Trio (35 page)

Francine had started her nursery nursing course. Megan had tried to talk Francine into staying on and going for A levels if she did all right in her exams but the girl didn't want to.

‘Keep your options open,’ Megan had said. ‘If you got more qualifications you’d have a chance of more jobs, better money. There’s two million people out of work, you know. A piece of paper will go a long way to getting something.’

‘I want to do the nursing,’ Francine insisted. ‘I’ve had enough of school.’

Well, if it didn’t work out for her with the nursing she could always work at the shop. Bit boring really but she was good with people.

Francine was courting. She and Shane seemed serious. He was a mechanic. They were saving for a deposit on a flat – rent, not buy. Megan had told her not to rush anything but Francine told her to stop fussing. ‘Frightened I’ll make you a Grandma too soon? You needn’t worry, I’m on the Pill.’

Megan had looked at her. The Church still banned Catholics from any form of artificial contraception and sex before marriage was forbidden. The bishop sent letters round every so often reminding his parishioners of the edict. But the bishop hadn’t got a sixteen-year-old daughter, had he?

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget to take it.’

Francine beamed, pleased that her Mam was understanding and hadn’t gone all religious on her.

At least if she was protected, Megan thought, and things didn’t work out for her and Shane, there wouldn’t be a baby in the middle of it all to consider.

Marjorie

The doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting anyone but it could be a door-to-door salesman. There seemed to be more and more of them; wanting to demonstrate the latest vacuum cleaner or sell you household insurance or tarmac the drive. A sign of the times. Rising unemployment. The winter of discontent they called it and it had been awful, with countless strikes. People will always need glasses, Robert said, though they might patch the frames with sellotape if times were hard. More and more people were trying contact lenses and he’d started stocking those too.

‘Mrs Underwood?’ Two police officers in uniform, a man and a woman.

‘Yes?’ She held her breath.

‘Stephen Underwood’s your son?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, her throat suddenly dry and her chest tight.

‘Can we come in a moment? It’s about Stephen.’

‘No.’ She tried to shut the door, they moved into the way. She pushed harder. ‘No,’ she repeated, her voice cracking. ‘No.’

‘Mrs Underwood, we need to come inside and talk to you.’ The man eased the door back. She moved away. The woman stepped inside, took her elbow. Marjorie twisted aside. ‘No.’ Her thoughts scrambling to get away.

‘Come on, now.’

She let them lead her into the lounge. Her heart was galloping. She sat down, her belly heavy with dread.

She watched them mouth words, silly little words: car, roundabout, passenger, revive, failure. Silly, little words, each tearing a bit of her soul. The dread rose, flooding her throat, full of love and anger and breathtaking pain. She opened her mouth hoping that if the roar of it were loud enough it would drown out the man and the woman and bury the stupid, little words. Force them away, back down, anywhere. Stephen. Into the past, into another time, another place. Oh, Stephen. ‘No-no-no-no!’ she howled. ‘No-no-no-God-no!’

The words floated free, too strong to be shouted down. Once spoken they soared above like balloons cut free. And burst like her heart. Stephen. Dead.

Nina

She couldn’t believe it. Even now. It was like some gross practical joke. Like God had looked down and seen what a mess she was in and how bloody fed-up she was. He knew how when she looked in the mirror this ugly, fat cow was there and when she looked inside herself there was just a black hole. Everyone hated her. And then God had looked at Stephen, last year of university, studying chemistry, lots of friends, popular and hardworking, even a steady girlfriend, attractive now he’d grown his blond hair longer. And God had decided to take Stephen. Not her. Or maybe he’d gone eenie-meenie-miney-mo. And Stephen was dead. When it should have been her. They all thought that. Even she did, for heaven’s sake. ’Course, no one said a word, but you’d have to be mental not to think it. And she’d been such a bitch to him. Teasing him for being boring and goody-goody when he was just a boy, just a nice boy who’d learnt his manners and didn’t have to put up with everyone hating him. He was dead and it was like they all were.

