‘Kook,’ Rosie said, pointing, as a coot bobbed out from behind the reeds.
‘Coot, Rosie.’
‘Toot.’
By now Charlie was sure that Rosie knew the difference between t and c, but liked muddling them up for fun. She handed pieces of bread to both children. Rosie, with cries of excitement, aimed hers at the indifferent coot. Kieran tore his up with slow deliberation, then stepped close to the water’s edge and flung a piece of crust hard but ineptly, so that it landed in the shallows near his feet. He crouched to dabble with his hand, waiting for the soggy bread to float close enough to catch. Charlie watched, slightly anxious in case he fell in; he’d be a heavy boy to pull out of the water. But his feet were firmly planted, and when the bread was dripping in his hand he stepped back from the edge.
Charlie hadn’t yet heard him speak. She wondered if he did speak. Then Rosie came up and tried to take the wet crust from him, and Kieran made a sound of objection, turning away.
‘It’s yours, isn’t it, Kieran?’ Charlie said, restraining Rosie. ‘Rosie’s got her own.’
The mallards had been slow to arrive but now they clustered round with expectant quackings. One of the bolder ones clambered out to the bank, waddled up to Rosie and tugged at the hem of her skirt. Kieran, perhaps thinking the duck was attacking Rosie, flapped his arms to shoo it away. ‘Nnno! Nnno!’
‘Well done, Kieran,’ Charlie said.
He looked at her and said, ‘Woshor name?’ His voice was thick and nasal, the words slurred.
‘My name’s Charlie,’ she said, pronouncing it clearly. Oliver hadn’t actually introduced her to Kieran. Kieran had simply come with her, obedient and unquestioning. Maybe he was used to a variety of carers.
‘Charlie,’ Kieran repeated. He stared at her, his head swaying a little. Then he said, ‘Boy.’
‘That’s right, it is a boy’s name,’ she said. ‘But it’s a girl’s name too. Short for Charlotte.’
‘Tarlotte,’ Rosie said. ‘Rosie, Wosary.’
Charlie laughed. ‘Rosemary? Is that your name, Rosie?’
‘Wosary,’ Rosie insisted.
When all the bread was gone the mallards dispersed, some settling on the bank to preen, some dabbling tail-up in the water. As the children showed no signs of boredom, Charlie sat on the grass to watch them. Rosie was absorbed in prodding the damp grass with a stick; Kieran went down to the water’s edge and collected five rounded stones, which he placed carefully in the palm of one hand. Then he brought them close to Charlie and laid them on the grass. When he’d done this three times, Rosie became interested. Wanting to play too, she brought a collection of pebbles and presented them to Kieran.
Kieran lowered himself heavily to the grass and began to arrange his stones in a pattern. Charlie saw that he’d chosen a particular kind of stone, rejecting most of Rosie’s; he wanted the smooth, rounded rust-coloured ones, fairly uniform in size. He put each stone down very carefully and patted it into place with the flat of his hand, breathing hard. Charlie watched; Rosie copied, bringing more and more stones and making her own arrangement. Rosie’s was straight lines with occasional heaps, like little cairns to mark a path; Kieran was making a spiral shape.
When she took the children up to the kitchen for orange juice and biscuits, Jon made her a cup of tea and said, ‘I feel sorry for that kid, poor little sod.’
‘Oh?’ Charlie was trying not to take her eyes off Rosie. Kieran, she had found, would wait where he was put, like a dog told to sit and stay; Rosie was likely to knock something over or dash too near the hobs, where Jon had two large casseroles steaming.
‘He’s always being dumped on someone,’ Jon said. ‘Last year it was Francesca.’
‘Francesca?’
‘Oh, I forgot – you weren’t here then,’ Jon said. ‘She was Oliver’s girlfriend – no one was meant to know, but I used to see her sneaking out of the Well House in the mornings. Oliver doesn’t bring the kid here much now. His wife – ex-wife – has him most of the time.’
Charlie’s thoughts had snagged on the name Francesca. Francesca Abbott. Oliver’s star student.
‘What did she look like?’ she asked casually. ‘Francesca?’
Jon lifted a lid, dipped a spoon and tasted, then fetched a pepper-grinder and twisted vigorously. ‘Oh – quite striking. Tall. Thin. Cropped hair. Stylish, in a way all her own. She wore clothes that looked like cutup curtains and bedspreads.’
