by Judy Astley
No-one actually made the Little and Large joke, but it hovered unsaid in the pale cool sitting-room, lurking like an unmentionable smell, such was the contrast in appearance between Lily and Madeleine. Kitty had wondered how on earth she was supposed to introduce this new sister to her children but, with a staggering intuition that must get lost in the complex manners of grown-ups, both Petroc and Lily knew immediately who Madeleine was. Petroc was formal and polite, nodding and smiling and saying hello as if this strange large young woman was just another of the visiting authors, and likely to leave the room any minute with the instructions for using the Rayburn or whatever it was she’d popped over from the barn to collect. For a second or two, Kitty had even thought he was going to offer to shake hands.
Lily, running in half an hour after Petroc, already had the light of excitement making her eyes shine. She flew in through the back door shouting, ‘Where is she? Does she look like me?’ and grinning eagerly.
‘You don’t look at all like me,’ Lily announced after about ten seconds of innocently rude staring. Petroc and Kitty exchanged glances. Lily was slowly circling the blue sofa on which Madeleine was perched, like a small sleek fox round a frightened pony. Lily glared across Madeleine to Kitty, fearful that she’d raced in and made a dreadful mistake, that Rita might have got things all wrong with all those hints and secrecy, and this might only be the person collecting the Christian Aid envelope and not the sister she’d never ever met.
‘I expect we look like our dads,’ Madeleine ventured, hugging herself into her jacket. Kitty thought she’d never seen Lily look more terrifyingly fragile. Her legs, even in her black school tights, were as thin as reeds. It would take more than the pair of hers to make up one of Madeleine’s. Lily’s fingers were so small they could be snapped by a clumsy toddler, whereas Madeleine’s looked strong enough to strangle a cow.
‘Are you staying?’ Lily asked finally.
‘I might. For a day or two, if no-one minds.’ Madeleine shrugged.
‘You can share my room if you like. There’s a spare bed for my friends and it’s still made up from when Jenna didn’t stay last week,’ Lily offered, suddenly finding the need to look for something in her school bag.
‘Or there’s the sofa bed in the studio. Wouldn’t you rather . . .’ Kitty cut in.
‘No, that would be nice. I’ll share with you.’ Madeleine’s voice was gentle and soft now and she was smiling at Lily as if she was something that had been a surprising pleasure to find. All the earlier hard bravado had gone.
‘I’d better get my bag of stuff. I left it on the beach.’ Madeleine stood up. She moved awkwardly and looked terribly tired. Her bulky body seemed too stiff to open out to its full height and her hair drooped across most of her face. Kitty felt dreadfully sorry for her. The courage it must have taken to make this visit, the sheer guts to have managed that early display of feistiness when inside she could only have been quaking. What would happen, Kitty wondered, if she went and simply hugged this big exhausted girl. Uselessly, her hands fluttered as she spoke, unable to decide whether to risk being pushed away, worried about what she might be taking on if she wasn’t pushed away. This was, after all, someone else’s daughter. A grown-up young woman, someone who was far too old to need ‘taking on’.
‘Petroc will go and get your bag, if you just tell him where you left it. Why don’t you go upstairs with Lily and she’ll show you where you’re sleeping. You could have a bath if you like, and a rest if you want one. There’s plenty of time before supper.’
Madeleine sighed wearily. ‘I could sleep for weeks, actually.’ She turned and grinned at Lily. ‘Come on then, little sister, show me where my bed is.’
‘I didn’t know you had another sister.’ Petroc, ambling along the sand looking for the rock behind which Madeleine had stashed her bag, was startled by George Moorfield skulking against the wall. Petroc stopped and looked at him. The man was starting to look more than a bit crazed: his hair was wild and getting matted as if he’d either lost the will to find a comb or was sneakily experimenting with the cultivation of dreadlocks while safely out of sight of his London companions. One day, just as Petroc had last summer, George would unthinkingly climb onto a train in Penzance wearing a sea-stiffened brine-reeking old sweater and a raggy pair of jeans with beach oil on them, and get off at Paddington into a puzzling swarm of smart crisp suits and rushing fools with mobile phones.
