‘You opened my eyes to a wider world than Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘You gave me the ability to stand on my own feet, and the determination to make something of myself. But best of all you made me believe I could do anything, and that, Laura, has been the very best thing of all.’
‘You would have got all those things without me,’ she said.
Stuart shook his head. ‘No, Laura. If I hadn’t met you, I might have drifted off on the hippy trail for a while, but I’d have come back to Edinburgh and got work and stayed. No doubt I’d have married, had kids and all that stuff, and probably have been happy enough, but I wouldn’t have achieved my full potential, seen the things I have seen.’
Laura shrugged. It was nice of him to credit her with improving his prospects, but she didn’t believe it was down to her.
∗
Laura told Meggie about Jackie’s will while they were sitting waiting at the airport for their flight to be called. Not surprisingly she was overwhelmed at such generosity from a stranger, and she shed a few emotional tears.
‘What on earth will Ivy and I do with a guest house?’ she asked, wiping her eyes. ‘We wouldn’t have a clue how to run one.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Laura said. ‘You could just sell it and share the money, or get it converted into flats or something. People who work in St Andrews at the university are always after places in Crail.’
‘Are you going to live at Brodie Farm?’ Meggie asked.
‘I couldn’t bear to after what happened there,’ Laura said sadly. ‘I always loved the place, and Jackie knew that, and I’d like to be close to Barney too, but well, I’m sure you know.’
‘Jackie must have cared an awful lot for you to give it to you, and to want us to have the other place so we could all be close,’ Meggie said thoughtfully. ‘But it does feel just a bit like she wanted to control us.’
‘Just a bit,’ Laura agreed. ‘She did like to do that, and I suppose I always let her. I’m going to miss her so much now I’m out of prison. She played such a huge part in my whole adult life. I can’t imagine not being able to tell her about a new job, clothes I’ve bought or where I’m living.’
‘You’ve got me and Ivy for that now,’ Meggie said, slipping her arm through her sister’s and cuddling up against her shoulder. ‘And I’ll be tucking you into bed in my spare room, making you breakfast, and asking you what you want to watch on telly. That is, until Stuart comes down to London and takes over.’
Laura sniggered. ‘You are seeing things that aren’t there, Meggie. He didn’t even hug or kiss me today.’
‘His chest hurts, and anyway, he didn’t get any encouragement from you. You were like an icicle.’
‘I wasn’t!’
‘You were. You sat on the other side of the room. Even when I went into the kitchen to heat up the lasagne, you didn’t move to sit beside him.’
Their flight was called, interrupting the conversation, but once they were on board and waiting for takeoff, Meggie began again.
‘He still loves you, Laura. Don’t let him slip away again.’
‘It’s kinder that I do.’ Laura closed her eyes, for she was suddenly very tired. ‘Like I said earlier today, I’m all used up.’
That was exactly how she felt, all used up, like an empty perfume bottle that still looked attractive on the dressing table, retained a little of its fragrance but was no use to anyone.
When she thought back to the twelve years from Barney’s death to when she was arrested she could see now that she’d been like an empty shell. She looked good, she worked hard, and everyone saw her as a successful woman who had exactly the kind of life she wanted. There were men in her life, she went out to dinner and parties, and sometimes even spent weekends walking in the Trossachs. A few of the men she liked enough to go to bed with, but she never felt that vital spark which might have led to love. She remembered Alan, a sweet man who was a vet, asking in rather puzzled tones what it was she wanted, and she answered, ‘Nothing’. He said that was what he suspected, and if she wanted nothing, that’s what she would get. He likened her to a very high wall, and he said he had the distinct feeling that even if he managed to climb to the top of it, he’d find nothing on the other side.
He was right of course. She might have recovered from the shock of losing Barney, she no longer cried and spent long nights beating herself up about what she had been in those days. But the hole Barney left in her life remained there; work, going out, a nice flat and good clothes didn’t fill it. She was empty inside, just like the perfume bottle. Alan moved on, other men came and went too. She wasn’t hurt by it, mostly she was glad to be alone – that way she didn’t have to feel guilty about her lack of feeling.
