by Vivien Brown
She didn’t answer.
‘And I love him too, Eve. Just as much as you did.’
‘You can’t really know that, can you? What I felt?’
‘No. You’re right. I can’t. And we were wrong to do that to you, but it’s been years, and things change. I’ve had to grow up fast. And we’re together now, Josh and me. Parents, and I – we – want to put things right.’
I saw her swallow, her gaze cast down towards the carpet as her fingers fiddled with a shiny gold bauble which she then dropped back into the box. Not one had yet made it onto the tree.
‘Don’t you think we’ve already been punished enough for what we did? First, losing you. And then losing the baby …’
‘Punished?’ She lifted her face and glared at me. ‘You must be joking! Look at you. He married you, didn’t he? Yes, we all know he was pushed into it. By his parents. And ours. All that guilt, and bringing-shame-on-the-family stuff. Anyone would think we were still living in the dark ages. And all because you wouldn’t even consider doing the only truly sensible thing.’
‘Get rid of it? That may have been the sensible answer in your mind, but not in mine.’
‘No, so you just went right on with it all, didn’t you? Did the right thing! Rushed into being the blushing bride, knocked up but still doing the whole white dress and big bouquet routine, even though it was just a handful of people at the registry office – and you still only sixteen! And for what? To lose the baby just weeks later. What a waste … If you’d just waited, talked it through, looked at all the options. I mean, did you even stop to consider if any of it was what Josh actually wanted?’
‘We talked. Of course we did. All of us. Both families. Except you, because you’d run away, like a spoilt brat who’d had her favourite toy taken away. What do you think happened, Eve? That Dad turned up with a shotgun? No, it was a joint decision. To stick together. To have the baby. It wasn’t just me. Josh didn’t want me to get rid of it either. He takes his responsibilities seriously. You just have to look at him with Janey … and you talk about options. What options? Adoption? I couldn’t give my baby to someone else. Never see it again. And I’m sure Mum and Dad couldn’t have faced that either. Their first grandchild. And as for abortion, that was never going to happen. Never! Josh is a Catholic, remember? He’s been brought up to value life. All life.’
‘Well, I can’t say I remember ever seeing him go to church, or pray, or cross himself, or any of those things they’re meant to do. He never looked like much of a Catholic to me. And do practising Catholics carry condoms around in their wallets? Not that he used it, in your case, obviously.’
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Of course he had used a condom. How was he to know I was already—
‘But of course getting pregnant gave you the easy way out, didn’t it?’ Eve carried on, almost spitting with fury. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you did it deliberately.’ She was staring at me like some kind of mad woman, her voice raised to the point where I expected Dad to wake up or Mum to burst back in to see what on earth was going on. ‘Because then you could drag your good Catholic boy back down here from Leeds and guilt-trip him into standing by you, moving in together, marrying you. It’s crazy, all of it. You hardly knew each other! But you knew you wouldn’t have to go back to school if you were married, didn’t you? Let’s face it, you’ve hardly had to lift a finger as far as work goes. What? A few shifts in the dry cleaner’s downstairs? Your exam results were crap, so what else were you qualified to do except lie on your back? But you’ve got a home of your own now, Sarah, and a clever, handsome, hardworking husband, even if you did have to steal him from your own sister. It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? Your dream life. One that could have been mine one day. Should have been! And now he’s given you another baby. A living, breathing baby this time, and one who looks so much like him it makes me want to scream. And you say you’ve been punished? None of it sounds much like punishment to me.’
She hauled herself to her feet and started draping lumps of tinsel rapidly and haphazardly onto the branches of the tree and, for now anyway, as I sat there shocked and shaking, it was pretty obvious the conversation was over.
***
As Christmas Days go, it wasn’t so bad. Not as awkward as I’d expected it to be. We sat around the table, and then around the TV, ate, drank, dozed. Eve made a point of helping Mum, constantly going in and out of the kitchen, bringing more beer and snacks and cups of tea. It gave her something useful to do, I suppose, and kept her away from having to talk to me. I could have counted the words we spoke to each other on the fingers of one hand, although Mum and Dad didn’t seem to notice, or chose not to as it was Christmas. At around eight o’clock, Eve took her turkey sandwich and her slice of cake, said goodnight and went upstairs to read. On Christmas Day!
