‘Look, Dad will be sorting it out. I’m sure he’ll tell us.’
‘Yeah, right. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll be home at the end of the month, staying with Dad. Maybe I could come up and see you and Marion for a couple of days.’
‘Come for your birthday,’ she said, hearing the plaintive note in his voice that meant things were not going well for him, he was losing out again.
‘What’s there to celebrate?’ he muttered.
‘Oh, the end of Marion’s chemo – surviving, you know.’
‘Sure, that’ll do. Maybe have some news by then.’
‘What news?’
But he would not say, and the conversation ended unsatisfactorily after all. There was someone at the door of his flat. He had to go.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he promised. ‘Give Marion my love.’
‘Why didn’t he come to the funeral?’ Claire asked.
‘Oh, work, I think.’
‘Yeah, but Uncle Fergus came, and it wasn’t even his aunt.’ Claire had picked up Eleanor’s irritation with David. Now she worried at it, aware there were things the adults knew that she did not.
Eleanor sat down. ‘I’m very fond of David, there are lots of good things about him,’ she began. ‘But – he lives a different life.’
‘How?’
‘Never settles in one place, or one job. Never married, or even had a girlfriend for long.’
‘Has he got a girlfriend now then?’
And then Eleanor knew. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suspect he has. And I suspect it’s somebody he shouldn’t be with.’
‘Why not?’
But Eleanor had said too much. ‘I don’t know. I’m only guessing.’
‘Aw, you reckon she’s married to somebody else.’
‘No, of course not.’ But this was exactly what Eleanor did think. Look what happened when you had no other adult to confide in; you told your fourteen-year-old daughter things she should not hear. Eleanor did not know whether to be angry with herself or with Claire, who was so knowing.
Claire had started on another tack. ‘What about Auntie Mamie – will she go and live with Grandpa?’
Eleanor was startled. ‘What on earth makes you think she’d do that?’
‘Well, for company. They’re cousins, aren’t they?’
‘Grandpa wouldn’t like that much. When people get old, they have their own ways. Habits.’
Claire switched on the television. ‘I’m fed up,’ she said, as the noise started, and the blare of a game show filled the room. Eleanor realised the conversation had moved on again.
‘Are you?’ she asked. She must go; she had no interest in television these days. And yet, after almost six hours of driving, the uncomfortable call from David, all she seemed able to do was lie back on the sofa, glazed, unmoving. After a moment, she said, ‘Are you still going out with that boy – what was his name?’
‘Stephen.’
‘Yes. Stephen.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Oh dear.’
Claire went on watching television. Then she said, ‘It’s OK, I’m not bothered.’
‘Oh good. I thought that was maybe why you were a bit led up.’
‘Naw,’ Claire sounded scornful. ‘I’m due to come on in two days, that’s all. It’s a pain – it’ll be the worst day when Nicky’s party’s on.’
‘When’s that?’
‘Tuesday, of course. She’s having it on her actual birthday because it’s the holidays.’
‘What a lot of parties you go to,’ Eleanor murmured, thinking, A whole night with Gavin, and blushing, as if Claire could read her thoughts. But Claire was flicking between channels with the remote control.
‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘We usually come on at the same time, don’t we? Nicky’s mum says nuns living together all come on at the same time, isn’t that weird?’
Eleanor herself had that twinge in her belly that meant a period was due. But she had had it for a week now. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Something to do with the moon, they used to say.’
She got up and left the room. For a moment she stood in the kitchen by the Rayburn, kettle in her hand, but without moving to fill it, not wanting anyway the cup of tea she had intended to make. What if …
Fear dropped like a stone in a pool, plummeted through her heart, something physical, cold, sudden. What if …
She set the kettle down again and sat on a kitchen chair. You’re being stupid, she told herself, there is nothing to worry about. You are forty years old. She touched her breasts gently. They were tender. In a few days it would be here, the familiar flow of blood, the cycle completed. The clock ticked, the Rayburn puttered, and she sat on in the quiet room, unmoving.
