The New Woman (8 page)

‘Dad’s still an attractive man,’ she said.

‘True. He’s got the looks, all right, but he’s never been a womaniser. He’s a one-woman man, and that woman has always been your mum. Anyway, he’s too bloody honest. He couldn’t manage all the fibbing.’

‘Mum couldn’t, either.’

‘Nope.’ Meg chewed her cheek again. ‘She’s got everything to lose. She loves this house, she loves her job, and I’m quite certain she loves your dad. She’s planning her anniversary knees-up and the big Italy trip next year. Why would she throw all that away?’

They lifted their glasses in unison. We must look like a comedy duo, thought Kate: a skinny, hungover student in Doc Martens and an eighty-year-old widow in a jaunty blouse and salon-set hairdo. The two of them had always been as thick as thieves.

Meg’s father had been a miner in County Durham. She left the north at the age of eighteen, when she married Robert Livingstone and made a career out of being a farmer’s wife. Kate had always thought this was a crime—her granny was a bright woman, could have done anything with her life.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said fervently. ‘It’s been fucking awful since I arrived.’

‘Tut-tut. Language.’

‘
Jolly
awful. I’ve felt like screaming. All that frozen civility, and both of them behaving as though they were going to burst into tears. Now I know how kids of broken homes feel.’

Meg was digging around in her handbag. ‘Doesn’t sound good. Mind you, in years and years stuck together, you’re bound to have some tiffs. Maybe she wanted a dog, and he didn’t. Maybe she turned down a promotion and he thought she should have taken it. Could be any number of things.’ She pulled out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one?’

‘No, thanks. I don’t smoke tobacco, I only smoke hooch. I’ve told you this about a million times.’

‘Rude not to offer.’

‘I can’t believe you’re still poisoning yourself, at your age.’

Meg flicked a lighter, inhaled that first lungful of nicotine. ‘I can’t believe you’re still nagging me about it, at my age. Anyway, I’ve cut down. Four a day.’

‘Did you and Grandad have many fights?’

‘Our fair share.’

Kate leaned back, resting her head against the wall. ‘So . . . what do we do, Granny? I can’t take much more. All this tension gives me a sense of doom. Should we have it out with them?’

‘No,’ said Meg, and blew out a plume of smoke. ‘No, I wouldn’t confront them. Leave them be. The one time Robert and I were in real trouble, our marriage was saved by good old-fashioned sweeping under the carpet. We were both hopping mad but neither of us was honest enough to come out and say so. After a couple of days, we forgot we weren’t talking. The day after that, we had a laugh about something—I’ve forgotten what—and that was that.’

‘What was it all about?’

‘I didn’t want more children. Robert did. He’d set his heart on having a boy. I said it wasn’t him that had to carry it for nine months. Gail hadn’t been an easy pregnancy, and Wendy almost killed me.’

‘Quite right!’ Kate straightened her spine in sisterly solidarity. ‘A woman’s body is her own.’

‘All right, you can hop off your soapbox. “Anyway,” I said, “what’s the point?” Didn’t he love his daughters? Did he think he’d love a son more? What made a boy so special?’

‘I’m proud of you, Granny!’

‘He said . . .’ Meg paused, balancing a tall pile of ash on the end of her smouldering cigarette. ‘People never have ashtrays anymore, do they? Smokers are a dying breed . . . Ah, a plant pot. Perfect. He said he loved Wendy and Gail to bits but he wanted a son. Someone who would be just like him, a miniature Robert Livingstone. Someone to take over the farm when he was gone.’

Kate sighed. ‘Dear oh dear. And this was the twentieth century, right?’

‘He imagined them making model railways. Shooting. Playing with Robert’s woodworking toys. Running the farm together.’

‘His daughters could have done all those things!’

Meg looked doubtful. ‘Well, anyway, nature took over. Soon after that argument I found out I was expecting again. You might call it a mistake, or you might call it a miracle. Either way, it was your dad.’

‘So, Grandad was happy?’

‘A pig in clover.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Kate shrugged. ‘I can forgive him the medieval values, since he was Grandad . . . and since it was Dad who came along.’

The pair fell silent, looking across the lawn. Kate could see the hole her dad had dug that morning, ready to plant the memorial tree. She felt better for talking to Meg. She and Simon used to go and stay on their grandparents’ farm when they were small, and it was the highlight of her year.

