These Days of Ours (11 page)

And, if Kate was honest with herself – this sometimes happened if the wind was in the right direction – a substitute for the baby that had yet to make an entrance.

‘Did you remind them I asked for ten thousand off the asking price?’ It had taken nerve to suggest that to the estate agent but she’d wanted to impress Julian with her
hard-headed tough-talking ways.

‘I knocked fifty grand off the asking price.’ Julian ruffled her hair. ‘Clever you. Finding a gem. Doing your bit.’ He frowned. ‘Kate! You’re doing it again.
Going off somewhere inside your head.’ Julian tutted. The delicious spell was broken. ‘I want my wife back, please.’

‘I was just daydreaming.’ Kate offered her face to his on tiptoe. ‘About you. Stripped to the waist. Wielding a sledgehammer. Covered in dust.’ She kissed him and they
were there, knocking down a wall, doing something solid and practical and sexy. She pulled away and they were back at the christening.

‘Oh God, Julian, something’s happened. It’s Mum and Dad.’

Kate explained, and as she knew he would, Julian took charge. ‘It’ll be some misunderstanding.’ Instantly, her fears were scaled down. ‘I’ll go and find them, sort
it out.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘And
you
stop collecting empties. My wife is no waitress.’ He twirled Kate to face the door. ‘Join the coven that’s
taken up residence in the kitchen.’

Grateful, trusting – Julian will get to the bottom of this – Kate held out her arms as Flo was handed into them like a relay baton, by a perspiring distant relative.

‘You’re hungry, aren’t you?’ Kate recognised the grizzling noise. ‘You want some lovely mushed up banana, don’t you?’ And a sleep. Flo was badly in need
of peace and quiet.
As am I
.

The kitchen was crammed with women trying to be useful and getting in each other’s way. Decamping back to the utility room with Flo and a banana, Kate was soon joined by Becca. With a
sinking sensation in her stomach she recognised the expression on Becca’s face as Needing To Talk.

‘What?’ she said flatly.

‘What do you mean
what
?’ said Becca innocently.

‘Your mummy,’ said Kate to Flo as she spooned mashed fruit into the baby’s mouth, ‘needs to say something to me but she doesn’t know where to start.’

‘And your godmother,’ said Becca to the baby, ‘is a know-all.’ She leaned back against the washing machine, arms folded. ‘You’re right, though, Kate.
I’m disappointed.’

‘In me?’

‘We barely see each other any more.’

Before Kate had time to splutter at that fiction, Becca said, ‘Why can’t you be happy for me? I didn’t have Flo to spite you, you know.’ She fumbled with a tissue she
plucked from her sleeve. ‘I’d give my right arm for you to be a mother. You know that.’

Kate didn’t know that, because she’d never discussed babies with Becca. There had never been a right time to do so with a woman either recovering from the loss of one child or high
on hope at the conception of another. There had never been anything in Kate’s attitude to justify this chin wobbling and nose dabbing. ‘Hang on, when have I ever—’

‘You don’t know what I went through to have Flo.’

Looking down at Flo’s domed head, crowned with its fluffy halo of hair, Kate said, ‘I think I do, Becca.’

‘No,’ said Becca darkly. ‘You do not.’ The tears arrived and Becca burbled through them, opening and slamming drawers like a demented robot. ‘If I could wave a
magic wand and give you a baby, I would. I wish this was a double christening. Don’t hate me because of Flo.’

Aunty Marjorie swung into the utility room, felt the atmosphere and froze, before backing out like a Nissan Micra reversing out of a tight parking space.

‘You’re being daft.’ Kate wiped banana from Flo’s chin. ‘I see a lot of you. Not as much as when you lived in London, admittedly, because I have a more than full
time job and I don’t always have the energy to travel out here to the arse end of nowhere.
You’re
the one who moved away!’

‘You’re the boss. You can take time off whenever you like.’

‘Being the boss means
longer
hours. It’s not like when we used to play shops.’ Kate didn’t expect Becca to understand: she hadn’t worked since she’d
left her receptionist job in 2000. She said, more gently, ‘You’re telling yourself stories, Becca. How could I, of all people, begrudge you this little dumpling?’ She handed over
the baby and Becca broke down, sobbing over Flo’s head. ‘Sssh. Please. Whatever you’re crying about, it’s not us. Can we stop this?’ She bent and parted Becca’s
blonde hair to peer at her face. ‘Sorry, cuz, but I don’t envy you. Which is a shame, because we both know how much you love being envied.’

A sniffle converted to a giggle. ‘It’s the hormones,’ said Becca.

