Coming of Age (4 page)

Four

Half an hour later Amy heard Dad's car draw up. She ran downstairs and opened the door.

Dad heaved something bulky from the boot.

She stared. “What on
earth
is that?”

“An exercise bike.” Dad grinned. “They were on special offer at that new supermarket.” He slammed the boot, his face red with exertion. “Hold the door open for me, Amy . . . Tyler,
please
stop snapping at my heels.”

Dad staggered across the path and through the front door. He plonked the bike in the hall. Tyler skidded around it, growling.

“Where are you going to put it?”

“I thought I'd turn the garage into a gym.”

“A
what
?”

“I don't get enough exercise. Couple of walks a week with Tyler doesn't count, and I've been piling on the pounds.”

“
I
haven't noticed.”

Dad laughed. “Your wonderful cooking doesn't help. Not that I'm complaining.” He pulled affectionately at a long strand of her hair. “You look after me better than I deserve. But as you get older, it gets harder to burn those calories.” He shifted his waistband. “These trousers feel tighter by the minute. So I thought, William, my boy, it's action stations.”

Amy looked at Dad's flushed face and untidy hair; at his eyes, sparkling with excitement. For a moment she saw him at sixteen, taking a girl on his first date . . . falling in love with Mum.

She said, “The garage is a total mess. Shall I help you clear it?”

“That'd be great. Here, let me unwrap the bike.”

He tore at the wrapping. Tyler growled more loudly. The scent of new leather and shiny chrome wafted into the hall.

“There!” Dad said, as if he'd just made it himself. “It's got a speedometer and a clock with a timer . . . And this shows you how many miles you've pedalled.”

Amy snapped, “I have seen one before, you know.”

The bike loured at them aggressively.

“Course, sweetheart, it's not just for me. I bought it for both of us. You'll be able to use it too.”

Amy lies in bed, abruptly awake. Beads of sweat on her forehead drip into her hair. She's had the nightmare again, the first time for ages. The thunder of horses' hooves, the streak of silent lightning, the terror, the feeling of paralysis.

The details are always the same.

Each time the nightmare returns, she thinks,
Maybe this is the last time I'll ever have it
. But she knows she's only trying to cheer herself up.

She looks at her clock. Five in the morning.

She'll never get back to sleep now, there's no point in even trying. She throws back the sheet and blanket, slips out of bed. Her back aches. She and Dad had worked for two solid hours last night, clearing that garage.

She patters into the bathroom, reaches in the cabinet for some toothpaste. A new bottle catches her eye. She pulls it out. It's hair dye. The seal on the bottle has not been broken.
Especially for Men!
shouts the label.
Lose That Grey! Regain Your Youthful Looks!

Amy replaces the bottle. Suddenly she feels like going back to bed. On the landing, she notices the door to Dad's bedroom stands slightly ajar. She pushes it open and peers round. Dad's pyjamas lie crumpled on the bed, his work suit swings from its hanger.

Back on the landing, she hears the kitchen door click. She shoots into her room, darts to the window, wrenches at the curtain.

Dad's running through the garden towards the Common. No, not running, he's jogging, his head slanted down, in a concentrated, purposeful way. He's wearing a bright red tracksuit with a navy stripe snaking down the sides of the legs.

Tyler races ecstatically ahead of him, his silly ears flying.

The pit of Amy's stomach heaves. She opens the window and takes a deep breath of dawn air. The first delicate swirl of birdsong rustles from the trees.

“I mean . . .” Amy pushed her bike into the school shed. “It was five in the morning, for heaven's sake. Dad
never
gets up before six-thirty if he can help it. Not unless a patient calls him out, and then he makes a terrific fuss.”

“Don't you need
less
sleep as you get older?” Ruth asked.

“And that tracksuit. I've never seen it before. We buy all his clothes together, we always have done since Mum . . .”

“I think it's great.” Ruth wrenched three battered library books from her bike basket. “Lots of men when they reach forty . . . How old's your dad?”

“Forty-six,” Amy said sullenly.

“It's a good age to start taking yourself in hand. Most blokes go to seed – too many chips, too much beer . . .”

“I don't
give
Dad too many.”

“And there's yours trying to stay fit, and all
you
can do is grumble.”

“I'm not
grumbling
.”

“You could've fooled me!”

“It's so
unlike
him. And
hair
dye! I
ask
you. I like him just the way he is.”

“This lady friend.” Ruth glanced at Amy as they crunched the gravelled path leading into school. “The one you saw him with.”

