Poppyland (25 page)

Through the low window looking out on to the yard, Ryder could see Ed in his workshop, his cigarette billowing a cloud through the door. Verity, Ed's wife, was clanking buckets and chatting to Ed as she fed her horses, unbolting stables to reveal straw-lined spaces markedly more orderly than the house. Feeling like he had missed the bus, Ryder got off the sofa, trying to pretend to himself that he was neither stiff from sleeping scrunched up, nor in the wrong place,
given that it was ten o'clock and he was meant to be on the other side of Norfolk. Of course he hadn't been given the sofa deliberately, Verity had shown him into the spare bedroom when he arrived, but when he and Ed finally creaked up the stairs last night, having seen the best part of a bottle of Scotch between them, Ed groaned on opening his bedroom door.

‘Bloody kids,' he said, and tiptoed out to the landing where Ryder was leaning against a wall for extra support. Ed sighed, looking like his eight-year-old son for a moment. ‘Natasha's in with Verity and I'm not going in her bloody bunk bed with Josie snoring away down below. I'm for the sofa, mate.'

Ryder was drunk, but not so drunk that he could let his host sleep downstairs while he tucked himself into the spare bedroom on the upper floor, with Ed's family in the rooms on either side of him. It wouldn't be appropriate. ‘No, you're not,' he mumbled, blocking the way down the stairs with outstretched arms, swaying – deliberately, of course – to make absolutely certain Ed could not sneak through. ‘I'm heading for the sofa; you get some kip in that spare room you fixed up for me.'

It would be a good idea to get out of the car and go for a walk or, even better, a swim in the sea this morning, but it's a long way round the coast to Winterton, and Ryder's adrenaline is pumping. He is anxious he might lose his nerve and bottle out of the christening and all it will bring up for him, if he doesn't set off to get it over with.

Immediately, he chastises himself; Christ, what a way to live, setting yourself up against even the
gentlest occasion because you are so terrified of life. It's got to change. Driving out of Ed's yard, waved off by Ed with a small child sitting on his shoulders, Ryder experiences a pang of loss. Ed's life, full of kids and Verity and boats and too much work and not enough money, adds up to chaos, but good chaos. Not something Ryder has seen much of, but he likes it.

Passing the village where he saw Grace yesterday, Ryder takes his foot off the accelerator, seized with an irrational belief that she will open one of the doors of the flint-faced cottages and walk out into the sunshine. She doesn't, even though he is convinced that the yellow one with a pot of vibrant-orange flowers on the doorstep is hers. He indulges in a moment of self-torture, imagining her with her husband, laughing and chatting over breakfast with the children playing somewhere nearby.

Ryder's phone trills, breaking this fantasy before he has time to imbue the husband with all the qualities he himself does not possess, as well as jaw-dropping good looks and a big job. It's his mother.

‘Ryder? Is that you?'

‘I think so,' he automatically teases her. ‘Is that you?'

‘Yes, of course it is. Now will you be seeing the family before the christening? I mean Mac. And . . . and . . .' Her voice tails off helplessly. Ryder swallows, touched by her determined bravery.

‘Mac and Lucy and the children? Sadly, I doubt it; I don't think I'll get there in time.'

His mother sighs, but pulls herself together. ‘Well, it can't be helped,' she says brightly. ‘We've sent some flowers, anyway; they come with helium teddy bears which we thought the little girls would like.'

‘Good.' Ryder is out of the village where he is sure Grace lives now, and the road zigzags towards a cornfield sprinkled with poppies, and, at its farthest limit, a knife-edge ridge where the corn ends and suddenly becomes the swell of the sea, the whole horizon high in the view, as if the sea is rising to fill the sky.

His mother is still talking. ‘Good? Do you think so? I hope so. And Ryder, will you take some photographs? I would dearly like to see Mac's daughters.'

‘Oh Mum,' is all Ryder can say. He understands how much she would love to be here, and how impossible it is for her to come. And something soft in her voice tells him that she, like he, is thinking today how very lovely it would be to have some children to christen in their own family.

‘Mum, Bonnie would have had great kids.'

‘Yes.'

