Lovers and Newcomers (16 page)

‘Yes.’ Miranda’s eyes didn’t meet hers.

‘After that I’ll get a job. Selwyn can finish the house in his own time. And all will be well,’ Polly concluded.

Miranda sliced carrots. She tipped the glowing vegetables into an earthenware dish, dripped olive oil over them and rubbed sea salt between the palms of her hands.

‘Why are you worried about the children?’

‘Ah, it’s general, not localized. They’re not ill or addicts or in trouble, as far as I know. They think we’ve gone off and left them, at least according to Omie they do. Selwyn says that’s absurd, of course. This drink’s just what I needed, by the way.’

Miranda said hesitantly, ‘Why don’t you both move into the house? Only for as long as it takes to do what you need to in the barn. You’ll be warm, the work will seem easier. Ask Omie and Alpha and Ben to come and stay whenever you want. Won’t you think about it, at least?’

Polly shook her head. ‘Selwyn can’t. Not won’t,
can’t
.’

The dishwasher settled into a churning rhythm. Water trickled in the pipes in the scullery. The layered sounds of the house seemed to emphasize the gulf that lay between it and the barn.

However, Polly’s face was now rounding into the noodle-lady smile. She was recovering herself. ‘It’s way beyond pride with him, it’s an act of faith. This is the way he wants to do it, therefore it’s the only way that it can be done. I left him to it for a couple of nights, didn’t I, that first week, and he made no objection, absolutely none, but I felt as though I was betraying him. He can be impossible, but we’re in this together, me and Sel. We’ve worked it out between us before, and we’ll do it this time too.’

Carefully Miranda nodded.

‘We’ll come over tonight and eat, though,’ Polly said.

‘That’s good.’

Polly drank more wine and sat back in her chair. That was enough of talking about Selwyn to Miranda. She changed the subject. ‘What about it turning out to be a princess, then?’

Miranda dusted the salt off the palms of her hands with a flourish. Here was an unequivocal symbol for both of them.

‘I love it. Don’t you? I
love
her. Look how she was buried in solemn state. Decked out in her gold ornaments ready for the life to come, her weapons at her side, her page to accompany her. How powerful and how revered she must have been.
There’s
the lady of the manor, if you want one.’

Polly thumped her fist so that the knives rattled.

‘Exactly. She’s what we need to have in mind. An Iron-Age role model. A powerful woman, the leader of her tribe, vanquished only in death. Modestly veiled by antiquity, as well. No political or despotic overtones to trouble us, except for the unfortunate page, and that was probably done by her priests.’ She brandished her glass. ‘Here’s to the Warrior Princess of Mead, rest her glorious bones.’

They drank the toast. Polly got up, and Miranda awkwardly put out her hand.

‘We’ve got what it takes, as well,’ Miranda said.

‘I know we have,’ Polly agreed.

Remembering the ten pound penalty they didn’t give voice to it, but they were thinking the same thing.

It has been a long way. Women, and daughters, and friends. Mothers or not, wives or otherwise. We’ll go on, wherever the road takes us.

‘I feel quite emotional,’ Polly confessed. ‘Quite teary-eyed.’

‘It’s the onions,’ Miranda smiled.

The talk of the princess had emphasized a bond between them, one which circumstances might otherwise have led them to overlook.

Alpha, Omega and Ben

The three Davies children had arranged to meet in a bar close to the offices of Ben’s listings magazine.

Alexandra arrived first. She sat down at a corner table with a glass of wine and the newspaper. Olivia called her just as she took the first mouthful of her drink, and Alpha told her twin that she had only just got here and there was no sign of Ben anyway, surprise surprise, so she needn’t run all the way from the Tube station.

Five minutes later Omega burst through the door. Her hair was long whereas Alpha wore hers cropped asymmetrically short, and today Omega favoured pink tights with ribbon shoelaces and fingerless knitted gloves while Alpha was in a black skirt and a grey jersey.

Omega burst out, ‘
Why
didn’t you ask him to come tonight? I’ve got to meet him, haven’t I?’

‘That was never going to happen, Omie. Whatever Ben’s asked us here for is about him, and dropping Jaime into it as well would be a major complication. Wouldn’t it?’

