The Winter Children

by Lulu Taylor

  She can hear the resentment in his voice, and she feels a kind of cold contempt that surprises her.

  So now perhaps you understand how much you owe me, and how hard I work to keep your life running smoothly. You’ve never had to think about what menus to plan or how to keep our family ticking over and your social life going. It all just happens, because I do it. You’ve taken me for granted for years. Now you might start to appreciate me.

  She keeps her tone soft. ‘I know, honey, it’s a little unusual, but it won’t be for much longer, I promise. Listen, I’ll ring Anastasia today and go through everything with her. We’ll have a nice long chat about all of it and sort it out. If I can’t make any of the social stuff, I’ll get her to make my excuses. It will be fine, you’ll see. Maybe you should take Anastasia to the opera do – she’ll enjoy it. Buy her a nice dress to wear and she’ll be in seventh heaven.’

  ‘Frankie . . .’ Walt sounds puzzled now. ‘What is this? What’s going on? Have you left home and don’t want to tell me?’

  She laughs merrily. ‘Of course not, what a funny idea! I’m just so busy, so taken up with everything that needs doing on the house – this planning stage is crucial, you know that. I’ll be able to be much more hands-off when all that’s behind us. And meanwhile I’ve got the twins to look after. They need me.’

  ‘Those aren’t your kids, honey,’ Walt says. ‘You don’t have to stay there and look after them; I’m sure Olivia is perfectly capable of doing it on her own. You’ve got your own, remember?’

  She is momentarily stunned into silence, as she recalls that the outside world still believes that the twins are not her children.

  ‘I’d like you to come home, okay? Go back to the Hall when you’re needed but I don’t want you living there away from us.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before you bought it, darling,’ she says sweetly. There is a tiny pause as her barb travels over the line to him, and then she says quickly, ‘Actually, there is a reason why I need to be here for just a little longer. I had a builder here and he’s going to be able to make a start on the pool. Mr Howard says we don’t need to wait for formal permission for that, there’s no concern about the heritage situation. And I thought, well, we may as well get going on whatever we can. So I need to be here to start proceedings off. Then I’ll come home.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Walt sounds as though he is trying to be reasonable. ‘Okay. How long will it take?’

  ‘Only another week,’ she says, her tone placatory. ‘Then I’ll be home.’

  ‘I hope so, honey. Aren’t the children due some holiday soon?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ She racks her brain to recall the term dates. ‘Yes . . . half-term. I’ll be back before that, don’t worry.’

  ‘All right. Another week. I miss you, Frankie.’

  ‘I miss you too, darling. Now, tell me how work is going.’ She sits down on a hall chair and prepares to listen.

  If I have to take it one week at a time, that’s fine with me. But I’d better call that builder today.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Olivia finds she cannot stop staring at the children sitting at the table, dressed in those ridiculous outfits, eating their breakfasts with Francesca sitting there, overseeing everything. The clothes are nice enough, if far too expensive for what they are, but they’re just not suitable for the twins’ lives. The blue dungarees don’t have poppers so the whole thing needs to be taken off for nappy changing, and white tights and a pale yellow dress are going to be filthy in about five minutes once Bea gets down on the floor.

  Olivia can’t help feeling a stab of anger. They’re my children. I’ll choose what they’re going to wear. She likes Bea in trousers – warm and practical – and she likes the well-worn nature of her nephews’ hand-me-downs that work equally well for both twins. She’s determined not to dress her daughter in pastels and frilly skirts, and she is quite happy to see Stan in so-called girls’ colours. She proudly dresses him in a shocking pink anorak when they go out.

  After breakfast, she says again how nice the children look but as she doesn’t want them to get these lovely clothes dirty, she will go and change them. It’s a relief to see them back in their usual scruffy things.

  I mustn’t dwell on it, she thinks, as she gets dressed herself. Dan is in the shower and the twins are playing on the double bed, half watching as she pulls on her jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a jumper. She can’t remember when she wore anything else. ‘Come on, monsters, let’s go outside and hang out the washing.’

