Daughters (34 page)

‘You asleep, Maudie?’

‘No.’

‘Soon be there.’ Her mother stepped on the accelerator. ‘If you’re worried at all – I mean, about coping – we can talk it through.’ The hands on the wheel tightened. ‘You can talk about anything. I’m listening.’

Was her mother trying to prove something? Struggling to throw a hoop over the right peg?

Skin taut around the knuckles, set of the mouth both determined and tremulous, hair as untidy as her own … Lara was the only mother she was going to have.

‘Mum, I’ve had it up to here with Dad,’ she confessed.

‘And we must talk about that. But later.’

Maudie continued, ‘But I wanted to tell you that you’ve done a good job.’

Her mother turned her head sharply. ‘What job?’

‘Bringing me up. I know you worry yourself sick about us all, but I’m fine, you know. You’ve told me what’s what, and I’ve taken it on board.’ She stared ahead. ‘You did a good job as my mother.’

Lara gave a muffled gasp. A tear slipped down her cheek. ‘Oh, Maudie.’

‘Don’t say it isn’t true.’

Her mother glanced at her as if she was about to contradict her. But she thought better of it.

‘Thought you should know,’ said Maudie.

Jasmine was on a plane to San Diego (named after St Didacus, population approaching 1.5 million).

As was her custom, as soon as she boarded she flipped her watch to west-coast time and settled down to sleep for the first five hours. Then she roused herself (which she always did, however lousy she felt), ate the breakfast rolls she had brought on board, and began a day’s work.

It was one way of dealing with jet-lag.

Travelling with her was her boss, Jason. Over the years, they had been frequent travelling companions and, after they had sorted out any misunderstandings (Jason had once turned up at her hotel bedroom only to be smartly dismissed), they’d got along fine.

They landed in mid-afternoon. It was a hot, blue-skied
day and her spirits lifted through the fog of fatigue. (Clearly, her routine hadn’t worked so well, this time around.)

Their hotel was comfortable and had a first-class restaurant on the fourth floor. Jason (naturally) insisted they ate there. This they did the following evening after a hard day’s work, putting the final touches in place for the pitch, and after Jasmine had phoned the company to check the timetable still held.

‘There’s an uneasy feel.’ Jasmine speared a piece of chicken flambéed in brandy on her fork. ‘Everyone’s jumpy.’

Jason nodded sagely and necked some of the very fine Californian Chablis.

In her bedroom, the maid had turned down the sheets and left a chocolate on the pillow. On the desk by the window there was writing paper, brochures advertising the city’s delights and a pledge by the management to be as eco-friendly as possible.

The drapes at the window were thick and muffled the street noises as she lay trying to sleep. She thought about Duncan. His habit of lying back on the pillows, his hands behind his head. The line of hair running down his abdomen, silky and soft. His way of reaching for her just as she was falling asleep. All that … and his refusal to front up to the question of Andrew. What did that evasion mean? Possibly nothing. But possibly a lot.

She was still furious with Duncan. But she was also furious with Andrew, and the two were in danger of becoming muddled. Whatever, she had to admit that the
image she had cherished of Duncan and carried with her had changed. How to describe it? She felt as if she had
lost
the urgent necessity to love him and to keep him.

The idea felt cold and strange.

The following morning there were two messages from Duncan.

She ignored them.

On her way to the meeting, Duncan called. He launched in: ‘When you come home we have to talk.’

We have to talk.
She almost giggled. It was the phrase most men ran a mile to avoid. She hunched a shoulder to keep the phone in place and got into the taxi. ‘I think we do.’

‘I left messages.’

‘And?’

‘I didn’t want you to think that out of sight was out of mind.’ He said it so sweetly that her heart jumped. ‘And I miss you. And could you come home soon?’

At the pitch she found herself talking to a roomful of executives exuding a peachy, healthy glow – the by-product of fresh orange juice and multi-vitamins. ‘If you’re asking, “Why the Branding Company?” we answer that we are a multi-national company ranging over the cyber borders …’ And as she talked, she felt her powers surge to full throttle. The audience was attentive, and she ratcheted up her presentation yet another notch.

