‘You ought to have a dog.’
‘Don’t change the subject. When are you going to meet Nat’s girlfriend?’
Emmy said unhappily, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Fix a meeting. Fix it with her, not him.’
‘Can’t.’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘Please don’t bully me, Aunt Prue.’
‘Do it. You’ll thank me.’
Emmy tried another deflection. She said, ‘I’ve got a new friend. Actually.’
‘Ah,’ Prue said. ‘A man or a woman?’
‘A woman. Mallory Masson. Tyler’s daughter. We kind of got together at the last minute, just before she went back to New York. But we Skype. Or FaceTime. She wants me to go over.’
‘To New York?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you should go. I first went to New York when I was younger than you, and it was astounding. Formative.’
‘Mm,’ Emmy said.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that I had a weird conversation in Mum’s house about it. She was trying to stop Tyler offering to pay for my airfare, as far as I could see. I certainly don’t want a single penny from him. I think he got over-excited about me and Mallory being friends, or something.’
‘Let me get this clear,’ Prue said. ‘Your mother’s fiancé – yes, I’m afraid that’s what he technically is, however much you dislike it – offered to pay your airfare to New York to see his daughter?’
‘Sort of. I couldn’t quite work it out. Maybe he’s come into some money, or something. Maybe it was just an impulse. Whatever it was, Mum didn’t want him to say any more.’
There was a silence from Prue’s end of the conversation.
‘Are you there?’ Emmy said.
‘I think,’ Prue said in a tone of renewed briskness, ‘that I had better talk to your mother again.’
‘It’s all we do, isn’t it, talk and talk and analyse and discuss—’
‘No,’ Prue said, interrupting. ‘No. We act. Or at least, some of us do. And you are going to act now, Emmy. You are going to make a plan to meet Nat’s girlfriend, and you are going to do it now.’
*
‘I don’t think,’ Jack said severely to Rose, ‘that you are a good granny.’
She looked immediately stricken.
‘Oh, darling.’
‘I mean,’ Jack went on, pursuing his advantage, ‘some people at my school get collected by their grannies every day.’
‘Yes,’ Rose said, chastened.
‘And I don’t think you’ve been to my school since I was three.’
Rose took a deep breath. She held a copy of Gangsta Granny that Jack had insisted he wanted as a bedtime story, and had then, because of his constant interruptions, not listened to.
‘I don’t think you want me to read this book to you, do you? Would you like another book or do you just want to criticize me?’
He regarded her, sitting up in bed in his Kylo Ren pyjamas, his hair still damp from the bath.
‘What’s criticize?’
‘It means,’ Rose said, ‘in your case, finding something wrong with me.’
‘Well,’ Jack said, spreading his hands wide, ‘where have you been?’
Rose put the book down on Jack’s duvet.
‘I’ve been taking some time, darling, to do things just for myself. Doing what I want to do.’
‘And have you finished now?’
She smiled at him.
‘Isn’t it enough that I’m here now? That I came to see you and Adam and gave you your bath?’
‘I don’t like having a bath with Adam. Sometimes he pees in the bath, you know.’
‘I expect you did too, darling.’
‘A lot,’ Laura said from the doorway. ‘Remember? Adam’s asleep. He’s brilliant at it. Put him down, thumb in, eyes closed, flip over onto his knees, bingo, gone.’
‘I bet he doesn’t have many things to think about,’ said Jack.
‘Unlike you, darling?’
Jack nodded soberly. Laura came into the room and bent over him in a tucking-in manner.
‘I’m taking Grandma Rose downstairs now.’
‘But she didn’t even read me one page.’
‘Because you didn’t let her. We are now going to test you to see if you can stay in bed and go to sleep on your own.’
Jack said, ‘When I’m five.’
‘No,’ Laura said, ‘before that. When you are still four.’
Rose got up and stood looking down at Jack.
‘If you can’t, darling, I’ll—’
‘He can, Mum,’ Laura said firmly. ‘He can. He just has to make himself.’
Rose bent to kiss him and he lurched up to cling round her neck with sudden vehemence. Then he subsided back onto his pillow and turned on his side.
‘By the way,’ Jack said, his face to his bedroom wall, ‘I don’t like that lumpy blue thing on your hand.’
