by Alyson Rudd
Bob
Suki insisted they find a rescue dog and as neither Rachel nor Bob could summon enough good reasons not to, the three of them, one week later, stood in front of a small caged enclosure which housed a medium-sized mongrel who was pale cream bar one grey smudge on his forehead. He had been rejected, they were told, for his colouring, which showed the dirt.
‘He might have a bit of greyhound in him,’ said the plump, breathless sanctuary owner. ‘He’s ever so sweet. Do you have children?’
Rachel smiled tightly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I think we just need to know if he’d enjoy the beach. That seems to be the main requirement according my husband.’
‘I’m sure he’d love it,’ she said. ‘He’s called Rascal but what people tend to do if they don’t like the name is pick one that sounds similar but more to their taste.’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m not sure about Rascal as a name. It would seem to encourage him to be naughty, don’t you think?’
Bob laughed and the dog wagged his tail. Bob liked him. He looked like a distant cousin of Walter. After the paperwork, which surprised him, was complete and their home had been assessed, which surprised him even more, Bob was at last able to go to the busy beach with a companion. Now, it was acceptable to drive there. The newly christened Pascal was not yet a year old and Bob was not sure how obedient he would be nor how tired he would become and, sure enough, on their first outing, Pascal was an utter wimp, reacting nervously to the screams of small children and the reversing of a nearby car. All he seemed to want was to sit next to Bob and for Bob to rub his bony chest.
Bob did not mind. He sat on a quiet dune and took in the view.
‘Not to worry,’ he said to Pascal, ‘pretty soon we’ll be on our own.’
The school holidays ended and the ice cream van vanished even though it was a still, glowing sort of September. Bob had brought some dog treats and decided to let Pascal off the leash. As he did so his heart lurched in a sudden panic that he would dash off into the distance, never to be seen again. But Pascal was not at all keen on being abandoned again and stayed close by. Bob felt almost tearful with relief.
‘Well now, are you going to introduce us?’ she said.
Andrea and Walter had crept up on them and, instinctively, Bob first gave Walter a treat and then kissed her on the cheek.
‘Still creeping you out then,’ she said, but sadly, not with bitterness.
‘No, no,’ Bob said. ‘It’s my problem, my stupidity, I’m so… so fond of you. I’m just really sorry.’
There was a long pause and then he introduced his dog. She did not even ask why he was called Pascal. Everyone else had. He was starting to think Rascal was a far superior name even for someone French.
‘Can we go and sit over there?’ she asked, pointing to the nearest dunes.
‘Of course,’ he said and they sat, flanked by their slender dogs, while three lads threw a frisbee at the water’s edge.
‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ she said.
‘Is it your father? Is he OK?’
‘He’s fine, improving slowly, I think, thanks. Robert, I’m pregnant.’
He felt nothing. The words held no meaning. It was as if he had been knocked out by a heavy boulder. The imminent pain was so great that he was numb, confused. Only as she rubbed her knees, waiting for a response, did he slowly begin to comprehend, to feel panicked.
‘Look, I’m pretty sure I’ll have an abortion but I don’t want my mum and dad finding out and I don’t want to do it alone and I guess I felt you should know because, well, I don’t hate you.’
His mind drifted back to Vera telling him she was pregnant. They were engaged and they brought forward the wedding. No one was very shocked. Vera was happy, he was worried about still feeling like a child himself, but when Lauren was born he felt so grown-up, so responsible, so determined to provide a good home. Instead he let his only child go off on a holiday without him. He was too busy at work to even consider tagging along and if he had been there he would not have allowed her onto the bloody Jeep.
‘You’re crying,’ Andrea said.
‘So I am,’ he said, and he placed his arm around her. ‘Thank you for telling me and thank you for not hating me.’
They sat in silence until the silence became so solid neither knew of a decent way to break it. Eventually, Bob suggested they walk back to the car park. They made gentle, polite small talk.