  By the time Olivia gets back downstairs, Francesca has gone, leaving the kitchen neat and tidy. As she gets the twins into their jackets, Olivia wonders what the call from Walt was about. It’s odd, the disconnected nature of Francesca’s marriage. She never mentions Walt, and doesn’t appear to think much about him either. Olivia can’t imagine not being intimately involved with Dan. If they were apart, she would think about him constantly, and talk to him every day. As it is, there’s a constant stream of communication, even when they’re together. She sends emails to his computer when he’s working and she doesn’t want to disturb him but needs to flag something up.

  Perhaps that’s what Francesca is doing too, but I just can’t see it. They might be messaging all the time for all I know. Perhaps they talk on the phone long into the night while we’re asleep. And what about her children? When does she ever see or talk to them? Horrible boarding schools, with their enforced separation. It doesn’t seem right. I suppose they don’t mind it. Maybe there will come a time when I don’t need to see the twins every day, and when my life goes back to being all about me. But it’s hard to imagine it at the moment.

  Outside, the air is blustery but warm and the sunshine heats the walled garden, the stones reflecting its rays. The garden is blooming, with all sorts of treats and surprises bursting out through the soil. She must find the time to investigate properly. And, she reminds herself, she hasn’t looked at the rest of the garden for a while. She is intrigued by the hedges she spotted and wants to see what shapes they’ve been trimmed into. The children play happily as she pegs out the washing in the same endless ritual, her fingers clumsy with the tiny cold wet socks, small outfits waving in the breeze like a row of miniature scarecrows.

  Her fears of last night when she was lost in the house seem silly now, but a nasty chill creeps over her skin when she thinks of it. Whatever happened, it wasn’t nice. She still finds it difficult to believe that Dan let Jimmy persuade him to leave her there and hide, but he was drunk and he can be an idiot when he drinks. The atmosphere of schoolboy jape must have been too much to resist. He was certainly apologetic afterwards, clearly grasping how unpleasant it was to be alone there in the dark. She was mollified. It was all right. He was forgiven.

  The strange thing was how cold Francesca was over it. She’s been so lovely lately, she can’t do enough for me. And suddenly, last night, she went all prickly. Olivia recalls that right from the off, as she started preparing the meal, Francesca grew distant. She didn’t offer to help – not with the cooking, or with the table, or even clearing away afterwards. It was almost as though she were trying to relegate Olivia to the status of housekeeper, while she played the lady of the manor.

  Maybe that’s what she’s used to at home. Olivia wrestles with a pair of Dan’s heavy wet jeans, tethering them down to the line with several pegs.

  Francesca seemed to enjoy herself during the evening, revelling in the old jokes and stories, and joining in whenever she could. Her attention was firmly focused on her Cambridge mates, but that was how it should be. It was why they were there, really. And she was in her element when they went on the tour of the house. But afterwards, she seemed thoroughly pissed off.

  And then back to normal this morning. Emptying the dishwasher, feeding the kids, clearing up. Just the same old Cheska, smiley and chatty and nice.

  She bends down to the washing basket and gets more clothes. The line is dipping under the weight already, but the wa
rm air will soon dry out the worst of the water. As she takes out some sleep suits, she considers.

  What is normal for Cheska, though? What do I really know about her?

  She has always been around, for as long as Olivia has known Dan. A fixture in his life. A platonic female friend with whom there has never, apparently, been a spark of romance.

  Olivia laughs to herself. Well, it’s possible. I mean, Dan has a magnetic effect on lots of women, but some have got to be immune to him. Look at the others . . . Claire, Katy, Alyssa . . . they’ve never seemed to respond to him like that. And nor has Cheska.

  And yet, now she thinks about it, she remembers how she once used to feel vaguely uncomfortable about Francesca and the intimacy she shared with Dan. She believed him when he said that they’d been no more than friends, but always wondered if that puppyish attitude of Cheska’s had spilled over into something romantic. When she playfully asked him, he laughed and said he didn’t think so. Still there was something intimate between them . . . But he was close to Claire too. What’s the difference? She thinks hard, frowning as she pegs out another T-shirt, hearing the children chatter at her feet as they play with the pegs in the bag. It was because Claire was absolutely and irrefutably in love with Jimmy. They were a couple. The intimacy with Dan was a close friendship. But Cheska is in a couple too, married to Walt. It’s the same thing.

