They sat down at the kitchen table, facing each other.
‘Do you want a cup of tea or something?’
‘No, never mind that. What’s happened?’
‘Nothing.’
She told Eleanor what the nothing was, making light, telling her Mary Mackay wasn’t sure, but there was going to be a biopsy soon, next week. They would know the result in a couple of weeks.
‘She says eighty something per cent of them come back clear. Non-malignant.’
‘So they’re just checking it out, then?’ Eleanor reached out a hand, as if to clasp Marion’s shoulder, reassure by touch. But drew the hand back, not wanting to make too much of this. Since Marion would not. Marion was holding herself tight, smiling, getting up to put the kettle on. So Eleanor would hold on too, and not think of the worst.
‘It’s all right,’ Marion said. ‘I know what you’re thinking. And I’ve been through it all – imagined my funeral, not that I’d be there, would I? Everything.’
‘Oh, God, don’t – it’s curable, anyway, isn’t it? People don’t die or anything. And you’ve caught it early, that’s a good thing.’ Hastily, she added, ‘And anyway, you said it’s usually all right – it’s almost certainly nothing.’
‘Oh yes,’ Marion said.
‘Well, then.’
‘I suppose I just don’t really believe I’m one of the eighty something per cent. For once in my life.’ She smiled. ‘Och, it’s just a wee panic I’m having. After all, no one in the family’s ever had it that I know of, so it’s not very likely … and, as you say, it’s curable.’
Now Eleanor felt the thrill of it in her own body, wanted, more than anything, to put her hands on her own breasts, pat, prod, touch every inch of them, check.
‘You could have a mammogram,’ Marion said, ‘if it does turn out to be – you know. Put your mind at rest.’ Marion lightly, lightly, touched Eleanor’s shoulder as she set down her mug of tea.
‘But Marion, it’s you—’ Eleanor clasped the hot mug, anxious to do something else with her hands, which might otherwise stray, start to feel for something she knew (of course) was not there.
‘Anyway,’ Marion said, sitting down with her own tea, ‘no sense in fretting about it till we know.’
‘Except you can’t help it.’
‘No. I try to think about other things, and at work, or when I’m busy, I manage fine. To tell you the truth, I think it will be easier when David’s at your house.’
‘Have you told him?’
‘No. I don’t want him talking about it in front of Fergus, somehow. Fergie’s very worried, I can tell, though he’s being so sensible.’ She sighed. ‘David’s quite likely to say something in front of the children. There’s no sense in telling anyone yet. I wasn’t even going to say to you.’
‘Oh, Marion!’
‘No, well, not much hope of you not noticing something’s wrong. Eilidh’s suspicious, too. She’s so quick, about things like this.’
‘She’s growing up, I suppose.’
‘So’s Ross, but boys live in a world of their own, don’t notice anything. And Kirsty’s too young.’
‘What’ll you tell them about the biopsy?’
‘Just that I have to go into hospital for some tests. That I might have to have an operation.’
‘An operation?’
‘Oh yes, Eleanor. If it’s malignant, they won’t hang about. I haven’t really any choice.’
Both women put their hands to their breasts. Marion’s fluttered away again at once. ‘I suppose it depends how far it’s gone,’ she said.
‘But they won’t … not all of it?’
‘Probably.’
‘Oh, Marion.’ Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears and she began to cry. Marion fetched her the box of tissues.
‘Here, look, it’s all right.’
‘Sorry, sorry, I’m so pathetic. You’re the one who should be crying, not me. I’m sorry.’
Marion blinked hard, smiling at her sister. ‘Believe me, I have. I did. But just the once. I’m all right now. It was only self-pity anyway. And fear, I suppose. Mary Mackay was very good, she explained the whole process.’
‘Right.’ Ashamed, Eleanor blew her nose again, faced Marion. ‘Sorry – look, is there anything I can do?’
‘I might ask you to help with the kids. Or David can come over – make himself useful.’
‘Oh dear, you are fed up with him. Never mind, he’ll be with me tomorrow, and I think he’s planning to go back down to Pitcairn next weekend.’