*
‘Wine?’ Laura said to her mother, holding up a bottle by the fridge.
Rose shook her head. Laura put the bottle back in the fridge and extracted a filter jug of water instead.
‘This is so rare,’ Laura said, opening cupboards in search of tumblers, ‘Angus out and me in. D’you mind pasta? I haven’t been shopping this week – or, more truthfully, Angus hasn’t been shopping. Goodness knows what Justine gives the kids although, being Belgian, she can cook and is really inventive. I wonder why English girls seem to pride themselves on not cooking? I mean, I’m not half the cook Angus is and I practically boast about it.’
‘Perhaps you wouldn’t,’ Rose said carefully, ‘if you didn’t earn more than he does.’
Laura clattered ice cubes out of the front of the fridge door and dropped them into two glasses.
‘Probably not,’ she said, untroubled. Rose watched her pour water on top of the ice cubes and decided not to suggest a slice of lemon as well. Laura held a tumbler out to her.
‘Cheers, Mum.’
Rose took the glass. ‘Cheers, darling.’
‘And whatever Jack says, I think that’s a very pretty ring.’
Rose made a huge effort not to glance at her left hand. ‘I can’t quite get used to wearing it.’
‘No.’
‘Will you be honest with me?’ Rose said. ‘Will you tell me frankly what you feel about me wearing an engagement ring?’
Laura smiled at her. ‘Fine.’
‘Really? Really fine?’
‘Mum,’ Laura said, ‘he’s a nice guy. And he makes you happy. Both of those things make a ring from him to you fine by me.’ She crossed the kitchen to a row of tall jars lined up on a metal shelf. ‘It really will have to be pasta, Mum.’
Rose said politely, ‘I like pasta.’
Laura took down a jar of farfalle and held it against her. She said, in a different tone, ‘Mum . . .’
Rose took a swallow of water. ‘Yes.’
‘Ring fine,’ Laura said, cradling the jar, ‘Tyler fine. Situation fine in general. But what is all this about selling the house and buying a cottage?’
Rose traced a pattern on the nearest countertop with her forefinger.
‘It’s – nothing settled. It’s just an idea.’
‘Really? I heard you went to look at a cottage somewhere. I heard you were going to give Nat some money so that he and his new hottie can have an exclusive little love nest mortgage free.’
Rose looked up. ‘Laura! You sound quite heated.’
‘I am,’ Laura said. She banged the pasta jar down on the central table. ‘I am.’
Rose moved towards her. ‘Darling, you never get worked up!’
‘Well,’ Laura said, staring down at the pasta jar, ‘I am now.’
‘Look,’ Rose said, coming nearer and trying to put her arms round her daughter, ‘if I decide to sell the mews – if – you three would get exactly the same amount; it would be completely fair, I would just divide two thirds of the profit three ways.’
Rose gazed at her. Laura stepped back so that her mother couldn’t reach her.
‘It’s not that,’ Laura said furiously. ‘It’s got nothing to do with fairness or sibling competitiveness or anything. It’s – oh God, Mum, it’s just that you shouldn’t be doing it at all.’
‘But I thought,’ Rose said in bewilderment, ‘that you liked him, that you thought he was good for me.’
‘I did. I do. But you’ve got to keep your money as your money.’
‘He isn’t interested in money. In fact, he was the one who suggested I should give you three—’
‘Mother!’ Laura shouted again.
The kitchen door opened. Jack stood there, his hand grasping the knob. ‘You’re making a lot of noise,’ he said.
Laura said nothing. Rose crossed the kitchen and took his hand. She said firmly, ‘I’m taking you back to bed.’
‘No!’
Laura looked up. She said in her usual voice, ‘Do what Grandma Rose says. And do not get out of bed again.’ She picked up the pasta jar and began to carry it back across the kitchen. ‘I can’t cook this, Mum. Not even pasta. I’m going to ring for a takeaway. Indian OK by you, or would you rather have Chinese?’
Rose stood in the doorway, holding Jack’s hand. Then she bent and lifted him into her arms.
‘Either,’ she said. ‘Honestly.’
‘Mum,’ Laura said.
Rose waited, holding the weight of Jack clumsily against her.
