by Jo Verity
Anna didn’t like to point out that Charles Leighton might not be so ready to accept Maddy if he knew that the baby wasn’t Taliesin’s, or Rupert’s or whatever he called his son. ‘I wish I’d never phoned you. Dad told me not to.’
‘Come on, Mum. You had to. And I had to come and tell him about the baby. His baby. The thing is, I still feel the same about him. I hoped I wouldn’t but, as soon as I saw him, I knew it was still there. You can’t decide who you’ll fall in love with, can you?’
‘How are things between you now?’
‘He doesn’t want to know. I shan’t ever see him again. Brendan’s gone and I’ve blown it with Tal. Dad will be delighted on both scores.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘When I told Tal why I was coming here today, he asked me to think really hard about what I wanted. He said that, if I decided to come, I should buy a one-way ticket.’
Anna shook her head. ‘It’s all my fault.’
‘Maybe it’s the best thing in the long run. Taliesin and I don’t – didn’t – share a bed or anything. He’s a wonderful man and he deserves someone who really, really loves him. He was my best friend, though. And I’ll miss Art. I’ve really fucked up this time haven’t I?’
Anna and Tom were in bed. ‘Oh, Flora rang while you were in the bath. They’re safely home.’ Tom was bad about messages, sometimes leaving it until she was sick with worry before he remembered to pass on crucial information.
‘You’re happy about the engagement, aren’t you, Tom?’ As they were loading up the car, Flora and Luke had, without any fuss, announced that they planned to marry soon.
‘I’m relieved that one of our children is capable of making a rational decision, if that’s what you mean.’
Anna felt a niggle of regret that Flora might be settling for something by accepting the comfortable and familiar. But Maddy, on her own in the room next door, had never settled for anything, and was now facing the future without either a lover or a friend. ‘We must try and give Maddy some space.’
‘What on earth does that mean?’ Tom huffed, turning away from her and within minutes he was asleep.
She listened to the night sounds. A ewe kept up a steady bleating. A motorbike revved somewhere down on the main road. Tomorrow she would ring her father. It was a couple of weeks since she had spoken to him. They must go down to the surgery and register Madeleine with the doctor. She ought to get rid of the smashed pottery and tidy up her studio. How could she get in touch with Sally? And then there were the earrings. And Bill Davis. Should she tell Celia to warn Judith about Brendan? It hurt to think that she might never see Arthur again. Was Prosser up to something? And when were her library books due back?
20
Anna stooped for a handful of pegs. Seren was grizzling herself to sleep. It was another cloudless day and Maddy had left the carrycot in the shade of the trees, near the back door. The pink bootees, hanging next to Tom’s socks, made her smile. They had been a gift from Celia and wouldn’t have been Madeleine’s choice, but a few weeks of motherhood had made her more prepared to compromise. Perhaps sleep deprivation had taken the fight out of her. Whatever it was, the arrival of the baby had altered lots of things.
For a start, she and Tom were now grandparents. To be honest, the prospect of being a grandmother hadn’t appealed to her. It advanced her to the front line in the battle of life, as it were. It held connotations of passivity and servitude. Grandparents dropped everything to be unpaid babysitters and child carers. They organised their lives around grandchildren. Her neighbour in Bristol was constantly getting lumbered with her daughter’s two sons, freeing the parents to go off skiing or sunning themselves, without the inconvenience of small children. Cafés and shopping malls were full of anxious senior citizens, run ragged with the responsibility of boisterous grandchildren. No, it hadn’t been at all appealing.
She hadn’t taken into account what would happen when she held her one-hour-old granddaughter in her arms. It was love at first sight and she was lost. This scrap of life was her direct connection to the past and the future.
She continued pegging out the wet clothes. The tiny tie-dyed smock, overprinted with stars, had been one of her gifts to the new baby. Seren was Welsh for ‘star’. She had been overcome with emotion when Maddy announced the name she’d chosen for her daughter. Seren Anna Wren.
