by Diane Janes
It was only when Jo carried the mugs in that she finally noticed the large bruise forming above Shelley’s left cheekbone, which had certainly not been there that morning. ‘Whatever have you done to yourself?’
‘I was reaching a book down and another one fell on me. It was a great thick book of essays – goodness knows what they’re about. I don’t think Brian will ever read them. It’s just another of his must-haves from a second-hand bookshop.’
‘Oh no! I feel sort of responsible.’
‘Don’t be silly. It wasn’t your fault – I should look what I’m doing. What’s Marcus up to this week? Is it still the Brontës?’
‘That one finished yesterday. He’s doing battlefields for the next four days.’
Shelley sipped her tea. ‘I always thought the Brontës were a massive bore myself. We were made to read Wuthering Heights at school, and quite frankly I didn’t get it. Give me Jilly Cooper any day of the week.’ This observation took them in a pleasantly literary direction until Shelley asked, as she put her empty mug on the side table, ‘How’s Marcus’s mother, by the way?’
Jo sighed. ‘She’s still the same. It’s just a matter of how long she lasts, really.’
‘Poor Marcus. We’ll all have to go through this in the next few years I suppose. My parents are pretty good for their age, but they aren’t getting any younger.’ When Jo said nothing, Shelley, sensing that she had somehow hit a wrong note, asked rather awkwardly: ‘Are your parents still alive?’
‘No, they’re both dead.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know that. You’re very young to have lost both parents.’
‘I’m thirty-nine,’ Jo snapped. ‘I don’t suppose it’s that unusual.’
‘Of course not.’ Shelley cast around desperately for some other subject. Most people were prepared to bore for England once they got started with their families, but it was obvious from Jo’s voice that this was an off-limits area.
It was Jo who broke the short silence. ‘Have you heard about The Old Forge?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Maisie told me.’
‘Naturally!’
They both laughed, but Shelley could sense that the discord she had inadvertently sounded was still ringing out faintly around the room, and Jo made no protest when she said that she must get back to the gallery.
After seeing Shelley out, Jo returned to the sitting room, where she selected the first book from the nearest pile. For some reason the illustration on the front reminded her of a children’s story in which people could step into pictures and explore them at will, seeing beyond what the artist had actually painted. If you stepped into this bucolic landscape, she thought, you would probably need to watch out for cow pats. She peered at the grass in the foreground for evidence of realism, but the image seemed to have faded, its place taken by a set of wooden garage doors, one of which stood ajar. She only had to reach for the handle in order to pull one of the doors wide open and see what was inside. She recoiled from the thought, and fought to refocus on the book in her lap, noting that it must have spent a long time on a shelf which caught the sun, because the spine had faded from the rich red of the front and rear dust jackets to a muddy brown. The scene chosen for the front cover, of cattle grazing peacefully in an idealized cow-pat-less landscape, was surrounded by a border of this deep blood red. Jo tried hard to concentrate on the cream and brown cows against their backdrop of woodland and sky, but the grassy meadow kept turning into the park across the street from William Street School, viewed through two sets of metal railings: the tall ones, which surrounded the park itself, and a smaller set, which had been erected on the edge of the nearest pavement – the kind of waist-high railings which were placed at every school gate to prevent pupils from running straight out into the road.
When the bell sounded at half past three, all the infants came swarming out of that gate to where their mothers were waiting, some grouped on the pavement, some in nearby parked cars, some with shopping bags, or pushchairs containing younger brothers and sisters. She looked up into the faces of all these mothers: even down among their feet for a sign of the familiar scuffed trainers, but her mother was not there. Gradually the other children and their mothers thinned out, until it was possible to see right up and down the road: to know that her mother was not approaching from either direction. Left alone, she pressed her back against the wall which ran all around the school’s perimeter, until she could feel the rough brickwork through her thin clothes.
At ten minutes to four the juniors were let out of another gate, which stood a few yards further along the road. Some of them were met by grown-ups too, but none of these adults noticed her: something or someone always screened her from their potential concern. A couple of bigger girls did stop and tried to talk to her, but when she refused to answer they continued on their way. Some bigger boys came and pinched the belt out of her mac: they tossed it around for a while, then threw it in the gutter and ran off. She was frightened by the big boys, but she ignored them, pretended they were not there, even when they came close and shouted something at her. She knew she would be in trouble about the belt, but although she could see where it lay, she could not bring herself to cross the pavement and retrieve it. The pavement looked so wide, the park a million miles away. She liked the swings in the park, but she was not allowed to cross the road alone, so she stood with her back pressed hard against the brickwork and wondered why her mother didn’t come.
Jo shook herself back to the present, and hastily discarded her first choice of book in favour of another. She wished Shelley had not mentioned her parents. It was not Shelley’s fault, of course. If she had known what happened, she would never have asked the question.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘So,’ Melissa said, ‘it’s agreed that we drop Lawrence from next year’s itinerary, and replace him with Daphne du Maurier.’
Jo said nothing. It was yet another of those decisions which Marcus and Melissa had effectively made already, during the course of their joint excursion the week before. Just like the decision to hold this meeting in Melissa’s sitting room – ‘much more comfortable than the office’ Melissa purred – where they were now planning the programme of tours to be advertised for the following year.
