Shadow Baby (12 page)

But now there was something on the page. Her father might have lit his pipe and appear relaxed but Shona could tell he was not. He was tense, his shoulders hunched, his free hand tapping the table. They both went on waiting for Catriona to reappear and neither spoke. When there had been no sign of her for a full five minutes Shona gathered together the rest of the dishes and went through to the kitchen. Her mother was standing looking out of the window, the kettle beside her steaming away but ignored. Shona heard it click itself off. Her parents always had tea after their evening meal. The teapot stood ready on a tray together with cups and saucers. ‘Shall I make the tea?’ Shona said, but her mother grabbed the kettle and filled the pot and marched back into the dining-room. Shona followed, feeling more and more like a little dog trotting at its owner’s brisk heels, unsure whether it is out of favour or not.

‘I thought you had homework?’ her mother said.

‘I do.’

‘Then go and get it done.’

‘But I want to know if we’re going to Norway or …’

‘No!’ her mother said again, just as her father said, ‘Yes.’ His voice was the quieter but the more commanding. ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘We should have gone long ago.’

There was a sudden absolute silence broken only by Archie’s puffing of his pipe. Astonished, Shona looked from one to the other barely able to credit that two people could assert themselves in ways they had never done before. They were mild people, her parents. They did not shout or rage, ever. They were hardly even irritable or raised their voices for anything, and exuberance of expression was unknown to them. Li\ ing with them was like being steeped in a still pond with nothing to ruffle the surface. And now those waters were broken by an antagonism quite shockingly blatant.

‘Look,’ Shona said, ‘what’s going on with you two? This is weird, what’s all the fuss about?’

‘Go and do your homework,’ Catriona said, each word enunciated carefully and distinctly, but her voice at least level once more.

‘No,’ said Shona. ‘You’re treating me as if I was eleven, like a child. I won’t, I can’t, not till you tell me what all this is about. I’m not a child, you can’t just shove me off. It’s my holiday too, my birthday, I’m entitled to know why you’re in such a state just because I suggested Norway to fit in with where Dad has to be.’

‘You’ll know in good time,’ Archie said, ‘but not now. We’ll go to Norway. We’ll go to Oslo, you’ll like that, and then maybe explore the Hardanger, stay at Ulvik or Voss, and end up at Bergen. That’s what we will do. Now trot off, Shona, there’s nothing more to say tonight.’

Shona looked from him, calm but solid and full of an authority she had never been aware of before, to her mother, bent over the teatray, hands gripping the table so that the knuckles showed white, face hidden by her hair which had escaped from its small combs and hung dishevelled all around. She had never felt compassion for her mother, only a dry, superior kind of pity for her feebleness, but now she did. Catriona seemed to have been beaten, though in what sort of game, or little private war, she could not fathom. Her good, kind, gentle father had somehow beaten her and she knew it. Uneasily, Shona made for the door, aware, curiously, that she was hoping her mother would revive and retaliate. She did not want to leave her

beaten. But there was no retaliation. As she went upstairs to her room Shona heard only the clatter of teaspoons in cups of tea and a cough from her father and then silence.

The silence seemed to go on day after day for the next few weeks, right up to their departure for Norway. Not a literal silence, since all the usual pleasantries were exchanged, all the small talk of basic family communication, but Catriona did not indulge in any chatter and its absence was marked. Shona marvelled that she missed it so, when it had always annoyed her, the accounts of what had been in this shop and that, what someone in a queue had said to someone else, how this price or the other had gone up and that it was scandalous. But now it was not on offer, she missed the security of the monotonous, harmless recital. Meals were awkward in a way she would never have anticipated. There was an onus on her she shied away from. If there was to be any real talk it would have to come from her, in a monologue, and she did not feel equal to it.

It was a relief to be packing to go on the wretched holiday, even if she dreaded the week ahead. At least there was the comfort of knowing it would soon be over and that whatever was wrong between her parents would come to an end, or she supposed and hoped it would. But where was the pleasure in this family trip? Her mother prepared for it as though for a prison sentence, folding clothes and putting them into a suitcase as though she might never take them out again and sighing all the time. ‘For God’s sake, Mum,1 Shona said, ‘this is ridiculous, you’re so miserable, it’s not true.’