Amy growled, “What about her?”

“Maybe he's doing all this for
her
.”

Ruth pulled at the heavy glass door. The smell of school gusted out at them: disinfectant from newly washed floors, chalk and sweat.

Amy flushed. “He'd better not be!”

“Face it,” Ruth persisted. “Maybe he
is
.”

Amy gets home from school, wheels her bike into the garage. For a moment she thinks she's in someone else's. The bags of rubbish she and Dad had filled have gone, the brick walls and high ceiling have been cleaned of cobwebs, the concrete floor swept. Dad must've asked Dora to finish what they'd started.

Beside the new exercise bike sits a large, unopened box.

Amy tears at the wrapping. A black and yellow trampoline stares out from a sea of white foam.
The New Rebounder:The Best Way to Fight Flab. Twenty Minutes a Day! Feel the Difference in a Week!

Gingerly, Amy steps on it. She begins to bounce. Up! Down! Up! Down!
Higher
, she thinks angrily.
Higher!

Her hair escapes its knot, swirls delightedly into the air.

From inside the house, Tyler barks.

For a week, Amy watched Dad more closely than ever.

The grey flecks in his hair began to tone into a new soft brown. A second tracksuit, dark green with a fierce yellow stripe, appeared in the dirty-washing basket, soaking with sweat. A new vegetable juicer sat in the kitchen.

On Saturday morning, Dad appeared with packets of rice flakes, millet flakes, raisins, sesame, linseed and sunflower seeds.

Amy looked up from her list. “Where did you get that parrot food?”

Dad said casually, “A friend of mine suggested I try something different. There's a new health-food shop in the village . . . I eat too many eggs. This makes wonderful muesli. Much better for me. For us both.”

“But I've made scrambled eggs every morning for as long as I can remember.”

“That's
exactly
what I mean.” Dad hitched up his jeans. “I've done fifty miles on that bike this week,” he said proudly.

Amy refused to congratulate him.

Dad sat at the table. “Let's go organic this week. Tons of fruit and vegetables, nuts, beans, salad. I'm going to do a strict detox.”

Amy flushed. “You don't like my cooking.”

“Nonsense, sweetheart. It's my new fitness regime. More exercise, healthier diet. No point in one without the other. Got to move with the times, specially if you're setting your patients a good example.”

“I suppose,” Amy burst out, “you want them to colour their hair.”

“Wondered when you'd notice.” Dad smirked. “Looks better, doesn't it?”

Amy stared at him. “I liked my old dad.”

“Oh, him.” Dad tilted his chair. Tyler took it as an open invitation, leapt gleefully on to his lap. “Let's say there was room for improvement.”

The phone jangled from the hall.

Amy stood up. “I'll get it.”

“I wonder,” said the voice at the end of the line, “is that Amy?”

“Yes.”

“Hi. I've heard such a lot about you.”

“Oh?” Amy swallowed. “Who . . .”

“My name's Hannah. Hannah Turner.” Silence. The voice hurried on. “Could I possibly speak to your dad?”

Amy glanced towards the kitchen, at Tyler scampering around Dad's feet. She turned her back on them, bent her head, murmured directly into the phone, “He's taken the dog for a walk.”

“Oh.” Another silence. “Then could you give him a message? Tell him lunch tomorrow will be fine.”

“Lunch . . . tomorrow,” Amy said, as if she were writing it down.

“Your dad was kind enough to ask me. At your house. I thought I'd have to be in Cardiff, but my plans have changed.”

Amy clamped her lips together.

A third awkward silence implied that Hannah Turner was finding the conversation hard going. “I'll be at your place at one o'clock. OK?”

Amy did not answer.

“I hope
you'll
be there.”

“Too right,” Amy said coldly. “I'll be there.” She slammed down the phone.

“Who was that, sweetheart?”

“Only Ruth. She's just broken a string on her violin.”

“By the way.” Amy glanced sideways at Dad as they drove to the supermarket that afternoon. The glittering sunshine had vanished beneath clouds and heavy rain.
I suppose I'd better tell him
. “Someone called Hannah Turner rang.”

Dad grated the gears. “You didn't tell me.”

“You'd gone out with Tyler.”
Well, he was just about to
.

“Did she leave a message?”

“Something about lunch tomorrow.”

Dad looked at her, then back at the road. His cheekbones had turned pink. “And?”

“Said she could come after all.”

