Daughters (36 page)

Both of them donned white gloves and, in unison, flexed their fingers.

Lara suppressed a smile. Maudie would have so enjoyed this little scene, a vaudeville act – and the pain-which-was-not-a-physical-pain that nagged under her ribs whenever she thought of Maudie returned and settled in.

Maudie had gone. There had been only the briefest of phone calls. ‘Hi, Mum. It’s all good.’

And when she had repeatedly asked, ‘Do you need anything?’ she was told, ‘No, Mum.
Nothing.
’

She wished Maudie had wanted something. Then she could have bought it, wrapped the parcel with care, queued at the post office and sent it off – a tangible reaching-out.

The under-dress took a little time to ease into place. Totally absorbed in the process, Eve was the most patient of statues while it was done. After that came the dress itself. She held out her arms and Ivanka and the assistant eased the long tight sleeves over them.

‘There,’ said Ivanka.

Eve tilted her head and let out an audible sigh.

The assistant dropped to her knees and crawled around the hem.

‘What do you think?’ asked Ivanka. She picked up part of the train to test how it draped. The assistant whipped out a needle and thread and sewed a minute adjustment.

‘The veil,’ said Ivanka. ‘It’s important to try now.’ The assistant got to her feet and disappeared into the workshop.

‘The neckline,’ said Ivanka, and busied herself with yet more adjustments. ‘But you haven’t said anything, Eve.’

Eve’s eyes were huge. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s all that I could want.’

Ivanka took a step back and made a long, thorough appraisal. ‘It needs just a tweak under the arm. I’ll fetch my pins.’ She pinched a narrow space between finger and thumb.

The room was empty, except for Lara and Eve.

‘What do you think?’ asked Eve, in a neutral voice.

‘It’s wonderful,’ she replied. ‘Like a dream.’

The dream.

How would she interpret it?

The bitter-sweet, the fearful, the half-forgotten and the half-remembered anchored, glimmering, in her deepest imagining, a bride’s image (hers, but timeless). White, sacrificial and luminous.

As she got up from the sofa, the pink and white stripes danced in front of her eyes. ‘Evie?’

Eve swirled around. The train rippled like water and a section of the hem was caught by her handbag on the floor. Lara dropped to her knees and detached it.

‘Evie darling …’

Eve replied, from above her, ‘
Don’t
say anything, Lara.’ She bent her head – the perfect image of the totem bride. ‘I know what I’m doing. I’m not blown off course by stupid tales. OK?’

Ivanka returned with the pins. ‘I do one more check.’

Later, when every single wrinkle had been ironed out, tested, adjusted, Eve got dressed. She and Ivanka discussed transport and delivery. Eve had arranged for her friend Julia to pick up the dresses and transport them to Membury on the Friday.

Lara had been made deliberately superfluous.

The assistant began the long, meticulous process of packing the dress into its calico bag. Lara watched. Eventually Eve picked up her bag. ‘Goodbye, Lara,’ she said coolly. ‘I expect you have to get back to work.’

The door to this part of Lara’s life shut with a click.

Jasmine sat cross-legged on the bed in her flat – her career-girl’s cramped flat.

It was late. She had changed into her sleeping gear but she was still working on her laptop. Jason wanted the detailed report (which was running two weeks behind) on the San Diego trip. Every so often when she needed a break, she flipped on to the Internet to watch a programme detailing a scientific study of krill in the sea off Chile. Krill were a hugely important part of the eco-system – the blue whale, humpbacks and minkes fed off them. Their smallness was out of proportion to their importance and, because she was serious about the subject, she drew a diagram to trace the seven degrees of separation between the krill and its predators.

Reluctantly, she abandoned the cool, grey-blue vistas beamed up by the cameras. ‘The All-Seeing Eye …’ she typed, but her heart was with the scientists tracing the trajectory of the krill’s short, but remarkable, life.

Luckily (for how long?), krill had escaped farming and fishing. They contained too much fluoride, and when they died, a fast-working enzyme ate up their body tissue.

‘The All-Seeing Eye …’

Krill laid up to ten thousand eggs in one go.

This time she flipped into her on-line diary. Anything free in late autumn? She isolated a two-week period to return to the west coast to dive. Two weeks without Duncan.

