An Unsuitable Match

by Joanna Trollope

  Carmen worked for the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, which was housed in one of the old grey industrial blocks on 3rd Street, in Dogpatch. Carmen, who had been wild and experimental at high school, had become a disciple of modern craft, and posted on Facebook very serious photographs of exhibitions of sculpture in cardboard and conceptual metalwork. She lived in a cramped apartment high up on Potrero Hill, with a narrow view between buildings to the bay, and the Bay Bridge. The futon in her living room, which doubled as a couch when folded up, was, she said, at Mallory’s disposal. Any time.

  Seth’s reaction to the news that Mallory was coming was completely neutral. He had had exactly the same ‘Uh-huh’ reaction to the news that she was going to drama school in New York, to the news that she was going to be on stage in London, and to the information that after four months in England, she was now back in New York. Mallory was not to know that Yuhui had spoken very earnestly to Seth about the significance of family, and of Mallory and Seth being of great consequence to one another, especially if their father chose to stay in London, and Seth, who listened to Yuhui, had been chastened. Not chastened enough to call his sister back, or go to the airport to meet her plane, but sufficiently chastened to make time for Mallory on Sunday morning, after the weekly yoga class which Yuhui insisted was crucial to their mental, as well as physical, wellbeing.

  Yuhui did not come to the brunch Seth and Mallory had together. She made a quiet, emphatic point of not coming, but sent, via Seth, a present of a small Japanese teapot and a packet of green tea decorated with cherry blossoms. She much looked forward, she told Mallory in an accompanying card, to their meeting again when the time was right. Her handwriting, in brown ink with an italic nib, was small and regular, and she had added two kisses under her signature. Seth watched Mallory unwrap her teapot and read her card with the satisfaction of one who cannot possibly be disappointed.

  ‘She’s a doll, huh?’ Seth said to Mallory.

  Mallory turned the teapot round in her hands. It was black and delicately grooved, with a bamboo handle threaded with a single stripe of scarlet.

  ‘She sure is.’

  ‘I just marvel that someone like Yuhui wants to spend her life with me. Me! What you eating?’ Seth said.

  Mallory was still looking at her teapot.

  ‘French toast, I think.’

  ‘Good choice. They bake their own bread here and slice it thick for French toast. As it’s Sunday, I’m going for the fennel sausage, and the chilli cheddar cornbread with jalapeño jelly.’

  Mallory glanced at him. ‘Not sourdough?’

  Seth took no notice. ‘And drip coffee. You want drip coffee?’

  ‘I want,’ Mallory said, ‘to talk about Dad.’

  Seth put the menu down.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mallory said. ‘Our father. Our English father who looks as if he’s discovered his roots again as well as Rose Woodrowe.’

  Seth made a face.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Nice,’ Mallory said. She took a swallow of iced water. ‘Very nice. Very English.’

  ‘Blonde?’ Seth said.

  Mallory got her phone out of her pocket and scrolled to find her photo gallery.

  ‘Brown. Brunette-ish. Kinda blondey brown.’ She held her phone out. ‘There.’

  Seth squinted at the phone. ‘She looks OK.’

  ‘She is,’ Mallory said, ‘and Dad is in the same state about her as you are about Yuhui.’

  Seth grinned. ‘Dad is?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mallory said. ‘You know he is. You’ve heard him on the phone.’

  ‘I’m not always concentrating on the phone.’

  ‘You amaze me,’ Mallory said sardonically.

  Seth looked at her, as if seeing her properly at last. He said, in a much gentler tone, ‘What’s up, Mal?’

  She shook her head and put her hand briefly up to her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

  Seth reached across the table and squeezed her forearm. He said, ‘Is it him wanting to marry again?’

  Mallory sniffed.

  ‘I don’t think so. I mean, it isn’t as if he and Mom were ace at marriage, for God’s sake. They lived in the same house, sure, and they didn’t get divorced, but that’s about it, isn’t it? Why should I care if he wants to try getting it right this time? But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But there’s never been space for us, for me, in either of their lives. Has there? I know I could have made more of an effort to be with him after Mom died, but I had my own stuff to deal with, I couldn’t take the risk of asking for too many details of how he was.’

