The Things You Do for Love

by Rachel Crowther

  46

  Lou knocked very quietly on Kitty’s door, then pushed it open.

  ‘Kitty?’ she whispered.

  There was no answer. Lou tiptoed to the bed and tweaked back the covers, but Kitty wasn’t there. Strange. She hesitated for a second, then crossed the landing to her own room.

  ‘Kitty?’

  This time she saw a movement under the sheet. Shutting the door quietly behind her, she crossed the room and sat down beside the curled form of her sister.

  ‘Darling girl,’ she said, ‘are you OK?’

  Kitty didn’t respond. After a moment Lou lay down. This must have been what Kitty intended, she thought. She must have wanted to make sure Lou would find her.

  ‘Mum filled me in,’ Lou said. ‘Quite a shock.’

  Kitty said nothing, but she moved her legs to make room for Lou. There were no insects chanting tonight, and no rain or wind anymore, just the occasional sighing creaks of the house and the whiff of wood smoke drifting up through the floorboards.

  Lou remembered then what this reminded her of – what it was supposed to remind her of, perhaps. Or had Kitty forgotten?

  Kitty must have been eight, and Lou, at seventeen, had been in love for the first time – not with someone who loved her back in quite the same way, but even so the joy and immensity of it had been more than she could keep to herself. One night, when their parents were out and she and Kitty were watching a film together, she’d poured it all out in an ad break: how she was in love with a girl at school; how Kitty must have wondered why she’d never had a boyfriend. Kitty had listened – old enough to understand, Lou had assumed, and perhaps even to have guessed. But when the film started again, Kitty had got up without a word and left the room.

  Lou had been devastated. She’d sat through the rest of the film alone, numb with disappointment. Then she’d gone up to her room and found Kitty curled up in her bed, fast asleep.

  Lou smiled. Dear Kitty, who’d always had a way of retreating inside herself like a hedgehog at difficult moments, leaving you with no idea what she was thinking.

  And, just like last time, Kitty who had discovered that there was a difference between her and her sister.

  ‘Kits?’ Lou whispered again. ‘Talk to me. Say something.’

  ‘We don’t have to tell Flora now, do we?’ Kitty said. ‘About Daniel?’

  That wasn’t what Lou had expected – but of course, she thought. Of course that was where Kitty’s thoughts would go first. ‘We don’t have to decide just now,’ she said. ‘But you should talk to her, Kitty.’

  Kitty rolled slightly towards her.

  ‘She should have told us,’ she said.

  Us. In the dark, Lou smiled. ‘You can see why she didn’t. I think she was probably right.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ said Kitty. Lou squeezed her hand. After a moment Kitty said, ‘She never told Henry.’

  ‘No. And that’s why she didn’t tell us. She said nothing, all this time, for Henry’s sake.’

  ‘Or because she didn’t want to admit about Landon.’

  ‘I’m sure that wasn’t –’ Lou hesitated. Flora’s revelation dangled before her like a child’s mobile, turning slowly to expose different sides of itself. A geometric model with a person at each vertex, a new insight from each angle: Henry-Flora-Landon-Kitty-Daniel-Henry. And Lou, suspended somewhere in the middle. Her hand moved instinctively to her belly, cradling the mound that rested between her hip bones. My child won’t know her father, she thought. Who was Kitty to complain about having two?

  ‘I wish I’d known sooner,’ Kitty said. ‘Before –’

  ‘I know,’ Lou said.

  Kitty pulled the covers tighter around her. ‘I’m so tired,’ she said. ‘I can’t think anymore.’

  Lou stroked a strand of hair back from her cheek. ‘Do you want to sleep here again?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not. But I’m not sure I can . . .’

  ‘You can have my room,’ Kitty said. ‘I love you, Lou. I’m glad I’ve got you.’

  ‘Promise you’ll talk to Mum,’ Lou said.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Promise you’ll tell her it’s OK.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  When she had shut the door behind her, Lou stood for a moment on the landing.