  Her mind plays over it again, what it was like when she met Francesca, how she absorbed the story of Francesca’s marriage.

  It wasn’t really like Claire and Jimmy, because Walt was never here. We never saw him. It was always Cheska on her own, except very occasionally, like at our wedding. He was there then. She remembers him, a portly businessman with a merry smile and a loud American accent, a little out of place with his handmade shoes and tailored suits and solid gold cufflinks. She liked him. But it was hard to visualise him at Francesca’s side as her partner. It was more like she’d brought a distant relation along.

  Why did she marry him? I can’t see it somehow.

  But the marriage has lasted so far, with two children and a home in Switzerland and now this house, a project that will see them into the next few years at least.

  Suddenly she recalls the moment last night when Jimmy said something in particular. What was it? Something about Dan still being able to reel them in, and he mentioned Cheska in particular. Then it went quiet and everyone was a bit odd, just for a moment, until someone smoothed it over.

  She stands still, the damp clothes swaying on the line beside her.

  What did that mean? She shrugs. I’ll just have to ask Dan. I’m sure he’ll tell me.

  Once she’s finished with the washing, there’s still no sign of Francesca or Dan. He must be working. Her eye is caught by a sudden movement, and she gazes upwards to see Francesca standing at the window of the twins’ bedroom, looking down while she talks on her mobile phone. When she sees that Olivia has spotted her, she waves merrily and makes a gesture to show that she is deep in a conversation.

  What’s she doing in there?

  Olivia picks up the washing basket and takes it inside, leaving the twins playing. Then, on a whim, she gets her coat and slips on her boots. They will take a walk into the garden of the main house. Why not? It might get her creative juices flowing again. It’s been fun poking around in the cottage garden, and she’s spent some happy half hours weeding and clearing and giving the shrubs some space to breathe.

  But I need to earn some money soon. Dan’s redundancy won’t pay the bills forever and despite what Jimmy says about my royalties, they don’t amount to all that much.

  She should think about a new book. The Argentinian one can’t go ahead now that she’s left and there probably wouldn’t be much of a market for it either. ‘A nice how-to guide always goes down well,’ her literary agent would say. ‘That’s what they like. Simple, pretty and lots of lovely pics.’

  She hasn’t heard from him for months. He’s probably forgotten all about her.

  Well, there might not be a book in Renniston, but I’m sure I could do some articles for a gardening magazine or a Sunday paper. I’ll pitch something to my old contacts and see what happens.

  Feeling a little brighter, she takes a twin by each hand, and they skip out of the cottage garden, singing one of their favourite songs as they go. She soon realises they don’t need their coats; the weather is properly warm. They are well into May and there’s more than a hint of the coming summer.

  ‘Isn’t this lovely?’ she asks, as they walk along the gravel paths and she begins to take in the garden. The trim paths are bordered by lavender and purple sage with small round rosemary bushes in between. Behind are taller plants, stocks in white and mauve, white-green balls of hydrangea, fluffy-headed phlox, with shaped evergreen shrubs adding structure. Where paths divide, bay trees stand guard, their trunks sturdy and bare, their leaves trimmed to glossy green orbs on top. Jasmine, clematis and honeysuckle climb the old stone walls, some of their flowers already out, speckling the shaggy growth with colour. Some borders have tiny cut hedges of their own to enclose a mass of blooms, or a rose bush. It’s old-fashioned but lovingly set out and cared for.

  Does William really do all this on his own? How incredible! He must work so hard.

  The children are entranced by the gravel and she has to stop them picking up handfuls to toss at each other and over the borders. Then they come to a smaller enclosed garden, set out with formal patterns, with a pond in the middle.

  ‘Stay away from the water,’ she says strictly, and diverts them from their instant run towards it. ‘No, you naughty things! We’re not getting wet today. It’s not that warm.’

