Life Begins

by Amanda Brookfield

  ‘Don’t be gloomy – the summer term’s always the most fun. Look, Jasper’s trying to cheer you up,’ Charlotte joked, as the dog, granted the treat of riding to school, performed a series of leaping attempts to lick Sam’s ears and chin. In her own heart something akin to the state of grace had returned, thanks probably to the most extraordinary night’s sleep – deep, dreamless, energizing – almost as if her body had learnt some incredible new trick as physical and fabulous as flying or breathing under water. ‘Nobody likes going back to school, not even teachers. And Rose will be there, won’t she?’

  Sam’s only response was a scowl of accusatory incomprehension. ‘I’m fine. School will be fine.’ He pushed the dog back on to his lap, making what she could see was a deliberate effort to look bored.

  Wrong tack, Charlotte chided herself, returning her attention to the road and resolving not to let this new phase of filial hostility sour her own unexpected and wonderful peace of mind. The traffic was solid as usual, which meant there would be nowhere to park. The same problems, yet life was moving on in exactly the direction it should. Sam was entitled to mood-swings. He was a teenager, after all. She glanced across at the passenger seat noting, as if for the first time, the thickening features, the nose wider, longer, the jaw and cheekbones more prominent. He was going to be a good-looking man, she realized suddenly, like his father. When had that happened? Large blue eyes, floppy blond hair, slim hips and, most remarkable of all, long legs. That morning, between shooing Jasper in and out of the garden, helping find pencils, rubbers, ink cartridges, and getting herself ready for work, she had unpicked the hem of his school trousers and pressed an iron over them in an unsuccessful bid to extend their length to meet the edges of his shoes, which turned out to be too small as well, his big toes pushing visibly against the worn leather. ‘I’ll phone the school shop, get new trousers. And shoes, we’ll do those at the weekend.’

  ‘Yeah, you said.’

  When Charlotte pulled over – double-parked, the hazard lights flashing – Sam got out of the car and strolled towards a cluster of children at the school gates without a backward glance, his bag dangling carelessly over one shoulder, his hand darting to adjust the complicated mess of his hair. Charlotte delayed moving on, straining to make out faces in the crowd, wondering – hoping – if one might be Rose’s. Rose, who had metamorphosed from venomous accuser to closest ally, who had burst out of shy silence at the dinner table the night before to deliver a hilarious rendition of an oak tree in a high wind; who, in spite of her stick-like physique, had consumed two heaped platefuls of the main course and pudding; who, without a trace of affectation, had hugged Charlotte’s dear, difficult, prickly son farewell in the manner of such honest and trusting friendship that Charlotte had wanted to hug her too, feeling for those few seconds that she could tolerate any amount of adolescent see-sawing in Sam’s affections if she knew he was so treasured in another quarter.

  And then there was the other, now significant, aspect of Rose – the fact that she was the daughter of Dominic Porter, a man whose very name had once been sufficient to make Charlotte sick at heart, but who now, thanks to the unforeseeable and rather striking events of the previous evening, seemed to be occupying a rather more positive place in her thoughts. Indeed, waking up that morning from her delicious sleep, Dominic had been the first subject that sprang to mind. Several hours later he was still there, rather like a large object blocking a view, Charlotte decided now, something that had to be thought round, or taken into account, or heaved out of the way to get a clear picture of the other things requiring her attention.

  He had been kind, that was why, she reasoned, scouring a new group of children, joshing and ricocheting off each other as they moved along the pavement towards the entrance. He had been kind, and if she could only spot Rose among all the bobbing heads she might spot Dominic too and be able to thank him properly; with the counselling, kindness, food, wine, the exciting possibility of him buying the lease on the bookshop now that he no longer had a job in the City… there really was an awful lot to say. Recklessly having changed her mind about the invitation to dinner, giddy still with the shock – the relief – of disburdenment about her father, trying to see signs of affection in the blank looks she was receiving across the table from Sam, the previous evening hadn’t exactly seen her at her most articulate. But now she could tell him again – properly – how grateful she was, how utterly delighted at the prospect of the bookshop lease passing into safe hands. She might even confide how Dean and Jason had always run the place like two whispering old women, no canvassing of opinions, leaping on bad ideas. And then, if the moment felt right, she might venture to say that she had slept in a way that was entirely new and restorative, without the usual fitfulness and dreams of unanswered questions; and that while this was obviously connected to the momentous explanatory new light cast upon her past, she was certain that it was largely thanks to his patience and gentle wisdom that she had been able, so quickly, to process this new information to the point of peace rather than torment…

