to her because she and Lizzie had probably taken great pains to avoid it. In the lengthy silence that followed, and for something to say, she felt she ought to enquire about Lizzie’s new job.

  ‘How do you plan to get to and from Bury?’ she asked after Lizzie had elaborated and said she would be starting at Skylark Radio in two weeks’ time.

  ‘Mum’s said I could borrow her car, which would be dead handy. Otherwise I’ll have to make do with the bus. Another option is house-sharing. Somebody at the radio station is looking for a housemate for a place in the centre of town, so I plan to look into that.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all organised.’

  ‘It’s the new me.’

  Had the inconceivable finally happened? Lizzie had grown up?

  Another silence followed.

  ‘Ingrid?’

  Assuming it was going to be a question about the salads they were making, Ingrid replied absently, ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s been a funny old summer, hasn’t it?’

  Ingrid turned to look at her sister-in-law. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, we’ve all been thrown into a situation none of us saw coming. Me coming back home after losing my job, and Freddie staying here with Mum and Dad, it’s made everything all sort of topsy-turvy, hasn’t it?’

  Thinking that anybody with an ounce of sense would have seen Lizzie’s affair with her married boss ending the way it did a mile off, she said, ‘Everything will soon be back to normal.’

  ‘Maybe that’s not a good thing.’

  Ingrid frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I just think that perhaps some things might need to change. Or rather, should change. Like – like the way we’ve never really got on.’

  Ingrid returned her attention to the mint, adding it to the watermelon. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said warily. ‘Of course we get on. You’re my sister-in-law.�
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  ‘I get it, I really do,’ Lizzie continued in a blithe tone of voice. ‘I can quite see that I must be the most irritating person on the planet to you. I’m all over the place, always messing things up, always getting it wrong. Whereas you, you get everything right. You’ve always known what you’re doing and what you plan to do. I’m in awe of you; you’re so efficient and competent, you make Super Woman look like a total slacker.’

  Ingrid stopped what she was doing and looked at Lizzie. ‘Is that how you see me?’

  ‘More or less, give or take. But I’m right, I do wind you up with my incompetence, don’t I?’

  The directness of Lizzie’s question was unnerving, yet at the same time Ingrid had to respect the girl for being so candid. ‘Incompetence in general winds me up,’ she said carefully. ‘I’ve always been that way.’

  ‘So it’s not just me personally, then? Or do I get your hackles up more than most?’

  ‘Lizzie,’ she said, mystified why the girl was pursuing the subject so doggedly, ‘where are you going with this?’

  Lizzie stared back at her with a surprisingly steady gaze. It made Ingrid realise that eye contact between them was actually quite rare. ‘I just want us to be friends,’ Lizzie said. ‘If that doesn’t sound too embarrassingly needy. Do you think that would ever be possible, if only for Luke and Freddie’s sake?’

  ‘What’s brought all this on?’ asked Ingrid, deliberately avoiding the question. If she’d been suspicious before that Luke’s family were behaving oddly, this conversation confirmed it. This had to have been a set-up from start to finish. But why? Unless Luke had been tittle-tattling to his sister and parents? And saying what, exactly? Oh, she should never have agreed to come. She should have ignored Luke’s insistence and stayed at home to work.

  ‘Luke hasn’t seemed his usual self,’ Lizzie answered her. ‘I suppose that’s why I’m having this chat with you. And before you leap to any rash conclusions, he had no idea I planned to corner you this way. If you want to blame anyone, blame me.’

  Ingrid picked up her glass of wine and took a long sip. ‘You’re very protective of your brother, aren’t you?’

  ‘We’re protective of each other. That’s just how we are.’

  ‘You don’t think that stops you from learning to stand on your own two feet and fighting your own battles?’

  ‘No. And isn’t it nicer knowing that someone has got your back? Isn’t that what you do with Freddie? I bet there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do for him.’

  Ingrid turned to look out of the window. In the garden Freddie was carefully crossing the lawn towards Luke, a plastic cup of water in one hand and a teapot in the other. She watched Luke bend down and take the cup from him. The happy smile on her son’s face sent an arrow straight to her heart. She watched him run back into the waiting arms of his grandmother, bouncing on his toes in the comical way he often did. Seeing the loving expression on Tess’s face and the obvious affection Freddie had for her, Ingrid battled a painful emotion building inside her.

  It was a familiar pain, and one that she constantly fought to keep at bay: it was the pain of rejection, the thought of all that she had missed out on as a child. For so many years now she had trained herself to regard the emotion as the enemy – an enemy that she had to be constantly on her guard against. It meant that she had never truly allowed herself to cross the line of being accepted, for fear of it leading to rejection. By casting herself in the role of outsider and hiding behind an invisible barricade, she was able to keep herself from being hurt. Now here was this wretched girl blundering in and dismantling that wall of defence.

