Days Like These (3 page)

Chapter Four

The children were no trouble. After supper they got themselves ready for bed, more or less. But Kirsty needed a little help to put her pyjama bottoms on.

'It's 'cos of the 'lastic,' she declared.

'Yes, of course it is,' Meg agreed with a smile.

'It's too tight.'

'Try putting one foot in at a time. That might help.'

Kirsty was dubious. She continued to blame the waistband. But she took the advice, and to her evident surprise found it worked quite well.

'That's better!' she announced. 'I knew I could do it if I tried.'

'Of course you could!' Meg told her, laughing out loud.

'You're not supposed to laugh at her,' Sean said from the doorway. 'She's only little. You're supposed to help her.'

Meg spun round with surprise, to see Sean, so solemn, standing with a toothbrush in his mouth.

'But she's so funny!' Meg protested. 'Just look at her now.'

Kirsty had wormed her way under the duvet and was busy wriggling her way to the bottom of the bed.

'Meg's helping me!' Kirsty yelled when she re-emerged. 'She's tucking me in.'

Sean seemed mollified. Meg smiled at him. Then she turned, lifted Kirsty up, gave her a hug, and returned her to the proper place in the bed.

'There!' she said. 'Now, do you want a story?'

'Yes, please.'

Meg read a few pages from a book that Kirsty said was her favourite. She would have gone on longer but when she looked up she saw the little girl was already asleep. She smiled and closed the book. How lovely she is, she thought wistfully, gazing down at the untroubled little face. Robert was so lucky to have her. To have Sean, too. They were lovely children. He seemed to be doing a good job with them, too. It couldn't be easy. Far from it.

It was obvious now what he'd meant when he said there was just him and the children. No wife and mother around. At all. That's what he'd meant.

She wondered what had happened. She had never heard anything in the office, and doubted if anyone there knew. Robert's secret. Looking after the children himself. Strange. Why had he kept it so quiet? Whatever "it" was.

Well, why shouldn't he keep it quiet? She wasn't exactly broadcasting to the world the fact that Jamie had left her, was she?

Well, that was because he hadn't! Not really. Jamie hadn't left her. He couldn't have. He was just ….

She blinked back tears. She didn't know what was happening. She would just have to wait and see.

She tiptoed out of the room and quietly closed the door after her.

'Don't shut it!' a voice behind her whispered fiercely. 'She doesn't like it to be closed. She gets scared.'

'Thank you, Sean. I didn't know that.'

She opened the door slightly and peeked in to satisfy herself that Kirsty hadn't woken up. When she turned round, Sean had disappeared back into his own room. She hovered on the landing, uncertain whether or not to look in on him. After all, Sean was eight.

'Meg!' she heard him call in a loud whisper.

'Will you read me a story, please?' he asked when she looked round the door.

'Of course I will.'

She smiled at the solemn little face peering out from beneath the quilt. He was still only a little boy after all, even if he was long past three.

'What books have you got, Sean?'

He handed her a thick, battered paperback he took from the shelf above his bed.

'This one, please.'

'It's a big book,' she said dubiously, thinking she wouldn't be able to read him much of that even if she was here a month. 'Watership Down? What's it about?'

'Rabbits,' he said quickly.

'Are you sure …?'

'Yes,' he said quickly. 'Just a few pages.'

A marker stuck out a little past half-way.

'Has somebody else been reading this to you?' she asked, turning to the marked page.

'Yes,' he said. 'But not recently.'

'And you like it?'

'Yes. It's my favourite.'

She nodded and began to read, wondering, as she did so, who had left the page marker.

Sean fell asleep quickly, too. Meg carefully laid the book down on the bedside table. Then she picked it up again and opened the front cover. "Elizabeth Hardwick, Christmas 1976", she read.

*

She had made herself a cup of coffee and was sipping it when she heard a key in the front door. She got up and looked into the hall in time to see Robert closing the door after him.

'Everything all right?' he asked quietly, seeing her waiting.

'Fine. No problems at all.'

She would have liked to ask how his evening had been but didn't want to sound as if she was prying.

'I was just having a cup of coffee,' she said instead.

'I'll join you.'

Before she could say she would get it, Robert had grabbed the kettle.

'Well,' he said, sitting down on the other side of the table with a steaming mug. 'I can't hear them. So they must be asleep. Either that or they've gone out?'

'Asleep,' she chuckled. 'Kirsty first. Then Sean. I read to them but that didn't last long. They must have been tired.'

