Daughters (32 page)

‘You and Nick.’ Jasmine dunked a camomile teabag into the boiling water. ‘What’s so terrible about that?’

Maudie went quite still. ‘Someone took a photo while we were at it. In the garden.’

‘Not brilliant, but –’

‘It was Tess. My best friend, Tess.’ She enunciated the name as if it burned her mouth. ‘She thought it was a big joke. She thought I would think it was funny. She sent the photo to everyone in the class.’ Maudie’s eyes were the stormiest Jasmine had ever seen. ‘She’s sorry, of course, really sorry, but that isn’t … I just can’t believe she would think like that.’

‘Well, that’s one friend who won’t be visiting you at Harvard.’

Maudie said, through gritted teeth, ‘How
could
she? We were … you know?’

‘Sweetie, I’m good without the details.’

‘The whole class … the whole frigging world will pore over it.’ She grimaced. ‘Slapper, slut, you name it.’

Jasmine sat down opposite Maudie. ‘Actually, is it very bad?’

Suddenly Maudie grinned. ‘If you call me with my prom dress up around my waist bad, then yes.’

‘So this thing with Nick goes on.’

‘That’s the strange thing, Jas. I thought it had finished. I’d absolutely decided. I told him to go and then …’ Maudie shrugged. She raised her eyes to her sister. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? In the end, I’ve found it hard. I mean, I thought I had it all worked out. I thought I had everything straight in my mind. But I’m not sure I have.’

‘The photo,’ said Jasmine.

‘Gross,’ said Maudie, pitifully.

Gross
, Jasmine thought, with a shudder of extreme empathy. ‘OK, they’ve seen you
in flagrante
. Look on the bright side, it was only bits of you. Apart from loyalty, delicacy and privacy issues, it won’t matter in the long run unless you decide to be a film star or a politician. Tess might have to rethink a bit, though.’

Maudie’s fists clenched. ‘How could she?’

Jasmine kept up the bracing approach. ‘I bet everyone else is doing the same, and quite a few of them have been papped. Yes? They’ve all seen worse?’

There was a case for a moral pep talk – treat your body and your emotions responsibly, don’t make yourself cheap – and there was a case for shutting down that line. ‘Bet the others were envious. Gorgeous you. Gorgeous him.’ Maudie didn’t reply but she was listening. ‘Put it down to experience and, by the way, how many of the class are you going to keep up with? The ones you do will be your real friends. To them, it won’t matter.’

Maudie’s eyes were dark with distress. ‘I can’t bear that they saw something so … private.’

‘Maudie, you idiot. If you really felt that, you shouldn’t have done it in the garden. What were you thinking?’ Oh, Lord, she was beginning to sound like Lara. ‘Yes, people will talk till such time as
they
do something stupid. Then they’ll only be thinking about themselves. Trust me. People are mostly interested in themselves. The trick is to disguise it, but some people can’t and some people don’t, and at least you know where you are with them. That photo will not be important in the long run.’

Maudie considered. ‘Thanks, Jas.’

‘You look half starved. Would you like something?’

Maudie nodded. ‘Haven’t eaten all day.’

Keeping a weather eye on the thin, hunched, angry figure, she made them a sandwich. ‘Eat,’ she said at last, putting it in front of Maudie.

Maudie ate a mouthful. ‘Jassy, you know what we talked about before – what I saw in the hotel. I’ve been thinking. We should tell Eve.’

This business with Andrew was everywhere, stealing through the family ether. ‘I’m thinking it over,’ she answered. ‘But, whatever, I don’t think you should be involved. OK? All you need do is to keep silent.’

‘It’s changed things, hasn’t it?’

‘If it’s true, yes.’

‘Even if it isn’t,’ said Maudie. ‘We feel differently.’ Jasmine nodded. ‘Does Eve know?’ she pressed on. ‘Does she suspect? Even a tiny bit?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jasmine hesitated.

‘What do you think about Andrew?’

I want to
kill him for Eve … for destroying our illusions
. She chose to show moderation. ‘Let’s not say anything for the moment,’ she said. ‘It could get out of hand.’

‘The stupid thing is,’ Maudie sounded bewildered, ‘it’s made me feel I should be here for the wedding. I know Eve and I don’t get on that well but it would be like abandoning her.’

‘That’s ridiculous, Maudie.’

Maudie ate another mouthful. ‘I know. But there it is.’

Eve’s email:

Final, final guest list. Meet Sunday. Membury.

The message was bald, with no greeting and no signature.

