Love and Devotion (52 page)

Back downstairs, with Toby curled up again in his basket, she made a pot of tea. She was exhausted and knew that she would pay for her night of duplicitous excess the next day. However, right now, she wasn’t sleepy; her mind was too active. She kept thinking how Felicity’s death seemed to be a catalyst for change between her and Bob. She was still dwelling on this when she heard Harriet’s key in the front door. As soon as she saw Harriet’s face, she knew something awful had happened. Despite what Harriet had always thought, that she could compose her face to make it unreadable, Eileen knew how to read it perfectly.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

‘I’ve just come from the hospital. Will’s eldest daughter died this evening. She had some kind of aneurysm and died, just like that.’ She clicked her fingers.

Eileen had only ever seen Will’s daughters from a distance as they came and went from his house, but she knew, as any parent would, what they meant to him. She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, the poor man. What about the baby?’

‘Dead too.’ Harriet pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. She lowered her head and rested it on her arms on the table.

Without asking her if she wanted one, Eileen poured a cup of tea for Harriet and joined her at the table. ‘How is Will taking it?’

Harriet slowly raised her head. ‘At a rough guess, I’d say it’s damn near killing him. Oh, Mum, why do we have to go through so much shit? What’s the point of it all?’

‘I’ve no idea. I gave up wondering why and how a long time ago. Have some tea.’

Harriet obediently reached for the mug, but before she put it to her lips, she said, ‘Will doesn’t deserve this. He really doesn’t. He’s one of the nicest people I know. I wish I could turn back the clock for him.’

‘None of us deserve it. But it happens, and somehow, don’t ask me how, we find the strength to survive. Look at us. Look how we’ve coped, particularly you.’

Harriet shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m barely coping, Mum. Believe me.’

‘Rubbish. You’ve shown amazing strength. Without you, your father and I wouldn’t have managed at all. And the children, who have lost the most, really look up to you.’

‘Only because I’m taller than them.’

They both smiled, but then suddenly they weren’t smiling, they were both crying and hanging on to each other, just as they did the night Jeff and Felicity died.

Since that conversation, Eileen had felt as if a barrier had lifted between her and Harriet, although until that moment she hadn’t been aware of its existence. But it was obvious to her now that while they’d all been thrown higgledy-piggledy together, they’d each been living their separate lives with the barriers firmly in place. The children had school, Harriet had work, she had Dora, and Bob, well Bob had had to go in search of something to distract him — first Toby and then this woman who was consoling him.

Even aside from her animosity, Eileen didn’t think much of this other woman because from what she could see, Bob was anything but consoled.

 

Dusting a plate of mince pies with caster sugar, Eileen covered the dish in foil and placed it carefully alongside an individual portion of shepherd’s pie in a large plastic box for Will.

It was Saturday morning, exactly a week before Christmas; Bob was out with Toby (allegedly), the children were upstairs playing - she could hear them thrashing around in Joel’s bedroom and shaking the floorboards - and Harriet was sitting at the table, a foot tapping the floor while she read a letter from her conveyancing solicitor, a colleague of Will’s friend, Marty, who was still covering for him while he was off work. One way or another it had been an eventful week. School had finished for the Christmas holidays and there had been the carol concert to attend, several parties Carrie had been invited to and the school nativity play to prepare for. Harriet had made Joel’s day by managing to get the afternoon off work to see him perform as one of the innkeepers. He’d been so excited about his part that he’d refused to wash off the moustache he’d had painted onto his top lip until two days later. By then he resembled a miniature Hitler and Harriet had insisted on scrubbing him clean.

Watching Harriet slide the letter back inside the envelope, Eileen said, ‘Everything still on track? No problems with the house?’

‘It looks like we might be able to bring the completion date forward by a week,’ Harriet answered without looking at her.

‘Is that good?’

‘It doesn’t really make any difference. I’ll be ready for either date.’

A sudden extra-loud thump from upstairs had them both glancing anxiously at the ceiling and listening for a subsequent scream. No scream came and Eileen said, ‘I’ll get them to simmer down in a minute when I go up for my nap.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll take them out with me. I need to do some Christmas shopping. Anything I can get you?’