She was composing an email to the relevant company when she heard a key turn in the front door.

Duncan.

‘Jas!’

She put the laptop to one side and climbed off the bed. ‘Was I expecting you? Why didn’t you ring?’

‘Have you been answering my calls lately? No, you haven’t. Have we spent any significant time together lately? No. Have we resolved our quarrel over Andrew? No. So, even you’ll see that the negatives are totting up and I wanted to talk to you about them.’

She stood with one bare foot curled around the other and leaned on the door frame. ‘That’s no reason to come busting in.’

‘That’s every reason to come busting in, and what were you doing that’s more important than sorting things?’

‘Booking a holiday without you.’

The information didn’t thrill him. ‘If that’s what you want.’

She looked down at her feet, sporting bright red nail polish. ‘I do.’

He dumped his briefcase on the floor. ‘You can have as many holidays as you wish by yourself but we still have to negotiate first.’

Jasmine found her dressing-gown, wrapped it around herself and pushed Duncan out of the bedroom. She stuck her hands on her hips. ‘And?’

‘As I said, we have to talk.’

Jasmine burst out laughing. ‘And as
I
said, I
never
thought I’d hear you say that.’

He stood slap-bang in the centre of the living space, which was so small he dominated it. The neon frontage of the café opposite reflected blue and yellow light and shed an unflattering glow over him. ‘There’s no point in
not being honest. I know you’re angry about this girl and Andrew, and how it reflects on my attitude.’

‘So you do know about her?’

He gestured with both hands. ‘I don’t
know
anything for sure.’

‘Are you certain about that? Because if you do, I have to say something.’

He moved restlessly. ‘Whatever. But that’s not the point, Jassy.
We
are the point.’

She couldn’t disagree.

‘Have you talked to Andrew? Have you asked him if he’s having an affair?’

‘No.’

‘Shouldn’t you have done?’

‘Why haven’t you?’

‘Because if I did it would drive a wedge between me and him, his future sister-in-law. Although I’m tempted. My God, I’m tempted to tell him exactly … But you can have that conversation.’

‘Are you being deliberately stupid? If Andrew tells me he’s having it off with someone, he knows perfectly well that I’ll tell you, so your relationship with Eve would be compromised either way. Have you talked to Lara?’

‘God, no. Think of the fallout.’

Duncan tried another tack. ‘It’s none of our business, Jasmine.’

‘But we’re all connected,’ she pointed out. ‘All of us. We don’t live in a private bubble and what we do affects others. And Eve is my sister.’

‘But you’re not her keeper, Jas.’

‘I’m bound to her. I have to protect her.’

‘So why haven’t you tackled her?’

‘If I’m to ruin her life I need to know if it’s true or not.’

He nodded. ‘But that’s not your deep-down objection,’ he said shrewdly. ‘Is it?’

There was no point in evasion. Honesty involved sacrifice and pain so she went into battle. ‘Given your attitude, how can I believe in you?’

‘You know you can.’

‘I never worried when you rang up sloshed from nightclubs or went on your trips. I enjoyed the trust between us. I
relished
it because it suggested we were grown-ups. I had no reason not to trust you … except for an occasional blip. And I think you felt the same. But not any more.’

‘Jasmine.’ He ran his fingers though his hair. Nervous. Unsure. So unlike him. ‘I could kill Andrew.’

‘That’s not the point. The point is, what are you doing about the situation? And the point is … given all this, given everything … I can’t see a basis any more for you and me. Not a good one, anyway. What Andrew has done, or not, is one thing. What it’s done to us is another.’

Disbelieving, she listened to the words that issued from her mouth. Clearly, they had been massing – a silent, stealthy secret army in her mind. The dressing-gown belt had worked loose and she tugged it so tight it pinched her flesh. ‘I feel differently about us. Something’s been killed off.’

Duncan had gone very pale, and then he was angry. He
stuck his hands in his pockets. Took them out again. ‘Only if you want it to be.’

‘It’s time I faced up to it,’ said Jasmine. ‘I should have done much earlier. Andrew’s done me a favour.’

Duncan emitted an impatient sound.

‘I know that sounds melodramatic.’

