Made in Heaven (19 page)

Maureen frowned. ‘You aren't giving me the kind of support I expected, Adrian. I'm disappointed.'

‘Darling Mummy,' Adrian said, taking Maureen's hand, and she relaxed a little at the affectionate use of a name she hadn't heard much since Adrian had grown up. He said, ‘You know I'd never want to disappoint you, but I'm not upsetting Zannah. She's been planning her wedding since she was about six. It'll be terrific, you'll see. I'm sure Charlotte will welcome your input.'

‘Hmm!' said Maureen. ‘I don't know about that, but she's going to get it whether she does or not. I'm not going to be left out of everything. In fact, I'm going to offer to pay for the catering. I might use Veronica's firm, which is marvellous, but pricy … perhaps I'll look into some others first. What do you think of that?'

‘Sounds good to me. Listen, Mum, I have to go. Really. There's still stuff to finish in the office. Don't look so horrified! I know what you're going to say – no one works on Saturday. Wish it were true, that's all. We lost a lot of time over the bombings. But it's good to see you. We'll come down to Guildford for the weekend one day soon, I promise.'

‘Yes, I wish you would. I need to talk to Zannah about her dress. We did speak a little about the arrangements in general before the venue bombshell. The main thing is: we've got the division of labour sorted.'

‘You make it sound like a Soviet five-year plan. What division of labour?'

‘Poor innocent Adrian! You have no idea, darling.' Maureen took out a notebook covered with scarlet silk embroidered with gold dragons and opened it on the table in front of her. ‘There is so much to do! Every single detail has to be ordered, checked up on, arranged, considered. It'd be a nightmare if you didn't share the
work. So, Joss is in charge of printing the invitations and Bob's doing the music. Charlotte is the venue and the church – one of her friends is a proper churchgoer, apparently, which is a plus. I'm going to offer to do the catering, as I said. Emily's in charge of the hen night and Zannah wants control of the dress and the bridesmaid's dress for Isis … also the decorations and the flowers.'

‘Isis never stops talking about being a bridesmaid. It's a bore, if I'm completely honest.'

‘She seems a nice little girl,' said Maureen.

‘You don't know her like I do. She can be a brat, believe me. No, she's okay. A bit talkative for my liking, but she'll be at school most of the time, right?'

Maureen wondered whether she ought to press Adrian on this. Could it be that he wasn't all that keen on Isis? Well, who would know better than she did how awkward the relationship could be between a child and a step-parent? Gray's troubles with Adrian started almost as soon as she married him. Perhaps men were genetically programmed to dislike other men's children. ‘She likes you, doesn't she?'

‘Oh, yes. A present here and a present there … it doesn't take much to win a child's heart.'

‘I can't imagine anyone not loving you, sweetheart.'

‘But you're my mother. You have to love me, don't you?'

‘You make it easy for me. Give me a kiss before you go off to your boring old work. Though I shouldn't stop you, I suppose, as you're doing so well in this job. But one thing that did come out at lunch, while we were still doing small-talk over the smoked salmon, which I meant to tell you and nearly forgot is this: did you know that Mrs Parrish's first husband used to work for your bank years ago? Not in London, of course, but somewhere up north. She was an accountant, it seems, and that's how they met. Katchen was his name. Nigel Katchen. I wonder whether anyone still remembers him?
It's not that long ago. I think that's quite a coincidence, don't you?'

‘Absolutely. Small world too! Bye Mum. Must fly. Lovely to see you.'

Later, in the taxi on her way to Victoria, Maureen remembered the announcement Joss had made about that poetry prize. What was it called again? She'd forgotten. Graham would be interested, she was sure. He didn't make a fuss about his poems, but she knew he enjoyed writing them and she'd always considered it a harmless pastime. If Joss won the £2000 she'd be able to afford to pamper herself a bit. She could be quite attractive if she took more trouble. Perhaps it would be a good idea if Graham had a little tête-à-tête with Adrian. Nowadays, even though they weren't exactly bosom buddies, relations between the two of them were reasonably cordial. They could discuss things one to one, like, for example, the question of stepchildren. She'd speak to Graham tonight. She didn't want her son to think that every bit of attention was focused on the bride. He mustn't feel excluded, she told herself. As she paid the taxi-driver, the name of Joss's poetry thing came back to her. The Madrigal Poetry Prize, she thought, and felt pleased with herself for remembering.