She was topping up their wine when a black Jeep came crawling through the gateway, navigating around the deeper potholes on the drive. ‘Oh God,’ she groaned, downing her newly filled glass. ‘Here come Simon and Carmela. This calls for sedation.’

‘Why would you need Dutch courage to face your own brother?’

Kate swept back her hair—what there was of it—and imitated Carmela’s voice. ‘Oh,
Kate
, I can recommend a
marvellous
hairdresser. He’s a magician!’

‘To be honest, love, you do look as though you’ve sheared your fringe with a pair of blunt nail scissors.’

‘They were quite sharp nail scissors, actually. And Simon’s not been interested in anyone or anything since he married her. He’s got no idea what makes me tick. He just makes snide little remarks. I bet you, Granny, he’ll find something sarcastic to say within the first three minutes.’

Meg looked at the Jeep, which had just pulled up. ‘I’ll bet he won’t.’

‘You’re on. I’ll time it.’ Kate checked the second hand on her watch. ‘A tenner? Starting from . . .
now
.’

Simon

Mum and Dad needed to do something about that bloody drive. It was getting beyond a joke. Someone was going to break an axle.

‘Bumpety bump,’ yelled Nico. He was holding a toy Piglet up to the window. ‘Look, Piglet, there’s Grandpa’s shed. We’re going to make a plane in there.’

‘Kate and your grandmother are sitting on the bench. See? They’re just watching us,’ hissed Carmela. She was brushing her hair. ‘You’d think they could wave, or smile, or something. It doesn’t matter how far I extend the olive branch, Kate does not want to take it.’

Simon brought the Jeep to a halt and yanked at the handbrake. ‘Let’s make a real effort this time. Keep the moral high ground. We’re here to remember Grandad, after all.’

‘I’ll drive home. You can drink.’

‘Thanks.’ Simon exhaled theatrically. ‘Okay, I’m going in. My orders are to carry out a section attack and take the guns. Give me covering fire.’

‘Will do.’

He leaped out, grinning idiotically in his effort to exude cheerfulness.

‘Hi!’ he called, and trotted up the terrace steps to kiss Meg’s cheek. He was sure she’d shrunk since last time. ‘Lovely to see you, Granny.’

Then he looked at Kate, and did a double take. Oh, for Christ’s sake! She had a stud in her nose! She looked like a lowlife. Why would she mutilate herself?

‘What’s this?’ he asked, pointing at the same place on his own nose. ‘Hormones playing up?’

Kate glanced at her watch, turned to Meg and held out her palm. ‘Eighteen seconds. Has to be a record. You owe me.’

Simon didn’t understand her full meaning, but he knew he’d put his foot in it. ‘Nah, it looks great,’ he lied. ‘Stylish. Um, how’s . . .’ He racked his brains, and then remembered. ‘Owen?’

‘It’s ex-boyfriend.’

‘Thank Christ for that! He was a total moron, wasn’t he?’

He was relieved when Carmela joined them; she was much better at doing the family thing. She was from a massive clan herself—including four brothers and their wives and families—and at the slightest excuse they all met up in Madrid. Simon’s efforts to learn Spanish hadn’t been very successful, and he couldn’t tell furious argument from enthusiastic agreement. His policy was to nod and smile.

‘Meg! Kate!’ cried Carmela, kissing both women while Nico shot inside to look for his grandparents. ‘You look terrific! And, Kate, that haircut is simply . . . courageous.’

Simon saw Kate stiffen. ‘Nice shoes, Carmela,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose kept women actually have to walk anywhere.’

He felt all his good intentions slipping away. ‘Kate, that’s just bloody rude.’

‘Drink?’ said Meg, intervening quickly. ‘And who’s this turning in? Ah! It’s Luke and Wendy.’

Simon watched as Nico ran out of the house and bounced
down the steps to meet the car. Yes, there was Aunt Wendy in the passenger seat. Luke’s sister, survivor of a string of disastrous relationships, who’d found God in her fifties. Nothing wrong with finding God, of course. Simon was all for it, in theory. The problem was that Wendy had always been neurotic and self-obsessed, and her new hotline to the Almighty seemed to have made her worse.

She sprang out of the car, wearing a flowered skirt and a necklace that looked like a daisy chain. ‘Hello, everyone!’ she called. ‘Isn’t this lovely?’

And there was Dad, stooping to pick up his grandson. Nico had an arm around his neck and his legs around his waist, gabbling on about the plane they were going to make together.

Thank God, thought Simon in relief. Dad’s home.

