Daughters (42 page)

That gesture told Jasmine everything. Eve
knew
. Of course she knew. Her clever, striving sister had calculated that, if Fern was sitting miserably in a pew, it was she who was standing at the altar. Andrew was hers, and she had claimed him. That touch on her bridegroom’s hand was her validation and act of possession.

In the vestry after the service, Eve and Andrew signed the register. In his first act as a husband, Andrew folded back Eve’s veil to allow it to flow unimpeded down her back, and Jasmine prinked the hem of the dress.

The organist was working himself up for the Wedding March. Lara had tears on her cheeks. Dorothea was talking to Bill. When Jasmine handed Eve the bouquet, Eve placed her lips against her sister’s ear: ‘Get rid of her, Jas. Tell her to go from me.’

The procession re-formed, ready to return down the aisle. Duncan held out his arm to Jasmine. ‘There’s nothing for it, Jas, you’ll have to take it.’

She ignored him. Instead, she said, ‘Tell her to leave.’

‘Who?’

‘You know who I mean.’

The vicar tapped his finger against his lips.

The Wedding March sounded. Very loud and lovely.

The dinner and speeches were over and it had grown dark.

Duncan’s had been short and very funny. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I want you to know that a lot of the things you have heard today about Andrew are not true.’ He paused. ‘Andrew is not a fluent Italian speaker. Never has been. Never will be, I suspect. But for the purposes of wooing Eve he turned into Dante. This was because he is a man of strategy and does his homework. He sent me on a mission to find out about Eve, and I duly reported back that she was passionate about Italy and the opera. He began to pepper his conversation with “
allora
” and “
andiamo
”. Unfortunately … I had reported back on the wrong girl …’

Much laughter.

The lights in the marquee glowed and the candles threw their radiant glow. It stole over the tables, over the flowers, the glass dishes heaped with silver dragées and the leftover food on the plates.

Jasmine watched Eve. Smiling, confident, in charge, being led to the dance floor by Andrew and taken into his arms.

Eve had made her bed and was going to lie on it. And very good she would be at it too.

What now?

Back to work. Do better. Tell Jason that the Branding Company needed to expand in the Asian market and why didn’t they do something about it? Earn more money. Spend those two weeks on the dive. Think about whales. Dream about whales.
Do
something about whales.

‘You’re coming with me,’ said Duncan. He had snuck up behind her and laid his hand flat against her scapula, as if to leave an imprint through the dusky pink dress.

‘No.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘I’ll make a scene.’

‘No, you won’t.’

He took her hand and led her out of the marquee. Lamps had been lit by the entrance, and a row of them flanked the route down to the drive to guide guests to and from it. A few of the older ones were already drifting towards their cars.

‘I can’t hear myself
think
with that noise,’ she overheard one elderly woman say to another. ‘They must all go deaf.’

‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded of Duncan.

‘To the stream.’

‘My dress.’ She hoicked it up over her arm.

‘Never mind the dress.’

‘Typical,’ she said.

‘OK. If it’s like that.’ Duncan turned round and swept Jasmine up into his arms and strode across the lawn, bearing his pink burden.

For a second or two, she resisted. It was mad. It was romantic. It was ridiculous. But, unexpectedly, a light had burst into her life and she surrendered to it.

Down by the stream, moonlight spilled over the bank and the water shushed quietly over the hidden weed. Panting a little, he set her down. ‘Couldn’t do that for too far,’ he observed.

‘I’m not that heavy.’

‘May I point out that it wasn’t you who’s just carried you for miles.’

The beauty of the night scene, the music in the background, the warm air … the sense she had of life hidden in the water, in the plants and the undergrowth was intoxicating.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Not the music. The other things.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Precisely. But it’s there, the hidden bit of the garden.’

‘When you’ve finished …’

The material at her wrist slid silkily over her skin, and the hem rippled around her ankles. It was unlikely she would wear a dress like this ever again. But never again would she stand in a warm, moonlit garden and feel quite the same excruciating pain-pleasure of loving someone as she did Duncan.

‘How did you get rid of Fern?’ she asked.

