Astonishing Splashes of Colour (28 page)

“There weren’t any,” says my father.

“What?” shouts Margaret. “What about Angela, Helen, Sarah, Philippa, Jennifer, Lucia? Dozens of them, one at a time, two at a time, one in the morning, another in the afternoon, two in the evening, another at night? Are you telling me I’ve got that wrong?” She looks as if she might spit at him.

“I remember Lucia,” says Paul. “She used to bring me comics.”

“No,” says Adrian. “That was Philippa. Lucia brought sweets.”

They knew about the women. They knew. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Martin is still breathing heavily. Jake jumps up and takes a bowl of crisps from the table. “Have a crisp,” he says and offers them round. We all obediently take a handful and crunch them together. Salt and vinegar, strong and sharp. Martin puts his crisp in with the next sandwich, but I still don’t hear him chewing. I worry that the crisp will scratch his throat.

So what do most women do if their husbands are unfaithful? Not just with one woman: lots and lots? I look at James, but can’t imagine it. I think I would have to leave.
But what about the children?

“Anyway,” says my father. “They never came again after you left.”

“No, of course not,” says Margaret.

“No, really. I gave them all up for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What was the point of that?”

“They became irrelevant.”

She looks at him, clearly amazed. “Well, that’s logical.”

My father doesn’t reply. He looks out of the window. It’s raining and the room has darkened so we can’t see each other clearly.

“I thought you were dead,” says Paul suddenly. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Did what?” she says. “I didn’t tell you I was dead.”

Martin gets clumsily to his feet. “Stop it!” he shouts. “Stop it, all of you. This isn’t our mother. She’s only come to upset everyone. She’s not real, you know. My mother has been dead since I was fourteen. You’re just encouraging her when you talk such rubbish. She’s not my mother—”

He walks over to Margaret. She flinches as if he’s going to hit her. But he just throws an arm out over her head. “Go away!” he shouts. “Leave us alone!” He stands motionless over her for a
moment, tears pouring down his cheeks. Then he turns his back on her and marches out of the room. We hear the front door slam behind him.

“Well,” I say loudly, “someone needs to go and see if Martin is all right.”

There’s a heavy silence, as if everyone is talking frenetically, but without sound.

“Looks like it’s me again, then, doesn’t it?” I’m not sure if I have said this out loud, but I get up anyway.

I’ve always been the baby, the kitten, the Kitty. So if my brothers become children, I go further back into nonexistence. There doesn’t seem to be a part for me in this performance.

I find Martin on the seafront. It’s been raining or drizzling for some time now and the sky is heavily overcast. It presses down, forcing our thoughts inwards. Martin is standing near the edge of the water, hurling stones into the sea, a fighting machine with no enemy. He’s soaking. I want to take him home and find his brown slippers, make him a drink in his Pooh Bear mug. There are only a few other people on the beach, mostly with dogs, some serious walkers. A young man stands in the shelter of the sea wall practising juggling.

“Hello,” I say to Martin, but he can’t hear me against the sound of the waves. They rush up and break noisily, then suck back, the pebbles shrieking an anguished protest as they’re forced back under the sea.

I stand next to him, watching the power of his right arm as he flings the stones far out into the water. He must know I’m beside him, but he gives no sign.

A larger than average wave is gathering strength on its journey inwards; it’s going to come much further up the beach. At
the last minute, I turn and run back, just avoiding a soaking. Martin doesn’t react, and when I look round again, he’s standing in a few inches of water as the wave lazily creeps up the beach. He looks down for another stone to throw and doesn’t notice that his shoes are full of water.

When the wave has retreated, I go back and shout at him. “Move back, Martin, you’re getting soaked!” I know he can’t get much wetter, but I need to say something.

He ignores me, so I grab his hand and try to pull him back. He looks down, but doesn’t seem to recognize me.

“Come on! Move further back!” I yell.

I can’t shift him. It’s like trying to move a concrete statue. But I don’t give up. It must be possible to reach him somehow.

He stops resisting me and I nearly fall over.

“Kitty,” he says, “what are you doing here?”

I’m tired of shouting. I crunch back over the pebbles, away from the sea, hoping he’ll come too. Once I can hear his footsteps following me through the shingle, I stop and sit on the stones against the sea wall. I draw my knees up and Martin sits down heavily beside me. We are sheltered here from the wind and the rain, and a quietness settles over us. A man with a metal detector walks past us, head down, eyes on the stones just in front of him. Rain drips off his yellow waterproof jacket.

I begin to realize how wet I am. My hair is plastered to my cheeks, rain is sliding off the ends of the hair and on to my jacket. I can feel the damp reaching my pink dress.

“We ought to go back,” I say. Where’s James? I came to find Martin, and James should come to find me.

“Do you want to?” says Martin.

I hesitate. It all seems so frightening. “I don’t know,” I say.

“She’s an impostor.” Martin starts building a small tower with the pebbles beside him. His voice is hard and he’s no longer crying.

“But why?” I say. “Why would someone pretend to be her? What would be the point?”

He shrugs. “Maybe she’s after the money.”

“What money?”

“What she could inherit from Granny and Grandpa.”

“But there isn’t any, is there?”

“She wouldn’t know that, would she?”

This is surprisingly logical for Martin. I start to play with the wet pebbles. Their colours have risen to the surface. The reds and blacks glow, strong and vibrant, the browns and yellows gleam. They shimmer when moved, changing shades, as if the wetness wakes them and releases their rich textures from a dry, grey sleep.

“There must be a way to find out,” I say. “Ask questions, things you remember. See if she remembers them.”

“But she might have forgotten them anyway,” he says. “And I might remember them wrong.”

I think of the images in the wedding album and compare them with the woman with the long white hair. In the photographs, she seems tall, graceful, neat. There’s a seriousness in her expression that I’ve always liked. The woman in Granny’s house is sharp and angular and—furious. But anyone’s appearance would change in such a long time.

I start to wonder if I can identify an independence, a self-will in both images, a tilt of the head, the line of her jaw. Am I really seeing this, or am I just embroidering the links?

“Dad obviously thinks she’s real,” I say. “He recognized her.”

Night-feeding. My mother and I were once alone together in the deep silence of the night. Shouldn’t there be something inside me that remembers it subconsciously, that should recognize my mother if she returns?

Martin’s tower falls over and he sits looking at it. A large black poodle runs up and stands in front of us, wagging its tail. His fur is strangely flattened by the rain. Martin picks up a stone and throws it along the beach. The poodle scampers off and then stops, perplexed, unable to work out what he’s looking for.