How to Measure a Cow (12 page)

There was no ‘Dear Mrs Armstrong’ or ‘Dear Nancy’, but the date was written in the top right-hand corner. The message said, ‘Just to let you know that I will be away for the next week. Yours, Sarah.’ Nancy read it umpteen times, decoding every single word, beginning with ‘Just’. Just! What kind of beginning was that? Just? It implied something offhand, something trivial, something the writer of the word could hardly be bothered to communicate. It took Nancy a long time to get past this ‘just’ and even longer to interpret the whole message properly.

The most wounding thing was that she had not been asked to keep an eye on Sarah’s house, and yet surely that had been the point of informing her of Sarah’s absence. Why else would she have written this unsatisfactory note? And then there was the other annoying thing: no mention of where Sarah had gone. She was being secretive. She was concealing her destination, not trusting Nancy. Why? What would have been more natural than to say where she was going for this holiday? Even if she’d said, in general terms, that she was going to the seaside, or to stay with a friend, or even to London, maybe.

Something was going on, and Nancy was perturbed.

The further south she travelled, the more unreal the house she’d left behind became. Tara tried to see it in her mind’s eye, and couldn’t even conjure up the street convincingly. Had she really been living there for months? It was like driving out of fog, all murky and dim, into clear air – the relief! She felt herself become more alert with every mile she drove, and found she didn’t need to stop and rest as often as she’d envisaged she might have to. South of Preston, she pulled into a motorway service station and after she’d filled up with petrol she went to the lavatory and undid the band tying back her hair and the clips drawing it severely back from her ears. She brushed her hair and fluffed it out so that it surrounded her face. There. She looked, already, more like Tara than the woebegone Sarah. She smiled at her reflection. She could come back again, she knew she could.

Tara was not quite established again as herself by the time she arrived at the small hotel on the river where she’d booked a room. She was there, pushing to come out, but Sarah held her back. Loosening her hair was one thing, but that was enough for the moment. The clothes were still Sarah’s, grey and neat; so was the manner, quiet and hesitant. Better to remain nondescript while she adjusted. But once in her room, she unpacked the dress she’d bought online for the rebirth of Tara and smiled at the sight of it, the colour thrilling her. Tara had always loved red, all the reds, scarlet and crimson and especially the red so near to purple. She’d loved satin and silk materials too, not the real thing but synthetic versions which looked and felt genuine. This dress was silk, light and pretty, and it came with a little jacket of a thicker, but still silky material, an outfit for a summer’s day, worn with a silver necklace which sat beautifully above the neckline of the dress. Really, it was too good for a lunch with old friends. She would be overdressed, but then that was Tara.

Still in her grey trousers and her paler grey sweater, she went out for a walk. Her legs felt stiff after the long drive and her head ached slightly, but once she got on to the towpath she began to feel better. The river was high and fast flowing with bits of branches being swept along. There must have been a storm recently, as there had been that other June week. Today, there were no children about. She passed a couple of women walking dogs but that was all. Sitting on a stile which led into a field, she thought about the course her life had taken since the rescue of the child. So unpredictable, all the rushing along, heedless of where she was going, always wanting to be different, to stand out,
never stopping to consider what this told her about herself. She saw it all clearly now, the restlessness, the impetuous approach to events. She had never given anyone but Tom a chance (and look what he’d done with it); she swept them away with her enthusiasm for whatever it was she had wanted to do. Maybe it had amounted to bullying, but she hadn’t seen it like that. She’d had time even before she became Sarah, during all those years of reflection, to realise she had always been a dangerous person. It was not entirely impossible, after all, for her to have done what she had done.