‘Them again,’ sighed Kate theatrically. ‘This is very
you
, Becca, to move away and then scold me because you feel isolated.’

‘I know you all think I’m a drama queen . . .’

‘If you’re leaving a gap there for me to contradict you, you’ll be waiting a long time.’

‘Cow.’ Becca threw a crumpled tissue at Kate. ‘But I
feel
things deeply, you know?’

‘So does everybody. We just don’t turn every day into a three act opera.’ She added, perhaps a little late, ‘But it doesn’t matter. You’re just
you.’

‘Julian disapproves of me,’ said Becca, with an inward, thwarted look. ‘I thought we were friends again but . . .’

‘Julian loves you.’ How easily that tripped off Kate’s tongue. A huge word like
love
and she could misuse it just like that.

‘He does, doesn’t he?’ Becca’s confidence was a buoyant critter, never on the floor for long. ‘You’ve tamed him, you know.’

‘I’ve never tamed anything in my life.’
Or wanted to
.

‘He was kind of bigger and more brash before you came along. Now he’s more quiet, easier to handle.’

‘You make him sound like a cat I found in an alley.’

‘A pedigree cat!’ laughed Becca. ‘A big pedigree tom cat.’ She fixed Kate with a look and Kate stood to attention: that look reminded her of their mothers’ way with
a glare. ‘You’ve tamed me, too. I’d be worse if you weren’t around.’

‘Worse? Don’t talk about yourself like that.’ Kate didn’t want to hear such language from Becca. ‘You don’t need correcting or . . . or
taming
, you
twit.’ Kate had never suspected Becca of this kind of self-knowledge; she’d believed her profoundly unaware of the effect she had on the family, of the allowances they constantly made
for her. ‘You’re perfect just the way you are.’

‘I need you, Kate.’ Becca sounded about ten years old.

‘And I need you, you idiot.’ Kate put her arms around mother and child. It would be difficult to make more time for Becca when she factored in the new house as well as the shops, but
she’d do it somehow.

‘Trouble is,’ said Becca, ‘you don’t understand how hard it is to juggle a child and a husband and to live a twenty minute drive from the nearest shopping centre. You
have it so easy, Kate.’

Calling on years of experience, Kate bit her tongue one more time.

‘May I interrupt, ladies?’ Julian was stern. Becca responded to his demeanour by widening her eyes at Kate, giving her arm a squeeze and leaving them together.

‘Your parents are in the conservatory.’ Julian hadn’t returned with a ready made solution as Kate had hoped. ‘They looked so dour I daren’t go in.’

The party had thinned out. Napkins were strewn on the conservatory’s tiled floor and paper plates were abandoned on each carefully distressed surface.

Uncomfortable on a twee wrought iron bench, Kate’s parents were slumped, puppets whose strings had been cut. When they saw her, they sat up with discernible effort. She wondered how long
they’d been doing that, brightening for her sake.

Julian began. Kate, who couldn’t find the right words, was grateful that their marital see-saw was in good working order. ‘Something is obviously up, folks. Your daughter here is
suffering. Can we talk about it? Kate and I might be able to help.’

‘Nothing’s up.’ Dad was there immediately with a rebuttal. ‘Like what?’

Mum was doggedly silent. She looked at her lap with savage concentration, emanating energy as if she wanted to leap up and scream.

‘Dad . . .’ appealed Kate.

‘Love, it’s the end of a long day,’ said her father. ‘Let’s talk another time.’

‘Your daughter,’ said Julian, ‘overheard something very upsetting and she deserves an explanation.’

Mum snorted. An expressive noise from the soundtrack of Kate’s childhood.

‘She heard you say something about splitting up.’

The pair on the bench jerked, as if the ironwork was suddenly electrified.

‘What?’ scowled Mum.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Dad.

The silence persisted and Kate was at war with herself, wanting it to end but knowing it would end unhappily. ‘Please, tell me.’

Mum said, ‘Your Father has—’

‘No.’ Kate’s dad held up his hand. It was, Kate noticed, bony and pale. More elegant than before but more grim. ‘This is my story. I’ll tell it.’ He told his
daughter about the symptoms that had assailed him almost a year ago. He described the constant nausea, the endless indigestion. ‘Mum nagged me to go to the doc.’ Instead of sending him
home with a prescription, the doctor sent Dad to a specialist. ‘I had what’s called an endoscopic ultrasound.’

‘And?’ prompted Kate when he faltered.

‘And they diagnosed cancer of the stomach.’

A sensation like snow falling. Like a cold blanket muffling the sunny room. Kate crossed into a different realm. A place where her father was ill. A new and icy place. Julian put his arm around
her. Warm and heavy, it couldn’t quite cut through the chill.

