The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  ‘But you can introduce me to Edward, can’t you? There’s nothing to stop you now. And after all, I do introduce you to my men-friends.’

  This last was not strictly true, for while I had certainly met most if not all of Mum’s lovers, it was as often as not when they were scantily clad en route to the bathroom, or in the kitchen waiting to be fed (usually by the long-suffering Greta). Mum rarely bothered with formal introductions.

  ‘Well ...’ I hesitated. I had become accustomed to keeping my two lives separate, and wasn’t sure how well they would mix. Edward was my refuge as well as my lover. Our life together was an oasis of peace in a generally troubled world. Would all that change if I were to bring him home?

  ‘Oh, come on, Cass. I’ll behave beautifully, I promise. I won’t let you down.’

  ‘It’s not that. And I do want you to meet him, of course I do. But Mum, I don’t want the others around. Not yet.’

  ‘But Greta and Call Me Bill are family,’ Mum protested. ‘We don’t have any secrets from them.’

  ‘You may not have secrets from them, Mum, but I do. I’m very fond of both of them, you know I am. But I don’t want them knowing all about my personal life. I don’t even want Lucas to know at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, Lucas.’ Mum sniffed. ‘He’s become so stuffy. I blame Gracie.’

  It should be explained that Mum tended to blame Gracie for everything where Lucas was concerned, and this was not entirely fair on Gracie. For while she would never be the kind of daughter-in-law Mum would have liked (given her feelings about marriage, she would probably have preferred to have no daughter-in-law at all), Gracie was a perfectly nice girl; just a bit ordinary, and somewhat lacking in imagination. But she was a good wife and mother, and she seemed to suit Lucas, and that was really all that mattered.

  I brought Edward home for tea and one of Mum’s cakes, and they took to one another immediately. Edward thought Mum was ‘so refreshing’, and Mum considered Edward to be ‘very charming, and so good-looking, Cass’ (to my shame, I experienced a frisson of alarm, for Mum had been known to take up with younger men, and Edward was nearer Mum’s age than mine). New Dog greeted him in a frenzy of leaping and licking, and true to her word, Mum appeared to have banished the rest of the household from the premises.

  ‘Your mother is amazing,’ Edward said to me on the way home. ‘I’ve never met anyone quite like her.’

  ‘I don’t think there is anyone quite like her,’ I said.

  ‘And the way she talked about Vanessa. As though it was the most natural thing in the world for her daughter to have a married lover with a handicapped wife.’

  ‘She wanted to go and see her.’

  ‘Who? Vanessa?’ Edward looked alarmed.

  I laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry. I told her Vanessa was off limits. But Mum’s like that. She looks for people to look after.’

  ‘Does she look after you?’ Edward asked.

  ‘What a strange question.’ I thought for a moment. ‘No. Not really. She’s best with sick people and animals, waifs and strays, that sort of thing. I don’t think I count. When we were children, she tended to treat Lucas and me more as friends, except when we were ill. I think that’s one of the reasons you make me so happy. I’ve never felt really looked after before.’

  And it was true. If I thought about it, I don’t think I had ever felt protected the way I did when I was with Edward. He was strong and sensible, calm in a crisis and good at making decisions. I could rely on him totally, and while I would happily have looked after him had the occasion demanded it, it was wonderful to have a relationship in which this was not a dominant factor. We never talked about it, but I’m sure we both recognized an element of father-daughter in our relationship, and I believe it was something we both needed. I had never had a father, and Edward was no longer able to look after Vanessa as he wanted to do. We had each found in the other something much more than simply a lover — although that was wonderful in itself — and I think we both helped one another to grow emotionally stronger.

  My painting, too, improved greatly after I met Edward. Before, there had been a hesitancy, almost a shyness about my work. My paintings were nice enough, and people seemed to like them, but they had a self-effacing quality which reflected my own personality. Now, they became bolder, more assertive, and I was developing a real style of my own. I started experimenting in charcoal and pen and ink, and produced some pleasing sketches of Lucas’s children (which I sold, since they were not to Gracie’s taste). People began to commission drawings of their own children, and occasionally their pets, and I was happy to oblige. It made a pleasant change to be invited into people’s homes to do my work, and I made several good friends in the process. I continued to work for Humphrey, who was beginning to talk of retirement and increasingly left the management of the gallery to me. For the first time in my life, I was fulfilled on all fronts, and happier than I had ever been.