Josh took that as our cue to leave too, bundling Janey up in her new snowsuit and packing her many presents into the same giant-sized paper Santa sack we had used to carry our presents to the family that morning. I had given Eve a book token and she had presented me – us – with Mothercare vouchers for Janey. Token gestures. Nothing too personal, nothing that required any thought.
Josh had already had far too much to drink and I watched him stagger a bit as he lifted the car seat containing our daughter in one hand and the sack of presents in the other.
‘Here. Let me …’
‘I can manage, Sarah. You just get the car started and warmed up a bit before I bring her out into the cold.’
He bent over Mum and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Caroline. For the hospitality. And the jumper.’ He was making his way over towards Dad as I went outside with the car keys in my hand and tried to clear the layer of frost from the windscreen.
‘Well, that was a bit of a nightmare, wasn’t it?’ he said, when he had clipped Janey’s seat into the back and climbed into the car beside me, rubbing his cold hands together.
‘Was it?’ I was concentrating on reversing out of the drive with only narrow stripes of clear glass to peer through as the heated rear window had not yet fully done its job. ‘I didn’t think it was that bad.’
‘Oh, come on! You could have cut the atmosphere at that dining table with your dad’s old carving knife. Which was pretty blunt, did you notice? I don’t know about yours, but my turkey looked like it had been hacked off the bone with a pair of nail clippers.’
‘Tasted good though.’ I tried to steer the conversation in a safer direction, but Josh was having none of it.
‘And as for Eve. What’s wrong with her? So bloody sour-faced. Still holding a grudge after all this time? It’s not rational, not … sane.’
‘What we did must have come as a shock to her, and we’ve never really talked about it, have we? Not in years. Never apologised, even.’
‘Well, how could we, when she buggered straight off back to Wales and never came back?’
‘That’s true, but … just mind your language in front of Janey, okay?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, she’s what? Twelve weeks old? Thirteen? She’s not going to take any notice of what I say, is she? She can’t even manage to say Dada yet, let alone start to copy swear words.’
‘Maybe, but I think we should be careful. It won’t be long …’
‘Whatever.’ Josh sank down in his seat and closed his eyes, a sure sign he didn’t want to pursue that particular line of conversation any further.
‘And as for the jumper your parents gave me …’ So, he wasn’t asleep then.
‘What about it?’
‘Did you look at it? Really look at it? It’s bloody massive, for a start. How big do they think I am? And green! I’ll look like an overgrown leprechaun if I wear that thing,’
‘They mean well Josh, and Mum knitted it herself. Their tastes may not be quite the same as ours but—’
‘They aren’t. You’re right there. That whisky your dad bought tasted like gnat’s pee. I bet he got it in one of those cheap supermarkets. A tenner a bottle!’
> ‘You do know you can come across as a total snob sometimes, don’t you?’
‘And you do know that you’ll say anything for a quiet life? You never want to upset anybody. It’s all Yes, Dad, No, Dad. And you should have told Eve to stop being such a drama queen. She’s not Lady Macbeth or Ophelia or whoever she teaches those kids about in her lessons. And it’s time she realised life is not one long bloody tragedy!’
‘Me? Why’s it up to me to tell her?’ I pulled the car into the kerb outside the dry cleaner’s and looked up to the darkened windows of our first-floor flat, realising I’d forgotten to close the curtains and set the dial on the thermostat before we set off and the place would probably be freezing.
‘Because she’s your sister.’
‘Is she? It doesn’t feel that way anymore.’
‘Oh, let’s forget it, shall we? She’s not our problem.’ He opened the car door and hesitated before getting out. ‘And the last thing I want on Christmas Day is an argument.’
‘Me too.’
‘Let Eve have her little strop and go off to bed with her book. She’s turning into one of those boring career women, forever a bloody spinster. She’ll probably be getting a tweed suit and a couple of cats next!’
