The Bad Mother (7 page)

Erin followed Tessa’s gaze and finally went to peer in at the little rooms.

‘Shall I fetch the key?’ Tessa asked.

‘No,’ said Erin. ‘What happened to the dolls?’ she asked, straightening up again.

‘There aren’t any,’ answered Tessa, surprised.

‘I’m sure there used to be. One for each member of the family.’ Erin shrugged. ‘Well, I think it’s just fabulous what you’ve done here,’ she continued, turning away. ‘I’m going to tell my friends back home, and make sure it gets on all the secret hideaway websites. The Aussies would love this! A real English home-from-home.’

Erin went on to question Tessa about occupancy and margins and the differences between the UK and Australian star-rating systems. Lauren, bored and excluded, trailed off to the kitchen downstairs. Tessa hoped she wouldn’t start snacking before supper. A second later Tessa heard Mitch come in, and was disappointed when he headed straight upstairs. But Erin, explaining the advantages of a new booking system linked to a smartphone app, didn’t seem to twig that the energetic footsteps signalled the presence of the grandson she had yet to meet.

Tessa had been hurt by the way Erin had greeted Lauren earlier, judging it to be thin and insignificant for someone finally offered the chance to take up her rightful role as mother and grandmother. On the other hand it was clear how much she regretted upsetting everyone, so perhaps this relaxed manner was her way of smoothing things over, of demonstrating that she had no wish to elbow Pamela aside. Tessa found herself once again studying Erin’s flawless make-up – the carefully applied face powder, the glossy lipstick – for some clue to her birth mother’s deeper feelings.

‘I reckon you’re not so different to me.’

Tessa’s thoughts swam back into focus.

‘You love your work, right?’ Erin’s eyes shone. And this place, I can see that it’s all down to you.’

Erin’s insight was accurate, if uncomfortable: Tessa knew that, like Averil, she had become addicted to the glow of satisfaction she felt each time a guest departed full of happy compliments. ‘It’s great to watch people unwind,’ she admitted. ‘To hear them say how relaxed and different they feel, even after only a couple of nights. I do love knowing I had a hand in that.’

‘Sure! You should be really proud of what you’ve accomplished. And that’s what’s so great, isn’t it? So fulfilling? Knowing you made everything perfect all by yourself.’

Seeing herself through Erin’s eyes, Tessa felt a snakelike temptation to shed a cumbersome skin that was snagging, even painful, and emerge untrammelled and smooth like her. Tessa smiled at her mother. ‘It means a lot that you’re proud of me. I’m glad you came and told the truth.’

Erin looked confused, but then her face cleared. ‘Sure!’ she exclaimed. ‘The facts of life, right?’

The doorbell rang, heralding the arrival of the first of the night’s guests, a young couple in their mid-twenties. Erin said she could find her own way down to the kitchen as Tessa went to let them in. After chatting about their journey from London and showing them to their room, Tessa went up to knock on Mitch’s door. He was sitting in the window seat, gazing out at the darkening sky. He had grown almost too tall to fit in the narrow space, and there was something coltish about his long limbs, clear grey eyes and straight brown hair. He turned his head to her, his
thoughts clearly elsewhere, and she felt all her tension melt away as her heart swelled with love for him. Forgetting her irritation that he had not come unbidden to greet Erin, she saw the sweet, hopeful boy he had always been.

‘Supper?’ she asked. ‘Come and meet the new granny?’

He nodded, and though his expression remained serious, followed her dutifully downstairs.

They found Lauren at the kitchen table with one hand splayed out in front of her as Erin painted each nail the same vivid colour as her own. Their two heads were almost touching yet Tessa could observe no special likeness between the two generations.

Erin put the brush back in the bottle of varnish and got up, holding out her arms: ‘You must be Mitch!’

Tessa watched as her son cautiously accepted his grandmother’s embrace, and reflected with a pang of sadness how strange it now felt to have assumed for so long that Mitch, fine-featured and straight-backed, would take after Hugo.

‘My, you’re tall,’ Erin exclaimed. ‘And so good-looking. Bet you have all the girls running after you!’

Lauren grimaced. ‘It’s your turn to lay the table,’ she told her brother bossily. ‘We haven’t done the other hand yet.’

Tessa set about clearing away the day’s accumulation of clutter, pleased for once that Lauren had turned on the radio to some upbeat pop music, glad she’d thought earlier to buy a big bunch of daffodils to help brighten up the room.