After her slot, Jason took them through the process of gestation. He told them that, as a fibre-optic company, they were responsible for bringing the world closer. Literally, they pulled borders together, advanced understanding
and had become a necessity. From the early fibre-optic cables laid under the sea to the current state-of-the-art lines, those who worked with them had shaped the new worlds. With fibre-optics, people could see – they were the all-seeing eye of myth and legend …

He stepped aside. Flashed up on the screen was the logo of a stylized eye. ‘This eye is the eternal eye.’ Jasmine took up the slack – the routine was well rehearsed. ‘You will see it in Ancient Egyptian tombs and the CCTV camera in our streets. It is old, it is new. It is timeless …’

There was a lot more.

‘I think we’re in with a chance,’ said Jason later, in the waterside café over a salad and fruit juice. ‘I’ve had a call.’

She glanced at her watch. Eight hours before the flight home. ‘Can we debrief later? I’m about to go. A dive, a shortish one. Are you OK to abandon?’

He shuddered faintly. ‘I’ll take the ferry over to the island. I shall think of you as I sit on the beach.’

On application to the diving-expedition company, Jasmine had been offered the choice of diving in Wreck Alley or La Jolla Cove. Wreck Alley was named because of the ships sunk there to attract marine life but she had plumped for La Jolla Cove with its reef caves and kelp forests.

They were a full complement in the boat that headed for the cove. Jasmine strapped on her diving watch and adjusted her flippers. The instructor briefed them carefully, issued them with a number and a buddy, then said, ‘As you know, it’s not the season for grey whales. But
there are sharks.’ He paused for extra emphasis. ‘And you guys all know that it’s forbidden to touch the reef. OK.’

The sea enfolded her like a silken skin.

Down she went, her dive buddy just behind her.

It was a moment of release, so profound, so intense that it was impossible to describe.

A previous wind had stirred up the water and the disturbed sand still drifted over the kelp, rock and reef. A sea garden. The water was blue, light-filled, but hazy. She gave the thumbs-up to her buddy. They had been warned that, in some places, the bottom dropped from twenty feet to over a thousand and they steered away from it.

First off, she spotted a grouper in his hide. Then a couple of But rays, and a single Butterfly ray. The Butterfly ray was motionless on the ocean bed; only its eye twitched. Her buddy took a photo and, disturbed by this, it shot off in a cloud of sand.

A small shark glided into view. They watched it approach them head on. Suddenly it veered off and disappeared into the deeper waters.

Below her in that dreamy, rippling sea garden the kelp streamed like a bride’s veil in the wind, its shapes and form eternal and unheeding.

Her body was weightless, sexless … The relief of being so was overwhelming. There were no feminine demands here, no biological yearnings. Just existence.

Jasmine swam on through a blue, dappled world where image didn’t matter.

Time had slipped into fast forward. She wasn’t sure how.

Then again she had been frantically busy. Arranging the move into the new consulting rooms. New patients to process. Others to reassure. Last-minute wedding arrangements.

Maudie would be off in forty-eight hours.

Lara rattled around the kitchen, stowing stuff in the cupboards. She was hasty and clumsy and a saucepan fell on to the floor.

Every so often, she glanced at her mobile phone. No messages.

In the last few weeks, this had become a habit.

On the way out to work, she couldn’t make up her mind which jacket to wear. The black or the green? Did she care? Posing in front of the mirror, she found the image it reflected unsatisfactory. She pushed back her hair. Why was she looking like
that
?

She shoved her phone deep into her bag.

On the bus, she read her newspaper.

The phone appeared to burn in her bag. She ignored it.

Instead, she concentrated on the serialized extracts from the diary of a soldier currently fighting in Iraq.

12 May
. Today I shot two men. The strange thing was I couldn’t make the connection between pulling the trigger and the body which fell to the ground a second later.

4 Sept
. I had no idea what heat on a long-term basis does to you. The lads talk about fried organs. But it’s more the sensation of organs dissolving, dripping into each other. At the same time, the iron band around the head is pulled tighter.

17 Oct
. Back home. R&R. Hated it. Checked out news website every two minutes.
Why wasn’t I there?
Hated green fields and rain. Hated being cool again. Knew I didn’t belong.

Robin.