  Charlotte jumped at the toot of a horn. It dawned on her in the same instant that Rose, newly resident in nearby Chalkdown Road, would require no parental accompaniment for the walk to school. Which meant there would be no Dominic to look out for that morning or any other. The same car horn sounded a second time, more briefly and sharply. Turning towards its source, Charlotte found herself looking at Theresa, popping her head in and out of the window of the Volvo as it moved in the stream of traffic going in the opposite direction.

  Theresa – Henry – the blood rushed to Charlotte’s face. Theresa was gesticulating, mouthing, her hair plastered across her face like netting. Charlotte’s lips felt too dry to smile. Her heart thumped. Henry had said something and Theresa was shrieking at her, obscenities, hatred. As the car drew parallel, she gingerly wound down the window.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Theresa hollered cheerfully, rolling her eyes in sympathetic horror when Jasper’s pointy little face and front paws appeared at the open window.

  ‘Yes – oh, yes, thanks.’ Charlotte patted the dog’s head. ‘I’ve just got him till Mum’s better.’

  ‘Yikes – bad luck. I want us to have lunch this Friday – the one after is our mah-jong, isn’t it? Is that prodigal friend of yours still coming? Your bookshop’s up for sale – did you know?’ she shouted, as the traffic moved and she began to pull away.

  Charlotte just had time to screech, a ‘Yes,’ before the flashing lights of a lorry forced her to rejoin the flow on her own side of the road. She turned off as soon as she could, cutting down the grid of residential streets that offered a circuitous but relatively peaceful route to the bookshop.

  Of course Henry hadn’t said anything. He had been the guilty party, Charlotte reminded herself, reaching with some difficulty across the dramas of the intervening five days to a recollection of the embarrassing near-collision in the Suffolk kitchen. Her only crime had been to behave like a blind idiot. The once urgent compulsion to tell Theresa had grown distant too. Some truths were massive, and some were small, Charlotte reflected, slowing with impatience for the bumps, then coming to a complete halt while a dustbin lorry spilt a team of whistling men into her path. In fact, she thought drumming her fingers on the steering-wheel, it was often how – when – truth was released that determined its significance. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. Where had that come from?

  Her mother had withheld information in a bid to protect her. It was entirely understandable, forgivable, not at all the same as lying, not remotely base. And she now wished to keep something from Theresa because she liked her too much to want to cause her unnecessary pain. Life, if looked at in the right way, could be so beautifully simple. The truth of Henry’s affections – or lack of them – would be apparent to Theresa in other ways that Charlotte had neither to know nor to worry about. In the meantime she would agree to lunch and be supportive in any manner Theresa required, happy in the knowledge that she would recei
ve the same in return about her mother’s belated revelations, Dominic’s kindness, Sam’s sulkiness, mounting qualms about seeing Eve again and any other subject she chose to confide. They had been friends through thick and thin and never, Charlotte vowed, was she going to risk or take that for granted again.

  Released by the rubbish truck at last, Charlotte arrived at the bookshop just as the man who had hammered a for-sale board into place was getting back into his van. Inside, Jason was waiting for her with crossed arms and a grave face, not about selling his livelihood, as it turned out, but on account of Dean, who was dying.

  ‘Lung cancer – six months, a year at most. We’re going to Spain,’ he said, before falling upon Charlotte with so much of his body weight that she had to stagger with him to a chair, as if he was the invalid rather than his friend.

