Sheer Abandon (80 page)

“You’re so lucky to have such a normal, stable relationship,” said Jocasta wistfully. “Oh, Clio, don’t go! You can’t leave me with Josh; he’s going to upset me. Stay and go down in the morning, you always say how easy it is. Please, Clio, please.”

Clio hesitated.

“Please! You can’t fail me, and you’re such an angel, such a good friend.”

Clio wondered what on earth Jocasta would say or do if she knew the real reason for her reluctance to see Josh.

She stayed for his visit, of course. She could never quite work out how Jocasta managed to persuade people to do what she wanted, how she used that intense will of hers, a mixture of charm and absolute determination: she had a hunch that Gideon might have been subjected to the full force of it. Would he really have wanted to get married, after being with Jocasta—what—three weeks, if he hadn’t? The fact was, she was absolutely irresistible.

And here Clio was, in Jocasta’s sitting room, trying not to look too often at the photographs on the table of Jocasta and Josh as children, while Jocasta sat ordering a takeaway from the local Thai restaurant.

“I haven’t eaten all weekend and suddenly I’m hungry. Hope it doesn’t make me ill, like the curry did.”

Josh arrived, finally, almost an hour late, so that the Thai was half cold; it wasn’t even very nice. Clio sat picking at it miserably, wishing Josh would stop telling Jocasta that she was being immature and unrealistic, wondering what the point of her being there could possibly be.

“The thing is, Jocasta,” he was saying now, “marriage is almost impossible, even when you’re trying really hard. If you’re not—well, forget it.”

“That’s
exactly
what I’m doing,” said Jocasta. “Or was trying to do, I mean.”

“But I thought you loved Gideon.”

“I do. Anyway, thought I did. But I can’t live with him; he’s a monster, leading a monstrous life. I should have seen that long ago.”

“But he’s such a nice man,” said Josh. “He’s kind and generous and he obviously adores you—that’s what you have to concentrate on, Jocasta, Beatrice always says that.”

“What does Beatrice always say?” said Jocasta, her tone deceptively mild.

“Well, that in a marriage you tend to just take the good things for granted, and only notice the bad. That’s what finishes most of them off.”

“What nearly finished yours off,” said Jocasta, “was your inability to be faithful to Beatrice. And what saved it was her incredible facility for forgiveness. Don’t ever try and get a job as a therapist, will you?”

“Oh, piss off!” said Josh. He had gone rather red. “I’m only trying to help, I can’t bear to see you two making each other so unhappy.”

“I know and I’m very grateful,” said Jocasta, suddenly remorseful, “but honestly, you’re not doing any good at all. Let’s talk about something else. What’s in that bag?”

“Oh—I found my pictures of Thailand. They were in the bottom of a cupboard, with my cameras. I thought they might amuse you.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Jocasta. “Let’s have a look. Come on, Clio, let’s clear the table.”

He pulled them out: batch after batch, in no kind of order, shots of the steaming jungle up in the north, shots of elephants, of monkeys, of the hill villages, the sweet, smiling children; of the temples and palaces and floating markets and canals in Bangkok—“God, I can smell it just looking at them,” said Clio—of the chaos of the Khao San Road, the lady-boys in Pat Pong—“They obviously fancied you, just look at them vamping it up,” said Jocasta. The tuk tuks, the longtail boats on the great river: and then the islands, endless shots of sweeping white beaches backed by green hills, of waterfalls, of lakes, of palms tipping gracefully into water, of sheer cliffs, of brilliant flowers, of shrines, of Big Buddha—“Dear old Big Buddha,” said Clio, “I still think about him sometimes, sitting there, those eyes of his following you everywhere. Golly, this is a trip down memory lane, I feel eighteen again.”

There were shots with people in them, some occasions they remembered—“Look, there we are at the airport,” said Josh, “all of us, that nice old chap took it, remember?”—frozen in time, smiling, tidy-looking, everything ahead of them.

And then there was island life, hundreds of people, most of whom they couldn’t remember, smiling, always smiling, smoking, drinking, waving, hugging each other; lying on the beaches, sitting in the boats, swinging on ropes over lakes, swimming under waterfalls, elephant riding, snorkelling. There were some frenetically blurred shots of the full-moon parties, people dancing, the beach covered in candles, and, “Here, look at this, remember the reggae boat?” said Josh.