His mother was crying. Ryder felt it wouldn't take much for him to be crying as well. ‘And I will, too, one day. I hope,' he says gently. He has never said this before, the notion of children has been even more taboo than the question of sex in his conversations with his parents. Not that they would mind the children talk, but Ryder has never wanted to face the unspoken monumental expectation of his mother's that she will become a grandmother. And he has left it and accepted it as one of the many unacknowledged
areas where a splinter of pain from Bonnie's accident has lain festering for all those years. And in the end it was so bloody easy to say it's a joke. Ryder presses one palm against his brow; he is hot, despite the breeze from the sea. He wonders if it's the hangover talking, and if he has taken leave of his senses. But no, he is not bullshitting. He is quite sure that he will have children one day, and they will be great. And saying this to his mother is actually no big deal. Wow, and it's only taken all his life to learn this.

‘Yes, you will,' she says, very gently.

Ryder pulls himself out of the reverie, rubs his hand over his eyes, and says cheerfully, ‘OK, Ma, I'll take pictures for you, and I'll come and see you next weekend. I must get on now, or I'll be late for the whole thing.' The signal cuts out at the perfect moment and the car swoops over a rise in the coastline with a church on top. There's nothing else for miles, and in the distance ahead is the alien vision of the Bacton giant golfball, the early warning system.

Grace
Norfolk

Waking up on the morning of the christening, I lie in bed looking at the ceiling, remembering the rivers and faces I used to make out of the cracks when I was a child. Lucy and I used to spend hours in bed in the mornings waiting for Mum, and we used to invent whole worlds through the patterns on the ceiling. I had forgotten it in New York, but here in Norfolk in Lucy's spare bedroom, the ceiling is wall papered with tiny bunches of snowdrops scattered amongst pale green ribbons and I can imagine all the princesses and castles and exotic islands that we used to invent when we were small. Suddenly, as if conjured up by a genie, a small neon-green-clad princess with crown and sceptre appears by my pillow, breathing heavily.

‘It's breakfast,' she says, and hands me a half-sized tin of baked beans.

‘Great.' I am hugely relieved the tin is not open, and amazed by the insight I am getting into the eating habits of three year olds. Or maybe it's just Bella. Though it's not what she eats that's controversial, it's just the timings.

‘I'll get up and we'll go down to Mummy, shall we?'

‘Mummy,' says Bella dreamily, and climbs into the bed with me. She is so perfect I wonder if she can be a Stepford baby or a changeling from the
Day of the Triffids
. I still adore her after a whole day of being in charge of her and Cat. It's a miracle. I thought I would feel like a changeling myself in the company of small children for a whole day, but it was great. I love them and they love me. What could be better? The beach was a great success and I had them in bed before Mac and Lucy arrived with Mac's aunt Irene last night.

‘Let's do something,' says Bella wriggling next to me, and I can feel a delicious tug of love in my heart. I pounce on her, and Bella squirms and giggles.

‘I'm going to blow hot potatoes on your tummy.'

‘Yes. NO. YES. NO. YES!!!!' roars Bella, wriggling more and more as I tickle her.

Eventually we notice Lucy in the doorway, the baby, Cat, in her arms. Lucy is wearing a coat over her nightdress.

‘You must come and see, two lambs have been born and they're in the field between here and the church. It's Little Bo Peep for real.'

Following Bella out into the garden, I am overwhelmed by the full blossom and leaf experience of a May morning in the English countryside.

‘This is amazing,' I murmur to Lucy. ‘Nothing can be this perfect.'

Lucy smiles. ‘Why not?' she says. Good question. We are by the wall bordering the field now; Bella has climbed on to an upturned bucket and is on tiptoe trying to see over. I pick her up. Two black lambs are following a very exhausted-looking sheep across the field.

‘We've got to move them or they will get upset with all the people from the christening traipsing across.' As Lucy speaks, Mac and a man in a boiler suit appear at the far end of the field.

‘How does he know how to do all this?' I wonder out loud, as Mac walks quietly up to the sheep and waits, watching the other man for a signal to pick up the lambs.

Lucy puts the baby down on the grass and leans over the wall next to me. ‘He grew up here, and even though he went away for a long time, he knew he wanted to come back. But then he thought he couldn't bear to.'

‘Why not? What's unbearable about here?'

Lucy laughs. ‘Get you!' she teases, ‘you're the one who ran away to America to escape this place, and now you're a convert.'

