The Treacle Well

by Moira Forsyth

  ‘No you won’t. You have a howl if you feel like it,’ Louise said. ‘Nobody can see us in this wee corner. Anyway, we’ve been having such a long lunch it’s nearly time for afternoon tea – everyone else has gone.’

  Margaret wiped tears away with a paper napkin. ‘Oh dear, I must look awful.’

  ‘It’s terribly unfair but you look very pretty when you’re crying,’ Esther said. ‘Like a sort of damp flower. I get piggy-eyed and blotchy – not very attractive.’

  Louise lit another cigarette and they talked about nothing for a few minutes, till Margaret said, ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind if you and Jack go to Braeside. It’s not mine any more than it’s yours.’

  ‘Doesn’t it belong to Uncle Gordon and Mum and Dad?’

  There was silence for a moment, while they realised they had no idea. Who owned Braeside?

  ‘Does it matter?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Louise said, ‘I guess it does.’

  ‘Did you have a nice lunch?’ Janet asked when Esther called in on Monday to see her mother. She had Kirsty with her; the boys were at school.

  ‘Lovely. It felt quite festive, strangely.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Despite poor Margaret having such an awful time.’

  ‘I don’t understand it at all,’ Janet said. ‘What on earth is Mike thinking of? Do you want to sit in the garden? It’s quite warm today.’

  They took mugs of tea outside and sat on the old canvas chairs on the lawn. Janet gave Kirsty the small fork and trowel she kept for her and for a little while they were on their own. Kirsty ran off to do her weeding at the far end of the garden where Grandpa was working in his greenhouse. Harry was re-potting tomato plants and from where they sat Esther and Janet could hear Kirsty’s flow of chatter and the rumble of his answers.

  ‘How is Margaret? I’ve not seen her since all this happened.’

  ‘Upset. She can’t believe it’s happened, I think.’

  ‘I can’t either,’ Janet sighed. ‘Mike has a wife and child – he can’t just walk away from them.’

  ‘Mum, he’s done it already – he’s completely moved out. Margaret says there’s some other woman he’s been seeing.’

  ‘I wondered if that was at the bottom of it. I think it’s this life they live, away for three weeks at a time on the rigs, then under their wives’ feet for three. It’s not a good thing, when you’re married.’

  ‘Lots of other people manage it.’

  ‘Where on earth did he meet this woman – they’re not on the rigs, are they?’

  ‘She works in Exol’s office in North Anderson Drive, I think. Mike’s in the office every time he’s home now he’s been promoted. He was talking about taking a job onshore.’

  Janet tapped her hand impatiently on the arm of her chair. These hands had not aged much. In Esther’s childhood, roughened by housework and gardening, they had not been beautiful. Now that she had all the household gadgets and devices Harry could buy for her, and she had no children to care for, they were smoother, the nails better kept. Her thin gold wedding ring, that had once had a pattern chased on it, was plain and smooth.

  After a moment her hand lay still, and she said, ‘Well, he’ll have to make sure she’s properly supported, and Anna too.’

  Esther, thinking of her mother’s hands, her mind wandering, said, ‘I was reading this article discussing what one change in the twentieth century had made the most difference to women’s lives. It seemed to be about equal between the automatic washing machine and the pill.’

  Janet smiled. ‘Well, we didn’t have the pill in my generation, but birth control certainly made a difference.’

  ‘Is that what you’d choose?’

  Janet gazed up the garden to where Harry stooped to show Kirsty something close to the ground – a plant or insect perhaps – and said, ‘I’d say education. Education.’

  ‘I think – ’ Esther fell silent. She had thought her mother didn’t quite get the point, but perhaps she did after all, for in terms of her own life, what she felt she had been most painfully denied was the university education she had been so insistent on her daughters having. She was right: at least Margaret would be able to earn a living, when Anna was older. She could be independent. What about me? Esther was struck with guilt. She had wasted her good degree – wee jobs in libraries, moving around with Jack, having children. These were not excuses. What would she do if Jack left her? She could not imagine such a horror on this fine afternoon in her childhood garden, her father playing with Kirsty, her mother calm and reassuring beside her.

