Homecoming (23 page)

‘Let’s get you breakfast,’ she said.

Kim looked at her gravely. ‘Toby’s nappy is smelly,’ she said.

For a second, Megan felt like saying: What do you want me to do about it? But then she realised that she was in charge. She’d never changed a dirty nappy before. Wet ones, yes. Dirty ones, no.

‘Right,’ she said brightly. ‘Where’s the nappy bag?’

Nora came upstairs at lunchtime and smiled at the trio in the small sitting room. Toby was watching a kids’ TV show, and was covered in the chocolate hazelnut sauce that Megan had found he liked eating with plain biscuits. She was sure that eating quite so much of it was bad for him, but it kept him quiet and that was all that mattered. Kim was in the centre of a giant pile of what looked like Nora’s good printer paper, with a solitary squiggle in crayon on each page. The dogs had been banished to the kitchen, and Megan sat on the ground between the two children, with chocolate sauce on her face, and what looked like dried cereal on her sweatshirt.

There was something so normal about this scene of domesticity, that Nora beamed at them all.

‘You look like you’re having fun,’ she said.

‘Auntie Nora, look, I did you a picture!’ Kim leapt up and brandished one of the sheets of paper.

‘I love it,’ Nora said, turning it around as she tried to work out which way was up.

Megan, who’d just spent one of the most exhausting mornings of her life – children
never
stopped, how did Pippa manage? – got off the floor and threw herself on to the couch.

‘Fun is tiring,’ she said in the children-are-present voice she’d got into the habit of using during the morning. It was a tone of voice that worked.

‘Let’s all try to be as quiet as little mice as crying might wake poor Mummy,’ sounded better in this voice than ‘
Be quiet!’
shouted at high decibels.

‘I knew you’d be able to do it,’ Nora said to her niece. ‘You were always good with smaller children when we were in the square when you were young.’

Megan felt absurdly pleased.

‘How’s Pippa?’ Nora added.

‘I haven’t been up all morning,’ Megan said. ‘If you watch the children, I’ll sneak up now.’

Pippa was awake, said she was no longer throwing up, but still had a slightly green tinge to her.

‘Thank you, Megan,’ she croaked. ‘I couldn’t have got up and taken care of them.’

‘You look a bit better,’ Megan said, then realised she wasn’t actually telling the truth. Pippa looked worse than Megan had seen her for years, and it wasn’t anything to do with her green pallor. Her face was puffy and tired.

Carb face, that’s what it was, Megan realised. She knew about it from a Los Angeles nutritionist who insisted that all Europeans turned up in LA with the bloated faces of carbohydrate eaters. Carbs were evil.

‘You’re all right. You don’t do carbs, do you?’ the nutritionist had said, shooting an all-encompassing gaze over Megan’s face and body.

Megan shook her head. At the time, she was doing pretty appalling nutrition all round. Lots of late nights, cigarettes and bottles of white wine in clubs all over London. It was only some genetic fluke that allowed her to do all that and still look glowing.

‘Watch the alcohol, though,’ the nutritionist had added. There wasn’t much she missed, Megan realised. ‘Sugar piles on the wrinkles.’

‘Are you looking after yourself?’ Megan asked her sister now. ‘You look tired.’

‘Thank you for that vote of confidence,’ said Pippa sardonically.

‘Sorry,’ said Megan. ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘No, I know I look dreadful. It’s been tough since all of this came out.’

Megan bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. All she was doing these days was apologising. ‘I hoped it hadn’t upset you too much.’

‘It’s not so much me, really. It’s Colin’s parents. They hate all that stuff in the press and we’re dragged into it. They’re very normal people. Sorry.’ It was Pippa’s turn to apologise.

Megan was stunned. ‘They hate me that much! But they know different, you’ve told them, right? They’ve met me, they like me.’

‘They do,’ protested Pippa. ‘But they don’t see you. I don’t see you. You never come to see the children and, to grandparents, that’s a sign that you’re not interested.’

‘I looked after Kim and Toby all day today!’

Pippa spoke very gently. ‘That’s the first time you’ve ever babysat them, do you realise that? It’s been hard for me, Megan, too. I miss you, but your career has changed you into someone I don’t know, someone I don’t see. I miss the old you.’

