The Son-in-Law (44 page)

She didn’t say why she especially wanted to see me, and I thought it must just be that we hadn’t had any time together for a while. I spent an hour helping her with the cleaning. There was a sticky mess on the stove top. We took bets on what exactly had been baked onto the electric rings (I thought marmalade, she thought beans), and I took a Brillo pad to it.

While we worked, we chatted. She asked about what had happened in the science lab. I gave her a blow-by-blow account, with all the gruesome details. She listened and said ‘oh no’ and ‘ouch’ in the right places.

‘You must have felt like a pressure cooker,’ she said. ‘Ready to explode.’

‘I did . . . yes, that’s right. I feel silly about it now, though.’

‘Don’t—there was nothing silly about it. But I want you to promise me you’ll never, ever do it again. Will you promise? Once is enough, Scarlet.’

I promised. ‘It was bloody agony when they gave me the injection,’ I assured her. ‘I’m never doing that again.’

‘Your poor father was beside himself when he heard. He almost burst out of his clothes, like the Incredible Hulk.’

I giggled. ‘Did he turn green?’

‘He did actually.’ She was smiling to herself, as though even thinking about Dad made her happy. ‘Livvi and the cool girls,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Funny how there’s a trio of those little madams in every single class. There were in my school, too. I hope they’re ashamed of themselves now?’

‘They seem a bit scared of me, actually.’

We carried on with our cleaning. I could hear the boys outside, playing a rowdy tag game with their gang.

‘So,’ said Rosie, as she tugged out the grill pan. ‘You’re going to be . . . Ugh, look at this! There’s a mouldy sausage stuck to the bottom . . . You’re going to be living with your father from after Christmas. Have you forgiven him?’

That was Rosie’s style. She asked the hard questions. She didn’t mess about.

‘Um. . .’ I thought long and hard, sloshing water across the floor with a grey string mop. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘I bet it is.’

‘Forgiveness is a funny thing. You know when you’ve swotted for a science exam?’

‘That was a long time ago, in my case.’

‘Well, use your imagination! You think you’ve got the hang of . . . let’s say photosynthesis. You’re sure you’ve cracked it and you’ll get one hundred per cent in that section; but when it comes to actually writing the answer, you find there’s far more to it than you realised. Well, that’s like forgiveness. One minute I’m absolutely sure I’ve forgiven Dad.’ I squeezed out my mop in the big metal bucket. The water was filthy.

‘And the next minute?’ she prompted.

‘The next minute the man has started singing
that
song—I used to call him the devil man, but I Googled him and it seems he’s an iconic musician. Absolutely brilliant. When I hear him singing in my head, I feel as though Mum is dying all over again.’

‘Poor Scarlet.’

‘It’s always there, what Dad did. It always will be. I can never forget it.’

‘But you love him.’

‘But I love him.’

‘Yes. Well, that part is easy to understand.’ She was wiping the grill pan when she added quietly, ‘I’m moving on tomorrow. That’s the main reason I was hoping to see you.’

‘Oh?’ I said casually. ‘When will you be back?’

‘I’m not coming back.’

I dropped the mop, staring. ‘You’re kidding me!’

She’d started polishing that stupid grill pan, lots of elbow grease, making it shine like the crown jewels. ‘It’s time for me to go home. You dad’s kindly agreed to sell my van for me.’

‘This
is
your home, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘You and Dad . . .’

‘There is no me and Dad.’

‘Well, there should be! He likes you. You like him. What’s the problem?’

She sighed, peeling off her rubber gloves and draping them over the taps. ‘Here’s the problem,’ she said. ‘Now, this is going to sound a bit surprising . . .’

And she began to tell me. As she talked, I gave up on my mopping and sat on one of the tables, with my feet on a wooden bench. The more she talked, the more bewildered I felt.

‘You aren’t a nun!’ I protested.

‘I’m going to be, though.’

‘No, you can’t. Look at you—just look at you!’

She glanced down at herself. ‘Mm-hm? I’m looking.’

‘You’ve got long messy hair, and you wear bright clothes, and you like to drink a glass of wine. And I love you.’

‘Oh . . .’ She came rushing across the kitchen to hug me. ‘And I love you too, so much! But still, I can’t stay here. Scarlet, you’ve only just got your father back. That’s enough to be going on with.’

‘He won’t want you to leave,’ I argued.