  ‘In case he told you?’

  Mallory looked at her brother in surprise.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To be honest with you,’ Seth said, moving the holder of paper napkins an inch to the left and then moving it back again, ‘I’d probably feel just as you feel, if it wasn’t for Yuhui.’

  ‘And sourdough.’

  He gave a small grin.

  ‘OK. And sourdough.’

  ‘I thought the theatre would sort it for me. And it did. It really did. But then it didn’t kinda fill the horizon the way it did at the beginning. Like I said to Emmy—’

  ‘Emmy?’

  ‘Rose’s daughter. I only found her at the end. I could kick myself. I said to her that whatever we do in life, we need to know we are loved. That we are lovable.’ She looked at him. ‘Don’t we?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Dad too.’

  Mallory picked up her water glass again.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘Dad too. But before there was her, there was us. Wasn’t there?’

  Seth looked at the menu once more.

  ‘If we’re going to have this kind of conversation,’ he said, ‘I need to eat. So I’m gonna order. OK?’

  *

  Prue indicated the mattress topper in her capacious Liberty-print holdall.

  ‘Very pleased,’ she said. ‘Left over from the clearance sale so only half of even the sale price. Have you had breakfast?’

  Rose nodded. ‘A banana.’

  ‘Not what I’d call a proper breakfast. I usually make porridge. Why don’t you try porridge, Rosie?’

  Rose looked down at her coffee. The barista had swirled a palm-tree pattern into the foam, which was very pretty but would not manage to make any of it taste more interesting. She made a non-committal noise.

  Prue had chosen peppermint tea and a redoubtable scone with an improbably glossy top. She gestured at it.

  ‘Share my scone?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘No, thank you all the same.’

  ‘What is it, Rosie?’

  Rose didn’t raise her eyes.

  ‘You tell me. You’re the one who asked for this meeting.’

  Prue sliced into her scone and gave an exclamation of disgust. ‘Look at that. As dry as a desert.’ She pushed the scone plate to one side. ‘I’m not eating that. I’m not paying for it, either. I’ll have it out with them later. I wanted to talk to you, Rosie, because of money and the children. I’ve spoken to Emmy.’

  Rose put a teaspoon into the foam palm tree and broke up the pattern.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t pretend you don’t care. I rang Emmy.’

  At last Rose raised her head.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Prue said weightily, ‘I thought it was time she got over herself and met Nat’s girlfriend.’

  Rose’s expression didn’t alter. ‘She has just met her. And it wasn’t a success.’

  ‘Well,’ Prue said, ‘and is that a surprise?’

  Rose sat up straighter. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was Emmy ever going to like a serious girlfriend of Nat’s? Any more than she was going to like anyone you had more than a cup of tea with?’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘That Emmy needs a distraction. Emmy won’t grow up until she is diverted from the emotional ties
of her childhood.’

  Rose said, almost thoughtfully, ‘I want to tell you to mind your own business.’

  ‘Your children, my nieces and nephew, are my business, Rosie. They always have been, as you well know, and they always will be. I wanted to see you because Emmy said something about possibly going to New York to see Tyler’s Mallory and I wanted to talk to you about that. About, as I said, money and the children.’ She leaned forward and put a hand on Rose’s nearest one. She said, in a much lower and more sympathetic tone, ‘I know you don’t want to sell the mews. I know how you feel about that house. I know what it represents to you. So I don’t think you should feel you have to sell it in order for Emmy to be able to go to America, and the others to have their share too. So I wanted to see you to tell you that I am perfectly prepared to buy Emmy a ticket to New York, and to give the others an equivalent amount. I suppose I could have told you over the telephone but that seemed to me a bit impersonal. So here I am, Rosie, saying that Emmy can go to America and you don’t have to sell the house to help her.’

  Rose looked at her sister’s large, capable hand lying on her own.

  ‘Oh, Prue.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. I can’t bear being thanked.’