“Great!” Dad gave a puff of joy, like a pricked balloon. “We must make her something special.”

“What about your new diet?”

“It can be healthy
and
special, can't it?”

“You tell me.” Amy gazed between the giant firs at the drenched fields. “You might also like to tell me who Hannah Turner
is
.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” Dad turned into the car park, slowed to find a space. “Haven't I mentioned her to you? I must've clean forgotten.”

Amy said savagely, “I wonder why. She obviously knows about me.”

“Hannah Turner,” Dad said, as if there were something magic about the name he was rolling round his tongue. He slid into a parking slot. “Hannah Turner's our new doctor. Brian Cooper retired last month. He should have gone at Christmas, except we couldn't spare him.”

Raindrops bounced triumphantly on the windscreen.

“Hannah's our replacement. We're
terribly
lucky to have her. She's highly qualified – spent the last three years in Kenya – and we wanted a woman doctor because lots of our patients feel more comfortable with – I mean, they've been asking for a woman. She's the right age and everything.”

Amy opened her mouth. “How old
is
she?”

“Thirty-one,” Dad said, a wistful lilt in his voice. “She's only thirty-one.”

Amy stared at him angrily. “When does she start?”

Dad turned to her.

“Hannah started last Monday. She's been with us for a week . . .”

He smiled.

“It's
flown
by.”

Five

Amy sits on Ruth's bed and the untidy squash of duvet while Ruth struggles into tight black jeans. Downstairs, she can hear Ruth's sister singing in a wobbly soprano: “Oh, for the wings, for the wings, of a dove . . .”

“I could do with a pair of those.” Amy looks crossly at a finger­nail where her newly applied Flirty Pink varnish has smudged.

“A pair of what?” Ruth's voice is muffled in a silver top.

“Wings.”

Ruth's head emerges. “What do you want wings for?”

“To fly away.”

“Just because your dad has asked Hannah Turner to lunch? Isn't that a bit drastic?”

“He's been interviewing for a new doctor for months, yet when he finds her, he doesn't even bother to
tell
me.”

“Why
should
he?” Ruth sits at her dressing table, which is so cluttered there isn't space for her elbows. “It's not as if you have a say in it.”

“Because we have a special relationship.” Amy smears more varnish on the offending nail, but her hand shakes. “We always have had, ever since Mum . . .”

“Sure.” Ruth looks at her through the mirror. “You were nine when it happened. It was terrible and you've coped brilliantly. But next month you'll be sixteen.” She picks up a brush she's spotted among the bottles and begins to deal with her hair. “There's all the difference in the world.”

“No, there isn't.” Amy flushes. “I feel just the same about Dad.” She looks at Ruth in the mirror. “If anything, I love him even more.”

“Maybe you shouldn't.”

“How can you
say
that? You don't have a
choice
of how much you love the people in your life.”

“What I mean is –” Ruth tugs at her curls – “you should be concentrating on other people . . .”

“You mean boys.”

“Exactly. Guys your own age.”

Amy glares at her. “They're boring.”

“You don't give them a chance.”

Amy knows this is true. She also knows there
is
someone else in her life, but she's not telling Ruth. Not yet, anyway. She slithers off the bed, attempts to straighten the duvet, which has never been straight in its life.

She pulls her jacket over her shoulders. “Come on, then. Time to get bored out of my brain.”

Ruth extracts her scarlet cardigan from underneath a pile on the floor. “This new doctor, is she the woman you saw outside the Manzil?”

“Probably,” Amy says glumly. “I haven't told Dad I saw them together. Haven't even asked him what she looks like. After tomorrow I shan't need to. All I know is she's fifteen years younger than he is and he'll see her every day.”

“Give her a chance. You might even
like
her.”

“I guess Dad already likes her enough for both of us.”

“You don't
know
that, Amy. P'raps he's asked her to lunch because it's a nice way to welcome his new doctor.”

“It's more than that. When I saw them outside the Manzil, they looked
right
together.”

Ruth shrugs. “What are you going to give her for lunch?”

“Pigswill on burnt toast?”

“Delicious. I hope you'll make enough for second helpings.”

Dad glances across the kitchen at Amy. His face, flushed from cooking, has a smile about it, as if he's heard a funny but secret joke.

“We're nearly there. Watercress soup in the fridge. Fresh raspberries with meringue on the sideboard. Scottish salmon and new potatoes cooked and cooling. Salads dressed and only the mayonnaise to make. How's that for a morning's work?”

