The Right Thing (20 page)

‘Oh I see. You mean it's “family stuff”?' George mocked. ‘It's the curse of the English, the feeble insistence on secrecy. It makes for a humid, claustrophobic existence in my opinion. Collections of wondering folks in their nests stuck together by their moist little don't-tells. That way lies incest of, if you see my point, a metaphorical kind.'

Petroc stared out to sea. He didn't quite get the point, as it happened, but didn't want George to know that in case it somehow came up in conversation with Amanda. He muttered an all-purpose ‘Yeah', intended to convey empathy.

‘Of course without all the little intrigues and mysteries I'd have nothing to write about, would I?'

‘Suppose not.' Petroc hadn't read anything of George's and felt much as he had at his GCSE French oral when it had become clear that he hadn't learned any French.

George picked up a pebble and hurled it at the sea. ‘You're lucky,' he said. ‘You're lucky, though you're probably too young to know it, having a good family and then getting an extra one too. It's like getting seconds of the world's best pudding.'

‘Nothing to stop you having a family is there?' Petroc wanted to go back in the house, he was hungry. He didn't want to be sympathetic to a man who'd so easily nicked his woman.

‘I've had two goes at wives,' George said, ‘but not at children. Down here makes you realize something about being on your own. In London you think it's through choice. “Lonely” in London is self-indulgence, like bitter chocolate. Here it's wondering where it all went wrong.' With that, George strode off back towards the barn. Petroc, peering through the dusk gloom, wondered when he ever actually did find time to work. He's always out and about, he thought, recalling the sight of the monstrous car that afternoon pulling up outside the college and collecting Amanda Goodbody. He'd looked at the outline of her knickers against her tight trousers as she'd leant into the car and shoved her bag across to the back seat. Jamie had caught him looking, and had leered and muttered, ‘M & S high-leg, seamless. I'd guess black, possibly cream or blue, and she never wears plain white except for tennis,' like a punter eyeing up the form of a racehorse.

Petroc found the bag behind a rock only just above the high-tide line. It was a battered, dark green rucksack and one of the straps was frayed almost to the point of breaking, giving an impression of plenty of use. Petroc knew nothing of Madeleine, it occurred to him, nothing at all. If he'd ever given her just that little bit of thought, he'd pictured her as a gingery-gold little baby a few days old, the way his mother had described her. He hadn't thought about her out in the world having a parallel life to his own, though he presumed Kitty had.

The battered bag offered a selection of possibilities. Maybe she'd been something keen and committed like a sea cadet, hauling the bag on weeklong hikes over the Brecon Beacons, or maybe she'd Euro-railed in university vacations. If she'd been to university. Or lived rough, sleeping behind Waterloo station with her head on the rucksack and the straps twined through her hands in fear of thieves. He didn't look inside, although the bag was heavy and bulging with interesting shapes like a Christmas stocking. There wasn't any point looking, because with nothing of her life to refer to, the contents couldn't possibly give him any clues about her. The bag itself might even have been borrowed. He heaved it over his shoulder and made his way slowly back up the beach.

It was perversely attractive, the idea of starting over with a blood family who knew nothing about you. Madeleine, if she wanted to, could invent for them a whole growing-up of absolute fiction. They'd never know. Right now he wished he could do that with Amanda, just turn up all fresh and new and have her take him as he wanted to be found, rather than as the inept mess that she'd come to know. He could have drip-fed her all sorts of enticing lies if he hadn't known her since they were eleven. It would be interesting to see what Madeleine volunteered in terms of information, because presumably they'd only find out whatever there was she wanted them all to know.

‘So you do eat meat? That's a relief, so many people, young ones especially, are veggie now. I mean it's only spag. bol. and I could do you something else if you'd prefer it . . .' Kitty was conscious she was gibbering. Madeleine was a strange presence in the kitchen, sitting at the table staring silently at Kitty as she chopped and stirred and made many trips to the fridge and back because her mind wasn't on the food and she kept forgetting things. Kitty had to keep reminding herself that this person was real, this large and scruffy young woman was The Baby. The Baby
then,
but now The Woman, everything in between was simply a void. How they related to each other could only start from here, from whether they even decided they wanted to or not. Strange there should be such an element of choice about someone you had actually created.