Eight

Simon

It should have been a perfect family day. The kitchen table had been set for lunch, with the folding doors opened right out so that they were practically sitting in the garden. From here they could see the new tree, now planted close to Charlotte’s.

The death of his baby sister was Simon’s earliest memory: a grey, sad time when excitement turned into tears and silence. He sometimes wondered whether his life would have been different if she’d lived. Perhaps she would have been a friend to him in his teenage years. He could have done with one.

His mother brought out the highchair for Nico. He climbed in and perched in splendour, looking like an umpire at Wimbledon.

‘Please, can Eyelash and Grandpa sit next to me?’ he asked, pointing at the seats on each side. ‘Eyelash
here
, and Grandpa
here
.’

‘That chair used to be mine,’ said Simon, as his parents took their allotted seats. ‘You made it, didn’t you, Dad?’

His father smiled, but he seemed distracted. ‘I did.’

A breeze lifted the edges of the lace cloth, carrying in the heavy scent of oilseed rape from Gareth’s crop. Someone—Eilish, Simon guessed—had arranged a bowl of roses as a centrepiece for the table. They were creamy yellow; fallen petals lay scattered
on the lace. The scene could have been an advertisement for air freshener.

‘This is so
Home and Garden
,’ said Wendy. ‘You are clever, Eilish. Everything you do is effortlessly beautiful.’

Eilish barely managed an answer. She’d caught a bad cold, apparently, and was feeling lousy. Simon could see that she was wearing more make-up than usual, but it didn’t hide how bloody ill she looked. His father had the bug too. The pair of them were behaving like zombies. Simon hoped Nico wouldn’t come down with it.

Wendy’s remark was followed by silence. Even Nico temporarily stopped chattering as he drove his Jeep along the back of his chair. Simon hated awkward silences. He found them . . . well, awkward.

‘Four generations around the table!’ he gushed, rubbing his hands together. ‘That makes you an uber matriarch, Granny.’

‘Makes you an uber prat,’ said Kate. She was smiling, though. He nudged her ribs with his elbow. She nudged him back, a bit harder. They’d done a fair bit of elbow-nudging over the years.

‘Children, children,’ chided Meg, just before he felt Kate kick him in the shin. Childhood games. Kate might be a pain in the backside, but she was his sister.

They were all about to tuck in when Aunt Wendy cleared her throat. ‘Aren’t we going to thank our great provider for this bounty?’ She closed her eyes and held out her hands to each side. A joyous smile played across her mouth. One of her neighbours was Kate, the other Luke, and both kept their hands resolutely out of her reach.

‘Off you go then,’ said Meg indulgently. ‘But get a move on, Wendy, love, because I’m starving and would quite like to make a start on the bounty.’

‘Grandpa, will the plane really fly?’ asked Nico, speaking around the sausage he’d managed to sneak into his mouth.

‘Shush.’ Luke tickled his hand. ‘Shush for ten ticks, while we say a prayer.’

Wendy wasn’t quick, though Simon had to admit she was thorough. She offered thanks for their loving family, for their safe journeys, for permitting them all to live in a land of abundance. Then she offered thanks for Grandad’s life, and blessings on the tree they had just planted. Simon had been brought up solidly C of E—confirmed here, at St Matthew’s—but in his book, Wendy took it too far. She embarrassed him. Long before she came to the end, Nico had begun chanting the
Postman Pat
tune under his breath. Simon was tempted to sing along.

‘Amen,’ he mumbled at the end. Then he happened to look across at his mother. She was sitting hunched over. He’d have sworn she was trying not to cry. This was baffling because she never, ever cried.

‘Been like this all weekend,’ said Kate under her breath.

‘Maybe she’s really ill?’ he whispered back. ‘We’re going to have to cover for her before Wendy notices.’ He raised his voice, and his glass. ‘Here’s to Grandad! May his tree grow strong and tall—as he did.’

Meg joined in. ‘And gnarled and knotted, but good for shade and rest.’

‘Yes, to Papa!’ cried Wendy. ‘What an occasion. He’d be so happy to see all the family here. What a shame Gail can’t be with us.’

Another silence followed the mention of Gail’s name. She was Simon’s other aunt, though he had rarely met her. She’d emigrated to Australia before he was born and never communicated with his father. He caught Carmela’s eye and made an agonised face. She was leaning across the table, handing Nico some juice, but she saw his distress signal and came to the rescue.

‘So, Kate,’ she said brightly. ‘What about Israel? What did you find?’