by Freya North
The sisters exchanged glances; if they couldn't refer to her as their ‘mother’ they certainly couldn't refer to her as their ‘friend’.
‘She wasn't in,’ said Pip, deciding to gloss over the ambiguity by polishing her vowels. ‘Frightful shame.’
‘Frightful shame!’ the waitress repeated, marvelling at the words, not the matter. ‘Well, if you're kicking around today, there's a lot of fun to be had round here. There's the Falls for a start – if you guys like hiking that sure is one pretty place. There's also some quaint villages near by – Hubbardton's Spring and Ridge – just like you see on the postcards, though most of the postcards are taken in the fall so don't go expecting those colours. And if you like to shop, you head over to Manchester – the finest outlet village. Puts New York in the shade, I'll say.’
Cat's glance to her sisters was sufficient to say that she for one rather hoped the house on Emerson would be empty again today. She found herself looking at the waitress's left breast as coffee was replenished. ‘I say,’ she said plummily, ‘I hope you don't think me rude – but yesterday you were Betty, today you're DeeDee.’
The waitress looked at her bosom, as if to check herself who she was. ‘You're right!’ she said cheerily, and busied away to collect the girls' breakfasts from the grill, piping hot and delicious.
After a leisurely breakfast, though coffee was topped up and more pleasantries were exchanged with the waitress, they were no nearer finding if she was DeeDee or Betty. Fen and Cat called goodbye to Betty, Pip called goodbye to DeeDee, all three said see you tomorrow.
‘Bugger Boston,’ Cat remarked as they walked up Main Street, ‘let's just do a day-trip to Manchester. When Betty said “dickny” do you think she meant “DKNY”?’
‘Or do you think we've been mispronouncing the brand?’ Fen challenged and she and Cat laughed in mortification.
‘Ralph Law-rn,’ said Cat.
‘Ralph L'Ren,’ Fen said.
‘Sad thing is, I don't possess a single item from Ralph or Donna,’ said Pip. ‘I'm not what one would call a designer clown.’
‘So let's go to Manchester!’ Cat said.
‘Or we could just catch an earlier—’
‘Hi.’
It was Penny.
Right in front of them.
Sunlight bouncing off her glasses and flashing platinum through her short, silvering hair; her slim, wiry frame appearing to fill the sidewalk. Fen glancing sharply behind herself, as if looking for an escape route; Cat staring at her mother's feet, ten toes with neat nails; Pip stepping forward just slightly but able to raise her eyes only as far as her mother's tiger's-eye pendant.
‘Hi,’ she says again, this time with an awkward shrug. Pip can feel Cat and Fen looking beseechingly at her.
‘Hullo,’ says Pip.
‘Fancy seeing you here,’ Penny says with what would have been a wry smile though her nervousness and the intense sunlight make it appear more of a grimace and a squint.
‘We've just had breakfast,’ Pip says, cringing inwardly. Since planning the trip, she's prepared many a soliloquy and rehearsed varying degrees of acerbic wit and biting truths. Not once has she practised the line ‘We've just had breakfast’.
‘You have plans for today?’ Penny asks, steering clear of the undisputable fact that the girls can only be in Lester Falls on her account.
‘We were going to go to Manchester,’ Cat says shyly, addressing her mother's feet. ‘Shopping.’
‘Nice,’ said Penny, as if this was reason enough to have Lester Falls as their base.
‘Perhaps a walk to the Falls,’ Fen says, glancing over her shoulder again though that's the opposite direction to the Falls.
‘Real pretty,’ Penny says, as if a hike to the Falls could indeed be the sole purpose for crossing the Atlantic to this little town. ‘You could come for lunch,’ she says, ‘if it fits your day?’
The sisters regard each other in silent consultation.
‘Could do,’ says Pip, noting half a nod from Fen and a small shrug from Cat.
‘Good,’ says Penny, wondering what they like to eat. She's never been much of a cook. Never attempted the eccentric fusion cuisine of Django McCabe. ‘You vegetarian or anything?’
‘What – having been brought up by Django?’ Fen says to Penny's sandals – she remembers distinctly they are the same she wore that morning in Derbyshire.