Apart from the rehearsal nearer the date, it would be one of their last meetings at Membury. Lara could only feel relief. The whole thing – the wedding, the emotions, the politics – was becoming alarming. Everyone involved was on an ice rink struggling to keep themselves upright.

On their way down, she and Maudie drove past swathes of Queen Anne’s lace clumped in the hedges. The sight never failed to lift her spirits. In the fields there were ox-eye daisies and poppies. It seemed so fresh and vivid and, if she permitted herself to be fanciful, expectant.

Stowed in the car boot were thirty square glass vases. Eve had bought them from Covent Garden Flower Market for Lara to transport down. ‘I got up at dawn,’ she had said coldly, when she handed them over to Lara. Intended as centrepieces for the dining tables in the marquee, apparently no other design would do. They chimed with Eve’s colour scheme – the concept – and were to be filled with the white and green hydrangeas which had
been promoted over the chocolate cosmos of Eve’s original vision.

Maudie was quiet.

‘What are you thinking about?’ She knew her daughter. ‘Are you worried about America?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘We must go through the checklist.’ What would the house be like when Maudie went? Sound like? Feel like? ‘It’s only a few weeks. Clothes. All the paperwork. Et cetera.’

Maudie twisted a lock of hair between her fingers. ‘Mum, what if I stayed for the wedding?’

Astonished, she took her eyes off the road. ‘Maudie, I don’t know what to say. Would it be wise to miss freshmen’s week?’

‘Um,’ she said. ‘Tell me if I’m wrong but I thought you wanted me to stay.’

‘That was then.’

Lara had made the wrong response (more than likely) or Maudie had had second thoughts about the conversation: ‘Actually, Mum, drop it. OK?’

At Membury – so scented, so awakened, so foamy with colour – a stony-faced Eve, who had come down earlier, offered Lara the barest of greetings. In virtual silence, they unloaded the vases and stowed them in the outhouse by the garage.

‘What’s up with the bride?’ hissed Maudie.

‘Don’t know,’ Lara lied.

‘Yes, you do.’ Maudie seemed uncharacteristically agitated.

‘Listen,’ Lara threaded her fingers through Maudie’s hair and tugged gently, ‘the run-up to a wedding is never comfortable. Things get said, tempers are short. There are misunderstandings.’

Maudie flashed back, ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, then.’

Lara laughed.

Maudie permitted Lara to pat her hair back into place. ‘So you think everything’s OK with Eve?’

After a tiny pause, Lara said, ‘Yes,’ with all the conviction she could muster, and went to find Bill.

Looking tanned and comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt, he was working on a flowerbed in the sunken lawn. At her approach he straightened up. ‘You look well,’ she told him.

‘I am,’ he replied. ‘Particularly as I plan to stay here while you lot thrash everything out.’

‘I hope Sarah’s not still angry.’

‘You’ll have to ask her.’ He leaned on the garden fork. ‘How was your Syrian trip?’

She shaded her eyes. ‘Loved it.’

‘Thought you might.’

He bent over to shave off a sliver of box with the pruning shears. ‘Is Robin a serious thing?’

Even a short while ago he wouldn’t have asked, and she wouldn’t have answered. ‘I don’t know. Yet.’

He didn’t pursue the subject.

‘It’s lovely here, Bill.’ Having long since shed its blossoms, the witch hazel had retreated into being an ordinary shrub shrouded in its niche by the wall. A bee the size of
a small aircraft was foraging in a clump of wild borage, its flowers an intense blue. The myrtle tree was coming into flower. She thought she could smell jasmine.

He straightened up. ‘Pass me the trug, will you?’ He rubbed at a swollen red patch on his forearm.

She did so. ‘Is your arm OK?’

‘Bee sting.’

She thought of a broken, grieving Bill, of cradling Louis while her heart disintegrated.

I told you.

You wouldn’t listen.

She shoved her hands into her pockets.

Each of the plants growing here had survived winter, flouting death, botanical mistakes and reproductive sins. They were worth thinking about. Each petal of the rose that strained at the calyx, each spike of lavender, every spicy leaf of rosemary had triumphed over its earlier extinction.

‘It’s lovely,’ she repeated.

‘I know.’

‘Bill, we have to talk about Maudie. She’s doing a back flip and offering to stay for the wedding. I don’t think it’s sensible. What do you think?’

Bill gave his slow smile. ‘I haven’t heard you ask my opinion for years.’

She laughed. ‘I am now.’

Bill held out a pair of filthy hands. ‘I agree with you, it’s probably not a good thing. I’ll talk to her.’

