Tell Me Where You Are

by Moira Forsyth

  Kate, who had till now only been able to think of being sick and the shame of having to tell people, saw a whole life unrolling in front of her, mysterious and strange. It really would happen. In the other girls’ conversation, excited and thoughtless, full of ideas and plans, the baby came to life and was real to Kate for the first time.

  In the Indian restaurant in Dingwall, Frances and Alec had also, much more hesitantly, begun to talk about Kate’s pregnancy.

  ‘I dread telling people,’ Frances said. ‘I feel I’m going to spend weeks having a series of incredibly difficult conversations.’

  ‘Oh, that sort of news soon spreads,’ Alec said, helping himself to more rice.

  Frances sat back in her chair. ‘There’s not just Andrew and Jack, there’s my parents. The school. She’s only fifteen, so legally she’s supposed to be in full-time education for another year. Maybe they’ll provide some sort of tutor, but the budget for that has been cut over and over. I had a primary seven boy with leukaemia and his home tuition didn’t amount to much. I used to go and see him myself and arrange work with his mother.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Alec broke in, since she seemed to be getting off the point, ‘she can’t stay at school much longer, can she?’

  ‘The summer holidays I thought, if they’ll let her. If she’ll go.’

  ‘Do you think she will?’

  ‘I doubt it, once the pregnancy is obvious, but it would be better for her than hanging about the house. She’s going to need qualifications, goodness knows.’

  ‘We want her to have the best chance she can – and a career eventually.’

  They contemplated the improbability of this in silence for a moment. Then Frances said, ‘She talked about Susan.’

  ‘You said.’

  ‘She had this idea Susan might have gone to stay in Amble, of all places.’

  Astonished, he put his fork down, staring at her. ‘Amble? That’s barely thirty miles from home!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We used to go there, didn’t we?’

  ‘On fine summer Sundays when the boys were little. You remember Freddie the dolphin?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘She says Susan took her there. Did you go?’

  He realised she was picturing the same summer Sunday outings, repeated with another woman, another child.

  ‘By the time we moved back north to Newcastle, Kate was five. I was working weekends quite a lot. If we went out it was usually in the city. Susan wasn’t keen on anywhere without shops, which makes it all the stranger.’

  ‘She said Susan took her to the harbour to see the dolphins, and they had fish and chips. The same place we went to, I expect.’ She reddened. ‘Anyway, I just wondered what you thought.’

  ‘The police have all the details and I gave them photographs. If she were in Amble, so close to home, surely someone would have seen her.’

  ‘But will you go and look? Then I can tell Kate you have. She wants me to take her but you’re so close, you could just take a run up there, look round.’

  ‘Sure, but I don’t honestly think – ’

  ‘Nor do I, but I was thrown by knowing the place, having memories of it that are quite separate from anything to do with Susan. I had this sudden picture of her, walking along the sea front near those little terraced houses, past the swing park, the empty pool, to the beach.’

  Alec concentrated on refilling his plate, unable to prevent himself seeing this same image. He shrank from the idea of going to Amble to pretend to look for her. Perhaps Frances was seeing the young Susan, the sister she had parted from. He did not.

  Briskly, Frances changed the subject.

  ‘What are you going to do with yourself now you’ve given up the restaurant?’

  ‘Get a job, I suppose. You can always pick something up in catering. People move on a lot.’

  ‘Like you.’

  ‘Oh well.’

  ‘I was wondering,’ she said, moving off again as if she had a list of topics to get through with him and was ticking them off. ‘If it had been possible for Kate to have a termination, what would Susan have thought? Would she have persuaded her? She would have picked up on it much earlier, I’m sure of that. Being her mother.’

  They had both abandoned the empty and half empty dishes in front of them. Alec wiped up some sauce with a piece of nan bread, but left it on his plate.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Were they close?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Exasperated, Frances pushed her plate away. ‘All I’m asking is what would her mother want. If she were here. Which she’s not.’

