Daughters (38 page)

Soon it would be autumn, and then the slog of winter.

Bill brushed more dead drones on to the ground and
glanced up at Jasmine. ‘A lot of water’s gone under the bridge … That’s one of the things one has to accept.’

She bit her lip.

The next moment he surprised her. Gesturing to the marquee, he said, ‘By the way, Jas, I’m sure your turn will be next.’ He took her hand. ‘I suspect you might be feeling not so much sore as a little relegated. Please don’t. Your time will come.’

The well-meant words had punctuated her careful calm and the fiction of not mourning Duncan that she had invested in. Of course she mourned him.
Fool
. With tears sliding down her cheeks, she found herself running along the bank of the stream in the direction of the rotting landing-stage. Here, she slipped down on to the bank. The level of the stream had dropped, and on the cracked mud opposite there was a dried-up entrance to a den. Water vole?

Fool.

Relegated she was not.

Sad, angry, disappointed, at the end of one phase, and at the beginning of life without Duncan – those things she was.

The White Boar Hotel (‘approx. five miles from Middleford’, ran Eve’s notes) had been commandeered by the Russell family and friends. It had passed Eve’s inspection and ticked the right boxes: décor, service, location. Rightly so, Lara thought, inspecting the vast, comfortable bed and marble bathroom. She hung up her wedding outfit in a wardrobe that was equipped for every contingency with an iron, shoe-cleaning kit, anti-moth sachets and trouser press.

However, the prospect from the large window was of a clipped, repressed garden. No one, she thought, gains nourishment from such a constipated design, and sat on her resentment that she was not at Membury.

She was conscious of the minutes passing. After much debate, the timetable for tomorrow had been set out with military precision: wedding 4.30; reception 5.45; dinner 7.30; dancing 9 p.m. onwards.

It was about the only aspect of the wedding that was clear.

Up at Membury, all was movement, a swirling, slightly panicky but choreographed flow of people between the house and the marquee. Lara let herself in by the kitchen door to discover the kitchen was a wasteland of dirty
china, saucepans and abandoned dusters. She found an apron and set about restoring some order.

‘Thank God for you,’ said Sarah, from the doorway. ‘Hello, Lara. Have you seen Mrs Baker? I’ve had a row with her but I need her back.’

Lara sloshed hot water into a glass. ‘No. What about?’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘The hydrangeas, for God’s sake.’

‘Oh.’ Lara nodded sagely. ‘I see.’

‘You are a darling,’ said Sarah, and disappeared again. She reappeared with a pile of towels. ‘You couldn’t take these upstairs, could you? The flower-girls’ room.’

Lara wiped her hands. ‘I’m here to be ordered around.’

‘You’re a double darling.’ Sarah blew her a kiss.

When she had taken possession of the house, Sarah had made it clear she and Bill had enough money only to redecorate the ground floor. The bedrooms would have to wait. And here, upstairs, the unfussy bachelor past of Sarah’s great-uncle Gurley was still evident in the dull paintwork, worn carpets and warped casement windows. If the house could be said to possess a personality, this part of it was resigned, patient and utilitarian.

The door to the master bedroom was open. A moth to the flame, she was drawn towards it. A large bed was covered with a blue and white striped quilt and the curtains were made of the same material. Bill had chucked a sweater – the grey one she had noticed he favoured – on to the bed. A pair of his shoes roosted in the corner, and Sarah’s necklaces were draped from a hanger hooked to the mirror. It was a peaceful scene with none of the turbulence of the days when Bill had shared with Lara.

Part of what she saw – the Bill part – was intimately familiar.

Someone once said that remembered electricity was the worst sort – all the shock and no light. They were right.

She backed away.

In the flower-girls’ room the dresses, which were encased in plastic bags, hung in descending size order from the dado rail. Underneath them were ranged their sandals, in boxes. On the bed, ribbon sashes in creamy white had been laid out under tissue paper.

Lara remained motionless.

Life was suspended here. It waited to be called from the wings and to step on to the stage. Then the dresses would take their shape and the shoes would be filled.

‘Lara.’ Andrew put his head around the door.

She started.

‘I saw you go upstairs. I’d like to talk to you.’

No customary kiss, and his usual affable expression had vanished. Instead, he looked as she imagined he might do during a big deal – unyielding. ‘I feel we should sort things out between us.’