  Then she sees it. The topiary, in the garden beyond. ‘Look, look!’ she cries, laughing. ‘What can you see?’

  Bea and Stan look where she is pointing but they don’t know to lift their gaze and it’s only when she holds them both up that they see what she is talking about.

  ‘Wabbit!’ cries Bea, pointing too. ‘Wabbit, wabbit!’

  ‘Wabbit?’ asks Stan wonderingly, then sees it and shrieks. ‘Cat!’

  ‘No, rabbit,’ Olivia corrects, and then she sees the cat as well. ‘Oh my goodness, it’s a pet zoo. Come on, let’s go and look.’

  She puts them down and they make their way out of the far end of the formal garden and into a wide avenue at the back of the house. Here, at the eastern end of the Hall, is the topiary: a row of green hedges cut into the shapes of animals.

  ‘Squiwwel!’ cries Bea, and laughs.

  ‘Yes, a squirrel. And a bear, how hilarious. What made him put a bear here? And . . . what’s that? An owl?’

  The row of green leafy animals has been carefully trimmed and maintained. Each animal is neat and easy to identify. They spend a happy hour wandering among them, pretending to feed them, and talk to them, and the children make up names for them. Then Olivia realises it’s time for lunch and chivvies the children back onto the path for home.

  How lovely to find these animals, she thinks. It makes up for that horrible experience last night. The house doesn’t seem so bad when it’s got this little menagerie here.

  As they head back towards the cottage, she thinks she sees someone watching them over the low wall of the formal garden, but when she turns to look, there is no one there.

  When the twins have eaten and Olivia has put them down for a sleep, Dan emerges from his study for lunch. Olivia is just sitting down to join him for a bowl of soup at the kitchen table when Francesca comes in to say she is catching up on admin this afternoon and could she borrow the car to go to town. ‘I’ll get some lunch there, and do some grocery shopping if you need anything.’

  ‘No problem,’ Olivia says. ‘Of course you can borrow the car. And the list is on the wall over there, take it with you. I’d be ever so grateful, I can’t stand the supermarket.’

  ‘Happy to. I’ll see you later.’ She takes the car key from the rack and goes out.

  Olivia raises her eyebrows at Da
n as they hear the car engine start up. ‘There we are. Peace at last.’

  ‘Are the kids napping?’ he asks, looking about as though he has just noticed they aren’t there.

  Olivia nods. ‘Fed and fast asleep. We had a very nice morning in the garden.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Dan says absently, and brushes the crumbs on his plate into a little pyramid. He frowns. ‘We’ve got to get rid of Cheska. I don’t want her here anymore. I really don’t.’

  ‘I can’t say I’m ecstatic about it, but how can we?’ Olivia tries to sound reasonable. ‘This is her house. What can we do about it? She’ll have to go eventually.’

  ‘Or we do,’ Dan says brusquely.

  ‘Leave? But go where?’ Olivia knows she doesn’t want to leave. She likes it here: the old cottage and its sunny garden, the mysterious great house beyond. ‘We haven’t got the money to rent somewhere like this.’

  ‘We don’t have to live in a place like this. We could take a flat in the town. Or get a modern house that doesn’t cost as much.’

  ‘I . . . suppose we could,’ she says cautiously. ‘But would we be as happy?’

  ‘We’d be a darn sight happier than we are sharing our lives with Cheska!’ he bursts out.

  She leans towards him, anxious at the sight of his strain and the way his fists are clenched. He looks so tense. ‘Is everything going okay with your writing?’ she asks.

  ‘What?’ He scrunches up his face as though he can’t understand a word, then says, ‘Oh. Yes, yes. It’s fine. I mean, it’s not finished, I don’t know when it will be finished.’ He releases a hard puffing breath through his nose. ‘Look, the redundancy money is almost gone. The rent from the flat is paying our bills. Obviously it’s good that we don’t have rent to pay on top of that. But one way or another we need to sort out our future. And I just don’t think it’s here, Olivia. I’m sorry. It’s best that we come to terms with it sooner rather than later.’