Daughters (14 page)

‘Hi.’ She poked her head around the community-room door. A waft of strong disinfectant hit her nostrils. In a corner, a couple of plastic chairs had been subjected to assault and battery and were upended.

‘Hi there.’ By now, Kath-on-Reception knew Maudie, but whether or not Kath-on-Reception rated her, she wasn’t sure.

Maudie produced a hemp (no plastic for her) bag containing sponge cakes, chocolate digestives and a big box of dog biscuits. ‘Any use?’

Kath stowed them in the box by her feet. ‘Very welcome.’ She didn’t look at Maudie. ‘One of them died last night,’ she said flatly.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Died of the cider that’s never seen the apple,’ said Kath. ‘Are you going to sign the petition?’ She thrust a clipboard under Maudie’s nose. ‘To try to make the government see that white super-strength ciders are killing people.’

‘Of course.’ Her hand trembled a little as she did so. With its complement of the suffering, Donwell House made her uneasy and sad, which was precisely why she forced herself to return on a regular basis to donate or to perform small tasks, like washing-up or sweeping.

A picture, bright and peaceful, flicked across her mind of the campus at Harvard, with herself walking serenely towards the library. She had no idea if it was accurate but she could almost smell the shrubs flanking the path, hear the subdued hum of the air-conditioning inside the buildings, feel the edges of the books between her fingers, and taste easy-over eggs and hominy grits.

Jasmine was already waiting outside Selfridges and pushed her through the door. ‘I haven’t got long.’

Inside, wall-to-wall consumerism hit them. This, in turn, made her think of the homeless centre and, in the same heartbeat, she felt a frisson of guilt that she was here rather than there.

Jasmine forged a path towards the escalator. ‘We’ll work our way around the first floor.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Evie should be here. She’s so much better at this sort of thing.’

If Jasmine expected Maudie to give her a soft-soap reply, she wasn’t going to get it. ‘Evie wouldn’t be interested.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘She’s made it plain that I’m a nuisance.’

Jasmine gave her a full-on look. ‘You mean we think Mum prefers you because we’re only stepdaughters? Maudie, that’s too easy.’

‘Is it?’ said Maudie.

‘Yes, it is.’

Maudie’s pale, glossed lips twitched into a half-smile.

There began a slow, painful progress from concession to concession.
What kind of dress do you want? I’ll know it when I see it. Colour? Not sure. Green – no, maybe black … no. Midnight blue?

Two hours or so later, she paraded in front of a wrung-out Jasmine in a microscopic silver shift, plus a black pair of lace treggings. She raised a radiant face to her sister. ‘They’re brilliant. Thanks for being so patient.’

The outfit was packed up and Jasmine paid for it. ‘But you mustn’t pay,’ Maudie protested.

‘Just for the record, it’s what sisters do.’ Jasmine hooked the carrier bag over Maudie’s arm. ‘Have we sorted things, Maudie?’

She wanted to say, ‘Not really,’ because she had clocked it would never be sorted, and because she was beginning to see that the world never operated on complete transparency. ‘Sure.’

Jasmine persisted, ‘If you stir the pot between sisters and half-sisters or imply favouritism, you’ll cause damage. OK? So leave it.’

Maudie poked a finger into the tissue-wrapped contents of the carrier bag. ‘Sorry.’

On the train down to Winchester, she rang her mother.
‘I love the dress, Mum.’ She glanced at the carrier bag on the luggage rack. ‘Jas was brilliant. She even picked a corsage for my wrist.’

‘Oh,’ said Lara.

Maudie knew that her mother would have loved to be there with them, happily enduring hours of boredom. Straightening seams, assessing hemlines, smoothing hair. Cluck. Cluck. Her mother would have said (as Jasmine had), ‘Isn’t black a bit old for you?’ and ‘That skirt’s too short.’ (‘Did I
really
say those things?’ Jasmine had asked Maudie, with some bemusement over their sandwich lunch.)

‘Have a good week,’ said her mother. ‘Make sure you get a good night’s sleep. I’ll meet you as usual on Friday.’

Cluck.

‘Don’t do that, Mum.’

‘Don’t you want me to?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Big girl now, Mum.’

As it turned out, her mother was working on Friday evening – ‘an emergency’. Instead, she took Maudie out to lunch on Saturday at the National Portrait Gallery. Maudie was planning to do some research there on Tudor iconography, with special reference to Henry VIII and his wives.

