Flightsend (11 page)

Charlie didn't tell Sean, who was trying to rescue
the rice, filling the kitchen with clouds of steam. As
soon as Kathy went upstairs, Charlie turned off the
radio and found a CD, but it was too late to salvage
the evening. Kathy toyed with the food on her plate,
hardly spoke, drank her wine half-heartedly. When
Sean got up to make coffee, she said, 'I don't want any,
thanks. I've got a headache. I think I'll have an early
night.'

Charlie and Sean cleared up in near-silence. Mum's
depression was like a virus, infecting all three of them.
No amount of cheerful determination from Sean
could hide the signs that his relationship with Kathy
was foundering, and he could do nothing to save it.
Charlie knew by now that adults might give all sorts of
advice about problems and relationships, but that
didn't mean they could sort out their own lives.
Putting away glasses, she came across the birthday
cake Sean had hidden in the cupboard. They'd
planned to bring it out with the coffee. The candles –
pink and white, pathetic now – were already in place,
a box of matches nearby.

'Oh, the
cake
!' Charlie exclaimed.

Sean shrugged. 'Chuck it in the bin, for all I care.
Drink your coffee, now I've made it.'

Tears stung Charlie's eyes, welled up. She gulped at
her coffee, which he'd made much stronger than she
liked it. Then she remembered that Sean didn't know
about the radio item. Thinking it might help to
explain her mother's behaviour, she told him.

'What?' He stared at her. 'Why didn't you turn it off?
Why didn't you
tell
me?'

'Didn't want to spoil the whole evening.'

'It's spoiled all right, isn't it? I'm going up to talk to
her.' He left the cooking dish he'd been scrubbing
and went upstairs.

Charlie poured the rest of her coffee down the sink
and finished tidying, leaving the dish to soak. Then
she turned off the lights and went up, too. Getting
ready for bed, she heard muttered words from the
other bedroom: Sean's voice, low and pleading; her
mother's, irritable at first, becoming angry. Finally,
'Oh, leave me alone,
please
! Just leave me alone!'

Charlie heard Sean come out and go to the
bathroom, then his footsteps going downstairs.
The sofa creaked as he settled on it.

Wide awake by now and staring into the darkness,
she thought of the nursery, perfect and untouched
behind its closed door. There were three people in the
house, sleepless and miserable, lying isolated in their
separate rooms. It needed the tiny, absent fourth
person to unite them. Without Rose, they were
identical magnet poles, repelling each other.

Fay had asked Charlie to spend Saturday afternoon at
Nightingales, serving refreshments for the village fête,
but Charlie had already promised to help her mother.
On Kathy's birthday, Charlie wanted to be with her;
she felt a duty to watch out for signs of disaster.

It was a beautiful, fresh morning. Charlie got up
early to take her mother tea in bed before going
round to Nightingales, but when she went downstairs
she found Kathy already out on the lawn in her
dressing-gown. She was looking at a clematis that had
just come into flower.

'Happy birthday, Mum.' Charlie kissed her and gave
her the mug of tea. 'You're invited to a presentation
ceremony, to be held in the kitchen in five minutes.'

'Thanks, Charlie. Look at this –
clematis viticella
Étoile Violette. Isn't it gorgeous?' She touched one of
the curving purple blooms. 'Flowering for my
birthday.'

She put on the earrings as soon as she'd unwrapped
them, and was delighted with the picture of Caspar.
'I'll hang it today. Above the fireplace, do you think
that's the best place? I'll do it before the fête, if there's
time.'

So far, so good, Charlie thought. She went off to do
her Nightingales breakfast shift, and came back just
before ten to find a florist's delivery van outside, with
the driver taking a huge sheaf of lilies to the front
door.

'I'll take them,' Charlie said, guessing that they were
from Sean. He knew that Kathy loved lilies. She
carried them, crackling in their cellophane wrapping,
round to the yard, where her mother was busy sorting
plants for the fête. The scent was intoxicating. The
lilies were beautiful: white, with deep pink speckled
markings.