All she wanted now was to be with her sisters, to try to make it up to them for all the sadness and worry she’d caused them. She had indulged in a few romantic thoughts about Stuart, but this was normal for women in prison, it was just another form of escapism. She’d heard women inside talking in loving terms about men she knew to be brutes, wasters and cheats. That was just how it was, and in their heart of hearts they knew perfectly well it wouldn’t work when they got out.
She was just grateful to Stuart for helping her when no one else would. She didn’t have to embroider that into love.
The last days of August slipped by for Laura in a sweet, golden haze of contentment. She loved everything about Meggie’s pretty, ordered house: the way the sun came into her room in the mornings, the fluffy towels in the luxurious bathroom, the light, bright kitchen, and the comfort of the big settees in the sitting room where she could watch television without the endless arguments she had grown used to in prison. But most of all she loved the garden, and she spent most of her time out there, lying in the sun, letting her mind wander at will.
Meggie spent at least two days a week out checking on her properties, dealing with repairs and overseeing building work. The rest of the week she worked in her small office upstairs, sometimes alone, sometimes with Ivy. Laura found it difficult to come to terms with the knowledge that these two smartly dressed, dynamic businesswomen were the little sisters she used to wash, change and feed when she was still only a child herself.
Laura had always seen her sisters as being very alike, and very different from her. But now she could see that she and Ivy were the two most similar and that Meggie was the odd one out. She was a fraction taller, she had a more rounded figure than Laura and Ivy, and the habit she’d had as a child of frowning a great deal had returned, making her look older than she really was. Her dark hair was naturally so, with no grey hairs at all, but she would never have resorted to dyeing it as Ivy and Laura did, regardless of the colour. All her clothes were very conservative, either plain, dark trouser suits with a crisp white shirt, or mid-calf dark print dresses. Laura felt that she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself; she was happy to let anyone else have the limelight.
Ivy was now forty-two, and like Laura her hair had been every colour under the sun over the years; right now it was honey-blonde, long and wavy. She went for glamour, high heels, dangling earrings, slinky dresses or sharp Italian suits. She was the confident, talkative, fun-loving one: she enjoyed her life, loved Derek, her husband, and her sons Jack and Harry, and it showed. No one would take her for a day over thirty.
Ivy was the one who wanted to know every grisly detail of Laura’s time in prison. She liked to discuss the past at length, especially the foibles of their mother, what might have happened to their older brothers, and the good times she and Meggie had had together in the house in Islington.
Meggie didn’t want to discuss the past or the people who’d been part of it. She was more interested in the present and the future, how people she cared for felt now, and their plans and dreams.
Laura found the balance between her feelings for her sisters was just right. She loved Ivy’s vivacity, her sense of fun and her irreverence. But Meggie’s steadiness, her keen understanding of human frailty, loyalty and compassion we
re like soothing cream applied to sunburnt skin.
There were many days when Laura thought how much Jackie would have enjoyed being here in the beautiful garden, with Ivy and Meggie. She would have looked at all three sisters objectively, noted their differences and their similarities, and Laura had no doubt she would have said she’d swop Belle for any one of them.
Laura found it odd she thought that. Jackie had never once said she disliked Belle; she hadn’t even been particularly critical of her. Yet now Laura was here with her two sisters, she realized she’d never sensed any bond between Jackie and Belle, the way she could feel it between herself, Meggie and Ivy.
For the first couple of days in London, Laura had been too nervous to go out alone. It was freedom enough not to be locked up, to eat and drink what she liked, when she liked, and to hear no fights or arguments. But that nervousness faded after Meggie had taken her to the police station to make her bail arrangements.
Sometimes she took a train or a bus out into the countryside and walked for miles. Other times she went up to the West End to browse in the shops, and contemplated what she would do, and where she would go after her appeal.