Her mother. The sound of her mother weeping was the loneliest sound in the universe. And Nina couldn’t help her, she didn’t know how. She felt responsible. It was her fault really. Her father cried too. She’d never seen him cry, but that first day he’d sat there, his red face all furrowed, eyes shut and these awful huffing sounds coming out of him. Her mother went and held him and Nina stole away. She shouldn’t be there. She went upstairs and listened to them cry. She felt the pressure inside, a lump in her chest, but she couldn’t cry. There was no release.

The weeks passed, Christmas and Easter came and went; their only significance was in marking Stephen’s absence.

She knew she should leave. Get away so her mother wouldn’t have to face her every day. See her and not Stephen, feed her and not Stephen.

Chloe invited her to move into a house she had found. It was a dump but they could sort it out a bit. Put some cotton throws over the furniture, get a couple of beanbags and some coloured light bulbs. She hadn’t seen much of Chloe, who’d started a nursing course and was going out with a Punk called Ali. She said yes. Spare her mother. And she’d be able to diet if she needed, without her mother watching her eat, forcing her to eat. Now she had to tell her parents.

She told them over tea.

‘Oh,’ her mother said softly and Nina glimpsed pain in her eyes.

Her father looked at her with incomprehension. Then he gave a short, humourless laugh and shook his head.

‘Robert . . .’ Marjorie said.

He held up his hands. ‘I won’t waste my breath.’ He stood up.

‘What?’ Nina said.

‘Never mind.’

‘No, what’s the matter?’

‘Nina, it’s all right.’ Her mother tried again.

‘You don’t get it, do you? You really don’t get it. You’re so bound up in your own selfish little world . . .’

‘No!’ she protested. The loathing in his voice taking her back to the beating, to the ferocity of his blows. ‘I thought it was the best thing to do.’

‘For who? For Nina?’

‘No.’

‘Robert.’

‘Your brother hasn’t been dead a year and you think it best to . . . to just walk out? Very thoughtful.’

She was horrified at how he twisted it all.

‘Mum,’ she turned, seeking her response, wanting her to say it wasn’t so, that she didn’t agree with him.

Marjorie prevaricated. ‘You have your own life to lead. It’s all right.’

But it wasn’t. She’d messed it all up again.

Marjorie

Stephen had gone. It was still too soon to know whether she could ever come to terms with it. How could you? It was something to be borne. She felt as though they had torn a piece from her. Each day was a struggle. She found some solace in prayer and she had begun to go to Church daily.

And she knew Nina would leave, they were losing her, one way or another. She’d either starve herself, or start taking drugs or simply move out and drift away. Robert had washed his hands of her. The two of them were strangers. He had no affection for her, no regard for her. He was unable to forgive, either Nina or himself. Most of the time the old aggression was replaced by a cold indifference. How Stephen would have hated it.

She knew Nina would pursue her natural family, with or without their approval. She suspected that had something to do with her problems now but she wouldn’t talk about it. They didn’t seem to know how to talk as a family any more.

Marjorie sighed. She hadn’t had children to lose them like this. It was different for Robert, he had his work; men weren’t involved in the same way. She loved Nina in spite of everything. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t something you could choose. Nina might be exasperating and prickly and sullen but she loved her. She was so thin now, gaunt, very fashionable according to all the models in the magazines but not healthy. She had seen how easily she tired, how weak she was becoming. If she kept on . . .

Maybe they would never be as close as she had hoped for. Maybe Nina would always be hard work, veering from depressed to defiant, but Marjorie was sick of feeling that she was to blame somehow. Nina was Nina. If she just let her go she could imagine herself down the line somewhere regretting not having tried harder, resentful and lonely. She didn’t want that. She would keep trying. She was a mother, for God’s sake, infinitely giving. A doormat, some might say, or a martyr, but rather that than abandoning her daughter. She would not give up, ever. It was impossible to talk to her but she could write it down. Write to Nina, put it all on paper. How she loved her, how she had come into their lives, her hopes that Nina would find happiness, her complete acceptance that Nina might want to trace her birth family, wishing her well with it, her sorrow that she had been so unhappy. She would write it all down, in black and white. A love letter. Not for the daughter she had dreamt of but for the one she had. My dear daughter, Nina . . .