Robert nodded. 'Did they say anything? Tell you anything, I mean,' he added, as he saw the question forming on her lips.

She shrugged. 'They talked to me, but not in the way I imagine you mean.'

She waited. It wasn't up to her to initiate a discussion he might not want to have.

He rubbed his eyes with his hands. He looked more tired than ever. But he gave her a wry smile. 'You must think I'm a worn-out old man!' he suggested.

She shook her head. 'I can see you're a very tired one, though, which is not surprising in the circumstances.'

'Circumstances? What circumstances?' he demanded brusquely, the smile gone completely.

'Oh, I'm sorry!' she said hastily. 'I didn't mean to pry. And I don't know anything about your circumstances, except that you seem to be looking after the children yourself.'

She got up and collected her things, ready to leave.

'I'm sorry, Meg,' he said with a sigh. 'I didn't mean to sound rude. It's just that I'm exhausted, and I've had a very difficult evening.'

'That's all right. I'll be on my way now. It's getting late.'

'Yes. So it is. Thanks a lot for coming over. I don't know what I'd have done without you. I'll call a cab. I'd like to run you home but I don't want to leave the kids alone.'

'It's all right, Robert. I'll catch a bus.'

'No. Let me phone for a cab. It's the least I can do.'

While they waited, Robert made an effort to bridge the gap that had developed between them. It was hard going. Meg was glad when the front door bell signalled the arrival of the taxi.

'You were right, by the way,' he said at last. 'I am on my own with them.'

'You told me that.'

'Liz, my wife, passed away a couple of years ago. It's been a struggle since then for us all.'

Meg was shocked. 'Oh, I'm so sorry, Robert,' she said. 'I had no idea. No-one in the office has ever said…’

'They don't know.' He shrugged and added, 'I never said anything.'

She stared at him until the doorbell woke her up again. Then she grimaced and said, 'You really are doing very well. I admire you.'

'There's nothing much to admire. But I'm doing my best. Anyway, I thought you should know what the situation is. The least I could do, given that you've given up your evening.'

Doing his best? she thought as the taxi sped her home. It was a very good best. Suddenly her own problem seemed a small one in comparison.

Chapter Five

'Pregnant? I can't be!'

Meg's GP, Dr. Ella Armstrong, chuckled and said, 'If I had a pound for every time one of my patients has said that ….'

Meg stared at her.

'You really didn't guess?'

'No. I ….'

'No clues? No morning sickness, for example? No feeling dizzy?'

'Well, yes. But I thought …. There are other things going on in my life. It didn't occur to me that this might be the reason.'

Dr. Armstrong nodded and looked down at her notes. Meg could see she had limited time for, and interest, in non-medical things.

'Well, Meg. You're fit as a fiddle. There's nothing wrong with you. So you and your baby should have a happy and interesting few months. Now I don't want to rush you but …. You need to get along home and share your good news with your husband. He's going to be delighted, isn't he?'

Meg nodded non-committally. Jamie? Delighted?

She got up, but she had no idea what to do next.

*

At the end of the week she decided to visit her parents. They lived in a small village in Northumberland, near Alnwick. More a hamlet than a village, though it gloried in the name of Great Newton. It was a place she had been unable to wait to get away from when she was at school, but it was still her home. Whenever she returned, she felt that keenly. She even suspected she might return for good one day. But not just yet.

This time she was visiting because she simply couldn't bear the thought of another weekend on her own in the house, and because she had to talk to someone other than Jenny about what was going on.

Her mother hugged her as if she had been away a year, not a few weeks.

'Don't fuss, Mum!' Meg laughed.

'What do you expect? Of course I'm going to fuss! I haven't seen you for ages.'

'A few weeks.'

'Absolutely ages!'

They wandered into the big kitchen of Bracken Cottage. With its wood-burning stove, that had always been the centre of family life. Meg shivered with pleasure at the heat and gazed around appreciatively.

'Oh!' she said. 'That's new.'

She was staring at the big pine table she hadn’t seen before.

'Do you like it?'

'It's lovely.'

She walked over to run her hand along the smooth edge.

'Well, the old one had got a bit rickety. It was scratched and knocked about as well. So we decided to treat ourselves. I got it in the sales after Christmas. It will be handy when you're all here next Christmas, won't it?'

Meg nodded but didn't say anything. So far as she was concerned, next Christmas was as good as cancelled.

'And what about you, love? Any news?'