That was Francesca Abbott, unmistakably. Charlie remembered Lisa, in the art corridor, saying, ‘She’s this year’s teacher’s pet. You’re next.’
Uneasiness curdled in Charlie’s stomach. She showed nothing, sipping her tea, watching Kieran and Rosie. She’d laughed at what Lisa said, but it was true.
Oliver and Francesca. Not just touching. Sleeping together.
And now? Was Oliver cultivating her as Francesca’s replacement?
Could Jon have got it wrong? There was nothing objectionable about Francesca being here, or looking after Kieran. But staying in the Well House! If there was an innocent reason for that, Charlie couldn’t think of one. Surely Dan and Fay wouldn’t condone it. But if they didn’t know …
Charlie’s brain was on full spin. She didn’t know what she thought. She tried to shove Oliver out of her head, and to concentrate on the children.
When Kieran and Rosie had finished their drinks, she took them to the courtyard, with the picture-book Fay had left for them in the hall. They sat on the bench, squashed together three in a row, the book on Charlie’s lap. As usual, Rosie was eager for the story to continue, trying to prise the corner of the page from under Charlie’s fingers. Kieran sat passively, his lips moving to some sound in his own head, not to the words Charlie was reading.
Then, half-way through the story, he said loudly, ‘Nay.’
‘Nay?’
‘Nay. Nail.’
Charlie looked at him, then at the double-page spread, for some clue.
‘Snay.’ He pointed at the garden wall.
Then Charlie understood. ‘Snail!’ There was a tiny snail as the footer to each page, making its way across the book on a trail of slime, so that if you flicked through the pages it appeared to be moving. She did this to show Kieran and Rosie.
‘Snay.’ He pointed again. Charlie looked, but saw no snail on the wall. ‘See snay.’
It was Rosie who got it. ‘Snail. Tieran maked a snail.’
‘A snail of stones! You made a snail, Kieran? Shall we go back and see it?’
Kieran nodded vigorously. There was a trail of dribble from his mouth to his chin; Charlie wiped it away with a tissue. For the second time they all went down to the pond, Kieran stumbling in his haste, talking to himself.
‘Snail, yes. I can see now. Clever Kieran!’ Charlie said, by the pattern of stones.
Rosie began to make a snail of her own, while Kieran made adjustments to his. Charlie was in no hurry to take them away; she didn’t know how she’d face Oliver. Soon the new guests would arrive, exclaiming as they saw the pond, coming down to look; but for now there was only the prukk of a coot and the flick and splash as a fish broke the surface. The water mirrored sky between the cut-out shapes of waterlily leaves. While the harvested fields beyond were taking on the bleached look of late summer, the pond and its banks were still green and luxuriant.
Charlie’s thoughts kept circling round Oliver. She resisted, thinking instead of Sean, and the postcard he’d sent from Snowdonia. Sent it to her, not to Kathy. First to the doormat, she’d snatched it up, her instinct to hide it; but then she decided to show it to her mother. It was a test for both of them: for Kathy, to see if she could respond with normal interest; for Charlie, whether she could mention Sean’s name without giving herself away.
‘Look, Mum,’ she said casually. ‘A postcard from Sean.’
‘Oh, yes?’
The moment passed without a display of emotion from either party.
Snowdon, Crib Goch was the picture: a terrifying ridge
knifing the sky. Sean had written Came across here today. A few hairy moments! Fantastic views – you’d love it. The course is tough, but by now I could navigate my way to any rock you care to name, in thick fog at midnight. See you soon, Sean. Followed by an x.
Already Charlie knew the words by heart.
How soon? she wanted to ask him. When will I see you?
She would tell him about Kieran; she heard herself telling him. About Mum and the photos? About Oliver ? She wasn’t sure, but she imagined him sitting beside her, listening. She could visualize him so strongly that his absence was a fresh disappointment.
She’d forgotten the time, here in the still hollow of afternoon.
Someone was calling her.
‘Charlie?’ It was Oliver, walking quickly down the grass slope. ‘What are you doing down here? It’s gone half-past!’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘I’ve got to get Kieran back to Rosalind for six. Anyway, sorry to lumber you. I hope he was OK.’