‘I’m not cross,’ Laura said. ‘I’m not cross with you. I’m just . . .’ She paused and pushed the back of her wrist up against her nose. ‘I’m just frightened for you, Mum. That’s all.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was Jess who did the telephoning, in the end. She sent Emmy a text which read, ‘Hi, this is Jess. Time we met!’ and then, the next day, she rang while Emmy was on her lunch break in the Strand and looking at an off-the-shoulder top in Topshop
‘I can’t hear you,’ Emmy said, putting the top back on the rail, where it immediately slipped from its hanger and fell to the floor. Rose, she knew, would have expected her to bend and retrieve it, and put it back on the hanger.
‘Go somewhere quieter then,’ Jess said.
‘I’ll ring you back.’
‘Straight back. I’ve got a rehearsal.’
It struck Emmy that she could retort, ‘And I have work,’ but she said nothing. She stooped and picked up the top and slung it across the dress rail, ignoring Rose’s voice in her head telling her to put it back on the hanger. Then she went out of the shop, and crossed the Strand to find the relative peace of the courtyard round the crypt entrance to St Martin-in-the-Fields.
‘Hi there,’ Jess said, answering her phone at once. She sounded warm and friendly. ‘I should have rung before. We should have met.’
Emmy leaned against a set of ornate iron railings and thought of Mallory.
‘We should.’
‘Well, now we can.’
‘OK.’
‘Without Nat. Don’t you think?’
‘OK,’ Emmy said again. Mallory had said, ‘You’ll like her. You can’t not like her. She’s a lovely person, kind of confident, you know, but not arrogant. Don’t set your face against liking her just because of your brother.’
Emmy had said, ‘You don’t know about being a twin unless you are one,’ and Mallory had done her thing of leaning right up close to the screen and saying ‘Blah, blah, blah’ with a mouth like a fish, which was, Emmy thought, like closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and singing loudly in order not to have to acknowledge something someone else had just inconveniently said.
Now, Jess was saying, ‘What about breakfast? Say, a ten o’clock breakfast?’
‘At ten o’clock,’ Emmy said, ‘I’ll have been at work for an hour.’
‘Okaaaaay,’ Jess said, dragging the syllables out as if she was thinking. ‘After work for you, then. After rehearsal for me.’
‘Come to supper,’ Emmy said, to her own amazement. She’d had no intention of saying such a thing, not the slightest intention, and then she found herself adding, ‘At mine. On Friday.’
There was a brief pause and then Jess said, ‘Goodness. At yours.’
‘Yes. It’s just down the hill. From your – from Nat. Two minutes. One if you run.’
‘Thank you,’ Jess said politely.
‘Is there anything you can’t eat?’
‘Nothing I can think of. Are – are you sure?’
Emmy watched a young man with a rucksack lope past, a dog obediently trotting at his heels. There was a tin mug hanging from the rucksack and the boy, who was fair, had his hair in elaborate cornrows, the ends finished with blue beads. She pushed herself upright from the railings.
‘About having you to supper? Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Thank you,’ Jess said. ‘What if Nat wants to come in the end?’
Emmy began to walk back to the Strand. The boy’s neat plaited head was still visible, moving purposefully through the crowd ahead of her. How did you train a dog to follow you, even in London crowds and traffic, like that?
‘He can’t,’ Emmy said. ‘Even if he thinks he’d like to come, tell him I don’t want him to. OK?’
*
Angus said to Laura that he didn’t mind. He genuinely did not mind, he said, doing the big weekly shop, remembering to put the rubbish out, hearing Jack’s reading practice, emptying Adam’s disposable-nappy container, organizing Justine for the week, ringing the council about the rats in the empty house next door, but he did mind if, after all this maintenance of their daily lives, Laura was absorbed in something that made her cross. He was, he pointed out, used to her being absorbed in something else, but he wasn’t used to her being cross. Absent-minded, fine; snappy, not fine at all, especially snappy with him who was doing everything in his power to make the wheels of their life run smoothly.
Laura didn’t look at him. She was in her study, staring at her laptop.
‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry’s not enough, babe. Turn that effing thing off and look at me.’
He was holding Adam in his arms, and Jack was leaning interestedly against his leg. Adam was eating. Adam ate all the time, if he had the opportunity, and he was clutching a miniature box of raisins.