Stuart telephoned a couple of times a week. He said that every day he felt a bit better, and that the stab wound was healing well. But he didn’t say he was coming back to London, and to Laura that was evidence that his interest in her was merely that of an old friend.
Angie phoned quite often too, firstly to check if Laura liked the clothes she’d given her, and then just to chat. It was a delight to find they were able to pick up their friendship as if nothing had ever disconnected it. Laura was out of touch with fashion, and with talking to ordinary people, but each time she put the phone down after speaking to Angie she felt she was a step nearer to regaining her old spirit.
Laura loved almost all the clothes Angie had given her, though it took Ivy to convince her that she wasn’t too old to wear pink pedal-pushers, or a short flippy denim skirt. But after wearing only jeans and a tee-shirt for two years, it felt marvellous to dress up again. When she got her first wolf whistle from a passing truck driver as she walked to the shops, she began to think that maybe she wasn’t washed up altogether.
Half-way through September, in the early evening, she and Meggie were sitting on the patio just outside the kitchen with drinks while the dinner cooked.
‘I thought we ought to ask Mother over for Sunday lunch,’ Meggie said suddenly.
Laura almost choked on her wine with the shock.
‘I know you don’t really want to see her, but you’ve got to. It’s all part of moving on,’ Meggie continued, her mouth set and determined. ‘She’s a bitter, nasty old woman, and she probably deserves the lonely life she’s got. But she’s seventy now and she isn’t in the best of health. She could pop off at any time and then you might feel bad that you’d never made it up with her.’
‘I won’t,’ Laura said. ‘I forgave her a long time ago for subjecting us to Vince, I did come to see that she was so blinded by the nice house and the money that she didn’t see what he was doing to us. But I can’t forgive her for not caring that Barney died, or for talking to the newspapers about me during the trial.’
Meggie sighed deeply. ‘I think that was unforgivable too, but you don’t have to forgive her, just see her and talk to her. I’ve got this gut feeling it might make you feel better about yourself.’
‘I feel perfectly good about myself, thank you,’ Laura retorted.
‘You don’t,’ Meggie insisted. ‘You’ve got issues that have never been resolved. I know because I’ve got them too. We both subconsciously blame Mum for the bad things we did in the past – well, in as much that we think if we hadn’t been forced out to fend for ourselves so early we might have done things differently.’
Laura had to admit she agreed with that. ‘But she never gave a toss about us once we’d gone, so why should we give her the time of day now?’
‘Because she’s our mother,’ Meggie said. ‘Just think on that, Laura!’
Laura did think on it. She thought that maybe if Barney hadn’t died so young, he might have rejected her later. She wondered if during the time he spent with Jackie, he sometimes wished he could stay there for ever. She wished she’d been able to apologize for neglecting him, and to tell him how much she’d loved him.
The following morning at breakfast, she told Meggie she would welcome their mother on Sunday. ‘Well, welcome’s pushing it a bit far,’ she joked. ‘But I won’t greet her with a clove of garlic and a crucifix.’
‘I’m glad you’ve come round,’ Meggie said with the air of someone who had expected it. ‘She tried to blackmail me once, said she’d tell Ivy about me being a prostitute.’
Laura’s mouth fell open. Although Meggie had admitted what she’d been in a letter, she hadn’t expected her ever to bring it up again.
‘Don’t look like that! I can say the word out loud if I have to. But I only brought it up now so you’d know about Mum.’
‘How did you deal with it then?’ Laura asked.
‘Told her everything I knew I learned from her. And recently I told Ivy the truth too, just to be on the safe side.’
‘You told Ivy?’
‘Yes. I didn’t want to shatter her illusions, but better I did it than her hearing it from Mum.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She looked thunderstruck, and for a moment I thought I’d blown it with her. But then she said it made sense of a few things which had puzzled her, mostly me being off men. After that she did the usual Ivy thing, a million questions. We drank a couple of bottles of wine and we began to laugh about it. As she said, it’s ancient history.’
‘You are a couple of tough cookies,’ Laura said admiringly. She still had the idea she had to look out for her sisters, but almost every day of the last couple of weeks she’d had evidence that wasn’t necessary.