I grin, still interested. ‘So,' I say, ‘Mac – what changed him into someone who hated to be back here?'

Lucy moves closer to me, and we are side by side. She murmurs, ‘I can't remember if I've told you this before, but when Mac was at university, his girlfriend died in a car accident on the way to see him. The first
big love of his life. You know, he didn't even tell me about it until we had Bella. That's why her middle name is Bonnie. She's named after her.'

‘Oh, poor Mac.' I look at him in the middle of the field, lifting one of the lambs and turning with it towards the gate. Suddenly I realise what I have said and how it might seem to Lucy. I reach out and squeeze her hand. ‘Sorry, Luce,' I mumble, embarrassed and stuck now.

She smiles and shakes her head. ‘No. I know what you mean. I feel it too. And there's no competing with a ghost. But there isn't any need to. It was long ago. And, you know, one of the things I am looking forward to today is meeting her brother. He's coming to the christening. Mac hasn't seen him for fifteen years. He's one of Bella's godparents.'

My eyes widen, I stare at my sister. A few freckles have appeared on her cheeks, and her hair has fallen out of the knot she tied it in; a tawny curl bounces on her shoulder and she looks a bit Grecian in her pale nightdress with her straight nose and soft pink mouth. She really is beautiful inside and out. I always knew she was, and it used to drive me mad, but now I feel huge acceptance. I know that not only could I never be like her, but I also don't even want to be any more. It is such a relief to finally realise my limitations and feel comfortable with them.

‘Is he sexy, and is he single?' I ask, turning my face up to the sun, shutting my eyes.

Lucy laughs. ‘I don't know about sexy, because I haven't met him, have I, stoopid,' she says. ‘But he is
single. Or, rather, Mac hasn't invited anyone with him, so he must be. Maybe he's gay.'

I feel like I'm having a full nature-style sensory massage with the cooing of pigeons and the gurgling laughter of Cat and the smell of grass and blossom and the warmth on my face. ‘God, it will be strange for Mac,' I think out loud. ‘Do you know what she looked like?'

‘Mmm,' Lucy nods, ‘I've seen a photo. She looks lovely, and she was so young it's devastating to look at it.' She breaks off to tumble Cat in the grass, blowing a raspberry on her dimpled arm. It's so sweet to see her so happy, and wrapped in her own family life. A yawn bursts out of me and I realise that at last the grey cocoon of jet lag has fallen away. Mac climbs the wall to join us and Bella runs to him, jumping to put her arms around his neck. He lifts her up and twirls her around him, laughing with her. My nose begins to run and I am gulping as if I am watching a soppy film. The notion of a happy family had never really occurred to me before as a desirable or attainable goal.

The bell tolling wakes me. I sit bolt upright, rubbing my face. I'm on the sofa, where I lay down after lunch promising myself I would be five minutes. Pins and needles in my arm and a shiver across my skin from being still tell me I have overslept. And I have certainly been noticed: two dolls, both wearing green tops and jeans, versions of what I am wearing, lie next to me. Apart from their clothes, they look like synchronised
swimmers with their right hands thrown above their heads and their faces turned to one side, I suppose matching me while I slept. Creepy. Remembering that this is not voodoo but the work of a three-year-old child is a relief, but not something I have time to dwell on. I must get changed. The church bell sounds urgent, it's the summons for the christening. Racing upstairs is slow work, the landing is strewn with clothes as though a tornado has visited a Chinese laundry, and Lucy is standing in front of her wardrobe groaning pitifully.

‘I can't stand it, I've only got one shoe. I've looked everywhere. Bella must have taken the other one for dressing up.'

‘What's new, Cinderella?' I can't believe it, this is so familiar. Lucy and I fall effortlessly into the pattern we carved out for ourselves years ago when getting ready to go anywhere. Even with almost no clothes between us, like the weekends when we were sent to stay with our father, we still hurled every garment out of the small case we shared and spread them as far as we could in his flat. Standing here with Lucy half naked in front of her mirror, her expression catapults me back to that time and I realise I have forgotten about having fun. Lucy pouts. ‘Oh it's all right for you with your fancy New York luggage.' We both look at my ancient, bashed-around zip-up bag. It has been in my studio for too much of its life and is paint daubed and marked with ink and tape. It looks like something a builder might use to take his overalls and tools around in. We burst out laughing.