Good Girls

by Amanda Brookfield

  There was a moment’s silence while they both considered the virtues of the twenty-three-year-old who, during the course of the year, had developed from an ad-hoc babysitter into a full-time nanny. Through the worsening personal difficulties of her employers, she had continued to chivvy the three children through home and school routines with the cheery deftness of a sheepdog, somehow managing to do most of the household chores as she went. Watching the achievement had reinforced Eleanor’s sense of helplessness and ineptitude. A round trip to the super-sized supermarket the day before had taken her three hours, and even then she had managed to return without milk.

  What she found hardest of all was watching her nephew and nieces, continuing to function as their world unravelled. It was like observing innocents playing on a beach with their backs to an approaching tsunami. Didn’t they see what was coming? It made a dim, deep part of her want to scoop them up and run for the hills.

  And maybe the children saw the terror in their aunt’s eyes because, in spite of her persistent efforts, they showed no let-up in a united determination to keep her at arm’s length. Luke always had a screen at the ready – iPhone, tablet, laptop – an escape portal to dive into at the slightest pretext; while Sophie hung off the long-suffering Hannah like a vine, throwing tantrums at anyone who tried to intervene, especially if it was her little sister. Evie, meanwhile, was the one Eleanor found hardest to reach of all. Silent and impassive, even in the face of her big sister’s histrionics, the seven-year-old’s small earnest green eyes peeped out through her thatch of wild yellow-blonde hair like an animal monitoring the world from a lair. There was an intensity to the child, a fierce determination to stay separate, that tore at Eleanor’s heart.

  ‘There’s a pie for supper,’ Howard said dully. ‘Ham and chicken. Hannah made it.’ He had taken off the spotty tie and was winding it round his knuckles like a tourniquet. ‘She’s eaten early and gone to her room. Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eleanor lied, because going through the motions had to be managed, the very least any of them could do.

  ‘Thanks for being here, Eleanor,’ Howard blurted miserably. ‘All your support over these last months… I know she’s not the easiest patient, particularly as you and she… well, you’ve never been exactly close. But, in spite of that, I hope you realise that she does… she does…’ He wiped his mouth.

  ‘I know she does.’ Eleanor busily set about gathering up her Trevor notes, patting the sides to bring stray sheets into line. Did her sister in fact love her? It was difficult to believe. Howard was wrong, of course. She and Kat had once been close, that was what made it so hard. The whorls of Nick’s last email were still poking out of the shredder. Bewitched, he had described himself. Whereas she was trusting and straightforward. Christ. Talk about curiosity blowing up the bloody cat.

  ‘You all right, Eleanor? You look tired.’ Howard was still hovering, still needing something she couldn’t give.

  ‘I’m fine. As fine as we all are.’ The email might have been pulped, but Nick’s words were still reverberating inside her head, the simple truth of them. He had fallen in love with her sister. There was no one to blame, least of all Kat. Eleanor marvelled that it should have taken her two decades to see this properly. No one stole anybody. Love happened.

  ‘So you’ll go up to her before we eat?’ Their eyes met for an instant, enough for Eleanor to see the gleam of her brother-in-law’s fear, to know that it was a plea for help rather than a question.

  ‘Of course. In a minute. I’ll just finish clearing up here first.’ She fiddled at the desk, aligning pencils and papers, aware of Howard drifting deeper into the room. He paused at the tailor’s dummy, patting its lilac shoulder as if it were an old friend.

  ‘And whenever you need to go back to London, for your work… or whatever… just say, because…’ His voice tightened as he talked. ‘Because, after all, we don’t know how long she…’

  Eleanor looked up to see that he had fallen against the mannequin, burying his face in its stiff pleats. ‘Howard…’ She hurried to his side and put her arms round him, aware as she did so of her own greater height. Her brother-in-law was lithe and compact, but several inches shy of six foot. He turned, sobbing quietly, into her shoulder. ‘I am not going anywhere just yet,’ she soothed, stroking his back.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It will be okay,’ Eleanor added, but only because he needed to hear it.

  ‘Yup.’ He pulled free, appearing smaller still. ‘Somehow it will.’ He tried to conjure a smile, tearing at his lower lip with his teeth. ‘This just wasn’t the plan, you know? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go for Kat and me.’