‘You’re right. It
is
melodramatic, and rather adolescent, Jas. I’m not Andrew and you’re mixing the two of us up. People have sex in the wrong places with the wrong people all the time. If we brought all of them to account, the world would stop.’

The blood rushed into her cheeks. ‘Don’t patronize me, Duncan.’

He moved towards her. ‘Jas, I came here to ask you to move in with me permanently. It’s my fault for not sorting this out earlier. I’m willing to change. I love you and need you, and I think you feel the same.’

Every inch of her quivered with shock. Life loved ironies, and it was expert at heaping grief upon insult.

He rounded it up. ‘It’s obviously too late.’

It
was
too late to retrieve the precious happy feeling between them. Only too clearly she envisaged the future tipsy phone calls from nightclubs, but in that future they would leave her with a sick, uneasy feeling and a question mark. The transparency between them had been muddied and she had no idea what secrets and lies were hidden in its murk.

‘I hadn’t faced up to it,’ she said. ‘Now I have. I feel nothing but disappointment.’ She shrugged. ‘After all this time.’

‘Jas? Is that really what you’re saying?’

Her craving to be with him, and to carry his children, rose up one last time – and she ignored it.

‘Yes.’

So it ended. Not with a bang but with a whisper.

Eve’s email:

Rehearsal, day before wedding. Please could everyone involved be in the church by 4 p.m. PS Just think – no more bossy emails …

Lara scrutinized the street map on-line and printed out a copy.

She ran through the list. Dress, shoes, first aid, sewing kit …

It was very warm: an Indian summer had arrived, and the city street was airless. As she ferried her luggage in and out of the house, the sun beat on her bare skin and the plastic bag protecting her wedding outfit wilted.

By mid-morning the car was loaded and she had checked the overnight bookings in the two hotels, as she had been asked. Eve and Jasmine were staying at Membury and she had a room at the White Boar.

The to-ing and fro-ing over the arrangements had been considerable and Lara was trying not to mind that she had been relegated to the hotel. Eve had sent yet another email: ‘Lara, if you could keep an eye on the guests who are staying at the Boar I would be grateful.’
There was no affectionate sign-off.

This was in contrast to the email from Maudie:

Darling Mum, I am in heaven. That’s not to say it’s been easy and I don’t get homesick as I do. But I’m beginning to settle, and to get used to my surroundings, which are BEAUTIFUL. My corridor has some great people – bar a couple of exceptions who are rude about the British taking up spaces in their university. Freshmen’s week was excruciating and I nearly ducked out of some of the stuff, but forced myself to go in the end. Alicia sent me some good tips. She’ll be coming out later. Hope to see her.

You know something? I feel I understand better about things. About Dad and stuff.

I miss YOU.

Added in tiny, tiny type: ‘I miss Nick.’

The print-out of the map was on the passenger seat as she drove through London. Instead of taking the obvious direct route, she branched off towards the river.

Halfway, she found a parking place, cut the engine and sat there for quite some time.

Her heart thudded.

‘You are empowered to change things … not much, but an inch,’ she told her patients. ‘You just have to take the first step.’

She started the engine and listened intently to it. Her hands resting on the wheel were a little shaky.

Robin’s flat turned out to be in a mansion block and there
was nothing to distinguish it from any other in the city. It was built of durable brick, had some mildly interesting decorative features and an old-fashioned lift with a clanking gate, which she took to the second floor. She rang the doorbell and waited – not really expecting it to be answered.

But it was. By Robin. He looked thin, but suntanned and fit.

‘I didn’t think you were back,’ she said. ‘But I thought I’d try.’

‘Yesterday evening.’ He rubbed his chin. He stared at her, as if he was making up his mind, and a quiver of doubt went through Lara. ‘Haven’t shaved, but pleased to see you.’

She had anticipated this moment in so many ways that the bland ‘pleased to see you’ was disappointing. But she stood her ground. ‘You haven’t been in touch.’

‘I should have been.’

She tried to smile. ‘Since you didn’t I’ve done it for you.’ She was aware of the storm finally breaking in her – the one she had avoided for good reason. ‘I’ve been worried, Robin. About many things. You. Me.’

‘There was no need.’

‘Yes, there was.’

‘Hey …’ He stepped forward. ‘You look … lovely.’