Tom had changed too, and she was slightly concerned on this score. He was behaving like a proud father. He spent hours and hours walking around, cradling Seren in the crook of his arm. His excuse was that Maddy needed a break to catch up on lost sleep. He meandered around the house and the garden, talking and singing, explaining to the child about the trees and the animals. He recounted the family history and told tales of Maddy and Flora’s childhood. Maddy had warned him that there would be nothing left to tell her when she was old enough to understand but Tom had laughed and said he would find plenty to tell his ‘little star’. Anna tried, at least once a day, to remind him that the current arrangement was temporary. Maddy would want a place of her own, once she’d had time to get used to motherhood. He nodded but she could see that he didn’t believe her.
As well as becoming a grandmother, Anna was a full time mother again. When Maddy had left home, four years ago, it had been sudden and dreadful. A true bereavement. For a while she’d battled on, trying to keep on an even keel for Flora’s sake. Then Flora had gone too, leaving her and Tom to face each other across the dinner table, wondering what it had all been about. She began to suffer sinister symptoms. Her heart raced even when she was sitting still. She felt giddy as she walked along a straight street. When she swallowed, it felt as if she had a boiled sweet stuck half way down her throat. This was what had finally sent her to the doctor. He had done a thorough examination and reassured her that she didn’t have throat cancer or a heart condition. ‘Classic symptoms of anxiety,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to stop worrying about things.’
So at least she could stop worrying about the symptoms caused by worrying.
She peeped at the baby as she passed. Seren was asleep now, sucking her tiny fist, safe behind the cat net which Tom had draped over the carry cot. She’d forgotten how many things were out there, waiting to harm this innocent, but Mrs Prosser came out of the Redwoods’ back door, shaking her yellow duster and interrupting her thoughts. ‘She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? I could eat her up,’ she said. ‘If I’d had any I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed ‘em.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Inverted nipples, see.’ Anna stared at the ample breasts filling the bleach-splashed t-shirt, sad for this jolly woman’s childlessness.
Anna and Mrs Prosser had become quite friendly over the preceding weeks. Jenny kept Mrs P. at arm’s length, but Anna was drawn to her for several reasons. There was something undeniably fascinating about a woman who shared her life with Prosser. He continued to crop up all over the place, as a kind of ‘brooding presence’ (a phrase she remembered from a trailer for Wuthering Heights). Jenny told her she was fantasising. ‘He comes to give Mrs P. a lift home sometimes but I don’t see him as a latter-day Heathcliff.’
Only the other day, Bill had mentioned that Prosser was being a little less obstructive these days. ‘He’s starting to accept us, I think.’
On the days when Mrs Prosser came to work at the house Anna made sure not to wear the earrings or the necklace. Whenever she bumped into Mrs P. she always checked her ears but since that one occasion in the post office, she’d not seen her wearing anything but plain gold hoops or small studs.
On the underwear front, she’d been quite excited when the French knickers disappeared from her drawer but Maddy admitted to borrowing them, explaining that she’d run out of clean panties.
Tom was in the kitchen, carving something from a piece of beech. He glanced up and smiled at her. ‘What time are you off?’
‘I’ll have a coffee, then go. What’s that?’ she asked, pointing at the carving.
‘A rattle. Remember the ones I made
for Flo and Maddy?’
‘I feel bad, leaving you two, but I must go down and see them.’
‘We’ll be fine. Tell your Dad I’m sorry I can’t make it this time.’
Between sips of coffee, she gathered together the things to take to Bath. Dorothy had been bed-bound for several weeks and her father was finding the catering difficult. She’d spent the previous day cooking food with which she hoped to tempt the invalid - a light sponge cake, vegetable soup and a cottage pie, all soft and easy to eat without dentures.
‘Don’t forget the photos.’ Tom waved the latest set of prints at her.
She wasn’t sure that her father would be as interested in Seren as he was. Men tend not to be besotted with babies, especially baby girls. When she’d phoned to let him know that Maddy had given birth and he was a great-grandfather, he’d seemed more concerned with getting to the chemist’s before it shut. From what Steven told her, it sounded as though Dorothy was very ill and Frank Hill was focussing his attention on his new wife.