Meg shook her head. Not yet, she decided. She couldn't say anything yet. She didn't know where to start.

'Where’s Dad?'

'Down the garden somewhere. Go and see if he wants to join us for a coffee.'

'If I can find him.'

'He'll be there. Where's Jamie, by the way? Is he not with you?'

For a moment she almost said : no, he isn't. Not any longer. Not any more. Not at the moment, anyway. Then she shook her head and made for the back door, still unsure what, if anything, she wanted to say about Jamie.

She breathed in deeply as soon as she was outside, and paused to take stock. Bracken Cottage had been built in the early years of the nineteenth century, like so many of the local houses. Originally, the village had been an estate village, owned by the Duke of Northumberland, but most of the houses were now in private ownership. Attractive, they were, too, with their dressed stone walls and slate roofs. As ever, Meg couldn't help comparing them favourably with the cramped city streets where her life was lived now.

The garden was long and narrow. Originally, again, it had been one of the strips of land awarded to men who had served loyally in the Duke's own regiment during the Napoleonic Wars. Now, with its herbaceous borders, the vegetable plot and the fruit trees along the edges, it gave Meg's father ample scope for escape into the open air he loved.

She set off down the garden, following the new paving stones that not long ago had replaced the cinder path of her childhood. Inevitably, she smiled. Then she chuckled and shook her head. She only had to set foot in the garden for happy memories to come flooding back.

This was the land where she had first explored exotic places and encountered strange people. It was where she had learned how to trap man-eating tigers and hunt – but not kill! – antelope and zebra, buffalo and giraffe. It was where she had learned how to live off the land, on raspberries and lettuce leaves, and apples and plums, and even turnips. At least until dinner was ready. So much to recall from those distant days.

'Here you are, Dad!'

He looked up and turned towards her, and his face lit up with astonishment and delight at the sight of her.

'Meg? What a surprise! How are you, pet?'

'Fine, thanks. What about you? What are you up to?'

They grinned at each other. Then they stepped forward, to exchange hugs and kisses.

When they parted, her father gestured at the Leylandii hedge that helped keep marauding cattle and sheep out of the garden. Sunlight, as well.

'I''m just having a go at this little lot before it gets completely out of control.'

'But it's only twenty feet high!'

He laughed. 'Aye. Sometime I think it's more trouble than it's worth. One of these days I'll have it all down. Replace it with some of that nice, modern barbed wire.'

'That'll look nice! Come on in and have a coffee with Mum and I before you start.'

He grinned, laughed out loud and started shepherding her back towards the house.

*

She told them. It hurt, but she told them. Everything. Sitting round the new kitchen table, mugs of coffee in front of them, she told them first about Jamie.

In the silence that followed, she could hear the clock in the living room ticking out the moments of their lives. She could hear a tractor in a distant field. Somewhere sheep bleated. She could hear her father breathing heavily, and giving off a little wheeze at the end of each outward sigh, just like he always had done.

The chair scraped as her mother got up and came round the table to hug her.

'I'm so sorry, love. How terrible. You must feel awful.'

Awful? She supposed she did really. Or she had done. Now she wasn't sure. She was getting used to it.

'Have you talked to him?'

'Not really, no. He hasn't given me the chance. On the couple of occasions he's rung up, it's just been because he wanted something. No, we haven't talked.'

'Perhaps you should?'

'It's not easy. I don't even know where he is.'

'How long's he been gone?' her father intervened.

'A week or two.'

'And this is the first you've mentioned it to us?'

He sounded angry. Meg didn't know if it was with her or Jamie.

'Leave it, Billy!' her mother said crisply. 'Now's not the time for that.'

'I'd like to get my hands on him,' her father said. 'I would!'

He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

'There's something else, Dad.'

He looked at her. So did her mother.

'I'm expecting a baby.'

That news brought another stunned silence. For a moment, at least.

Then her mother clapped her hands, as if with delight. Her father stared at her with astonishment, and then with a broad grin.

'You come on home, Meg, love,' he advised. 'We'll look after you. Never mind that no-good husband of yours. I never did care for him much anyway. A grandson, eh?' he added with a chuckle.

'I don't know that, Dad.'

'Oh, it will be. I've no doubt at all.'

'Well, I have,' Mum intervened.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the kitchen had changed. Meg had dreaded telling them about the baby, especially when the announcement was fastened on to the news about Jamie, but now she felt glad. She felt happy. Here, at least, was one place where she wasn't alone. It felt so good to be home.