In Edinburgh, alone and nervous, she was at least able to begin living an independent life. It was sublimely fresh and innocent to her in restrospect, that life: her first flat shared with Chloe and Mags and Anne (where were they now?) and her first job in House of Fraser, selling tights and socks. When news of Susan’s far more terrible betrayal reached her she felt, naturally, that she could be the one to whom Susan would turn. She might even listen to Gillian now that they were both grown up.
‘Oh yes, I have a number for them,’ Frances had said. It had taken far more courage to call Frances and ask for this, than to pick up the phone to the ostracised Susan. ‘Naturally I have a number – so that I can let Alec know if one of his sons is at death’s door.’ How cold Frances was. There was no way through to her. Perhaps she cried on her own and was broken and hurt, but you would never have guessed from the way she spoke.
She expected more warmth from Susan, even gratitude.
‘Oh,’ Susan had said, on the breath of a laugh, incredulous. ‘Gill – hi.’
And Gillian, stumbling onto something she never did – never could – fathom the depths of, offered friendship, support, trying to say it was possible Susan could still undo the damage. But Susan, mocking, scornful, had told her to fuck off, who did she think she was? They’ve all had a go at me, did you think they wouldn’t? Not Fran of course, trust Fran, she knows how to twist a knife. But all the rest – even Aunt Barbara. And now you think you can as well – that you can tell me what to do? What do you think, eh, that I’m going about for the rest of my life full up to here with guilt? Well, I’m fucking not. They had a rotten marriage, he was miserable. You didn’t know that, did you? He was only too glad to get out. Now sod off wee sister and get a life of your own.
It was years before she got over it. If she had. When she had at last grown closer to Frances than she ever had to Susan, she repeated all this and Frances said, ‘She was drunk. They were always drunk. Why do you think I cared so much? Not for her. Not for him.’
‘Oh,’ Gillian said, a weight lifting, a barrier falling. ‘Because of Kate.’
‘Yes. Because of Kate.’
Now it would be different. They were all older and time had revealed Susan’s heartlessness as drunken hysteria. Guilty? Of course she had been guilty but now, years later, she could give her another chance, open the door a little. The red coat on Lothian Road had been a sign.
Alec answered after several rings.
‘Hi, Alec,’ she began.
‘Frances – I was just going to – ’
‘It’s not Frances, it’s Gill. Gillian.’
‘Gillian – hello. How are you? Happy New Year.’
‘Alec, look, I know this is sudden, it feels so strange to me you can’t believe, but – is Susan there? I really want to speak to her. Do you think I could? I thought maybe if you were in touch she must want to be as well.’ She was shaking, her hand tight round the receiver, damp with sweat, but she was glad she was doing this.
Alec’s silence went on too long. ‘Alec?’
‘Sorry – Gill – when did you last speak to Frances?’
‘Actually, not since Christmas, I’ve been a bit busy. Anyway, this is nothing to do with Frances – well, not directly, I just wanted to – ’
‘Susan’s not here. She left before Christmas and I haven’t had a word from her.’
‘What do you mean, left?’ She felt stupid, his words jammed together in her head, making no sense.
‘Disappeared. I don’t know where she is.’
The red coat whisked away up Lothian Road, past office blocks, among crowds.
‘Had you fallen out or something, what happened? I mean, she’s all right, isn’t she?’
‘Oh I think so. She needed a bit of a break, but it’s gone on rather longer than usual.’
‘Usual?’
‘She’s not always very well. If you see what I mean. She needs a lot of space. I told Frances all this, it’s why I went up there, why I wanted Kate to stay.’
‘Kate. Oh God, this is awful, I should have phoned Frances, shouldn’t I. Look, I’ve got to tell you, this morning, I’m coming up from Princes Street Gardens, right, I’d been shopping, and I come out onto the street and I see her – honestly, I saw Susan. I thought I had to be mistaken. I couldn’t manage to catch up with her, but maybe she’s actually here, in Edinburgh. What do you think, could she be?’
‘Gill, you haven’t seen her for a dozen years, and she was – how far off?’