Maddy came down with another load for the machine. ‘How can one baby generate so much washing?’ She was looking tired.
‘Are you three going to be OK?’ Anna asked.
‘Of course we are, aren’t we Maddy?’ Tom chirped.
Maddy yawned and nodded. ‘Give Grandpa Frank my love. And Dorothy, even though we’ve never met. I promise I’ll get down to see them soon.’
Tom helped her carry her things to the car and she ran through the survival instructions. ‘And the bread’s in the bread bin,’ he chanted.
As she drove away, the oddest thought came to her. It was as if Tom, Maddy and Seren were the Wren family and she was the outsider who’d been visiting them. Of course that was ridiculous but, looking in the rear-view mirror, she was reminded of a photo that her mother had taken, showing Tom and her with Maddy, a babe in arms, standing outside their home in Bristol. Flora must have been at nursery school because she wasn’t in the picture.
She had originally planned to go by train but Tom persuaded her that a car would be useful. There might be errands to run for her father and it meant that she could take provisions with her. If she had an hour to spare, she could get across to see Flora.
‘But you’ll be stuck,’ she said. ‘What if you have to get the baby to the hospital in a hurry? Or need some shopping?’
‘Someone will give us a lift,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you’re only going for a couple of days.’
The journey to Bath was uneventful. She wondered what she would find when she arrived. Steven had arranged to bring Frank and Dorothy to visit them in late June but they had cancelled at the last minute. She and Tom had gone to Bath instead and found Dorothy ill and her father looking every one of his seventy-eight years.
She passed the service station where Bill had confessed that things weren’t right between Sally and him. Over the past couple of months Bill had astounded them all. He hadn’t cracked up or broken down. He went about being relentlessly cheerful. Because he was in such good spirits, he was no trouble to have around and was included in all the activities, but recently he’d developed a habit of wandering in, unannounced, and making himself at home. Several times she’d come back from somewhere and found him snoozing on the kitchen sofa. He did the same in the other houses, too. ‘It’s like having a communal pet,’ said Jenny.
But for her it was no joke. At every opportunity, his hand would stray onto her knee or his foot would touch hers. If she pulled away, he would apologise and leave her wondering whether it had been accidental. Her irritation was modified by the knowledge that, no matter how brave he seemed, he must be suffering. Now the baby had arrived, he had an added excuse to come calling. Tom and the others still found it hilarious when he asked, ‘What’s it like then, sleeping with a granny?’ Yes, Bill was not going to give up easily. Except, apparently, on his marriage.
The lawn needed cutting. Weeds were colonising the flowerbeds and springing up between the slabs. Her father watched from the bedroom window as she parked the car. He came down to help her unload.
‘How are things, Dad?’ She hugged him. He’d never been a big man but she could feel that he had lost weight. It had been a hot, dry summer and her tanned arms made his look pallid and scrawny by comparison.
‘Not good. She doesn’t complain at all but she’s failing.’
They went upstairs. Dorothy looked tiny and frail in the big bed, barely making an indentation in the pillows that propped her up. Her father had set up the old Zed-Bed in the room and he was sleeping there, he explained, in case she needed him during the night.
This was only the fourth time that Anna had met Dorothy. She still had no idea why Frank had married her but at least he’d chosen a gracious and interesting person. It was a pity that she wasn’t going to get to know her better, because it was obvious that Dorothy was dying. The old lady lay motionless, breathing gently and watching her through half open eyes. She lifted her hand from the bedcover in greeting, then shut her eyes, as if the effort had been too much.
Anna and Frank talked in the kitchen. The routine here was dictated by illness. The nurse came three times every day to give Dorothy her medication and there was also a carer, Pat, who helped wash her and make her comfortable. ‘Pat’s wonderful,’ said Frank. ‘She’s so gentle with Dot. She’s got no flesh on her at all now. I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.’
