A Place in the Country (20 page)

Melanie Morton had leaned her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. “I won't say I'm sorry because what I did had nothing to do with you,” she explained. “It's James who should be sorry. And now he's left me with nothing. Not a cent.” She looked up and held Caroline's eyes with her huge blue ones. “I have responsibilities, and so does he,” she said. Then she got up suddenly and walked back to the door.

Caroline stared after her. Thank God she was leaving. “Don't forget your coat,” she called, but she was already gone. Two minutes later she was back, this time with a child.

Melanie thrust the little girl forward and the light shone on her face. The child's brown eyes scrunched in the sudden glare.

Jesus Christ!
Caroline said to herself.
Does Issy have a sister?

 

chapter 48

The child was small
and lanky-limbed, in a summer dress that was totally unsuitable for a rainy English night. The dress was pink, smocked in navy; the kind of old-fashioned outfit you might associate with royalty. It looked especially out-of-place on this girl, who had the look of a waif out of Charles Dickens. Thin no-color hair cut chin-length, clipped to one side with a pink barrette; a narrow face with no visible bones to it; a chin that appeared to sink in but that was probably because the girl was holding her head down, hiding in her neck and peering up at her with those big brown eyes. Dear God, could they really be
James's
eyes?

All Caroline's normal maternal instincts were canceled. She did not even want to look at this child. She didn't want anything to do with her mother. And anyhow, she could be quite wrong about James's involvement; any kid with brown eyes could pass as his.

She felt Melanie Morton watching for her reaction. Now she saw that the pub's three customers were taking in the little tableau, and the dog who never normally moved unless it was to snap up a morsel of food, even got up and wandered over, wagging its tail, like it lived here and was acting as host instead of her.

“Get out of here,” Caroline snarled at the dog, and saw the girl shrivel into her mother's legs, obviously thinking she meant her.

“Sorry,” she sighed, wondering how she ever got into these situations, when all she did was keep her head down and try to do her best. There had to be some special kind of doom hanging over her. She obviously must have been a very wicked woman in some previous life and now she was having to pay for it. Well, fuck it, she wasn't about to take on this responsibility.

The kitchen door swung open. Maggie came in. She saw the drowned-rat woman and the shivering child. She looked them up and down, took quick note of the mother's tears, the child's terrified expression.

She said, “Give that woman a brandy, Caroline, while I tell Sarah to fetch them some of your soup.”

Maggie went back to the kitchen and Caroline got the brandy and an Orangina for the kid. She sat them both at the table near the fire, the very same table where Maggie had put her and Issy when they had wandered in out of the rain, on exactly a night like this, over a year ago.

Sarah, bursting with curiosity, bustled out of the kitchen with two steaming bowls of soup full of chunks of chicken, carrots, and potatoes. Maggie was behind her with a towel.

The woman thanked them. She dried off her child first, though the little girl wasn't nearly as wet as she was. Maggie said the kid could use a sweater and went off to get her one. She also got a gray sweatshirt that said
STAR & PLOUGH UPPER AMBERLEY
in red for the mom.

The woman thanked her. “I'm Melanie Morton,” she said.

“Yes?” Maggie looked at the small girl, obediently sipping Orangina through a straw.

“And this is Asia.” Melanie indicated the child and they all looked at her.

“
Asia
?” Maggie said.

“It's where she was conceived.”

Sarah laughed. “Then maybe instead of Little Billy I should have called him ‘Ford.' Back seat of,” she explained when they switched their glances to her.

“Jesus,” Caroline said. Then, “Sorry Mags. This seems to be getting very complicated.”

“Oh, no, I don't think so.” Maggie took charge. “I don't think it's complicated at all. In fact I'll bet I could tell you the story without any prompting, but why don't we allow Miss Morton to tell us instead.”

They stood around the table, waiting. Asia spooned up a little of the hot soup, looking up at them. She was missing two front teeth.