‘I wasn’t lumbered! I enjoyed it. Look at the snail Kieran’s made—’
She moved towards it, but Oliver gave the briefest of glances and said, ‘Oh, he’s always playing about with stones. Come on, Kieran. We’re going.’
He’s always being dumped on someone, Jon had said, about Kieran. Oliver thought of him as a nuisance.
He didn’t see him often; he’d told Charlie that. Naïvely, she had imagined a custody dispute, with Oliver frustrated in his desire to spend more time with his son. The real situation showed him in a far less flattering light. He was in charge of Kieran for one afternoon, but couldn’t be bothered. Had palmed him off on someone else.
Kieran deserved better. Charlie felt a flash of loyalty towards him. And of hot, angry resentment towards Oliver.
Kieran walked slowly towards them. Waiting, Oliver said, ‘Thanks again, Charlie. You’ve helped me out of a hole.’ He smiled at her, reached a hand to touch her sleeve. ‘This colour’s fantastic on you. You ought to wear green more often.’
Charlie snatched her arm away and glared, taking three steps back. He met her gaze, puzzled and half-smiling. She moved towards Kieran. ‘I’ve enjoyed our afternoon,’ she told him. ‘Thank you, Kieran.’
‘Eye-bye arr,’ he said. Charlie saw the slow beginning of a smile.
‘I’ll be back for dinner and to meet the troops,’ Oliver told her, ‘and then I’ll see you tomorrow for the class.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m not coming.’
‘Oh?’ Oliver looked a question at her, but then glanced at his watch. ‘God, look at the time. Come on, Kieran. See you when I get back, Charlie.’
Kieran turned to wave to Rosie. Oliver started up the slope without him, then turned and waited; before Kieran had caught up, he walked on again. Charlie noticed that for all the touching Oliver did, he hadn’t touched Kieran once: no hug for a greeting, no physical sign of affection at all. He’d barely spoken to him, and then impatiently. He hadn’t asked whether he’d had a nice time, or admired the snail, or explained why it was time to go. He treated Kieran as an unwieldy piece of baggage.
Charlie watched them walking, together but apart.
She rarely thought about her own father, but now she did.
Her father had abandoned her. Didn’t want her, didn’t care. Money arrived in her mother’s bank account each month but there was never a letter, never a phone call. He had no curiosity about her. She’d grown up, become a person; but not to him. He’d forgotten her.
She looked at Oliver’s back as he walked up the lawn, and thought: I hate you.
But no, she didn’t. Didn’t care enough to hate him. She despised him.
Oliver Locke had less time for his own son than he had for her. And for Francesca. She remembered him saying he liked the Well House because of its distance from the guests; that wasn’t just for artistic isolation, as she’d once liked to think. Had there been others before Francesca? How had he got away with it?
Not any more, she thought. Not if he thinks I’m going to play.
‘Come on, Rosie,’ she said. ‘Time to find your mum.’
Coming in, late, at the front gate of Flightsend, Charlie almost tripped over four full dustbin bags left outside. They were black, easy to fall over in the near-darkness. Her mother had been having a clear-out.
The downstairs lights were still on. Kathy was sitting at the table reading a rose catalogue.
‘Hi, Mum. What’s in those bags?’ Charlie asked, fending off Caspar.
‘Baby things,’ Kathy said. ‘I decided there’s no point hanging on to them any more. Someone put a flier through the letterbox – there’s a Salvation Army collection tomorrow.’
‘What – all of them?’
‘I kept a little pair of shoes and a toy panda. Everything else is in the bags. It’s silly to clutter up the loft when someone else can use the things.’
Well. Charlie didn’t know what to say. Resisting an urge to rush out and haul the bags back indoors, she filled the kettle, making an unnecessary clatter with the mugs and milk jug. Somehow, she’d provoked this by showing her mother the drawings of Rosie.
‘I was looking at Frühlingsmorgen this evening,’ Kathy said. ‘And thinking that we ought to plant a memorial rose of our own. A rose for Rose. You can help me choose. We’ll go to a specialist rose grower to make sure we get exactly the one we want.’
‘Yes. Good idea. Plant it here in the garden, you mean? We’ll stay here now, won’t we?’
‘I think so,’ Kathy said. ‘This is home now, isn’t it? I don’t want anything else.’