  And so the years passed. In time, I was able to buy my own small terraced house and convert the dining room into a studio, while Mum consoled herself for my absence by installing a new Lodger in my old bedroom. Edward and I spent as much time together as either of us needed (two artists living together doesn’t always work), and an increasing amount of my work now involved commissioned drawings of babies and children.

  It was almost my thirty-fourth birthday when Edward brought up the subject of children.

  I was putting the finishing touches to a sketch of a sleeping baby. The child had adopted that position typical of babies, lying on its front with its knees drawn up. The soles of its feet peeped out from under a well-padded bottom, and one dimpled fist was visible beside the curve of a plump cheek.

  I was pleased with the drawing and was leaning back to admire it, when I became aware of Edward standing behind me.

  ‘Cass,’ he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. ‘Would you like one of those?’

  ‘One of what?’ I reached for a pencil to sign my drawing.

  ‘A baby of course. Cass, I think it’s time you and I thought about having a baby.’

  It may seem odd now, in an age when women clamour for the right to have babies with or without a partner, but Edward and I had never discussed the matter of children. Of course, I had thought about it from time to time; imagined what it would be like to have Edward’s child; what it would be like to be a mother. But children had never featured very strongly in my plans and I had never been especially maternal. As a child, such dolls as I had were more likely to be used in games of cowboys and Indians, or subjected to bloodthirsty surgical procedures, than mothered in the conventional sense. And while I liked small children, I had never really considered having one of my own. So Edward’s question took me by surprise.

  ‘A baby? You and me?’

  ‘Why not?’ Edward sat down beside me.

  ‘Do you want children?’

  ‘Well, I certainly did, when Vanessa was — well, before the accident. Then I more or less said goodbye to the idea. But now — well, yes. I would like a child. Your — our child.’

  ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘Anno Domini.’ Edward laughed. ‘Since I hit fifty, I realized that doors were beginning to close; doors that couldn’t be reopened. There are so many things I’ll never do now; paint a masterpiece, climb Everest, learn to tap-dance ... well, you know what I mean. But a baby — that’s something I can do. Something we can do.’ He spread his fingers. ‘I haven’t been able to do much for you, Cass. I haven’t given you marriage or a home together, the usual things. But I can — could — give you a baby.’

  ‘Goodness!’ I was more taken aback than I would have imagined.

  ‘I know. I think I’m even surprising myself. But just think about it. I know it’s a big decision, especially for you. Between us, we can afford a baby, and I’ll play my part. I’d be a good father.’

  ‘I know you would. But it’s not that easy, is it? I mean, what would people say?’

&
nbsp; ‘You mean the unmarried thing?’

  ‘No.’ I laughed. ‘With a mother like mine, the unmarried thing is hardly likely to be a problem, is it? No, I mean Vanessa, her family, people who don’t know about us. Wouldn’t I and my illegitimate offspring be a bit of an embarrassment?’

  ‘I think we could get round it. After all, Vanessa’s been ill for a long time, and I think her family have more or less guessed about you. They might even be pleased for me.’

  ‘A baby. Our baby. It’s certainly a thought. Can I think about it?’

  Suddenly the streets were full of women with pushchairs, pregnant women, parents towing reluctant toddlers along busy pavements. No doubt they had always been there, but so far they hadn’t been part of my agenda. Now, I found myself taking notice of them, surreptitiously peering into prams and even straying into shops selling baby clothes, where I would finger tiny dresses and sleep suits and try to imagine buying them for my own baby.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got?’ Edward asked, when I was unpacking some shopping about a week after our baby conversation.

  I held up a small fluffy blue rabbit.

  ‘I couldn’t resist it,’ I told him.

  ‘Is that — is that by any chance a present for Cass junior?’

  ‘Or baby Edward. One or the other.’