‘You care, do you?’ said Catriona.

‘What? What the hell does that mean? Of course I care, it’s awful, it’s making me miserable too.’

‘Oh well, we can’t have that.’

‘Mum! There you go again, what do you mean, sounding all sarcastic and bitter suddenly?’

‘I can be sarcastic and bitter if I want. It isn’t your prerogative.’

‘Heh, look, I’ve had enough, you’re getting at me and I haven’t done a thing wrong.’

‘No.’

‘Well then. Why the treatment, why are you making me suffer?’

‘I don’t think you’re suffering, Shona. I don’t think you know what suffering is.’

‘Jesus!’

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‘Don’t blaspheme, it doesn’t help.’

‘It does actually, it helps a lot, it bloody well does …’

‘I won’t listen. I hate swearing.’

‘And I hate atmospheres. It’s worse than swearing to go around with a long face all mournful and not telling anyone why. Why don’t you just swear and get rid of it, whatever’s bugging you?’

‘It isn’t how I am. I don’t get rid of things. You, you’re the one who never holds back. It’s the modern way, tell everyone everything and never mind if it would be better not told.’

‘Oh my God?

Exasperated, Shona left her mother and went to pack her own things. At least there were no more rows about clothes or how she looked. Trousers, sweaters, an anorak and all in dark sensible colours, that was her style these days, and the hair, which had caused so much comment, was firmly twisted and plaited and out of the way. She was a serious student and looked it, a cause for parental self-congratulation. Her parents came to open evenings to hear her praises sung by every teacher and were gratified beyond belief. Shona knew she was said to have ‘grown out of her earlier defiance and wilfulness. She enraged her friends now by working so hard and never having fun any more. They did not know what had happened to her. But Shona knew. Ambition had happened and nothing was going to get in its way.

Her mother also knew this, of course. Shona saw she had sensed the reason for her diligence and obedience, for her singleminded application to school work and her entire lack of social life. She’d sensed it and was afraid. Sometimes, on Saturday nights in particular, her mother had taken to saying to her, ‘Are you not going out, Shona? All work and no play makes Jill a dull dog, you know.’ ‘Then I’ll be dull,’ Shona replied, holding back from adding, ‘just like you.’ It was ironic. Now her mother had her at home she didn’t like it any more than when, at thirteen and fourteen, she had contrived to be out all the time. What Catriona liked was convention, she liked her daughter to do what others did, to be normal and average. It was what she had always wanted - nothing odd, nothing out-of-step in her daughter’s behaviour. Pushing her clothes into a bag, Shona wished she could push her mother in with them and then drop the lot in the sea. She couldn’t bear all this mournfulness and angst and the thought of having to endure it unrelieved for a whole week was too much - some birthday treat,

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some happy last-family-holiday this was going to be, probably so awful she would never forget it.

They flew to Oslo and spent three days there visiting the Kon-Tiki museum and the Vigeland Park and the Akershus Fortress and all the other sights Archie thought Shona should see. She tried to be enthusiastic but boredom seeped out of every pore. She felt like a small child, following her parents round dutifully while they waited for her reactions. Bedtime was a relief. She went to bed earlier and earlier, pleading exhaustion. It was better on the fourth day when they set off for the Hardanger Fjord, a journey of four hours from Oslo. The snow had begun to melt early and all along the route torrents of water cascaded down the mountains in spectacular waterfalls. But higher up the dark of the fir trees were still heavily snow-covered. It was easy then to exclaim over the beauty of the wild and jagged scenery and even Catriona came out of her sullen silence enough to express awe at the sight of the first fjord.

So they arrived in Ulvik, on Hardanger, in good spirits and booked into the pensjonat close to the fjord. The sun shone on the pretty painted houses and on the deep blue waters of the fjord, and Shona was happy merely to be out in the open air and not trapped in buildings looking at things. But the next morning when they drove on to Bergen, her parents had sunk once more into some kind of depression which was mysterious to her. She still could not fathom the atmosphere between them nor work out whether they had quarrelled again. Both had stony faces, Catriona’s white and lined, Archie’s dark behind his beard as though he were suppressing rage. No one, this time, commented on the beauties of the countryside through which they passed, though it was even more impressive than the day before. The sun was everywhere catching on the white birch twigs mixed with the darker shades of the still-winter landscape and gave a brilliance to the mountains below the snowline. It was impossible not to feel exhilarated by the brightness and clarity of everything, but when Shona said so neither parent said a word. All the way to Bergen, the whole hour, neither of them spoke and she began to feel more and more detached from them.