‘Go carefully.’

‘As carefully as you, Lara.’

She pursued her lips. ‘OK. Tell me I’ve made a pig’s ear.’

‘You’ve made a pig’s ear,’ he repeated, teasing and affectionate. ‘Which god ordained that the modern nuptial should be so complicated?’

‘I thought you were all for it.’

‘I am. But I feel rather chastened by it all.’

Again she laughed. ‘So do I.’

He rubbed the thumb of one hand over the forefinger of the other – a habit she used to know well. ‘Since, in the teeth of sense and financial prudence, we’re giving Eve this wedding, do you want to come and see the exact site of the marquee?’

Later, Lara perched on the terrace on a garden chair, its rush pattern impressing imprints on to her thighs. She caught sight of her ex-husband trundling a wheelbarrow heaped with compost between flowerbeds. He seemed happy. No, he
was
happy.

On the table between them was a stack of invitations wrapped in virgin tissue paper.

Eve was at her briskest. Avoiding Lara’s eye, she handed out lists of names and addresses to her mother and Sarah. ‘Have I missed anyone?’

Unlike Bill, Sarah was not happy. She placed her list on the table. ‘I have to say something. I know I should brush it under the carpet, but I can’t. I feel I haven’t been treated fairly.’

Eve flushed. ‘Sarah, I’m so sorry, but the numbers are tight. I’d hoped I’d explained.’

With some dignity, Sarah said, ‘This is my house and
I think I should be able to invite my brother and his wife.’

Admirable Sarah. ‘Eve,’ said Lara. ‘Let’s reconsider.’

Eve paid Lara no attention. ‘Sarah, we agreed.’

Sarah said, ‘Yes, but … how
do
I fit into all this? I have a right to ask.’ Her normally equable expression had been replaced by an angry one. ‘We’ve had this discussion before. But a wedding belongs to the whole unit because it affects the whole unit.’

‘While we’re on the subject of the whole unit …’ Maudie hooked her leg over the arm of the chair and let her foot dangle. A thumb moved at the speed of light over her phone.

‘Maudie,’ said Eve. ‘Can’t you stop that?’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Can’t, shan’t and won’t,’ said Lara. ‘Thought you’d both grown up.’

Maudie abandoned the texting. ‘You’re right.’ She unhooked her leg and knelt down, mock fashion, in front of her sister. ‘Eve, I’ve been thinking … I’ve been thinking hard. Please may I be your bridesmaid after all?’

‘Don’t tease,’ said Eve, slipping an invitation into an envelope and writing ‘Mr and Mrs C. Spall’ on it. ‘There’s no need either to make it sound like martyrdom.’

‘I mean it.’ Maudie clambered back to her feet.

Sarah said, ‘We’ve haven’t finished our discussion.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said Lara, her attention fixed on Maudie. ‘Maudie, that would mean you missing almost the whole of freshmen’s week. Not a good idea.’

Eve went very still.

Maudie addressed Eve from her great height. ‘Eve, I know you’ve been put out and I’m sorry. But I can be here. I don’t have to go.’

‘Of course I want you at my wedding.’

‘Maudie,’ said Lara, desperately.

Here Sarah intervened: ‘Maudie, have you thought this through?’

Lara turned to Eve. ‘I don’t know what to say but …’ It was as if all the years of her intimacy with her stepdaughter had never taken place – it was as if she was talking to a stranger.

Eve said coldly, ‘Lara, I’m sure you’ll do what’s best for Maudie.’

Buoyed up by sacrifice – something she was not in the habit of practising – Maudie loped over the lawn towards her father. She could never resist the sound of pigeons in the trees and stopped to listen.

Nick.

Looking up into the branches, she experienced the slight nausea she felt whenever she thought of the prom night. Drink, music, their quarrel, the intense sensations of sex as they made it up, night air on her shamelessly bare skin. The photo.

Nick had been so stupid, so angry, and then so wild – and she had loved every minute of it. ‘It’s Alicia who’s pushing you to do this,’ he said. ‘Why can’t you be ordinary? Why do you let her organize your life?’

‘Nobody pushes me,’ she said, a finger pressing into his smooth chest. ‘So take that back.’

She thought of the hours Alicia had spent outlining the possibilities for her life, coaching her, giving her courage. The born teacher and mentor. One day, maybe, following Alicia’s example, Maudie might do the same for someone else. Whatever, she was pretty sure Alicia would not approve of her missing freshmen’s week –
Sentimentality is weakness, Maudie.