Her mother was assembling plants in plastic crates:
herbs, hardy geraniums, penstemons. 'Special
delivery,' Charlie said, presenting the bouquet with a
flourish.

Kathy straightened, saw the lilies. Her eyes widened.
'Oh, how lovely! From Anne, I suppose. Is there a message?'
She reached inside the wrapping and took out a tiny
card in an envelope. Charlie watched closely. Kathy
read it, said nothing and tucked it inside the cellophane,
against the lily stems.

'Well?' Charlie asked.

'From Sean,' her mother said. 'I'll arrange them in
a minute.'

'Aren't they fantastic?' Charlie tried.

'Yes, wonderful. Stirling Star, I think.'

Charlie, hoping for some expression of gratitude
towards the sender – even a bland
how kind
or
what a
nice thought
– was disappointed. She took Caspar out
for a quick walk, passing the village green where stalls
were already being set out, and spent the rest of the
morning helping her mother with the packing,
labelling and pricing of the plants. Taking some empty
compost-bags round to the dustbin, she saw the card
from the flowers discarded inside with its envelope
and the cellophane wrapping.

Charlie couldn't resist turning it over.

There was a small coloured illustration of irises, and
For Kathy, on your birthday
, written in Sean's distinctive,
angular handwriting.
I love you. Sean
.

Charlie's hand trembled as she picked up the card
and slipped it into her jeans pocket. Her head was
spinning with anger at her mother, all tangled up with
bitter disappointment on Sean's behalf. How
could
she? How could she read that and sling it aside with
the rubbish? It made it worse, somehow, that Kathy
was usually so punctilious about recycling paper and
card. Sean's message wasn't worth even that to her.
She didn't want to soil her hands with it, couldn't wait
to bin it. She hadn't even bothered hiding it. It was so
stupid
, Charlie thought – Mum convinced that Sean
wanted to find someone his own age, wanted to enjoy
being young and single, whereas Sean, a whole
year after she'd kicked him out, still wasn't giving
up.

What had Mum done to deserve such loyalty, such
devotion?

Charlie was too upset to confront her mother. If she
let herself speak, she'd end up shouting harsh,
unforgivable things. Not today. Avoiding Kathy, she
went into the office and sat there writing labels in
indelible pen.

The fête was a success. The warm weather brought
people out in numbers, and Henrietta – in a bizarre
ankle-length garment in a bold African print and even
more clanking jewellery than usual – went from stall to
stall, beaming encouragement. Kathy and Charlie,
too busy with customers to have much time to speak to
each other, sold so many plants that Kathy went back
to Flightsend for more. Besides the stalls and refreshments,
there were additional attractions: a
fortune-teller (friend of Henrietta's), jugglers, acrobats
and a tug-of-war, and the Long Wykham Morris
dancers. The accordion player was already practising a
few snatches, adding to the fairground atmosphere.

When Anne Gladwin arrived unexpectedly and
offered to help, Kathy sent Charlie to have a look
round. A crowd was gathering round the Morris-men,
so Charlie followed the drift and was astonished to see,
hopping and skipping among them, Angus David. She
did a double-take. Yes, Angus, in a flowered straw hat,
garters with jingling bells, sturdy calves in white socks,
feet stamping in clumpy shoes. During the next dance
he and three others took a break, while a smaller
number of dancers performed a routine with clashing
sticks. Charlie went over to him.

'Another of your talents? Is there anything you can't
do?'

Angus was red in the face under his straw hat, from
exertion or embarrassment. He took off the hat and
fanned himself with it.

'Andy Ferris sprained his ankle last weekend, falling
off a ladder. I'm the stand-in.'

'The dairying spin-bowler? Don't tell me – you're
milking his cows as well?'

