Her Living Image (31 page)

He did not know what proof she had, and kept silent.

“You were!” she screamed, and threw herself at him, pummelling him aimlessly with her fists. When he put her back gently on the sofa she flopped over like a rag doll and went on
sobbing hoarsely, covering the cushion in snot and tears.

At last Alan went to bed. There was nothing else he could do. He was dog tired. He didn’t wake up till he heard the children banging about in the morning. He got up cautiously and went
into the girls’ room. Chris was there too. They were all bubbling with excitement over Annie’s plaster. Alan sat on her bed and heard the whole story of the fall. the journey to
hospital, the X-ray machine, and what the doctors had said and done. Then he told Chris to help Annie dress, shut the door on the three of them, and went quietly downstairs. The sitting room was
empty. He was suddenly badly frightened that she might have gone. But she was in the kitchen making toast. Her face was white and her eyes were red, but she had combed her hair and washed her face,
and looked relatively normal.

“Did you sleep?”

She turned her back.

“Carolyn – aren’t we going to talk?”

“What d’you want to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

“Not if it upsets you like this.”

“Not if it upsets me? Did you think I would be pleased?”

“Carolyn, people have affairs all the time. Anyone would think I’d murdered someone. I’ve said I’m sorry. What more can I do?”

She ran out of the room and he heard the toilet door slam, and then, a little later, her voice upstairs in the children’s room.

He did not see Caro at work that day. That night he found that Carolyn had moved out of their bedroom into the spare room – not just made up the bed there, but moved all her clothes out
of the wardrobe, her make-up and things from the dressing-table, removed every trace of herself from the bedroom. She had already given the children their tea. There was nothing for Alan or herself
to eat.

“Well, look – you go and lie down and I’ll make something.”

“I don’t want anything. I’m going to bed.” She went upstairs and shut herself in the spare room.

It continued like that, squalidly and remorselessly, every evening. There were a couple of frostily factual conversations about what exactly had happened when, but she used these to refuel
her distress, and retreated from them to start crying all over again, in her room. After staying in and listening on Monday night, Alan went out to the pub at nine on Tuesday, and as soon as he had
kissed the children goodnight, on Wednesday.

On Thursday he went to the pub straight after work, telling himself he would stay there all evening. He watched the hands of the clock move through all the minutes between half-past seven and
eight o’clock, drinking steadily. He made it to eight. The hands moved on, through five past, ten past, quarter past. He had to tell her at least. Tell her what? What was the point of not
seeing her, if Carolyn was behaving like this? It couldn’t get any worse; he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Wasn’t it a goat? Goat for preference, at least they’re
lecherous. He drank up, went out to the car, and drove, with exaggerated alcoholic caution, to Caro’s house.

Soon after Alan arrived at work the following morning, he was telephoned by his mother . She wanted to know if he could meet her for lunch.

“Today?”

“Yes, why not?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Grove and Ellisons, actually.” It was a large department store. “Don’t be so suspicious, darling. I’m in town shopping, and I suddenly thought how
nice it would be to meet my long-lost son for lunch.”

“I’m not long-lost.”

“Sweetheart, I know you’re not. I’m offering to buy you lunch. Yea or nay?”

“Yes, please. Thank you. Where?”

“Oh – shall we lash out?” She named a French restaurant in the city centre.

“I’m only supposed to have an hour, you know.”

“Well, I’m sure you can wangle it somehow, darling. See you at one.”

She was late, of course. He had a drink while he waited. She had never done this before; in fact, he could not remember a time when she had gone out of her way to speak to him. Then he
realized what it was. Carolyn had telephoned home after Annie’s fall. That was only last Sunday, although it felt more like a year ago. What a joke. His mother – Lucy, of all people
– wanted to tell him the error of his ways. He had walked into it as blindly as a kitten. But after another drink he began to anticipate her arrival with pleasure. What on earth could she
say? When he had listened to her performance he would say casually, “And how’s Jeremy? Randy as ever?”

He bought a cigar and started to smoke it, occasionally glancing at his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

Lucy created her usual flurry on arrival, with dramatic embraces, long and implausible excuses for her lateness, and complicated discussions with the waiter on the correct preparation of
various items on the menu. At last they had ordered and she was settled with a drink.

“Well. So here we are. It’s an absolute delight to see you again. Have you given up visiting your aged parents?”

“We came at Easter.”

“Did you? Was I there?”

“Briefly, yes.”

“How’s that musical daughter of yours? Is the piano right for her? I did wonder about viola.”

He told her about Annie’s broken arm, and offered her another drink.

“I can’t keep up with you, my love. As a matter of fact, you’re looking positively dissolute, now I’ve had a chance to sit and stare. Have you been
ill?”

“No.” He was contemptuous. Was that the best she could do? He had hoped for more finesse.

“How’s Carolyn taking it?”

“Taking what?”

“Your affair, darling. Don’t be so coy, for heaven’s sake.”

“She’s – I –” He stopped. “I don’t really think it’s your business, mother.”

There was a pause. She started to ferret in her handbag, and he listened to the sound of her taking out and lighting a cigarette. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting out,
“That’s why you phoned me, isn’t it? It’s incredible! What d’you think gives you the right, after you –” He stopped. She always did this to him –
always. Within minutes, he was a sulky child again. It made him want to roar with frustration.

“Alan, my sweet, it’s the last thing to enter my head. I wanted to talk to you about Pamela, as a matter of fact.”

“Why?”

“Well, she’s getting divorced. And she’s written me a very peculiar letter.”

The soup arrived, with impeccable timing, bringing with it the opportunity to fiddle with rolls and cutlery. Once they had started to eat, Alan said unconcernedly, “Well, go
on.”