‘A bit unfair,’ I said, but I laughed anyway, undoing my seatbelt.
‘Right! We’ll get this little one inside and tucked up for the night, and then we can break open the real stuff. I’ve got a bottle of single malt up there that a client gave me. You won’t find that in the bargain bucket. Oh, no, I forgot, you can’t, can you? Breastfeeding, and all that. Never mind. I can drink your share! Then maybe we can snuggle up and have an early night of our own, eh?’ He leaned over and ran his fingers over my breasts and I could feel the old familiar tingle, right through my coat. ‘Without the book, obviously!’
And it would have been a good night. I’m sure it would. Half an hour later and Josh had that old hungry look in his eyes that I’d missed so much. A large glass of whisky, downed quickly, was already working its sexy magic as he pushed me onto the bed and pulled my top off over my head, his mouth nuzzling my neck and sending all kinds of long-lost sensations rushing through my body, from my head to my toes and all places in between. It would have been the best Christmas present of the day, if only the phone hadn’t rung and spoiled the moment. Eve’s was the last voice I had expected to hear. Eve in tears, begging me to come. Now …
Poor old Buster couldn’t have chosen a worse time to die.
Chapter 13
EVE
It’s not easy trying to find a vet that opens on Christmas Day, but in the end we didn’t need to. Just as Sarah came crashing through the door and up the stairs, the poor little thing slipped quietly away in front of us on the hall carpet, pressed up close to the radiator, his old grey head resting on his outstretched paws. It was as if he’d been waiting for her to get there, so he could say his goodbyes to all of us together. No pain, just his eyes closing, a few little twitches, and a final breath that sent him into eternal sleep.
I had never seen anyone, or anything, die before. Never seen my dad cry either, but he did that day. I watched Mum clutch his hand as we all sat in a circle on our knees around Buster, stroking him, talking to him, hugging each other, not quite believing he had gone. It was Mum who broke away first, grabbing the banisters to pull herself up and bustling off to put the kettle on, while Dad started talking about finding the spade and whether the ground would be too hard for digging. Both being as practical as possible, trying to hide their grief.
Sarah and I just sat there, numb, saying nothing. It felt, to me anyway, like his loss marked the end of an era, the end of our childhood, which was pretty stupid, considering we were both already grown-up and not even living in the house anymore. But Buster had been my dog, my companion through my teenaged years, until I went to uni, and then I had drifted away from him, left him to the care of the rest of the family, and he had become theirs too. We had all loved him, unconditionally. Mum and Dad had brought him to visit me in Wales a few times, and he had sniffed his way around my flat and the tiny patch of garden at the back, his tail thumping against my leg at each reunion, but there had never been any question of him coming to join me there full-time. Buster lived here, in this house, and now he had died here.
I waited until Sarah had planted her goodbye kisses, burying her wet face in the fur at his neck, and then, when Dad came back with an old blanket to wrap him in, I lifted up his little body and carried him slowly down the stairs.
Mum made mugs of tea and over-sugared them (for the shock), and we sat around for a while, the TV off and the room in darkness except for the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree in the corner.
‘I could ring and ask Josh to come round and help dig,’ Sarah said, lifting an arm up over her eyes and sniffing into her sleeve. ‘Oh, but he’s been drinking …’
‘It’s okay, Love. I can manage.’ Dad opened the curtains and gazed out into the utter blackness of a back garden it was impossible to see. ‘You need to get back to that little daughter of yours.’
‘I wonder if we should leave it until the morning, George?’ Mum was gripping her mug so tightly I could see her knuckles turning white, but she hadn’t drunk a drop.
‘Yes, I think you’re probably right.’
‘Then we can do it properly. Choose the right spot. See what we’re doing. Have time to think of what to say …’
‘I’ll be going then.’ Sarah stood, taking a last look at the wrapped bundle on the armchair that had been Buster, and bent to kiss Mum, and then Dad, goodbye. She hesitated in front of me. Should she? Shouldn’t she? I could tell she was waiting to take her cue from me. And, right then, what had happened between us in the past didn’t seem to matter quite so much. I didn’t stand up but I put my hands on her shoulders and she bent down, her face next to mine, and hugged my neck. There was a faint smell of baby milk and what might have been whisky in her hair and, through her open coat, I realised for the first time that her top was on back to front.