She stared out of the bus window but her head was filled with images and memories of Robin. She hadn’t planned it,
the invasion and occupation
, but it had happened.

He should have contacted her.

She wanted to ring him up and say,
You idiot. I don’t care how broken you are.

Plumper than ever, Kirsty was waiting for her at the consulting room. ‘I don’t understand,’ she plunged straight in to her old lament. ‘More than anything, I want to be thin, but I can’t do it. It’s like – like the bars of chocolate lie in wait for me. Ambush me.’

Lara opened the file. ‘You know what I’m going to say.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Kirsty had it off pat. ‘You can help me by showing me what’s going on in my stupid brain, but the only person who can help me is me.’

More than chocolate bars had ambushed Robin – any soldier who was in the field. Thoughtfully, she regarded Kirsty and strove not to let her impatience – unusual for her – register in her expression.

‘Because I can’t have them, I think about them all the time.’ Kirsty grabbed the edge of the desk. ‘Fantasize.’

Yes, she understood.

Above all, she wanted to fold Robin into her arms – as she had done that scented Damascene night and for him
to whisper into her ear the things that belonged between them.

‘Lara,’ asked Kirsty, sharply, ‘are you with me?’

As she explained to some of her more sensitive patients, empathizing with others, or feeling deeply for them, was often inconvenient. (But never wasted.)

Later she found herself trying to explain it to Maudie too.

‘I don’t understand,’ Maudie was saying. ‘I was so sure.’

They were going over her luggage in her bedroom, which was so small it could barely accommodate the bed and a chair, let alone the two of them. In summer it was often hot and airless but in winter it was freezing – not that Maudie had seemed to mind.

Maudie was checking through her books and Lara was checking Maudie’s underwear and sweaters. She let them slide through her fingers. These would lie close to her daughter’s skin. Keep her warm. Protect her.

‘Does Nick feel the same way about you?’

‘I think so.’ She slid down to the floor and sat with her back propped up by the bed. ‘I don’t have to do this. I can cancel.’

‘You can see each other in the vacations.’

‘Mum, you’re supposed to be the clear-sighted one. Once I go, it will change. You move on. Even if we could afford the flights.’

Lara took up position beside Maudie and clasped her hand. She turned it over and traced the heart line with a finger. ‘Have you talked to Tess about it?’

Maudie looked up into her face. ‘Nope.’

‘And I note you didn’t arrange a final girls’ night out with her.’

‘Nope.’

‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be inseparable to the end. Tess has been part of your life.’

Maudie’s fist clenched. ‘Things change.’ Pause. ‘Told you.’

Finger by finger, Lara unwrapped the clenched fist. ‘What will I do without you? There’ll be a big Maudie-shaped space in this house. I won’t know how to fill it. But you must go.’

Maudie chose not to understand. ‘The house is stuffed.’

True: top, bottom, eaves, with Eve’s presents and Maudie’s luggage. But the day approached when none of it would be there any longer.

‘Evie was very nice about the wedding. In the end.’ Maudie shifted about on the floor. ‘She’s even said she’ll come and see me off.’

The floor was hard and the carpet (which urgently needed renewing) strewn with fluff and bits of paper but Lara joined her. ‘I want to talk to you, Maudie.’

‘I know the facts of life, Mum. But ta for the thought.’

‘Your father.’

Maudie frowned and turned her head away.

‘The time has come to explain what happened.’

‘
What?
’

‘Listen to me.’

‘I don’t want to talk about Dad.’ Maudie sounded strained, almost tearful. ‘One day, perhaps.’ She scrambled
back to her feet and leaned on the windowsill. ‘You and I did all right. That’s enough, isn’t it?’

From her seat on the floor, Lara was not to be deflected. ‘I want you to think about something. Your father lost Mary in a terrible way.’

‘Just the two of us, Mum.’

It had been traumatic, he confessed to Lara, all those years ago. The baby had got stuck. Then Mary’s heartbeat dropped. They operated … and, afterwards, Mary haemorrhaged. And that was it …

‘Mary’s death had a terrible effect on him. You probably can’t understand that, but you must try. As a result, he didn’t want me to have babies. He didn’t want the risk.’

‘So I wasn’t wanted.’ Maudie spoke flatly, bitterly.