‘Why's your book called
The Shipwreck Café
, Grandma? Is it about pirates?'

Isis was sitting up in bed, leaning against her pillows, legs stretched out on top of the duvet. It was a warm night. Joss was on the bed as well, with her back against the butterfly mural, and she wondered whether Zannah possessed such a thing as a summer-weight bed covering. That might be something she could put on a wedding list, if she and Adrian decided to have one.

‘No, not pirates, I'm afraid. It's just a café I had tea in once. It was a strange place, because we had lovely china cups on crocheted tablecloths and everything was very … well, very pretty. But on the walls – all over the walls – there were photographs of ships going down in the sea, or breaking up on the rocks, or lying on the shore in bits. It was most peculiar.'

‘Were they real ships? Did they really break into bits? Did someone put bombs on them?'

‘No, my darling, not bombs. But, yes, the weather broke them into bits. Storms. Terrible storms, I expect. Each photo had a date on it and the name of the ship as well.'

Isis slid down in the bed and began to pull the duvet over her. ‘That sounds quite interesting. Can we go there?'

'It's far away, chicken. Down in Dorset. I was there a couple of years ago.'

‘Hmm.' Isis's eyelids were drooping. ‘Are you staying the night?'

‘I've got to go and see my editor tomorrow. I think he's going to give me a copy of the book.'

‘Will it be in the shops?' said Isis. ‘Can we buy it?'

‘Not quite yet,' Joss said. ‘Not till the end of August. This is what they call an “advance copy”. I'll send you and Mummy one long before it's in the shops.' She stood up and went to the head of the bed to kiss Isis goodnight.

‘Are you going to read me a story?'

‘Chancing your arm, aren't you? You're practically asleep.'

‘I like hearing your voice,' said Isis, ‘till I get properly asleep.'

‘All right,' said Joss. She went to sit on the low nursing chair under the window and began to read. After a few minutes, Isis was breathing deeply, making a faint snuffling noise. Joss shut the book and stared at the butterflies Zannah had painted. If only, she thought, I could stay here. The love Joss felt for Isis was not something she'd examined or thought about very much. It resembled what she'd felt for her own girls when they were small, but Isis made her feel as though she were looking at the same time both at the past and at the future. Loving Isis, she realized, was uncomplicated. And of course, she'd spent so much time with her just after Zannah and Cal had split up that a specially strong bond had been forged between them.

That was the one good thing about Zannah's breakdown. Mostly Joss remembered that time with horror. While it was going on, every other feeling was pushed to one side and all she had room for in her head and in her heart was agony at the sight of her daughter's suffering and a determination that above all the baby,
Isis, mustn't suffer. When Zannah came home, Joss did cheery, grannyish things like taking Isis to the park to feed the ducks, and to story sessions at the library. She'd loved the purely physical tasks like feeding Isis, and bathing her and holding her close. The smell of her hair … Johnson's baby shampoo made Joss feel weepy. But mixed up with those pleasures were the hours she'd spent sitting in Zannah's room, by the bed, reading to her, talking to her and getting no response. She'd manage to keep a strong voice and a cheerful tone while she was with her, but as soon as she left the room, the tears welled up. How could her beautiful Zannah be so cast down? What would make her better? Em sat with her. So did Bob. They told her stories and played music for her and nothing helped. Nothing worked. Joss used every ounce of her energy that wasn't devoted to Isis in thinking up strategies to bring Zannah back to herself and in the end it seemed that the passage of time made the difference. It was almost as though her unhappiness was a kind of fever she had to work through. Now, it was so good to see her happy again that Joss was determined to support her in having the kind of wedding she wanted.