‘I do eat meat, though not often – we didn't have red meat much at home. Mum liked chicken and fish better.' Kitty tried not to let her hand hesitate as she sliced tomatoes. ‘Mum' Madeleine had said – evidence of a real past.
She,
Kitty, wasn't her mum. Of course she wasn't. She was just an official Birth Mother, something on paper who was supposed to have given up her feelings along with her baby. Madeleine looked uncomfortable, hot and sticky from her bath. The ends of her deep red hair were damp and corkscrewed and she kept tugging at them nervously. She'd put on a pair of black leggings and an all-enveloping long black shirt but the crumpled cream jacket was still there too, as if she needed to keep herself ready to leave instantly if she felt she had to, or maybe she was just overconscious of her shape. Perhaps there would be something that Kitty had to say, some unknown phrase that Madeleine was waiting to hear that would make her feel satisfied she'd found out all she wanted to know, and then she'd be out of the door for good. The only thing Kitty was sure of was that it wouldn't be easy or appropriate attempting to have a deep conversation that could cover the essentials of twenty-four years while she whisked up the salad dressing.

‘I'll do the table shall I?' Madeleine volunteered, looking around for a drawer that might contain cutlery.

‘Oh, yes OK, that would be nice, thanks.' Kitty smiled at her, encouraging. Either Petroc or Lily usually did it. They seemed to be keeping out of the way, perhaps being tactful so that Kitty and Madeleine could do some sort of belated bonding. Or perhaps there was just something on TV. She must try not to analyse.

Madeleine wandered round the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboard doors in her search for plates. Kitty left her to get on with it while she washed the lettuce, though she followed Madeleine's progress round the kitchen, trying to see things as if through her eyes for the first time. She admired the cornflower-blue plates as Madeleine took them from the dresser shelves, noted how much the beech handles of the knives had faded from over-fierce dishwasher detergent, and ran her eyes over the collection of hand-thrown mugs that hung from the dresser hooks. If Madeleine commented, she was ready to explain her taste, discuss pattern and form and the mood-lifting qualities of colour. Running through her head, too, was the thread of some kind of fantasy in which Madeleine played the part of a daughter who had always been around since birth, but had simply moved away as grown-up children do.

‘Did you paint this?' Madeleine's voice cut into her thoughts. She was standing with a handful of glasses, studying the painting of Coverack which was still propped up on the dresser.

‘Yes. It's what I do; local views, things tourists like. I sell prints and postcards through galleries, and originals in shows a couple of times a year.'

‘The Grandma Moses of Cornwall,' Madeleine commented. Kitty didn't detect any sarcasm and hated herself for anticipating it.

‘We've got that in common, anyway. I did a degree in Art History,' Madeleine told her. ‘And I paint too, but abstract stuff, nothing like this.' She smiled at Kitty. ‘It's not bad.'

‘Well thanks. What do your parents do?' Kitty asked. The word ‘parents' came quite easily – a word she'd half expected to stumble over.

‘Dad died. He did something electrical in a firm near Brighton. Mum works in the bank, always has.' Kitty felt absurdly cross that the baby she'd sacrificed hadn't had its adoptive mother's constant and undivided attention each and every day. ‘And I've got two brothers,' Madeleine volunteered hesitantly. ‘It was like, after they got me they could suddenly have their own, properly. And then they got divorced.' They should have given you back, Kitty immediately wanted to say. She felt outraged and cheated. She'd given up her baby because they'd promised her Madeleine would have a stable family home. With life's prize of someone else's child, the ordinary sordid messes of break-up and divorce simply shouldn't have been in question. Of course no-one, she should have seen, could have made that promise of perfect family existence in the certainty of being able to keep it.

‘Perhaps they should have given me back,' Madeleine startled her by saying.

Kitty heard Glyn's car pulling into the yard. Her heart was beating very fast and her hands, chopping spring onions for the salad, felt clumsy as if she'd been given someone else's fingers to try. ‘Dad's here.' Lily crashed into the kitchen, knocking against Madeleine who was putting glasses on the table. One flew out of her hand as Lily pushed the kitchen door too wide and too fast. ‘Oh sorry!' she yelled, stooping to pick up the broken shards of glass from the floor.