She had been pregnant only twice: first with Claire, and then with the baby she had lost. She thought that an odd expression, but people did not like it if you said you had a baby that died. But it did die, Eleanor thought, it was alive and growing inside me, then after the crash, it died. However unformed, little more than an amoeba, a collection of cells transmuting, it did die. To say she had ‘lost’ a baby made it sound as if she had mislaid an infant somewhere, left it on a park bench, gone home without it.
Eleanor did not remember the crash, perhaps because she had been knocked unconscious at the moment of impact. At any rate, she had no picture in her head to fill the gap between the terrifying, heart-stopping squeal of brakes and the van veering across the road in front of them, and everyone standing by the side of the road, while she was carried into an ambulance on a stretcher. She had felt foolish, horizontal in broad daylight, and yet she had not cared, being in too much pain to want anything except to get to the hospital, where someone who knew what to do would make everything all right again.
For a long time, they were all so glad to be alive at all, Ian and David and she, so overwhelmingly relieved to have Claire still safe and well with them, that the miscarriage was talked of almost as if it were a small price to pay. Eleanor had been the one to pay it, she realised later. When she married Ian, she had not much cared whether she had children or not, but everyone else they knew did, and Claire was a docile, pretty baby, easy to love. Marion had always been different; even at ten, she was planning her family.
‘I’m going to have four children, two boys and two girls. First the boys, called James and Edward, then the girls, called Shirley and Caroline.’ The names varied, but the ages and sexes were fixed. Marion knew what she wanted.
Eleanor had offended her once by saying dreamily, after these elaborate plans had been aired yet again, ‘When I grow up I’m going to have six cats, and I’m calling them Eeny, Meeny, Miny and Mo—’ (a pause for thought here, while she counted) – and Jonathan and Linda.’
Marion stumped off in a huff, but Eleanor had not meant !o upset her.
Once Claire was born, they had of course intended to have another child. That was what everyone else did. Then Ian was promoted and they moved to Heatherlea. Next year, they said. Next year, we’ll have another baby. David came back, and began spending his free days with them. Doing well, and keen for the next step up, Ian worked long hours, so that he fell into bed at ten soon after he got home. Eleanor sat up late, talking to David. At the weekends, Ian played golf, pleased to have been sponsored for the local club. It was a wonder, Eleanor now thought, I got pregnant again at all.
But she had. Afterwards, recovering with her broken arm, getting over the accident, the miscarriage, Eleanor knew that if she could not have another child at once, soon, it might never happen. Soon after that, Claire went to nursery; Ian was promoted again; David left the police and was unemployed, hanging around even more. Their lives moved on a little. Everyone said to her, ‘Leave it, don’t rush things. There’s plenty of time. Get yourself well first.’
Now, she knew they had all been wrong. ‘I was too easily influenced,’ she said aloud in her quiet kitchen. But to have another baby at forty, unmarried, and to a man like Gavin – that would not be an
y good at all – for Claire, for her. ‘You fool,’ she said, as if she were two Eleanors, one sensible and disapproving, the other foolish and weak.
Despite this, for the first time in her life, she felt a tug of longing, something that seemed to be the other half of sexual desire: a wish that she might be pregnant anyway, in defiance of all commonsense. It is because I feel different about Gavin, she thought, it is because the sex is different. She had not thought fear and hope could co-exist in one mind, at the same moment, with equal intensity.
Then the moment passed, and she was afraid.
20
At the end of April, Marion and Eleanor sent David cards for his birthday and promised him presents when he came to see them. But he did not come.
Their father was Alice’s executor. He helped Mamie deal with the will, life insurance, the business of clearing up after death. He was cagey about it. If Marion had not been about to go into hospital for her last chemotherapy session, if Eleanor had not been with Gavin every day, they might have asked him more questions. Marion suspected that there was something he had not told them. Alice had left them £6,000 each. She had saved all her working life, and there was quite a bit of money, their father said. ‘Shares as well, so it’ll take some sorting out,’ he told them.