  ‘Oh, Cass! I’m so pleased!’ He hugged me. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased.’

  ‘Me too.’ I put down the rabbit and returned his hug.

  ‘When shall we start?’

  ‘No time like the present. But not in front of the rabbit.’ I replaced it carefully in its paper bag.

  Forty-four

  I hear footsteps flying along the corridor, coming towards us. I remember my nursing days, and the strict injunction never to run unless there was a fire or a dire emergency, but I know those footsteps, that breathless speed, even from behind a closed door. And when the door is flung open, I am not disappointed.

  ‘Gran! Oh Gran!’ Tavvy flings herself onto the bed, then turns to me. ‘I’m not too late, am I? Dad met me and brought me straight here. Please tell me I’m not too late!’

  ‘You will be, if you crush her. For goodness’ sake be careful, Tavvy!’ I stand up and pull her back off the bed, laughing in spite of myself, and then give her a huge hug. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased to see you! You’ve no idea how pleased. She’s been waiting for you for days. I didn’t know how much longer she could hang on.’

  ‘She looks so — so breakable. There’s nothing of her.’ The tears run down Tavvy’s cheeks. ‘Poor, poor little Gran. She doesn’t deserve this.’ She sits down by the bed and takes Mum’s hand in hers. ‘Darling Gran. It’s me. Tavvy. I’m here now.’

  Mum’s eyelids flutter, and there is the faintest ghost of a smile.

  ‘I knew — knew — you’d — come.’ Her voice is barely audible, and Tavvy leans down to catch her words.

  ‘Of course I came. How could you think I wouldn’t?’ Tavvy strokes Mum’s hand, then lifts it to hold it against her own cheek. ‘I wouldn’t let you do — do this without me, would I?’

  Mum closes her eyes again, but the smile is still there, hovering, as though reluctant to leave her lips.

  Tavvy weeps, noisily, helplessly, her mane of auburn hair — Mum’s hair — falling forward over her face, her shoulders heaving with her sobs. Poor Tavvy. She and Mum have always been close, and I know she has had an appalling time trying to get here. I haven’t seen her for nearly a year, and I scan her greedily, taking in the mass of freckles on her bare arms, her torn jeans and Save the Walrus (Walrus?) T-shirt, her sandaled (and far from clean) feet. She has lost weight, and I could swear she’s grown a couple of inches. I hate to have had to interrupt her precious gap year, and yet I am so glad she is home and safe.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me before?’ she asks now. ‘You know I would have come.’

  ‘I’d no idea it would be so quick. Besides, I wasn’t to know you’d go off trekking into the jungle! Anyway, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters.’

  It was my idea to name our daughter Octavia. Mum never actually suggested it, but I knew it was what she wanted, and it is after all a pretty name. She had tried to persuade Lucas to give it to one of his children, but he (or more likely, Gracie) was having none of it. And when the girls turned out to be as pleasantly ordinary as their mother, Mum felt vindicated.

  ‘Anne and Sarah! I ask you! With names like that, what do you expect?’

  However, I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t so much the children themselves who bothered her as the fact that they had made her a grandmother, and that was something she told me she wasn’t ready for yet.

  ‘It sounds so old, Cass. Grey hair and lavender water and those enormous knickers with elastic.’

  ‘And a shopping trolley,’ I teased her.

  ‘That too.’

  ‘And flannel nighties.’

  ‘Don’t mock, Cass. It’s not funny, growing old.’

  But by the time Octavia came along, Mum had become used to her grandmotherly status, and was even heard to boast about it to disbelieving suitors (‘No, really? You can’t be! You look much too young!’ was the response she expected and, as often as not, received). Nonetheless, I hoped that she would form a better relationship with my baby than she had with Lucas’s, for while Lucas’s children had a legion of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins courtesy of Gracie’s family, Edward and I had few relatives.