'No, there are limits. I've had a week of practice but
I'm still winging it. This stick-bashing stuff I leave to
the experts. Too much risk of knuckle damage.'

'All that
and
the rehearsals?'

'Dress rehearsal tomorrow,' Angus told her. 'If
you've got time for a bit of
ill-met by moonlight, proud
Titania
, I've come prepared.' He pulled a battered
copy of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
from the back
pocket of his trousers.

'I would, but I'm helping Mum,' Charlie explained,
gesturing towards the plant stall.

'Aha!' Angus said, looking. 'She might be just the
person. We need vegetation.
I know where the wild
thyme blows
,' he explained. 'Come on, Charlie, do keep
up.'

'Angus!' one of the Morris-men called.

'OK, so it's my turn to keep up.
The Sheep-Shearer's
Ditty
, or some such.'

'Aren't there any Morris-
women
?' Charlie asked.

'Great Oaksett's got a women's team, if you're
interested. Or was that an Equality of Opportunity
question?'

'Yes, it was. Don't forget your hat.'

Charlie watched for a while. Angus danced as
he did everything, with great precision and comic
seriousness. She joined in the clapping before going
back to the stall.

'Was that Angus David in the hat and bells?' asked
Anne, who had been his History teacher.

'Yes! Go and watch. He's so funny.'

'OK, while it's quiet.'

Henrietta was approaching the plant stall, talking
animatedly to a man in a cream jacket. 'You two,' she
said importantly to Kathy and Charlie. 'I must introduce
you to someone who used to live in your cottage.'

The man with her was Dietmar.

'Oh, we've already met,' Kathy said. 'Hello,
Dietmar! How nice to see you again.' She looked
around as if expecting to see the aircraft.

'No Cessna today,' Dietmar said, laughing. He
shook hands with her and with Charlie. 'I came by
car.'

'Specially for the village fête,' Kathy asked, 'or . . . ?'

'Specially for the village fête,' Dietmar said. 'I am
hoping the WI cake stall is keeping up its high
standards. But now I am going to buy some of your
plants.' He was one of those men, Charlie noticed,
who looked stylish even in casual summer clothes. She
only had to look around at the baggy shorts and
stomachs bulging under T-shirts to see what a mess the
average British male made of it. Surely, she thought,
he hasn't driven all the way from Leicester just to buy
cakes and plants?

'When you've finished, don't forget to visit Madame
Sosostris,' Henrietta told him. 'She's in the tent by the
tombola.'

'Thank you, but I won't risk it,' Dietmar said. 'I
might be afraid of what she tells me.'

Henrietta looked unsure whether to take the
remark seriously. Then she looked critically at the red
T-shirt Charlie was wearing again. 'I hope you won't
forget to look at my clothes, Charlie.'

Charlie, thinking Henrietta meant the bold African
thing she had on, thought she was being asked for a
compliment. 'Oh, it's . . . er . . .'

But Henrietta was pointing to her own stall, next to
the tombola. 'Special bargains today,' Henrietta said.
'And there are
green
bargains, just for you. I do find
that red so terribly distressing on you, with your
colouring. That's my friend Jiminy, in the skull cap,
manning the stall for me. Tell him I sent you.'

Then, distracted by someone asking about toilets,
she moved on. Dietmar spent a long time choosing
plants and eventually chose three hardy geraniums,
one of which he said reminded him of the garden at
Flightsend. Then he asked if he could buy Charlie and
her mother a cup of tea.

'You go, Mum,' Charlie said. 'I'll look after these.'
She wrote DIETMAR on the carrier bag the plants
were in, and stowed it under the table. 'Teas are round
the corner, at Nightingales, the big house,' she told
him. 'You can buy her a piece of cake as well – it's her
birthday.' Her mother would enjoy talking to Dietmar;
while he'd been making up his mind, they'd got well
into propagation techniques and colour combinations
and plants that flowered at that difficult time in late
summer.