‘Och, I’m not fed up with him. I’m fond of David, and the kids think he’s great. But I kind of resent the way he drifts in and out of the family, as if it doesn’t matter that for months, even years, he doesn’t bother to keep in touch, send birthday cards, anything. Besides, he and Fergus don’t really get on.’
‘Not soul-mates.’
‘Not exactly.’
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘What about telling David?’ Eleanor asked. ‘Are you going to?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you want me to?’
‘No, it’s all right.’ Marion hesitated. ‘Or … would you mind? But don’t make too much of it, please, Eleanor.’
‘No, no, I won’t.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘I suppose I’d better take Claire home.’
‘I’ll give them a shout.’ Marion stood up. ‘Fergus has evening surgery, which is why I haven’t even started the meal. But I’d better get going now.’
Upstairs, the girls were reading the magazine’s Problem Page, the cat purring between them on the bed.
‘See this girl?’ Claire said. That’s like me. I get so moody.’ She sighed. ‘You’re lucky, Eilidh, you’re not moody at all.’
‘I get bad-tempered,’ Eilidh offered. ‘Especially with Ross.’
‘You’re lucky having a brother as well.’
‘Not Ross.’
‘Well, maybe not Ross,’ Claire admitted and they both laughed.
“Time for Neighbours.’ Eilidh fired the remote control at her portable television. They sang the theme tune together, exaggerating the words, and so loudly Marion had to come all the way upstairs to tell them it was time for Claire to go home.
The next afternoon, Fergus brought David over to Eleanor’s cottage.
‘I’ll take a look at that cistern of yours while I’m here,’ he said. ‘Marion was saying you had a bit of trouble with it.’
‘Thanks. I’ll put the kettle on.’
From the kitchen, as she made tea, Eleanor could hear the flush roaring, on and on, then clanking noises. David was in the living room, talking to Claire. His bag was blocking the hall, his jacket flung over it. Eleanor left the tea-pot on the edge of the Rayburn and carried the bag upstairs to the boxroom where David was going to sleep. She had pulled down the sofa bed which she kept there because she had no spare bed now, and no room for it anywhere else. There was a bedside lamp, and she had put some clothes-hangers on the hook at the back of the door. The curtains were too long and wide because they had come from the old house, and she had not bothered to take them up. They were rose velvet, and had once hung in a pretty spare bedroom with Laura Ashley wallpaper. Now they clashed sulkily with the tartan cover of the sofa bed, and the brown carpet she meant to throw out soon.
Long ago, when Claire was small, and they often had friends of Ian’s to stay (or sometimes Eleanor’s relatives), she had taken pleasure in her guestroom: flowers, a box of pink tissues, a glass jar with home-made biscuits. She sighed, thinking of this, and shoved a half-full box of books into the corner with her feet.
Downstairs, Fergus had helped himself to tea. ‘All fixed,’ he said as Eleanor came into the kitchen.
‘Really? That’s great – thanks.’
‘Any time. Right, I’d better be off.’
Eleanor stood at the door and watched him drive down the bumpy lane. In the garden of the cottage next door, Jim was raking leaves in the dusk. He tippe
d his cap at Fergus driving past, and raised a hand in greeting when he saw Eleanor. She went over to the fence.
‘I’ve got my brother staying,’ she said. ‘Fergus was bringing him over.’
Jim straightened up. ‘Your brother, eh?’
Already, Eleanor could see Edie bobbing at her living room window, her hand fluttering in a hesitant wave. Eleanor smiled, and Edie came out.
‘Eleanor’s got her brother staying,’ Jim said. Edie hopped a little.
‘Your brother staying? That’ll be nice, dear, you’ll have company. A bit of company. I say to Jim, she manages awful well on her own, but lonely, all the same, for a young lass, lonely for you, dear.’
‘I’ve got Claire.’ Eleanor knew by now that Edie simply told you her thoughts: she had no filter, as most people did, between thought and speech.
‘Yes, you’ve got Claire, a lovely lassie. I say to Jim, a comfort to have a bonny girlie like that. Mind, we never had a girlie, just the boy, and boys go away, don’t they? You’ll always have your girlie, though. Lovely, I say to Jim, lovely and bright she is.’ Edie fluttered, hopped again. ‘Now then, we’re keeping you back.’