“Fell off her bike,” her mother said hastily, in case they were assuming child abuse. “Anyway, long and short of it is, I was James's mistress. We lived together, in Macao and Singapore for six years.”

Caroline waited a minute for it to sink in, for her to feel the stab wounds again, the humiliation, the pride wiped in the dust. She wondered how James had managed his complicated love life while still being married to her. And having a second family.

“Means nothing to me,” she said, in a clipped voice that sounded nothing like her. But of course it did. She still bore the scars of a betrayed woman.

“That bastard,” Sarah said, amazed. Her own boyfriend dumping her when she'd told him she was pregnant was nothing compared with this.

“Asia is James's daughter,” Melanie told them. Then she swigged down the brandy, slammed the glass back on the table and looked Caroline in the eye, as though daring her to dispute it.

Not knowing quite what to say, finally Caroline came up with, “So why are you here?”

“We had nowhere else to go. James left us with nothing, not a penny. I maxed out my credit cards just to get us here. I thought since you are Asia's only living relative you would … you know you'd…”

“Look after you,” Maggie said, looking at Caroline to see what she was thinking.

Caroline heaved a dead kind of sigh. She met Maggie's eyes, then Sarah's, then the little girl's, who gazed solemnly back at her with those eyes, so like James's.
Like Issy's.

Melanie said, “I'm also here because I want you to know I don't believe James killed himself. He would never have done that, never have left me penniless, left his daughter with nothing.”

Caroline thought oh yes he might. He did it to us, after all.

“He loved me,” Melanie said. “He would never have left me—us—alone.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked, and Sarah held her breath, waiting for the answer.

“I think somebody killed him. James was set up, he was murdered.” Seeming shocked at what she had just said, Melanie put a hand over her mouth and turned to look at her daughter, who slurped the last of the Orangina through her straw then glanced innocently up.

It was the innocence that did it. Caroline knew that look, understood it from her experience as a mom. Somebody had to look after this kid.

“Okay,” she said, in her normal more kindly voice. “I guess you'll have to come and stay at the barn with me tonight. Eat up your dinner first. What do you say, Mags? Shall we have a bottle of wine? We can sit here, let Melanie tell her story. Then tomorrow…” She shrugged. “I may be misquoting Scarlett O'Hara, and to tell you the truth I'm feeling a bit like her, but anyhow, tomorrow is another day. We'll think about it tomorrow.”

 

chapter 49

Asia fell asleep
in the back of Caroline's car.

“It's been a long day,” Melanie told her.

Caroline thought it certainly must have been. And now she was going to have to put James's lover and child in Issy's room and she was not happy about it. After all, Issy had not even slept in her own room yet, not even broken it in, so to speak. And what's more, she still did not know whether she ever would.

Good thing she had bought twin beds so there was room for both of them. This kid was too old to sleep in a drawer, the way Issy had when she was tiny, when they'd visited the grandparents and Caroline had forgotten the traveling crib. Padded with a cushion and a folded baby blanket it had done the trick. Infants were so much more portable than “children,” who tended to want to run around on a plane, speak to total strangers, race down hotel corridors. She had been a mom a long time. Sixteen years next week. She wondered exactly how old Asia was but for the moment did not ask. She'd had enough for one day.

Gravel spurted satisfyingly under her tires as she stopped the Land Rover in front of the barn. All was in darkness; she must have forgotten to leave the outside light on. She got out and opened the back door and Melanie eased herself out, still clutching the sleeping child.

Melanie stared worriedly into the pitch-black night. Nearby, the river gurgled and rippled. The wind flung rain against windows. Trees rustled and fretted. “This is scary,” she whispered, as though afraid somebody might be lurking. “You really live here?”

“It's my home.” Caroline had no time for nerves, she was fed up with the whole deal. She was tired and emotionally wrung out and all she wanted was to go to bed and not have this woman—this
responsibility
here. As she unlocked the door and switched on a light she asked herself if she was going to be picking up the pieces of James's other lives forever. What more could he have done? Except get himself murdered. And if so, by whom? And for God's sake, why?