It wasn’t only their profiles that suddenly gave away the closeness of their connection, appearing like a single face and its reflection in a mirror as they briefly kissed, but also the way they resumed a conversation apparently in mid-sentence.

Alpha gathered up the contents of Omega’s bag as they spilled out on the table and stowed them safely away for her while Omega scanned the drinks menu and tried to decide what to order.

‘Well, but, you’ve been seeing him for three weeks and I haven’t even met him yet. What’s that you’re drinking?’

‘House white. You’ll meet him, OK? I hardly know him myself yet.’

‘I’ll have the same. Do you want olives or anything? I really want to get to know him, Alph.’

‘You will. Exactly the way I know Tom. OK?’

‘Tom’s been around for ever, you must be able to tell the difference, it’s not like
wooooh
, suddenly there’s this person in my life that you’ve never even seen yet.’

‘It will be the same in the end. That’s just what it will be. Anyway it’s really early days, Omie. He’s great, that’s all I do know.’

Omie’s frown melted. She smiled fondly at her sister. ‘It’s so good to hear you say that. I’m really happy for you. Just don’t keep me in suspense for too long, all right?’

They subsided with their drinks in front of them, gazing out in relaxed harmony at the after-work crowds swirling past the window.

‘Where
is
Ben? Don’t tell me he’s not going to show up?’

‘He’ll get here, but why is he always, inevitably, boringly, infuriatingly half an hour late for every single occasion in his life?’

‘Could it be because he’s Dad’s son?’

Omie said, ‘I spoke to Mum. Did I tell you?’

‘Yes. I did, as well.’

They watched the passers-by for another moment. ‘You’re right about them, Alph. They’ve got lives, haven’t they? We can’t look through the prism of them being our parents for ever.’

‘No. Although they will
be
our parents for ever, won’t they?’

‘They’ve resigned all their responsibilities and become this eccentric pair of barn-dwellers. Like two old owls on a perch.’

As soon as he came through the door Ben caught sight of his sisters dissolving into laughter. It was a familiar sight that seemed to exclude him now and always, and his gloom deepened.

‘Here he is.’

‘Benj, it may never happen.’

He sighed. He put down his cycling helmet, his rucksack, his gloves and Day-Glo anorak.

‘I am afraid that it already has.’

Alpha found him a chair as Omega pushed through the crowds at the bar to buy him a drink. Ben sat down and ate a couple of olives, spitting the pits into the palm of his hand then shaking his fist as though he were rattling dice. With his sisters’ attention fully on him he unbent enough to offer them a ghost of his winning but slightly unfocused smile. The twins had their own version of Selwyn’s features and colouring, whereas Ben looked more like Polly but without the foxy spark of cleverness that sharpened their mother’s eyes.

The girls leaned forward. ‘What’s wrong?’

It was uncharacteristic of Ben to do anything as specific as ask to see them both and even to suggest a place and a time. He was more likely to agree vaguely to turn up at family gatherings and then find at the last moment that he couldn’t actually make it.

He touched his fist to his forehead. They waited, doing him the favour of not laughing at him.

‘It’s Nic.’

They didn’t look particularly surprised.

Ben went on, almost wailing, ‘She’s disappeared. She’s moved out of her place. I went around there with some stuff for her, used the key she gave me to get in, and her things have all gone. The Greek landlord told me she packed up and went.’

‘That’s not disappearing, really. Not tell-the-police disappearing. It’s more like escaping. Did you two have a row? Have you tried to call her?’ Omie wondered.

‘No, not a row. Of course I’ve tried calling, about seven hundred times. I’ve texted her, and left messages, but she’s not picking up. She’s not been on Facebook. She hasn’t been at Gina’s, either. Gina’s mad with her, she said to tell her that she can forget the job.’

The bar was packed now, and noisy. Ben stared around him, amazed to see so many people apparently relaxing and enjoying themselves when his own life was so taxing.

‘Don’t worry just yet. She’ll call you. Nic’s unpredictable, but you’ll hear from her when she’s ready,’ Alpha soothed.

Ben sucked in a lungful of air and closed his eyes very tightly as if he were about to bungee off a high bridge.

‘She’s pregnant.’

The girls looked at each other. Ben opened his eyes again, finding that after all he was not plummeting earthwards.