  It was Kitty, not her, who had suffered a shock this evening. But – what? Lou shook her head. There was a terrible irony in the fact that she was Henry’s real daughter, not Kitty, whom he’d always loved so dearly – and who had loved him more than Lou had, too. But Kitty’s opinion of Henry had been severely rocked by Martin Carver’s revelation. The fairytale appearance of a long-lost father might be a saving grace for her, once she’d got over the shock of it: Lou couldn’t begrudge her that. And surely it wouldn’t change anything between them. No, there was nothing to regret or to resent. Just an emptiness, left behind now the excitements of the day had subsided. Just the old uncertainty, the sense of not quite fitting in, the loneliness.

  God, but she missed Alice. It felt, standing there in the darkness with the stairs sweeping steeply down in front of her, as though she hadn’t felt that loss fully until now, that burning absence. She could understand how people had come up with the notion of self-immolation; how misery and despair could feel strong enough to consume you.

  She didn’t care what it took, what terms she’d have to accept, what compromises: she just wanted Alice back. She would even – a shudder of disbelief here, but it was true, she would swear it was true – she would even give up the baby for Alice. There – that must make her an unnatural mother. But she’d been complete before, they’d been complete, and she never would be again without Alice. Let the mobile twirl, catching the light with its tantalising glints from the past and the future: what mattered to Lou was thousands of miles away.

  47

  ‘Well,’ Landon said.

  He didn’t come any closer; that was a relief. Flora was trembling, but she couldn’t bear to be consoled, least of all by Landon.

  ‘Kitty?’ he said. ‘Do I understand that Kitty . . .?’

  ‘Quite a return on a single night,’ said Flora.

  Landon said nothing. He looked grave, and not entirely benign, although she thought he meant to be kind.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Flora said.

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘I could have told you years ago. Henry didn’t deserve her.’

  ‘But you deserved what she brought. I understand that. You didn’t have to say anything now; I’m grateful that you did. That you have.’

  That speech, Flora felt, was certainly more than she deserved. She longed to sit down, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that.

  ‘I know it raises problems for you,’ she said. ‘And I know it’s not a fair indication of your fidelity – any more than it is of mine, for the record.’

  ‘Rosanna doesn’t need to know,’ Landon said. ‘She has a very confined orbit.’

  Registering the expression on his face, Flora felt an old ache: the pain of wondering whether his loyalty and devotion might have been dedicated to her instead. But there was another kind of pain, too. Telling him about Kitty might look, in a certain light, like a last-ditch attempt to prise Landon away from his wife, but she could see now that it would have quite the opposite effect. It might not have crossed her mind that she wished it were otherwise, but it was clear to her at this moment that, by laying her cards on the table, she was giving up her last hold on him.

  Flora gripped the back of a chair, desperate to quell the shaking that was spreading through her. Possibility, she thought. That was what she’d survived on, all these years: playing hide and seek with possibility. Juggling it so skilfully that it felt all the time as though everything, anything, was within her grasp. Even after Henry died and her work was gone she’d allowed herself to believe that the world still had things to offer her. The summer had been deceptive in that respect: Fate had strung her along for a
few months more. She felt as if the very last ball had fallen at her feet this evening.

  Landon was looking at her with a different expression now, his long neck raised.

  ‘Is there, by any chance,’ he asked, ‘some whisky in this house?’

  ‘There’s some cognac.’ Flora noted with relief that her voice sounded almost normal.

  ‘Cognac it is,’ said Landon. ‘Lead me to it.’

  At the bottom of the stairs Flora hesitated, glancing upwards. Her maternal instincts were entirely out of their depth tonight. She didn’t look at Landon. God forbid that he should think she expected his advice about Kitty – that she expected anything of him.

  ‘Did you know?’ she asked, as she took the bottle out of the cupboard. She didn’t want to see his face when he answered that question; not until he’d had time to compose it.

  ‘I wondered,’ he admitted. ‘I knew Henry – he told me you’d both wanted another baby. One night, in our cups. He told me it seemed to be his problem. And of course a glance at the calendar . . .’