‘Mamie will be all right, then,’ Marion said, but her father did not answer this directly.
‘I’m assuming,’ she said to Eleanor, as they drove into Inverness, ‘that David’s getting the same. I still can’t get over it – six thousand. It’ll be welcome, no doubt. Well, it’s welcome to us, I have to say.’
‘Me too,’ Eleanor agreed, feeling guilty about being glad to have the money.
‘Is he still in that job, whatever it is?’ Marion asked.
‘David? I think so.’
‘He should have come to the funeral,’ Marion said yet again. There were not many things she had the energy to bother about these days, but family mattered.
‘You know what I want?’ she asked Eleanor, as they turned into the car park.
‘No more treatment.’
‘Oh that. Of course. But I meant – what normal things do you think I really miss?’
‘Teaching?’
‘Um. Not as much as I thought I would. I’m a domestic person, you know that.’
‘Gardening, then.’
‘Yes, that’s one of them. Gardening, baking … I didn’t bother about the garden till the weather turned warm. Now I see all the weeds springing up, and it’s so frustrating not to have the energy to do anything about them. I sit on that low stool I’ve got, and lean into the borders, and poke about with a trowel. But it’s pointless – I should be turning over the earth, getting seeds in.’
Eleanor moved into a parking space and switched off the engine. ‘You’ll get back to it. The garden will survive one spring without you. Get Ross to dig. Or I’ll come over and have a go, if you like.’
‘If I died,’ Marion said suddenly, ‘my daffodils, my tulips, the double-headed narcissi I put in last year under the apple trees – they would still come up the next spring, wouldn’t they?’
Eleanor did not know what to say. Was this a good or bad thing? She thought of the garden Mamie and Alice kept tidy, the roses they fed and pruned and dead-headed, the pink one by the gate Mamie had said was called Maiden’s Blush. They would be starting into new growth already. Without Alice.
‘Sorry,’ Marion went on, ‘I didn’t mean to be morbid. Time I got going.’
‘Not much of a day for gardening, anyway,’ Eleanor observed, as they walked across the car park. She looked up at the overcast sky and buttoned her jacket, feeling cold. There was nothing to break the wind as it swept low across the open acre of cars, exposed and bleak.
The glass doors moved apart as they reached them, and Eleanor stepped through with Marion.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘You’re not to die, not even to think about it, you hear me?’
Marion smiled. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘This won’t last for ever.’ It was almost as if she were pleading with Marion, not reassuring her. Lightly, Marion touched her arm.
‘See you tomorrow.’ Then she turned and walked away.
In the afternoon, Eleanor worked in the cottage garden, wanting to do something physical and out of doors, in spite of the weather. Claire called at half-past four. ‘I’m at Auntie Marion’s,’ she said. ‘Will you come and get me after Neighbours?
‘You are a nuisance, Claire. Why didn’t you get the school bus?’
‘I walked down with Eilidh. Anyway, I’d still have had to walk up the lane, and my bag is mega-heavy. I had PE and cross country, remember?’
Eleanor sighed. ‘Oh, all right. See you later.’
She went outdoors again, but had lost interest in gardening. If she had known Claire would be late she could have spent the whole afternoon with Gavin. He had gone into Inverness when she left him at half-past three. Eleanor put the fork and trowel back in the shed and the bag of prunings and dead leaves in the dustbin. Then she went indoors to get changed.
The last time Gavin had been home, at the end of the Easter holidays, she had spent almost the whole of the lirst week in increasing terror that she might be pregnant.
‘What’s wrong?’ he kept asking, but got no real answer. Then she found it was all right: the show of blood, the waves of relief. She was able to tell him then.
‘God,’ he said, ‘that would have been a bit of a facer.’ Eleanor, who had been annoyed with herself for over a week, now felt angry with him.
‘I did try to tell you, about being careless.’
‘Me?’
‘Us then.’