‘My God, Alec, you always know your own sister.’
‘Do you?’ he asked, his voice so low and tender Gillian’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Look can I do anything, can I help? What about Kate – you said something about Kate.’
‘She’s staying on with Frances for a while.’
Absurd to feel jealous. Absurd. Frances was the capable one who ought to be in charge, if anyone was.
‘It’s really good of you to call,’ Alec went on. ‘As soon as she – well, as soon as she’s home, I’ll make sure she gets in touch.’
‘You have reported this to the police?’
‘Oh yes but they’re not interested. Look, I’m absolutely convinced she’s fine.’
‘You don’t think she could be in Edinburgh?’ Why did she want so much to believe it was Susan she had seen? Because then, it would not be too late. She would not have left it too long to make the telephone call and say, Susan, speak to me, let’s talk again. Please. What was Alec saying? She tried to concentrate.
‘It is possible. But she doesn’t have a red coat, she doesn’t even wear red.’
‘Oh, men. You might not even know. And the sales are on, she could have bought it here.’
‘Gill, don’t feel you have to do anything. If anyone should do something, it’s me. And I am, I’m doing what I can. So don’t worry.’
Later, making herself supper in her tiny kitchen, Gill found she was not at all hungry. She doesn’t have a red coat. Something nagged at her about that. Then she saw Susan at fifteen coming up the path in scarlet, in red ski pants and a striped jumper. Loud, red stripes. She liked red. Away from Alec, she was wearing it again.
Gillian sat down with a mug of herbal tea. (Enough caffeine for today, she needed to feel calm.) When they were young, their mother had made most of their clothes. As their father became more successful, and Frances and Susan as teenagers wanted to buy clothes in Dorothy Perkins and Girl, she stopped. But the year of Aunt Barbara’s marriage, they had all still been young enough, Gillian remembered, to wear dresses made by their mother.
Aunt Barbara married late, and the bank manager who became her husband died within five years, so Gillian hardly remembered him. Aunt Barbara, who had given up teaching to become what she called a ‘lady of leisure’, went back to it with renewed vigour, so that really, the only effect of her marriage had been to turn her from Miss Douglas to Mrs Simpson, and provide her with the bank manager’s pension.
Gillian, while forgetting the husband, did remember the wedding, or at any rate the preparations, which seemed to go on for months. And the dresses. Each of them was supposed to have a favourite colour, and at the time of the wedding, Gillian’s was yellow. (And now it is black, she thought, how dreary.) Frances wore blue; indeed, she still wore blue, serene and soft, Wedgwood or dove. Susan wore red.
Gillian tucked her feet up on the sofa. Her flat with its modern furniture and pictures, simple and primary coloured, the pale walls, the clever lighting, all gave way to the crowded living-room in Balmoral Terrace, where Frances turned slowly in front of the cheval glass, her mother on her knees beside her, pin cushion in one hand, the other raised to say ‘Stop!’ And Frances did stop, grave in her blue dress, while Grace pinned the hem. Then it was Susan’s turn and she twirled in scarlet, unable to stand still. Grace waited for her to calm down: ‘For goodness sake, child, stand at peace.’
‘I’m beautiful, amn’t I?’ Susan asked, twisting and turning, admiring herself al
l the way round. ‘This is a beautiful dress – the most beautiful – isn’t it?’
‘Now Gillian,’ her mother said, ‘last but not least. Come away.’ Then she saw what a crumpled heap Gillian had made of the yellow dress. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’
‘I want a red one like Susan. I don’t want this yellow dress. It’s horrible, I hate it.’
‘Too late,’ Grace sighed, tugging the hem straight. ‘You chose it yourself, Gilly, you said you liked the white daisies – remember?’ The tug and pull of the skirt, and Gillian made to turn slowly, then keep still. Her frowning face in the mirror.
When the others had left and their dresses were on wooden hangers, hems sticking out stiffly with pins, Grace whispered to Gillian, ‘Never mind, when Susan grows out of it, you’ll have the red one.’