‘Happy Christmas, Love,’ Mum said, absentmindedly, as Sarah left. But we all knew that it wasn’t.
***
Work took over my life again as soon as I returned to Cardiff. There was something about that first term back after Christmas that seemed to re-energise me. Most people hated winter but I liked it, had a certain respect for it. All those cold starts, reluctantly stepping out of my pyjamas, then standing too long under the shower before eating a big bowl of porridge and going out to brave the weather; waiting for crowded early-morning buses: a new woolly hat and gloves, courtesy of Mum’s regular pre-Christmas knitting marathon; frost forming on the windows in the staff room on a Monday morning until the heating kicked in and the steam from the kettle did its job.
I liked the thought of the playground becoming a makeshift football pitch again, instead of a place for idle bench gossip, the girls who loved to push the boundaries with their ever-shorter skirts and open toes happily retreating back into their uniform trousers and warm, sensible shoes. The classroom was a haven against the cold world outside where the bare trees waited to send out their tiny specks of fresh new greenery in the weeks to come, standing, as I hoped I might be too, on the verge of new beginnings.
‘Good break?’ Our PE teacher, Simon Barratt, warmed his big freckly rugby-player hands on his coffee mug, then put it down so he could take a biscuit from the tin. He was new to the school, only having been there a term, but I had already come to like him.
‘Not bad. Nothing special. You?’
‘Oh, the usual. Home to see the family. Too many games of Scrabble. Too many trips to the pub. I did manage to get to a match though.’
‘Match?’
‘Football. Just local, but there’s nothing like a chilly afternoon on the terraces. Except actually being out there on the pitch, of course. Football, rugby, hockey. I’ll give anything a go! Do you …?’
‘No! Not me. Never been into sport, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ I dipped into the biscuit tin. Two broken custard creams and one very hard fig roll, left over from before Christmas. Time someone went out to buy more.
There didn’t seem any need to hunt for something else to say, so we soon fell into an easy, companionable silence, each sipping at our drinks and nibbling at our stale biscuits until the rest of the staff came dribbling in, one at a time, hanging up coats and scarves, shaking their hair free from their hats and flopping into armchairs to take a quick look at the paperwork for their first lessons of the day.
Sarah and I, although we hadn’t exactly parted as friends, had managed to clear the air somehow over Christmas. We’d both said what we’d felt, painful though it had been, and I knew nothing could ever change what had happened between us, so maybe the only way to go now was forward. Standing side by side, lost in our own thoughts and memories as Buster was buried beneath Dad’s old apple tree on Boxing Day had brought a strange sense of closure. Now it was time to put the past away and concentrate on what mattered.
English was still my passion, and teaching it was my calling, the one thing that gave me a reason to get up every morning, that made me feel truly alive, as though I had a purpose. I had spent the last couple of days writing new and, I hoped, more exciting lesson plans, thinking more deeply about ways to bring my subject alive in the minds of the children in my classes.
Dad had helped, without even knowing he was doing it. He had insisted on coming back with me, driving me all the way home so I needn’t get the train, and had soon set to work on the kitchen which was now painted a muted shade of pale grey with a pure-white ceiling. It was something he’d said, as he’d wobbled at the top of the stepladder, paint dripping down his sleeve, that had made sense to me, acted as some kind of lightbulb moment. ‘Looking at paint charts is nothing like standing here and seeing the real thing, you know, Love,’ he’d said, leaning back and admiring his handiwork. ‘Somehow, just seeing that little coloured oblong on a sheet of paper, side by side with all the other little oblongs, doesn’t give you the full picture, does it? A sense of what it will really be like. Every time I tried to picture this smoky dove on your wall, the misty haze and the ecru explosion just kept edging into view, making me doubt my choice. Sorry, our choice.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, don’t mind me. I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about!’