‘I didn’t know I had another sister. Well, I knew she existed, but never expected to meet her,’ he told George, kicking at a crab claw. ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,’ he added. It was easy though, out in the half-dark. The wet slapping sound of the sea made him think of easy tears. If George, just then, asked the right questions, Petroc would probably confide his entire soul’s-worth of problems.
‘Oh I see. You mean it’s “family stuff”?’ George mocked. ‘It’s the curse of the English, the feeble insistence on secrecy. It makes for a humid, claustrophobic existence in my opinion. Collections of wondering folks in their nests stuck together by their moist little don’t-tells. That way lies incest of, if you see my point, a metaphorical kind.’
Petroc stared out to sea. He didn’t quite get the point, as it happened, but didn’t want George to know that in case it somehow came up in conversation with Amanda. He muttered an all-purpose ‘Yeah’, intended to convey empathy.
‘Of course without all the little intrigues and mysteries I’d have nothing to write about, would I?’
‘Suppose not.’ Petroc hadn’t read anything of George’s and felt much as he had at his GCSE French oral when it had become clear that he hadn’t learned any French.
George picked up a pebble and hurled it at the sea. ‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky, though you’re probably too young to know it, having a good family and then getting an extra one too. It’s like getting seconds of the world’s best pudding.’
‘Nothing to stop you having a family is there?’ Petroc wanted to go back in the house, he was hungry. He didn’t want to be sympathetic to a man who’d so easily nicked his woman.
‘I’ve had two goes at wives,’ George said, ‘but not at children. Down here makes you realize something about being on your own. In London you think it’s through choice. “Lonely” in London is self-indulgence, like bitter chocolate. Here it’s wondering where it all went wrong.’ With that, George strode off back towards the barn. Petroc, peering through the dusk gloom, wondered when he ever actually did find time to work. He’s always out and about, he thought, recalling the sight of the monstrous car that afternoon pulling up outside the college and collecting Amanda Goodbody. He’d looked at the outline of her knickers against her tight trousers as she’d leant into the car and shoved her bag across to the back seat. Jamie had caught him looking, and had leered and muttered, ‘M & S high-leg, seamless. I’d guess black, possibly cream or blue, and she never wears plain white except for tennis,’ like a punter eyeing up the form of a racehorse.
Petroc found the bag behind a rock only just above the high-tide line. It was a battered, dark green rucksack and one of the straps was frayed almost to the point of breaking, giving an impression of plenty of use. Petroc knew nothing of Madeleine, it occurred to him, nothing at all. If he’d ever given her just that little bit of thought, he’d pictured her as a gingery-gold little baby a few days old, the way his mother had described her. He hadn’t thought about her out in the world having a parallel life to his own, though he presumed Kitty had.
The battered bag offered a selection of possibilities. Maybe she’d been something keen and committed like a sea cadet, hauling the bag on weeklong hikes over the Brecon Beacons, or maybe she’d Euro-railed in university vacations. If she’d been to university. Or lived rough, sleeping behind Waterloo station with her head on the rucksack and the straps twined through her hands in fear of thieves. He didn’t look inside, although the bag was heavy and bulging with interesting shapes like a Christmas stocking. There wasn’t any
point looking, because with nothing of her life to refer to, the contents couldn’t possibly give him any clues about her. The bag itself might even have been borrowed. He heaved it over his shoulder and made his way slowly back up the beach.
It was perversely attractive, the idea of starting over with a blood family who knew nothing about you. Madeleine, if she wanted to, could invent for them a whole growing-up of absolute fiction. They’d never know. Right now he wished he could do that with Amanda, just turn up all fresh and new and have her take him as he wanted to be found, rather than as the inept mess that she’d come to know. He could have drip-fed her all sorts of enticing lies if he hadn’t known her since they were eleven. It would be interesting to see what Madeleine volunteered in terms of information, because presumably they’d only find out whatever there was she wanted them all to know.