‘I don’t think so, but are you sure you want to go anywhere near the shops? They’ll be horrendously busy.’

‘I’ll cope. Besides, if I don’t do it today, I never will.’

It was good to hear Harriet sounding more positive and upbeat. Nothing had been said, but Eileen knew that the death of Will’s daughter had affected Harriet deeply; a whole raft of painful memories and emotions that had just begun to settle must have been stirred up by it. ‘I don’t suppose you’d take this box across to Will before you go out, would you?’ Eileen asked. She had decided that whatever had caused the rift between Harriet and Will, it had gone on for long enough.

‘I will, but only if I can leave it in his porch.’

Eileen recognised the scratchy warning look Harriet was giving her but, undaunted, she said, ‘Don’t you think it would be better to give it to him in person? Who knows, he might be ready to talk to someone now.’

‘If he is, I guarantee it won’t be me.’

In the spirit of openness between them, and determined that people were going to open up to one another whether they wanted to or not, Eileen said, ‘Look, Harriet, I know there was something a lot more than just friendship going on between the two of you, but whatever went wrong, I don’t think now is the time to — ’

‘Oh, please, after everything we’ve been through, don’t be shocked that I know what you’ve been up to. I’m concerned about you. And Will. Something was obviously working well between you, and now when he most needs someone close to him, you’re not there.’

Her face a picture of forbidding censure, Harriet muttered, ‘How did you know?’

‘It wasn’t difficult. You were spending nearly every evening together, often coming home with a glow that no amount of computer fixing could have put there.’

To Eileen’s relief, Harriet’s hitherto unyielding expression softened and she smiled faintly. ‘I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or outraged,’ she said.

‘Neither. So what happened?’

‘I ended it with him. It wasn’t right between us.’

‘Was it the age gap?’

Harriet frowned. ‘It was more complicated than that, but that was the excuse I used.’

‘That would have hurt him.’

‘I think he’s got more to worry about than me right now, Mum. I doubt I even figure on his radar any more.’

‘But you’re upset about it, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I behaved badly. I turned into the kind of person I’ve always despised. And please don’t expect me to explain what I mean by that.’

Knowing she’d gone as far as she could with her taciturn daughter, Eileen said, ‘I’d still like you to take this food over to him. It would be an olive branch of sorts.’

‘You realise, don’t you, that you’re as subtle as Carrie when it comes to matchmaking?’

Eileen smiled. ‘You think so? I didn’t think you’d noticed Carrie’s crafty hints. Mind you, she seemed quite keen on the idea of you and Miles for a while.’

‘Well, she got that completely wrong. And if it’s allowed, I’d appreciate a change of subject. Tell me what’s going on with Dad. I think he’s depressed, and I don’t mean a bit down in the dumps, I mean clinically depressed. In my opinion, he needs help. Will thought so too.’

Surprised at the turnaround in the conversation, Eileen reminded herself that openness was her new watchword. ‘I agree with you. But it’s not as straightforward as you think.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Your father’s having an affair. It’s not the first time it’s happened. He did it years ago before Felicity was born, when I had all those miscarriages. It seems to be his way of handling grief.’

Harriet’s jaw dropped.

 

Half an hour later, Harriet went upstairs to tell the children they were going out. Leaving them to tidy the war-zone they’d created in Joel’s bedroom, she went into her room and stood at the window that overlooked the garden. She had only brought up the subject of Dad to stop her mother interrogating her, but after listening to Mum’s revelations, she suddenly felt displaced. Her family was falling apart around her. Her father wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be. In fact, he was a virtual stranger. How dare he treat her mother so shabbily! Just let any man treat her that way! No wonder Mum had decided to play him at his own game. It was difficult to say why exactly, but Harriet was glad Mum had thought better of it. There were some people in the world who had to be beyond reproach.

Perhaps as shocking as what her mother had shared with her was the fact that so much had been going on right under Harriet’s nose. Could their lives become any more complicated? And how likely was it, given Felicity’s affair with Miles, that adultery was hereditary?