‘I’ve been thinking about that hotel in Fowey,’ Marcus said. ‘I know it’s a long way to go, but we’ve always inspected the hotels personally before using them. I think one of us should go down.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Melissa nodded. ‘But who can fit it in? It has to be done before the material goes out – any changes from the advertised itinerary always shake customer confidence.’
‘I could do it,’ Jo said. Some Cornish sunshine would be a welcome change to the persistent Cumbrian drizzle. She had just begun to imagine herself looking out across a rocky headland when Marcus cut across the vision.
‘It ought to be me, as I’m the one who’ll be accompanying the tour.’
Jo was about to say that she couldn’t see what difference it made: hadn’t Marcus said only the other day that it was a team effort, in which it did not matter who did what? Melissa chimed in first with: ‘I think you’re right, darling. It puts you on familiar ground when you get there.’ Melissa addressed everyone as ‘darling’. It was one of the things which ground Jo’s gears.
Marcus was already thumbing through his diary. ‘I can see a possible window in a couple of weeks,’ he said.
‘Hold on …’ Jo began, knowing perfectly well that the ‘window’ in question could only be during a period when they were scheduled to be at home together. A Vesuvial warmth of indignation was rising within her. If Marcus hopped off down to Cornwall, that inevitably left her alone with Sean, and she could not help thinking that in volunteering himself for the Cornwall trip, Marcus was taking another of his favourite maxims, ‘what’s yours is mine’, rather too much for granted. Step-parenting was hard work, and if anyone needed a break in Cornwall, it was not Marcus. Rather than say anything which hinted at marital
disharmony in front of Melissa, she kept her eyes fixed on him, awaiting the moment when he registered her expression of mute protest and passed the Cornwall trip along, but once Marcus had finished jotting in his diary, he returned his full attention to their hostess without so much as glancing Jo’s way, thereby ratcheting up her annoyance by several more notches.
‘Just going back to the scheduling –’ Melissa paused to drag the chart across the floor, so that they could all see it better. She was sitting on the carpet, at just the right angle for Marcus to see down the front of her top. ‘I see we’ve got Jo on a back-to-back here …’ she indicated the block of dates with her pen, ‘when there’s no need, because I can take over Mary Queen of Scots in the Lowlands.’
‘No!’ Jo almost shouted. ‘I always do Mary Queen of Scots.’
‘Not always,’ Marcus began.
‘Yes – always.’
‘But it means disembarking the American Plantagenet Society at Manchester Airport, then driving all the way to Newcastle to meet the coach at four o’clock.’
‘I’ll have plenty of time,’ Jo said. ‘The airport drop is early morning, and my car will be there already.’
‘But why on earth stretch yourself like that in the middle of a busy season?’ Melissa protested. ‘I’ll be available, and I can do a perfectly good job on old MQS.’
That’s another thing, thought Jo. I hate the way she abbreviates things and Marcus picks up on it and copies her. ‘But I want to do it. I have a special affinity with Mary Queen of Scots.’ She saw Melissa raise her eyebrows in Marcus’s direction and instantly regretted her words.
‘Sorry, darling, I didn’t realize that.’ The amusement in Melissa’s voice was evident. ‘Perhaps we could rejig the schedule so that someone else takes care of the Richard III groupies.’ She pretended to consider for a moment. ‘Of course, if Marcus stayed home with Sean instead of … no, no, that won’t work. Who else could we call on to take care of Richard III for us?’
‘There’s no need to call on anyone,’ Marcus broke in impatiently. ‘It’s perfectly obvious that you should take the MQS tour in place of Jo. There’s no need to bugger up the whole schedule just so that Jo can have a monopoly on MQS. Besides,’ he turned to Jo, ‘you shouldn’t go wearing yourself out by doing a back-to-back when there’s no need. We get so little time at home together, and this way it gives us an extra three days.’
Jo was about to say that he hadn’t worried about that when he volunteered to inspect the hotel in Cornwall, but she remembered just in time that whichever of them made the trip, they would not be at home together, and said nothing. She understood the logic in what they were proposing, and she didn’t want to make a bigger fool of herself than she already had. And no wonder Melissa had reacted as she did, because clients who claimed to enjoy a particularly strong affinity with the subjects of the tours were regarded with a mixture of caution, bordering on carefully concealed contempt. Someone who turned out to be a complete obsessive could become a nuisance, spoiling the atmosphere by competing with other members of the party about who was the most knowledgeable, or else boring them to tears with long stories about being ‘in touch’ with long-deceased writers or royalty. None of which altered the fact that Jo could not help but feel a special bond with the tragic queen, whose life had been scarred by circumstances mostly not of her making. Poor Mary, who had been steadily deprived of almost everyone who was dear to her, including the child snatched from her when he was just a baby, after which she had never seen him again.
‘You know, darling,’ Marcus said as they drove away from Melissa’s house, ‘you were being rather difficult over that scheduling. Melissa is extremely good about the fact that one of us always has to be at home now because of Sean. I do wish you would try to go with the flow a bit more.’