  ‘I see.’ Astonishing that he could be so calm about it, a man who had never had a child.

  Landon had found glasses; he poured them each a generous measure.

  ‘We should have given you some of this earlier,’ he said. ‘An ideal treatment for near-drowning.’

  Flora managed a smile. Why should she be angry, she wondered, that Landon had suspected he was Kitty’s father but never troubled to confirm it, even after Henry was dead – even during these last few days, when there had been opportunity enough? Because she’d thought she was giving him something precious, and all that time he hadn’t cared enough to ask for it. She turned away, clasping the cognac glass tightly.

  ‘Flora,’ Landon said, putting a hand on her elbow. ‘I had no right to ask. You were married; Henry adored her. You seemed to find a kind of equilibrium, after she was born. I could enjoy Kitty at a distance. I could wonder. People do that, you know: they savour quite small things, hopes and possibilities they don’t expect to see fulfilled.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me about hopes and possibilities,’ Flora said, her voice brittle now.

  ‘I know. That’s why I thought you’d understand.’

  Flora took a deep breath, a sigh that started right down in the pit of her. ‘I’m not very good at understanding,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you noticed? It’s not one of the things I can do.’

  ‘What utter rubbish,’ he said. ‘Come here. For Heaven’s sakes, don’t let’s argue.’

  Flora wasn’t sure what kind of comfort he was offering, but she held herself very still now, the kind of stillness that signifies resistance rather than acquiescence. Part of her wanted very badly to accept whatever he might give, but pride and perversity prevented her. And so much the better, she thought. She could see now that it wasn’t a moral question she faced so much as a practical one; that the safe way forward would require great care and effort.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll take my glass up to bed.’

  48

  Kitty must have slept after Lou left; certainly the room was colder when she opened her eyes again. Two or three shafts of moonlight pierced the gap between the curtains and played over the dark shapes of furniture and panelling, creating an inverted image of the daytime world. Kitty lay very still, letting her thoughts arrange themselves. Flora’s news had thrown so many things into a different perspective: the implications of it rippled through her mind again now, throwing up fresh insights, fresh complications.

  She had been loved by Henry, she was quite sure of that, and she had loved him back. But their relationship had never been as straightforward as it looked. Ever since she’d begun to understand how things worked in her family, a little part of Kitty had hated herself for loving him so much – but even worse, lurking deep in the well of her conscience all those years, was the shameful knowledge that she couldn’t love Henry as wholeheartedly and as unquestioningly as a daughter ought. Her childish devotion, she realised now, had been both excessive and insufficient, and there had been no way to bridge the gap between those equally perilous shores; no way to reconcile her to the insoluble compromises on which her life was built.

  The strange thing was that this evening’s discovery made all this easier, rather than harder, to bear. Shrouded in shadow, Kitty considered this: another surprising fact. If Henry wasn’t her father, then she owed him no more and no less than he’d earned. There was no guilt in loving someone who had loved and cared for her; no shame in not loving unreservedly someone who had caused her such distress. She needn’t reproach herself for being incapable of giving more, nor Henry for not deserving more.

  She shut her eyes as this insight settled into her brain. It couldn’t be quite that easy, she knew. Things would look different in the morning. But however hard she urged caution on herself it was hard to resist the idea that love needn’t be as difficult as it had always seemed. And as for Daniel: did anything else matter, now, except her own feelings? If they loved each other, what difference did it make that she had been brought up believing Daniel’s father to be hers? Surely her old misgivings amounted to no more than a perverse reluctance to accept what Daniel had been offering all along: to accept love.

  Among the jumble of debate and justification something became clear to Kitty, and it was that she wanted Daniel here – that she could face the aftermath of today better with him beside her, and that there was no reason, now, to keep him away. She rolled over, suddenly impatient to call him, to tell him they were reprieved, to summon him to Les Violettes.

  But then she stopped. In her head she could see Flora’s face, contorted with anxiety. She thought about what Flora had carried with her all these years, and about what her silence had cost her. Lou was right, she thought. Lou was always right. Climbing out of bed, she padded down the stairs to find her mother.

