The Right Thing (19 page)

‘So which of these pretty spades are you going to buy? Or are you just window-shopping?'

‘I'm going to buy the middle weight at the middle price.' Suddenly decisive, he hauled out a blue one out from the rack. He presumed that would also count as a middle colour too. He wasn't really sure if it was exactly what he wanted, but what he
did
want was not to be quite so close to this woman's overpowering perfume. It was unmistakably mistress-scent. Her poor forever-phoning husband was probably right to have suspicions.

‘I'm out here researching. Officially anyway,' she said, walking with him towards the checkout. ‘Actually I just felt the need to get out and about by myself for a few hours. Not long enough to venture as far down the county as your place, sadly, but I might drive to Fowey on the way back and take a look at that place where Daphne du Maurier lived.' She giggled, her hand to her mouth like a caught-out schoolgirl, ‘I'm supposed to be checking out the price of compost bins for the programme and a location where we can film a short piece on them. Thrilling huh?' She giggled again and then went on, ‘I could have just phoned around, or got my PA to do it, seeing as that's what she's paid for.' Glyn had his mind on the items
he
wouldn't be checking out if she hung about much longer. You didn't drive this far just for a spade. He'd got a long list of things like rabbit-proof netting, heavyweight secateurs, a selection of piping and comfrey liquid fertilizer that required solitary concentration and he wasn't going to get through it without getting rid of Rose.

‘Programme?' he murmured vaguely, sorting through his wallet for the right credit card.

‘It's called
Where There's Muck.
Garden secrets of the rich and/or famous?' She smacked his arm lightly. ‘Don't tell me you've never seen it. That would be just too disloyal.' Rose was pouting. She was wearing very shiny lipstick, with a careful pencil outline that was just a bit too contrasting. Probably something she'd picked up from a makeup artist on a programme, he assumed, though he knew she produced rather than presented this show that he now felt guilty for not having seen.

‘Sorry, I have to confess I haven't actually watched it. My TV tastes are simple, they run to football, cricket and
University Challenge
.'

‘I bet you can answer all the questions.' She smiled at him, those big teeth making him nervous.

‘I bet you can too,' he countered. ‘Though don't you find . . .'

She interrupted quickly, laughing. ‘I know what you're going to say: you can answer absolutely everything but
only when
there's no-one in the room to be impressed!'

‘Exactly.' Glyn paid for his spade and they walked out together into the car park. He recognized Rose's silver BMW parked opposite his scruffy Volvo and wondered again if this was such a coincidence.

‘Your husband phones sometimes,' Glyn ventured.

‘Oh, Ben's a great one for offloading his worries.'

Glyn hadn't mentioned worries, and immediately wished he hadn't mentioned Ben, either. He hoped she wasn't going to do confiding, not of marital problems anyway. He'd had all that back in his headteacher days, when depressed, defeated women would come in to explain that little Toby's or Tanya's sudden lack of progress might just be something to do with Daddy taking off with the skinny waitress from the Jolly Mariners. ‘Trouble at home' was all he needed, by way of coded information, but was never handed so precise a statement. Once an abandoned wife, or occasionally a husband, got as far as the chair beside his desk, they somehow couldn't resist the urge to use him as something between a counsellor and a confessor. His secretary had kept supplies of tissues in the stationery cupboard, specially for the purpose.

Glyn reached his car and stood by the door, Rose still beside him, wondering how impolite he could bring himself to be, if he could just get in and wave and smile and drive away. Instead he waited, jangling his keys, but not very loudly. Rose had taken up a strangely angular position, her elbow leaning on his car roof as if she was pinning it down, stopping it moving. ‘The trouble with Ben is he has a romantic view of the past. He thinks everything is running downhill too fast for him these days. He's one of those men who still has his degree certificate hanging on his study wall and a collection of rugby-team photos from the days when he was young and fit. I don't think he'd be able to lay his hands on our wedding photos though.' She had a look of sorrow, just for a few seconds, but it was enough. She'd got him.