‘Can I meet you here tomorrow? You choose the time. I need to think, I mean, if I say something now I might regret it, say the wrong thing. I want to be what you need me to be.’
He looked so forlorn she forgot that she was the one with the far greater immediate burden.
‘I’ll drive you both home,’ he said.
‘No. Nice to meet you, Pascal,’ she said.
Later that same day, while staring uncomprehendingly at a client’s tax return, he began choking on his mug of tea. Abortion? But it was his child they would be destroying. And now his only chance of another child, a chance he had not known he wanted to take or even contemplate, was like a hand appearing at a cliff edge, hauling him back from the brink.
Lauren
There was no subterfuge at the office, because Tim was far too busy for it, and anyway everyone seemed to know he and Lauren had been to dinner a few times. And because everyone knew, nobody gossiped about it. Gradually, they became a couple, often leaving the office together, to catch a quick supper before a late film or jump on the train to Tim’s elegant flat.
‘The children of divorced parents join the property ladder sooner than their peers,’ he told her the first time she gazed upon his first-floor living room with its oak floor and stylish rug. He even had a cleaner but was nervous about telling her in case she thought him a spoilt brat.
At Christmas, before she left for Cheshire, he bought her a soft dove-grey dressing gown with a label attached that read: ‘To be left at all times at No. 53C.’
On New Year’s Eve he asked her to move in with him. She was not crazy, madly deeply in love, but she was in love, and so she said that she would.
Kat and Amy were gracious when she told them and Lauren smiled to herself. If Luke was to move out, they would fall to the floor weeping, she thought. She hardly saw Luke these days but when she did she worried that he was too thin and pale. She suspected that he sometimes forgot to eat.
He hugged her tightly, though, when she told him, and whispered, ‘I hope you are in love, don’t settle for contentment.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said, and she assumed that was part of his problem, that he was waiting for someone or something perfect.
Jeffers was the only one who told her to keep in touch and she hoped for the others it was implicit. But maybe not. None of them grew tearful as she placed her key on the table and she thought not only had she outgrown The Willows, but she had also outgrown this kind of London. Tim’s London was more grown up, more expensive, more thoughtful, more serene.
It was the 16th of February 1992, in a world that was very like so many others.
‘Thank goodness you didn’t move in on Valentine’s Day,’ Tim said. ‘It would have cheapened it, made it tacky. This can be our own Valentine’s Day from now on.’
Lauren shook her head playfully and was about to say, ‘No wonder you’re not one of our copywriters’ but she thought better of it. Instead she told him that her parents would be visiting London the following weekend.
‘Obviously to meet you,’ she said. ‘Ostensibly to see Five Guys Named Moe.’ She paused. ‘They even said not to worry if we were too busy to meet them. They’ve gone all polite on me since I nabbed a proper boyfriend.’
Tim booked the Italian and Lauren realised it was his default restaurant when he felt nervous. Vera and Bob loved that it was vibrant and that they could not find much to complain about in Tim.
‘Is he handsome enough for her?’ Bob asked his wife on their train home. ‘I’m not in a position to know these
things.’
Vera thought he probably was.
‘Is he clever enough for her?’ he asked. ‘I mean, our Lauren is very talented, she couldn’t be living with someone who was ordinary.’
‘Lauren says he is very highly regarded,’ Vera said, wondering if Bob wanted Tim to fail these benchmarks so he could advise their daughter against becoming too seriously involved.
‘Does this mean they are going to get married? Is this how it works nowadays? You live together and then get wed?’
Vera sighed. ‘I don’t know, love,’ she said. ‘Let’s not worry about it, though, let’s be glad she is happy. She seemed really happy, don’t you think?’
Bob was forced to concede that she did but deep down he was hurt that no one acknowledged that it was a tough thing for him to have to take, his only daughter living with a man who was a stranger to him.
