Relative Love (33 page)

‘Cassandra, it’s Mrs Shorrold speaking … just to say that I am very disappointed that you still have not found the time to call me back. I was considering recommending you to a friend over the road, who needs all sorts of help but, my dear, I really can’t if …’

Cassie pressed the delete button. Her steady trickle of work, already stemmed by months of putting Dan before everything, had all but dried up. She hadn’t checked her e-mails or website since mid-April. Thanks to the recent extraordinary generosity of her father, this posed no immediate financial problems. Her twenty thousand pounds was still sitting in her current account, much to the consternation of the bank, who kept ringing her up asking if she would like to transfer it somewhere it could gather interest.

The answering-machine beeped twice, then released the soft but firm voice of her mother: ‘Darling, it’s me, just phoning to say I hope you are all right and not working too hard. Oh, yes, and Peter and Helen are a bit put out that you haven’t given an official reply to the party – silly, of course, but you know what they’re like … and of course they do need to know exact numbers for catering. I was worried we’d all freeze eating in a tent – May can be bitter at night – but the marquee people have these marvellous heaters …’

Cassie turned off the machine and snapped her piece of toast in two, spraying the table with a dark sawdust of crumbs. Never once during the course of the year had there ever been any question of revealing the existence of Dan to her mother.
An affair with a married man? You foolish, foolish child
… There might be sympathy but it would be so tempered with disapproval that it would do no good at all. And her siblings too.
What did you expect?
they would say.
Married men never leave their wives. What did you expect? What the fuck did you expect?

Cassie brought her fist down on the toast, missing it but catching the side of her hand painfully on the table. It hurt. God, it hurt. But that was good in a way. Distracting. Physical pain was distracting. Latching on to this thought, she got up from the table and walked slowly into the bathroom, her sore hand hanging limply at her side. Opening the little cupboard above the basin she searched, absently at first, but then with real, violent purpose, sweeping bottles and tubes off the shelves. She wanted her scissors, the sharp little scissors she used to trim her nails and sometimes, when it got too straggly, the tips of her fringe. When the cupboard was empty and the basin brimming with its contents, Cassie turned, with the trance-like calm of a sleepwalker, towards the bath. The scissors were there on the end, between her shampoo and a bleached pebble of old soap. She picked them up and spent a couple of moments working the little handles open and closed, studying their simple ingenuity. The metal looked so thin, so sharp, so basic. Could something so simple really do any serious harm?

Cassie sat down on the closed lid of the lavatory and pondered the question. In the end, she decided, life was about the smallest things: a phone-call, a smile … a little pair of sharp scissors. Despair, happiness – all the huge feelings – were balanced on the tiniest pinheads of possibility and coincidence. If she hadn’t forgotten her prescription she wouldn’t have found Dan. If she hadn’t written the letter to Sally, she would still have him. Cassie opened the scissors as wide as they would go and ran the tip of her index finger along one of the narrow blades. Turning her left arm over, she examined the smooth whiteness of her forearm. The veins were barely visible; just fine blue spidery lines, shy little river deltas beneath the skin. Bad veins for drawing blood, a doctor once said, not dilated or big enough, too buried. Her hands, she noticed, were very steady.

The prospect of action – of resolution – was deeply calming. Taking a firm hold of the scissors with her right hand, she ran the sharp point of one blade across one of the bluest parts of her wrist, just below her watchstrap. When the first bubble of blood appeared she flinched, but only slightly. A ruby. A jewel. Easy. The second cut was harder. The pain of the first was taking hold,
a cold, achy feeling, drumming up her arm like a heartbeat and the ruby of blood quickly smeared to a wet ugly mess that made it hard to see the effect of her handiwork. Which mattered a lot because she was in fact trying to carve the letter D. D on one side. L on the other. That was the plan. Not the greatest, most imaginative of plans, but a plan. Cassie seized a flannel from off the edge of the basin and began to mop away the worst of the blood. Underneath she saw that the flow was still a slow miniature trickle – nothing too bad at all – while the cut itself looked disappointingly tiny. She would have to try harder, be bolder. She wiped the blade on the flannel, then froze. Somewhere, somehow, the doorbell was ringing. Not the downstairs outside doorbell, but upstairs. Her actual front door. Which meant whoever it was had a key to downstairs. Which meant … Cassie dropped the scissors and wrapped the flannel round her wrist, hiding the bulk of it under her dressing-gown sleeve. She flew to the door, weightless with relief, her mouth open to say his name, ready for the kiss of remorse, of reunion, of hope …

