How to Measure a Cow

by Margaret Forster

  Dan made a face. ‘Tara can look after herself,’ he said. ‘She always could. I don’t know why you seemed to think she was so wonderful. She was the most selfish person I ever met, all me, me, me, spouting all that nonsense she did.’

  ‘What nonsense?’

  ‘Oh, the tree-hugging thing, for one. She didn’t give a damn about trees. She just wanted her picture in the papers. And those rallies, marches, whatever you want to call them. She hadn’t the faintest idea of the politics involved, she just liked the excitement.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Claire, ‘she cared about those causes.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Dan. ‘Anyway, I’ve had a long day and I’m tired. The last thing I want to do is talk about your silly friend. Goodnight,’ and he went to bed.

  Claire lay awake for hours, walking Tara’s street again, thinking about Tara living there. She tried to see it as Dan would – a perfectly ordinary street – but couldn’t.

  It seemed to her there’d been something more than just depressing about it, something there to pull Tara down. But, as Dan would say, she was getting carried away again. She wondered if she should visit the house again, at a different time, but phoned instead. There was no reply, and it didn’t switch on to answerphone.

  The visit didn’t begin well. Tara noticed that Nancy had dressed up, a bad sign. She was, as usual, wearing a skirt but instead of one of her usual checked affairs, it was a plain pleated grey. Usually she wore a blouse and a cardigan but today she had on a bright blue twinset which looked as though it had never been worn.

  ‘Goodness,’ Tara said, ‘you look smart.’

  Nancy didn’t like that. Tara suddenly understood the meaning of ‘bridled’.

  ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘I like your twinset.’

  Again, the wrong thing to say. Comments on clothes should not be made, apparently.

  ‘I’m on my way out,’ Nancy said. Tara wasn’t foolish enough to ask where she was going.

  Tea was made, offered, accepted. Tea, as ever, helped a bit.

  ‘When are you off?’ Nancy asked, though she already knew the answer. ‘You won’t be sorry to leave,’ she added. ‘Cockermouth is more your kind of place, I expect.’

  She sniffed as she said this, and though Tara interpreted the sniff correctly, she did not react to it. Very quietly, she put her cup down and said:

  ‘I’m sorry to be leaving you, Nancy, though I hope we’ll still keep in touch.’

  Nancy took a noisy gulp of tea, and then coughed.

  ‘There are things I’ve never told you,’ Tara said, ‘about why I came here, what I was doing here. Haven’t you ever wondered, Nancy?’

  ‘I don’t pry,’ Nancy said. ‘I mind my own business.’

  ‘True,’ Tara said, ‘and I respect that, I really do, but still, you must’ve wondered, no? I always meant to tell you about myself but it was never the right time. I never felt we got to know each other well enough.’

  Nancy shifted uneasily in her chair and said, ‘I have to go soon,’ but even as she was saying this one part of her was shouting in her head, ‘Let the girl speak.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Tara was saying. ‘I know you don’t want any messy confessions from me, but it would explain so much and might make sense to you, so I thought, before I moved, I should tell you about myself, as a sort of apology for being, perhaps, a bit strange. What do you think? Would you listen?’

  The most Nancy could manage to do was shrug, and even that took an effort, full as she was of embarrassment at any hint of personal revelations.

  So Tara plunged in. ‘For a start, as I told you before, my name isn’t Sarah Scott. It’s Tara Fraser.’

  No response from Nancy, not a flicker of astonishment or surprise in her tight face.

  ‘And I’ve been in prison. For a long time, ten years.’

  Now there was a reaction Nancy couldn’t control, and her lips disappeared, so complete was their compression. She didn’t ask what Tara had been in prison for.

  ‘Well,’ she said, after a long pause, ‘well, then.’

  ‘I was here to make a new life,’ Tara said, ‘so I took a new name, and I tried not to think about the old me. You were an important part of my new life.’

  Nancy looked startled.

  ‘Not me,’ she said, before she could stop herself, without thinking what these two words might mean. ‘I’ve nothing to do with you,’ she added, knowing she was making things worse. ‘I don’t want to be involved, I don’t want any trouble, I don’t want to be mixed up in anything.’

