Daughters (19 page)

Duncan was talking to Andrew. A circle of girls from Andrew’s office circled them. Smart, pretty, glossy girls, who were no one’s fools. As she watched, Duncan looked up and looked for her. His eyes widened in their private signal.

Take them away. Bin them.

She recollected Eve’s expression as she had gathered
up the cow parsley and roses and thrust them at Lara, and the warm, happy feelings engendered by the private exchange with her lover faded.

Some time later, Maudie elbowed her way, more or less politely, through the thinning crush and headed for the Ladies.

There, head bowed, she rinsed her face over and over and scrubbed at her lips. The china basin was bland, neutral, useful, and she gazed at it to reassure herself that some things were honest and predictable. Eventually, when she raised her head, it was to witness Jasmine manhandling Eve into a cubicle.

‘Eve OK?’ She eased herself upright.

‘Not sure,’ said Jasmine. ‘She felt a bit faint.’

An ashen-faced Eve emerged, made for the basin and hung over it. She turned a clammy face towards her sisters. ‘I only had a couple of glasses.’

‘Has anything happened?’ asked Jasmine.

Eve retched. ‘No …’ She bent forward and her chin dropped on to her chest. ‘And, before you ask, I haven’t taken anything either.’

‘You’re not upset? Has somebody said something? Is it the mother-in-law from hell?’ asked Jasmine.

Eve laid the back of her hand over her mouth. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let Dorothea see me. The joy it would give her.’

Jasmine snatched up a hand towel, dampened it and dabbed Eve’s forehead. ‘Nerves. Too little sleep. Do you think you should go home?’

Eve closed her eyes for a second. ‘Don’t get water on my dress.’

‘She can’t go home,’ said Maudie, flatly. ‘The dinner.’

‘I could explain to Andrew that Evie isn’t feeling so good.’

‘Don’t do that,’ said Eve. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She attempted a smile. ‘Start as you mean to go on.’

‘Why don’t I tell Mum, though?’

‘No,’ said Eve, dabbing at her mouth. ‘She’ll only flap.’

Jasmine signalled with raised eyebrows to Maudie.
Do you know what’s up?

Eve leaned forward to examine her face in the mirror. ‘Mustn’t let Andrew see me like this, either.’

‘Where is he?’ Maudie said.

Eve licked a finger and smoothed an eyebrow. ‘Don’t know. Somewhere.’

She was preoccupied and agitated. Maudie touched her arm. ‘Hey … what is it?’

Eve lowered her eyes. ‘Brides … you know?’

‘No, I don’t know,’ said Maudie. ‘How could I?’ She would never have imagined that Eve might be the
very
nervous type.

She watched Eve pull herself together, assembling the gloss and the smile. She brushed her hair and ran a lipstick over her lips. For a few seconds she stood still, drawing deep on herself. ‘OK, sisters, let’s go.’

Much, much later, when Maudie had had more than enough, the party was in its death throes. Surreptitiously, she checked the time. Only three hours or so longer and she would be free. She retraced her route to
the cloakroom where the coats had been handed in and got lost.

A member of staff directed her down the corridor and to turn left. Treading along the red carpet – why was red so beloved of hotels? – she did indeed turn left and was faced with a couple of doors. The first turned out to be a disguised phone booth. The second led into a small lobby with yet more doors opening off it. Ever more impatient, she poked her head around the nearest.

It opened into a semi-dark room designated for smaller functions but, on the evidence, not recently. The air was stale, chairs stacked up against the wall and the table was shrouded under a protective cover.

In the ten seconds or so that she hovered in the doorway before backing out noiselessly, the details flashed over Maudie’s mind’s eye. The red carpet (again). The lingering, unpleasant smell of food and wine. The tomb-like table.

In addition, there was the couple, kissing passionately in the cold, stale dark. He was pressed up hard and greedily against her while she sprawled against the vertical wall, her blue dress hitched up over her thighs where his hand rested.

In the quiet, the rustle of their clothing, her small moan and his impatience sounded abnormally loud.

Stupid
, she thought.
Get a room
.
Get a life.

And went away.

After the dinner at Sackville’s, when the goodbyes were being said, Jasmine held Eve close and kissed her, whispering into her ear, ‘Something’s wrong, Eve.’