  Esther thought of Janet as the person with all the answers, someone without misgivings. She was anxious about Margaret but not distracted. She moved more slowly these days, but did everything as deftly, competently, as she ever had. On impulse, Esther stretched out her own hand and touched her mother’s arm.

  ‘At least Margaret has you and Dad, and us,’ she said. ‘She won’t be on her own.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll come to his senses, in time,’ Janet said. ‘Let’s hope so.’ Mike had let her down, as well as Margaret and Anna. She had thought better of him, with his good job and breezy air of common sense.

  ‘I know,’ Esther said. ‘Louise and I feel angry with him too – but I suspect he’s not going to come back.’

  ‘Well, well, we can’t do anything about it. Your father is very disappointed in him, though.’

  Kirsty came running down the garden to tell them about the bumble bees on Grandpa’s flowers and the weeding she had done. When she had gone back up to the greenhouse with a biscuit, Janet and Esther began talking instead about Jack and his new job. They were on safe ground here, Jack now the favoured son-in-law. Less safe when they talked about Louise – could you mention Robin? Better not.

  ‘I have some news,’ Janet said. ‘We had a phone call yesterday.’

  Kirsty and her grandfather were coming hand in hand down the garden towards the house, Kirsty hopping like a puppet on a string, Harry treading more soberly. There was no dog now in the house, had not been for many years, but the last of Margaret’s cats still lived here, and she was following them, tail in the air.

  Janet raised her voice, so that Harry would hear too. ‘I was just about to tell Esther our news,’ she said.

  ‘Oh aye, what’s that?’

  She shook her head. ‘You know fine – Caroline’s getting married.’

  ‘What?’

  The last thing Louise had said when they parted the day before, cheering up Margaret or reassuring herself, it might have been either – ’Well, Caroline’s not married, and look at her. Hugely successful career, a super flat and as far as I can see, a great life. Holidays in exotic places, plenty of money.’

  ‘We were surprised too,’ Janet said, as Kirsty presented her with the lettuce she had pulled up for their lunch. Esther thought of that day years ago when they had come face to face with the man whose name was Martin, but about whom they had never learned much more. Louise had met him again once or twice at Caroline’s old flat, before she moved.

  ‘She’s quite old to be getting married, isn’t she?’

  ‘Ancient,’ teased her father.

  ‘Well into her forties – forty-seven, -eight?’ Janet was working it out.

  ‘Who on earth is it? Have you met him?’

  ‘Oh no, she’s never brought him here. She hasn’t been home for several years now. Gordon stayed with her in London at Easter for a few days. He was visiting that woman – what was her name? Mrs Ashton. She’s not very well, apparently.’

  ‘He’s kept up with her all this time?’

  ‘They were great friends.’

  Esther was feeling this was a lot to take in, all at once. She had not thought Caroline even corresponded with her father. As for getting married –

  ‘So who is it?’

  ‘Oh, some doctor. A consultant, like her, but in another hospital. They met at a conference, she said, about five years ago. I don
’t know why they’ve waited so long.’

  Or, Esther thought, why they’re getting married at all. Five years. ‘So it’s not – he’s not called Martin?’

  ‘What did you say his name was, Janet? Not Martin. Some foreign name.’

  ‘He’s Greek,’ Janet said, and seeing Esther’s astonished face, added, ‘He’s not foreign – at least, he was born in England, but his family is from somewhere in Greece. Not Athens. I forget.’

  ‘Philip,’ Harry had been rooting in his memory. ‘Philip Du- something.’

  ‘Dukakis, that’s it.’

  ‘So when are they getting married?’

  ‘No date yet,’ Janet said. ‘She said she’d let me know.’

  Harry snorted. ‘Can’t think what they’re waiting for at their age.’

  ‘I wish I’d known on Saturday – we’d have had something much more exciting than horrible Mike to talk about.’

  Harry frowned. ‘He’s behaved very poorly, in my view. As if Margaret hasn’t had enough to cope with.’

