Relative Love (21 page)

Serena had been robbed, but, by God, so had she. The injustice of it, the pain, buried,
contained
, managed, channelled for so many years, felt as raw as it had five decades before, when they took her miniature silent baby, with its soft pink head, to be disposed of. Even as this image formed in Pamela’s mind, a part of her – the strong sane part – said,
Come on, now, such indulgence, stop this at once. You held the family together, remember? You had no choice but to carry on
. Pamela’s fingers jerked over the keys. She was sane, she knew she was, but just for these moments, this peculiar day alone, shipwrecked in the snow, she didn’t want to be … She wanted – oh, God, she wanted —

The doorbell – was it really the doorbell? Pamela’s hands crashed together in discord and then dropped to her sides. She listened, breathing fast. It sounded again. The dreadful Victorian ding-dong John had insisted they restore. Postman? Milkman? Lost rambler? Her mind flew over the possibilities as she willed herself to have the courage to stay where she was, to complete the business of falling apart. But her fingers were already checking her hair and her throat working furiously to swallow the spasms of emotion. Of course she had to answer it. It was like life
knocking at the door, real life, the one that needed responses and attention, the one that could be managed and mastered instead of the inner one that raged unseen.

The worst thing about his little sister dying, Ed decided, slapping more snow on to his lopsided and highly unsatisfactory snowman, was that nothing felt
normal
. Having fun of any kind felt wrong – like he didn’t care enough or something. And being naughty felt positively evil. Getting back late from kicking a ball in the park with some friends the previous afternoon, his mother had seemed, literally, to erupt, the veins standing out round her eyes, the sinews in her neck straining from the effort of shouting at him. These days, if she wasn’t exploding like that she was ignoring him and Ed wasn’t sure which was worse. The quiet lack of anger about his failing the St George’s exam, for instance, had made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Both his parents had practically dismissed the matter in one sentence. It didn’t matter, they said, he could do Common Entrance for Kings Grove later in the year. Like they really didn’t care. Or had given up on him completely. He didn’t want to go to Kings Grove. It was several bus stops away and it was reputed to have such a low pass mark that some people said making boys sit exams was just a front. Ed gouged two eye-holes in the snowman’s face with a stick. He couldn’t be bothered with schoolwork, but he didn’t want to be written off as stupid either. He kicked at the hardened mud in a narrow empty flowerbed, and eventually found two stones that would do for eyes, of very different shapes, but roughly the same colour and size. He pressed them into the holes, then rammed the stick in by way of a nose. It looked stupid and sad, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t wanted to build a snowman in the first place. His mother had suggested it – all falsely bright and breezy, in the new way she had, like she was pretending to be a mother instead of actually being one. Asking her for a carrot for the nose would have triggered more brittle jolliness – exclamations, rummaging in the fridge. How long exactly? Peeled? Halved? The thought of it made him feel hollow inside.

It was getting dark now. His hooded top felt thin against the cold and his tummy was growling with hunger. Tea would soon be ready. When he came in from school Serena had been in the kitchen, stirring raw mince round a frying-pan. The smell of cooking as he crossed the threshold had been lovely, but Ed’s stomach had clenched at the sight of the pink meat. He stared at the house now, not wanting to go back inside. In the drawing room the curtains were open and the lights on, revealing Maisie stretched out on the sofa with the TV remote control. Clem, no doubt, was still at her desk in her bedroom, beavering away at her homework. At a muffled crash from something a few gardens down, Ed jumped, his heart hammering at the thought of some monstrous assailant leaping at him in the dark. Straining to see in the dirty grey evening light, he could make out the top of the climbing frame in the garden next door and the outline of the small tree that bulged against their fence. Overhead a star had appeared, so low and bright that he thought for a moment it was an aeroplane.
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I were I wish I might have this wish I wish tonight
… But he couldn’t think of a wish, beyond Arsenal winning the Premiership, which seemed shameful, and his stomach emitted another menacing growl. The mince would have become spaghetti Bolognese by now. There would be a pile of salad to go with it, a bowl of freshly grated Parmesan, as fine as pale sand, and some sticks of celery, which they would all dunk in the sugar bowl the moment Serena’s back was turned. Tea as usual. And yet not as usual, because although things looked the same on the outside, on the inside they were totally different.

‘Ed?’

