by Judy Astley
‘You know,’ Delia said.
‘No, as a matter of fact I don’t,’ Heather told her. ‘I don’t want to play games, and you’ll obviously want me to know what it is in the end, so out with it.’
‘He’s here,’ Delia said, still looking straight ahead. ‘That man you ran off with.’
‘Oh you mean Iain,’ Heather said, in a more blasé and easy-going manner than she actually felt. There was a small amount of relief, but only a tiny one. She’d been quite savouring the secret. All those gossiping old ladies must have been discussing him over tea. She’d like to have been a fly on the ivy-covered wall when Delia realized who they were talking about. Her mouth twitched dangerously towards a broad smile.
‘And you’ve been seeing him, haven’t you?’ The interrogation continued, a sharp accusation, ludicrous from one adult to another.
‘Hey, does it matter?’ Heather protested. ‘Though actually I haven’t been “seeing” him, as you put it. Not in that way.’ She wondered if she should start crossing her fingers on the steering wheel to fend off the results of what might start to be lies. A single magpie flew in front of the car as she slowed down near her own gateway.
‘One for sorrow,’ Delia remarked, with a note of satisfied prediction.
‘They’re always single in August,’ Heather told her. She parked the car under the pergola and sat, thoughtful for a moment, fiddling with the keys in her hand. ‘I never got round to telling the girls I was married before, so they don’t know anything about Iain. It might as well stay that way now. I’ve missed the moment for telling them, and besides, he’ll be gone again in a week or so,’ she said eventually. ‘Actually, he’s been very nice to Kate, getting a part in the film for her. She’s delighted.’
Delia opened the car door and looked back at Heather. ‘Well she would be, wouldn’t she? She’s a lot like you were at that age. You should keep an eye on her. A very close eye.’
More warnings, Heather thought, sighing as she climbed out of the car, her mother had obviously missed her true vocation and should be dressing up in shawls and earrings to tell fairground fortunes.
Up in Suzy’s room, she and Tamsin were assembling the necessities for a night on the island.
‘Shall I take clean knickers for the morning?’ Suzy said, half to herself, as she made a heap of possible clothing on the bed.
‘No, don’t be stupid. We’ll just go home, you won’t need anything extra to wear at all,’ Tamsin insisted impatiently. She was sprawled on the bed reading Just Seventeen and flicking off Suzy’s clothing as it landed on her.
‘A nightie?’
‘In a tent? Are you mad? You can sleep in your clothes, though if you’re sharing with Simon you’ll probably not want to be wearing anything. I shall take perfume of course, something irresistible.’
Suzy gave her a quick, intense look. Tamsin was so flippant it was hard to know what she meant and what she didn’t. Was she, she wondered, still intending to share her tent with Shane, and if so was she intending that he should remove her clothes, all of them even . . . She shuddered slightly and wished she didn’t keep thinking ahead about possible awfulness. Suppose Tamsin changed her mind about not really doing anything with him? And then did it and got pregnant. Could you get pregnant before your periods had actually started? Or suppose she didn’t change her mind, but he started to feel he’d been conned and then raped her . . . There was something in the bus shelter about a girl called Trace being a prick-teaser – somehow you just knew they hadn’t written that because they liked her being one, not like the thing about Lisa. They’d be stuck out there on the island like . . . well, like sitting ducks.
‘Can’t wait till next Friday,’ Tamsin was saying from the chest of drawers where she was gazing into the mirror inspecting a potential spot on her forehead.
‘Friday?’ Suzy yelled.’ I can’t go on Friday, it’s the uncle’s funeral.’
‘Well it won’t take all night as well as the day, will it? Unless you lot are some fancy religion or something?’ Tamsin asked via the mirror.
‘Well no, it’s just . . . I don’t think Mum will like it, or at least Gran—’
‘It’s got to be Friday, it’s all arranged. I fixed it with Simon and he’s agreed to come, so you’ve got to.’ She turned round to give Suzy her full, rather threatening, attention. ‘And if you don’t . . .’
Suzy gazed straight back at her, refusing to be intimidated. ‘And if I don’t, then what?’