‘And the blue one,’ she had agreed, seeing possibilities here, a future Gillian dramatic in red then graceful in blue. Her mother got to her feet, and helped her carefully out of the despised yellow dress.
‘Well, you’re a bunch of bobby dazzlers, aren’t you?’ Aunt Barbara had exclaimed, coming in during the final trying-on to show them her new hat. It was pink, with a black and pink spotted veil. Gillian thought it beautiful; perhaps her favourite colour was pink, really. Behind Aunt Barbara’s back, Frances and Susan giggled, calling it ‘hideous’ and Gillian knew they thought the yellow dress was hideous too. ‘It scratches me,’ she complained, ‘it makes me hot.’
As it turned out, she was incubating chicken pox and missed the wedding altogether. Mrs Baxter from next door stayed with her till her mother came home, earlier than everyone else. It was almost dark, and she woke with sticky eyelids, itching all over despite the calamine lotion so liberally applied in the morning. There was her mother in the doorway, in blue like Frances, and she looked and smelled of some other more exciting world, so that Gillian began to cry. Close up, Grace was familiar again, with her special scent of face powder and her arms cool and comforting when she helped Gillian to sit up. ‘I’ll just get out of my finery,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll get you some calamine, and a drink.’
When Gillian eventually got up again, she had magically grown and the yellow dress no longer fitted.
Gillian opened her eyes. The itching, the dim bedroom, the yellow dress unused on its hanger, her soft-spoken mother, had all gone. Her I am, she thought, grown up, and far, far away from all that. It was still there, of course, there to go back to, the house, and her mother and father, and Frances. How could Susan turn her back on all of us? Gillian’s eyes filled with tears again and she let them spill over, not sure whether they were tears for herself or for Susan.
10
Frances reached home on Sunday afternoon. Andrew and Kate were watching television, and both were still in the tee-shirts and leggings they slept in. Frances, coming into the room, had a moment’s uneasiness. Both smelled sweaty and there was a whiff of cigarette smoke. The room was cold and the fire black with last night’s ashes. There were used mugs and plates scattered on the floor.
‘Hi Mum.’ Andrew waved a hand. ‘Could you light the fire? We’re freezing.’
‘You could do that yourself,’ Frances pointed out. ‘Did you get on all right, on your own?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
Kate looked up. Her make-up had vanished overnight, though not with any appearance of having been properly cleaned off. She was pale with black eyeliner smudges under her eyes.
‘We had a late night,’ she said. ‘Sorry we haven’t tidied. I didn’t actually get up till about one.’
‘Was it a good party?’
‘Duncan and Mark were lathered. Mark started hoovering about two o’clock. You should’ve seen the food – there was more on the floor than the table.’
‘Thank you, Andrew, for reminding me why I won’t let you have parties here.’
‘Oh yeah, well, that’s Mark. I wouldn’t let people trash my house, no way.’
‘You can’t have known a soul, Kate.’
Kate shrugged. ‘Didn’t matter.’
‘Right, what about food?’
‘Can we have chips? I’m starving.’
Kate shuddered. ‘No thanks, I couldn’t eat chips.’
‘I’ll unpack, then I’ll get us something to eat.’ Frances paused by the door. ‘Any phone calls?’
‘Ehm. … He phoned about fifty times.’
‘Alec,’ supplied Kate.
‘What did he say?’
‘I never spoke to him,’ Andrew said, offended. ‘We were out, anyway. He phoned again this morning. Kate got it, didn’t you?’
Frances turned to Kate but she still did not look up.
‘He just said would you ring him.’ Reluctantly, drawn by Frances’s waiting figure, she glanced up briefly. ‘He hasn’t seen Mum.’
‘Auntie Gill phoned as well,’ Andrew added. ‘She said something about a red coat.’
Frances stopped where she was. ‘What did you say?’
‘Auntie Gill phoned.’
‘No, you said – what was that about a red coat?’
‘I don’t know, do I? Just she’d seen this red coat or something.’
