Margaret put down the pillow gently, like a baby being laid in bed, smoothing it. ‘You seemed very happy on your wedding day. We all thought he was nice.’
Louise let out a puff of air between her lips. ‘Puh!’
‘Well then,’ Esther said, ‘you’d better tell us.’
They were all sitting on the bed now, Margaret hugging the pillow again, Louise curled up, arms round her knees, Esther primly at the end, waiting.
‘He hit me,’ Louise said. ‘So I left.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Why, what had you done?’ Both of them rounded on Margaret who went scarlet. ‘You know what I mean – why did he?’
Louise had once spoken to the girl Mark had left for her, had actually abandoned at the party where they’d met, taking advantage of the girl being drunk and escorting Louise home instead. It was a month before a mutual friend told her about the other girl and by then she was in love with Mark, or thought she was. The girl was not friendly when they finally met, but she did say Louise was welcome to him.
Recounting this now, rueful, she told Esther and Margaret, ‘I think he must have hit her too.’
‘What happened?’
‘We weren’t long back from our honeymoon. I wasn’t going to put up with it, though. I packed up my stuff and thank God I still had my flat, hadn’t managed to let it yet, so I just went home. Locked the door. But he wasn’t the mad pursuer type. Just lazy and arrogant. You can keep your good-looking men from now on. Your chiselled features and crooked smile, your rippling muscles and permanent sun tan.’
‘You make him sound like somebody in a Mills and Boon romance,’ Margaret said. She sighed. ‘He did look like that. How awful. Weren’t you frightened?’
‘You did the right thing,’ Esther said. ‘I think it was brave, to leave right away.’
‘Brave – I don’t know. It was bloody humiliating, lying on the floor, my lip bleeding. I didn’t really know what had happened. We were both a bit drunk. I was screaming at him – then somehow we ended up in bed. It was always like that with him. Next morning he was really apologetic, said it was an accident. I said fine, ok, couldn’t altogether remember how it had come about, I’d had a fair bit to drink as well. But somehow, after that, he didn’t look the way he used to.’
He had become a paper man, she thought, but did not say. He was like a cartoon character, just muscle drawn on the page like those guys in Jackie magazine, with a star shaped speech balloon beside them – a girl saying What a hunk!
‘You were drunk,’ Margaret said. She sounded thoughtful.
‘That’s no excuse!’ Esther said, but wondering. It was always like that with him. And yet Louise had said – he hit me, so I left. It didn’t altogether add up. There were gaps. Still – ’You did the right thing,’ she repeated.
So immersed in Louise’s story were they, they heard nothing else, not a door opening or a footstep on the stairs.
‘Well, here you are!’ Caroline leaned on the door jamb, smiling at them. ‘Once upon a time there were three little girls and their names were – ’
‘It’s an Elties meeting,’ Louise confirmed. ‘But you can be an honorary member.’ She patted the bed. ‘Come in and be the Dormouse.’
‘The men all seem to be hungry,’ Caroline said. ‘So I was sent to ask you what you’d like to eat.’
‘We’re really snowed in then?’ Margaret asked.
‘Looks like it.’
Caroline sat on the edge of the bed. Close up, she looked tired. ‘It’s been a long day,’ she said.
‘For all of us,’ Louise agreed.
‘You had a point, you know,’ Caroline said to Esther. ‘The hens. My father can’t look after them. He’s at work, he goes away regularly . . . He won’t cook for himself either. There are things in the freezer – Granny had really got the hang of that. Janet is searching there now for stuff we can heat up in the oven. But when that’s all gone – don’t know what he’ll do.’
‘He must be able to cook. He’s lived on his own for so long.’
‘No, Margaret, he can’t. He’d rather spend money in a restaurant than cook a meal.’
Margaret frowned, then flushed and looked away. Esther thought she must still be annoyed with Caroline. She wanted to put things right, without knowing how, and feeling guilty all over again about the ring Caroline had given her.
‘Anyway,’ Caroline said, looking from one to the other, ‘what were you talking about so seriously when I came in?’