  ‘I wish we’d had that bottle of wine you wouldn’t let me order,’ Alec said. ‘Then maybe you’d loosen up a bit.’

  She folded her napkin. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Oh come on, Fran, I can’t talk to you. This barrier’s up, all the time. You’ve been offended with me for nigh on fifteen years. Couldn’t we forget it now, have a normal conversation?’

  ‘Forget it?’

  He tried again. ‘Susan’s your sister. You must know what she would want.’

  ‘Not now.’ She lowered her voice, conscious of other people round them, though the restaurant was quiet. ‘She wasn’t mentally disturbed when I saw her last. Selfish, self-centred – deceitful. But hardly deranged.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘It’s just the same now. Only more so.’

  Frances gave way, weary. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit stretched just now. Worried to death about Kate.’

  Looking at her face, a frown tight between her eyes, he thought, ‘she does care for her, she minds for Kate, not herself.’ Realising this, he relaxed, knowing there was something in her he could trust that was not just her fierce integrity. There was something vulnerable, open, if not to him then to Kate. He finished his beer and set the glass down.

  ‘Susan would see all this in terms of how it affected her. What I mean is, her response would depend on how she saw it impacting on her image of herself.’

  ‘But surely – ’

  ‘You said she was self centred, and I said it was more of the same. Everything centred – centres – on Susan. Would she want to be a grandmother, the mother of a single parent? How would she see that reflecting on her? In one humour, it might be Ok, she would imagine Susan bravely supporting her daughter, getting another crack at bringing up a child without actually having to give birth. Or else – ’ he hesitated.

  ‘What? What could be worse than that?’

  ‘Or else she would be angry and hysterical, and go on and on at Kate, blaming her for being stupid. She would forget, she would simply stop knowing, that she had done the same thing herself.’

  For a moment Frances did not answer. When she did, it was a startlingly young Frances he glimpsed, uncertain and sad.

  ‘What you say explains a lot.’

  Gillian and Paul ordered a second bottle of wine as they finished the main course. They had talked about mutual friends, holidays and how good it was to live in Edinburgh during the Festival, except that you didn’t often get the chance to see much.

  ‘It’s our busiest time,’ Gillian said. ‘We always have two or three things on the go. I don’t have more than a few free evenings all the way through.’

  ‘Exciting, though. You must enjoy it.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ She brightened at his understanding. ‘This is lovely wine – what is it?’

  They talked about wine. The waiter cleared away their plates and brought the menu without asking whether they wanted to see it again. He could tell they would be at the table a good hour yet, settled in for a long evening.

  Over tiramisu, they moved on to families. Paul had three older brothers, all working in other countries. This gave them something else in common – both were youngest in the family. Gillian, warmed and softened by good wine and rich food, began talking about her sisters. There was a story there, after all. She was aware, of course, that it was the newness of t
heir relationship made him so attentive. It was always like this at first, when you have not heard each other’s stories, or had time to doubt beliefs and aspirations which later may seem to harden into prejudice.

  ‘Missing?’ he said, when she told him about Susan. ‘That’s terrible. When did it happen?’

  She did not tell him about Kate. Through the wine-induced haze, something remained clear and hard. She did not want to talk about pregnancy at all. Anyway, Frances would see sense, or Kate would, and it might all be over by now with no harm done.

  Jim and Grace watched the news, but Grace dozed off, since it was the same news she had watched at six and heard at one on Radio 4.

  ‘Just see the forecast, eh, then we’ll put it off.’ She started awake as he spoke and the tapestry slipped from her lap. She caught at it.

  ‘Oh dear, I think I nodded off there.’

  ‘Didn’t miss anything. That Tory politician’s resigned. The other one.’

  ‘I thought he would.’ She tucked her needle in her sewing, safely in the centre, and put it all away in the work bag that leaned against her arm-chair. ‘Now then. Cup of tea?’