Lauren held up her painted nails for Tessa to admire. ‘Chanel!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lotus Rouge.’

‘It’s lovely. But remember to take it off for school tomorrow.’ Tessa was rewarded by a scowl.

Once more bent over Lauren’s hand to paint the last nail, Erin appeared not to hear. ‘There!’ she said, replacing the glistening brush in the bottle and fanning her own fingers out beside Lauren’s. ‘Now we’re twins!’

Lauren wiggled her fingers delightedly, but Tessa also noticed her daughter’s wistful look as, screwing on the cap, Erin slipped the bottle back into the capacious handbag beside her. Lauren ought not to expect presents, but Tessa was certain that Pamela, in Erin’s position, would have gifted it without a second thought. She and Pamela had not spoken since the bombshell had been dropped two days ago: it was never Pamela’s way to have things out, and neither knew what to say. With a pang Tessa perceived that the contrast between the ‘old’ mother who wrapped herself up so tight, always holding something back, and the patina of ease offered by this other, newer mother, was not as marked as she’d first thought: both hid their real selves. Was she the same? Was that why Sam had been able to slide away so effortlessly?

Erin twisted in her chair to address Mitch, who was taking his time at the cutlery drawer. ‘So you’re what, in your last year of school?’

‘One more to go.’

‘And then what? University?’

‘If I do Ok in the exams.’

‘Of course you will!’

Tessa watched Mitch cringe. If his mother had dismissed his adolescent self-doubt as airily as that, he’d have snarled at her that he was too old to believe in magic.

‘What do you want to study?’

‘Maybe law.’

‘Good for you,’ said Erin. She smiled at Mitch, but asked no further questions. Instead she turned to Tessa. ‘So where’s the gorgeous Sam?’

Tessa was aware how her children’s gazes swivelled instantly to her face. ‘Didn’t Pamela tell you?’ she asked carefully. ‘Sam and I live separately.’

‘She never breathed a word,’ Erin assured her.

Tessa knew she’d been every bit as guilty as Pamela in clinging to the fiction that her marriage was intact. Worse, her determination not to face the truth would have made it impossible for Sam to explain why he’d left, even if he’d wanted to. She sighed, thinking that soon she’d have to admit the whole truth to Pamela and Hugo.

Lauren leaned in towards her grandmother. ‘So what’s Australia like?’

‘You should come visit,’ said Erin, content to let the thornier subject drop. ‘Find out for yourselves.’

Tessa felt a glow of pleasure that, however curtailed their own relationship might be, Erin did at least want to welcome her children.

‘Awesome! Can we stay with you?’ asked Lauren.

‘Hey,’ Mitch reprimanded, giving her a slight push as
he laid a place setting in front of her. ‘That’s rude. You don’t just invite yourself.’

But Erin was unperturbed. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t want to stay with me. My apartment’s way too small. But I can recommend some really cool places near the beach. Much more fun.’ She shifted her enormous handbag to the floor, making room for Mitch to set out knives and forks.

‘Is that where you live?’ Lauren asked. ‘Near the beach?’

‘No. I’m right in the city. You guys wouldn’t like that so much.’

‘Could we do surfing?’

‘I guess so. Some of the hotels do water sports.’ She turned to Tessa. ‘I can probably work you a nice discount on a package.’

Tessa could tell that Erin meant her offer hospitably enough, but hurt and deflated, couldn’t help endorsing Mitch’s expression of faint contempt. Not sharing their disappointment, Lauren turned to Tessa: ‘Oh, Mum, can we?’

‘We’ll see.’ Tessa smiled stiffly. ‘Some day, perhaps.’ And she watched how easily Erin let this subject drop too.

NINE

Pamela stood in the driveway and waved farewell. Hugo had insisted on driving Erin to Heathrow, and Erin had told Pamela gently not to accompany them, that it was easier for her to go into work mode and not have to say goodbye amid the bustle of the airport. Watching Hugo’s car disappear along the lane, Pamela wondered what they would talk about on the journey.