Isis looked like Cal. Joss wondered whether it was grandmotherly blindness that made her think she was very pretty, but decided it wasn't. Everyone agreed that she was lovely. And what fun she was having over the wedding! Her enthusiasm for the project was another reason Joss fell in so readily with plans she would have thought were quite mad in other circumstances. But I must, she thought, ask Zannah about how Adrian is with someone else's daughter. It was at times like this that she wished she lived nearer London. It wasn't easy to keep an eye on things from a distance. She made a mental note to ask Em as well. Zannah was probably biased where Adrian was concerned, but Em would have her wits about her. It occurred to Joss that if anything
were seriously wrong, she'd have known about it already. She relaxed a little. Isis seemed happy enough. She slept well, ate well, and as far as Joss could see, she wasn't displaying any signs of anxiety or stress.

She could hear her daughters talking in the kitchen. Their voices reached her here as a distant drone, punctuated from time to time with a dazzle of laughter. The wine at lunchtime, which was making her feel sleepy, had made them giggly. Outside, the summer evening was still bright with the last of the sunshine, but Zannah had done a good job of lining the curtains, and this room was beautifully dark. Isis, asking her about the Shipwreck Café, had brought that time back to her and she closed her eyes.

Gray had taken her there – only once, but it was enough. They went on the afternoon of the day that had ended with them spending the night together. The Day, she told herself. The capital-letters day. The best day. They'd walked down the path through what she recalled now as a tunnel of translucent green. They hadn't spoken much and he didn't even hold her hand, but Joss felt as though she were bound to him by invisible strings. She knew that at the end of this walk there would be a conversation: one she'd been dreading, in which she'd have to say something she longed not to say. She'd been aware of everything about him as they walked through the warmth of the afternoon: his shirt falling from his shoulders, his sleeves rolled halfway up his arms, which were smooth and brown. She was conscious of how near his hand was to her own. She glanced sideways and saw him leaning slightly forward, saw the left side of his face, half of the smile that touched his lips when she spoke to him. The café was Gray's discovery and he was the one who called it
The Shipwreck Café
. Its real name was the Fairford Tea Room.

He'd found them a table in the corner and ordered two cream teas without consulting her. She didn't mind.
She'd been in such a stupor of lust and nervousness that she wouldn't have been able to decide anything. The waitress set everything in front of them: a pretty, rose-strewn white china tea-set, like something from a dolls' house; Earl Grey tea in the round pot; two scones each; butter, cream and jam in little dishes. Milk in a curved jug. She'd poured the tea, so as to have something to occupy her. Her hands were unsteady.

‘Have a look round, Lydia. What do you see?'

She'd wanted to say:
You. I see you
. ‘A tea room. It's lovely. And the scones are so fresh. Just out of the oven. Delicious.'

‘Look at the pictures.'

She'd raised her eyes then, torn them from him, turned them to the walls of the tea room. Pink striped wallpaper. Photographs of ships. She stared at one after another. There were scores of them, covering the walls, with hardly any space between one frame and another. Not just ships, either, but ships in distress. Shipwrecks. Slabs of tormented ocean, cliff faces of water, broken vessels returning to the depths of the sea: the effect was overwhelming.

‘Awful,' she said at last, feeling faintly sick. ‘Such destruction.'

‘I like the contrast,' said Gray, ‘between them and the cream tea. It's … well, it makes you appreciate the comfortable things in life.'

Joss had nodded. Gray went on, ‘Have you thought about what I said?'

How could she tell him that she'd been thinking of little else? He had walked with her, after midnight on the previous night, to the room she was sharing with two other women. There had been no one else around. Everything was quiet. She'd been expecting it and there it was: his kiss. One swift, chaste kiss and then he left her at the door, saying, ‘I love you, Lydia. And I want you. Please. Come away with me. I want us to be together.
Just say. I'll drop everything – my work, everything. You love me too. Admit it. I can see it. Please, Lydia, think about it.'

She said, ‘I have thought about it, Gray, and I can't. I've decided. It's not fair … to my husband. I don't seem to be the kind of person who can do things like that. It's not … I mean, I want to. I do, but I'd never forgive myself for hurting him.'

‘D'you love your husband?'