‘I called a taxi and put her into it. I told her if she didn’t go I’d have to summon Security.’

‘Security?’

‘Well, it worked.’

‘Poor girl.’ She had probably been desperate to get one last sighting, Jasmine thought. Maybe she had reckoned that, on seeing her, Andrew would abandon his bride and they would steal off together through the golden day. Maybe Fern had had to experience the pain of watching Andrew marry someone else to finish it.

One of those scenarios? Some of them? All of them? Human motives were so layered and complicated, and she could not begin to fathom her own.

Duncan cleared his throat. ‘Jasmine, can we begin again?’

As quickly as it had arrived, the light was doused. She was behaving like a teenager after too much to drink. She was being
deeply
stupid. Seduced by the gesture. (A lovely gesture, though.)

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said.

‘Do you?’

‘You’re thinking, He’s a man made of sand
.
’ He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I want to persuade you that you’re wrong.’ His shoes making a soft shuffle in the grass, he marched up and down the bank. ‘I knew about Fern. Or, rather, I suspected. Eventually I asked Andrew what was going on. He told me the thing with Fern had taken him by storm. He was completely bewildered. He begged me to help him deal with it and get him through to the wedding. The poor bugger was doubly poleaxed because he’s so used to planning things down to the last detail, and this was a detail he hadn’t predicted. He didn’t ever not want
to marry Eve.’

She listened with bowed head. ‘Not good enough.
Not.
’

‘Things aren’t always black and white.’

She turned on him. ‘That was the cruellest of things. Of all people, Eve needs stability and fidelity, not just sexual but the total package … It’s a result of … you know, our background.’

‘Oh, yes, I do. I’m never allowed to forget it. But, Jas, you aren’t the only children who’ve had a hole rammed into their lives. The world is stuffed with them, and far worse stories.’

She watched him tramp up and down. Up and down. His form was silhouetted in the moonlight.

He stopped and swung round to face her. ‘Here’s the thing. I’ll give you those things, Jasmine. I
gave
you those things but you didn’t see it like that.’

Her heart performed a peculiar manoeuvre – as if it made to leap out of her chest, then scuttled back into position.

‘I want you back. I can’t live with you but I certainly can’t live without you, and I don’t see why the situation with Eve and Andrew should dictate what happens to us.’

‘It was other things, too,’ she said.

‘I know, and I’ve thought about it. First off, trust. You could trust me again. That’s a fact.’

Could she? Why was he answering the questions for her? He sounded so confident, so up himself, and she stifled a weary giggle. Wasn’t that just like him? Him and Andrew. Lords of the universe, both (with feet of clay).

However, that did not stop her loving him. (She would never love Andrew in a sisterly way now.) That fact was unassailable and non-negotiable. The question was: would Duncan be in her life or not?

He took both her hands in his and kissed each in turn. ‘Here’s how I see it.’

His lips fell on her starved flesh and she was amazed by the power and velocity of her physical reaction. It was as if she had been hit with a mallet. A hundred thousand stars orbited around her head.

‘Marry me, Jasmine.’

‘
What?
’

‘You heard.’

‘Marry you? But you don’t believe in it.’

He sighed heavily. ‘For you, I do.’ He pulled her to him and tipped back her head. ‘For you, Jasmine, but …’

She murmured, ‘There’s always a “but” …’

‘But I refuse to go through this pantomime.’ He gestured to the marquee. ‘If you want to marry me, if you say yes, we’ll sneak off to a register office, just you and me.’

His hands snaked up into her hair and tugged none-too-gently at it in the old way. She stared up into his face, searching. He kissed her.

It was another of those golden days.

The air was filled with seeds on the wing – dandelion, sycamore, thistle – jostling for a place and a future in next year’s cycle. Landing here, there, everywhere.

Bill was dressed in his usual shabby trousers and grey sweater, which, because it was warm, he peeled off and tied around his waist. On the terrace, Sarah was giving Robin coffee. (‘You’re a brave man,’ Lara had teased. ‘Sarah’s coffee …’)

Up to the right, the area where the marquee had been was almost healed of the scars left by its occupation. In the beds, the summer blooms of roses and lavender had been replaced by dahlias – ‘Rip City’, ‘Chat Noir’ – the deep reds and crimsons that Bill loved.

