Over

by Margaret Forster

  Our presents were on a table in the sitting-room and we trooped in for the grand opening, with Judith appearing again, her apron discarded. Judith had given Molly a pair of binoculars, small and light, which was a good present, because Molly had mentioned how fascinated she’d got by the birds in Africa. She was enthusiastic about all her presents, then Judith produced champagne for Don to open, though I didn’t feel like it after the Pimm’s. Judith’s meal was a triumph, but then her meals always are, and while we were eating the conversation flowed easily. Molly sat between Don and me, Finn opposite, with Judith. Neither of her boys was in London, so it was just us, a small gathering of five people. There was a birthday cake, which Judith, naturally, had made and candles, and we all sang ‘Happy Birthday’.

  It was later that a sudden silence seemed to fall. It wasn’t quite dark by then, and still very warm, so we went out to the terrace for coffee. I was glad to be there, outside, the light dim in spite of Judith’s candles. I sat on the wooden bench, with Molly. I sat down first and she came and joined me. I was glad, not wanting Don to do so. ‘Thanks, everyone,’ Molly said, her voice husky. ‘When is it you leave?’ Judith asked. ‘I keep forgetting. Is it next week?’ ‘This week,’ Molly said. ‘Four more days and I’m off.’ It took Judith to ask the obvious ‘Are you glad to be going?’ – though it was what we all wanted to know. Molly paused. She was clearly choosing her words carefully. ‘Sitting here now, with you all, I’m not glad. I mean, who would want to leave a happy family gathering?’ Don caught my eye, but I looked away. ‘But I’m looking forward to another few months, yes. I just worry, though, about what’ll I come back to. When you’re thousands of miles away you sort of want everything to stay the same back home. Coming back and finding … well, it wasn’t the same.’

  Judith got up. ‘I’m going to clear up. No, no, I don’t want any help, thank you. You just sit and enjoy being a family.’ I could have screamed – ‘being a family’ – for god’s sake, Judith. So she trotted back into the house and we were left. ‘Well, family,’ Finn said, lightly, ‘what shall we do? Scrabble, anyone?’ We tried to laugh, but not very successfully. And that’s when everything changed. The light-heartedness disappeared. Four gloomy people sat together staring into what was by then a dark garden. And I do need to sleep, before the next bit. I have to.

  *

  Sunday. Theoretically good, means I can recover from going to bed so late and getting little sleep. But I wish it were Monday, and school to go to, and the children to fill my mind.

  Still, I can flop, I needn’t drive myself on to do anything. I can get this over first, have done with this foolishness. I can sit here in my dressing-gown at my desk and even though my body aches, as though it had run a marathon, and my head is heavy – but then I did drink, after all – it is not asking much of myself to finish what I started. It won’t take long.

  There we were, in the garden, Judith’s candles flickering, lighting our faces kindly. They were those sort of scented candles – ‘Passion’, I saw one was called – set in tins. She had about a dozen of them – what do I mean, ‘about’, when I counted them over and over: she had exactly twelve candles on her terrace table, arranged all round the edge except for one, which was in the middle. The smell was overpowering and not entirely pleasant, but nobody said anything. We watched the candles as though they were fascinating. We watched each other. Finn kicked the table leg every now and again. He did it gently enough, but it became annoying. I saw Don longing to tell him to stop it but not wanting to risk an argument or Finn simply leaving the table. The candles shook. I didn’t say anything either. It was Molly who said to him that he was going to knock the candles over if he went on kicking the table. He immediately got up to go, as both Don and I had known he would – he’d only been waiting for an excuse.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll be off. Have to be up early tomorrow, got a big job.’

  ‘On Sunday?’ Don said, but his tone mild.

  ‘Yeah. We often have big jobs on Sundays.’

  ‘Night, then,’ said Molly. ‘Thanks for the pressie. See you tomorrow night.’

  He gave her a kiss, and then he hesitated before coming round to me and giving me one too. ‘Night, Dad,’ he said, and off he went. He really did go to bed. We saw the light go on upstairs in his room and then go off.

  ‘And now there are three,’ Molly said. ‘Cosy, huh?’

  ‘I’d better go myself,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t,’ Don said. ‘You’re driving, and you’ve drunk quite a bit.’

  ‘I’m not in the least drunk.’

  ‘No, but you’ve drunk quite a bit. Better wait a while, have some more coffee, and some water, Or stay here.’

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ I said, quickly. ‘I have to get home.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Molly. ‘What’s the urgency? There isn’t any, is there? You just want to leave us, that’s all, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t put it like that,’ I said. ‘You know I don’t want to leave you, not the way you make it sound.’

  ‘What way, then?’ Molly said. ‘What other kind of leaving is there? You want to be on your own.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean shutting you out or …’

  ‘It does. It means exactly that.’

  ‘Molly …’ began Don, and she turned on him so furiously it was frightening.

  ‘You!’ she said. ‘You did it, you left us, oh you did, that’s what all that rubbish about investigations amounts to, you left us when we needed you. And now you’re back, well, I’m glad, I really am, and I forgive you, I do, but she’s doing the leaving now, so don’t “Molly” me. I’ll say what I like, what I didn’t say to you then and I should have done.’

  And then she burst into tears.

  *

  Had to stop. Have had a long, hot bath. Washed my hair. Got into comfortable old clothes. Had some breakfast, and now here I am again, supposedly composed and ready to get it all out. I have to.