  July 2007

  ‘My darling,’ Flora says; and then she stops.

  Kitty’s eyes flick up to her face, but Flora can’t tell whether they reveal curiosity, or anxiety, or impatience. Quite possibly none of these, she thinks. Kitty, at fifteen, is mysterious to her mother; an oddly indeterminate creature. It’s as though the golden child has simply grown, without the addition of any new ingredient, into a form that doesn’t suit her quite so well. She’s not a difficult adolescent, unless a lack of interests or ambition counts as a difficulty, but she rarely speaks unless spoken to first, and smiles less often than she used to.

  ‘My darling,’ Flora begins again, ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’

  She has Kitty’s attention now, and she regrets instantly the dispassionate assessment she made of her daughter a moment before. Kitty’s face is all sweet concern: she even reaches a hand across the table to touch her mother’s arm.

  ‘Not me,’ Flora says, and something else flashes across Kitty’s face; something Flora hopes is relief. ‘It’s Daddy. I’m afraid he’s got cancer.’

  ‘Cancer?’ This isn’t what Kitty was expecting. The child of such a tempestuous marriage must always, Flora thinks guiltily, be expecting another kind of bad news. ‘What kind of cancer?’

  ‘An unusual kind,’ Flora says, ‘at least for men.’ She hesitates. She wants to get this bit right, neither to underplay nor to overplay the stigma. ‘He has breast cancer,’ she says. ‘It’s rare in men, but not unknown – closer to one in a thousand than one in ten.’

  Kitty takes her hand away from Flora – gently – and starts picking at the drips of wax on the wooden candlestick between them.

  ‘How bad is it?’ she asks.

  Flora hopes it was right to have this conversation here. Perhaps it would have been easier at home, she thinks, than in a café. She chose this place with Kitty’s comfort in mind rather than her own: the walls are a rather startling shade of blue and music pulses from a speaker a few feet away. At the next table there is a couple not much older than Kitty with a dozen piercings between them, in place
s that make Flora wince.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘the thing is that it wasn’t diagnosed as early as – often, you see, with men, they notice the lump sooner than women, because there’s less tissue to conceal it.’ She stops again. ‘But then they’re not looking for it, of course. They don’t generally know it’s something they can get.’

  If the obvious question occurs to Kitty she doesn’t ask it, and Flora is profoundly relieved. She hasn’t, yet, come to terms with her own guilt on that score. Even if she can hardly be blamed for the fact that she didn’t see Henry naked for more than two years after that night when he first mentioned the lump, neither her professional pride nor her conscience can forgive her for missing a critical diagnosis.

  ‘So . . .’ Kitty looks at her. ‘Is it bad, then?’

  ‘It’s too early to say. He’s having an operation this week, and we’ll know more after that. Whether it’s spread. But yes, it’s serious. You can be sure, though – he’s got a very good surgeon, an excellent team. The advances in female breast cancer apply to men too. There are several different kinds of treatment he can have.’

  Kitty says nothing for a moment. Flora hopes she’s explained things properly, in a way Kitty can understand. Too much detail, perhaps. Covering up the horror of it in a bustle of medical procedure.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Kitty,’ she says. ‘It’s a shock, I know.’

  She can see Kitty gearing herself up to ask something, and she waits for her to say, is he going to die?

  ‘Didn’t he want to tell me?’ Kitty asks.

  There’s no accusation in her tone, but even so Flora feels something deflate inside her. It was her suggestion; she who thought it would be better this way. I’ll tell her, she said. I’m used to talking to relatives. Henry smiled, and said, and you’re her mother, and she felt wrong-footed, just as she does now. A thought surfaces for a moment and registers in her mind before she can bury it again: cancer will give Henry an advantage with the children. And then she feels a flood of remorse, and she takes Kitty’s hand, enclosing it in both of hers. Henry has been a good father in almost every respect. He has made it possible for Flora to do what she has done. She owes it to him to present a united front now.