The sun was lower, forcing her to shield her eyes.

She thought of the shades of those who had lived there, and known the place as well as they knew their own hands and, because they had loved it, had left their stamp in the contour of the land.

She remembered, too, Robin coming to find her by the stream as the last wedding guests had stumbled and rolled out of the marquee. Dawn was breaking and, breathless with exhaustion but happy, she had taken off her shoes and was walking through the damp, whippy grass.

Suddenly he had come up behind her. ‘Lara?’

She’d turned … and the beat of the garden’s other life had never been louder. ‘Robin.’

He hadn’t said any more. He didn’t need to.

Bill came to a halt by the patch where the wild flowers grew. ‘What do you think?’ It was a vantage spot. It was sheltered. It needed a tree.

Her gaze swept over the lawn, down the stream and up to the house. ‘You’ll be able to see it from the house.’

‘That’s what I reckoned,’ he said.

‘Well, then.’ She smiled encouragement.

He handed Lara a spade and picked up a shovel – they had been leaning ready for use against the wall. ‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’

The spade’s handle was encrusted with soil, which smeared over her hands. She didn’t care.

By the time they had dug a hole approximately three foot square, she was panting.

‘OK.’ Bill abandoned the shovel. He bent over and clipped the string that was holding sacking in place around the root bole of the sapling lying on the grass. ‘Can you give me a hand?’

Together they lifted it into place and, taking extreme care, spread out the roots before partially filling in the hole. ‘Hang on.’ Bill drove in a stake and tied the sapling to it.

In a few minutes the task was completed.

It hadn’t taken long. Yet it had taken years.

They stepped back to survey their handiwork.

‘I think the cherry was the best choice,’ he said. ‘Definitely.’

They had talked
acer
,
prunus
, olive even, batting the subject this way and that until they had reached agreement.

‘As long as you ordered the white one.’

‘I did.’

Then they were silent.

Eventually, Bill said, ‘Louis’s tree.’

She glanced at him. ‘Thank you.’

He shook his head and she knew he was finding it difficult to speak. As she was.

For a second or two, Lara had to fight for calm. She thought of the shades who had lived there and felt the rawness of pure jealousy.
They had lived.
Louis had not. But, at least, some aspect of him would be at Membury, floating in the sunshine like the wind-borne seeds, growing alongside the rosemary and the myrtle, blossoming as the tree flourished. She would think of him at those times. And when the wind blew and the cold came, which they would, she would think of him then, too.

The tiny boy who had never lived.

I consulted many books in the writing of this one, chief among them the inspirational works of Dorothy Rowe. I hope that she does not mind that I borrowed some of her wisdom for my character, Lara.

Many thanks are due. To Garry Scobie for his (hilarious) information on school proms. To Lisa Comfort (
www.sewoverit.com
) for her vital input on making a wedding dress. To Camilla Grey, who introduced me to the world of branding and took infinite trouble. Any mistakes are mine. To the kind, patient friends who held my hand. They know who they are. To my dazzling publisher, Louise Moore, to Alice Shepherd, Jo Wickham, Claire Purcell and the rest of the five-star editorial, publicity, sales and marketing teams at Penguin. To Hazel Orme, for her never-failing tact and expertise. To my agent Mark Lucas, a huge ongoing thank-you, which is also due to Benjamin, Adam and Eleanor: the home team.

Bill leaves his two daughters with Lara when their relationship disintegrates, even though she is not their mother. How did this affect your opinion of Bill? Did you perceive his actions as an abandonment of his duties or as an act of generosity to Lara, who would have been bereft without them?

Lara deceives Bill by deliberately getting pregnant even though he doesn’t want her to have another child. How easy did you find it to sympathize with Lara’s behaviour?

Maudie’s decision to go to Harvard is a telling moment in terms of what we learn about her personality. What insight into her character did you feel this gave? Were you sympathetic to her decision to miss Eve’s wedding in favour of her first week at university?