She glanced out into the passageway. Walls had ears. ‘That’s interesting. This is the eve of your wedding and you want to discuss our relationship.’

He kept his cool – as she would have expected. ‘It’s important.’ He moved into the room and began to inspect the dresses hanging like so many portraits from their rail. ‘Eve has impeccable taste. It’s one of the things I admire in her.’

Lara recollected the old wives’ tale. ‘You aren’t supposed to see these before the wedding.’

‘We can do without the old superstitions.’

‘But not the old virtues.’ The words had flashed out before she could consider them.

‘Lara, Eve told me about your conversation with her.’ He winced. ‘It did a lot of damage.’

‘Without doubt,’ she said. ‘But so did you.’

‘Perhaps.’ Andrew leaned on the windowsill. ‘Lara, I’d like us to reach an understanding.’

A consulting room, such as hers, was an arena rife with deceptions and counter-feints. Many times clients faced her and declared they wanted to talk about apples. And they talked about apples up to a point, but they knew, and so did she, they wanted to talk about pears.

She would push Andrew to talk about pears. ‘Andrew, why don’t we tackle the real issue? Fern. Tell me about Fern.’

‘No.’

‘Fine.’ Lara made for the door.

He longed to talk, of that she was pretty certain. Most people wanted to master their significant experiences. With some people it took time and many forms. Dreams, nightmares, long conversations. Therapy.

‘OK.’ He had made a decision. ‘Fern and I did have an affair, some time back. It wasn’t important.’

That was a wriggle statement, of a kind Lara was quite used to. ‘“It wasn’t important” has a habit of becoming the opposite.’

Andrew returned to his inspection of the dresses. But
it was obvious he wasn’t really seeing them. ‘At the time, it was quite intense. Then we broke up and I met Eve.’ She noted the body language: stiff shoulders and over-emphatic gestures. ‘It was finished. Then we bumped into each other again.’

Pretty girl in the office. Perhaps Andrew had been her boss. Trysts in corridors. Text messages … Lots of them, filling the spaces in the day. Incendiary looks in a meeting. The hotel room – almost certainly a cheap one – irradiated with incandescent feelings. Very powerful and potent, the office thing. What a mix of emotions it yielded – yearnings, apprehensions, the battle between what was right and the lust. Then the moment when he says, ‘It’s over,’ and she fights back: ‘You can’t do that.’

Lara had listened to the scenario many, many times. It was a simple one but its outcome was not always predictable. That was one of its problems.

Andrew was wearing a shabby T-shirt and jeans – not the sort of thing she had imagined he would wear. They chimed with his expression of sadness and regret, which she recognized only too well. But, above all, he looked baffled. He could not understand why he had allowed his careful plans to be undermined, or why he had allowed himself to become deflected. She felt a sliver of sympathy.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘This is hard because you can’t resolve these feelings in the way you resolve your work problems. They’re not tidy and they won’t be put into neat boxes.’

He shrugged.

‘Andrew, what are you doing marrying Eve?’

Bending down, he picked up the tiniest sandal from its box and held it out. ‘If the shoe fits. Eve and I fit.’

‘Have you discussed Fern with Eve?’

‘We’ve talked.’

‘Did you tell her the truth?’

Stonewall. ‘We talked.’

Anxiety made her extra sharp. ‘Andrew, I’ve no idea what was said, nor should I. Strange bargains are struck between people, and are successful. But the bargain has to be what suits Eve and you.’

‘You know Eve. Would she be marrying me if she had any worries? She accepts that Fern is in my past.’ The tissue paper rustled as he replaced the sandal in its box. ‘Have you considered, Lara? Eve’s got what she wanted. A house, me, a life together.’ He glanced away. ‘She told me that was what she wanted.’

She noted the order. ‘But she wouldn’t want Fern.’

No answer.

A suspicion crept into her mind. ‘You haven’t told her the whole truth, have you?’ Andrew was silent. ‘How can you say you love her?’

‘By sparing her,’ he said. ‘From me.’

Lara raised an eyebrow.

‘Of course, I care about Eve,’ Andrew said. ‘
Very
much.’

The manner in which the words dropped stiffly, almost formally, told Lara everything.

‘Poor Andrew,’ Lara said, as the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. ‘You fell in love with Fern. You didn’t expect to, but you did.’

Could Andrew explain to himself the fears and
electric hopes? The exhilaration and the excitement? The moments of ecstasy … pin sharp for being stolen? Probably not.