  ‘I’m so touched,’ Rose said, ‘I really am.’

  ‘Then let me do it.’

  Rose turned her own hand over so that she could give her sister’s hand a squeeze before she let it go. Then she said, smiling at Prue, ‘You are so lovely, Prue, but it’s fine. It really is. I’ve got my silly head around selling the mews now, I really have. And I’m thrilled to be able to give the children some money, thrilled. Laura’s been so sweet and anxious about it all on my behalf, but I think she is reassured now, I think she is. I did my best to help her see that I’m doing what I want and that Tyler is possibly the least mercenary man she will ever meet. It was just a shock, I expect, when he first suggested selling the mews, and I had to get over that shock, but I have now, I have, and Emmy can go to America.’

  Prue said nothing. She regarded her sister steadily and in silence.

  Rose picked up her coffee cup in both hands and took a neat swallow. She said, ‘I know I didn’t like that first cottage we looked at.’

  Prue said inexorably, ‘Nor any of the subsequent ones.’

  ‘No. No, I know.’ Rose glanced at her. ‘They were none of them right. I didn’t get that “This is the one” feeling about any of them. But Prue . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re going to see another one on Saturday. In Hampshire. In Jane Austen’s bit of Hampshire. And whatever I’ve felt about any of the others, I don’t seem to be feeling about this. It’s brick. Eighteenth-century brick. With a wonderful garden. Look, I’ll show you.’

  She held up her phone. Prue shook her head.

  ‘No, thank you, Rosie.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do you know,’ Prue said, her gaze scanning the cafe for someone to whom she could complain about her scone, ‘I just can’t get my head round this cottage scheme of yours, I just can’t. Even in Jane Austen’s Hampshire.’

  ‘Are you offended that I declined your very generous offer to help Emmy?’

  Prue lifted the scone plate and indicated it forcefully to someone across the room.

  ‘Not in the least,’ she said. ‘I reserve offence for sizable social and cultural issues. And I would like to believe you when you say you are doing what you want to do. The trouble is, Rose . . .’ She paused and then she said, ‘I just can’t.’

  *

  Emmy was cooking. She had determined to turn over a new leaf and get a proper grasp on daily life, so she had bought, as a first step, onions and prawns and mange tout peas (a pity that two of those items had been flown into the UK using expensive and undesirable air miles) and was, with the addition of a pot of Thai green curry paste she had found in her cupboard, making supper. The recipe said that the preparation would take fifteen minutes, and that it would serve two people, which meant, Emmy thought with satisfaction, that supper for tonight and tomorrow would be catered for. Two evenings of home-cooked supper and no booze was a commendable start to what she was determined would be a different way of living. Of being.

  The recipe said it needed coconut milk. Emmy didn’t have coconut milk in the cupboard. She turned out what she did have – cereal bars, a jar of crystallized ginger, a squeezy bottle of lemon juice, boxes of rice and polenta, a bottle of Greek olive oil, a packet of dried chillies – and found, at the back, a small tin of coconut cream, dated 2014. She looked at it. Where had it come from? She had only just bought the flat in 2014. Did it matter, for the curry, if it was cream, not milk? And did it matter, being two years out of date?

  She yanked at the ring pull on the top of the can and peeled it back a little way. The coconut cream was very white and looked like plastic, lying in a smooth crust round the top of the can. Emmy pushed a finger into it and her finger went through the top crust of the cream and into the coconut liquid underneath. She pulled it out and put her finger in her mouth. Then the doorbell rang.

  Still holding the can, Emmy went across to her entryphone. There was no screen beside it, so she picked up the handset, holding her sticky forefinger well away, and said, ‘Hello?’ questioningly into it.

  ‘Hi,’ Laura said. ‘It’s Laura.’

  Emmy was amazed.

  ‘Laura! What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to see you,’ Laura said. She sounded, Emmy thought, older-sisterly. ‘Angus has the children and I’ve come to see you. I came on the tube.’

  ‘Why?’ Emmy said.