Megan felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She and Pippa had fought before, but never like this. Yes, they’d had late-night, post-party rows, but this was different.

Pippa was warming to her theme.

‘I live in a small town now and we’re trying to put down roots, have a real family, like
we
never had. Remember what it was like? How we never fit in anywhere? How we used to wish Mum was more like an ordinary mother, then we wouldn’t have had to leave her to be with Nora.’

‘We loved living with Nora –’ Megan protested.

‘Yes, we loved Nora, I
do
love her, but she wasn’t our mother. Mum was hardly an ordinary parent. I want something different for Kim and Toby,’ Pippa said, ‘and it’s like you’ve chosen Mum’s sort of world, that crazy racketing-round-the-world-after-a-man existence.’

Megan could take it no longer.

‘Fine, I get it,’ she snapped. ‘You’re perfect and I’m the awful homewrecker.’

‘I didn’t say
that.
’

‘No, but you meant it.’ Megan didn’t know if she could cope with being so hurt. This was worse than what had happened with Rob Hartnell, worse almost than being on every newspaper as the harlot who’d ruined a good marriage. This was being rejected by the person who’d been there for her all her life.

‘I don’t see you as a homewrecker,’ Pippa insisted. ‘It’s just that you don’t stop to consider other people. Mum’s attitude to life is never to worry about what people think, and it’s not very good training for the real world. In the real world, sometimes you
do
have to care about what people think.’ Pippa paused as if to breathe. ‘That never mattered to her because, if things got too hairy, she just moved on, we all just moved on. Imagine if I did that with Kim and Toby? Imagine, if every time I ruined a relationship, I just picked them up and moved on?’ Pippa shuddered. ‘I could never put them through that.

‘That life affected both of us in different ways, Megan. I decided that I didn’t want that sort of life. And you…’ she paused. ‘You decided that you wanted one thing out of that sort of life: you wanted the protector, the guy Mum was always looking for. The one who was going to look after her and us. Except, he never did look after us, did he?’

‘I’m not looking for a protector,’ said Megan furiously. ‘I’m perfectly able to look after myself.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Pippa, ‘and you’re very good at it. But the first chance you get with an older man who looked like he could take care of you, you went for him.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Megan, ‘I told you.’

‘Actually,’ said Pippa, ‘you haven’t told me. I worked it out. You’ve spent your whole life being the little girl. Even the way you dress: it’s all cute little girl-child. It’s time to move on.’

‘You mean it’s time to move on because it’s upsetting your husband’s family,’ said Megan shakily.

‘No,’ said Pippa. ‘I’d love you to move on, because having a husband and children is the most wonderful thing you can do. But you’re too like Mum, you’ll never be able to do that, not if you stay the way you are now. And because of that you’ll miss out on true happiness. That’s what I’d like for you: true happiness. Please, listen to me, Megan.’

Megan had had enough. She hated confrontation of any sort and she needed to get away from all the painful things Pippa was saying.

‘I never meant to hurt you, Pippa. And I’m sorry you miss me. I never meant that to happen.’ She whirled out of the room and ran to the hall, pulled on her trusty skiing hat and her jacket and left the house.

Eleanor took her walking stick to the gardens, just in case. She hated using the stick but sometimes when she sat down it was hard to get back to her feet. She didn’t want to be stuck on a park bench waiting to be rescued.

It felt wonderful to be outside with the sun on her face. Too much time sitting in the apartment was bad for her. At home in New York, she’d had quite a busy social life and had walked everywhere. Before…Before Ralf had died. Here, she spent a lot of time alone: reading, writing and looking out her window.

Being outside was like entering a painting you’d spent ages staring at. She was transported
inside
the world of the painting instead of staring at it from her window.

In the acid-yellow sycamores, she spotted two goldfinches, red-streaked heads and golden wings making them stand out from the blue tits and sparrows. Pigeons ambled around the grass, pecking things in an exploratory manner. Eleanor watched out for squirrels: she’d seen them in the trees, the grey ones instead of the gentler red ones she remembered from her childhood.

At home in Kilmoney, there had been a sweet old sheepdog named Patch and he’d adored chasing squirrels. Once, he’d found a dead one and had dragged it around joyfully like a child with a teddy bear until Eleanor’s mother had realised what it was and yelled: ‘Drop!’