  ∗

  ‘I think I hate her,’ Sam muttered, staring after the Volkswagen as it roared away.

  ‘Nothing’s happened, then?’

  Sam shrugged. He liked the way Rose had come up to him from nowhere and was standing really close, not caring now about it being obvious they were friends. ‘I wouldn’t know, I suppose, would I? I mean, not yet anyway, not until he turns up in his fancy car again to take her out to dinner or something. But there she was just now, waving at George’s mum – like nothing was going on. It makes me sick…’ Sam broke off quickly as George ambled across the playground towards them.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Did you find the den?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘Cool. Hey, Rose.’

  ‘Hello, George. What are you looking like that for?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That stupid grin, that’s what.’

  George sniggered. ‘You two, that’s what.’

  ‘Yeah, and what about it, Fat Face? You like Melanie Cooper and don’t deny it. You just can’t get her to like you.’

  George had gone so very red that Sam, rather to his surprise, felt sorry for him. Rose, perhaps similarly moved, added much more kindly, ‘She does like you, actually, if you want to know.’

  George’s colour deepened. ‘Does she?’ He looked incredulous and horrified in equal measure.

  ‘Does she really?’ Sam asked, as they walked away, inwardly vowing to warn George if this wasn’t the case. Seeing him again, remembering the fun of skating and the map for the den, which, in spite of failing, had been a truly decent effort, it had come back to him in a rush just how well he and George had once got on. Nursery, primary, St Leonard’s – they had known each others for ever. If their parents behaved like idiots it was hardly their fault.

  ‘She totally does,’ Rose replied, with her usual airy confidence. ‘Totally,’ she repeated, breaking into a trot as the school bell sounded, then turning to face him while she jogged backwards. ‘You know you’re my best friend ever, don’t you? For now anyway.’ She giggled. ‘Beat you to assembly, though.’ She spun round and took off in the direction of the main school building, like some ungainly spider with her long, thin legs, her school bag bouncing, and so slow – so beatable – that Sam allowed himself a few moments of compassionate hesitation before tearing past her with a Red Indian whoop of victory.

  Jean made herself a cup of tea with the intention of taking it into the sitting room, then decided that a stick and a full mug couldn’t be managed. She hobbled back and drank it standing next to the kettle instead, slopping some on her dress because of the shakiness – the feeling of not-caring – that had taken hold. It shouldn’t have been too much to ask, to drink the tea at the desk, with Reggie’s ribbed gold fountain pen in her good hand, the writing-pad open and waiting, as inviting to human imprint as a fall of fresh snow.

  And a broken wrist was probably just the beginning. The old-lady osteoporosis responsible for it would no doubt make other claims on her health and dignity as time went by. And now there was nothing really for company either, except the TV, and the brusque carer who had chivvied her through her ablutions that morning – eight more calls to make, she said – and bossy, bristling Prue who, even in charge of a Hoover, had always reminded Jean of a strutting turkey with its neck feathers ruffled, too pumped up with indignation at her own troubles (the husband with the bad hips, the daughter with no husband and a sickly child) to extend any genuine tenderness towards the sufferings of others.

  Prue had left a cottage pie, which was kind in theory but had not felt kind to Jean in the manner of its delivery – heavy sighs, an expression of martyrdom fit for a saint at the stake, and a concluding rat-a-tat of instructions about how it would stretch to two suppers if not tackled too greedily, if cooked and stored with sufficient care… as if she was talking to someone with dementia instead of a fractured limb, enjoying lauding her own relative robustness, as if it really was only pure financial necessity that had driven her to ring the doorbell every week for fifteen years. Jean had groaned with relief when the front door slammed, then looked round for the comfort of Jasper and remembered he wasn’t there.