‘They’re really nice,’ Tim said, ‘and they seemed pleased we waved them off at the station. Anyway, my turn next. And there’s more of my lot.’
Lauren met his family in dribs and drabs and she was petted and made welcome by them all apart from Lottie, who scowled and squirmed and behaved like a jealous ex-girlfriend.
‘How long are you going to live in Tim’s flat for?’ she asked Lauren.
‘Oh, until he throws me out, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Which might be weeks and weeks so I’d like us to be friends.’
Lottie stormed off to her room.
‘Oh, she’s a jealous little flower,’ said Tim’s stepmother with a tinkling laugh. ‘She won’t like it either that I think you’re marvellous.’
Lauren wondered whether she imagined it: Tim stiffening as if to indicate it did not matter if his stepmother approved of his girlfriend, that only his mother would know if she was right for him.
His mother Beatrice was hard to pin down. She was an actress, the sort that determinedly portrayed her job as hard work and discriminatory. Her favourite words were ‘ageist’, ‘sexist’ and ‘fuck’.
‘It’s an exhausting life,’ she said to Lauren when they finally met. At the Italian restaurant. ‘Oh darling, do that lovely thing you do with the biscuit wrappers,’ she said to her son.
Lauren thought she was fascinatingly self-absorbed but not at all unpleasant. Tim seemed to both adore and fear her. At the end of the evening she clasped all their hands together at the centre of the table.
‘I’ll give it all up,’ she said, ‘if you need me to be a hands-on grandmother.’
Lauren spluttered with laughter as Tim groaned.
‘No, you won’t, Mum,’ he said.
‘Just try me,’ she said, a little too sexily.
Bob
‘I’ll come with you,’ Rachel said.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘He’s my dog too, Bob,’ she said, smiling.
‘Of course he is,’ Bob said.
‘I have heard of dogs that get sick in cars,’ she said as they drove to the beach.
‘It’s not far enough for that,’ he said.
They parked the car and walked across the slatted wooden path and then he turned right, towards Blackpool, instead of his usual left.
‘It’s much nicer this way,’ Rachel said, turning left.
There was no sign of Andrea. Perhaps she was watching them from the dunes. Rachel held his hand.
‘Everything OK, Bob?’ she said. ‘You’ve been really quiet lately.’
He wanted to tell her everything and nothing. He wanted to weep.
‘When the ball is over, we can go away somewhere,’ she said, ‘somewhere peaceful, leave Pascal and Suki together in the house.’
‘Sounds good,’ he said. But he could not go anywhere. Not yet. And then he saw a familiar figure striding across the dunes.
Andrea could have walked over to them and said hi and Bob could have explained how he had started chatting to her about her dog and then told his wife about her poor dad and Rachel would have seen nothing to be suspicious about at all and then Andrea would have dashed off back to her poor dad and Bob would have said what a kind young woman she seemed to be and Rachel would have said how women always turned into carers and that would have been the end of it.
But that is not what happened. Andrea, keeping her distance, simply said,
‘Hello, Robert.’
And instantly, Rachel knew.
Rachel saw how Andrea was quietly seething. She saw how Bob was squirming. Rachel also saw there was something bigger at stake than a flirtation or an affair. She was not sure what it was, but there was an urgency behind the girl’s flickering eyelashes. And then as the wind attacked the loose sand and the sky darkened for the first time in weeks, Rachel stepped backwards.
‘You’re pregnant,’ she said.
Amid the silence a tear trickled down Andrea’s cheek.
‘I haven’t got a tissue,’ she said.
Rachel pulled one out of her coat pocket and handed it to her neutrally.
Bob turned to face the horizon.
Andrea blew her nose.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to no one in particular.
‘I expect you have lots to talk about,’ Rachel said and began to walk back to the car park.
‘Does she have car keys?’ Andrea asked.
‘I think so,’ Bob sighed. ‘Bloody hell, bloody, bloody hell.’