  ‘Not for me.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘Think I’ll take a turn round the block. You want to come?’

  ‘I sometimes think it’s a pity we haven’t a wee dog,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘It would give you an excuse for your late night strolls.’

  ‘Don’t need an excuse. Fresh air’s good enough.’

  ‘Put your jacket on then. It’s been a fine day, but it is only April.’

  When he was ready to go he found her in the kitchen, tidying dishes away.

  ‘You want to come?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m ready for my bed.’

  Later, she was to say, if only I had gone with him, but she never did. The evening walk was a habit he had got into when he walked Miss Gibson’s dog after she became housebound. About three years ago, the dog had taken a fit and died. She had suggested they get a pet of their own, maybe a West Highland terrier like Jock, but he had said they were too old to start with a dog now. He had been fidgety all day, so the walk would do him good, help him to sleep, dog or no dog. She filled her hot water bottle and went upstairs to bed. She meant to read for a while in peace before he came in.

  Kate, Michelle and Amy were watching a video on the television in Michelle’s room. The main characters in the film were students at an American college, uniformly good-looking with glossy hair, perfect figures and all-over tans. The girls crowded on Michelle’s single bed, eating crisps and drinking coke, since Michelle’s mother was in and would find out if they drank anything stronger. Kate said she wasn’t going to drink alcohol till after the baby was born.

  ‘I think I’ll get a book about it,’ she said. ‘About the best stuff to eat and drink.’

  ‘My cousin’s got one,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll ask her for a lend, if you like.’

  Somehow, the balance of knowledge and sophistication had shifted. Kate, for all the drama of her situation, was the one who knew least. The others had cousins, aunts and friends of the family with babies. They were full of good advice. Meekly, Kate accepted it. She was sp sleepy she didn’t know how she was going to stay awake till the end of the film.

  ‘What about going for a drink?’ Alec asked. He paid the bill and Frances did not argue. He owed her the meal, at least. He put his credit card away and stood up. ‘Or what about stopping at the off licence to get a couple of bottles of wine? Then we don’t have to worry about driving home.’

  ‘I have to admit I wouldn’t mind a drink,’ Frances said, as the waiter brought her jacket.

  The flat was only fifteen minutes away but Paul stopped a cab. Meeting the fresh April air had made Gillian a little unsteady.

  ‘You want to come up?’ she asked as the taxi drew to a halt at her door.

  ‘Sure.’ He took her arm and helped her out.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, giggling, letting him hold her, hunting for her key while he paid the fare.

  When she opened the front door the Fletchers’ cat slipped out past them and ran along the pavement, close to the railings. Paul kept one arm round her as they went slowly upstairs. On the landing, they stopped in an embrace and the kiss went on a long time, his hands up inside her jacket, her shirt untucked, his hands cool on bare skin. Not yet, she was thinking, I’m not ready yet, I have to be careful. He did not know this, and all the signals he read in her face, her body, were telling him to go ahead. They swayed a little, balanced at the top of the stairs, until she moved her mouth, damp and hot, away from his.

  ‘Paul – ’

  ‘What is it?’

  The wine cloud still filled her head and she could not think straight. ‘Coffee,’ she said. ‘I’ll make coffee.’

  Jim marched round the crescent, his pace slowing as he came down his own street. He found he had to slow still further, in fact stop for a breather. So he did, putting one hand on a lamp post to steady himself. He had had pains in his legs all day and although he had tried to ignore them as he walked, they were worse now. Old age, he thought angrily, old age. There was a tight feeling in his chest and his head was filling with blood again, hot and bursting. He put his other hand on the lamp post too, gripping it.

  Debbie was pulling her wheelie bin round the side of the house. She was just coming down the path when Jim let go of the lamp post at her gate and slumped forward with a cry. At first she thought, some drunk. Debbie was not nervous of drunk men: her father was a great one for booze, and Gary, coming offshore, took a bucket. But there was something odd about the way this man had fallen, the sound he made. She pulled her bin into place on the pavement and looked again.

