Serena had had Charlie pulled out of a meeting to read Keith's letter to him over the phone. After an initial grumble, he had responded exactly as she had hoped, expostulating dismay and surprise that Keith should have felt the parallels of the two accidents so keenly and declaring that the poor man should be reassured and employed forthwith. Of the dream, not to mention her growing conviction that it bore a powerful connection to their visit to St George's, Serena made no mention, nor ever would. Charlie might have understood, but she didn't want to risk it. More importantly, she had no need of his understanding. The experience was too private, too perfect… close to indescribable.
Venturing outside after the call, the letter clasped in her hand, she had found Keith sitting on the fallen torso of the oak in the drive, staring into the tangle of broken branches still strewn across the grass.
‘There was no need…’ she began. And then, when he flinched, not looking at her, she had said thank you, and if he could start work that week – that day, even – it would suit them fine.
Keith had tugged his hair, patted his knees, stood up and said that first he needed to see Elizabeth, then tie things up at home. As he trudged back towards his car, a muddy grey Ford, which he had parked at the bend in the lane, Serena had shaken open the pages of his letter and shouted, ‘Look. It's over. While he watched she tore each page into two, four, then six, until the strips were flapping like trapped bunting in her hands.
Keith had grinned. ‘Thank you,’ he called back, his voice cracked and high, as he turned and jogged back towards his car.
Even with such a prelude to his re-employment, the announcement of a wedding – delivered suddenly during the ritual midnight hugs under mistletoe the night before – had come as a tremendous shock to the entire family. Amid the stunned silence that had greeted the news, Elizabeth had whispered, ‘Please be pleased.’ She had fixed her gaze on Keith, taking a step closer to him but keeping a firm grip on Roland, who stood at her side and, from the pleading expression in his brown eyes, had clearly been privy to the news beforehand.
‘Of course we're pleased,’ Charlie had boomed, his rich voice thawing the tableau. Moments later they were all firing questions, chinking glasses and hugging again, energized by goodwill that might have arisen out of duty but quickly grew into something more solid and heartfelt. Keith and Elizabeth, brought to life by its warmth, were soon fielding questions about dates and venues, and brimming with gratitude at Serena and Charlie's insistence that the only place to have even the modest reception they had described was Ashley House. ‘If that's okay with you, Pamela, of course,’ Serena had remembered to add, offering a shy smile at her mother-in-law whom Peter had settled on the sofa with a cup of camomile tea. ‘Oh, I'll be long gone,’ Pamela had replied, waving one heavily braceleted arm at the room. ‘Don't worry about me.’
Serena exchanged a look of mild alarm with Elizabeth, then rushed over to the sofa to insist that they would always worry about her, no matter where she lived. ‘And you will come to the wedding, Mum, won't you?’ Elizabeth had urged. ‘The thirty-first of January – it's all booked, so make sure you put it in your diary.’
‘Charlie and I will take you,’ said Serena brightly.
‘Or I could,’ ventured Peter.
And we'd like to invite Helen,’ continued Elizabeth, in a hushed voice that signified the delicacy of the suggestion, ‘if that's okay with you, Peter?’
‘Of course… Quite right to ask her,’ Peter had stuttered, so obviously not okay that Serena had burned with compassion for him.
‘Do you know what?’ she said now, poking disconsolately at the pile of clothes on the bed. ‘I feel truly sorry for your brother. I never thought I'd say it, but I do. He's so lost and he's trying so hard, it's pitiful. I suppose you never know how strong someone is until they run into trouble.’
‘You certainly don't,’ agreed Charlie, giving her a fond smile, which needed no verbal elaboration. ‘But Peter will be all right. He's bloody good at his job, he earns a bomb, his children still love him. Someone else will snap him up – you'll see. But I'm glad you've softened towards him… All those years of you two not really getting on – I hated it.’
‘I did too.’ Serena was silent for a moment. ‘But I expect you're right. He'll be okay, once the dust has settled. And now, talking of dust…’ She leant across the bed, scooped up the outfits and dropped them on to the floor by the wardrobe. ‘I've decided. I am going to buy something new. A wedding always deserves something new. And I don't care about the sales. There's too much going on in the next couple of weeks as it is, seeing off the girls, giving Ed a hand with his application forms, helping your mother and sister move into their new homes, not to mention plucking the pheasant that Sid will, no doubt, leave on the kitchen doorstep after the New Year's Day shoot…’ She had begun hanging the clothes back in the wardrobe as she talked, patting off specks of dust and shaking out creases. ‘No, I shall go shopping after the sales when it's nice and quiet and I've got time to try on ten things in a row without feeling guilty. And as for money, I shall use that lovely Christmas cheque you gave me.’
‘Ah… the cheque.’
‘Don't you want me to?’
‘No… I mean, yes, by all means.’ Charlie was smiling mysteriously. ‘It's just that I should perhaps confess now that the cheque was written not because your useless husband couldn't think of a proper gift but because the gift wasn't quite ready – in fact, ten days ago I wasn't sure if it was even going to be possible.’