‘Marriage,’ Esther told her.
‘Well, my lack of success at it,’ Louise said.
‘Best avoided altogether in my view.’ Caroline smiled and tilted her head at Esther and Margaret. ‘Saving your graces.’
‘Oh they’re both better at picking than me.’ Louise got up, tired of the attention on her past, her failure, her half-true confession. Even to find out about Caroline, she would not stay. Let the others, if they wanted to.
‘I’ll just have scrambled eggs,’ Margaret said, ‘if you’re going down to see Mum about food.’
‘Me too.’
‘Ok – I’ll say. Caroline?’
‘I don’t mind. Soup, if there’s any left.’
Perhaps she knew there was danger in being alone with Esther and Margaret, whose weddings she had failed to attend. Caroline slid off the bed and followed Louise to the door.
‘I’d better unpack,’ she said. ‘I’m going to sleep in my old room up in the attic.’
‘It will be freezing – the heating doesn’t go so far.’
For a moment, she was crestfallen. ‘You’re right – I’d forgotten. But there’s a wee electric heater up there, if it still works. I’ll be fine.’
Left on their own, Esther and Margaret looked at each other. ‘Well.’
‘I know,’ Esther said. ‘But she came in, she sat on the bed with us, she was quite – friendly.’
Margaret bit her lip. ‘Sometimes Essie, honestly – ’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. “My father . . . ” ’
‘Tilly?’
Margaret had gone out. In a moment Esther heard her bang the linen cupboard door and go off to the room she was to have with Mike, to make up the bed there.
Upstairs on the top floor, Caroline dragged an electric heater into her room and switched it on. Some heat had risen from the floors below, but it was still cold here. She felt herself cooling and her hands that were always cold, felt stiff as she opened her suitcase. As she put her hairbrush and sponge bag on the chest of drawers, she saw the little box where she had put Daniel’s watch, with its bit of paper, written in madness, a scrawl. She thought of what she had written. She had not forgotten, but had no wish to look at any of it again. I’ll hide the box, she thought, not sure why that mattered. Perhaps she did not want to look at Daniel’s watch.
No, it was not that.
She took out the watch and put it on her own wrist, too loose even on the last fastening. Then she slipped it off and put it back, leaving the piece of paper untouched. Where should she put the box? The chest of drawers, in this full house, seemed too exposed.
Despite the comfort of Jack’s warm length entwined with hers, Esther lay awake, trying to remember the last time she had slept at Braeside, the last time the family had been together. Not their weddings, unless you didn’t count Caroline and you could not do that. She was their cousin, Margaret’s sister, and there was Daniel. Somehow you had to be more her cousin, more her sister because of that loss. Only Caroline wouldn’t let you, wouldn’t let anyone get near. Was it so bad for her? Yes, you idiot, Esther told her drowsy self, yes it was that bad. She thought of how it would be for her to lose Louise or Margaret, and then suddenly, of how it would be if Jack were killed, run over in a busy street by a van hurtling round a corner unheeding. Now I understand, she thought, and the image came at her again in her half dream, the van looming out of nowhere and Daniel strolling across the street, perhaps absorbed in thought, not seeing, Dani
el flung up in the air like a dummy, a toy, a piece of rubbish caught by the wind. Then crashing to the road, hitting it with a smack – only in her dream it was noiseless, a silent film, the music reel broken, nothing but the indrawn breath of the cinema audience as he lay still at last.
In her dear familiar room, next to Daniel’s, Caroline lay awake too, but she had long trained herself to think of work or of nothing at all in these empty moments. This time, though, she thought of her grandmother, heard her quick step on the stair or the clucking sound she made, calling the hens, saw her stooped in the garden in her flowered pinny, wrapped tight round her spare frame, pulling carrots for their dinner, or strawberries, fat and red, in summer. Think of these things, she told herself, think of Granny and being a child, when it was safe and everyone was all right.