Penny surprises herself by smiling easily. ‘So, shall we say noon? I live on Emerson Street.’ She pauses. ‘But you know that.’
The sisters consider their mother's slightly cryptic allusion.
‘Hey, Penny!’
A young woman, much their own age, has approached and she's smiling at their mother, regarding them quizzically.
‘Oh,’ Penny flusters, and Cat can see that her toes curl slightly, ‘Juliette. Hi.’
‘Haven't seen you for a while,’ Juliette says warmly. ‘How you doing?’
‘Fine,’ says Penny, acutely aware that the last time she saw Juliette was when she stormed away from her, ‘just fine. Real busy.’
‘Oh,’ says Juliette, ‘cool.’
There follows a pause so pregnant Penny fears she is on the verge of bellowing in discomfort. Juliette is looking from the girls to Penny, and back again. Smiling sweetly, genuinely friendly.
‘I'm Juliette,’ she says to the sisters, with a childish little wave. ‘Hi.’
The sisters respond with awkward hand-raising of their own.
‘Pip.’
‘Fen.’
‘Cat.’
‘Well, I gotta go,’ Juliette says, with polite reluctance. ‘Sure was nice to meet you all,’ she smiles at the girls. ‘Don't be a stranger,’ she says to Penny, touching her hand. ‘We miss you.’
And there they stand for a mammoth moment or two longer.
Penny, a woman who feels she has no right to introduce herself as ‘mother’.
And the three sisters who can't yet bring themselves to be known as her daughters.
Pip walked a large, aimless loop. Fen and Cat followed.
‘Christ, are we sure about all of this?’ Fen asked, standing stock still. ‘Isn't it just too bizarre to be having lunch with her? Too quick? Too – I don't know – normal? Too friendly, too accepting?’ Pip sighed as she thought although Fen didn't wait for an answer. ‘I don't know about you two but I don't feel prepared. I've run through so many scenarios in my head these last few days and in all of them, I'm this empowered woman brimming with erudite proclamations and condemnation. But now I feel very, very small.’
Pip looked ahead. ‘Look, we all feel weird – her too, no doubt – but we're here and this is an opportunity and we have to take it, whatever the outcome.’ She paused, tying and retying her pony-tail while she thought. ‘If we don't – if we blow her out – imagine how you'll feel once you've returned home. Jesus – I've said it before, it's not a holiday. It's not a social engagement. It's necessary. It's a summit.’
‘What do we do about Django? Say she asks?’ Fen asked. ‘Are we going to tell her?’ She looked at Cat who appeared lost in thought.
‘I think we avoid lies,’ Pip said, reflecting on it. ‘After so much dishonesty, the plain truth will do. But let's not volunteer information. If she asks directly how he is, then we'll answer directly. Agreed?’
Fen nodded. Pip looked to Cat who was still avoiding eye contact or comment. ‘Cat?’
‘Whatever,’ Cat muttered. ‘I'm not hungry,’ she said, thinking fast that she could find if there was a flight from somewhere to take her to Boulder.
‘That's totally irrelevant and you know it,’ Pip snapped.
‘But we don't know her at all,’ Cat said, cross with Pip for her reaction.
‘What we do know is that she ran away with a cowboy from Denver when we were small,’ said Pip. ‘Here's our chance to find out why.’
In their fantasies, over the years, they'd created an image of their mother that was far from flattering. They'd never quite giv
en her form – a stereotypical warted wicked witch seemed too contrived – but they'd created the world in which she lived. Most damning of all, they'd given her a world with no style. With the cowboy-from-Denver situation always to the fore, they'd positioned their mother in a poor and tacky version of Dynasty. An ostentatious driveway in a boring flat land. A preposterous fountain flanked by disparate figures from antiquity, poorly copied and made from resin. Fake Corinthian columns and disproportionate pediments. White leather sofas. Reproduction furniture with ubiquitous claw-and-ball feet. Lots of gilt. Lots of guilt. Uniformed staff, who all secretly hated her, addressing her as ‘ma'am’. The cowboy himself, laughably repulsive in a rhinestone-encrusted ten-gallon hat; corpulent, porcine and with a gait dictated by gout.