  She wept, and we both jumped up and went to her, but she wouldn’t let either of us touch her. ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘No, no!’ And then Judith came bustling out, asking whatever was the matter. ‘Nothing,’ Don said. ‘Molly’s just …’ But Molly cut in with, ‘Everything, Judith, everything is wrong but they won’t make it right.’ Judith stood quite still, and spread her arms wide in a strangely comforting gesture, as though she was trying to embrace the air round us and fold our distress within it. ‘Well,’ she said, and again. ‘Well.’ ‘Judy,’ Don said, ‘could you manage some more coffee, or shall I? …’ ‘Of course,’ Judith said, and went back into the house.

  ‘Coffee isn’t going to help, Dad,’ Molly said, still wiping the tears away. ‘Oh, my God! Coffee … as if …’

  ‘It’ll help your mother,’ Don said. ‘She’s driving home.’

  ‘Molly,’ I said, ‘if it would help, I’ll stay here for tonight, but …’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to, you don’t want to. It would just be a farce. Get thee to your nunnery,’ and then she started to laugh. At first I thought she was being hysterical, but then I realised it was a real laugh, and she couldn’t stop. Don’s face was heavily in shadow but I could tell he was smiling now. ‘Oh,’ Molly gasped, ‘it must be the drink!’ And then I joined in. It was one of my mother’s sayings – if anyone behaved in a ridiculous fashion she used to say, in the most serious of tones, ‘It must be the drink’, even if there had been no alcohol anywhere.

  Judith came out with the coffee. ‘And now it’s hysterics, is it?’ she asked. We said no, no, just a joke. She said she was glad to hear we were on to jokes, because she was going to have to go to bed and she couldn’t have gone if we’d still been in such a state. I said I was going too, as soon I’d drunk the coffee. ‘You won’t stay, Lou?’ she said, quietly. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m going back to my flat. But why don’t you all come to me for lunch, and we could have a walk in the park.’ ‘All of us?’ Molly said. ‘All of you, of course,’ I said.
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  Judith went to bed, and I drank my coffee. I felt perfectly capable of driving. I hugged and kissed Molly, who made an attempt to respond and do the same, but without much enthusiasm, and I said sorry, several times. She didn’t ask what for, which was lucky, because I couldn’t have said. Don said, ‘I’ll walk you to your car.’ I was going to say there was no need, but I didn’t, in case it would upset Molly. We went into the house, Don closing and locking the glass doors behind us, and then through to the hall, and Molly went off up the stairs. Don held the front door open for me, and Judith’s cat slipped in. ‘Got your keys?’ he asked. I took them from my bag and dangled them. The gravel crunched noisily under our feet. All the lights in the house were off, but suddenly one went on and we looked up and saw Molly about to lower her blind. She waved. We waved back.

  Then Don said, ‘Can I kiss you good night, Lou?’ Immediately, I felt the tears come. How long since he’d wanted to touch me? I didn’t think I could bear it. I shook my head, and said I didn’t think so, no. But he’d seen my tears. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘you can’t drive when you’re so upset.’ I said I wasn’t upset. I said it was late, and I wanted to get home, and sleep. I had to go. Once in the car, with the door closed, I felt better. He stood there, bathed in Judith’s security lights, his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched and it didn’t seem right to leave him like that. What did I feel? What did I feel … I don’t know. Something. Something I was afraid to feel but which felt important. I lowered my window, and put my hand through. He rushed forward, and held it. ‘Good night, Don,’ I said. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  I haven’t got much for lunch, but then none of us will be hungry after last night. I can make omelettes. At least I can make good omelettes, just as good as my sister-in-law’s. God knows why I invited them all, though. It wasn’t necessary. I could have done it another time. But it was for Molly’s sake. I want her to see that I haven’t left the family, even if I want to live on my own. I’ve never had any intention of leaving, in the real meaning of that word. I care deeply about all of them – even Don – don’t they know that? I want to show her that her father and I can be friends, good friends, even if I disappoint her by not holding out hope of anything else. I can’t just say to her that something broke, afterwards. Miranda died, and then, afterwards, with all that we went through, something else died. We can’t resurrect it, just as we can’t resurrect Miranda. We can only start over again, endure the memories, wait for the pain to lessen. As it has, already. We don’t want more pain, more grief. Molly would say that, by separating, Don and I have done exactly that, caused more pain, more grief, but I have to convince her that she is wrong.

  First, I have to convince myself. It’s time to put this away. There’s no more sense to be made of what has happened since 30 July 2003 – I mean, what has happened once it was all over. I want to move into the future, let my thoughts lead me there. I don’t want to look at the children in my class and see disaster ahead for them, drownings and bombings, and the other terrible random events that will almost certainly await some of them. It’s an awful way to live, shuddering endlessly at life’s tragedies, waiting for them to happen. I will not live like that. I want to be able to say, in ten years or so, that afterwards, a long time afterwards, I recovered. I don’t want people to say of me that my life was blighted by Miranda’s death. I don’t want my life to be defined by it. I have recovered a little, I will recover more. So will Finn, so will Don, and so will Molly. What might happen then, I don’t know.

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  Copyright © Margaret Forster 2006

  Margaret Forster has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Vintage in 2006

  (First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus in 2006)

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099507666