Walking slowly back to the hotel, she pondered the question of whether the old Tara really could emerge again, fully formed, or whether she had gone for ever. No, she hadn’t. She wasn’t Sarah Scott, she never could be, however well she had played the part so far. Bits of Tara were mixed in there and could be retained and reactivated. The spark spluttered and could ignite but mustn’t flare up to a dangerous heat ever again. Control, that was the lesson she’d been obliged to learn. Control: over temper, over passion, over action without thought of consequences. The approaching reunion was a test case. Control over her desire to accuse her friends of betraying the very essence of friendship: loyalty. They had shown no loyalty whatsoever. They had not stood by her at her time of greatest need. But did she want their excuses, their justifications, their explanations all this time afterwards? Tara did, but Sarah realised how pointless it would be to demand these now. There was no point in going to this lunch if all she was going to do was give vent to her disappointment in these friends and pour her scorn and resentment over them. Sarah would not
agree to it. Sarah wanted to remain dignified, coolly curious, above any kind of ugly behaviour.

She wanted Claire and Molly and Liz to be very surprised by her exemplary behaviour.

It was almost twenty miles from the hotel where she was staying to where Liz used to live the last time she’d visited. When was that? She couldn’t exactly remember, but definitely at least twelve years ago. She parked two roads away, and then walked past Liz’s house (if it was still Liz’s). What she hoped to gain by this she didn’t know, but it felt mildly exciting, a feeling she hadn’t experienced for a long time. The colour of the front door was the same. Green. The front garden was the same, a flourishing hydrangea in the centre of an oblong of grass. Proved nothing. She walked on, stopping at the corner shop near the church, where three roads met, surprised to find it still existed, the only evidence that what was now suburbia had once been a village. She stood and looked in the window. There was a board there with notices for various things for sale, rooms to let, gardeners and cleaners wanted. And there it was, Liz’s name and number: ‘Cleaner wanted two days a week, 9 a.m. – 12 noon. £12 an hour.’

For reasons she couldn’t begin to understand this small bit of knowledge satisfied Tara deeply. Liz was still living here, the same sort of life, in all probability, which she’d been living when last they met, years ago. Nothing had shifted. She would know Liz, be able to link straight into her life. It gave her confidence. She decided she didn’t need to drive an extra ten miles to lurk outside Molly’s house. Molly would not have moved. She and her husband had bought their house
in 1994 when they were married, and announced they’d never leave; it was just what they wanted, big enough to house Simon’s surgery, and with a lovely view of the river at the back. Molly was stability itself.

Which left Claire’s house. She knew exactly where to park so that she could see people coming and going. She saw Claire within ten minutes of parking under a line of trees the other side of the road. Tree-lined, that was Claire’s road, broad grass verges, drives to most of the double-fronted houses. Claire looked, as she got out of her car and reached into the boot for several bags, much the same, from the distance that Tara saw her. Heavier, maybe, but still smartly, if boringly, dressed, wearing a trouser suit, the trousers a little too wide for the boxy jacket. Never scruffy, that was Claire. Always formal looking, a business look, though she’d never run a business.

It was enough. Tara felt armed. She drove back to her hotel, ready.

It wasn’t, after all, a sunny day. Claire always saw the reunion taking place on a sunny day, with the sun doing what it so often could, lifting the atmosphere with all its light. But it was a grey day, not exactly raining but with an intermittent drizzle depressing everyone. The river looked black and sullen when only the day before it had sparkled in the sun. At least nothing out of doors had been planned, though she’d envisaged them all having a Pimm’s in the pub garden first. The table she’d booked was in the far corner of the long dining room, beside a window with a view of the river, though today this view was dreary, the willow trees hanging limp over the damp lawn. But
the table itself looked cheerful, with a white tablecloth overlaid with a smaller pink one and in the centre a small jug of tiny roses which had not yet opened out. Pretty. And the table was round, which felt friendlier, less formal … Oh, she was fussing, it was silly to fret over tables and weather when none of it mattered. It was just that she wanted everything to be perfect in all the details so that this reunion would have a chance of being a happy occasion.

She had come half an hour early, deliberately, thinking that once she’d checked the booking she’d have a wander round the garden and maybe a little way along the tow path, but the drizzle made this uninviting, so she went into the bar, where coffee was still on offer, and sat reading, but not reading, just flicking through an old magazine someone had left, about cars, in which she had no interest at all. All the time, she was looking at her watch, and then at the clock over the bar. Calculating when Molly was likely to arrive. She was usually, but not always, on time. Liz would be late. She always was. Not very late, but late. And if Tara did come? They might all arrive together, and sitting here in the bar she’d miss them and the whole thing would get off the ground without her. Claire got up and slapped the magazine down on the table so loudly and unnecessarily that it looked like some sort of statement, and the barman stared at her, annoyed.