Asia woke as her mother carried her up the stairs but she did not speak. In fact so far, Caroline had not heard a single word out of her. Not even a whimper.

“Oh,” Melanie said, when Caroline showed them Isabel's room. “I forgot all about my rental car. I left it at the pub. All our stuff is in it.”

Caroline sorted out a bathrobe for Melanie and a T-shirt for Asia. She found one new toothbrush—they would have to share, Asia was missing a couple of teeth anyway; gave them extra blankets because she thought they might be feeling the cold after Singapore's heat and humidity; found fresh soap, said there was shampoo if they wanted it and Melanie said thanks but she was too tired. Caroline went to the kitchen, made a pot of tea, carried it upstairs with some biscuits, knocked on Melanie's door, said it was outside and to sleep well, they would talk in the morning.

Then she went and locked herself in her bathroom and contemplated crying. She decided it wouldn't do her any good so she washed her face instead. Despite all the trauma she remembered to put on the recovery cream. “Just in case,” she told herself with a weary grin, “your face falls off overnight.” Which it just might, with all this … this
what
? Stress was an underwhelming word for it. She sighed, climbed into bed and checked her e-mails.

Mom,
Isabel had written.

Grandma is so funny, she makes us laugh all the time. Grandpa mows a lot. The bugs are terrible. Can we come and live here?

Caroline slammed shut the laptop and sank lower into the pillows. She had just gotten them, by hook or by crook and a hell of a lot of debt into this bloody converted barn, a proper home, a business for the future, and now her kid wanted to go and live in France near the grandparents. Hadn't she
asked
her, for fuck's sake … Hadn't she said, “Shall we go try France?” And hadn't Issy said, “NO…?”

Her mobile was blinking. Two messages. The first was Maggie.

“We'll work it out, do not worry, amiga.
Plus,
that child may have brown eyes but are we sure they are James's? Think about it very carefully and we'll talk tomorrow.”

Caroline thought about it very carefully
now.
After all, Melanie had just shown up, she had not offered proof of her relationship with James, which she claimed was a six-year deal. She had not offered proof of little Asia's fatherhood. Could she be playing her for the fool? Showing up broke, with a kid, saying James left me with nothing, now I'm your responsibility? Where's the money?

This would take a lot of thought.

The second message was from Jim Thompson.
“Terrible weather. How about a cozy candlelit dinner?
Chez vous?
I heard you were some kind of great chef. Just let me know when. I'll bring the wine.”

Caroline turned out the light and slithered deeper into the pillows. Great. Even if she'd allowed herself to, now she couldn't even have the remotest beginnings of a love affair—after seventeen bloody long years—because she was stuck with James's leftovers. She thought about James and wanted to cry for him, but she didn't. It was over. Except because of Melanie and Asia, it was beginning all over again.

 

chapter 50

In France,
over breakfast Cassandra Meriton said to her granddaughter, “It's time you went home, y'know.”

Isabel lifted her nose out of the bowl of coffee into which she had just stirred vanilla sugar and gazed silently back at her grandmother.

“Well?” Cassandra awaited the reply she knew was to come.

“What home?”

Cassandra sighed. Teenagers were nothing if not predictable. They were sitting at the painted metal table under the gnarly old wisteria vine, whose blossoms were rapidly turning into seed pods that exploded with a little pop every now and then, sending seeds flying. She thought propagation was easy when all you had to consider was another flower or two. With humans—especially girls—it was quite a different matter.

“So? When did you last see a doctor?” She swiped homemade fig jam over a segment of croissant, carefully not looking at Issy.

“What d'you mean?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. You'll be sixteen in a couple of weeks. And that's grown up enough, these days anyway, to have to take care of yourself. Just in case.”

“In case I want to go to bed with somebody you mean?” Isabel wanted to say “fuck somebody,” not go to bed with, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate over the breakfast table, with her grandmother.