‘No don't, you might hurt yourself. Let me.' Madeleine bent at the same time as Lily and their heads collided. ‘Sorry!' Lily said again. They stood up, giggling and rubbing their bruises.

‘Oh Madeleine look, you've cut your hand on the glass.' Kitty reached out to see how much damage there was and Madeleine and Lily, still giggling, collected round her by the sink. Glyn opened the door awkwardly, carrying his new spade, a roll of wire and a six foot length of pipe. Blasts of cool sea air wafted into the room with him. No-one took any notice. His daughter and a stranger and his wife were laughing together at the sink, running water over a bleeding hand, though whose it was and why it took three of them he couldn't see. They looked very self-contained. Even when they finally turned round to look at him, they did it all together, lined up with their faces still full of a shared, exclusive joke. The strange girl leaned back against the sink, her jacket gaping and her shirt caught behind her and pulled tight against her body. He stared at her stomach which almost seemed to be pointing at him, round and stretched as a new balloon.

‘Glyn.' Kitty, instantly serious, came forward and stood beside him, linking her arm through his and dislodging his spade so that it slipped and sliced painfully into his shin.

‘Glyn, this is Madeleine.'

‘Oh,' he said, still staring at the girl's tight front. Watching the direction of his gaze she'd put her hand over the bulge, stroking it protectively. ‘And not just Madeleine,' was all he could find to say. Kitty looked from him to the girl and back. Big girls could hide their pregnancies so well, skillfully bulking their bodies and clothes around the swelling. A friend of Petroc's had kept her secret from her family till the day she went into labour. Madeleine glared at Glyn, her eyes narrow and hostile. It crossed his mind that if she'd been a cat he'd be ducking out of the way of spit and claws.

‘So I'm a bit pregnant. What's it to you?'

‘How much is a bit?' Kitty hovered between Glyn and Madeleine.

Madeleine shrugged. ‘Six and a half, seven months. Bit more maybe.' She smiled suddenly. ‘You'll be a grandmother,' she said to Kitty. ‘Bet you weren't expecting that.'

Glyn could see Rita from the bedroom window. He climbed out of bed, stood naked in front of the cool glass and failed entirely to be even slightly aroused at recalling Rita on the rug. He assumed it was because he'd decided that that didn't count as real sex. He tried to put it on a simple level of shared comfort, intellectually not unlike a six o'clock gin and tonic after a tricky day. Real sex would have involved all the moves for getting closer, possibly a dinner, lots of flirtation, intent and pursuit. There'd been none of that. There was, though, part of him that couldn't stop guilt from being sieved through the self-justifying, and his bare toes curled with anguish at the thought that Kitty would not see it any way but as an appalling betrayal. He was a man of his age, he thought with depression, nothing more than a silly cliché.

Through the branches of the beech tree that were rocking up and down in the sharpening sea breeze he could see Rita with the wolfhound shambling along beside her, walking quite fast along the lane towards the shop. She and the dog kept looking at each other as they walked, as if they were having a conversation. Glyn wished he was out there too, breathing something fresher and less constricting than the household air. Kitty was already up, down in the kitchen checking out various breakfast options that Madeleine might like, mindful of vitamins and nutrition for the baby.

‘You'll drive the girl away again,' he'd groaned to her with supreme early-morning thoughtlessness the moment he'd sensed her beginning to fuss, heard her tossing and turning too early to get up and muttering about muesli and the need to get whole milk instead of semi-skimmed.

‘If she hasn't already gone,' had been Kitty's pessimistic response and Glyn had felt bad.

‘Sorry,' he'd said, but to an empty room.

Just now, Kitty spent most of each night waiting to hear the click of the closing latch as Madeleine, either disappointed with whom and what she'd found or simply satisfied and selfish, slid out of the front door and disappeared for ever from their lives. Even when they made love he could sense her attention just slightly askew, out of the room and along the corridor as if she was checking on a baby's living breath. It took the edge off eroticism, though considering what he had recently done, he felt he could hardly complain.