  Tara stayed calm. No good saying how disappointed she was. She’d anticipated this, and prepared for it.

  ‘Do you remember, Nancy,’ she said, ‘when I went away for a week, in June? I went back to see three old friends of mine, friends since we were seventeen. They invited me to a reunion, and I went. But what I went for was to make them ashamed because they didn’t stand by me when I needed them. It didn’t work, really. They had perfectly believable excuses, reasons. I wished I hadn’t gone. I wished I’d stuck to my new life, to being Sarah, living in this street opposite you. You steadied me, Nancy.’

  Nancy got to her feet.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said, ‘all this daft talk, it doesn’t make sense. Steadied you? What does that mean? I haven’t touched you. Now, where’s my coat?’ She knew she was red in the face with sheer exasperation – ‘steadied’ indeed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tara said. ‘I just wanted to be straight with you before I left. I felt I owed it to you.’

  Nancy walked to the door, but Tara was quicker. She stood with her back to the door, and said: ‘Sit down, Nancy, please.’

  She didn’t shout, nor was there anything threatening in her tone of voice, but Nancy felt alarmed. People didn’t do things like this. She was more astonished at this woman’s impudence than anything else – what a way to behave.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘Get out of my way.’

  ‘No,’ said Tara. ‘I won’t. I can’t let you leave like this. You haven’t understood what I was trying to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ Nancy said. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. Now let me out, I have to go.’

  Still Tara stood there.

  Nancy went closer. She hesitated, unsure whether she could bring herself to touch Sarah, shove her to one side, but a horror at the thought of the tussle that might follow held her back. Two women fighting? Shocking thought, like something which happened on the tougher council estates. Amy would be turning in her grave at the thought of such a thing happening in her house.

  Furious, Nancy turned and went towards a wooden chair, an old-fashioned dining-room chair, and not towards the armchair she’d just vacated. She perched on it uncomfortably, saying nothing, her handbag on her knees, held securely in her hands. Tara didn’t move.

  ‘I was trying,’ she began, ‘to explain about why I was so odd, and how much it meant to me that you helped me. I thought you were a friend, a new kind of friend for me. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘Well, you did,’ snapped Nancy, though she had vowed not to speak at all.

  ‘Then I’m sorry,’ Tara said, ‘truly sorry. Can we at least part friends, even if you never want to see me again?’

  ‘We were neighbours,’ Nancy said. ‘That’s the point.’

  Tara frowned, then slowly moved away from the door. There were tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks as she gestured towards Nancy, indicating that she could open the door and leave.

  Shocked, Nancy said, ‘Sit down now. I’ll make some more tea.’

  Tara said nothing, just stood in front of the armchair. Nancy took hold of her shoulders, though she hadn’t wanted to touch her, and gently pushed Tara into the seat.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘stay there.’

  The whole simple business of making fresh tea was a relief. Nancy stood beside the kettle, suddenly loving its shiny chrome surface, Amy’s old kettle still in use. The teapot was a
nother relic, never used, so far as she knew, by Sarah, Tara, whatever she was called. It was a pleasure to rinse it out with hot water, and would have been an even greater pleasure to put real, loose tea in it, but she could only find teabags. She knew making this tea was simply a diversion, a cliché, one used on all kinds of occasions to calm things down, to treat shock. Well, she was shocked, had been shocked. The melodrama of this woman barring the door! It was a wonder she hadn’t passed out.

  Tara was still weeping when Nancy took the tea through. She made no sound, no movement, but the tears streamed on.

  ‘Dear me,’ Nancy said, ‘dear, dear me,’ and she took a handkerchief from her pocket and cautiously attempted to dab Tara’s face. ‘Now, that’s enough, it’s enough.’

  Tara’s eyes were so huge. Nancy wondered why she had never really noticed this before. How could she not have registered the size of these doe-like blue/grey eyes, now still pools of tears? It was like treating a child, making soothing noises and dab, dabbing away till the handkerchief was sodden.

  ‘I’ve made such a mess,’ Tara then said. ‘I always do, I mess things up.’

  ‘The only mess,’ said Nancy, ‘is your face. Here, blow your nose,’ and she produced another handkerchief. (There was one in the right-hand pocket of her coat as well as in the left, and tissues in her handbag. At all times.)