She went back indoors, remembering her last parting with her sister all those years ago. Standing for a moment in the quiet hallway, she allowed herself a brief glimpse back into the torment she had felt, sitting in that rented flat in Burton upon Trent, Tessa almost weightless in her arms, feeding her a bottle of warmed formula even though the air still seemed to bear traces of the heady smell of her teenage sister’s milky breasts. She had bent down to kiss the downy little head and promised herself that every kiss she ever bestowed would be on behalf of Erin, never herself. What she had not known then, but knew now,
was how tainted and unworthy she would feel every time the growing child kissed her.

Yet despite the brevity of Erin’s whirlwind stay, and the sadness of seeing her leave again, in many ways Pamela felt lighter than she had in years. The past three nights, she and Erin had sat up long after Hugo had gone to bed, catching up on everything in each other’s lives that could not be said on the phone, and cramming in decades of unspoken words. It was as if they were back in the cramped bedroom they had once shared in the B&B. Reaching out to hold her sister’s hand, Pamela was well aware that there were still things left unsaid, unasked, and she hoped that she had not done wrong by leaving them unresolved, but she had not wanted to spoil the joy of having Erin back beside her.

She had been nine when Erin was born, twelve when their father died, and, as their mother fought to establish a business that would ensure their financial survival, it had been she who had volunteered to take care of her little sister. She would delay her homework until Erin had been put to bed so she could play with her, had taken her onto the beach each summer with a bucket and spade, held her hand when she started primary school, and dried her tears when the other girls wouldn’t let her join in their skipping games. Erin was eleven when Pamela married Hugo, and Pamela had occasionally persuaded their mother to allow Erin to spend weekends with them; the girl had much preferred a night on their couch to the chores, errands and constant press of strangers at home in the B&B.

Barely five years on, it had been Hugo who first guessed that Erin was pregnant. Pamela was devastated that she’d failed to notice how withdrawn the teenager had become, to question her preference for loose smocks. And she would never forget Erin’s terror when left with no choice but to confess to Averil, or hearing through the closed door Averil’s fury and disgust as the incoherent explanations and excuses poured out. Even after Erin had joined them in Burton upon Trent, Averil had made excuses not to visit until the baby was a couple of weeks old, and had barely looked at her grandchild until she’d received word from Brenda that Erin had arrived in Sydney.

Shivering at the unbearable recollection of her own cowardice at not standing up for Erin, at remaining silent as Averil imperiously arranged their futures, Pamela went to fetch the Hoover. She started in the spare room where Erin had slept, throwing open the windows and stripping the bed. She heaped the linen in the hallway, adding Erin’s towels from the bathroom, ready for the washing machine. Pulling on yellow household gloves, she squirted cleaning cream around the bath, ran the taps and began to wipe around the tub, trying to efface the memory of Averil’s refusal to let Erin speak, and the shame of her own silence in the face of Erin’s distress.

The doorbell chimed as she started on the basin. Still in her yellow gloves, she went reluctantly to see who it was.

‘Hi, Mum,’ said Tessa. ‘Thought I’d come and see how you are.’

‘Busy,’ answered Pamela, still in thrall to her memories. She kissed Tessa’s cheek and headed back upstairs, leaving Tessa to follow. Tessa came to stand in the bathroom doorway, watching as she wiped down the basin.

‘Are you glad she’s gone?’ Tessa asked, as Pamela scrubbed at a stubborn bit of limescale.

Pamela lowered her head. ‘No.’ She turned on the tap to rinse the bowl.

‘Can you stop doing that? Come and talk to me?’

Stricken with competing emotions, Pamela didn’t know what to say or do.

‘What did she want?’ asked Tessa. ‘She didn’t seem that bothered last night about saying goodbye to me or the kids. I don’t understand why she finally came now, after all this time.’

Pamela put down the sponge, stripped off her gloves and laid them over the edge of the basin, then sat on the side of the bath. ‘Cousin Brenda made her promise that she would. Apparently she’d tried to get Erin to come before, but …’

‘But what?’

Pamela leaned sideways to straighten the bottles of shampoo and conditioner beside the bath taps.

‘Mum, talk to me, please!’

‘Erin didn’t want to reopen old wounds.’

‘Didn’t she want to see me?’

‘She didn’t want to interfere.’

‘But this Brenda thought she should?’

‘Cousin Brenda was dying.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘Apparently Brenda knew how much Erin regretted not making her peace with Averil before she died.’ Pamela thought back to their late-night conversation. ‘Erin told me that Brenda had asked her how she thought
you’d
feel if you discovered that your real mother had died and never come to see you, never given you the chance to meet her.’