‘She just went off,’ Louise said to Eric as they sat outside the café they had decided to adopt as their favourite during the holiday. The chairs were metal and those in full sun burning by ten o’clock, but they had a table in the shade. Eric did not take to the sun; he was fair and freckled. At night they compared Louise’s developing tan with his pink skin and he admired her beauty all over again while she rubbed after-sun cream on his neck and shoulders as a brief but satisfactory prelude to love-making.
Eric was having a beer, Louise citron pressé with ice. She stirred it with her straw, watching the ice cubes dissolve fast in the heat.
‘Next day, when we were still wittering on about whether the snowplough would make it, she telephoned for a taxi and believe it or not, got one. Came out from Culter – guess he wasn’t getting many fares that day – took her to Dyce and she caught her plane.’
‘Well, well,’ Eric said, not altogether following, but willing to take Louise’s word for it that her cousin was odd.
‘So probably – and here’s the daft thing – she’s the one person I could have spoken to at Gatwick who wouldn’t care who I was with.’
‘Do you think she would have recognised me?’ Eric asked.
‘Don’t look so wistful!’ Louise laughed. ‘I don’t think she’s a literary type. That’s not the point. She wouldn’t care if she saw us and she definitely wouldn’t mention it to my mother. Or anyone else.’
‘Ah.’ Eric waited a reasonable moment or two, then he said, ‘Do you want another drink or shall we just go back to the hotel for more sex?’
Louise lifted his large freckled hand and kissed the back of it. ‘Sometimes I almost wish you weren’t someone else’s husband.’
‘I’m not such a catch,’ he said, ‘for a beautiful young woman like you.’ He looked pleased though, and she laughed at him again as she pulled him to his feet. He paid the bill, she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and they walked up the street, baking in the morning sun, bathing them in heat.
Louise forgot about the funeral, the snow, Caroline leaving. Later, lying in Eric’s arms as he snored gently, creating a tiny draught through her hair, she thought of Caroline at the airport, not seeing them, intent on the arrivals board. Arrivals.
Caroline wasn’t going anywhere, she was waiting for someone. Perhaps a lover after all, though she was so scathing about marriage. How little they knew. For a while, until she too fell asleep, Louise speculated, planning to call Esther as soon as she got home.
She might even tell her about Eric.
All Good Things Come to an End
1979
‘I told you Jack stood for the Council this time, didn’t I?’ Esther said. ‘Much good that was. I was quite glad he lost. Honourably – I mean it wasn’t his fault. The wrong election to try, as it turned out.’
She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs in their tiny house in Linlithgow, where Jack was now teaching, winding the spiral of the telephone cord round her fingers. Louise had called to say she’d got the job in London she was hoping for, but mostly they talked about the election.
‘I thought it was devolution he was campaigning for?’
‘Oh, don’t. That too. He got very tetchy with some of the people we met out canvassing. A lot of them were quite stupid. So maybe it’s just as well it’s all come to nothing.’
‘Devolution?’
‘No, being a Councillor. He feels sold out about devolution. It was such a stitch up. Most people wanted it.’
‘You agreed with Jack then?’ Esther always did, when it came to politics. ‘You voted for it?’
‘Oh yes. And not just because he did – I know what you’re thinking.’
‘Oh well, chance missed then.’
‘Not for ever,’ Esther said. ‘Jack says it has to be raised again.’
‘Mum said, wasn’t I pleased we were going to have a woman prime minister at last? She thinks that’s what feminism means.’
‘It does, in a way.’
Louise thought that if Margaret Thatcher was a failure, everyone would say it was because women couldn’t lead countries, and if she was a success, people would say she was unique, or it showed how like a man she was. And a Tory too. She missed Eric, the long talks about politics she had had with him, his Socialist ideas she could mock and next minute be convinced by. She just missed Eric, that was the trouble. She had not thought much about devolution at all. She did not tell Esther this.
‘Before I start the new job,’ she said, ‘I’ve got some leave to take. ‘Could you take some too – maybe come to London and help me look for a flat?’
‘When?’