‘So you do eat meat? That’s a relief, so many people, young ones especially, are veggie now. I mean it’s only spag. bol. and I could do you something else if you’d prefer it . . .’ Kitty was conscious she was gibbering. Madeleine was a strange presence in the kitchen, sitting at the table staring silently at Kitty as she chopped and stirred and made many trips to the fridge and back because her mind wasn’t on the food and she kept forgetting things. Kitty had to keep reminding herself that this person was real, this large and scruffy young woman was The Baby. The Baby then, but now The Woman, everything in between was simply a void. How they related to each other could only start from here, from whether they even decided they wanted to or not. Strange there should be such an element of choice about someone you had actually created.
‘I do eat meat, though not often – we didn’t have red meat much at home. Mum liked chicken and fish better.’ Kitty tried not to let her hand hesitate as she sliced tomatoes. ‘Mum’ Madeleine had said – evidence of a real past. She, Kitty, wasn’t her mum. Of course she wasn’t. She was just an official Birth Mother, something on paper who was supposed to have given up her feelings along with her baby. Madeleine looked uncomfortable, hot and sticky from her bath. The ends of her deep red hair were damp and corkscrewed and she kept tugging at them nervously. She’d put on a pair of black leggings and an all-enveloping long black shirt but the crumpled cream jacket was still there too, as if she needed to keep herself ready to leave instantly if she felt she had to, or maybe she was just overconscious of her shape. Perhaps there would be something that Kitty had to say, some unknown phrase that Madeleine was waiting to hear that would make her feel satisfied she’d found out all she wanted to know, and then she’d be out of the door for good. The only thing Kitty was sure of was that it wouldn’t be easy or appropriate attempting to have a deep conversation that could cover the essentials of twenty-four years while she whisked up the salad dressing.
‘I’ll do the table shall I?’ Madeleine volunteered, looking around for a drawer that might contain cutlery.
‘Oh, yes OK, that would be nice, thanks.’ Kitty smiled at her, encouraging. Either Petroc or Lily usually did it. They seemed to be keeping out of the way, perhaps being tactful so that Kitty and Madeleine could do some sort of belated bonding. Or perhaps there was just something on TV. She must try not to analyse.
Madeleine wandered round the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboard doors in her search for plates. Kitty left her to get on with it while she washed the lettuce, though she followed Madeleine’s progress round the kitchen, trying to see things as if through her eyes for the first time. She admired the cornflower-blue plates as Madeleine took them from the dresser shelves, noted how much the beech handles of the knives had faded from over-fierce dishwasher detergent, and ran her eyes over the collection of hand-thrown mugs that hung from the dresser hooks. If Madeleine commented, she was ready to explain her taste, discuss pattern and form and the mood-lifting qualities of colour. Running through her head, too, was the thread of some kind of fantasy in which Madeleine played the part of a daughter who had always been around since birth, but had simply moved away as grown-up children do.
‘Did you paint this?’ Madeleine’s voice cut into her thoughts. She was standing with a handful of glasses, studying the painting of Coverack which was still propped up on the dresser.
‘Yes. It’s what I do; local views, things tourists like. I sell prints and postcards through galleries, and originals in shows a couple of times a year.’
‘The Grandma Moses of Cornwall,’ Madeleine commented. Kitty didn’t detect any sarcasm and hated herself for anticipating it.
‘We’ve got that in common, anyway. I did a degree in Art History,’ Madeleine told her. ‘And I paint too, but abstract stuff, nothing like this.’ She smiled at Kitty. ‘It’s not bad.’
‘Well thanks. What do your parents do?’ Kitty asked. The word ‘parents’ came quite easily – a word she’d half expected to stumble over.
‘Dad died. He did something electrical in a firm near Brighton. Mum works in the bank, always has.’ Kitty felt absurdly cross that the baby she’d sacrificed hadn’t had its adoptive mother’s constant and undivided attention each and every day. ‘And I’ve got two brothers,’ Madeleine volunteered hesitantly. ‘It was like, after they got me they could suddenly have their own, properly. And then they got divorced.’ They should have given you back, Kitty immediately wanted to say. She felt outraged and cheated. She’d given up her baby because they’d promised her Madeleine would have a stable family home. With life’s prize of someone else’s child, the ordinary sordid messes of break-up and divorce simply shouldn’t have been in question. Of course no-one, she should have seen, could have made that promise of perfect family existence in the certainty of being able to keep it.