  Ten minutes later, with no tea drunk, and Sarah/Tara silent, though the tears had stopped, Nancy wondered if it was safe to leave. Might Sarah/Tara do something? She looked as if she was going to stay for ever slumped in that chair, eyes now closed, but what if, the minute Nancy left, she took some pills, or picked up a knife to harm herself? Nancy wasn’t used to not knowing what to do. She’d always been decisive, good in an emergency people said (though she knew fine well that she’d never been involved in a real emergency). Eventually, after a good deal of thinking, she said, ‘I don’t like to leave you like this, but I have to go, I’m meeting a friend.’ At the word ‘friend’ Tara’s tears started again. Nancy sighed, and sat down.

  Tara finally controlled herself but sat, listless, with her eyes closed.

  ‘Now then,’ Nancy said, ‘that’s better. No point in upsetting yourself.’ She thought about patting Tara’s hand but decided not to. She cleared her throat. ‘You should get away from here,’ she said. ‘Isn’t there somewhere you can go for a while? Family, maybe?’

  Tara shook her head. Nancy wasn’t sure whether that meant she had no family, or that she didn’t want to go to them.

  ‘Friends?’ she queried. ‘One of those friends you mentioned? Down south, are they? I’m sure they’d be glad to see you, make up for letting you down, eh?’

  No response.

  ‘Well,’ Nancy went on, ‘we all get let down.’ She paused. ‘And we do our share of letting down.’

  She felt herself flushing, appalled at how she was talking, what on earth had got into her. But Tara had opened her eyes.

  ‘Have you been let down, Nancy?’ she said.

  The most Nancy could manage was a nod. There’d be questions now and she didn’t want questions.

  But Tara didn’t ask any.

  ‘I tried,’ she said. ‘I really tried, and I’m still trying.’

  Nancy thought she would just keep quiet.

  ‘I thought I could make a new life here, and be a new, contented, unadventurous person, working at a dull job, taking pleasure in routine, enjoying simple things like the countryside, the views, minding my own business, like you mind yours, Nancy. I took my lead from you. I wanted to be you – no, honestly, I did.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have,’ Nancy said, ‘it was daft, a young woman like you. It’s a waste.’

  ‘Of what?’ Tara asked. ‘What would I be wasting, trying to be like you?’

  ‘Oh, you’re off again,’ Nancy said, ‘twisting things, it’s silly. You know what I mean. You’re bright, you’re clever underneath, all that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth look. I don’t know much about you but I know you were educated, sticks out a mile, and you probably had a career, I don’t know what, and you can’t wipe those out. And it’s daft – I’ve said it already and I’ll say it again – it’s daft to think you could be like me or anyone like me. Who’d want to be me? You don’t know what goes on in my head. And don’t start – I’m not going to tell you. Now, get up, wash your face, and go for a walk or something. I’m going to the club. I’ll see you before you go.’

  And with that, Nancy left the house. Could Tara have killed her husband, or someone else, to be put away so long? Probably, if she’d been in prison ten years, then the sentence was bound to have been longer. Nancy felt sick thinking of Tara being a murderer. Why had she done it? What had this husband, who she described as ‘not a good man’, done to her? Maybe he hadn’t done anything to her. Maybe it was what he’d done to others. Tara had wanted to tell her, but she’d been too embarrassed to listen. Embarrassed! How could she have been embarrassed? Yet that had been her reaction. To run away, escape from the awful atmosphere which had built up in that confined space. Why did people have to tell things, why not keep things to themselves and deal with it? But, she reminded herself, Tara had tried to deal with it, and it hadn’t worked. She, Nancy Armstrong, had resisted it working.

  She wished the woman, Sarah/Tara, would just go away. Quickly. Quietly. She should never have got involved with her in the first place.

  ‘It was such a depressing street,’ Claire told Molly. ‘Grey houses, all squashed together. I just couldn’t imagine Tara in one of them all this time. I mean, there are some lovely streets there, but she chose this dreary one near an industrial estate. What do you think it was, a penance, or something?’

  ‘She wanted to disappear, I expect,’ said Molly, ‘and where better to do it than the street you’ve described?’