  Eleanor managed a rueful grin in return. ‘But then life never is quite the plan, is it?’ Nick gusted into her mind again, the Nick she had glimpsed in the correspondence that year, the one who loved seeking answers and ideas; the one who was funny and bold. ‘I’ll go up to her now. Then we’ll eat.’

  ‘Peas okay?’

  ‘Peas?’

  ‘Peas with the pie?’

  ‘Oh yes. Whatever.’

  Luke slipped out of the spare room as Eleanor rounded the bend in the corridor. It was a rule that the children could go into their mother whenever they wanted, unless specifically instructed otherwise. Seeing his aunt, he took off in the opposite direction, moving in that skulking way that Eleanor noticed in so many teenagers, as if they were trying to glide unnoticed through life, disassociate themselves from their own bodies.

  The spare room had developed its own distinct smell, medicinal, floral. Howard brought fresh flowers every few days from the station, vast bunches, invariably involving lilies because they were Kat’s favourite. Eleanor had once idly calculated what he must have spent since January, arriving at a figure that would have paid several months’ rent on her Clapham flat.

  Kat was on her back, her head raised by two pillows, her petite frame pitifully narrow beneath the covers, her cheeks flushed. Even so, suffering and illness had hardened the beauty of her face, drawing out the bones, accentuating the icy edge of her impossibly large blue eyes. She started talking the moment Eleanor entered, in staccato bursts, licking her lips between sentences. ‘Do you know that Debra Winger film? Ordinary People. Do you remember? The kids all troop in to say goodbye. She tells the boy it is okay to hate her, but that later he will regret the hating. Howard and I watched it all cosy together one night years ago. Wept buckets, both of us. But it’s not like that. It’s not like you imagine. Luke doesn’t hate me. He wants me well, which is much, much worse.’ She plucked feebly at the bedsheet. Her fingers were so small and white as bone.

  Eleanor stroked them, her mouth dry with pity. As usual, all the things she wanted to say had deserted her the moment she entered the room. There was talk of a hospice, but not yet, Howard insisted. Not till Kat said she was ready. All the business with Nick couldn’t have seemed more pointless. Who cared what he, Kat or any of them had thought or done two decades before? It was the now that mattered. Kat still being alive. ‘I remember that film,’ she said eagerly. ‘A real tear-jerker. In fact it annoyed me. I felt manipulated.’

  Kat half closed her eyes, murmuring something.

  Eleanor leant closer. ‘Say again. I didn’t hear…’

  ‘I said that’s typical of you…’ She spat the words, causing Eleanor to jerk upright, and then blinked furiously as if it was an unwelcome struggle even to get her sister into proper focus, ‘…applying critical faculties, not wanting to be manipulated… not letting anything go… wanting control. And you’re losing weight,’ she went on accusingly, adding in a gleeful croak, ‘the big sister shrinks at last.’

  ‘Yes… I…’ Eleanor glanced self-consciously down at her jeans, hanging ever more loosely off her hips as the weeks passed. Inwardly, she was still reeling. If anything, Kat’s hostility had grown worse over the months of her illness; a hostility that stung all the more for being reserved just for her. But then, when had Kat ever made anything bet
ween them easy. She did her best to shoot her little sister a smile that was regretful instead of bruised. ‘All my clothes are falling off me, it’s true. Maybe I could borrow a belt?’

  ‘Be my guest.’ Kat raised a tremulous finger in the direction of the wall of wardrobes on the far side of the room.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll take a look in a minute. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fucking awful, thank you.’

  ‘Is there anything…’ Eleanor broke off as Kat convulsed suddenly, bending her knees to her stomach and screwing up her eyes. Eleanor gripped her hand, wretched and helpless, as a tremor moved up and over the wasted body, as visible as a breaking wave. ‘Kat… darling Kat.’ Eleanor tried to stroke her cheek, but Kat rolled her head from side to side. A moment later she fell still, releasing short sharp breaths through her nose. Eleanor laid the back of her hand against her forehead. The skin was hot and sticky. ‘Is the morphine not enough?’

  Kat’s eyes flew open to deliver a withering look. ‘I don’t mind pain. I’ve always been good with pain. It’s something… real…’ She grimaced. ‘Something to push against. Easier than other things.’ She seemed to hold her breath and then relax. Her gaze grew more distant, then slowly her eyes closed and peace flooded her features, smoothing them.