Nina

She walked past the house twice. Her bowels had turned to water and she was biting her teeth together, jaw rigid. She couldn’t see in. There were net curtains at the windows. A small front garden, little picket fence, for show more than anything. She’d used one like that in her spring fashion window, set off with green catkins and the season’s gauzy prints, a high-street version of the see-through styles that the more daring wore in London. She walked back more slowly. Number sixteen. Sweet sixteen. Megan had been sixteen when she had her. She came to a halt at their gate. She felt exposed, half the street could peer out and see her, spot a stranger prowling about. She bet people round here all knew each other, kept an eye out. The only privacy once your door was closed. It was quiet now, people out at work, but she could imagine it later, kids out on their bikes and roller blades, in and out of each other’s houses. Roaming in a big gang.

Not like her and Stephen. They’d never played out much where they lived. He was too fond of his books and she found herself falling out with the few children there were. Either bored with them and losing her temper or finding herself made into the victim. Carrot-head, Ginger.

She was startled by the clunk of the door opening. Saw the woman – red hair, long, green dressing gown – open the door to let a dog out. Red hair. Nina felt her limbs go heavy. Rooted. The woman looked out, straightened up, her hand moving to her throat, clutching at the collar of her dressing gown even though it was fastened.

Nina took a step, then another. Placed her hand on the gate, unsmiling, her eyes fixed on the woman. ‘Megan,’ she said.

The woman nodded, a fierce little movement and her mouth trembled.

‘I’m Claire.’ Thudding in her head. Please. Oh, please.

‘Yes.’ She put one arm out towards her then lowered it. Her bright blue eyes were brimming. She nodded again. ‘Hello, Claire. I think you’d better come in.’

Joan Lilian

Pamela

Pamela

It was a year of reminders. A parade of events each highlighting her loss. The first birthday without her mum, first Christmas, first time planning her holidays without seeing if Lilian fancied a week somewhere.

She had left the little house in Fallowfield for months. There was no hurry. It wouldn’t be hard to sell, there were always landlords after houses to let to students in that area. It would go up for sale when she was good and ready. Her Aunt Sally offered several times to help her clear it out, but each time she said she’d wait a little longer.

She dreamt about her mother frequently. She saw her too. Round the shops, in her garden, at the market, passing the leisure centre. The first couple of times she was petrified, thinking grief had made her mad, but two of her friends who had lost parents reassured her that it was commonplace. Someone lent her a book about bereavement. There were nights when she poured over it, eager for reassurance.

Work was fine. It helped. There she felt safe, valuable, capable.

In May she was ready to face the clear out. She booked a weeks leave, the week before her birthday, and tackled it with a combination of practicality and ritual. Clearing the house was also a way of making her farewells. It was the last link to the years she had shared with her mother.

She had been back twice since her mother’s death, twice in the blur of time before the funeral when she had cleared the fridge, taken meter readings, chosen clothes for her mother to be buried in, emptied the bins, removed jewellery, video and telly, her will and bank books, which she had kept in a biscuit tin in the kitchen. Pamela had left a spare key with neighbours in case of any trouble.

She drove over from Chester. There was no parking immediately outside but she found a space further down the road. Put her steering-wheel lock on.

Opening the door she allowed herself the fantasy of her mother being there to greet her – a generous smile, easy familiarity, her genuine delight whenever Pamela came home. Her stomach tightened as she stepped inside. She took a breath. The house smelt stale. It was resolutely empty. She put down her bag. A pile of junk mail lay on the floor. She checked through. There was nothing personal. She wandered round the rooms, she had to visit them all, some silly superstition. She was oppressed by the emptiness and silence.

Tour completed, she switched the mains back on in the kitchen and turned the stopcock on for water. She lit the gas fire in the living room to take the chill away. She opened the back door to let some fresh air in and saw the lilac was still in bloom. Its scent hurled her back through the years and tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said aloud, ‘I do miss you.’

She found scissors in the kitchen draw and cut branches of the lilac, got vases from the shelf and put the fragrant sprays round the house.

She had brought tea and milk with her and after she had finished her drink she got out her notebook and pen and went through the rooms making a list of things she needed – bin-bags, labels, boxes, string, old newspapers, tissue paper, sellotape – and a list of items she would like to keep.