‘And?’ gasped Serena watching him get out of bed and calmly – infuriatingly – unhook his dressing-gown from the back of the bathroom door. ‘Don't stop there – you can't!’ she cried, hurling a pillow at him, which missed and landed at his feet.
‘I can and I shall.’ Charlie tied the cord of his dressing-gown loosely round his waist and tapped his nose. ‘Prepare to be surprised – and soon. You have been warned.’ He made a run for the bathroom, closing the door against another pillow, more accurately lobbed this time.
On the top floor of the house Maisie, Clem and Ed continued to sleep, stirred neither by the faint sweet smell of frying pancakes nor the orchestral creak of floorboards and gurgling waterpipes triggered by Keith and Elizabeth taking it in turns to visit the bathroom.
‘We should get dressed.’
‘Not yet. Come here.’ Elizabeth had scrambled back into bed and lifted the duvet. ‘Just for a bit.’
Keith, already in his shirt and boxers, tunnelled in next to her and pulled the covers over their heads like a tent. ‘Just for a bit, then. They're all getting up downstairs. Someone's cooking breakfast. Wouldn't want them thinking we're up to anything.’
Elizabeth giggled. ‘Why not? We're grown-ups and we're getting married. We're allowed to be up to something.’ She nibbled his shoulder and snuggled closer. ‘Cassie moves into her cottage this week so you can have the barn.’
‘Trying to get rid of me already, eh?
‘Silly – just for three weeks, like we agreed… like a proper bride and groom. All that grime from you doing up the loft for Roland – you'll be well out of it. He's so thrilled by the way.’
‘It was the least I could do. Sending me that advert – the cheeky sod.’
‘He's very clever, very special, and he likes you.’
‘I like him.’
‘Keith?’
‘Yes?’
Elizabeth hesitated. She had been going to say that she wished she had seen what he had written to Charlie and Serena. She did wish it, but not, she perceived suddenly, for any reason other than curiosity. All that mattered was that Keith had found the courage to overcome his shame, to forgive himself sufficiently to let her share his life.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’
‘I'm scared about meeting your boys.’
‘Don't be. It'll be fine, you'll see. I'll make Roland's old room as nice as I can, but not push them into staying until they feel ready. One step at a time, eh? We'll feel our way
along… together.’
Inspired by the warm darkness of the bedclothes over their heads they had been talking in whispers. They fell silent now and held each other instead, both in awe of the complicated path that had brought them together and the simple, obvious route that lay ahead.
Jessica pushed the pram quickly along the narrow stretch of pavement skirting St Margaret's, then ducked down the lane past the church. By the time she crossed the village green, she was walking so fast and the ground was so uneven that Gemma, rolling about under her blanket in her pink hat, mouth plugged with her pink plastic dummy, looked more like a doll than a baby. She was enjoying herself, though, Jessica could tell, from the way she kept her eyes closed and chomped on the dummy, like she was dreaming of a feed. She only ever seemed really peaceful when she was on the move, pressed to Jessica's chest in her sling, parked in her baby-carrier on the bus, or on the train journey down from London, the day before, when she had slept the whole way, rocked by the rhythm of the engine and the rattling of the carriage against the track. It was when the world went still that Gemma cried. Sometimes, jigging the pram in a trance of fatigue during the night, Jessica wondered if she had given birth to something only capable of contentment when she was, in some sense, in flight.
Having broached the subject with the midwife, who called round in the days after Gemma's three-week stay in hospital, she had been told to give it time and that after so many months of bobbing around in the womb all newborns were partial to a bit of jigging. When the health visitor took over and Jessica asked how come she was so good at stopping the bawling – dangling Gemma in that clever way over her forearm or perching her on one of her plump shoulders – the woman had laughed, looking pleased, and said that getting old wasn't any good unless you got wiser with it. They were keeping a beady eye on her as well as the baby, though, Jessica knew, which was why she made sure the flat was as neat as a pin and said nothing about her Mum staying on in Spain or how she had had no idea that you could love something and want to throttle it too.
There was no one on the green and nothing at the little playground but a glove, lying forgotten on the bench, and an empty plastic bag, flapping like a trapped bird under the skirt of the roundabout. With Gemma so small, so many months off being able to sit up and play, there was no reason to bring her there except as a place to come – a destination – away from her granddad's snores and the poky cottage. He had been pleased enough when Jessica phoned to say they were coming. He had even held Gemma a couple of times, puckering his bristly lips and cooing nonsense, but at the first whimper he'd handed her back, sucking his teeth and saying he had stuff to do, which seemed to mean nodding off in front of the telly or going down the road for a pint. He didn't have much to say about her mum staying on in Spain with Stan either, just shaken his head and made a growling sound, like he disapproved but didn't think it worth saying so.
As Jessica got out her cigarettes and lighter, a sharp wind gusted across the green, almost like it had been waiting to pounce when it would be least welcome. After working the lighter till her fingers were raw and tears of frustration pricking her eyes, she stomped off towards a nearby clump of trees, leaving the pram and her handbag by the bench. It was much nicer by the trees. With her face pressed close to the trunk of the fattest one, her hands cupped round the precious little yellow flame, she lit the cigarette. Then she leant against the tree as she inhaled, smelling the mulchy scent of the bark and tipping her chin up so that all she could see was the mesh of black branches overhead, criss-crossing the sky like cracks in concrete. Giddy after a while, from the smoke and looking up, she stared through the trees at the green's little pond instead, where she'd once swum for a dare as a kid and got a nosebleed from the shock of the cold. Its surface was choppy from the wind, and empty, apart from a lone brown duck, bobbing along like a cork and swivelling its head, like it was as wary as her of being seen.