But how reality can let a daydream down. For a start, they had to relocate their fantasy from a dull and nondescript landscape to America's lush and hilly smallest state. Then, on entering Penny's house, the girls were immediately shocked and humbled by the utter contrast to their fantasy. Their sense of control of the situation was compromised. Reality was staring them in the face and they had to swallow hard and meet it eye to eye. No stuffed bison heads. No rifles, crisscrossed, above vulgar stone-clad fireplaces. No white leather anywhere. No staff. Most poignantly: no cowboy. But how they could feel his presence, how noticeable this man was by his absence. The house was tidy and clean, the furniture simple with a slightly dated Scandinavian feel; but no amount of messiness or belongings could change the haunting feeling that this was a lonely house; a place, a space, essentially designed and designated for two.
‘Shall I show you around?’ Penny offered. The four of them had been gathered in the hallway for some time, taking silent interest in each other's footwear whilst practising what to say. ‘We built this house in '74.’
It was the same in every room; the house and its contents seemed to be putting on a brave smile, a bit of a show. Crisp linen, pretty curtains, handmade cushion covers and warmly worn rugs were easy on the eye in a futile bid to keep the solitary sadness from view. Everywhere appeared airy and light but a pervasive sense of melancholy cast metaphorical shadows which were long. Following behind Penny, Pip wondered whether this was their mother's home or her purgatory. Fen thought of their childhood house at Farleymoor; the scamper and warmth there, the welcoming dishevelment, the flow of company; the ring of home. The last room Penny took them to was the sitting-room, with its picture windows presenting a painterly and flawless view to a nicely tended garden rolling gently down to a thatch of trees that swathed its way up to the skirts of the hills beyond.
‘Take a seat,’ Penny said. ‘Can I fix you a coffee? Something soft?’ and she hurried off to the kitchen to compose herself and gaze quietly out of the window at the hire car of her daughters who were currently making themselves comfortable just across the hallway.
Cat stared at the chair. It was truly monstrous, the clumpy wood lacquered until it looked plasticized, embalmed even. She couldn't help but admit to herself that it was the sort of piece that Django would declare marvellous. She turned her attention to other features: the low table in burr oak laden with three neat piles of large-format coffee-table books; framed photographs on the mantel that would need to be seen up close; a large selection of board games piled on the lowest shelves either side of the fireplace; a chess set on an occasional table, its players standing to attention as if a game was imminent. Cat would have liked to peruse the photographs but a perverse desire to appear in Penny's eyes not remotely interested in her life kept her sitting on the sofa, looking at the chair.
‘So,’ said Penny breezily as she came into the room with a tray, ‘here's your juice. I mixed cranberry and apple. And some cookies.’
Everyone sipped awkwardly and nibbled self-consciously.
‘We were looking at the chair,’ Fen said at length. ‘It's – unusual.’
Penny regarded it for a moment. ‘It's revolting,’ she colluded, ‘but it was Bob's most favourite possession. And though I found it easy enough to give all his clothes to the mission without so much as a sentimental sniff to his shirt collars – the chair, well, I just couldn't do it. I had to keep it.’ They all looked at the chair, as if willing it to talk. ‘Try it,’ Penny said to Fen, ‘go ahead.’ Fen glanced at her sisters, then balanced her cookies on the rim of her glass and went over to sit down. ‘Well?’ Penny enquired.
‘It's not designed for my shape,’ Fen said diplomatically.
‘I'm more of an Eames lounger girl,’ said Pip, when Penny gestured for her to try. Cat avoided eye contact.
‘My mother used to say every pot has its lid,’ Penny said, ‘so, perhaps every backside has its chair.’
Pip considered this. Then she thought about their maternal grandmother. ‘When did she die? Your mother?’ she asked.
‘When I was fourteen.’
‘Your father?’ Pip asked.
‘When I was very young.’
‘Do you have any siblings?’ Pip continued to probe.
‘No, I have not.’
‘Any other children?’ Fen asked.
‘No,’ said Penny, ‘I have not.’
‘Stepchildren?’ Pip asked.
‘Nope,’ Penny said, seemingly engrossed in massaging her cuticles, ‘none. That's it. No family left.’