‘Nothing.’ Tamsin had a thinking face on, then looked up and beamed at her. ‘If you do I’ll give you the new Blur CD. Simon’s got some spares.’
‘Spares? Why’s he got spares?’ Suzy asked, mystified that anyone would want more than one of anyone’s CD, however brilliant. She’d seen and coveted the new album in Harbutt’s Hi-fi only the other day . . .
‘Don’t ask,’ Tamsin replied, turning back to the mirror with an infuriating wink.
‘And then we all had to look really terrified while the man, the bad guy, came in with a shotgun and threatened to kill us. I had to drop my glass of champagne, but it was OK, it wasn’t Margot’s carpet. I wonder what they’ve done with all her stuff?’
Kate had been bubbling over with her day of stardom through the whole of dinner. Delia had given the stir-fried chicken and vegetables a hard and meaningful look, as if food cooked that fast couldn’t possibly be all right, but Heather had decided to ignore it. She was too old for all this. Perhaps, she thought, as she added the raspberries to the fruit salad, she should tell her mother all about Tom, the real Tom. She could march her into the sitting-room, or even the study to make it seem more serious, and astound her with the probability that at this exact moment, and she checked the kitchen clock as she opened the fridge to get cream, at this moment Tom was as likely as not having his penis nibbled by a comely airline steward. The steward, Hughie, Heather assumed, would look exactly like the sort of neatly suited good-boy types who had got clerking jobs in banks straight from school when she was a teenager.
In Staines High Street, Delia had frequently pointed one out and said something like ‘Now that’s what I call a nice-looking boy,’ as if informing Heather what husband-material she could have chosen instead of Iain. Delia had never much approved of Tom – she’d have preferred someone much closer to Heather’s own age so that he could be somehow moulded into the perfect, dutiful son-in-law and grow up into agreement about the advantages of spongeable vinyl wallpaper and British-made cars. Tom had come too ready-finished for her liking. He didn’t need her ever-ready opinions on mortgages, career-moves, pension schemes or how to make the most of the National Savings scheme. One day, Heather remembered, she had mentioned an airline black-tie event they were going to, and Delia had later telephoned Tom to tell him she’d compiled a list of places where dinner suits could be hired. Tom had told her politely that he’d owned one for years and it was at that point, Heather was certain, that Delia had finally conceded defeat: even she recognized that it was a sign of a fully mature grown-up to have one’s own dinner jacket. Unfortunately fully mature grown-ups also arrived with their sexual quirks more or less sorted out too, Heather thought glumly.
‘And Iain says they might be going to film a fake wedding and he says if they do I can be a guest . . .’ Kate could hear her voice rattling on like a toddler who’s just been to the circus. She hoped they wouldn’t guess how much she was exaggerating; the day had been filled with too much hanging about, boredom and the dreadful suspicion that she was doing everything wrong. Every time the director had roared ‘Cut!’ she’d been sure it was her fault. She didn’t want to admit that in front of her family – her grandmother would be sure to say ‘Nonsense, why ever do you think they’d be looking at you?’ which was probably just the sort of thing she would have said to Heather years ago. The other actors hadn’t exactly been over friendly, and she was pretty sure that when the film came out any possible view of her would be obstructed by a particular plump gingery woman in a feath
ered hat, who’d elbowed everyone out of the way so she could hog the camera. She never thought she’d be so glad to have Simon around. She’d have preferred to have Iain to talk to, but he’d only arrived just as they were all packing up. She’d pouted and been cross at him for abandoning her to all these people and he’d merely laughed infuriatingly and kissed her on the top of her head like some uncle. Not, she was having to admit to herself, the way she wanted him to kiss her at all.
‘And Iain says I can meet him and some of the crew in the pub later, so if that’s all right . . . ?’ Kate started collecting plates together hurriedly, crashing them about rather too much and endangering their wholeness.
‘Iain says, Iain says,’ Delia twittered mockingly. ‘He has made an impression on you, hasn’t he? Isn’t there a nice boy in the village you could be friends with?’
Kate froze and stared at her grandmother, looking, Heather thought, quite stricken, even shocked.