  Standing alone with her tea in the kitchen, Jean forgot again and turned sharply as something moved out of the corner of her eye. Yet there was nothing to see, except the pattern on her kitchen curtains, large silvery shapes on mossy green, flat and still. She put down the empty mug, conjuring an image of the bridge companion who had tried to put her off dachshunds – Camilla something. They were like rodents, the woman had claimed, snapping the cards neatly between shuffles, all sharp points and ratty tails. Jean had gone ahead anyway and found Jasper, tactile and loving from the moment of his arrival, hopping into her shopping basket if he saw she was going out, curling up under the hem of her counterpane like a little stowaway the moment he sensed it might be nearing the time for his overnight incarceration in the kitchen.

  Jean breathed slowly as the ache of longing intensified, then receded. She thought she had prepared herself but, really, it was as if she had lost her own shadow.

  But there were things to be done, she reminded herself, reaching for her stick and setting off towards the desk in the sitting room where the pen and pad awaited her. There were things to be done and life changed, not gradually but in sudden unforeseeable moments: Charlotte’s conception, for instance – terror, timidity, acute discomfort, over in seconds, but with a lifetime in which to live out the consequences; or the stupid stumble in the bathroom the week before – so slight, a misjudgement of a mere half an inch as she lifted her leg over the side of the bath, yet here she was, tottering round like a cripple. Once, not so very long ago, she could have put an arm out to steady herself, even against the steamed slippery tiles of the bathroom wall. Once, rather longer ago, the suppleness in her bones would have meant a bruise or perhaps a sprain at worst, even after the sliding and tumbling – arm first, knee second – on to the bathroom floor.

  Jean, halfway down the passageway connecting the kitchen to the sitting room, paused to rest her forehead against the wall, recalling how once, even longer ago, before the brief promiscuity that had produced her daughter, there had still been the loveliness of hoping to live life well instead of making do. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the songbirds on the wallpaper and seeing Reggie, carefree, handsome, the proverbial rolling stone, then the wizened undignified thing he had become at the end, labouring between each rattling wheeze until she’d wanted to grab the pillow, press it over his face and scream that it was time to let go, for her release as much as his. Ending well, there could be real virtue – real dignity – in that. Jean opened her eyes and tightened her grip on her stick. She had done nothing to help Reggie manage it – but she still might.

  And already she had achieved a lot, she consoled herself, dropping into the desk chair with a sigh and letting the stick fall to the carpet: she had made her peace with Charlotte – told her the awkward dark thing that had had to be told and seen the brave, mature way her daughter was already accommodating it; and darling Jasper had been taken care of; and both the carer and the
turkey-faced Prue had swallowed the story about Charlotte returning to undertake nursing duties for the rest of the week. Most cunning of all, she had cut across Charlotte’s excited and endearing babble about leases and bookshops on the phone that morning to say that the line was crackly and definitely on the blink and she was thinking of calling BT. Yes, the stage was set and she was in charge at last, determined to exercise more control over the end of her life than she had ever managed in the living of it.

  Jean reached for the pad, wrote the date and paused. Reggie had been the one for letters, when he put his mind to it. So you weren’t mine, but I have always been your devoted father. What a lovely line. No wonder Charlotte had flinched with emotion when she reached it. Seeing it for the first time herself, after steaming open the envelope on the eve of the grand trip up north twenty years before, Jean had flinched too – fear, jealousy, protectiveness. It was as if every weakness, every failure of her life had been compressed into a single instant.

  It was extraordinary, she decided, starting at last to write, how one could remember emotions but no longer feel them; how, with time, the most ardent passions could be relegated to the cooler, safer storage of humdrum memory. All her fervour for Reggie, for instance, that had faded now, as had the early secret hopes of what might evolve from his gallant, noble, mostly brotherly offer of marriage, not to mention the ensuing disappointment and dreaded jealousy, as first Charlotte, then the other women (wives, servant girls, he wasn’t fussy) stole his attention. It was exhausting even to think about. It had exhausted her at the time too, wrung her out, made her unlovable and powerless and quite unfit, probably, to be a mother. And yet she had clung out of old habit, old hope; clung on until suddenly there were the faltering lungs to worry about and a turning of the tables and Reggie needing her and the realization that the love that had compelled her to behave in the best interests of her daughter had other manifestations, too, no matter how reluctant she was to acknowledge them.