In her old room she sat on the bed. The walls were still painted in the lemon colour she had chosen as a teenager. The curtains still a hessian weave which let all the light in. Once she’d moved out, her mother had bought a cornflower-blue duvet set to replace the old candlewick bedspread and sheets and blankets from before. She had been happy here on the whole.

She peered out into the back yard and the alley beyond. From here you could see rows of terraces like a brighter version of the Coronation Street title sequence. It had been a good place to grow up. Plenty of children, a park not far away. She’d been pally with Natalie from next door. One summer they had rigged a message system up between their bedroom windows, string and yoghurt pots. Last she’d heard, Natalie had moved away, somewhere down south.

She stepped away and turned to look in the mirror. It was a nice mirror, oval with a dark frame. She’d take it if Aunt Sally didn’t want it.

She rang her aunt and explained what she was hoping to do. Asked if they would come and see if there was anything they’d like. ‘I’m going to get one of those charities to take most of it, for the homeless or whatever.’

‘Well, I can come tonight.’

‘There’s no rush.’

‘You can stay with us, Pam, we’ve plenty of room.’

‘Thanks, but it feels fine here. I’d like to be here.’

‘Come and have tea with us, then.’

‘Yes. Tomorrow or Wednesday?’

‘Wednesday’s good. Ed has his craft club tomorrow, so we generally have a fish supper.’

‘Right.’ She didn’t quite catch the logic but it didn’t matter. She had heard that Ed’s health wasn’t good, he was becoming very absent-minded, losing track. Sally took him to various clubs for the stimulation – and to give herself a break.

 ‘So, we could come down in the morning, if you like?’

‘Fine, see you then.’

She rang off. Considered her list. There was a mini-market at the end of the road. They should have most of the stuff she needed and they might have some boxes. She could get something for her tea too.

By the time Aunt Sally and Uncle Ed arrived the following morning Pamela had assembled a pile of objects she wanted to keep in one corner of the lounge. After a little hesitation Sally soon gathered a pile of her own. They offered to help her fill bags and wrap china but she encouraged them to leave. She was more comfortable doing it on her own. She saw them out, promising to be at their house for five the following day.

She went up to her mother’s room. All Lilian’s clothes needed packing up. Pamela would never wear any of them – the patterned jumpers and blouses and skirts were a world away from the power suits she wore to work or the plain cotton leisurewear she wore when sailing or relaxing. She began to fill bin liners. The first armful of jumpers still smelling of her mother’s perfume and cosmetics. She emptied the drawers and then began on the wardrobe. She slipped dresses and suits off hangers and folded them up. Some brought back memories: the silk skirt she had treated her mother to when they went to Paris, the stupid jacket that she had bought in Lisbon and hardly ever worn. Her old camel car-coat, worn round the cuffs but so comfy she had insisted on keeping it. Pamela had once tried to find a replacement but there was nothing exactly that length.

In one of the compartments at the bottom of the wardrobe she found a slim cardboard box, rectangular with a pattern of faded roses on it. She opened it expecting a chiffon scarf or kid-leather gloves. But inside were a batch of papers.

She sat on the edge of the bed, surrounded by half-full bin liners, to examine them. A letter from a Sister Monica wishing them every happiness. She shrugged, her mother had friends connected with the Church but she didn’t know the name. A scrap of paper with Sat – 10.30 – Girl scrawled on it. Her mother’s writing. And a birth certificate belonging to someone called Marion, mother’s name Joan Hawes. The same birthday as hers. She felt a rush of confusion. Had she had a twin? Don’t be stupid, different mothers. Why had Lilian got someone else’s birth certificate? She looked again and as comprehension dawned she felt a wave of confusion and horror. Oh, my God, the truth slapped at her, it’s me!

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ Pamela, still pale with shock and sick with the upset, demanded of her aunt. She had driven straight round there.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think she ever set out to keep it from you. When you were very small I remember she and Peter talking about explaining to you when you were older. Then, with your father dying.’

Except he wasn’t even my father, she thought bitterly.

‘It must have got harder as time went on,’ Sally said.

‘You knew. Who else?’

‘Just close family.’