Bergen delighted her. She had not expected such colour but when they approached the city it was lit by an extraordinary midday sun and seemed all tawny and golden, the many red gabled roofs and

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ochre-painted houses melding into each other from the angle at which they approached. Shona felt immediately proud that it was here she had been born and even when they were in the middle of the modern part of the city, and she saw it was more ordinary than it had first appeared, she felt drawn to it and excited by it. The seven mountains surrounding it seemed to her so protective and she liked the feeling of being in an amphitheatre. They stayed not in a fourstar hotel, as they had done in Oslo, but in a small guesthouse near the fish market, in a hilly street with houses almost touching each other at roof level. Her mother, she noticed, did not seem happy about this, but her father merely said, ‘This is where we stayed,’ as though that settled the matter. ‘It is noisy,’ her mother said, ‘it was always too noisy,’ but he said nothing.

The next morning Archie knocked on her door at seven o’clock when she was still deeply asleep. ‘Shona?’ he called. ‘Get up, please, we need to be off early, before there’s too much traffic.’ She groaned but got up, thinking at first they were travelling again, but then remembered that no, this was where they were to stay the last two days before she and her mother flew home. Today was the day for visiting where she had been born. Only another day in which to try to be the obedient, dutiful daughter. But she felt irritable when she joined her parents downstairs and even more so when she was told just to have some coffee because they were going at once and could eat later. The sun had not yet warmed the air and it was freezing when they stepped out to go and find their car. Shona shivered as they slipped and slithered across the icy cobbles to the car and she wrapped her scarf more tightly round her. Catriona was buried in scarves and her fur hat was pulled right down over her ears, but Archie showed a careless disregard for the cold and had not even bothered to fasten his coat properly.

It was a short drive and then there they were, outside a building which was obviously a hospital. Shona cleared her throat. She was hungry. All the cold air had made her ravenous. ‘Dad?’ she said, but Archie was staring straight ahead, his hands still on the wheel of the car, but the engine turned off. ‘Dad? This is it, is it, I mean where I was born?’ He stayed silent, only shifting in his seat a little. ‘Mum? This is it, right?’ Catriona nodded. ‘Well,’ Shona said, trying to laugh, ‘groovy place, eh? I’m overcome with emotion but I’m starving, can we go now?’ An ambulance turned in, its siren going. ‘We can’t stay here, Archie,’ said Catriona in a hoarse voice, ‘we’re

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in the way, we’ll have to move.’ Archie restarted the engine. ‘Do you want to go inside?’ he asked Shona, who looked incredulous. ‘Inside?’ she echoed. ‘Dad, please, a hospital is a hospital, why would I want to go inside?’ So they drove back to where they had parked the car overnight and trooped once more into the guesthouse and had a late and, in Shona’s case, large breakfast. ‘Funny,’ she said, mouth still half full, ‘when I was little I used to think of where I was born as being all romantic. I used to see this sweet little log cabin sort of place, like Heidi lived in, nestling in the snow and smoke coming out of the chimney, and Dad ploughing through the snow to get to it, and you, Mum, in a big wooden bed with a fur cover, having me. Silly, eh?’ And she grinned at them and took more butter for her toast.

‘Very silly,’ Catriona said, ‘it wasn’t like that at all.’ ‘No. I’ve just seen it wasn’t, it was just an ordinary hospital, nothing romantic.’

‘No,’ Catriona said, her voice flat, ‘nothing romantic.’ ‘Except,’ Shona said, still munching away, ‘all births must be romantic, well, in the thrilling way, I mean they must be exciting wherever they happen. You were thrilled, weren’t you, Mum?’

‘Yes,’ Catriona said, and the tears began to slide down her impassive face. Shona stopped eating. These did not look like tears of remembered joy. Carefully she put down her piece of toast and looked round the room. It was still busy with people finishing breakfast. ‘Mum,’ she whispered, ‘what’s wrong?’