(She couldn’t.)

‘Why didn’t you choose Fern? If you love her, you should have done. Would that not have been more honest?’

‘Stop it, Lara.’

The atmosphere in the bedroom had become stifling and hostile. Various expressions chased over his features. Then, suddenly, Andrew’s guard dropped.

‘I can’t deny I loved Fern … love her, since we’re being honest …’ He spoke passionately, poignantly, in a way he never talked about Eve. ‘But I don’t agree with you. Eve and I suit each other better. In the long term.’

Lara glanced out of the window. The figures of the caterers and florists were moving like ants in a steady stream between the parked vans and the marquee.

He pointed to the ants. ‘You see? It’s all been set in train.’ He fell silent. Then he added, ‘Eve and I understand the form. Lots of people wouldn’t, perhaps, but we do.’

‘You can’t hold to it very hard if you’ve been seeing Fern.’ He shrugged and looked away, but not before she had glimpsed agony and regret. ‘Does anyone else know about Fern?’ she asked.

‘No.’

She didn’t believe him. ‘For Eve’s sake, you must see to it that people don’t talk.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘You
owe
her that.’ She added harshly: ‘The form, Andrew.’

He threw Lara a glance of dislike.

She didn’t blame him. ‘I’m sorry … It didn’t work out the way you thought. But if you
have
chosen this way, which you seem to have done, you’ll have to stick to it.’

He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘It hurts Lara. It
hurts.
’

On the sunken lawn below the marquee the fireworks supervisor tried out a catherine wheel. Andrew and Lara watched as the sparks spluttered and faded.

‘Andrew, you will be there tomorrow?’

At dinner at the White Boar (7.30 p.m., as per Eve’s instructions), the guests divided up into camps. The bride’s at the White Boar and the groom’s at the Turnpike at the other end of town.

Afterwards Lara drove Eve and Jasmine back to Membury. The two girls chatted softly, with Jasmine occasionally asking her a question, but otherwise Lara kept silent. The day had been warm and dry, and a few streaks of late-summer lightning twitched across the sky.

At the steps to the front door, she kissed them goodnight. Eve unyielding and unfriendly. Jasmine holding her close. ‘Wish you were staying up here with us.’

‘So do I. But Sarah and your father have quite enough on their plates.’

Jasmine clattered up the steps with Eve following.

‘Eve,’ Lara begged. ‘Don’t be like this.’

‘Like what exactly, Lara? Like a bride who has been told by her mother –
step
mother actually, the one person she thought she could trust – that her groom is playing away?’

‘You’ve sorted things out with Andrew?’

Fitfully illuminated by the light over the door, Eve’s expression was unreadable. ‘Take a guess, Lara.’ She turned and ran up behind Jasmine.

‘I’m going down to look at the marquee,’ Lara called, before the front door shut. ‘Tell Sarah and your father I’m not a burglar.’

Shaken and sad, she wandered through the darkening garden. She smelt tobacco – probably one of the caterers smoking a cigarette – and could hear the murmur of voices outside the marquee. Another streak of lightning against the dark curtain of the sky. Down by the stream a fox barked, sharp and feral, followed by the splash of an animal into the water.

A sufficiency of work, family and peace was all that was needed to live life – and to live it properly. And yet when she was in a night garden such as this one, her senses quickened and demanded more. Anyone’s would.

As she turned the corner into the sunken garden, she gave a cry of surprise. The marquee appeared like a great white illuminated ship floating above it.

Inside, a couple of the florists were putting the final touches to the columns – waterfalls of orange blossom and the creamiest, most ruffled of roses. One of the caterers, who had an apron wrapped around her middle, was adjusting the position of the tables with the help of a diagram. ‘Katie,’ she called, as she juggled the last one. ‘Katie!’ Levering herself upright, she rubbed swollen fingers.

‘Long day,’ said Lara.

‘Long day,’ she agreed.

‘Can I help?’

The woman gave a tired smile. ‘All done, thank you.’

The lights from the marquee streamed out over the garden and lit mysterious paths into the garden’s dark heart. Lara hovered at the entrance. Having warmed the earth, the day’s sun drew out a medley of scents – dust, a hint of rose, the spices of lavender and box. It was an extraordinarily rich mix of texture and sensation, a swoony, dreaming softness, she thought, in which to drown.