‘I can’t believe it!’ Her face stretched with indignation, her indigo eyes glinted. ‘You should have told me, she should have. I’m almost thirty-one years old. Can you imagine what it’s like to suddenly find it’s all been a sham?’

Sally looked worried, her brow creased. She caught her lip between her teeth. ‘She was a mother to you, that wasn’t a sham.’

‘But she let me go through my whole life thinking I was theirs, and I wasn’t.’

‘You were all she wanted. She’d been to hell and back before they got you.’

‘What do you mean?’

Her aunt sighed. ‘She lost three babies, miscarriages. The last was very late on.’

‘Oh, God!’ Pamela put her face in her hands.

‘They said if she fell pregnant again it could kill her.’

‘Tell me about it, everything you can remember, please, all of it.’

Joan

The clinic was crowded and far too hot. Joan craved some fresh air but was worried that if she left she might miss her name being called. There were women of every age, shape, size and colour. All here to see Mr Pickford. She no longer pretended to read the magazine on her lap but rested her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, imagining the bay, the way it looked, not yesterday with a summer blue sky and white caps on the waves, but on a calm November day, a sea fret curling from the water, the gulls arced like nail marks in the sky. Visualisation, they called it in the support group. It was supposed to help in the healing process; a calm place to take yourself. Along with raw food and aromatherapy and the more toxic treatments that Mr Pickford provided. But was she healing, or dying?

She steered her thoughts away, to work. Good news. There was a chance that ‘Walk My Way’ would be used for a new television drama series; the ’60s were back in fashion. Her agent was cautiously optimistic but these things took forever, it seemed. Even if that didn’t come off, Paramount – well a company who worked for Paramount – had commissioned an original slow ballad for a bittersweet romantic comedy. She’d read the treatment and put a few ideas down on tape. They’d liked two of them and asked her to develop them. Plus she’d sold several recent songs to the pop market.

‘Joan Hawes.’

She put the magazine on the low table and followed the nurse along the corridor. She suspended her thoughts, focused on the carpet, the paintings hung on the wall.

Mr Pickford shook her hand warmly and gestured that she should sit. He took a moment to check her notes. He drew a small breath and looked across at her and she knew. A flutter of compassion in his eyes told her everything. She blinked hard and pressed her knuckles to her lips as he spoke. The words bumped past her – secondary, extensive, chemotherapy, hard to say.

She didn’t need the words anyway, the message was clear. She was dying. They could poison her and chop at her and hook her up to pumps and tubes but they would only be prolonging her illness.

‘I want to go home,’ she said when he had finished. ‘I don’t want any more treatment. I want to be at home from now on.’

He nodded. ‘You have support?’

‘Yes. What about medication . . . if . . . when . . .’

‘Your GP will be able to prescribe. I can write.’

‘Yes.’

She was relieved he offered no opposition to her quick decision, that he had no desire to push desperate last treatments on her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She bit her tongue and nodded. Sniffed. ‘Thank you.’

The nurse knew or else he’d sent some sort of signal to her. She asked Joan if she would like to make an appointment to see the counsellor. She shook her head, her eyes swimming over all the women in the waiting room: the young girl with the dreadlocks and her mother, the one with the wig, the woman in the sari whose little boy had fallen asleep on her lap, the very old woman with skin like crêpe, the business woman concentrating on her laptop. All the women. ‘Can you call me a taxi? To the station.’

‘You’ve come on your own?’

She nodded. Penny came when she could but today’s appointment clashed with her school inspection. She had considered ringing in sick but Joan had persuaded her to go. ‘If I need more treatment I’d rather you took the time then.’ And if I’m dying.

‘Yes, my friend couldn’t come today.’

‘I’ll get you that taxi.’

It ran in families. They’d talked about that in the group, fearful for their daughters and grand-daughters. They implied she was lucky, no children to worry about. She had thought about owning up but it didn’t seem fair. Their children were real, they had names and faces, they came to the hospital and saw their mothers, they shared their lives, they heard them throwing up after radiation treatments, saw the clumps of hair in the bathroom bin, heard the talk of biopsies and percentages, prosthetics and remission. They loved them. Her daughter was barely fact, someone else’s daughter now.