To Anna’s dismay, his eyes filled with tears and he blew his nose on a grubby hanky. She held his hand across the table. ‘Do they have any idea how long it will be?’
‘No. They make out that she’s going to get better. They talk to me as if I’m an idiot. When you get beyond seventy, they assume you’re senile.’
‘Can you cope, Dad? Have you been in touch with her family? Shouldn’t they be doing this?’
‘No. I want to do it for her.’
‘You look exhausted.’
‘I’m OK.’
Steven phoned from work. Frank spoke to him briefly then went back upstairs, passing the phone to Anna.
‘How’s he looking?’ her brother asked.
‘Exhausted. But he’s determined to go on with it. You know how stubborn he is. Dorothy looks dreadful. She can’t last much longer.’
He promised to call on his way home. Elaine had made it clear that she was not prepared to get involved and also that nothing must be allowed to disrupt their normal routine. Not for the first time, Anna wished that her brother had taken that first wage-packet to a different bank. He might be a happy man now with a family of his own.
While Frank sat with Dorothy, she did some ironing and cleaned the kitchen. These chores led her into nooks and crannies of her old home that she hadn’t visited for years. Now and again, as she cleaned and polished, she glimpsed her own reflection in a mirror or a window-pane, and saw Nancy Hill looking back at her.
The sun drew her outside to tackle the lawns. Her father insisted on using a push-mower and she had a suspicion it was the very one he’d had when they were children and when it had taken him an hour to cut the grass and another to clean the mower afterwards. ‘You should respect your tools,’ he’d say, ‘and you’ll only have to buy them once.’
At the sound of the whirring blades, Frank called to her from the window, ‘I’ll clean it when you’ve finished.’ He didn’t trust her to do a proper job but she forgave him immediately, thinking of the times over the past weeks when she’d done the selfsame thing to Maddy. She would have to watch herself.
She looked for an opportunity to talk to her father but he was keeping a vigil in the sick room and it didn’t seem right, chatting in front of Dorothy.
She offered to sit with the invalid for a while so that he could go out in the garden and relax in the sun. He refused. She tried to tempt him with her home-made food but he gave up after a few spoonfuls of soup. He insisted that he needed nothing from the supermarket. He was existing on toast, tinned rice pudding and drinking chocolate.
The nurse was a bustling woman. While s
he was in the house, loud and cajoling, the place came alive but when she left, it slipped back into limbo. After only six hours, Anna was starting to lose her sense of reality and she understood how isolated her father must be feeling. ‘Do any of your friends call? Or the neighbours?’ she asked.
‘No. And I wouldn’t expect them to. It’s none of their business.’
Steven let himself in. He looked out of place in his dark suit and shiny black shoes. He certainly wasn’t dressed for making himself useful.
She showed him the photographs of Seren. ‘Dad’s not interested. I can understand why but it’s a bit upsetting, all the same.’
‘Is Maddy OK? What’s the news on the father? It’s an expensive business, rearing a child.’
Up until now, Anna had provided the sketchiest details of the circumstances surrounding Madeleine’s pregnancy. It was enough for the rest of the family to know that she was living at Pen Craig but it was difficult to avoid Steven’s direct question. ‘She wants to go it alone.’
He took out his wallet, made from the softest black leather. She imagined that Elaine had given it to him for Christmas, when they were in Italy. He slipped out several notes, fifty pounds, she guessed. ‘Give her this and tell her to get the baby…’
‘Seren.’
‘What?’
‘Seren. The baby’s called Seren.’
‘Tell her to get something for Seren.’
‘I’ll take it, but I know what she would prefer.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A congratulations card from you and Elaine. Something that you’d chosen specifically for her. Something that you’d bothered to put a stamp on and post. But I’m sure she’ll put the money to good use.’ She took it from him and folded it into her purse. He didn’t reply and she knew that her comment had hit home. Straight away she regretted her attack. ‘Sorry, Steve. I’m a bit raw at the moment.’
He nodded. ‘It’s this house. I wish he’d moved after Mum died. I keep expecting her to come in from the garden.’