But that was ridiculous. There was no such thing as an adultery gene. She was on the road to madness if she started buying into irrational nonsense like that. Stick to plain old logic, she told herself. However, there was something that her mother had said that struck a chord with her; something she couldn’t dispute. Felicity’s death had set off a chain reaction of events that would leave none of them the same.

Her mother’s last words on the subject had been to make Harriet promise that she wouldn’t say anything to her father, or treat him differently. ‘I want to get Christmas behind us, then I’m going to talk to him,’ Eileen had said. While her mother had been telling her all this, it would have been the ideal opportunity to confide in her about Felicity’s secret affair, but she hadn’t. Her mother had enough to worry about as it was. Coincidentally, Harriet had decided the previous night that she wanted to clear the air with Miles. She wanted to tell him that she knew about him and Felicity. As brief as her relationship with Will had been, it had taught her something vitally important: to be less judgemental of what Miles and her sister had done.

But this new-found tolerance did not extend to her father. What he had done, and was continuing to do, was unforgivable. At a time when Mum needed him most, he’d betrayed her in the worst way possible.

Harriet’s change of heart towards Miles was the reason she wanted to go shopping. She planned to go to Novel Ways in Maywood, to buy her parents Christmas presents and at the same time ask Miles out for a drink.

But before then she had to perform a far more difficult task.

Leaving the children with one final mind-boggling challenge — to find their coats and put on their shoes — she took the plastic box of food across the road. It was a gloomy, cold day with a sky the colour of pewter. It looked as if it might snow. A lamp was glowing softly in the room at the front of Will’s house and that, with the presence of his car on the drive, led Harriet to think he was in. But whether or not he would open the door to her was another matter. She rang the doorbell; just one short ring. Anything too loud or strident would have seemed offensively inappropriate. In the immediate weeks after Felicity’s death, Harriet had frequently thought that in times of mourning doorbells and door knockers should be muffled. For all she knew, the Victorians probably had come up with such a rule of etiquette.

Having got no response, and reluctant to press the doorbell again, she bent down to leave the food parcel on the floor of the porch. To her surprise, just then the door opened and Will stood before her. His face was gaunt and unshaven, his hair unwashed, his clothes crumpled. But it was the pain in his ravaged eyes that shocked her most. Feeling stupid and inadequate, she held out the box like a gauche child delivering Harvest Festival boxes to the needy. ‘Please just say if you’d rather my mother and Dora didn’t keep on doing this,’ she said.

He looked straight through her, his expression blank. The blankness hurt her almost as much as when she’d tried to comfort him at the hospital and he’d shrugged her off. He took the box from her. ‘Tell them no more after this. I’m okay.’

No you’re not! she wanted to shout. I know how you feel. I’ve been there. Whatever you’re feeling, I felt the same when Felicity died. But all she said was, ‘My mother wants you to know that if there’s anything we can do, just give us a call.’

Without another word, he closed the door.

 

Carrie was in one of her investigative journalist moods during the drive to Maywood. ‘Why does Grandma keep cooking for Will? And why don’t you go to see him any more? Don’t you like him now? I heard Dora saying he — ’

‘Which of those questions would you like me to answer first?’ Harriet cut in.

‘Um ... the first one.’

‘He’s not feeling very well at the moment and we’re all trying to help him.’

‘Has he got flu?’

‘Yes,’ Harriet lied. She and her mother thought the children had been touched by enough death in their young lives and had decided to say nothing about Suzie dying.

They would cross that bridge of truth as and when it was necessary.

‘Is that why you’re staying away from him?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you still like him?’

‘Yes.’

‘When he’s better will you help him with his computer again?’

 

Maywood was crowded with Christmas shoppers intent on getting themselves so far into the red that it would make the Third World debt look like a quid had been pinched from the petty-cash box. ‘With each Christmas that passes, I’m becoming more and more cynical,’ Harriet thought disconsolately. But this festive period was going to be particularly difficult, especially for Carrie and Joel, and she knew she had to make an effort for their sake. Carrie no longer believed in the strange spectre of a white-bearded man coming down the chimney bearing gifts, but Joel did and there would have to be an element of subterfuge to satisfy him.