‘Oh, I think you’re wrong there. Your mother is still
very
much in occupation in his head. And from all I’ve heard, she’d be a hard act to follow.’

That was true. Dad did still have Mum in his head, and I was sure he always would. I remembered him saying
Gotcha
, and the pair of them dancing together like film stars before he kissed her.

‘So what?’ I asked, shrugging. ‘Don’t try to follow her! Start up your own show, instead. The Rosie show. I can see your name in lights.’

She climbed up and sat close beside me on the table. She looked beautiful that evening. Her eyelashes seemed very dark, and her hair curled around her face. The day had faded outside; there wasn’t much of it left.

‘We have to leave soon,’ I said. ‘Hannah’s expecting us back for supper.’ I felt terribly unhappy, because I was losing my good friend.

She put her arm around me.

‘Please don’t go,’ I said miserably.

‘Scarlet, your life’s complicated enough without . . . complications.’

At that moment, Dad walked into the kitchen. He was wearing a baggy white shirt—he’d bought it in Oxfam—and he’d got really tanned from working out of doors all summer. He was a Russian prince today, and he certainly looked lost. He stood on my freshly mopped floor, staring at Rosie with a smile that really wasn’t a smile. She stared back at him. As the moments passed, I found I was holding my breath.

‘You’re not a complication,’ he said quietly.

‘Well, you are,’ she cried. Then she jumped down from the table, hugged me fiercely, and ran out. I thought I heard a sob before the door banged shut.

She wasn’t in her van later, when we all went to say goodbye.

‘Couldn’t you make her stay?’ I asked Dad as he drove us back to York that evening.

‘I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to.’

‘But you’ll try?’

He sighed. ‘I have already tried.’

‘She’s in love with you, Dad. Anyone can see that. But she thinks you’re out of bounds. She told me you still have Mum in your head.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Rosie said that?’

‘Rosie’s nice,’ snivelled Ben, from the back seat.

Dad scratched behind his ear, staring at the road ahead. I knew him well enough to understand that he was trying to come up with the right words. ‘She’s very different to your mother,’ he said. ‘Different in almost every possible way.’

‘Mum was no gypsy, that’s for sure. I can’t imagine her for one second in the rags Rosie calls clothes, or with that mop of hair,’ I chuckled. ‘Not to mention Rosie’s glam-girl bust!’

‘It wouldn’t be gentlemanly for me to comment on
that
,’ said Dad, grinning. ‘But I know what you mean. The first time I saw Zoe, it was like a bolt of lightning. I was head over heels . . . but we didn’t become real friends for a while. We were in love, and friendship evolved from that.’

‘Mm . . . but with Rosie it’s been the other way around, hasn’t it?’

He didn’t answer.

I gazed out of the window. The hills seemed grey and white, like an old film. ‘I wonder whether we’ll ever see her again,’ I said.

Thirty-eight

Joseph

They had just one more hour together, and they were wasting it.

Her few remaining clothes and possessions were in a small rucksack on the back seat; everything else she had given away. The keys to her kombi were in Joseph’s trouser pocket. He would sell it for her, and pay the money into her brother’s bank account. From now on, she would have nothing of her own. She was sitting beside him, but soon she’d be gone forever. He felt profoundly miserable.

Joseph’s first thought, as he woke, had been that she was leaving today. The knowledge hit him even before he opened his eyes. It ached painfully, like homesickness or bereavement. He hadn’t wanted the day to begin at all, because Rosie was leaving. They hadn’t talked the previous night; he’d driven back to Brandsmoor after taking the children to York, but she had already gone to bed. He suspected that was because she wanted to avoid him. And now he was driving her to the railway station, and they would say goodbye, and he would never see her again.

‘How long’s your journey?’ he asked now, desperate to start some kind of conversation.

‘Hours and hours. Gotta change in Plymouth. I won’t get to St Ives until after eight.’

‘And will someone meet you at the other end?’

She tucked her hair behind her ear, though it immediately sprang out again. ‘Of course.’

Joseph drove on. Time was running out.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said.

He turned his head to look at her. ‘Are we reduced to this, Rosie? Polite chitchat?’

Her eyes met his before she looked away. Hers were hypnotic. He saw that now: dark and unerringly clear. He’d come to love the swell of her cheek, framed by its thicket of curls; he’d come to love the way she moved, the way she talked, the way she was. He wanted to swerve onto the verge, cut the engine and pull her into his arms; but it was too late for that. She had made up her mind and he must respect her decision.