Thinking of home made her smile. It always did. Eleanor knew she didn’t smile as much these days.

After a lifetime of helping people read the map to survive their lives, she wondered whether she had lost the ability to survive it herself.

The park was empty apart from the bench in the furthest corner, where a dark-haired girl in jeans and a puffa jacket sat scrunched up, her head on her knees, clearly in distress.

The old instinct to reach out to people in need rose up in Eleanor like a wave. There were plenty of other places to sit but she found herself walking towards the girl.

Perhaps it was her slow, silent walk, but she had reached the seat before the girl looked up, a pale beautiful face streaked with tears.

Go away,
her face said.

But Eleanor was made of sterner stuff. She sat down stiffly and was conscious of the girl moving so that she was facing the other way.

No matter. Eleanor could wait. Time was the one thing she had in abundance.

She watched two mothers walking into the playground with three small children in tow. Happy shrieks filled the air as the children launched themselves at the seesaw and the sand pit. A man in a suit with a takeaway coffee and a briefcase marched from one side of the park to the other, talking volubly on his mobile phone. A bus lumbered up the street beside Titania’s Palace, swaying like a grand old dowager. Golden Square went about its business and here, on a bench, Eleanor waited to see if the girl wanted to talk.

Although Eleanor was looking ahead, in her peripheral vision she was aware of the girl straightening up. She folded slender legs underneath her, yoga-style, sighed heavily and leaned back against the seat.

‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’ Eleanor said.

‘Yeah.’

Eleanor let the silence fall again.

‘Would you like to talk about it?’ she asked.

The girl shook her head but she kept her body turned towards Eleanor.

‘I’m not the neighbourhood busybody,’ Eleanor went on. ‘Or maybe I am.’ She laughed out loud. ‘I used to practice as a psychoanalyst, so maybe I am secretly becoming the neighbourhood therapist.’

A crazy giggle escaped from the girl’s mouth. ‘Sorry,’ she said, putting a hand to her lips. ‘I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s weird, though. You’re kidding me, right?’

‘I’m not kidding at all. I’m a psychoanalyst.’

For the first time, the girl sat up straight and appeared to scrutinise Eleanor.

She unfolded her legs and held her hand out formally.

‘I’m Megan. I’ve just had a row with my sister.’

The words were out before she could stop herself. Why did she say that? It was so unlike her to discuss personal stuff with a stranger. But this stranger was a psychoanalyst and therefore was probably bound by one of those doctor/client confidentiality clauses. Or would that work on a park bench with a stranger?

‘Eleanor Levine, pleased to meet you.’

Mrs Levine’s hand was firm and warm. In fact, she wasn’t so little-old-ladyish at all, Megan decided, looking at her properly. She was glamorous in spite of her age. She looked like one of those elegant East Coast actresses who adored Ibsen, were friends with wildly intellectual playwrights, and had studied with Stanislavski.

‘I’ve met a friend of yours – Connie O’Callaghan.’ Mrs Levine went on. ‘She lives in the apartment above mine.’

‘Yes!’ said Megan, and her smile lit up her face. Eleanor sighed with pleasure. She loved beauty, could spend hours in the Met or the Guggenheim, and here was more true beauty. Megan’s face was a perfect oval with the finely carved bones of an alabaster Greek statue, and those hypnotic eyes.

‘You’re an actress, Connie told me,’ Eleanor said. ‘I am afraid I haven’t seen any of your work.’

Megan gave a wry little smile. ‘It might be better that way,’ she said.

‘Not because you’re a bad actress, I think,’ Eleanor said, feeling her way.

‘No, because I’m the cautionary tale of what not to do when you’re an actress.’

Again, Eleanor waited. It was amazing how human beings were hardwired to talk when they instinctively knew they were in the presence of someone who wanted to listen.

‘How does therapy work?’ Megan asked tentatively.

‘Well, first of all, if you’re a patient, we have a contract. We agree a time every week, you turn up and I listen. That’s our contract – that I will always be there. Your part of the contract is that you must turn up too. If you don’t, you still have to pay me. It’s making it formal, so you don’t decide to self-sabotage. If you commit to it, you commit.’

Silence again. Another bus trundled down the road past Titania’s. Two in a short period of time, Eleanor thought. Incredible.

‘And if I don’t want to talk?’