Her mother was late, and while she was waiting, Maudie amused herself by reading the appeal literature. A portrait of Anne Boleyn required extensive restoration. Could the public help? She pushed some change into Donations.

‘Poor Anne Boleyn.’ She kissed an out-of-breath Lara when she appeared. ‘Not only beheaded, but disintegrating.’

‘Royal brides.’ Lara kissed her back. ‘Tricky. Let’s have a look at you.’ Lara made what she fondly imagined was an unobtrusive check-up.
Child’s waistline? Not too thin. Hair? Groomed. Shoes? Surreptitious glance at wallet in bag to see if there was any money in it.

Maudie did a bit of assessing of her own. Check: Lara’s white shirt and black pencil skirt (a shade too tight), and the handbag, once smartish now used to death. Actually, more often than not, her mother annoyed her by just being her. But having analysed this feeling (even Lara’s outfits exerted a curious capacity to irritate), she realized it wasn’t personal. It was the flicker of precognition. She was afraid that one day she would turn into Lara.

As they made their way to the restaurant, Maudie said, ‘Isn’t it time
you
found someone else, Mum?’

For once, Lara did not say, ‘None of your business,’
or try to dismiss the question. ‘I’ve thought about it but I’ve been busy.’ She smiled. ‘I wanted to be sure I had the energy to look after you all properly. And …’

Good heavens. With a tiny thrill, Maudie grasped that she had been invited to converse on an adult plane. This was the moment when she leaped from one ice floe to another, from regarding her mother as a mother (irritating and fussy but her one true refuge) to seeing her as a woman, way, way out of touch but pretty good all the same.

‘And?’

‘I’ve felt … well, that that part of my life was over.’ Her mother’s hand touched her chest. ‘Sort of frozen.’

All those years of her mother darting around, always busy, always tired … Maudie had observed without understanding and criticized without knowledge. But you had to do that before you grew into sense, didn’t you? Yes. ‘Mum, we’re grown-up. You’ll have to start thinking about your life after we’ve gone.’

‘I know. Evie’s wedding …’ Her mother’s grey eyes looked bleak. ‘A milestone for everyone.’

‘Think about it, Mum.’

‘I’m used to just me, Maudie. It’s a habit of mind. And it’s a great deal simpler. No negotiations necessary.’

‘Easy-option position? Or what you truly want?’

‘Good question,’ said her mother. ‘I’ll reflect on it.’

‘Mum, you
have
to be honest with yourself.’

‘Now, where have I heard that before?’ Lara reached for Maudie’s hand and held it fleetingly to her cheek.

Maudie was enjoying herself. The boredom of being a child was slipping into the past and the future was interesting. They settled at the table in the restaurant with a view down to the Houses of Parliament and she said, ‘If I want to be honest, I think weddings are hell and getting married should be conducted in a cupboard. Or in private. If you must marry.’

Lara was in the act of flapping open her napkin and looked alarmed. ‘Maudie, don’t go off on one. I need your backing.’ She picked up the menu. ‘I especially don’t need any feuds. OK?’

‘I know. Jasmine’s already had a go at me.’ Maudie leaned
over the table. ‘But for the record, on the possible date clash,
did
you feel it was a choice between stepdaughter and daughter?’

Don’t go there, said Jasmine
.

‘Yes, no. Whatever, it was an impossible choice.’

‘I bet Eve thinks you don’t love her.’

‘Possibly.’

Wasn’t it better to get at the truth? To have things out? To relish currents of clean air? ‘I think the worst of her. Actually.’

‘Don’t. Eve’s your sister.’

‘She’s my half-sister, Mum. It’s different.’

‘No,
no
– it’s not,’ said Lara.

But Maudie knew, and her mother knew, that there was a difference. Deep down. Bone deep. The trick, as Maudie now realized, was not to get into a situation where it became obvious.

They ate their lunch and enjoyed one of the most expensive vistas in the world.

‘Why are we here, Mum?’

‘Thought we’d splash out. Just this once.’

Ah, the years of
not
splashing out. Hand-me-downs of every description – only lucky Jasmine had had new stuff, if there was any. Years of hearty soups, meat on Wednesdays and at weekends, and patrolling the supermarket’s ‘Reduced’ section.

‘I’m
really
suspicious,’ she said.

‘Just enjoy,’ said Lara. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk about the future. I’m going to have to work a little harder. Expand the practice.’

Maudie laid down her fork. ‘Dad’s pulling the plug? Not content with buggering off …’

Lara looked serious. ‘Maudie, you must get this into your head. Your father is a kind and honourable man. It takes two, as you will know, and he is not only to blame.’