Takes two, Eleanor.’ He drew back, frowning, distant. Eleanor sank again, under a different kind of relief. At first, it had been tinged with what – disappointment? Something of that. Not now. Foolish to think he would ever have wanted it, that it could have bound them together.
He was sitting up in bed, looking out of the window, his profile etched against the light, sharp and unsmiling.
‘Right.’ He turned and thrust off the bedclothes. ‘Better get up. You want a cup of tea before you go?’ Dressing quickly, he left her there, and disappeared into the kitchen. Eleanor could hear him filling the kettle, clattering mugs, whistling. For a little while she went on lying on the bed, growing colder. Then she got up.
She had not the sense – or the experience – to know she should let this alone for now.
‘What would you do,’ she asked him. ‘I mean, if I were really pregnant?’
‘You’re not,’ he said, ‘so it doesn’t arise.’
‘But—’
‘We’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘No more risks.’
‘No,’ she retorted. ‘I’m doing something about that, at least. Seeing the doctor tomorrow.’
He looked startled. ‘Oh. Right. What—’ So she explained, and they discussed birth control, politely, for a few minutes.
Eleanor had put off doing anything till now. She knew the doctors too well; impossible to speak to Fergus or Andrew, but she had gathered courage to see Mary Mackay, who was Marion’s doctor.
‘The idea horrifies you, doesn’t it?’ she said to Gavin, setting down her mug, the tea untasted. ‘I thought at least you’d be sympathetic.’
If she were not careful, tears would come. Why am I on my own? she thought. I can’t cope with this. She was angry with Ian for dying, for leaving her. This was not the life she had expected to have. And at forty, to want a man to stay because you were pregnant, to plead with him – she shuddered, and clutched the mug with both hands, not looking at him any more.
‘Well, if it had happened, we’d have had to face it. Do something,’ he admitted. Then: ‘Sorry, I’m not dealing with this very well. Look, it’s nothing to do with you, or how I feel about you.’ He put a hand out and touched her face, tilting it up to meet his. ‘My wife – I got married because my wife was pregnant. It was a mistake. Not a mistak
e I would ever repeat. I’ll never marry again, you should realise that, Eleanor.’ Unable to bear it, Eleanor began to cry. ‘God, sorry. Come here. It’s all right, it’s all right.’ He put his arms round her so that her face was buried in his rough jersey, his hands warm on the back of her neck, her shoulders.
Later, he said, ‘I’m going to Aberdeen a day early, before I go back out. I’m seeing someone in the oil company I work for. About a job onshore.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘Yes. And although I said that about marriage – well, we’re not kids. We could be together anyway. Couldn’t we? Give it a try, at least?’
She was confused, her faith in him shaken. And yet, yes, she did want this. A life of my own, she thought, and someone to care for me.
That had been over two weeks ago. Now he was newly home again, and she was full of hope. They were all right with each other, they were close, in bed and out of it. He had said, as he got into his car this afternoon, ‘The job looks pretty likely. We can talk about it later.’
Driving through to Marion’s house to fetch Claire, she thought about this, and began to believe it would all come right. Gavin would love her, they would be together, and Marion would get better.
Claire sat upstairs with Eilidh in her bedroom, watching television. They talked through it, waiting for Neighbours, not interested in what was on at the moment. Eilidh was on her bed, Claire on the floor, doing the children’s jigsaws she had found under the bed in a box.
‘She thinks I don’t know,’ Claire was saying. They were discussing Gavin.
‘What, that they’re doing it? Are they?’
‘Well, she goes to see him, right, and she says to me, “Oh, I’ll only be half an hour.” Then it’s, like, two hours. When she comes back she’s bright red, kind of flustered.’
‘But you said it was the afternoon?’
‘I know. They’re quite old for it, aren’t they? My mum’s forty, and he’s older. Well, he looks older, in my opinion. She’s really mad about him. I used to think people their age didn’t get like that. It was only people our age. But it’s not.’
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