‘Perhaps they should have given me back,’ Madeleine startled her by saying.
Kitty heard Glyn’s car pulling into the yard. Her heart was beating very fast and her hands, chopping spring onions for the salad, felt clumsy as if she’d been given someone else’s fingers to try. ‘Dad’s here.’ Lily crashed into the kitchen, knocking against Madeleine who was putting glasses on the table. One flew out of her hand as Lily pushed the kitchen door too wide and too fast. ‘Oh sorry!’ she yelled, stooping to pick up the broken shards of glass from the floor.
‘No don’t, you might hurt yourself. Let me.’ Madeleine bent at the same time as Lily and their heads collided. ‘Sorry!’ Lily said again. They stood up, giggling and rubbing their bruises.
‘Oh Madeleine look, you’ve cut your hand on the glass.’ Kitty reached out to see how much damage there was and Madeleine and Lily, still giggling, collected round her by the sink. Glyn opened the door awkwardly, carrying his new spade, a roll of wire and a six foot length of pipe. Blasts of cool sea air wafted into the room with him. No-one took any notice. His daughter and a stranger and his wife were laughing together at the sink, running water over a bleeding hand, though whose it was and why it took three of them he couldn’t see. They looked very self-contained. Even when they finally turned round to look at him, they did it all together, lined up with their faces still full of a shared, exclusive joke. The strange girl leaned back against the sink, her jacket gaping and her shirt caught behind her and pulled tight against her body. He stared at her stomach which almost seemed to be pointing at him, round and stretched as a new balloon.
‘Glyn.’ Kitty, instantly serious, came forward and stood beside him, linking her arm through his and dislodging his spade so that it slipped and sliced painfully into his shin.
‘Glyn, this is Madeleine.’
‘Oh,’ he said, still staring at the girl’s tight front. Watching the direction of his gaze she’d put her hand over the bulge, stroking it protectively. ‘And not just Madeleine,’ was all he could find to say. Kitty looked from him to the girl and back. Big girls could hide their pregnancies so well, skillfully bulking their bodies and clothes around the swelling. A friend of Petroc’s had kept her secret from her family till the day she went into labour. Madeleine glared at Glyn, her eyes narrow and hostile. It crossed his mind that if she’
d been a cat he’d be ducking out of the way of spit and claws.
‘So I’m a bit pregnant. What’s it to you?’
‘How much is a bit?’ Kitty hovered between Glyn and Madeleine.
Madeleine shrugged. ‘Six and a half, seven months. Bit more maybe.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘You’ll be a grandmother,’ she said to Kitty. ‘Bet you weren’t expecting that.’
Chapter Eleven
Glyn could see Rita from the bedroom window. He climbed out of bed, stood naked in front of the cool glass and failed entirely to be even slightly aroused at recalling Rita on the rug. He assumed it was because he’d decided that that didn’t count as real sex. He tried to put it on a simple level of shared comfort, intellectually not unlike a six o’clock gin and tonic after a tricky day. Real sex would have involved all the moves for getting closer, possibly a dinner, lots of flirtation, intent and pursuit. There’d been none of that. There was, though, part of him that couldn’t stop guilt from being sieved through the self-justifying, and his bare toes curled with anguish at the thought that Kitty would not see it any way but as an appalling betrayal. He was a man of his age, he thought with depression, nothing more than a silly cliché.
Through the branches of the beech tree that were rocking up and down in the sharpening sea breeze he could see Rita with the wolfhound shambling along beside her, walking quite fast along the lane towards the shop. She and the dog kept looking at each other as they walked, as if they were having a conversation. Glyn wished he was out there too, breathing something fresher and less constricting than the household air. Kitty was already up, down in the kitchen checking out various breakfast options that Madeleine might like, mindful of vitamins and nutrition for the baby.