‘That’s enough Mother, leave her alone.’ Heather slammed a dish down on the table, hard enough to crack it. ‘Kate, leave the dishes, Gran and I will deal with them. You go and get ready.’
‘Thanks Mum,’ Kate said softly, leaning across and kissing her swiftly. Heather caught her radiating a glance of pure hatred at her grandmother, who had the grace to look down at the remains of her fruit salad.
‘How could you do that? Whatever made you speak to her like that?’ Heather demanded the moment Suzy, rightly sensing an atmosphere to be avoided, had gone outside to tend to her pony.
‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just felt, I don’t know, angry that she seems to be as much smitten by him as you were at her age,’ Delia replied. The two of them were going through the motions of tidying the kitchen, running taps, opening cupboards, moving out of each other’s way in a complicated dance so that they wouldn’t actually come too close.
‘Oh don’t be ridiculous. He wasn’t even thirty then, now he’s well past fifty, for heaven’s sake. What on earth do you imagine Kate’s going to see in him?’
‘Yes I’m sure you’re right, it’s just that it only seems like yesterday,’ Delia sighed deeply.
‘Well it wasn’t. It was half a lifetime ago, over and done with.’ Heather was shaking with rage. ‘And it was something that happened to me. Not to you. I ran off with him, I married him, I got pregnant and lost my baby. It’s about time you stopped pretending that it was all done just to spite you, and that you were the person most affected by it.’ Heather could feel that she was close to tears. She wished that when Iain had phoned her, car to car, she’d said yes, she’d love to go out to dinner that very night. They could be out somewhere now, laughing over a bottle of something delicious and lazily eating their way through that day’s menu-special. They could be in a pub garden, wondering if it was going to get too cold to eat outside, or in a hushed and horribly empty restaurant laughing at the too many hovering waiters.
‘I’ll be going home straight after the funeral,’ Delia was saying with a sniff. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t say anything else to Kate, not if you don’t want me to.’ She had her wronged face on, Heather recognized.
‘You know I don’t want you to,’ Heather said with exasperation, wondering if anything at all had been achieved. It so rarely was between generations, she thought.
Kate went into the pub and hoped Iain would have got there first. She felt so geed up, she wondered if she might have to sit near the door in case she felt sick. It wasn’t like anything else she’d done, not like meeting any of the boys she and Annabelle had picked up when they were out clubbing, or at parties. It felt beyond, in the same way that leaving school had felt.
‘Hello, Star,’ Iain greeted her from the bar, drink already in his hand.
Kate assumed he expected her to smile cutely, so she didn’t. Her grandmother, formerly so doting, had put her in a contrary mood.
‘Oh, too grand to talk to me now are we?’ he teased.
She glared, staring at his teeth which, although she felt so cross, were nevertheless fascinating her. They were so big and white and even, not like old people’s usual graveyard teeth that seemed to lose brightness like the rest of their bodies, but like teenage polished ones, freshly released from orthodontic hardware. They looked dangerous, in the same way that even stupid Little Red Riding Hood should have sensed, the moment she saw the wolf in the forest. What took the girl so long to catch on? Kate wondered.
‘Please don’t wind me up,’ she said forlornly. I’m not in the mood.’
‘Let me get you a drink. White wine and soda? Or does the barman know you’re still a minor?’ He leaned forward to whisper the last word, his breath grazing her ear.
‘White wine will be fine,’ she told him, finding a smile at last.
‘Now tell me what’s bugging you. Didn’t you have a good day?’ he asked, as they sat at a corner table close to the dartboard that only rainy night teenagers ever used.
Kate sipped her wine and then dabbled her fingers in it, playing with the ice and stirring the lemon round. ‘I had quite a good day. Everyone seemed to know each other except me and Simon.’
‘Well at least you had Simon. Don’t think I don’t arrange these things for a purpose,’ Iain said.
‘Yeah, but Simon,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘He’s nice and that, but you know, I’ve told you before. Too young.’