'Charlie!' Kathy reproved.

'Really? Then I wish you many happy returns,'
Dietmar said, in his formal way. 'In that case, tea seems
definitely in order, if you would accompany me?'

Angus, Anne, Dietmar – who else was going to turn
up? Charlie had wondered whether Sean might come,
and was half-disappointed that he hadn't; but perhaps
he wouldn't risk being spurned in public. And it was
probably just as well he wasn't here. Charlie couldn't
help comparing the warmth of the reception Dietmar
had just been given with the cool treatment her mother
handed out to Sean. She knew that Kathy wouldn't even
phone to thank Sean for the lilies.

Anne returned with three ice-cream cornets. 'Oh,
where's Kathy gone?'

'She's gone to have tea with a German pilot,'
Charlie said.

'With a
what
?'

'With Dietmar Kolbert of Hamburg and Leicester
via Flightsend. I'll tell you in a minute.' Charlie eyed
the cornets, that were starting to drip. 'Should we eat
those first?'

Charlie had known Anne for years – before even
starting at Westbury Park. Anne had been her
mother's best friend through the Sean time, through
the baby time. She'd been living with someone, then,
when that broke up, had lived alone for some while.
Now, she had a part-time relationship with a man in
Newcastle-on-Tyne, seeing him on alternate weekends.
Charlie liked Anne, both as Mum's friend and at
school. She was quietly-spoken, always unflappably
calm. Once, upset by a bullying campaign against a
newcomer at school, Charlie had told Anne, who,
without involving Charlie again or causing the least
embarrassment, had firmly sorted it out. She was good
at dealing with problems, and knew Kathy better than
anyone.

'Anne,' Charlie said, when they'd finished all three
ice creams and put out more plants, and she'd
explained about Dietmar, 'listen – Mum will kill me if
she knows I've told you this, but . . .'

She told Anne about Sean, last week's visit, the lilies
and the thrown-away card. Inevitably, two customers
came up and spent ages dithering between two
different colours of scabious. When at last they'd
gone, Charlie put their money into the cash-box and
appealed: 'Don't you think she's being unreasonable?'
Anne sorted out notes and laid them in the bottom
of the box, underneath the coin trays.

'It must seem like that,' she said slowly, 'but she's
got to do it her own way. It's hard for you and it's hard
for Sean, but I think he's got to take no for an answer.'

'Oh, but . . .'

This wasn't what Charlie wanted to hear. Anne knew
Sean well; Charlie expected her to take his side, to
agree that yes, Kathy was behaving outrageously, and if
she had any sense she'd phone Sean this instant and
beg him to come back.

'She's so determined to make this new start. I
admire her for it,' Anne said. 'It takes guts to make
such a complete break, giving up her job and moving
out here. How many people stay in jobs they don't
like, year after year, just because they can't take the
plunge?'

'I don't mind about the
job
,' Charlie said. 'She could
have given that up and moved out here and still not
split with Sean. Why won't she even meet him in a
friendly way? He deserves that, doesn't he?'

'But the reason she won't be friendly is that it's too
risky for her,' Anne said. 'You realize that? She's afraid
of giving in, if she sees too much of him. And she
doesn't want to give way just because she feels sorry for
him. That wouldn't work.'

'But why should it
be
like that?'

Anne looked at her. 'Because it just is. You can't tell
people how to feel. I hated it when they split up – as
much as you did. I wasn't sure Kathy really knew what
she was doing. Also, I like Sean, a lot, and I hated to
see him so devastated. But it's happened, and that's
her decision, and they've both got to get on with their
lives. She's doing all right, Charlie. You've heard of
people getting post-natal depression – well, hers was a
hundred times worse, with no baby. But she's picking
herself up. It's taking time, but she's doing it. And if
there's no place for Sean, he'll have to accept it. After
all, if she's giving him no encouragement but he keeps
making these approaches – well, he must know by now
what response he's likely to get.'