‘Have you got an extra hour or so?' Glyn heard himself asking. ‘You could leave your car here and I'll drive us down to the pub at Mylor harbour for a swift half or even some perfectly respectable tea. It's not really grockle season yet, so it should be pretty quiet.' Kitty wouldn't mind how late back he was, she'd be pleased he was making an effort with one of her friends and after he'd dropped Rose back to her car again he could get on with his garden-shopping with a clear conscience. Rose was climbing into the Volvo before she'd finished saying yes, though she might well have instantly regretted it as she noticed its filthy state and was discreetly wiping the dust from her jacket that had attached itself to her when she'd carelessly leaned on the roof.

‘Sorry about the mud. We don't much go in for car-washing round here.' Glyn started up the elderly but dependable engine and headed towards the main road.

She grinned, ‘Sorry for being so crassly city-ish. By the way, did Kitty tell you, if Ben didn't, I've been seeing a bit of Tom Goodrich, Antonia's widower while I'm down here? It's the least I can do, poor man.'

Glyn gave an encouraging ‘Mmm'.

‘We weren't terribly nice to Antonia when we were at school, to be honest. I expect Kitty told you
that
anyway.'

‘I think she did mention it, no details though.' Glyn had forgotten how far it actually was from the garden centre to Mylor. What on earth were they going to find to talk about after the next few minutes?

‘Bit late to do anything about it now though, isn't it?' he said, negotiating a double roundabout.

‘What, about Antonia? Yes of course, but one can hope to make up a bit, you know, somehow . . .'

‘To soothe your conscience?' With the woman's
husband
?

‘Whatever helps.' Glyn wondered, if she thought there was something to be made up, how she intended making up the spiritual deficit to Ben when the time came, or would she keep postponing the moment of pay-off indefinitely till the grim reaper came to collect his back rent? He could just see her, arguing the toss with St Peter at his gate, saying ‘I was just trying to be
nice
' as if that made it all all right. Not for the first time he wondered about heaven's door policy – were the amoral allowed more leeway than the
immoral
?

‘I've been here before,' Rose admitted as Glyn brought drinks out to their table beside the river. ‘Ben and I took a boat a couple of years ago, sailed from Falmouth to the Scilly Isles . . .'

‘Isles of Scilly,' Glyn corrected automatically.

‘What? Oh, right, and then back up here, up the river. This place was swarming with families, masses of children. They all seemed to be called Jasper and Sebastian and from places like Putney and they all had absolutely thousands of pounds' worth of exactly the right sailing clothes, you know all state-of-the-art life-jackets and those dinky red jackets and Docksiders and stuff. Sweet.'

Rose, catching sight of a young couple entwined on a bench near the pub door, continued abruptly, ‘You knew, of course, that my husband and your wife had a teeny walk-out together way back at the end of our schooldays?'

‘I did know,' he said, smiling. ‘But I didn't know if you knew, if you see what I mean.'

‘Oh yes, well I expect everyone did. I wasn't actually around then. Went straight from school to work for Camp America, taking care of little brats with tooth-braces and spoilt New Jersey whines, and when I came back it was time for Oxford. Julia's the one who kept up with everyone. Ben spent a summer with your Kitty then went off to do good works in foreign parts, and apparently Kitty went off somewhere too. She might not even remember where she went, but I bet Julia Taggart does.' Her face, then, lost its smile but she said brightly enough, ‘Ben and I don't have children. We have a poodle. The big sort, standard. I don't think of him as “my baby” though, like some women might. I mean he's our third and you don't replace your kids when they snuff it. They're dogs, pets, simple as that.'

Glyn studied her face as she sipped her spritzer. She wasn't looking particularly pensive, just casually interested in her surroundings, as if she was used to having this conversation early in new relationships, it was just a couple of sentences to be got through. It seemed quite awful, he thought suddenly, that he knew about a baby her husband had fathered, and yet neither Ben nor Rose had any idea. I hope this girl never turns up, he caught himself thinking.