But it wasn’t Dan, it was Stephen Smith. Stephen Smith with his crooked smile and shy eyes, blinking under his dark fringe. The door downstairs was open, he said, he hoped she didn’t mind. He had something he wanted to show her, he hoped he hadn’t caught her at a bad moment. A bad moment? A bad moment? The idea was such a ridiculous understatement of her circumstances that Cassie burst out laughing, pressing her hidden padded wrist to her stomach. Oh, no, she said, her voice quavering with hysteria, her mind crazed and beyond caring about anything. Oh, no, not a bad moment at all. He could show her anything he wanted. Would he like black tea and mouldy bread? She laughed again, a mad laugh, holding the door wide, beckoning with her good arm for him to enter the bombsite of her home.

Suffused with embarrassment and pleasure, Stephen thought momentarily of Pamela Harrison answering the door to him in a comparable state of unreadiness a couple of months before. He hesitated, but only for a second before stepping inside. There was no hiding the state she was in: her hair was lank, her face a blotchy yellow and pink, her pretty eyes bruised with distress, while the flat itself looked as if it had been ransacked by burglars – hungry burglars who had not only tipped out the contents of the cupboards but the fridge as well. Instead of minding, Stephen felt hugely encouraged. So she’s not perfect, he thought. Behind the scenes she’s a mess, like me. Thank God. Thank God because that means there is hope, after all. Heartened, he smiled. At which point Cassie, stepping forward to close the door, tripped on the edge of her dressing-gown and fell into his arms, all her wild laughter turning into heaving sobs. To have her in his arms, under any circumstances, caused Stephen such a piercing stab of elation that he almost burst into tears himself. She was sad and she needed him. It was unbelievable, fabulous. A fantastical dream come true. He stroked her tangled hair, smelling the salty mustiness of her body, murmuring anything that came into his head, while his groin hummed and his heart soared with gratitude at old Eric Harrison and the great-aunt’s parcel of letters, which had given him a proper reason at last to come knocking at her door.

Charlie folded the taxi driver’s receipt away in his wallet and stood looking up at the house for a few minutes before he pushed open the front gate. Every window was sealed and dark, even their bedroom, he noted, disappointment twisting inside that Serena had not found the wherewithal to wait up for him. At the front door he hesitated again, appalled at the dread in his heart. Paris had been spectacular. It was years since he had been there and he had forgotten the sheer charm of the place, the grimy classical buildings, the cafés spilling out across the pavements, the smell of fresh pastries mingling with the bitter-sweet tobacco of strong cigarettes. Their party had stayed
in a hotel overlooking the Seine. He had got up both mornings to run along the river, dodging the artists arranging their wares for sale, feeling a spring in his step at the wall-to-wall blue overhead and the warmth of the sun. The meetings, which concerned tightening regulations on the transport of dangerous goods, had all taken place at the OECD, an extravagant but beautiful modern giant of a building with marble floors and towering sheets of glass. After a shaky start, Charlie had spoken cogently and well, inspired by the realisation that he was on top of his brief, that there was nothing anyone could throw at him for which he would feel ill-prepared. Between meetings they had eaten splendidly, particularly in the evening, when they ventured out of the hotel to be wined and dined by their hosts in small, exquisite restaurants that they would never have found themselves. He thought of Serena all the time, torn between wishing she was with him and relief that she was not.

Since Easter and the trauma of Tina’s brief reincarnation on Theo’s film, things between them had, if anything, got worse. On the surface Serena appeared to be coping better – she talked and cooked and said normal things. But at night she continued to shrink from his touch, curling into herself like an animal retreating into a shell. And although he knew he should be patient, Charlie had found himself beginning to resent the millstone of this relentless misery, hating the way it burdened and reduced them all. How could he recover with his wife so determined not to? How could any of them? For he saw it in the children too, the guilt on their faces when they laughed, the way they tiptoed round her, never arguing these days, unnaturally co-operative and mute. Clem spent all her spare time with her nose in her books while Maisie was always out, seeing films, shopping, sleeping over at friends’ houses. Ed was usually glued to a screen, his fingers tapping keyboards or remote controls. Whenever Charlie tried to talk to Serena about it she snapped that their children were teenagers and what could he expect. Her lip would tremble and he would back off, guilty that he had the solace of work to escape to, prepared to accept anything if it meant avoiding more tears. He had never seen anyone cry so much. Sometimes he wondered where the tears came from, how on earth there could be such an inexhaustible supply of fluid in one head.