  ‘Let me in. Let me in first, Emmy.’

  Emmy put the handset back and pressed the downstairs-door release. Then she opened her own front door and stood beside it, still holding the can of coconut cream.

  Laura came briskly up the communal staircase. She was wearing what Emmy thought of as her doctor clothes: a shirt tucked into tailored trousers, and a blazer. Her hair was in a ponytail and her capacious bag was on her shoulder. She reached Emmy’s landing and took her sister by the shoulders to kiss her.

  ‘Em.’

  ‘I am very surprised. You never ever—’

  ‘Well, I have now. What’s that?’

  Emmy gestured with her can. ‘Coconut cream. It’s two years old. Can I use it?’

  ‘Sure,’ Laura said. ‘It’ll be fine. Just maybe not so nutritious as it once was. What are you making?’

  ‘Prawn curry.’

  ‘Enough for two of us?’

  Emmy looked at her. ‘Could be. I just can’t get over your being here.’

  Laura went past her into the flat and dropped her bag on the floor. Then she shrugged off her jacket.

  ‘I’ll help you with the curry.’

  Emmy said, not moving from beside the door, ‘Is there a crisis? Has something happened?’

  Laura began to unbutton her cuffs and roll up her shirtsleeves.

  ‘There was just a bit of a list, Em, a list of things building up. Things I want to talk to you about. And Angus said why didn’t I just come and surprise you.’

  ‘It’s a surprise all right.’

  ‘If it had been planned,’ Laura said, ‘you might have prepared yourself, mightn’t you? Or you might have gone out.’

  ‘Only if what you were going to say was very uncomfortable.’

  Laura looked at her. Then she moved across and took the can of coconut cream out of Emmy’s fingers.

  ‘It’s not uncomfortable, Em. It’s just so I can get my head round some stuff. What’s this going in?’

  ‘What stuff?’ Emmy said.

  Laura carried the can across to Emmy’s kitchen section. She touched an open iPad with her free hand.

  ‘Is this the recipe?’

  ‘What stuff?’ Emmy repeated, and then, ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  Laura bent over the iPad. ‘Have you chopped the onion?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘We’ll get this
going, then we’ll talk. Have you got a frying pan?’

  Emmy crossed the room to open a drawer by Laura’s knees.

  ‘There. Laura, what is it?’

  Laura laid a chopping board on the worktop. Then she turned to face her sister.

  ‘I want to know about Nat’s Jess. I want to know what happened that night. And even more, I want to talk about Mum.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Yes,’ Laura said. She pulled the only knife off the magnetic rack that Emmy used as a parking place for scissors and her bike keys and the metal tag for supermarket trolleys. ‘Mum. What’s all this about you going to America?’

  Emmy said defensively, ‘It was just an idea.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to see Mallory.’

  ‘Tyler’s Mallory?’

  ‘Yes. She asked me. She asked me to go and stay with her in New York.’

  ‘For a holiday?’

  ‘I s’pose so.’

  Laura stopped peeling the onion and turned to face her sister. She said, ‘You don’t need a holiday, Emmy. Look at me. Look at me. Aren’t you just wanting to go to New York because you can’t immediately think of what else to do, and you want a distraction?’

  Emmy said lamely, ‘I like Mallory.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I go to New York? Why shouldn’t I go and stay with Mallory? Aunt Prue is all in favour of my going.’

  Laura put down the knife and the onion. Then she said, ‘Leave her out of it. Leave everything out of it, even what you think you want and the reasons you think you have for wanting it. And think about Mum.’

  Emmy looked at the floor.

  ‘I do think about Mum.’

  ‘Listen, Em. Listen. Mum has got this scheme in her head, she’s kind of convinced herself that it’s even what she wants. You know about this scheme?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘This plan to sell the mews and give us all this money and then buy a cottage somewhere with Tyler?’

  Emmy nodded.

  Laura said fiercely, ‘It’s insane.’

  ‘Not if it’s what she wants. You always said that if she wanted to live her life that way, then she should be allowed to, that it was her life.’