‘Now, let’s be honest, everybody panics when they hear the word cancer, don’t they?’ Dad said, conversationally.

Kate could imagine how her mother had reacted. Cancer was a voodoo word in the family, six letters which, if spoken aloud, might conjure up the ogre that took both Kate’s Irish
grandparents long before their time. It was the troll whose touch shrivelled, whose breath destroyed.

‘My cancer was caught early.’ Dad reconsidered. ‘Early
ish
. Stage 1B and slow growing. All of which is good news, love. As far as any of this is good news.’

‘What are they going to do?’ Kate found her voice and a small, reedy voice it was.

‘They’ve already operated.’

Kate leaned back, as if he’d slapped her. ‘You had an operation and I didn’t know?’ This was fantastical.

‘Well, we didn’t want to worry you.’

‘We? I didn’t agree to any of this.’ Mum was robust. ‘I’ve wanted to tell you from the get-go.’

‘The oncologists weren’t too alarmed. The main fear with stomach cancer is that it spreads to the liver but the CT scan put their minds at rest.’

Oncologist
. Such an ugly word. ‘So the operation was a success?’ Kate wanted to stick her fingers in her ears. She could only bear one answer.

‘It was.’ Dad nodded and beside him his wife made a deep noise like a growl. ‘It
was
,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t even need chemotherapy.’

The ugly words were coming thick and fast in this cute and stultifying room.

‘So, the plan was, I would tell you I’d had a brush with cancer and we’d all have a hug and that would be that.’

‘But?’ Kate said the word hanging in neon above their heads.

‘But, indeed.’ Dad seemed to ossify, turning to stone in front of her. He didn’t want to say it. Not, she knew, for his own sake but for hers. ‘It’s come back,
love,’ he said.

Kate realised that Julian was holding her up.

‘I’m so sorry, John,’ said Julian. ‘I’m so very, very sorry.’

‘Are you angry with me, Kate?’ asked her father.

‘How could I be?’ Kate was ashamed. She should have known. One of her people had fallen and not only had she not picked him up, she hadn’t even noticed he was on his knees.

Other people entered the room. Words like
prognosis
were bandied. Aunty Marjorie took her sister’s hand. Becca began to howl, as if she’d been stabbed. Charlie was bone white.
Death, it seemed, was still on duty.

It was Julian who noticed, who realised that Kate needed to be alone with her father. He herded the others back to the sitting room, suggesting strong drinks all round.

Left in the conservatory with Dad, Kate sat alongside him on the hard bench. She took his hand, feeling his long fingers in hers, like when she was tiny. He’d stressed he wasn’t in
imminent danger, that all this fuss was unnecessary, but Kate felt every moment to be priceless. As if she was already looking back nostalgically at herself and Dad sitting in the lavender dusk,
holding hands. As if he had already gone.

‘This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want to be ill dad. Pathetic dad, in the corner with a blanket over his knees.’ Dad squeezed her hand tighter; she felt
encouraged by the strength in his grip. ‘There’s still a long way to go. A lot the doctors can do for me. This is just a blip, that’s all. A setback.’

The treatment, they both knew, could be as arduous as the ailment.

‘Dad, why don’t you come and live with me and Julian? Mum can come too. We’ve tons of room.’

‘What a recipe for disaster. You’re my daughter not my nursemaid, Kate. I want to see you
live,
not run around after me like some drudge. Anyway it hasn’t got to that
stage yet.’

Yet.
Kate loathed that inoffensive little three letter word.

‘When you were born,’ said Dad, ‘you changed me into a completely different person, different to the one I was before you arrived. Since that day, I’ve been Kate’s
dad. That’s brought responsibilities. Some big, like keeping you alive. Others small and easy, like picking you up from school. Do you remember me asking you what you did at school? And your
answer?’

‘
Nothing
.’ It was a family joke. It soothed. And stung.

‘I don’t have to collect you from anywhere any more. The days are gone when you call home in tears because some friend said something nasty and you need to come home right
now
. But, to me, you’re still that child. Even though you’re a woman with a career and a husband and responsibilities of your own. When I think of you, out there on your own,
charging about, doing your thing, I want to throw cotton wool on the ground beneath your shoes. I want to hold your hand, just like I did coming home from school. I want to insulate you against the
hard corners of life. And it . . .’ Dad’s voice went damp, dwindled to nothing. ‘It
kills
me,’ he said, after finding it again. ‘It kills me to think of leaving
you. That,’ he said quietly, ‘is why I didn’t tell you. Am I forgiven?’