‘Go after her,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here tomorrow.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Please be here. Thank you.’
Vera
She would often wake and wonder what they had become. After neatly folding Hope’s hockey kit and driving her to the bus stop that served the private coach to her new private school, Vera would turn her attention to running the house. That she lived in a house that needed running was still a source of amazement to her. They had insufficient furniture for a start and so much land that there seemed to permanently be a man in overalls somewhere doing something Bob was far too busy to be even trying to do.
Vera had so wanted a view but the price of it was lack of privacy. She needed to clear at least one day each week when no one at all but her would be on their land so she could meander in peace and solitude. Too often she felt like a wicked queen from a fairy tale about possessions bringing unhappiness. Their life was, in theory, so blessed with money and beauty, yet it brought her bouts of unhappiness. Especially when she pondered how Lauren would have lain on the grass with a sketch book and drawn the wood and the hills and the sky.
And it was not even a normal kind of longing or grief, for if she still had Lauren she might not have had Hope and would she really trade Hope to have Lauren back? She half dreaded it when Bob said they were having people to dinner and half grasped at it for the diversion. George and his new wife, the lovely Felicity, were coming this evening along with Harry, George’s younger brother, and Stanley, who was another of George’s trusted lieutenants, and his wife, Caroline.
Vera was aware that George had reached the realm of the mega-rich but trusted that Bob and Vera were not pleasant to him because of his wealth but because of genuine loyalty and fondness. What she liked most about George was that although he was driven in a manner that meant he would often appear with shadows under his young eyes and a restlessness that was unnerving, he was still a little shy, and honest in his ruthlessness towards business.
Harry was only twenty-one and was clearly dragged along by Felicity as a means of ensuring he ate properly and took a break from his studies. Only when he stood alongside Harry did George look robust and healthy and an average kind of guy. Harry was thinner, taller and possessed an intellectual intensity that made even the most thick-skinned individual think twice about raising the topic of a new film or the pop charts or what the new royal baby would be called.
Harry had completed his physics degree a year early and was working on a PhD in the field of quantum chromodynamics. It seemed perfectly obvious to Vera that Peter Stanning’s disappearance had resulted in both his sons striving to fill a gap in their l
ives that could never be filled and perhaps, given she understood voids better than many, that was why she found herself throwing expensive brandy at pieces of chicken for them. The real glue for the evening was Hope, who adored Felicity, adored her virtue, her clothes, her posture, her calmness, her humour, her sunniness in the face of George’s focused energy and Harry’s distracted brilliance.
In return, Felicity offered Hope all manner of well-judged advice about spats at school, the ethics of dissecting a rat, the easy way to get high marks for creative writing.
‘And Harry can help with any tricky physics homework,’ Felicity said as Hope bit her lip in terror. No one in their right mind would expect Harry to be any good at explaining basic physics but he smiled all the same and said he thought he was supposed to be giving academia a break for a few hours.
‘I’m quite good at science,’ Hope said boldly, and then, after serving and eating a chocolate dessert she had helped to make, she left the grown-ups to what was always the dull part of the evening, not before raising her eyebrows towards George’s wife to indicate that she should extract herself for a few minutes and give her some undivided attention.
Vera saw that Harry was looking at a photograph of Lauren. She liked it when people did that. Much better than them averting their gaze or seeming embarrassed, as Caroline and Stanley seemed to be.
‘You never met our Lauren,’ she said to Harry. ‘She was very talented at drawing.’
Harry nodded approvingly. Talent was something he could relate to. Unlike not having a father, which was not something he could bear to think much about at all.
Bob
He let Rachel drive home without him. He and Pascal walked slowly through the pines and then the lanes and as his blackened-bricked house loomed into view Bob’s stride became sluggish. He had been walking long enough to have worked out Rachel had every right to greet him at the door with a loaded shotgun. Or a pan of boiling water. She would leave him, of course. Perhaps his own sister would leave him too.