‘
Ben
. Didn’t you…?’

‘Didn’t she…?’

‘Not always,’ he said.

They drew closer together around the table, shutting off some of the hubbub of the bar by leaning forwards so that their three heads almost touched.

‘Maybe she’s gone home?’ Omie suggested.

‘She doesn’t get on with her mother. I don’t think she’s seen her more than twice in all the time we’ve known each other. She even came to ours for Christmas, didn’t she? What would you two do if you were her?’ he asked.

Perhaps his sisters could give him an insight into the extravagant mystery of women’s responses. Ben quite often found other people’s behaviour unfathomable, when he chose to think about it, whereas his own always seemed perfectly rational.

‘How pregnant is she?’ Omega asked.

‘I don’t know. Either you are or you aren’t, isn’t that it?’

‘I think if I was her, I’d be looking into the possibility of getting a termination,’ Alpha said with some caution.

Immediately Ben’s tragic expression brightened a little.

‘Exactly. That’s what I said to her. I told her to ask Gina what to do, I said we could get things fixed up, all that. But she just rolled over on her side and cried and wouldn’t speak to me. I hugged her, talked to her, and in the end after hours and hours she cheered up enough to eat some soup, but she wouldn’t say much about it afterwards. I thought she’d be thinking about it, you know, making a decision, and so I didn’t keep on about it. I just tried to be really loving and helpful, and I even turned down a couple of nights’ work so I could keep her company. Then four days afterwards, she’s gone. I mean, what could I do?’

‘Ben, what do you want to happen?’ Alpha asked him.

‘I want everything to be like it was. I want Nic and me to be happy together. I’m really worried about her.’

He sat back, breaking the circle.

For Ben, saying what he wanted was easily confused with getting what he wanted.

Omega went to buy another round of drinks. When she came back they talked some more about Nic and where she might be and how they might find her. Both girls predicted that she would reappear once she was no longer pregnant, but they didn’t share Ben’s certainty that he and she could then pick up from where they had left off. Wherever she had gone, Nic was probably making an enforced step into maturity, whilst Ben was still stuck somewhere in his late teens.

After half an hour Ben said he would have to go because he was working on a late shift, clearing up after a party. He put on his anorak and reached for his helmet.

‘I haven’t asked about either of you,’ he said with an air of baffled regret.

‘Alpha’s mystery man is still very much on the scene,’ Omega said.

‘Jaime’s not a mystery,’ Alpha said. Her face glowed. She looked like a woman in love and Omega felt the twist of pain with pleasure that always came when her sister experienced something wonderful that she couldn’t share.

‘That’s cool,’ Ben muttered.

He kissed them both and thanked them for their support and advice, although he was still wearing his tragic expression.

‘Have you told Mum?’ Omega wondered.

‘No. Don’t say anything. It’s just more proof of how hopeless I am.’ Ben said this as if it was accepted fact. He went on his way and they watched through the window as he cycled away into the glare of traffic.

‘Did you notice that he had no notion that it would be his baby, as well as Nic’s?’ Omega mused.

‘Ben’s own inner child cries with a far louder voice,’ Alpha answered.

FIVE

Chris led the way down a neon-lit corridor, opened a door and stood aside to let Katherine pass through.

‘I’m delighted you could come in and see for yourself,’ he said.

They were now standing between rows of floor-to-ceiling metal shelving, the shelves stacked with brown cardboard boxes, each with a serial number and letters written on the front. Katherine considered his use of the word
delighted
. It was not effusive, she decided. That would contradict the rather marked impression his dry but also humorous manner had already made on her. Dr Christopher Carr would employ a scientific precision when it came to language. If he said he was delighted, then that would be the truth.

She looked around. It wasn’t difficult to decipher the legends on the boxes. Apart from the serial numbers there were dates, some abbreviations like
Bm Mkt
, which she guessed were site names, and
Hum F, complete
. These were rows of human bones. Storage for skeletons. The strip lighting hummed overhead.

‘It’s this way,’ Chris said. His outstretched hand almost touched her elbow. Katherine jumped.

‘Does this trouble you?’ He indicated the boxes.

‘No. But it’s impossible not to make the comparison, isn’t it?’