‘Go with the flow,’ Jo repeated. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Is it Marcus-and-Melissa speak for “do as you’re told”?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Because it looks to me as if the two of you are running things now, and I simply have to go along with everything you decide.’
‘That’s just silly …’
‘No, it isn’t. You two plan a Daphne du Maurier tour and it goes straight into the list. I suggest Lake District Artists …’
‘Which is a great idea,’ Marcus cut in, ‘but it needs more work. How can we include it when you haven’t got a definite itinerary? We can put it into the programme in 2011, when you’ve had time to formulate it properly.’
‘And Melissa has taken my Mary Queen of Scots tour.’
‘Now you’re just being childish. We have to do what’s best for the clients, and you won’t be at your best if you’ve just driven hell for leather from Manchester to Newcastle. We all have to accept the strictures that scheduling sometimes imposes. That occasionally means guiding a tour we’re not so keen on, or giving up one of our favourites to someone else.’
‘I do wish you wouldn’t talk to me as if I were a ten-year-old.’
‘Don’t act like one, then.’
It was rare for them to bicker. Jo had been on the point of taking issue with him over the Cornwall trip, but she thought better of it, and they continued the journey in silence, arriving just as the school bus deposited Sean at the place where the lane forked towards Satterthwaite, thereby saving him a ten-minute walk in the rain. In spite of this, he did not appear particularly pleased to see them, climbing into the car with no more than a sullen grunt, which might have been ‘Hi’, and banging his school bag on to the seat beside him.
As soon as they reached the house Sean went straight up to his bedroom, while Jo followed Marcus into the kitchen. ‘Why does he have to be so rude?’ she demanded.
‘Please don’t start,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s been a heavy day. Anyway, he wasn’t rude – not really. Kids hate being quizzed about what they’ve done at school.’
‘I wasn’t quizzing him; I was just trying to make conversation.’
‘Maybe you should just leave him alone.’
‘So it’s me that’s wrong, as usual.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Jo, cut the kid some slack, why don’t you? It can’t be easy for him, having to move into a completely new environment …’
‘As if I didn’t know all about that.’
Marcus faced her wearily. ‘This isn’t about what you have had to deal with in the past. This is about Sean and his life, and what he is having to deal with. Everything isn’t always about you.’
He left her standing in the kitchen, feeling crushed. She sank down onto a chair, momentarily defeated by the curious humiliations of the day, but after a minute or two she pulled herself together, stood up again and began to prepare the bolognese sauce for the lasagne. Whenever she paused in the act of chopping the onions, she could hear the drone of the television in the sitting room, and from somewhere above her head came the persistent thudding of Sean’s CDs. Fainter still was the patter of rain on the windows. It was already almost dark outside; the low clouds had brought with them a premature dusk. Just another normal family evening. She would make them a good dinner and get everything back on an even keel. Afterwards maybe they could persuade Sean to stay downstairs for a game of Balderdash – he had enjoyed that last time they all played.
She was just getting carried away with this vision of family fun and laughter, when she heard Sean padding into the kitchen behind her. When she glanced round she saw that he had already changed out of his school uniform and was wearing ripped jeans, worn low enough on the hip to expose a ruff of blue-grey boxer shorts when he bent to look in the cupboard where they kept the crisps. Since Marcus’s latest advice on Sean-handling was not to attempt conversation at all, she ignored him for the time being, focusing instead on the ingredients in the pan, stirring in the tomato purée and oregano, as if she did not know he was there.
Of course she could empathize with his being transplanted into new surroundings. It had been worse for her, she thought. At least i
t had been Sean’s choice to come and live here with his father. He was not having to get used to foster-parents, or live in a house he had never set eyes on, before being dumped there without warning. She pulled herself back to the present. What had Marcus said? Everything isn’t always about you? Well, no, of course it wasn’t … It was only natural for Marcus to take Sean’s part … It was a big adjustment for them all … And of course Marcus was trying to win Sean over, so that they could establish a normal loving home life out of unnatural circumstances. She went on stirring the sauce, which had begun to bubble. Why did tomato mixtures always spatter so much?
She crossed from the hob to the fridge and began to collect the ingredients for the béchamel sauce, but there was a gap on the shelf where the cheese should have been. Glancing across to where Sean had abandoned the breadboard, a knife and an open jar of Branston pickle, a few crumbs of cheese told their own story. He had eaten it – the best part of half a pound of cheese – gone.
She took the stairs two at a time and erupted into his bedroom without knocking. He had been sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to the door, but as she entered the room he turned in alarm and in a single movement had slammed shut the door of the cupboard which stood on the floor by his bed.
‘What have you got there?’ she demanded, the missing cheese entirely forgotten.
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t give me that. What have you got in the cupboard?’
‘Private stuff. You’re supposed to knock before you come in here. Get out of my room – go on, get out!’ He stood up, grabbing the nearest missile to hand, which happened to be a size-nine trainer, hurling it at her with sufficient force that she had to step backwards in order to avoid being hit in the face. He took advantage of this partial retreat to lunge forward and shut the door. Jo had no intention of indulging in a door-pushing contest with a fourteen-year-old. It was time to summon reinforcements.