The customarily cool Eve clung to her for a moment. ‘Nothing that can’t be put right,’ she whispered back.

‘Is everything OK with Andrew? Have you quarrelled?’

‘Not here, Jas.’

Trailed by Maudie, a flushed and exhausted-looking Lara swept out of the dining area into the restaurant lobby. She put her arms around Jasmine and Eve and gathered them close. ‘It was all perfect, wasn’t it?’ She was close to tears. ‘Couldn’t have gone better. Evie, you’re a genius. How
did
you manage all the organization?’ For a few seconds longer, they were held in her urgent, loving embrace. Then she released them and shrugged into her coat, which was being offered by a hovering cloakroom attendant. ‘Next stop the wedding,’ she said gaily.

Jasmine closed her eyes. If she ever found her world difficult and, sometimes, precarious, there was always Lara.
Always.

Placing her hands on Eve’s shoulders, Lara planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘Eve, you’re going to be so happy, and all of us are so happy for you, too. This is the beginning of your big adventure, and we’re so happy we’re all with you.’

Her eyes huge, Eve stood stiff and straight. Then she made a strange gesture with her hands. Warding off the evil eye? The enemy? ‘Wish me luck.’

Jasmine found herself unable to reply. What a strange thing life was. It flowed unstoppably, and humans persisted in trying to shape it with such make-do-and-mend moments as a wedding or a funeral – which was so foolish and absurd. And necessary.

‘It’s wonderful,’ said Maudie, more or less convincingly.

Lara’s delight acted on them like a tonic. With fuss and chatter, the family swirled around the bride-to-be and eventually dispersed.

In the taxi with Duncan, Jasmine sat up straight, as wired as if she had taken Dexedrine or several espressos. ‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked him.

He was drunk and sleepy. ‘Very much.’

‘Eve practically threw up in the Ladies.’

‘Tut,’ he said, twining a lock of her hair around his fingers. ‘Drink or nerves.’

‘Evie’s usually pretty good at keeping calm.’

‘That’s brides for you. Shouldn’t do it.’ In the dim light of the taxi’s interior, he examined the hair trapped in his fingers. ‘Met a chap from New York. Interesting, he was.’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘I could eat you.’

She allowed him to slip his arm around her and to draw her in close to him. ‘My Jasmine,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘Beautiful Jas. You smell like heaven.’ She put a hand on his thigh and he covered it with his. ‘Do you remember Rome? Our first weekend?’

He had undressed her in the hotel room, which was shrouded in thick dark green curtains, off the Via Giulia, poured brandy into a couple of tumblers and announced, ‘We’ve got all day.’

It had been nice. Actually, much, much better than nice.

He looked up at her through half-closed lids. ‘Since we didn’t get to see much of Rome, I thought we’d revisit.’ He walked his fingers up her thigh. ‘See some things this time.’

How long was it now? Three years, but Duncan and she still did not live together. She tallied up their arrangement. She spent at least two nights a week in her flat, warming up pea and ham soup and pressing her office clothes. Very often she was out on business entertainment. Very often he was out doing deals.

The taxi slowed, and she squinted at the big catalpa tree growing through the pavement; it added much-needed grace to the cityscape. In every love affair, the partners absorbed a bit of their other half – which should make her easier-going and more humorous.
Very
necessary, she acknowledged.
You must lighten up, my Jas.
Would he ever understand that life was a serious business? You only had one, it was fleeting and, therefore, should be explored with diligence and effort.

Should she move on?

Night thoughts were so lurid, and night decisions tended to be extreme.

She turned her head to look at him. He was gazing at her through the alcohol. Lust (good) was mixed with greedy anticipation (fine). But she couldn’t imagine that she was the main focus of Duncan’s thoughts. Not in the way he was in hers. Now, or in the future.

‘What’s the matter, Jas? Rome not an option?’

‘Yes, it is. It’s very much an option.’

Actually, she couldn’t wait. To walk down the Capitoline Hill was to walk in Caesar’s footsteps. To watch the feral cats stalking around Torre Argentina was to witness a sight as old as the city. And to stand inside St Peter’s with Duncan, as she had done once with Lara, in front of
Michangelo’s
Pietà
was to be in the presence of emotion and artistry beyond anything she had ever seen before or since.