You take a leaf out of my book.’ Meggie grinned. ‘Ignore any spiteful remarks Mother dearest might make. Don’t tell her about Jackie leaving us anything, and don’t ask after her health or she’ll bang on about her ailments all day.’
It was a shock to Laura to realize that the frail little old lady getting out of Meggie’s car on Sunday was her mother. Her back was bent over, she was very thin, her hair was snow-white, and when she lifted her head Laura saw that her face was as wrinkled as a prune.
‘Hello, Mum,’ Laura said and helped her up on to the doorstep. She was repelled by the stale smell of drink, cigarettes and an unwashed body coming from her mother, but she tried not to back away. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘Who are you?’ June asked, looking puzzled.
‘It’s Laura, of course,’ Meggie said from behind her.
‘But Laura’s in prison!’
Meggie smirked at Laura, and patiently explained, as they helped their mother in, that her sister was out on bail pending an appeal. ‘I always told you she didn’t do it,’ Meggie added somewhat triumphantly. ‘But never mind that now, we’re going to have lunch.’
The lunch went much better than Laura expected. Meggie gave the old lady a large glass of wine and that seemed to have remarkable restorative powers, in as much that she ate a great deal, having told them before that she couldn’t get food down. She didn’t talk about her ailments, but that was because Meggie steered her away from the subject. She told them about a pensioners’ coach trip she’d been on to Brighton, and that she often went to the cinema in the afternoons. She did repeatedly interrupt herself to ask where Ivy and her grandsons were, and Laura felt Meggie had the patience of a saint to be able to keep explaining they couldn’t come because the boys were playing in a football match.
It wasn’t until they had finished lunch and gone to sit down in the sitting room that June suddenly asked why Laura got bail.
Laura explained as best she could. ‘It looks as if Belle, Jackie’s sister, killed her,’ she finished up.
‘The woman who was killed came to see me
once,’ her mother said.
‘Jackie did?’ Laura said, not believing her.
‘Yes, she asked me a lot of questions about you.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘She had red hair, and she was posh. She said she used to live in Muswell Hill. I didn’t like her.’
Laura looked at Meggie for confirmation this was true, but Meggie just shrugged.
‘Why didn’t you like her?’
‘Because she wouldn’t give me any money.’
‘You asked her for money?’ Meggie exclaimed.
‘Well, I hadn’t got any, and I could see she had. She wanted to know about our family, and I said she’d have to pay for the information.’
Laura sighed deeply. ‘What did she say to that then, Mother?’ she asked.
‘She said I’d already told her all she needed to know. What do you think she meant by that? I hadn’t told her anything!’
Laura had to smile. Jackie had always been very good at grasping situations and weighing people up.
‘And when was this, Mother?’ Meggie asked.
‘How do you expect me to remember that? All I know is that it wasn’t all that long before she was killed because I recognized her face in the papers.’
When Meggie returned from taking their mother home, Laura was sitting in the kitchen drinking a glass of wine. ‘I hope you turned her gas tap on before you left her,’ she said.
Meggie half smiled. ‘No chance, it’s all electric. She really is a piece of work, isn’t she? So that’s how Jackie found out about us all! I suppose you’re really mortified?’
‘Yes and no,’ Laura said thoughtfully. ‘It kind of explains what Jackie meant in her letter to Stuart, when she said, “Tell Laura I understand.” She was intuitive about people, Meggie, she might have hoped to learn all the ins and outs, but Mum asking her for money would have been enough for her.’
‘She’d have been appalled by the way she lives too,’ Meggie said sadly. ‘It’s really squalid. Over the years both Ivy and I have tried to improve things, but as fast as we buy her new curtains or a nice armchair, she sells them. We’ve given up now, just like Freddy has. So either Ivy or I go round there once a week and clear up, throw out all the bottles, put some money in the electric, and take her clean clothes. Sometimes I think we must be mad to do it, we never get any thanks.’
Faith Page 48