‘I’d better go in. I made some tea for David.’
But Edie beckoned, and Eleanor stepped closer. It was almost dark; Edie’s tiny pale face bobbed several inches below her own.
‘See, next door.’ Edie jerked her head in the direction of the third cottage. ‘Shouting. Late at night, we hear them, don’t we Jim, shouting very late. And music, but that’s not so loud, I don’t mind music myself. We like a good tune, we still have the gramophone. And Robbie Shepherd, I listen every day.’
‘Shouting?’
Jim cleared his throat and looked away, embarrassed.
‘Shouting,’ Edie confirmed. ‘And then she comes out, and off she drives in the car. Late at night.’ She nodded at Eleanor. ‘Now, it’s cold, don’t stand out here. We’re keeping her back, Jim, tea-time anyway.’
David was just appearing at the door as Eleanor reached it.
‘Did you help yourself to tea? It’ll be stewed. Edie was giving me the scandal about our neighbours. I don’t think I’ve ever had more than a glimpse of them.’
‘I love your wee house.’
‘Good – so do I.’
They sat at the kitchen table with mugs of tea. From the living room, they could hear the television.
‘Does Claire like it?’
‘The cottage?’
‘Living here.’
‘Oh yes. Yes, she has loads of friends, Eilidh’s house to go to, Eilidh’s cats and dogs, all that.’
‘What about you – don’t you have any cats and dogs now?’
‘No. Soon after we came here, the old ginger cat – d’you remember him? – was killed, caught in a trap. Jim, Edie’s husband, found him on the edge of the wood, near the burn. I really didn’t feel like getting another animal after that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Och, we were upset, of course we were. Claire asks me for a dog now and then, but I don’t know. I just don’t want any ties right now.’
She drank her tea, falling into silence, thinking that she had no ties but Claire, so what did she mean, saying this? She was hardly likely to get a job.
‘Where am I sleeping then?’ David broke in on this.
‘I’ll show you.’
Upstairs, looking round, David said, ‘Remember your fancy spare room in Heatherlea?’
‘Heatherlea!’ The very word sounded foreign to her now. Another kind of life.
‘Suburbia at its best, eh? Your barrel of biscuits, the frilly thing round the bed.’
Eleanor laughed. ‘You were the only visitor who ever ate those biscuits.’
‘What? Are you saying it was always the same biscuits?’
‘Don’t be daft. Home-made and fresh every time. But nobody ate them, except you. All too polite, I suppose.’
‘Slept on crumbs,’ he said. ‘Munched them in bed, reading.’
‘Funny,’ Eleanor remarked as they went back down the narrow stairs, ‘I can hardly believe now I ever lived there – in our four-bedroom detached, with its double garage and en suite bathrooms. That awful new estate, with the gardens flat and empty, just thin grass coming up from seed, and everybody shoving in Leylandi to hide their bit of garden from everybody else. As if they weren’t all exactly the same.’
‘So do you miss it, all that luxury?’
She stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to him. ‘Sometimes.’
‘It’s OK, I didn’t mean—’
She brushed this aside, changed the subject. Not even you, she was thinking, will make me rake all that up again. For a moment, she wished he had stayed at Marion’s or gone straight back to Pitcairn.
Later, though, over supper, which he and Claire insisted should be by candlelight, with wine for everyone (Claire gravely drank some, called it bitter, then became giggly), she was glad he was with her. The game of do you remember was oddly painless when it was Claire’s past that was taken out and aired.
‘It’s nice,’ Claire said when Eleanor went in to her room much later to say goodnight. ‘Uncle David remembers Daddy and our house, and Marmalade, and my teddies, and taking me to school. He even remembers my friend Hannah. Nobody else here knows about any of that except you, and you get sad if we talk about it.’
‘Oh, Claire.’
‘It’s OK, I don’t think about it much now. But Uncle David makes me remember all the nice things again.’
‘Good.’ She brushed a strand of hair away from Claire’s face, and bent and kissed her.