  Esther, still getting over the shock of Caroline’s impending marriage, did not pick this up, and it was only later, going home in the car with Kirsty, that she wondered what her father had meant.

  Meanwhile, the talk indoors, as Harry washed his hands in the scullery, Kirsty up on a chair with her hands in the Belfast sink also washing hers, moved back to Jack’s new job.

  ‘We did wonder,’ Esther said, ‘whether we could stay at Braeside for a while when we manage to sell our house. Then we could look round for somewhere to live, take our time about it.’

  ‘You’d have to consider where the bairns are going to school. You don’t want to move them twice.’

  ‘Kitty starts Primary 1 in August, so it would be best if we could move before then – but I don’t suppose that will happen.’

  Janet began washing the lettuce for their salad lunch. ‘Are you going to keep calling the bairn Kitty?’

  ‘It’s what she calls herself.’

  ‘Her name’s Kirsty. You need to get her used to saying that before she goes to school.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Esther said. ‘Anyway, about Braeside – ’

  You should speak to Gordon about that.’

  ‘We were talking about it on Saturday,’ Esther said as Kirsty helped her lay out cutlery and fill glasses of water. ‘Who actually owns the house? Didn’t you and Uncle Gordon inherit it from Granny?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Harry sat down at the table with a grunt. ‘It’s Gordon’s now.’

  ‘How – ’

  ‘Just the house and garden. We sold the land after your grandmother died.’

  Esther caught the look exchanged by her parents and realised there were things she did not know, that something had happened – about money – they had not discussed with Louise and her, or Margaret either.

  She wanted to ask, but Kirsty was too knowing not to pick up something from their conversation, something perhaps she did not want her children in their turn to know. How we keep things from each other, she thought, and Caroline worst of all.

  Lunch was much interrupted by Kirsty, nagging Grandpa to go back outside, beginning to behave badly. Esther thought it was time they left – there would be the boys to collect soon anyway.

  As they gathered up their things to leave, Janet said, in a low voice not for Kirsty’s ears, ‘Your Dad and I will speak to you and Jack – and Louise, while she’s still here. We’ve not really explained it and it’s time you knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’ Esther raised her voice without meaning to, on the verge of being alarmed, at any rate exasperated. Kirsty, pursuing the cat to kiss it goodbye, was out of hearing.

  ‘About Braeside, and the money. You and Louise will come by before she goes back to London?’

  ‘Why don’t you all come to us for a meal – to celebrate Jack’s job? I was meaning to ask.’

  ‘That would be lovely if you can manage it – it’s not easy for you with three bairns.’

  How had it been for her, Esther wondered, when one of the three was not her own? Then Daniel and Caroline too, became Janet and Harry’s responsibility when they were students. A window opened on her childhood, showing it in a different light.

  Kirsty ran up, howling. ‘Mimi scratched me!’

  A tiny red line on the back of her arm, three beads of blood. In the ensuing fuss as Esther washed this diminutive wound and Janet went to fetch a plaster, there was no further conversation.

  ‘She’s old,’ Janet excused the cat. ‘She’s a bit grumpy these days.’

  ‘Kitty should know not to tease her.’

  ‘I wasn’t!’

  They went home. Driving away, with only half an ear for Kirsty’s running commentary, Esther was unsettled and uneasy, longing to speak to Louise – Jack too. She realised something important had happened out of sight, behind the scenes. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

  ‘She couldn’t even say her own name,’ Andrew declared. ‘Kirsty,’ he pronounced, taunting his sister.

  ‘I can so say it!’

  ‘You couldn’t when you were a baby. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty . . .’

  ‘We could say our names,’ Ross said, joining in. ‘It was just you.’

  Andrew turned on his brother, not recognising an ally when he saw one, Esther thought, coming into the middle of this.

  ‘You said Woss,’ he taunted. ‘Woss, Woss, Wossy, Puss, Puss, Pussy!’

  Enraged, Ross snatched up a toy truck and flung it at his brother. Andrew dodged, laughing, and it caught Esther painfully on the hip.

  In the ensuing scene, the sensible discussion about where they were to live, was abandoned.