“Yes thanks,” said Jocasta, “that was how I got dengue fever, from a mosquito on one of those lakes, too stoned to feel it.”

“What on earth are you doing there?” asked Clio, intrigued, looking at a shot of Josh lying on a rug, inhaling from a large pipe.

“Taking opium.”

“Josh! You never told me. What on earth was that like?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said, laughing. “I think it was talcum powder.”

“God, it was all fun,” said Jocasta, “such, such fun. Hey, Josh, what’s this, posh hotel, or what? And who’s this? Martha? By that amazing pool? And on that terrace? Josh, you never told me about this, whatever happened?”

“God—didn’t know that was there,” said Josh, flushing a dark red, and went on rather hurriedly to explain that he’d bumped into Martha leaving Koh Tao, there’d been a fire on the boat and they’d all nearly drowned. “No, it’s true, I’m not making it up.”

They’d both felt pretty rough, and he’d had plenty of money on him, so they’d gone to a hotel near Chaweng, stayed there one night.

“Mmm,” said Jocasta, her eyes dancing, “you dark horse. You pair of dark horses. You never said. When was that? You obviously had lots of fun. Is that why you wanted to come to the funeral?”

“No. Well, sort of. I mean—yes, it was, actually.”

“I think that’s very sweet.”

Clio had been literally praying for some bell, however faint, to ring in Jocasta’s head. It clearly wasn’t going to. She had to do it. And it was now or never. She took a deep breath, and said, “Josh, when exactly was that? Can you remember?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Does it matter?”

“Yes. It—could.”

“Clio,” said Jocasta, “what are you on about?”

“I, well, I just thought of something. I was just thinking about—about Martha. That’s all.”

“What about her? Except that she was obviously a darker horse than we thought. I mean—with Josh! And never telling us. And—Oh my God! You don’t think—I mean—Josh—oh my God!”

“What?” he said irritably. “What’s the matter with you both?”

“Just tell us when you and Martha had your little…fling.” Jocasta was speaking very slowly. “It’s terribly important.”

“I’ll try. But I don’t see—”

“Josh! Think!”

“Well, it was before Christmas, definitely, because I was in Malaysia then. Sometime around October, November, I suppose. You know how meaningless time is out there, weeks feel like months and vice versa.”

“Josh, you’ve got to do better than that.”

“I’m trying, for God’s sake. Right—well, actually, it must have been October, yes, it definitely was, because I was on my way up to Bangkok, to see my girlfriend, well, not exactly my girlfriend, but we had been pretty involved, and she was in hospital, she’d had a scooter crash on Koh Phangan, and I had my birthday up there, my eighteenth, I do remember that.”

“And on the way you took Martha to a hotel. Josh, Josh, you are—oh God, you’re so awful!” said Jocasta.

“Yes, I get the message. I thought you wanted to know when I was there with Martha.”

Jocasta looked at Clio. “So that’s October the twenty-sixth, his birthday. And Kate was born in the middle of August, so it would have had to have been November, wouldn’t it?” she said.

“Sorry,” Clio said. “Kate was nearly three weeks late. Martha told me. That was the whole point, why she was here when she had her. So the end of October would be just right.”

“What are you two going on about?” asked Josh. “You really have lost me.”

“Josh,” said Jocasta, filling his glass to the brim, “drink that. You’re going to need it. You really are…”

Chapter 42

         Josh had hardly slept. He felt he would never sleep again. He had spent the night tossing fretfully on the spare room bed—he told Beatrice he had indigestion, that he’d keep her awake.

It seemed to him it was impossible to do the right thing. He either had to tell Beatrice, who would be horrified, not to mention terribly hurt, probably finally throw him out—and what on earth would the little girls make of it, suddenly having a big sister? Or he could just not say a word and live with this awful, oppressing piece of knowledge for the rest of his life.

It wasn’t as if she was just any old girl either: she was famous. Well, quite famous. What was it Jocasta was always saying? Once something was in the cuttings, it was there forever. It would be like a time bomb, waiting to go off. He supposed this must have been exactly what Martha had felt, and wondered how on earth she had stood it. God, she must have been brave. Brave and tough.