No-one actually made the Little and Large joke, but it hovered unsaid in the pale cool sitting-room, lurking like an unmentionable smell, such was the contrast in appearance between Lily and Madeleine. Kitty had wondered how on earth she was supposed to introduce this new sister to her children but, with a staggering intuition that must get lost in the complex manners of grown-ups, both Petroc and Lily knew immediately who Madeleine was. Petroc was formal and polite, nodding and smiling and saying hello as if this strange large young woman was just another of the visiting authors, and likely to leave the room any minute with the instructions for using the Rayburn or whatever it was she'd popped over from the barn to collect. For a second or two, Kitty had even thought he was going to offer to shake hands.

Lily, running in half an hour after Petroc, already had the light of excitement making her eyes shine. She flew in through the back door shouting, ‘Where is she? Does she look like me?' and grinning eagerly.

‘You don't look at
all
like me,' Lily announced after about ten seconds of innocently rude staring. Petroc and Kitty exchanged glances. Lily was slowly circling the blue sofa on which Madeleine was perched, like a small sleek fox round a frightened pony. Lily glared across Madeleine to Kitty, fearful that she'd raced in and made a dreadful mistake, that Rita might have got things all wrong with all those hints and secrecy, and this might only be the person collecting the Christian Aid envelope and not the sister she'd never ever met.

‘I expect we look like our dads,' Madeleine ventured, hugging herself into her jacket. Kitty thought she'd never seen Lily look more terrifyingly fragile. Her legs, even in her black school tights, were as thin as reeds. It would take more than the pair of hers to make up one of Madeleine's. Lily's fingers were so small they could be snapped by a clumsy toddler, whereas Madeleine's looked strong enough to strangle a cow.

‘Are you staying?' Lily asked finally.

‘I might. For a day or two, if no-one minds.' Madeleine shrugged.

‘You can share my room if you like. There's a spare bed for my friends and it's still made up from when Jenna didn't stay last week,' Lily offered, suddenly finding the need to look for something in her school bag.

‘Or there's the sofa bed in the studio. Wouldn't you rather . . .' Kitty cut in.

‘No, that would be nice. I'll share with you.' Madeleine's voice was gentle and soft now and she was smiling at Lily as if she was something that had been a surprising pleasure to find. All the earlier hard bravado had gone.

‘I'd better get my bag of stuff. I left it on the beach.' Madeleine stood up. She moved awkwardly and looked terribly tired. Her bulky body seemed too stiff to open out to its full height and her hair drooped across most of her face. Kitty felt dreadfully sorry for her. The courage it must have taken to make this visit, the sheer guts to have managed that early display of feistiness when inside she could only have been quaking. What would happen, Kitty wondered, if she went and simply hugged this big exhausted girl. Uselessly, her hands fluttered as she spoke, unable to decide whether to risk being pushed away, worried about what she might be taking on if she
wasn't
pushed away. This was, after all, someone else's daughter. A grown-up young woman, someone who was far too old to need ‘taking on'.

‘Petroc will go and get your bag, if you just tell him where you left it. Why don't you go upstairs with Lily and she'll show you where you're sleeping. You could have a bath if you like, and a rest if you want one. There's plenty of time before supper.'

Madeleine sighed wearily. ‘I could sleep for weeks, actually.' She turned and grinned at Lily. ‘Come on then, little sister, show me where my bed is.'

‘I didn't know you had another sister.' Petroc, ambling along the sand looking for the rock behind which Madeleine had stashed her bag, was startled by George Moorfield skulking against the wall. Petroc stopped and looked at him. The man was starting to look more than a bit crazed: his hair was wild and getting matted as if he'd either lost the will to find a comb or was sneakily experimenting with the cultivation of dreadlocks while safely out of sight of his London companions. One day, just as Petroc had last summer, George would unthinkingly climb onto a train in Penzance wearing a sea-stiffened brine-reeking old sweater and a raggy pair of jeans with beach oil on them, and get off at Paddington into a puzzling swarm of smart crisp suits and rushing fools with mobile phones.

‘I didn't know I had another sister. Well, I knew she existed, but never expected to meet her,' he told George, kicking at a crab claw. ‘I probably shouldn't be telling you this,' he added. It was easy though, out in the half-dark. The wet slapping sound of the sea made him think of easy tears. If George, just then, asked the right questions, Petroc would probably confide his entire soul's-worth of problems.