  ‘But she’d stand out,’ Claire said.

  ‘No,’ said Molly, ‘she wouldn’t, not as this Sarah Scott. Tara’s an actress, don’t forget, she loves new parts. I bet she loved changing everything about herself, especially how she dressed. Can’t you see her, doing a little “Miss Mouse” impersonation? Who would see through it? But then, when it was too successful, the old Tara would start peeping through, don’t you think? It would have got boring. She’d want a new script, a new part.’

  ‘Do you suppose,’ Claire said, ‘she’s made any new friends up there? Or is she acting this “new part” as you put it, all alone?’

  ‘Well,’ Molly said, ‘she had a job, or so she said. She’ll be in contact with people that way. And neighbours – she’s bound to have neighbours, especially in the sort of street you describe.’

  ‘Not her sort,’ Molly said.

  ‘And men?’ Claire asked. ‘What about men? How on earth will she meet any men, in her new role?’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to,’ Molly said. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t worry about her, Claire. You’re not her mother, and she’s made it clear enough that she doesn’t want any of us in her new life. Accept it.’

  But Claire couldn’t. Thoughts of Tara nagged at her all the time. She should have knocked on her door, or left a note saying she was nearby, just for two days. What was the point of having gone to Workington if not to see Tara? And now that she was home again, more than 300 miles away, she couldn’t recreate the feeling that had come over her in that street, the panic she’d felt. She couldn’t follow Molly’s advice. No, she wasn’t Tara’s mother but her concern felt maternal. It always had done. That had been her role in her old friendship with Tara. Tara didn’t have a real mother when Claire became her friend. It was a gap she filled, or tried to. It made her friendship with Tara different from her friendship with Molly and Liz.

  Tara’s mother, or lack of a mother, had been a mystery. Was she dead? Nobody knew. All Tara had said was that she didn’t have a mother and no amount of prying made her say anything else. Liz guessed that she simply didn’t know anything. She had a foster mother, though; she’d had the same foster mother
since she was three, she told Claire. Did she like her? Was this woman kind to her? A shrug. She was OK. To Claire, deep in her settled, relation-rich, middle-class family, Tara’s situation was the stuff of fairy tales. Everyone else’s family background was ordinary, Tara’s mysterious. Claire, at seventeen, couldn’t understand how she could be calm about it. To the question, ‘Will you try to find your real mother?’ Tara said, ‘Why?’ as though it had never occurred to her, but surely it must have done.

  Claire knew she was like her own mother, both in appearance and personality. So was Molly, the similarity to her mother even more marked. Liz, though, was nothing like her mother, which she professed to find a relief. But at least they all knew their mothers, and could see, and feel, what they’d inherited from them. Tara couldn’t. These rages she sometimes flew into: was her mother the same? The lying, the taste for dramatic outbursts: could her mother have told her that she, too, had gone through this phase and come out of it? The trouble was, Tara had no pattern to follow, or reject, when it came to her mother. And as for her father, the same applied but somehow, to Claire, this didn’t seem to matter so much. All this troubled Claire greatly, and made her excuse Tara almost anything. She was always hoping Tara’s mother would one day turn up, though as time went on this grew less and less likely.

  Liz’s theory was that Tara knew she had been abandoned and would never forgive her mother (though in fact she was convinced Tara’s mother was dead). Molly thought that when Tara had children of her own she’d change her mind about not wanting to find out if her mother was still alive. But Tara never did have children. Said she didn’t want them. Tom didn’t either. When, over the years, she came to visit Claire, Molly and Liz, all three breeding busily for a whole decade, she ignored their offspring. None of their babies was picked up and cuddled by Tara, no toddler played with. It had been quite hurtful, really. And then, when the children were older, towards the end of Tara’s regular visits, things improved a bit. Tara liked their surliness, their rudeness, the hostility some of them directed towards their mothers. It amused her. She championed them, and it was annoying. She even once told Liz’s bolshy elder daughter that if she wanted to leave home, when she became a teenager, she could come and live with her in London. Liz, who knew Tara didn’t for one minute mean this, was furious. The daughter in question might well go on to take the offer seriously, only to be met with Tara saying it had only been a joke.