She was so absorbed in the sense of being alone that it was a shock to turn and see a woman by the bench, peering into the pram. She was wearing a long brown overcoat and a cream silk scarf with long ends that kept flapping across her face. Jessica, reluctant to approach but fearing for her handbag, walked slowly back across the grass, tucking her chin behind the zip on her anorak.
‘Hello,’ said Cassie, guiltily, as she straightened. ‘I thought it was you. We didn't know you were down – Sid never said.'
‘I told him not to, didn't I? I'm not staying long.’
‘Just showing him his granddaughter, are you? It's Gemma, isn't it?’ Cassie stooped over the pram again, her face softening.
‘She's beautiful, Jessica, really beautiful.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Serena told me you'd quite a time of it… I'm so glad you're both –’
Jessica pushed past her and seized the handle of the pram, so roughly that Gemma, who had been stirring, popped her eyes open and then, after a glance at the two faces, whimpered. ‘We've got to go.’
‘I've moved into the village,’ continued Cassie, ‘the grey cottage next to the rectory – do you know the one?’
Jessica nodded. She tried to push the pram but had forgotten the brake was on. It lurched and Gemma began to cry properly.
‘I just wanted to say – mean, I know it's difficult, the whole situation, but if ever there's –’
‘Look, I don't want anything from you lot, okay?’ Jessica stamped on the brake pedal to release it. ‘Neither does she. We're not animals in a fucking zoo, you know, for you Harrisons to gawp at when you're not too busy having your fancy get-togethers.’
‘I'm not getting married any more,’ said Cassie, quietly, driven by something like pity. ‘My sister is, though, which is sort of unexpected, but I don't think it's going to be at all fancy.’
‘Like I'm interested,’ Jessica muttered, but not moving away.
‘Could I pick her up?’ said Cassie next. ‘I'll keep the blanket round her so she won't get cold.’
‘I don't think so – she needs her bottle.’ But Cassie already had her hands in the pram and was scooping the bundle into her arms. The dummy fell out and landed on a clump of muddy grass. ‘Great! Now she really will bawl her head off,’ snapped Jessica, bending down to pick it up and dropping it into her handbag.
Cassie was cradling and murmuring to the baby, stroking her cheeks with her fingertips, telling her she was beautiful and precious.
‘Give her back, okay? Just give her back.’ Jessica had meant to sound cross and in control but the words came out as a screech. ‘Fucking give her back!’
Dismayed and astonished in equal measure, Cassie handed the baby to her at once. ‘I'm sorry, Jessica, I was only – I never meant –’
Jessica managed not to cry until she was almost at the pond. The pram bumped furiously all the way, its wheels sticking on grass and in the mud, which got thicker and stickier the closer they got to the water's edge. It was only then that she dared to look back, letting out a groan of relief when she saw that the green and its miserable little playground were as empty as when she had arrived. ‘Stupid cow,’ she yelled, though the words died on her lips, almost as if they knew there was no real force behind them. She glared at Gemma, who had somehow got her pink bonnet half over her face and who, with sickening predictability, had started to cry again the moment the pram had stopped. ‘How come you don't squawk for anyone else?’ she shouted, shaking the pram. ‘How come they all think you're so fucking precious? How come you don't seem that way to me? How the fuck am I ever going to have a life again?’ Jessica shook the pram harder, pushing it forwards so that the wheels were at the edge of the pond. Close to, the water was dark and more crinkled than ever from the chivvying of the wind. Jessica stared into it with unblinking eyes, seeing with sudden lucidity the awful repeating treadmill of her life: unplanned – unwanted – by her mum, and here she was with her own unplanned squawking kid, fucking it up just as Maureen had done, resentment stifling anything that might have been good.
The
water was lapping at the wheels of the pram now, making funny smacking sounds, like wet kisses. Jessica thought of Ed's granny, who had been rescued, and the writer woman with stones in her pockets, who hadn't. Life was such a fight – every day, all the time; Gemma, with all her screaming, seemed to understand that. She looked again at her daughter. The pink hat was still half over her eyes, but she had gone still and quiet, like she knew they were on the edge of something and was doing her best to behave.
That afternoon Serena called at Rectory Cottage to pick Cassie up for a visit to Crayshott Manor. Pamela had phoned the night before to issue the invitation, which, though welcome, had been delivered in a manner that did not allow refusal or negotiation of days and times.
Serena found her sister-in-law clutching a hammer and a duster, staring rather wildly at half-empty cardboard boxes and piles of books and pictures.
‘It's smaller than it looks, this place… and no obvious niches for anything. I'm resigned to being a spinster for the rest of my life, but I could really do with someone to hold up pictures in different spaces, then bang a nail in straight.’
The Simple Rules of Love Page 57