‘And I’m too old,’ he said, as a statement, not a question.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I think age is a weird thing. Some people you can’t imagine ever being young. Like my grandmother.’ Kate stopped and sighed gently. ‘Do you know my grandmother told me off tonight for talking about you?’ She gave Iain a fierce look, as if searching in his face for a possible reason for Delia’s hostility.
He looked down at his drink and swirled it round the glass. ‘Well perhaps it depends what you were saying,’ he told her.
‘Not much,’ she shrugged. ‘Not enough to fuss about. I expect it’s because you’re old,’ she giggled. ‘Mum got angry with her. When I left I think they were having a row.’
‘Didn’t you creep up and listen?’ he taunted.
She elbowed him hard in the ribs. ‘Certainly not. That’s the sort of thing Suzy might do.’
‘Oh you mean you’re too old for that sort of thing?’
‘Oh well, yeah I suppose so. But you know what I mean about age, don’t you? I mean, take Tamsin, Simon’s little sister. She can’t wait to be about twenty-seven. It’s her mental age, and probably always will be. She’s desperate to dress up in clingy lycra frocks and red high heels and have a corkscrew perm with a slide through the back of it that looks like a dagger. She’ll probably work in a travel agents and absolutely love it. She’ll always be the same, a version of the same thing even when she’s seventy.’ Kate hesitated and then added shyly, ‘And then there’s people like you.’
‘Go on.’ Iain was looking at her more seriously than she’d seen before. He idly stroked her hand with his finger, which she watched. The last boy who’d held her hand, she suddenly remembered, had had ground-in grey nails. She’d known, deep down, that it was probably from playing rugby or something, but somehow she had thought instead about surreptitious nose-picking and felt slightly sick. Apart from Simon who took it too far, you couldn’t really trust them to be clean. You had thoughts about where their unwashed hands had been, whether they’d decided that yesterday’s, no, the day before’s socks were just about all right. Iain’s nails were short, square and perfectly clean. She didn’t have to have those teenage suspicions about him. She wondered what it looked like to other people, this man, this man of his age playing with her fingers in a way that would tell anyone watching that he certainly wasn’t her dad, or her grandad even. Up at the bar there were loud laughing people, balding men with big blowsy women whose flesh overhung the bar stools. One of them was wearing a low-cut pink T-shirt, leaning forward and showing cleavage like a crêpey canyon. Kate couldn’t imagine her own
sheeny-sheer skin ever looking like that.
‘I think that with people like you it’s not really anything to do with how many years you’ve had,’ she said to him, ‘it’s probably about not getting stuck, and about letting new thoughts have space in your head.’
Iain was smiling sadly at her. ‘It isn’t as easy as that, you know. Some new thoughts, well, one day you’ll find they can be quite a problem.’
Chapter Sixteen
Heather lay awake worrying, and blamed her mother for it. Kate hadn’t come home yet and it was well past pub closing time. She imagined her daughter in various scenarios, the most likely, she decided, being that she’d gone back to the rectory with Simon and Iain and a rowdy collection of technicians, where they would be working their way through a crate or six of lagers, and skinny-dipping in Margot’s pool. Other, less crowded, more unnerving scenes also made their way into her head, ones in which Iain and Kate were alone. She placed them in various locations – in Russell’s boat chugging in the dark up the river; up in Tamsin’s treehouse discussing the state of the world; in Simon’s bedroom where Simon currently wasn’t. Here her mind tried to select something else. She turned over in bed and tried to dismiss the thoughts as being quite ludicrous. It was all Delia’s fault, perverse old woman even thinking about it, warning about it. How could she? It was almost as if she was willing the worst, whatever that was, to happen.
Downstairs the front door was slammed with Kate’s usual carelessness. Jasper barked dutifully but without enthusiasm, so she knew Kate had come home alone. She pulled on her dressing-gown and tiptoed down the stairs making Kate, whom she found gazing hungrily into the fridge, leap with fright.
‘Why are you creeping around like that Mum?’ she demanded, grabbing a lump of ancient cheese from a plate at the back of the fridge.
‘I’m not,’ Heather told her, walking over to switch on the kettle as if all she’d come down for was a cup of tea. ‘I’m thirsty and I’m wearing no shoes, that’s all.’