She captured his hand and pressed down on the pulse at the wrist. So soft, so precarious.

‘I love you, Jas,’ said Duncan.

‘And I love you, you stubborn person.’

‘Hey …’ His lips pressed the spot at the base of her throat – and she caught her breath in a sudden rush of tenderness.

‘Hey,’ she echoed.

‘My beauty, my lover, my friend … Jas.’

‘Yes.’ For a moment, she was supremely happy. Then she recollected he was extremely drunk. ‘All that.’

She leaned forwards, tapped on the partition and instructed the driver to drop her at her road.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’

‘Going home.’

He struggled upright. ‘That’s not in the script.’

She kissed him on the lips. ‘You’re too drunk and I’d like some peace.’

He bit into her top lip – and desire danced through the taxi. ‘Witch. Don’t go. Please. Put the broomstick away.’

She laughed. ‘You’ll just have to manage.’ With some difficulty, because of her short, tight skirt, she got out of the cab and instructed the driver to take Duncan home.

Shivering, she watched it disappear.

As the spring advanced, Lara’s plans to expand the practice pushed ahead. There were problems and there were moments of clarity. Nothing new.

First, she suggested to Robin that they go into partnership and he asked for time to consider the proposal. He sent an email:

Dear Lara, I nearly wrote Dear Sweet Lara, but this is business. I have thought hard about the idea and I’m going to say no to the partnership. But I’m here if you ever need back-up …

She wrote back:

What you mean is you don’t like to be tied down?

The reply to that was

What do you think … ?

At that, she executed one of those (retrospectively) blush-making manoeuvres and whipped on to the Internet for a little light research. Then:

‘A mind strange and dark, full of depressions and exultations’. Would that be you?

Have you just pinched that from the potted Lawrence of Arabia?

Now, why would I do that?

(She had.)

Because …

Do you really not wish to be tied down?

Ask me another time.

OK.

P.S. It’s not so much depressions and exultations, although they are there. It’s the photo in your head which you can’t control

he wrote.

Flashback.

Holding Louis.

For the first and last time.

When they next met, Robin bought her a bunch of pink and black tulips and laid them in her lap. ‘Homage to a May queen,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘That’s a first. But thank you.’

‘I’ve just been in the country and the bluebells are out,’ he said. ‘They look wonderful under silver birches.’

To her surprise, his words pressed a switch and she could picture the scene. Spikes of sunlight shooting between white and silver trunks on to the mass of blue below …

She cupped the head of the blackest black tulip in her palm.

‘The swallows have arrived, too. But not the swifts yet. It’s always a race for them to get here before they drop from exhaustion.’

Water from the tulips seeped on to her lap. ‘How do the birds know where to go?’

He shrugged. ‘GPS?’

She laughed.

Then Lara expressed her regret at his decision.

He replied, ‘You’ll probably thank me in the end. But use me. Ruthlessly. I have a couple of suggestions. People you might like to consider as partners.’

She took him at his word.

Together they roughed out a timetable for (a) recruitment, (b) finding an office to lease, (c) the launch of the practice in the autumn after the wedding.

She took on extra patients, one of whom was Kirsty, a middle-aged woman, still pretty but overweight. ‘I
need
to lose weight,’ she told Lara. ‘I work in a world where it matters.’

‘So why don’t you?’ asked Lara. ‘What are the reasons?’

‘That’s the thing. I don’t understand. I want to lose
weight more than anything in the world, but I can’t seem to make myself do it.’ Kirsty’s eyes filled and Lara pushed the box of tissues across the table towards her. ‘One minute you’re the bride – a
microscopically
thin bride – the next you’re secretly buying industrial-sized bras on the Internet and you’re an object of revulsion, even to yourself.’

As the plans began to shape up – plans that included an additional practitioner to help with the financial and administrative load – Lara grew increasingly optimistic. ‘The practice recognizes,’ she wrote in her preliminary draft of the literature, ‘that a fulfilling life is not one of unalloyed happiness. No amount of wisdom can give us that. But if you are comfortable with yourself, you can help yourself to the world’s possibilities. We will work with our patients to help them to live serenely with themselves.’