‘Oh, hi.’ He looked up to see his aunt Cassie stepping out of the back door, placing her feet gingerly between the clumps of snow on the patio. She was wearing high heels and a long black coat with brown fur round the collar and cuffs.

‘How are you?’

‘Oh, fine.’

‘Good.’ Cassie hesitated, as stuck about what to say next as she had been with Maisie, who had answered the door, and with Serena, slopping pasta and sauce on to plates, still in a baggy T-shirt and jeans, as if she had forgotten their plan to go to the cinema. It had been Cassie’s idea and she was rather proud of it. Elizabeth was due at any minute and Helen was meeting them there. They were going to see a new box-office hit romantic comedy and then having a bite to eat afterwards. ‘To get Serena out a bit,’ she had explained to Charlie, on the phone, ‘take her mind off things.’ Her brother’s response had been so feverishly enthusiastic, so solicitous on Serena’s behalf, that it had made Cassie wonder tenderly what it must be like for such a close couple to endure something so terrible, how deeply their suffering would bind them. It had certainly made her feel closer to Dan. So much so that she had felt faintly guilty, as if she had used the tragedy in an improper way. She had shared all the details with him during his most recent visit to her flat – described the trauma of the funeral, how her tears had refused to stop – which had added a new intensity to their snatched two hours. When, eventually, they made love, it had felt extra special, as if they were each aware of how precious and fragile their stolen happiness was, how much in need of treasuring. Afterwards she had whispered, ‘Imagine losing our child,’ and he had kissed away the tears on her cheeks.

‘Cool snowman.’

Ed scowled, partly because he knew his small leaning creation was anything but cool and partly at his aunt’s choice of adjective. He hated grown-ups for being stuffy and staid, but cringed just as much when they attempted to use hip words. ‘No, it’s not, it sucks.’

Cassie, keeping to the path and away from the slush of snow on the grass, curled her toes inside her shoes, wishing she’d had the sense to wear her old suede boots instead. ‘Bad luck about St George’s, by the way. Kings Grove will be good, though. Mum says they do football.’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘She said you’re to come inside for tea. I expect you’re hungry, aren’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘Not really.’

Cassie gave up. ‘Okay, then. I’ll tell her you’re on your way.’ She turned back down the path and stepped over a plastic bucket, which was half full of brackish-looking water.

In the kitchen the twins were already sitting at the table, Maisie eagerly shovelling forkfuls of spaghetti into her mouth, while Clem, biting her lips in concentration, was cutting hers into a pile of slithering worms. Serena was leaning against the sink, arms folded, staring at the array of dirty pans and implements on the stove.

‘Shall I deal with that lot?’ Cassie, still in her coat, seized a couple of the saucepans and turned on the tap in the sink, careful to stand well back so as not to splash herself as Serena evidently had while preparing the meal.

‘Oh, no.’ Serena waved her hands vaguely. ‘Charlie will do them.’ She turned to her daughters and Ed – who had slid into his seat and begun eating, sniffing volubly and wiping the back of his hand across his nose between mouthfuls. ‘You girls are in charge till Dad gets home, okay?’

Ed barely had time to groan before the front door slammed and Charlie appeared, in his old grey overcoat, his newspaper tucked under his arm. He had had a haircut that looked smart, but somehow brutal, exposing the trademark square Harrison head and the arrows of grey streaking
his temples. There was a grey hair in one of his eyebrows too, Cassie observed. She kissed his cold cheek then tried not to watch as he moved round the room greeting his family. He tousled his daughters’ hair and cuffed Ed with the newspaper, then slipped an arm round Serena, who dropped her head on to his shoulder briefly and murmured that she was going upstairs to change. Cassie draped her coat carefully over a spare chair, pushed up the sleeves of her shirt and began to wash up. ‘You said you might be meeting Dad and Peter for lunch today. Was that okay?’

‘Yes.’ Charlie took off his coat and loosened his tie. ‘It was fine, although with this new job work’s fairly frantic at the moment so I didn’t stay long. Peter was a bit distracted with this case he’s working on – you know what he’s like. Dad just seemed pleased to be out and about – they’ve been virtually snowed in for days by all accounts. He was going on to meet some of his old insurance fogies afterwards, which always makes him jolly, although God knows what anyone in insurance has got to be jolly about these days. Peter, as usual, told him he should consider pulling out of being a Name, and invest more in the stock market. Dad, as usual, wouldn’t listen.’