Charlie looked at the kitchen shelf where she’d propped Sean’s postcard. She thought: if this is some kind of final farewell, a putting to rest, he ought to be involved, too.
‘Mum, I—’ she began.
‘Mmm?’ Kathy looked up from the catalogue.
‘Oh – I – think it’s a really good idea, the rose,’ Charlie said lamely.
She poured the tea and took hers up to bed. Picking up Emma, she stared at a page sightlessly, thinking that Sean would be at home now. For how long? He’d told her that he was setting straight off again, for Turkey. He was going on the cheap, he said, staying at Youth Hostels wherever he could. That way he could stay for three weeks. Three weeks – an interminable, unbearable stretch of time. Charlie felt as if she’d never see him again.
She was too hot. She threw back her quilt, opened the window wider, tried again to read. No use. A moth blundered against the lamp with a dry flicker of wings. She turned off the lamp to usher it out of the window, then stood for a while thinking. Sean was at home now, at the other end of a telephone, not miles away and inaccessible in Snowdonia or Turkey.
What would she say?
She couldn’t phone now. Eleven at night was too late to bother him.
She didn’t know what to do. If she had felt ill before, it was more like a fever now; she’d never sleep tonight. She fidgeted, picked things up, put them down again. What had Anne called her? Sensible, mature? She ought to see me now, she thought. Anyway, I don’t want to be sensible and mature all the time. I’m only sixteen and I want to behave like a headstrong teenager for once. I’ve been sensible and mature for Mum; at least, I’ve tried to be. Now I want something for myself.
I want Sean.
I’ve got to talk to him. Now. Or go mad.
She heard bathroom sounds; her mother was getting ready for bed. When the buzz of the shower clicked on, Charlie crept down to the phone and dialled Sean’s number.
He picked up almost straight away. ‘Sean Freeland.’
So easy. His voice in her ear, warm and close.
‘Sean, it’s me.’ Charlie tried to sound normal.
‘Hi there, Charleston! How’s things?’
‘Fine, thanks. I’m sorry to phone so late. I just wanted’ – what? – ‘to see if you got home all right. I mean, anything could have happened. You could have fallen off Crib Goch. It looked terrifying.’
> ‘Not this time, thanks. I held on tight.’
‘You weren’t asleep, were you? I hope you don’t mind me phoning so late. I’ve missed you.’
‘Course I don’t mind! No, I was just about to turn in. I haven’t been in long. Look, I was going to come over tomorrow afternoon. Would that be OK? I’ll tell you all about it then.’
‘You’re coming here?’
‘You don’t have to sound so amazed. I won’t get lost, not after a whole week with map and compass.’
‘I thought you were going straight off to Turkey?’
‘Not till Monday,’ Sean said.
Charlie bounded upstairs two at a time and into bed. Tomorrow! Not three weeks ahead, not some time in an unforeseeable future, but tomorrow. He needn’t come, he could find any number of reasons not to – too tired, washing and packing to do, other people to see – but he was coming here to see her. To see her.
She opened Emma. Chapter 47. Newly energized and not at all sleepy, she thought she might finish the book tonight.
She read: It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself!
Mr Knightley. Sixteen years older than Emma. Someone Emma had regarded as a sort of older brother, or uncle, before realizing that she loved him.
Sean was thirteen years older than Charlie. Not sixteen. Not as old as Mr Knightley.
Admittedly, Mr Knightley hadn’t been the lover of Emma’s mother; not Jane Austen territory. All the same, the similarities were there. Now she had to know how Emma ended. Reading much too quickly, devouring the words, she read to Chapter 49, where Mr Knightley returned after an absence; Emma had been longing to see him – yes, yes, he loved her, he was telling her, they were clearing up all their misunderstandings. By Chapter 50 Emma was in ‘a flutter of happiness’.
Charlie turned off her lamp, thinking of tomorrow, wondering what she was expecting. Not Emma’s happy flutter; she didn’t want any drastic change in the relationship. Didn’t want to spoil it. Didn’t even want Sean to touch her, other than to give his normal hug. Caressing or kissing would be too creepily Oliver Locke-like, crossing barriers that couldn’t be crossed yet. To Sean, she was Charleston, good old Charleston. She was happy to go on being Charleston if it meant Sean was her friend, if he sent postcards and made time to be with her.
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