Amy says sourly, “I hope she'll appreciate it.”

“I'm
sure
she will.” Dad begins to separate some eggs. “Could you lay the table?”

Amy hesitates in the doorway. “Where should I put her?”

Dad looks up. “What d'you mean?”

“I mean,” Amy says deliberately, “should I lay a place for Dr Hannah Turner in Mum's chair?”

Dad pauses for a fraction of a second. “Might as well,” he says.

When the doorbell rings, he rushes to answer it, scuttling down the hall like an excited crab. Amy ducks into the living room, stands by the window listening to the murmur of voices.

Dad says, more loudly, “Come and meet my daughter.”

Amy turns.

Dad stands in the doorway, holding a spray of pink carnations, looking excited and shy. He seems suddenly lost for words.

Beside him, smiling, a woman with smooth, dark hair says, “Hi, Amy. I'm delighted to meet you. I gather you've finished your exams. Well done!”

Amy moves towards her, holds out a reluctant hand.

Hannah's feels cool and smooth. “Hello.” She takes a deep breath. The seductive scent of lily-of-the-valley rises from Hannah's bare arms. “I've seen you before.”

“Really?” Dad looks taken aback.

“Last week. At lunchtime. I saw you with Dad, coming out of the Manzil.”

Dad touches Hannah's shoulder. “That was the day you finally agreed to join us, after all my months of persuasion.” He looks at Amy. “Hannah's had to move from Cardiff. She's been incredibly efficient about it . . . I didn't want her to go home dying of hunger.”

Amy curls her lips. “I
see
.”

“Anyway,” Dad says defensively, “you never mentioned it.”

Amy goes on looking at Hannah. She has dark-lashed, hazel-coloured eyes and a perfect complexion. “Of course not. I'm always the soul of discretion. You often take ladies out to lunch, don't you, Dad?”

Dad gives a dismissive snort. “Don't be ridic–”

“I never like to pry into his private life,” Amy cuts in. She winks at Hannah in a conspiratorial fashion. “But the stories I could tell . . .”

Hannah doesn't look in the least put out. She smiles teasingly at Dad. “Dr William Grant, you
are
a dark horse! Tell me your dreadful secrets.”

Dad flushes. He avoids Amy's eyes, thrusts his nose into the carnations. “These are perfect. I must put them in water . . . Shall we have a drink on the terrace?”

“Good idea,” Amy says. “I expect we could
all
do with a drink . . . I'll have a very large gin.”

“I don't think so!” Dad throws an arm round Hannah's shoulder. She tips her head back so it almost touches his. This time they both laugh.

Oh, my God. She's beautiful.

“Your garden's
fantastic
.”

Hannah stood on the terrace, looking out at the lawn and the rose garden. Tyler had scampered in an interested fashion around her legs. After she'd made a fuss of his ears, he settled panting by a chair to watch. “It must be lots of work.”

“It's entirely Mum's design,” Amy said quickly. “It looks incredibly beautiful this time of year . . . Dad and I don't have time to look after it, but we still have the gardener Mum used . . . great friend of ours . . . Joe Thomson, lives round the corner. Very upset when Mum died.”

She looked sideways at Dad.

He'd cupped one of his hands round Hannah's elbow and was pouring white wine into her glass.

“Mum was brilliant,” Amy chattered relentlessly. “At art college she came top of her year. She wrote two books on landscape design. The first won an award and her publishers sold it to the Gardening Club as a Christmas special. We still get money from it, all these years later.”

“Really?” Hannah said.

Amy warmed to her theme. “Mum'd walk into a scruffy dump of weeds and old fencing, and within minutes she'd work out how it could be transformed.”

“Fascinating.” Hannah took a long swallow of wine.

“Everyone in the village knew her, didn't they, Dad?”

“I suppose they did,” Dad said reluctantly.

“We only had to walk down the road and someone would ask her advice . . . These days there are lots of gardening programmes on TV. I'm sure if Mum were alive, she'd be doing one. They asked her to speak on
Gardeners' Question Time
, but –”

“Cheers,” Dad interrupted firmly.

He'd raised his glass to Hannah, she'd clinked hers with his. She was smiling into his eyes. Her long silver earrings swung gently beneath her hair.

“Sit in the shade,” Dad said. “It's going to be hot this afternoon.”

Hannah slid gracefully into a deckchair. Her short denim skirt rode up her bare thighs, her toenails glittered tangerine in the sun. “After Kenya, nothing will ever be hot.”