  6

  It was only when they reached home with two bottles of wine that each of them realised they would be spending the night together in the same house, with no-one else there.

  Frances rekindled the fire, which had collapsed to a flameless red glow.

  ‘Glasses?’ Alec asked.

  ‘In the cabinet.’

  ‘Corkscrew?’

  ‘Kitchen. I’ll get it.’

  Standing in the kitchen, corkscrew in hand, she wearied, wanting only to go to bed. Let him sit up and drink on his own if he wanted to. What more was there to say?

  Alec put a bottle of red down by the fire to warm it, leaving the white Bordaeaux on the table by the window. He asked, ‘Do you want to chill that?’

  ‘I’ll have red if you are.’

  ‘This is a nice one – lovely nutty aroma.’

  ‘Oh good,’ she murmured, not caring.

  He stood in the middle of the room warming the glass in both hands. ‘This is a nice house.’

  Without wanting to know, she asked, ‘What’s yours like, in Newcastle?’

  ‘Victorian terrace.’

  ‘No garden then?’

  ‘Back yard.’

  ‘Well.’ Frances set down her glass, as if that was that, the night was over.

  ‘I suppose we should have a Plan A and a Plan B, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Alec refilled his glass, but Frances waved him away; hers was hardly touched. He said, ‘What we do for Kate if Susan is here, and what we do if she’s not.’

  ‘Is she planning to come back?’

  ‘I never know. I mean, I don’t know now.’ Alec sank onto the sofa and closed his eyes. Frances, with a shock of hurt, saw his young and sleeping face as it had been once, lost and unreachable in dreams, but still beside her where she could wake him with a touch and bring him back. Not now.

  Alec opened his eyes and smiled at her. He had not shaved since morning and the dark shadow gave him the look of a man who has been up too long.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Long drive, and a bit of a shock at the end of it. Knackered.’

  ‘We can talk in the morning.’

  ‘I don’t think I could sleep. Not without some more of this.’

  How often they had done this
before, with Frances going to bed hoping he would come soon and turn to her with his wine-tannined breath, his hands travelling the length of her, pulling her close against him as he had done when they were first married. Abruptly, she got up and stirred the fire, needing to move.

  Alec poured himself more wine, feeling there was still no way past the barriers. The years together crowded his mind: marriage, children, the clutter of possessions and Sunday afternoons together by the sea, fish and chips in the car, so that it would smell of them on Monday when he drove to work. Marriage, with its endless meals together, the discussions about money, and lamplight and children’s stories when he came in at seven. In his head all these things were jumbled together with memories of earlier days: redecorating their first flat, then their house in Northumberland, the pots of paint stacked in the garage, the ordinariness of life lived in tandem. Suddenly he recalled a pair of her gloves left in his car, lying on the passenger seat unnoticed till he reached the office and took them up, smelling of clean leather, and underneath of Frances herself, her dry warm, sweet-scented hands.

  Watching her, as he lounged on her high-backed sofa, chosen and bought without him, he let these memories crowd in, and wondered how the rich tapestry of that life could dwindle to no more than a brittle irritation.

  Frances said, brisk again, ‘What’s Plan A?’

  ‘That’s easy. If Susan’s here we don’t actually have to do anything.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Let’s just hope she turns up soon.’

  ‘I was being facetious. There is only Plan B – we both know that.’

  ‘So Kate stays here till the baby is born.’

  ‘That would be best if you don’t mind too much.’

  She stared at him. ‘You don’t understand a thing, do you?’

  ‘Probably not.’ He tried a smile but she looked away.

  ‘The real difficulty is afterwards,’ she pointed out, taking up her glass and letting him refill it.

  ‘I can help. I am her father, to all intents and purposes.’

  Frances laughed. ‘You’re proposing to look after this infant for her?’