Charlie crept up the stairs, stepping round the creaky patch on the landing. Surprised to see a crack of light under Ed’s bedroom door, he turned the handle and peered inside.

Ed was sitting at his desk, head bowed over an open textbook. He glanced anxiously over his shoulder. ‘Oh, hi, Dad.’

‘A bit late for that, isn’t it?’ Charlie went to kiss the ruffled top of his son’s head, all the dread he had felt on the doorstep melting instantly to love.

‘I guess, but I needed to get stuff off the Net and the computer jammed and now I’ve got to read this. Did you have a nice trip?’

‘I did, thank you.’ Charlie looked at the springy unbrushed mop of hair, wanting to kiss it again. ‘Mum and I must take you lot to Paris one day – you’re almost at an age where you might appreciate it.’

‘What, museums and stuff?’ He made a face.

Charlie smiled. ‘Yes, museums and stuff. But also the best chips in the world.’ He tapped the book. ‘What’s all this, then? Revision?’

Ed shook his head. ‘We’ve got to do a project in geography. I’ve chosen hurricanes.’

‘Hurricanes?’

Ed shrugged. ‘I had to do something.’

‘I should think they’re quite interesting, aren’t they?’

‘They’re okay.’

Hearing a creak, they both looked at the door to see Clem shivering in her nightie and yawning. ‘Hello, Daddy.’

‘Hello, my sweet. Come and give me a hug.’ He sat down on Ed’s narrow bed and held out his arms. Clem, pale with sleepiness, crawled on to his lap and curled up against him. ‘That’s it.’ Charlie nuzzled her hair, which smelt dry and faintly lemony. ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus up here,’ he added happily, ‘everyone awake when they should be asleep.’

‘Mum’s asleep,’ murmured Clem, nestling more deeply against her father, loving the solidity of him, feeling that if she could only stay where she was nothing would ever worry her again.

‘Is she? And what about that errant sister of yours?’

‘Maisie’s at Monica’s.’

‘Is she now? I thought sleep-overs were for weekends.’

‘Mum said she could.’ Clem burrowed deeper, so comfy she felt she might drift off to sleep.

‘And what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?’

‘She’s been in trouble,’ said Ed flatly, ‘for not eating.’

‘Have you?’ Charlie tried to ease his daughter away from his chest, but she clung on like a baby marsupial, all hair, burying her nose in his shirt.

‘Oh, shut up, Ed.’

‘Have you?’ repeated Charlie more gently, stroking his daughter’s back, feeling with a pulse of alarm the protruding keyboard of her ribs.

‘Well, now I’m eating lots,’ retorted Clem, sitting up of her own accord. ‘I was fat like Dad and now I’m not.’ She jumped off his lap, and glared at her brother, then ran to the door.

‘Well, thank you very much,’ replied Charlie, pretending to be affronted in a bid to tease her off the offensive. In the space of just a few days both children seemed to have grown up; but Clem was definitely looking skinnier too, he decided, noting the lithe shadow of her once-padded figure through the flimsy material of the nightie and the new emergence of her cheekbones from the baby-roundness of her face. ‘But it’s important not to be silly with food, my love, you know that, don’t you?’

Clem, now half hidden behind the door, rolled her huge blue eyes and looked reassuringly fed up with the whole subject. ‘Of course,’ she sneered, ‘we’ve had lectures on it at school. I’m not
that
stupid. Anyway Mum has already been on at me and tonight I had
thirds
, didn’t I, Ed?’

Ed, engrossed again in his hurricanes, nodded absently. ‘Yeah, she stuffed herself … Dad, why does low pressure create strong winds and raise the sea level?’

‘Does it? Blimey, Ed, I’m not sure I’m up to this right now.’ Charlie picked up the textbook and began to thumb through it. ‘Geography never was my strong point. History, Latin, Maths – I’m your man, but … Hey, Ed, you look whacked. Does this have to be done by tomorrow?’ Ed shook his head, yawning. ‘Good. Well, I’ll help you at the weekend, okay? Now, into bed with you.’ When Ed was under the duvet, he bent over and kissed his forehead. ‘Did Clem really have thirds at tea?’