‘Laura!’ Angus said loudly.
She gave a little jerk and gasp. Jack said helpfully, ‘You should do what Daddy says, you know.’
The screen on Laura’s laptop went black. Very slowly, she turned her swivel chair round to face them. ‘There.’
‘What’s the matter, Laura?’
Laura reached her arms up to take Adam. He settled on her knee, glued to his box of raisins. She sniffed his hair.
‘He even smells sticky.’
Angus leaned on the door jamb and folded his arms.
‘Come on, Laura.’
Jack imitated his father’s pose on the opposite door jamb.
‘Yes, come on, Laura.’
Laura said, ignoring Jack, ‘It’s Mum.’
‘What about her?’
Laura gestured. ‘Not in front of the boys.’
‘Oh,’ Jack said airily, ‘don’t mind us,’ mimicking his parents.
Angus said, ‘Is she having second thoughts, then?’
‘No,’ Laura said. ‘No. That would be easier in lots of ways.’ She looked up at Angus. ‘It’s . . .’ She stopped and then said with careful exaggeration, ‘I’ll have to spell it out. Ell. Ess. Dee. I think that’s the problem.’
‘What?’ said Jack.
Angus didn’t look at him.
‘It’s medicine,’ he said and then to Laura, ‘But I thought a solicitor had sorted all that?’
‘It’s a new idea,’ Laura said. She smoothed Adam’s hair back from his forehead. ‘He’s even got raisin in his hair. It’s something that I kind of gathered from the twins. Mum and I had a bit of a showdown—’
‘What?’ Jack sa
id again.
‘—last night. The new plan is to sell up, give us three a chunk of the proceeds, and buy a – a smaller rural property together.’
‘Jesus,’ Angus said.
Jack stood upright and unfolded his arms. ‘Is that a bad word?’
Angus put a hand briefly on his son’s head.
‘I shouldn’t have used it. Black mark, Daddy. Laura, this sounds crazy.’
She nodded. ‘Made worse by the fact that the twins seem to be all for it.’
‘No!’
Laura looked up at him. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. She got to her feet clumsily, holding Adam who was now tearing his raisin box to pieces in search of the very last one. ‘One wants not to have a lodger any more on account of his current nonstop sex life and the other wants to go to America.’
Adam began to roar. He cast his tattered raisin box to the floor and strained towards his father.
‘You can’t be hungry,’ Angus said, heaving his son into his arms. ‘You’ve been eating solidly since dawn. Put your thumb in.’ He picked up Adam’s sticky left fist and plugged the thumb into his mouth. Adam subsided against him at once, heavy and drowsy. Angus said to Laura, over his head, ‘I thought the twins were the ones so opposed to Rose having any kind of relationship.’
‘Grandma Rose?’ Jack said.
Laura smiled at him.
‘Yes. Grandma Rose.’ She glanced at Angus. ‘They were.’
He let his breath out on a long sigh. He said, ‘I want to say another very bad word.’
‘You shouldn’t,’ Jack said kindly. ‘You’ll only get in trouble.’
Laura said to Angus, ‘I shouted at Mum.’
‘You never shout at anyone.’
‘I did last night. And I might well do some more.’
‘Not at me, I hope.’
‘No,’ Laura said, ‘not at you. You just got caught in the crossfire.’ She put a finger out and pressed it into Adam’s nearest cheek. ‘I was just figuring out the best way to see the twins. And make it plain what I think.’
‘Of them?’
Laura took her finger away from Adam’s cheek and leaned in to kiss him instead.
‘You bet,’ she said.
*
Nat was used to the women in his life being a priority. Ever since he could remember, he’d had a personal pecking order of important if not crucial women relations, with Emmy coming first, closely followed by Rose, and then Laura. He had never been a laddish boy, or even especially clubbable; he had never derived satisfaction or confidence from being included in an all-male group. At school, he had had separate and particular friends, rather than gangs of them. As his father – once an ardent rugby player – ruefully noted, he had been the kind of boy you might find alone on a climbing wall, or practising serves on a squash court, rather than being commended for being a valuable member of a team. When he announced to Rose that he had chosen a man as a lodger, when he first moved into his flat, she had been taken aback.
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