And then there was Kate. Kate his daughter. The vision of her kept rising before him, all night. The girl at the funeral, so lovely, so funny, so clearly clever, discussing her future with him, was his daughter. He had a grown-up daughter. It just didn’t seem remotely possible. He thought of Charlie and Harry, still babies really, clambering all over him, pulling his hair, tweaking his nose, giggling, making faces at him, splashing him with their bathwater, lying on his lap, sucking their thumbs while he read them stories. They were the sort of daughters he wanted. That he could cope with. Not a dangerously attractive girl of sixteen. He had fancied her himself, he thought, and his blood curdled.

And how could you start being a father to someone you’d met for the first time at that age? She was grown up, processed, done. He’d had no part of her, she was nothing to do with him; another man had done all that, read to her, bathed her, played with her, chosen her schools, laid down the rules. There was nothing of him in her.

But there was, of course, he thought, sitting up suddenly, there was half of him in her. One night with someone, one pretty good night actually, as far as he could recall, at the age of seventeen, well, nearly eighteen, that’s all he’d been, one and a bit years older than Kate herself, carefree, happy, just enjoying life, having fun and—there you were, a father. It was a bad system, that, very dangerous. He had no idea how it could have happened; he’d always been jolly careful, always used french letters, but everyone knew they could fail, spring a leak. That was obviously what had happened.

Why hadn’t the bloody girl had a termination? They weren’t hard to come by, so why on earth had she hung on to it? Why had she never tried to find him, for that matter? He’d have helped her out, helped her decide what to do, given her money. At this moment, Josh suddenly had a clear vision of himself at seventeen, utterly selfish, totally immature, and thought rather sadly that he could actually see very clearly why she hadn’t sought him out. He wouldn’t have seemed to her a very good bet.

And anyway, she might not have been sure it was him. She might have been promiscuous, sleeping with every guy she came across. She’d certainly been pretty keen, hadn’t taken much persuasion. But clearly it had been him. Kate was his. She looked exactly like him. Or to be precise, like Jocasta.

And what would she want? This new, problematic daughter? Jocasta and Clio had both told him she was very hurt by what had happened to her, that she had been searching for her mother all her life, ever more confused and upset.

“She just wants to know where she belongs,” Clio had said, “where she came from, if you like. You can see how dreadfully confusing for her it all is. She loves her parents dearly but they can’t supply the answers. And Martha’s death has been yet another blow; she didn’t provide any, either.”

Whatever he decided, they all agreed, Beatrice must be told. “She’s so bloody marvellous, she’ll probably be magnificent,” said Josh gloomily, “offer Kate a home and—”

“Kate doesn’t need a home,” Jocasta said sharply. “She’s very happy where she is. She doesn’t lack for love or attention and her adoptive parents are great. She just wants to know how and why it all happened. She’s got the dearest boyfriend,” she added.

Josh groaned. “I can’t cope with her,” he said, “let alone her boyfriend.”

When the clock struck four, he went downstairs to make himself a hot toddy.

Peter Hartley had been in church since very early. He had spent a little time on his knees alone, remembering Martha, and quite a lot of time in the vestry tidying up, hanging up the choirboys’ cassocks and sweeping the floor; it was only when he found himself sorting out the prayer and hymn books, a job that the verger and his wife always did, and indeed enjoyed doing, that he realised what he was really doing: postponing his return to the vicarage and to Grace.

He felt very bad; it was only a few weeks since Martha had died and he missed her terribly and the brilliant light she had shone into his rather drab life. Nobody knew it was drab, of course, or, rather, that he found it so. His unshakable faith helped a great deal, and the knowledge that he was doing it all for God; and there were wonderful moments, at weddings and confirmations particularly, but also when he was taking the communion service, or delivered what he felt was a good, rather than an all right, sermon. But the fact remained that day to day, his life was filled with thankless and tedious tasks.

His other prop and mainstay was his beloved Grace, and being apparently robbed of her, as well as of Martha, was proving almost unbearable. What had begun as bewilderment and moved to reproach was now turning to hostility: based, as far as he could see, on a deep resentment that he was finding comfort from God and she was not.

“It’s all right for you,” she had actually said. “You’ve got comfort—I haven’t got any.”