  Instants later she appeared to have fallen asleep, her lips slightly apart, each breath floating from between them with the soft evenness of a baby. Eleanor stayed by the bed, holding out against the urge to flee to the kitchen and eat peas and pie with Howard. They would drink wine. She would get drunk. With Howard. That was all she wanted to do.

  ‘Go and eat,’ Kat growled.

  Eleanor stayed where she was. Tears had started tracking down her cheeks and she felt powerless to do anything about them. They flowed steadily, as if a tap inside her had turned and stuck fast. The rest of her was curiously calm, the sort of calmness that comes with giving up. ‘You don’t like me, Kat. I wish you liked me. I don’t understand.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘That time I came, after your operation, back in January, did you make me help write back to Nick because you wanted to hurt me?’

  Kat swivelled her head, alert in an instant, the incredulity in her translucent blue eyes unmistakeable. ‘Nick the limpet? Oh Jesus, this is all I need. Why,’ she added suddenly, her gaze sharpening, ‘has he written again?’

  ‘No.’ Eleanor flung the lie out. The tears were still streaming out of her, emptying her. She had run out of patience, of compassion, of everything. ‘I love you so much. Why don’t you like me?’

  ‘Oh just go and eat,’ Kat croaked. ‘Howard will be waiting.’

  Eleanor didn’t move. ‘On the beach that day, with Mrs Owens. You knotted her laces, do you remember? And then we paddled. We held hands. And Mum,’ Eleanor was sobbing now, ‘you’ve never talked about her, you never—’

  ‘She was a useless mother, that’s why,’ Kat interjected in a cold brittle voice Eleanor had never heard before. ‘She was a drunk who killed herself. She left us when she didn’t need to. You and me. She left her children, whereas I… I… me… with this fucking… thing… I would stay for mine if I could. Luke, Sophie, Evie… I would stay. I would give anything, Ellie… anything. But I can’t.’

  ‘Oh Kat,’ Eleanor whispered.

  ‘I’ve told Howard – I’ve told him…’ Kat was speaking through a clenched jaw now, forcing the words out. ‘When this is over – I don’t want to be anywhere near her. I want to be burnt and scattered. In the garden. By the tree with the swing. Howard knows. Howard understands.’

  Eleanor was stroking her arm and Kat didn’t resist, though she turned her face to the wall. Eleanor made shushing sounds. Her tears had vanished. She wished she could retract everything, her own stupidity most of all. Already it seemed ridiculous ever to have minded for one second how Kat treated her, how difficult she was, how distant or aggressive. All of it was nothing compared to what her sister was going through. A part of her ached to offer flimsy consolations – that their mother’s death could have been an accident – but she feared Kat would scoff and get vexed, and only suffer more. Instead, she said shush again and tenderly placed a kiss on her arm.

  ‘And Dad only ever really loved her anyway,’ Kat murmured, rolling her head to look at Eleanor properly at last, her big eyes cloudy. ‘She was the one he always wanted most. Not us. Not you. Not me…’

  Eleanor tutted softly, while in a corner of her mind a memory fluttered. The slither of a view into her parents’ bedroom. Her father’s trousers loose. Her mother pinned under him. ‘Now that’s just nonsense,’ she murmured to Kat, ‘you were always Dad’s favourite. For all the aggro, he loved you best.’

  Hearing a shuffling noise behind her, she turned to see Evie at the door. Her niece was half in and half out, hanging off the handle.

  ‘Mummy.’ She spoke in a whisper, but Kat replied at once in a firm voice.

  ‘Come here, darling. Come here and give me a kiss and a hug. A huge one please.’

  Evie flew across the room on the balls of her feet, brushing past Eleanor as she clambered nimbly onto the bed, choosing that side as they all did because it was the one without the morphine drip.

  ‘Dear doodle,’ Kat murmured, stretching out the arm for Evie to nestle under. ‘Not for long because Mummy is tired tonight. Boring Mummy, always tired.’

  Eleanor stood tensely, not knowing whether to stay or go, feeling like the intruder she was. After a few moments, remembering the offer of the belt, she backed away and opened the nearest door in the wall of wardrobes. The clothes, bunched on their hangers, stirred like people shifting their weight in a queue. Eleanor ran her fingers over the materials, most of them Kat’s creations, silks and satins in electric colours, trimmed or trailing snippets of lace and gauze and velvet.