In the kitchen, the cats greeted Frances with relief. She fed them, cleared out and made up the fire, sent Kate off for a shower, and went to telephone Alec. If he had not found Susan, there was no urgency. As for Gill, this red coat would be some bargain she had got in the sales.
Alec’s telephone switched over to an answering service. She left her name, then dialled Gillian’s number instead.
‘Hi, Gill. Andrew said you’d called.’
‘Hi, yes, I did.’
‘Mum and Dad were just saying we haven’t heard from you since Christmas.’
‘You’ve still got Katy, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Is that what you rang to ask?’
‘Alec says Susan’s missing. He says he told you, you knew at Christmas. Is that right?’
A beat, two beats. ‘When did you speak to Alec?’
‘Today. I was actually trying to speak to Susan – ’ her voice defiant here. ‘I did it because I thought I saw her.’
‘Susan?’
‘Going up Lothian Road. I mean, it sounds mad, but – ’
‘When was this?’
‘Day before yesterday.’
‘Saturday?’
‘That’s what I said. I was on my way – ’
‘When yesterday?’
‘About lunch-time, if you’d let me finish, Fran, I’m trying to explain.’
There was the flash of a red coat, going up the escalator. ‘What was she wearing?’
‘That’s what I’m coming to – she had on this red coat, very bright – and I remembered – ’
‘Lunch-time?’
Gillian sounded really annoyed now. ‘What on earth difference does it make? I wish you’d just listen, honestly Fran, I’m sorry I rang her, I knew you wouldn’t be pleased, but after all these years, surely to God I can choose whether to contact her or not?’
‘No, no, you’ve got it wrong. Hang on, I’m just going to get hold of a train timetable, I’m sure there’s one here somewhere.’ Frances reached into the drawer of the hallstand, and rummaged till she found what she wanted. ‘Listen, I don’t care if you contact her, how on earth could you think it had anything to do with me.’ She flicked over pages, trying to read the tiny figures. ‘She was on Lothian Road, that’s the one beyond Princes Street Gardens, right, about fifteen minutes from Waverley?’
‘Fran, what are you getting at?’
‘I saw her. I saw her yesterday too. Only she was in Aberdeen, in John Lewis of all places, about five o’clock.’
Gillian took a deep breath; Frances heard her taking it.
‘Did she have on – ’
‘Yes. A red coat.’
‘You know your own sister,’ Gillian said softly, ‘don’t you? I mean, even after years and years.’
>
‘Oh yes.’
A shiver ran between them like an electric current, and for a moment neither spoke. Then Frances said, ‘I know this is awful, but I still can’t like her. Not hate, jealousy, anger – all that went a long time ago. I’d have told you if you’d asked.’
Gillian did not say, you made it impossible. Perhaps Frances knew, for she went on, ‘It’s all in the past. What she’s doing to Kate now though – I can’t forgive that.’
There has been a lot of not forgiving, Gillian thought. After a moment, she suggested, ‘Susan’s ill?’
‘That’s the other thing. You shouldn’t blame someone who’s ill. But I do, I suppose, I can’t help it. We don’t know her any more.’
‘Except physically.’
‘What?’
‘We both recognised her yesterday.’
‘It couldn’t be. Two cities, a few hours apart. I must have been mistaken.’
‘It was early lunchtime, it was about twelve. She could have got there.’
‘I don’t know.’
Gillian tried again. ‘It’s like a signal, isn’t it? A sign to us that we’ve got to do something about it.’
‘Well, I can’t think what,’ Frances retorted. ‘I’m looking after her daughter, that seems to me quite enough.’
Gillian did not take this amiss: she was ahead already, speculating and planning. ‘We should meet in Aberdeen. Maybe even tell Mum and Dad. Family’s so important.’
‘Gill, you’ve never thought that.’
‘Oh I have. I’ve just been side-tracked, the last few years.’
‘So what’s changed?’
‘It’s over with Steve. Like I told you – a whole new start.’
Had Gillian said that? But Frances knew she had not listened. She had stopped hearing Gill’s troubles, simply because they were always the same. ‘Good for you,’ she said now, making an effort, though without faith. ‘You’re really not going to see him any more?’
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