Meanwhile, she continued not to eat: or rather, as he was beginning to see it, to starve herself.

When he got back to the vicarage, the post had arrived; the usual junk mail and two proper letters, as he thought of them. One from a parishioner, asking if he would sponsor her son on a trans-Siberian cycle ride, and another, written in a very childish hand, from someone called Kate Tarrant.

I just wanted to say that I’ve been thinking of you both a lot, and I do hope you are beginning to feel a little bit better now. I only met your daughter twice, but she seemed a very nice and interesting person. It was a very good experience to be at the funeral and to learn more about her and all the things she had achieved in her life.

With very good wishes, yours sincerely,
Kate Tarrant

Kate Tarrant: now who on earth was she? She’d been at the funeral, she said, but he had no idea who she might have been. Until he saw her helpful PS on the other side of the paper: “I came with Jocasta Forbes,” she had written, “one of the girls your daughter went travelling with before she went to university.”

Now Jocasta he did remember; she had come up to them and talked for quite a while. A beautiful girl, charming. There had been two other girls with her: one who had also gone travelling with Martha, very nice, a doctor he seemed to recall, one much younger, with long blond hair: perhaps that had been Kate. Grace might remember. Or young Ed—he had seemed to know that particular crowd. It would give him something to talk to Grace about later, perhaps even lift her from her dreadful lethargy. His busy, bustling Grace: lethargic. It was terribly hard to bear.

He took it up to her.

“Now look, we’ve had such a nice letter. From one of the young people who came to the funeral. You remember Jocasta, with the blond hair who went travelling with Martha all those years ago?”

“Peter, it’s all a blur.”

“Anyway, there was another girl with her, much younger. Nearer Ed’s age, I’d say. It’s from her. Kate’s her name. Such a sweet little note.”

“Well”—she shrugged—“that’s nice. What does she say?”

“I’ll leave it here, you can read it for yourself.”

“I’ve got a terrible headache. I really don’t feel up to reading.”

“It’s very short. I’ll go and get your tea. If you haven’t read it when I get back, I’ll read it to you.”

He laid the letter on her bed and walked out; when he looked back, she had picked it up and was reaching for her glasses. It was odd, the way these young friends of Martha’s seemed able to cheer her up. Or at least interest her.

Grace did remember Kate now. Pretty girl. She’d noticed her because she had that lovely fair hair and then those huge, dark eyes, a bit like Martha’s. Her mother was lucky. She still had her daughter. She hadn’t seen her wiped out, her brilliantly promising life ended, all through a bit of stupidity. She hadn’t got to go on living on a planet that didn’t contain her daughter, full of people who didn’t matter because they weren’t her.

She wished she and Martha had been closer; she’d always had the feeling that Martha was keeping her just slightly at arm’s length. Never discussing her boyfriends, her private life, only her career, always her career. She’d probably be alive today without that career. She wouldn’t have been driving up from London, far too late and much too fast, in that car. She’d be working safely in Binsmow, where they could keep an eye on her.

Ed had obviously known her very well. She wondered if they’d got engaged or anything like that. Of all the people who kept coming to see her, she only enjoyed seeing Ed. She could talk to him about Martha, learn a bit more. She would like to see more of Jocasta, too. And Clio, the pretty dark-haired one, she’d liked her too. Between them, they probably knew more about Martha than she did. Well, it was no use thinking they’d have time to come all this way to see her. They were young, they had their own lives, and they were busy, happy…

Grace turned on her side again and started to cry. She felt so alone in her grief. Peter had his God. She had no one.

Jocasta would not have said she was pleased about the drama of Josh and Kate, but it gave her something else to think about, apart from her own worries and misery.

In spite of everything they had said, she had expected to hear something from Nick. If only a note. Or a call on her mobile. Or the promised postcard. Just to check that she was…well, she wasn’t sure what he would be checking, but they had shared a fairly amazing experience that afternoon—God, already over a week ago—and a complete silence was a bit unnerving. Maybe now he just saw her as another girl; but that wasn’t right, he had said he would always love her. And that he would always be her best friend. Did being your best friend really include having that sort of amazing, stunning sex? Maybe it did. And oh, God, it
had
been amazing. Every so often she just sat very still and concentrated on remembering it, and became hideously excited.