“It transpires that she’s left Anatole, and she’s left Nikki with him.” Nikki was Pam and Anatole’s one-year-old daughter. “Apparently it’s my
fault.”

“Your fault?”

“Yes. Dreary, isn’t it? I can see that retribution will be heaped on my head until the day I die.” She smiled bleakly. “This soup’s a little bland, isn’t
it? Almost tired. A weary little soup. I should say these mushrooms came out of a tin.”

“How is it your fault?”

“Well, as far as I can understand the poor child, she thinks I should never have let her be born. That’s what it seems to boil down to – the essence, I suppose you could
say, of her complaints.”

Alan laughed humourlessly; a noise to encourage her to continue.

“It is harsh, isn’t it? Goodness me, if every infant in the world took up the cause – what adult could escape blame, I wonder? Only the cautious, the celibate, and the
frightfully ugly. A purge would leave a motley and unproductive – that’s to say unreproductive – crew.” She sipped her soup meditatively. “It’s not as if she was
unplanned. Admittedly we didn’t ask her, but medicine was less advanced in those days. . . .” Her smile died away, and her mouth settled into a bitter line that Alan had not noticed
before.

“Did she say why? Why you should never have let her be born?”

“Oh, the usual reasons; she’s frightfully desperately miserable, and has been since my hostile womb expelled her into the world. Her life is an empty shell – you know the
patter. The sort of thing they say in Dallas, all those women with hair and teeth.”

Alan nodded.

“It appears she might have fared better in this vale of tears, had someone else given birth to her. I, according to her psychoanalyst, am eminently unsuited to be a mother. So
it’s not being born as such, which troubles her, as being born to me. Even a test tube would have been preferable, apparently. She seems to forget that she’s twenty-four. Did they have
test tubes in the fifties? I suppose we could have lashed out on a jam jar.”

“Why are you unsuited to be her mother?” He felt afraid, as he asked the question.

“Ah, that’s just it. She didn’t say. I don’t know whether the venerable shrink revealed that or not. The letter ended with various unsavoury descriptions of how she
might choose to finish her days.”

“What sort of –” Alan broke off. Lucy had ducked her face into her hands. “Lucy?”

She raised her head quickly, smiling. There were tears on her cheeks.

“How silly. Your father’s gone down to sort her out, with his little black bag tucked under his arm, just in case.” She dabbed at her eyes carefully and inspected her face
in her compact mirror. The waiter took away their soup and brought their entrees.

“So – there we are. My curiosity was piqued. I wondered if you could give me any answers?”

“To what?”

“Well, have I really been such a dreadful Mama? I always thought you were relatively happy, as such things go. In between the major tragedies like grazed knees and the cat being sick,
and having to practise your instruments. I admit I didn’t spend many days up to my elbows in chocolate cake mix, or whatever it is that real mothers are supposed to do – but that would
have driven me completely batty, and done you no good at all. You were as happy as most children, no?”

“Yes. Yes we were.”

She flashed her beautiful smile at him; the question was light but steely, like a wire you might use to garotte a man. “Well why does she say that?”

Alan picked over the food on his plate. “1 don’t know, Lucy.” He hesitated, then plunged. “She was upset, I guess – we both were – when she found out about
Jeremy. But she was old then, in her teens at least.”

Lucy went very still. He looked up. She was staring at him.

“What did she find out?”

“Well – that you were – having an affair.”

“But I wasn’t.”

There was a silence.

“Oh. She thought you were. She told me you were.”

“When? Why?”

He laughed nervously. “She said she saw you. She came down late one night – very late – and saw the pair of you in the drawing room –”

Lucy lifted her napkin from her knees, folded it carefully and placed it on the table. She pushed back her plate. “This conversation really doesn’t go with food, does it? Shall we
give up and go somewhere more squalid?”

“All right.” He thought she was angry. He was going to be appallingly late back to work, but he could hardly leave now.

Lucy chose a pub, a huge crowded barn with a loud TV above the bar. She sat at a table in a murky corner, with a look of fastidious distaste.

“This will do. It suits the tone of proceedings better, I feel. You’ll have to buy the drinks, sweetheart. I can’t go and stand over there.”

“I was going to. What d’you want?”

“God knows. Something they can’t ruin. A double Scotch.”

When he returned she was smoking, leaning back in her chair. Her elegance and composure were as striking as ever. He sat down.

“Cheers, darling. I’ll tell you about Jeremy, shall I? For the record. So that you know exactly what to accuse me of, if you ever decide that I’ve ruined your life
too.” She drew on her cigarette and exhaled slowly. “I met Jeremy when I was eighteen. He was the great romance of my youth. We played in the town orchestra together, and were wicked
tearaways. It was terribly exciting. We lived together, causing your grandmother – my venerable Mama, as was – never to speak to me again. We used to get terribly drunk – once we
got thrown out of our rooms for being rowdy late at night, and had to sleep in a bus shelter. It was all quite overpoweringly Bohemian.” She smiled wryly.

“But I was a nice conventional girl, at heart – I found it all much more difficult than I liked to admit. And while Jeremy was enjoying himself being terribly gifted and wasting
his talents, and taking obscure and nasty-smelling drugs – and going in for stunningly unpleasant fits of temper – I got more and more depressed.” She sighed. “It all
dragged on unseasonably long. We’d agree to separate, and just when I was getting myself sorted out, he’d turn up and do his seductive bit and convince me that I couldn’t live
without him again.” She drank her whisky and smiled at Alan. “So at last I married your father.”

Alan waited for her to continue but she didn’t. “It doesn’t seem a very good reason,” he volunteered.

“For marrying Trevor? Oh, it was. I knew what I wanted. I knew that Jeremy could charm the birds off the trees, but it would be the most frightful mistake to marry him. I thought I
wanted children too, which he would never have tolerated.”

“Did Dad know – about Jeremy?”