  But I needn’t have worried, for Mum was besotted from the word go with the small bohemian who was our daughter. Refusing to wear the clothes other children wore, or play with the same toys, Tavvy went her own sweet way, and while she wasn’t deliberately disobedient, nor even especially naughty, rules puzzled her. Whether she was talking to a stranger or picking flowers in someone else’s garden, she quite simply didn’t understand what she was doing wrong. ‘But Mummy, I didn’t know’ was her oft-repeated refrain. The ‘stranger’ hadn’t been strange at all; he was very nice. If she had a garden, she would be quite happy for someone to come and pick her flowers. What was the problem?

  Beautiful, eccentric and imaginative, she spurned friends of her own age (‘They just want to play, Mummy’) but loved adult company and made a wonderful companion. She never needed to be entertained, and provided she had pencils and paper, was rarely bored. Her drawings from an early age were prodigious in quality as well as quantity, and if her school work was neglected in favour of her art, she came up with such plausible excuses that it was difficult to argue with her.

  Edward adored her, and played a full part in her upbringing. We took it in turns to care for her, with help from Mum when the need arose, and she divided her time between our two homes. She never questioned this arrangement, seeming to enjoy the freedom and flexibility it engendered, together with her two bedrooms (not to mention the two cats — Tavvy loved cats). Whatever happened during the week, Edward and I always tried to spend the weekends together, and the three of us would have breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings; Edward and I with coffee and toast and the Sunday papers, and Tavvy in the middle with her boiled egg and soldiers.

  It wasn’t a conventional upbringing, but it worked, as I tried to explain to Lucas on the one occasion when he took it upon himself to question our childcare arrangements.

  ‘It’s not normal, Cass. To live in two houses, the way you do, and push the child back and forth like a — like a tennis ball.’

  ‘Tavvy’s not pushed anywhere! She wouldn’t put up with it, for a start.’

  ‘And that’s another thing. She’s in very real danger of being spoiled,’ Lucas said, as though being spoiled were on a par with being trapped in a burning building.

  ‘Is that what Gracie thinks?’ I asked mildly.

  ‘Gracie did happen to mention that you might have problems later.’

  ‘Well, do thank Gracie for me. I’m sure she’ll be able to advise me if that ever happens.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, Cass. W
e’re only trying to help. After all, we have been at this game a lot longer than you.’

  I thought of my two well-behaved nieces, who had probably never in their lives made a mud pie or climbed a tree (activities much favoured by Tavvy) and smiled. It was true that Sarah was beginning to show signs of rebellion, which Mum considered to be a promising start, but Anne appeared to be a lost cause. Gracie may not have been a particularly forceful character, but her genes more than made up for it.

  ‘Of course you have, Lucas,’ I said. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

  Despite Lucas’s warning, we had little trouble with Tavvy, and even her teens passed largely uneventfully. True, she could be wayward and moody, but no more than most teenagers, and as for the multiple piercings of her ears and the ring in her belly button, I thought they looked rather nice (the pierced eyebrow lasted only two days because Tavvy said it was too painful).

  When Tavvy was sixteen, Vanessa died. Unsurprisingly, Edward was deeply saddened at the ending of a life which had been so cruelly cut off, and much angered by those who expected him to feel relief at what they imagined to be his long-awaited freedom. ‘Now you and Cass can get married’ was the often repeated refrain (our relationship had long ceased to be a secret), but we felt strangely reluctant to upset the status quo. We had lived separately for so long that the idea of such a major change was unsettling.

  We asked Tavvy what she thought.

  ‘Whatever do you want to get married for?’ was her response.

  ‘Isn’t it what most people’s parents do?’ Edward asked.

  ‘Most people!’ scoffed Tavvy. ‘No. We’re all much better off as we are. Trust me. Besides, you two couldn’t possibly live together. It wouldn’t work.’

  And I think she was probably right. We could manage the upkeep of our two modest homes, and we had our own routines and habits (not to mention the two by now ageing cats, who would no doubt fight). One day, maybe we would think again, but for the time being we were content. As for Tavvy, she flitted to and fro at will, as often as not staying with Mum. By now, Call Me Bill had died, and Greta was in poor health, so what with caring for her and seeing to sundry Lodgers, Mum had her hands full. Tavvy liked to go round ‘to help’, although I suspect that the two of them spent most of the time drinking tea and gossiping.