  Or rather it was Freddie who was doing that: Freddie, her precious son for whom she would do absolutely anything. So on that score, Lizzie was right. To her fury, tears pricked the backs of her eyes, and then suddenly the pain of the struggle to keep her composure had her within its grip. She put down the glass in her hand and fought all the harder. She would not cry. She would not let Lizzie see this other side of her, this unbearable weakness that was not to be tolerated. Anger, she thought desperately, mentally thrashing around for a life support. Anger was her last resort; it gave her the strength to overcome anything.

  But with that thought came the unbidden memory of the girls grouped around her in her first week at boarding school. She was twelve years old and they had formed a mob, a mob to put her in her place and to brand her forever more as the Ice Maiden. Every day they found a way to corner her, to make it clear that she would never be welcome to be a member of their clique. But no matter what they did, she refused to show weakness. Not once did she cry, in front of them, or in private.

  Then one day, after she’d found a dead rat in her bed, she’d had enough and she fought back and unleashed a volcanic eruption of ferocious anger. She grabbed the ringleader and, in an act of wholly satisfying and instinctive aggression, she headbutted the girl and broke her nose. Instantly suspended from school for two weeks, much to her mother’s horror – and annoyance that she was put to the inconvenience of having Ingrid at home – she was made to write a letter of apology to the girl she’d injured. On her return to school she was forced to read the letter out in assembly. It was the single most demeaning experience of her life, and she swore never to lose control again, or to be treated so unjustly. She also promised she would never tell another living soul what she’d done, or what she was capable of doing if pushed too far.

  Staying in control was paramount, leading her life in such a way that that there would be no danger of any cracks appearing. Distancing herself from her mother and stepfather was another way to preserve the person she had now become. She wanted no reminders of what had gone before. And then along had come Luke, so loving and kind and easy-going. Falling in love with him made it even more important to her to maintain the facade of who she was.

  All the while she was remembering that shameful episode from her childhood, she was balling her hands into tight fists to strengthen her resolve not to cry, yet the tears were spilling over. Even worse, she could hear Lizzie offering sympathy and, to compound her misery, the wretched girl was now handing her a box of tissues. The gesture invoked what Ingrid could only describe as a howling sob from her.

  With his arms around Ingrid, Luke sat on his sister’s bed in a state of shock.

  When Lizzie had come out to the garden and quietly said that Ingrid needed him, he was ashamed to admit he’d been suspicious that she was faking a headache, or some other problem in order for them to go home. Inside the house Lizzie had apologised and said it was all her fault, that she must have said something to upset Ingrid and that she was upstairs crying. Baffled, he’d taken the stairs two at a time and entered his sister’s room. He had never before seen Ingrid cry, and the sight of her doing so had been like a body blow. She was crying so hard it had taken a while for her to speak, but when she had, he had listened in silence, letting her pour out every last word of what she seemed to need to say.

  When finally her words came to a stop, he tilted his head back to look into her eyes to reassure her – so what, she’d broken a girl’s nose, it sounded like the bitch had deserved it – but before he could say anything, Ingrid said, ‘So you see, I’m not the person you think I am. I’ve conned you.’

  ‘You haven’t done anything of the kind,’ Luke said. ‘We’re all capable of thumping someone when pushed. Do you think for one moment I love you any the less because of something that happened to you when you were a child? Do you really?’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It’s what I’ve always feared, that you’d discover the real me. My mother once accused me of being unlovable, that I was too detached.’

  ‘You’re mother’s a fool,’ Luke said firmly, ‘and has a lot to answer for, in my opinion.’

  Ingrid blew her nose, then threw the tissue into the waste-paper basket at the side of the bed. ‘How did you ever fall in love with me?’ she
asked.

  He smiled, and stroked her hair away from her face. ‘It was the easiest thing in the world. And if you want to know the truth, I love you even more after what you’ve told me.’

  ‘Why? That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Love doesn’t. Nor is it conditional. Not real love. And I know you might find it hard to believe, but my family love and care for you, too. All they’ve ever wanted is for you to feel a part of the family.’

  ‘I think I know that deep down, but I never allowed myself to trust it. Just as I’ve worried at times that maybe I’d been wrong to trust your love for me.’

  ‘So the more Mum and Dad tried to show their love for you, the more you resisted it, is that it?’

  She nodded. ‘Better to reject them than to face their inevitable rejection of me.’

  He kissed her. ‘That’s never going to happen. Just as Freddie and I will never reject you. You’re stuck with us. Now what do you want to do? Stay here, or go home? Mum and Dad will quite understand if you don’t want to hang about.’

  ‘No, let’s stay.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  She nodded again. It was then that Luke noticed the Mr Bump plaster wrapped around her finger. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Just a cut. I was careless. I’m sorry for causing such a scene.’

  He hugged her. ‘You’ve done nothing to be sorry for. How about I be the one to drive us home later this evening, and you be the one to enjoy a few glasses of wine?’

  ‘You know, it would be a lot easier for me if you could be just a bit more horrible.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said with a smile.

  Chapter Sixty

  The next day dawned clear-skied and spectacularly tranquil, the stillness broken only by the uplifting chorus of birdsong. It didn’t seem possible that the glorious weather could continue, but it really did appear to be set to do so for a while yet.