Cassie waited for a moment to see if he was going to continue. As it happened, the stock market had been a little on her mind, too, thanks to a recent confession from Dan that, through the ill-timed advice of a friend, he had lost quite a bit on an investment in a technology company. He worried a lot about money, in spite of Cassie’s repeated reassurances that if necessary she would live in a mud hut with him. She sighed, stealing a glance at her brother, who had fallen silent. He had been talking for the sake of it, she knew, delivering news about the business chat at lunch because the alternative was talking about Tina. Or, rather, the absence of Tina. The house, Cassie realised, was unbearably quiet. The three children were eating in virtual silence. Tina’s highchair, she noticed with a wrench, was pushed back against the wall out of the way of the table. She returned her attention to the bowl of suds in front of her, mouth dry. ‘But, Charlie, how are you doing? Are you all right?’

‘Oh, you know.’ He managed a tight smile. ‘It’s difficult.’

‘Of course.’ Cassie tipped away the washing-up water and turned to face him, wishing there was something she could do or say, some consolation that would make a real difference. As the little sister she was used to her big brothers looking out for her, particularly Charlie, to whom she was closest and who had always cheered her out of difficult moods with his teasing and easy warmth. Looking at him now, so muted and drawn, she felt that nothing in what they had shared of their lives had equipped either of them for the circumstances in which they now found themselves.

‘Dad and Peter … they mean to be supportive,’ he continued, ‘like you, and I … we appreciate it, Cass, we really do. Everybody has been unbelievably kind, writing letters and so on. It’s incredible.’ He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up in a clear bid to dismiss the subject. ‘But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going running.’

‘Running?’ Cassie was so astonished – so relieved, too, at having something mundane to respond to – that she burst out laughing.

‘Yeah, Dad’s keeping fit,’ growled his son disdainfully, running a finger round the rim of his plate to scrape up the last of the sauce.

‘Every night,’ added Clem, who had made a tidy pyramid of her chopped spaghetti and was teasing bits out with a fork prong.

‘In this weather?’ Cassie looked at her brother, still incredulous.

‘Basically,’ said Maisie, pushing her plate to one side and reaching for an apple from the fruit bowl, ‘he’s trying to lose weight, aren’t you, Dad? Which is cool by me.’

‘Thank you, darling, for your support.’ Charlie shot her a grin, looking for one lovely moment quite like his old self. ‘I have the backing of my entire family, as you can see. It probably won’t last, but for now …’ He was prevented from finishing the sentence by the doorbell and the subsequent appearance of Elizabeth, looking bulky and uncomfortable in a heavy overcoat. She waved at the children and kissed Charlie, talking all the while about the traffic jams she had endured and her concern at having had to park in a slot meant for permit holders. Charlie disappeared upstairs, while Cassie continued to clear up the kitchen, exchanging concerned looks with her sister who, still in her coat, hung awkwardly round the table, asking the children questions about school and what they’d eaten for tea.

When Serena emerged, resplendent in spite of everything in a long black velvet jacket and her chestnut hair scooped off her face with two big black combs, there were a few long and dreadful moments of silence before Elizabeth stumbled across the room to put her arms round her, too choked to speak. Serena, marvelling for by no means the first time that the nightmare of her bereavement required her to console others, patted her sister-in-law’s broad back until she had recovered herself and said wasn’t it time they were all going. Charlie, undignified and grim-faced in a pair of too-small jogging bottoms and some ancient grey plimsolls, stood on the pavement to wave them away then set off at a lumbering trot in the opposite direction.

Dan switched off his computer, took off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. After an unusually quiet couple of weeks the surgery had been packed that afternoon, with such a long list of non-appointment late arrivals that they had run out of chairs in the waiting room. Going in search of a sandwich at lunch time, he had noticed a new damp mildness to the air the moment he had stepped outside. The hardened drifts of dirty snow, gathered in gutters and on street corners, had shrunk visibly during the morning. Cars swished by, spurting water from their wheels, tyres glistening. There seemed to be more of them than in recent days and more people too, scurrying about with bags and briefcases, mobile phones pinned to their ears, as if the whole city was awakening after some enforced spell of hibernation.