  A faint scent floated out from between their folds, chalky sweet, the smell of the past. On the inside of the wardrobe door several silk scarves hung over a loop of gold braid, along with a couple of belts, one thin and white, the other much wider, of soft tanned leather. Eleanor pulled out the leather one and threaded it through the waistband of her jeans. It had a brass buckle that snapped shut with a click.

  ‘Mummy said I could,’ she explained quickly, noticing her niece’s arrival at her side, her flinty green eyes that were so like Howard’s narrowed in disapproval.

  ‘She’s gone to sleep,’ Evie retorted, throwing a scowl in the direction of the bed.

  ‘Would you like a story?’ Eleanor put the question tentatively, such suggestions invariably meeting with rejection. ‘You could lie in your bed and I would read it to you. Anything you like.’

  Evie sighed. ‘Just one then.’ She turned and traipsed out of the room, clearly resigned to the knowledge that her aunt would follow.

  A few minutes later they were settled on Evie’s pink wooden bed reading a tale about a rag doll joining a circus. The book was slim, dog-eared, clearly an old favourite. Eleanor sat up with her back against the headboard and Evie lay alongside her, but awkwardly, the stiffness in her small body shouting reluctance. The story was repetitive, not that well-written. Eleanor read carefully, making each line as interesting as she could. As the minutes passed, she became aware of the mild soapy scent of her niece filling her nose, and the thickening of the child’s breathing as she nestled closer, growing sleepy. It brought memories drifting into the fringes of her mind, of Jeremy Fisher and the big fish, of Kat’s cold feet digging for warmth under her calves…

  ‘Oi, you’re holding me too hard…’ Evie squirmed upright, all elbows and knees.

  ‘Sorry… sorry… I was just…’

  Her niece shuffled into a cross-legged position on the end of the bed, maintaining a safe distance, eyeing Eleanor gravely. ‘It’s okay. Daddy does it sometimes. He doesn’t know his own strength, Mummy says.’

  ‘Doesn’t he? Right.’ It was a relief to glance across the room and see Howard in the doorway, miming despair about a near-ruined meal.


  He took over to tuck Evie up, patiently following a series of comically precise commands about saying goodnight to various soft toys propped on shelves around the room and how many inches wide to leave the door open. Eleanor waited in the passageway, the smell of her niece still on her skin, mulling over how childhood was childhood, no matter how one filled in the colours.

  When Howard emerged, she rolled her eyes, smiling kindly, wanting him to know that she thought he was the most tremendous dad. When his expression imploded, she wondered for a moment if he was ill. Instead, seizing her elbow, he propelled her along to the landing, explaining in low hurried sentences that he had found Kat collapsed on the bedroom floor and both their doctor and an ambulance were on the way.

  19

  2013 – Cape Town

  Nick waved a fly off the plate of uncooked steak and rummaged at the burning coals with the barbecue fork. Their undersides were ash-white, almost ready for cooking. Away from the barbecue, it was almost chilly, one of the evening winds having picked up. He thought with a start of guilt about the loose window shutter, but then remembered he had fixed it months before. On the day Kat said their emails had to stop. A grey July day he would never forget. And now it was December. A sudden gust whipped at the fire. Nick blinked as a scattering of hot ash-dust blew upwards. Wind or no wind, Donna would want to stick with her plan of eating outside and he knew better than to suggest otherwise.

  A few yards away, in the alcove facing the pool, she had laid out the usual extravagant array of salads on their big outdoor table: green leaves and yellow peppers in a blue dish; farfalle pasta, tomatoes and basil in a yellow dish; a creamy potato salad in a red dish. Nick sighed. These three would already have been far too much. Both the girls were at party sleepovers. The only people coming were Donna’s parents and their nearest neighbours, Mike and Lindy Scammell. What’s more, the steaks were rib-eyes the size of books, and Donna ate sparsely, with great attention to her calorific intake. Yet Nick knew there were two further vast side dishes being prepared, one containing cucumber, sweetcorn and tuna, and the other a dense concoction of pulses that he could tell at a glance he wouldn’t like.