Downstairs, David was washing up dishes.
‘Oh, thanks. I’d forgotten we’d left the pans.’ She sighed. ‘I think I’ll just go to bed too. I’ve to be up to get Claire off in time for the school bus.’
‘OK.’ He dried his hands on the cloth he’d been using for the dishes, and left it crumpled by the sink. ‘I’m going out for a fag. Then I’ll watch TV for a while. Can’t sleep much before two – I’m used to being up late. I won’t have it loud, though.’
As she got ready for bed, Eleanor thought, I haven’t told him about Marion. She was not sure why she was putting it off; it was wrong that he did not know. As she drew her curtains, she heard voices in the garden, and paused. Then she realised Jim had come out too, for his last pipe of the day, and he and David were talking by the fence.
Comforted, she got into bed and read till she heard the front door close, and David come indoors. Then she switched her lamp off and lay down.
7
The last time Eleanor and Marion saw their mother was on a visit made two years earlier. They had come for Christmas shopping in Aberdeen, choosing a Tuesday which would be quiet, and meaning to go back on the Wednesday morning. Marion had two days teaching at the end of the week.
‘I can’t afford to lose it, if I buy all the things the kids want,’ she told Eleanor as they drove down on the Monday afternoon.
‘They’re really pleased we’re coming, you know,’ Eleanor said. ‘Mum and Dad. Somehow, the fact that it’s just the two of us.’
It was growing dark when they turned off the main road, and the house was shadowy, only one window lit at the front as they came up the drive. But someone had heard the car, and the front door opened as the engine died. Both their parents stood framed in the yellow hall light as they got out.
‘Now then, good journey?’ Faith leaned forward and kissed them in turn as they reached the top of the steps. ‘Come in, come in, it’s a cold night. Dad will put the car away for you.’
Inside the warm hall, the familiar smell of Pitcairn: wax polish, coal fire, and something damp and sweetish, that might be just the dish of apples on the sideboard. In a blue bowl on the brass-topped table were shaggy chrysanthemums, and across the varnished floorboards, rag rugs their grandmother had made. Then they were in the living room, where their father had built up the fire. Marion and Eleanor sank onto the Chesterfield together
, and stretched out their feet. Eleanor kicked off her shoes.
‘Tea? A cup of tea? I didn’t want to start supper till you got here.’
They had stopped on the way and did not need tea, but could not refuse anything here, at home, where they were the girls again, looked after.
‘Lovely. Do you want a hand?’
‘No, no. Dad will get the tray for me. Sit where you are.’
‘Oh, it’s nice to be here.’ Marion leaned back and closed her eyes.
Firelight glinted on the gold rims of their grandmother’s tea-set, brought out when there were no children around to put it at risk. Once, Eleanor had said, ‘I love that tea-set so much,’ and since then, Faith had always used it for Marion and for her. There was gingerbread too, thickly buttered, but Faith did not really want them to eat it.
‘You’ll spoil your supper,’ she said, but they each had a piece anyway, and drank their tea, and grew hot in front of the fire their father kept piling with coal.
They talked family: children, houses, and in Marion’s case, husband. Eleanor had gone out once or twice with a teacher from the Academy, but she did not mention that. She had enjoyed the concert and film, but had been bored by him, and sorry she was bored. Not worth telling.
‘Mamie and Alice are coming to lunch tomorrow – so you won’t have to visit,’ Faith said. Marion and Eleanor groaned, and laughed. ‘Oh, the aunts.’
‘Good,’ decided Eleanor. ‘I love seeing them. They never change.’
‘I thought that’s why they got on your nerves.’ Faith had not forgotten an impatient remark Eleanor had made twenty years ago.
‘Och, you know what I mean. I don’t mind that now, it’s sort of reassuring. I’ve had enough changes the last few years.’
‘You have that, lass.’ John put his hand on her shoulder as he rose to collect the cups and saucers, and take the tray out for his wife.
They ate in the kitchen.
‘I suppose I’ll have to use the dining room tomorrow,’ Faith said. ‘I hardly ever do these days – don’t even heat it. I can’t say I like it much now.’
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