I am tense, she said to herself, tense when I should be relaxed, and why am I tense? She knew perfectly well why.

Because she was afraid of Tara coming.

It would be a mile walk. Tara was too dressed up. She couldn’t totter along the towpath in shoes with delicate heels, even though these were not too high. They’d stick in the mud. So she drove, but didn’t park in the pub’s car park. Instead, she drew up beneath a tree 100 yards away. She didn’t know why. Then she sat in the car for a while, composing herself. No thudding heart. She couldn’t bear to have a thudding heart or a queasy stomach. She had to be sure she could be calm or she couldn’t go through with this meeting.

She lifted the flap in front of her and looked in the small mirror. Her eyes were quite clear, her eyelashes nicely delineated with mascara which she’d used sparingly. The shadows underneath were still there and, she supposed, would never entirely go, but she hadn’t used anything to disguise them. Let them be seen. Let them tell their own tale. Her cheeks had filled out in the last few months, and she didn’t look gaunt any more even if she didn’t look as Tara used to. This would be expected, it was nothing to feel self-conscious about. She got out of the car, locked it, and began to walk along the road. She was on time, but walked slowly. Claire would be waiting. She was always early just as Liz was always late. Molly varied, so did Tara. Thinking this kind of thing, droning on to herself, steadied her. No thudding heart, but she did after all have a slightly queasy stomach now. She turned the corner and there was the old pub, its front spruced up dramatically – so much white paint, so many window boxes bursting with geraniums, and a new sign with a varnished painting of a bull hanging above the door. Somehow, this transformation of an old, neglected pub into a modern gastropub helped. It
made her feel that far from going back in time, to face her younger self and mourn for her, she was walking into a place stripped of memories, a place clear of all associations.

She didn’t go into the main entrance, suddenly remembering that there used to be a side door leading into a small bar off the main one. If she entered this way, no one would be able to spot her until she’d seen them. Quietly, she slipped in. The layout was the same. She could see into the main bar, which was busy. She scanned the people and knew none were Claire, Molly or Liz. No matter how much they would have changed, she was quite certain they were not among that throng. So they were either in the lounge or already in the dining room, waiting. It gave her the chance to have a drink. It took a while, but at last she had a glass of white wine in her hand, and sipped it carefully. It was a long time since she’d had any alcohol, though there’d been no reason why she couldn’t have bought herself a bottle of wine. Even Sarah could have the occasional drink, couldn’t she? But staying teetotal somehow went with being Sarah, so she didn’t drink anything but tea or coffee. The wine was delicious, cold and clear, and she savoured every small mouthful. Now she was ready, fortified, and made her way steadily from the bar and along the passage to the dining room. She was smiling.

They stood up, all three of them, Molly catching her skirt in a bit of wickerwork in the side of her chair and struggling to be upright. Sorry, she was saying, sorry, and Liz was freeing the skirt but at the same time almost knocking a glass over. Claire stood up
and said, ‘Tara!’ in far too loud and hearty a voice. She held her arms out but with the table between them it was a pointless gesture, and Tara slipped into the vacant seat quickly so that Claire was left standing. Then a waitress came with menus and though Claire tried to wave them away, saying they weren’t ready to order, the others seized them and began reading and suddenly they were quiet, the confusion over. Tara’s arrival was disappointingly undramatic.

Orders given, they all stared at Tara, who looked at each of them in turn, and waited.

‘Well,’ Claire said, with a false little laugh, ‘well, here we all are. Twenty-five years, can you believe it?’

‘Yes,’ said Molly.

‘Easily,’ said Liz.

Tara said nothing. Her face was beginning to ache with smiling.

‘You look well, Tara,’ Claire said, and knew at once it was the wrong thing to have said, and it was a lie anyway.