Maudie recollected the ramshackle house and the girls who swirled through it. Her mother had done her best, more than her best … but something had always been missing. She now understood. They had been searching – all of them – for the figure who wasn’t there. Yet at the same time he
had
been there. Just down the road.

She was drunk on her own boldness. ‘So, what did go wrong?’

The question obviously stung and, for a second or two, her mother seemed speechless with embarrassment and distress. ‘There are some things …’ she said. She glanced at her water glass. ‘What I will say is that I made a mistake, Maudie. A big one. Your father and I disagreed on something fundamental. I did something stupid. I broke the trust.’

‘An affair?’

‘I’m not going into the details.’

‘Did you and Dad discuss whatever it was? Really discuss it.’

Her mother looked this way and that. ‘It was difficult … neither of us was very good at being open with the other.’

‘Shouldn’t you have been?’ She was careering down her new flight path, grown and liberated. ‘On something so important? Surely you owed it to us.’

‘Stop,’ said Lara.

‘I’ve never been able to work out why it was that on one day Dad was reading me stories and the next he was gone.’

‘Sorry,’ said Lara.

She had dreamed of him, muddled dreams of him appearing on the doorstep and she, Maudie, being the first to fling open the door and hug him. Or she secretly phoning her father and negotiating his return. Later (she planned) he would tell her beaming mother,
Maudie did it.

‘I thought that … I thought with Eve getting married, it might help to know … to understand … Was it Louis?’

Careless, heedless Maudie.

‘Maudie, some things are private.’ Pause. ‘And painful.’ Longer pause. ‘You must understand that things don’t always fall into place, however much you want them to. It doesn’t work like that.’

All the same, affected as she was by her mother’s distress, Maudie was thinking: It only doesn’t work like that if you didn’t
really
want it to work like that.

‘Was it to do with the baby … with Louis?’

‘Yes.’ The pallor she knew so well had drained her mother’s lips, and a tiny twitch of nerve at her temple betrayed … what? Suffering? Agitation?

Her mother’s expression warned Maudie: trespass no further. Even she could see that. She snatched her mother’s hand. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

Lara’s eyes were pools of unhappiness. ‘Maudie, at eighteen it’s difficult for you to understand. Why should you? Grief grows into you. Dry rot. Veins in the cheese. Ivy on a wall. Describe it how you wish. Every day is a bad
day. But you do learn to cope.’ She looked out over the roofs towards the Houses of Parliament, as if seeking validation from their neo-Gothic certainties. ‘I’m not going to discuss it further.’

‘OK.’ Maudie was both frightened and exhilarated that she had gone too far.

Her mother pulled herself together. ‘I want to talk about you. It’s simple, really. You must be clever about what may lie ahead in your life, and be ready. Not to sound melodramatic, but I want you to be better prepared than I was.’

Maudie dived in: ‘Harvard, then.’

Now her mother sought refuge in the distant pinnacles of Westminster Abbey. ‘I asked for that.’

‘Don’t you want me to go?’

‘Difficult to answer.’

A spot of salad dressing had spattered Lara’s sleeve and Maudie reached over to dab it with her napkin.

‘I’ll have to change it before this afternoon,’ said her mother. ‘Can’t see patients like that.’

Maudie rested her chin on her hands and squinted at her mother … 
squinted back into the past
.

It had been May. A long time ago. Warm and breezy. Loaded with drinks and biscuits, Lara was taking the family to the park. Maudie must have been eight, and was battling to keep up with her sisters. Arms linked, Jasmine and Eve walked briskly ahead.

Maudie had a snivel. Every so often her mother made her stop to wipe her nose. She was cross and jealous. ‘Why won’t they wait for me?’

‘Because.’

At the entrance to the park, an ice-cream van was advertising cones with a chocolate Flake. Maudie went into melt-down.

‘No,’ said Lara. ‘No ice-cream.’

‘Why?’ wailed Maudie.

Again the wielded hankie. ‘Ice-cream costs money.’

‘You’re mean. Mean.’

Her mother’s hair was flopping over her face. It looked stupid, and her feet in gym shoes looked stupid too.

‘For the record, Maudie, I hate you too.’ Her mother shook with anger. ‘And it’s about time you learned about “No” or you won’t get on in life.’ Lara had picked up the bag. ‘You have to be ready to deal with it.’ Her mouth had worked in the way it did when she was upset.