“Africa! I find it hard to imagine you there.”

“Then I'll have to tell you all about it,” Hannah said, but so quietly she obviously did not intend Amy to hear.

Amy stared at them. “Could I have some orange juice?” she said loudly.

Dad had pulled his chair closer to Hannah's. He tilted his face towards Amy. “Sorry, sweetheart, I forgot. There's some in the fridge. While you're in the kitchen, could you take out the watercress soup and put it on the table?”

He took a long sip of wine, staring with admiration at Hannah's glinting thighs.

Amy turned, retreated to the kitchen.

She flung open the fridge, pulled out the soup. Shreds of watercress floated on its top like handfuls of drowning confetti.

I know what I'd like to do with this. Chuck it over them both.

“Yes,” Ruth said, “but did you
like
her?”

Amy swiped viciously at a gorse hedge with Tyler's special stick. They were on the Common with him late that Sunday afternoon.

“Ask a daft question. I've no intention of liking Hannah Turner.”

“God, Amy, give the woman a chance.”

“Why
should
I?”

“Because she deserves one. Imagine how you'd feel if you'd met someone you wanted your dad to like.”

“That isn't going to happen.”

“Of course it is. Any day now, you might –”

“And anyway, it'll be different.”

“Why?”

“Because of Mum.”

“So what are you saying? That your mum prevents your dad from liking anyone else ever again? From having new friends? Maybe from having a new lover?”

Amy flinched at the word. She threw the stick for Tyler. Yapping with joy, he raced after it. “Mum and Dad had a perfect marriage.”

“How do you know?”

Amy stared at Ruth. “I do, that's all. Dad adored her. They met when they were still at school. I never heard them quarrel. They liked the same things. They loved Jules and me. They –”

“What you mean is, you've never questioned anything. I'm not saying your dad
wanted
the accident to happen . . .”

“So what
are
you saying?”

“That maybe you put your mum on a bit of a pedestal.”

“No, I don't.”

“You can't help it. You remember the good bits about her and forget the bad.”

Amy looked across the Common at the sun, low in the sky, threading the clouds with skeins of deepest gold. “The only thing I've ‘forgotten',” she said slowly, “is the accident. I'd give
anything
to remember it.”

“I'm sorry.” Ruth's voice softened. She slipped an arm across Amy's shoulders and the two girls hugged each other. “I didn't mean to bring that up.”

“I know.” Amy stepped away and looked at her. “You're the best friend I could ever have. I only grumble with you because I can tell you anything and I know you'll listen.”

She turned to look at the path where she and Mum had been riding that morning. “I still can't go back there, you know.”

“Are you sure?” Ruth's eyes searched Amy's face. “Maybe if you could retrace your steps . . . even get on a pony again? Cadence is still at Mary's stables . . .”

Amy shuddered. “I feel sick at the thought.” She wiped a hand over her forehead. “I'm terrified that if I go back there, I'll lose my voice again – and this time it'll be for good.”

Ruth took her hand. “That'll never happen.”

“I couldn't go through it again.” Amy's voice shook. “It was the most humiliating thing . . . But Ruth, it's worse than that.”

“How d'you mean?”

“It's six years since the accident. I've blanked it hard and fast. And when I ask myself
why
. . .” Amy looked at Ruth.

“Yes?”

“It's because something terrible must've happened.”

“We
know
it did. Your mum was killed.”

“But I don't think it
was
‘an accident'.”

“What?”

“Mum didn't fall off Duchess just like that. She was an experienced rider. She knew the Common like the back of her hand. We'd ridden that path together hundreds of times. We weren't even riding fast. It was snowing. We'd have been extra careful.”

“What are you saying?”

“That somebody else was involved.”

Ruth gasped. “That it was deliberate?”

“I don't know. The police never found the tracks of any other horse because of the snow . . . They couldn't even
begin
to investigate. It took them hours to find Duchess and Cadence. They'd wandered off on to the Common. They were lost and confused, just like me.” She swallowed. “There was an inquest, but it was only a formality.”

Ruth stood stock-still. “But why should anyone
want
to kill your mum? She was a lovely person.”

“Yes,” Amy said quietly. “She was.”

“So what on earth could she have done to deserve that?”

Amy screwed up her eyes, trying not to cry. The trees on the Common swayed around her. Tiny flies buzzed against her hair. She looked at Ruth's face, pale beneath its tan.