Pip thought to herself that if this was Hollywood, there'd be soaring violins and group hugs to accompany them proclaiming Hey! We're your family! We never stopped loving you! Love means never having to say you're sorry! Oh Mom, it feels like we're home! But the thought held no attraction and she reminded herself that this was not a journey to reconciliation, it was a fact-finding mission.
‘I don't know if I was the lid or the pot,’ Penny was saying, her thumb playing anxiously over her fingertips, ‘but whichever I was, Bob was certainly the other.’
‘We thought you lived in Denver,’ Cat said, speaking for the first time. ‘I lived in Denver for three years. We thought you lived with a cowboy.’
‘Bob?’ Penny looked incredulous. ‘A cowboy?’ She mused this over. ‘I mean, he looked the part, when I first met him, in his blue jeans and his boots and his buckle belts and boot-lace ties. And he was from Denver. But he wouldn't know one end of a horse from the other. He never got close enough anyway, on account of his asthma.’
‘Oh,’ said Cat.
‘All these years you've been thinking I've been living with John Wayne on a ranch out west?’ Penny started to giggle. It was Fen's giggle – Cat and Pip could detect it in an instant and they both glanced automatically from their mother to their sister; intrigued, disturbed. ‘Oh my!’ Penny continued. ‘Would he have loved that.’
‘Was it something to do with asthma?’ Pip asked. ‘How he died?’
‘No my dear, he had cancer,’ said Penny. The sisters looked at their laps and said sorry. And then they privately hoped that Penny wouldn't ask after Django because they didn't want to say the cancer word out loud. They hated saying the word. It was impossible to say it without a hush. And that seemed to dignify the dreadful disease. And anyway, his results weren't in. They didn't want to jinx Django.
Penny had crossed to the mantelpiece and selected a clutch of photographs. She passed them around. They studied the pictures, looked hard at Bob. He did not look anything like they'd imagined. The photos showed a tall, slim man in sensible V-necked sweaters, with a tidy slate-grey beard, round spectacles, silver glinting hair neatly clipped short beneath a smooth, tanned pate. Smiling. Easy, open, attractive smile. In most pictures, his arm was warmly around Penny. He looked normal and nice and Pip was surprised by how easy it was to tell Penny so. Cat wanted to say that he looked nothing like Django but she didn't. She felt slightly offended that there was no physical similarity at all. Instead, she focused on an old photo, from the seventies perhaps, in which Penny could well have been Pip, the same tilt of the head, the identical sparky smile.
‘If he wasn't a cowboy,’ Fen said, ‘what did he do?’
‘We had a business,’ Penny said. ‘We were very good at it. Tubing.’
‘Tubing?’ Fen looked disappointed.
‘Yes,’ Penny confirmed, ‘plastic tubing. Bob Ericsson sure was the king of plastic tubes and components! Now would you look at the time – I'm going to fix our lunch.’
For the first time in their lives, Pip, Fen and Cat did not act like sisters; they did not huddle together to confab and support. They didn't even look at each other. They sat in their own heavy spheres, with thoughts spiralling nearly out of control. It was like having nothing to cling on to after a lifetime of clutching at straws which, when looked down, had opened onto a fantasy world of imaginative exaggeration and convoluted details. All of which had been comforting in their negativity. Yet in the space of an hour, the McCabe sisters had had to let the vulgar cowboy go, and the revolting ranch and the obsequious staff and all the rhinestones with him. Plastic tubes now replaced their hollow straws. They had a face to put to a name and the face was friendly. And though they'd been staring at their mother, noting all the details of her face, computing all her mannerisms, what they could see most vividly was her sadness and loneliness. It was all a bit disconcerting. A great love had been lost, and it was this love which defined this woman – not them. It was clear they never had done. The bluntness of this hurt. But the fact that a great love had existed also gave the protagonists qualities that Pip, Fen, Cat and even Django had spent their lives denying them.
Penny had started to sing. They could hear her. They didn't know the tune. But the sound broke their hermetic isolation from one another.
‘I've just realized – we've probably never asked Django much about her or her cowboy because our family folklore of “Your mother ran off with a cowboy from Denver when you were small” had served as an answer in its own right,’ Pip said. ‘And I suppose we've always held her and the evil cowboy as somehow responsible for our father's death – like they caused the heart failure.’