Neither of them risked conversation for the rest of the journey. Silence seemed more bearable than pleasantries. With every mile travelled, Joseph felt the ache of loss intensify. They’d allowed extra time, and he was turning into the short-stay car park long before her train was due.

‘Don’t hang about,’ she said, opening her door. ‘I’ll be fine, and I hate drawn-out goodbyes.’

‘Don’t be so bloody noble,’ growled Joseph, also getting out. He lifted her bag, and then dropped it again. ‘Bugger! Got any change for the ticket machine?’

They bought takeaway coffee and sat on a stainless-steel seat on the platform, looking out across the tracks to where some pigeons battled over a dropped sandwich. The ache was drilling into Joseph. It felt raw. He dreaded her absence.

‘Funny how railway stations are always cold,’ she said, huddling into her shawl.

‘It’s the shape, I think. Funnels the wind.’

Overhead, a tannoy echoingly reminded passengers not to leave their belongings unattended. Joseph looked at his watch, and felt a sudden clutch of panic. There were four minutes left.

Four minutes.

‘Please don’t do this,’ he said urgently.

She leaned away from him, throwing her cup into a nearby bin. ‘My family are there, in the community. Yours are here.’

‘My family are yours, too.’

She sounded exasperated. ‘They aren’t, Joseph! That’s the point.’

‘The children need you.’

‘No.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘They need you—just
you
—not distracted, not thinking about anything else. And if I don’t go back to Cornwall now, I never can.’

His own cup crumpled under his fingers. ‘If you think I’ve had trouble forgetting Zoe, you’re right. I can’t forget her, and I never will. But life with her was terrifying and destructive. I don’t know how much longer I could have gone on.’

Rosie had become very still. He knew she was listening.

‘You’re my best friend,’ he urged desperately. ‘No—far more than that. I feel as though some vital part of me is about to be torn away and get on that bloody train. And you expect me to stand here and merrily wave you off!’

The tannoy blasted again, smashing through his last few words, announcing the imminent arrival of the Plymouth service. He felt a stirring of cold air as it approached, and something close to terror.

‘Life without you is going to be bloody awful,’ he yelled, above the screech and roar as carriages rolled past, slowed and stopped. Rosie leaped to her feet, threw her rucksack onto her back and headed for the platform edge, furiously wiping her eyes. Joseph followed. Doors opened. People got out, and others began to file on board.

‘Give my love to the children,’ she said quickly. ‘Tell them thanks for everything. I have to go now, because I’m about to start crying and that will be messy.’

He took both her hands in his, drawing in the warmth of her as the crowd jostled and pressed around them. She was wearing walking boots and a full skirt, just as she had when she first knocked on his door, and they played cards on Christmas night. He felt an appalling urgency. In a few seconds she’d be gone.

A guard walked along the platform, slamming the heavy doors. Bang. Bang. Bang.

‘Okay. I’ll let you go,’ he said. ‘But know that I love you.’

The guard blew his whistle.

Thirty-nine

Hannah

The children left Faith Lane on 27 December. We’d had time to get used to the idea, and I imagine that helped, but at first their absence was a harrowing sadness.

Freddie never directed another play. In theory, he and I were now free to savour our retirement as we’d always planned. In reality, of course, there was no voyage to Alaska; no intrepid expedition on the Trans-Siberian railway. If it was new experiences I was after, I got my wish when I found myself cast in the role of carer for an elderly man; for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. There was no question of my returning to the university—I felt uneasy about leaving Freddie alone in the house—but Scarlet nagged until I signed up for a weekly watercolour class. I was supremely inept at painting but it was something I could do while sitting with Freddie, and it certainly taught me to observe the world with new eyes.

The children came to stay often, at first, but as they settled into their new home it became disruptive for them to have to travel to York at weekends. Instead, Joseph urged us to visit Helmsley. I didn’t want to become his guest—we maintained a civil relationship, and that was all—but Freddie overruled me. Our first visit was during the Easter holidays, and Joseph took us to see Brandsmoor. We made small forays around the farm while the children played in the stream, occasionally showing us a spindly-legged lamb or a bunch of daffodils. Joseph worked hard to make the trip a success. Freddie smiled all day, and I realised that his happiness must come before my pride.