‘First week in June?’
‘Will I ask Margaret too?’
‘Why not? All for one and one for all.’
‘Oh no, it’s term time, what am I thinking about? She won’t be able to.’
‘Does she still like it?’
‘Oh yes, she loves her little Primary Twos.’
‘You come then. And I was thinking – I’ll see if Caroline will put us up.’
Taken aback, Esther said, ‘Are you in touch?’
‘No. So what? Time I was. Time she was. Let’s not wait till the next funeral.’
It would save money if they could stay with Caroline. Esther wondered whether she could afford a week in London. She did not have a new job yet and it was tight on one salary with their mortgage. She had resigned her hated library job on the excuse that she was moving out of Glasgow, but she could have travelled there by train. Jack, full of confidence about his promoted post, agreed she should give it up. Now she cleaned and cooked with vigour, feeling guilty she was no longer earning. Some feminist you are, she scolded herself.
Still, there was her birthday cash and she could dip into the money they had each been given when their grandmother died.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘If the flights or trains – whatever’s best – aren’t too expensive.’
‘Let me know. I’m in funds – I can help out.’
Esther would not let her do that, but she was grateful. Even before she had broached it with Jack, she began to look forward to seeing Louise. Perhaps Caroline too.
London made you breathless. Everyone was in a rush but knew exactly where they were rushing to; she felt alternately swept along and swallowed up. Louise seemed familiar with the Underground already, while Esther hopped behind her, worried they might be setting off in the wrong direction. She had a dread of the train stopping in a tunnel. What if it never started again? Would they suffocate before help came? She refused to get on the next train at all when she saw the surge of bodies cramming themselves in. She made Louise go all the way back up several escalators until they reached London’s approximation of fresh air. It was very warm and Esther had come in the kind of clothes you need in Scotland in spring.
‘Where is Caroline’s flat?’ she gasped, sweating with the effort of dragging her suitcase in the heat.
‘We’d be there by now if you’d let us get the tube instead of waiting for a bus,’ Louise said. ‘I’m not even sure this is the right bus. Let’s get on anyway – here’s hoping.’
Caroline’s flat was in Palmer’s Green,
unfashionable but somewhere she had been able to afford, with generous rooms and a view of a dusty park with an avenue of plane trees, where dogs were walked and prams were pushed, sometimes by nannies who may have strayed from more prosperous parts. Louise had arrived the previous day and been given a spare key. They climbed the stairs to the first floor, Louise finally taking pity on her sister and carrying the suitcase. The staircase and landing were scuffed and worn, but Caroline’s front door was red with a shiny black knocker and letter box. Esther cheered up when she saw its bright paint and followed Louise gratefully into the narrow hallway.
‘This is where we’re sleeping,’ Louise said, opening a door on the left. Here too the paintwork was fresh. The carpet smelled new and the bed linen was crisp blue and white. It was an immaculate room made untidy by Louise’s clothes scattered on bed and chair.
‘Her stuff is from Habitat or somewhere like that – really nice. She’s been decorating all the way through.’
‘I can see that. What about the rest?’
‘Kitchen next,’ Louise said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Caroline won’t be back till late, she said, so we’re to help ourselves.’
As they came out of the bedroom a key turned in the lock of the front door and they stopped in surprise. Caroline, they thought, some mistake about the time.
A man came in. Seeing them he checked, stepped back, stared.
‘Who are you?’ Louise said.
‘I might ask you the same thing.’ He did not sound pleased to see them.
‘We’re Caroline’s cousins. We’re staying here.’
‘Ah.’ He gave a little bow, inclining his head towards them. ‘My apologies. I had no idea.’ He backed off, seeming to change his mind about coming in.
‘You’ve got a key,’ Esther said.
‘Yes.’
They waited while he hesitated. Just as the silence was becoming too long for comfort, he said, ‘I stay here sometimes’.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Esther asked, having for once greater presence of mind than Louise, who was just staring at him. ‘We were going to put the kettle on.’
The Treacle Well Page 21