  Later, she tried again, bedtime being quieter and Jack there to help. Over their meal, just before they started getting the children ready for bed, the two of them talked about Braeside.

  ‘So you spoke to Gordon?’

  ‘Just on the phone. He’s fine about it. Said he gets lonely on his own – and I know every time we’re all out there with the kids, he seems pleased to have us there.’

  ‘An afternoon’s one thing,’ Jack said. ‘Several months is quite another. For all of us.’

  ‘Months! I hope it won’t be that.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know how long it will take us to find a suitable house.’

  ‘He said something else,’ Esther broke in. ‘Look, I’ve asked Mum and Dad here tomorrow night, along with Louise and Margaret. I couldn’t not ask Margaret and anyway it makes a difference to her too. I think.’

  ‘What does?’

  Esther got up to make coffee. As she put her hand to all the things she needed, used daily, and looked round her little kitchen with its shiny work surfaces and neatly aligned cupboards, she thought of Braeside, and for the first time, did not see it entirely through the haze of nostalgia. She was realising how poorly Gordon had modernised the kitchen, what a half-baked job it was.

  ‘D’you want a biscuit and cheese?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Sit down. What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, not now. It’s all done and dusted. They’ve sorted out Braeside, that I thought belonged to all of us.’

  She put their mugs of coffee on the table and sat down to begin the explanation. She had heard enough of it from Gordon to understand what her mother was planning to tell them. The money from the land had come to her parents; Braeside was Gordon’s. Hearing this, she had phoned her mother at once.

  ‘It made sense,’ Janet said. ‘We didn’t need the house and he did. He certainly doesn’t need any capital – he told me how much he’s earning with this oil company. So he must know how much Mike’s earning too. Margaret should make sure he supports Anna properly.’

  For a moment, Esther thought they were about to be sidetracked onto Margaret’s problems again, but Janet went on with sudden briskness.

  ‘That’s how it stands. We’ll tell you in more detail when we see you, but really, it doesn’t affect you children. Caroline and Marga
ret will inherit Braeside, and you and Louise will inherit whatever Dad and I leave.’

  Esther did not want to talk about anyone leaving anything. She had a fleeting vision of Caroline’s ‘will’ in the wooden box at Braeside and shuddered. Money. She had never thought of it except as something she and Jack never had quite enough of.

  Now, explaining this to Jack, she realised what upset her was that she had somehow had a foolish idea Braeside would always be there, that it belonged to all of them in perpetuity. This, he gently told her, was never going to happen anyway. It was a valuable house, worth a sum many times more than her grandparents could ever have imagined.

  ‘Valuable!’

  ‘All property in and around Aberdeen is valuable, Esther. You know that. Look how much our house has gone up if the solicitor’s right about the asking price.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Esther said, but doubtfully, starting to wonder how much money the land had brought for her parents. Had they worked out what was fair, between them, her parents and Gordon?

  Apart from being able to making temporary use of Braeside for his family, Jack did not feel any of this affected him. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get those kids ready for bed and talk to them about moving house.’

  Esther sat on for a few minutes in the kitchen. When you learn about one secret, she thought, all it does is make you wonder how many more there are.

  Margaret realised that having Louise in the house was not disruptive, as she had feared, but distracting. She was distracted from her grief and anxiety, and briefly, able to wake in the morning without the sense of dread which had grown every day since Mike had told her he was going to leave.

  Louise had said she would stay for a week. Margaret’s instinctive reaction – that’s ages – had given way to a fretful counting of the days remaining before she was on her own again. Now she wished Louise could be here longer. The house didn’t echo any more, it was full of Louise. Anna, a quiet child, was equally mesmerised, so much so that she did not even complain about the garlic-imbued unfamiliar food that was appearing on the table every night.

  ‘What’s this?’ she would ask, then, unable to understand a word of the recipe recited by her aunt, obediently ate it. Louise had brought with her some of her more innocuous romances, and read chapters to Anna as bedtime stories. ‘I’ll censor, don’t worry,’ she assured Margaret. ‘I won’t read any naughty bits.’