Ninepins (17 page)

Vince grinned; his face also had more colour than usual. ‘I'm not sure it was a shriek, exactly. But a definite squeak, shall we say?'

Willow looked conscious but not displeased. ‘It was a pretty big beast,' she said. ‘You don't expect a bird to make that much noise.'

‘It's true.' Vince sat on a chair to unlace his boots. ‘You expect a bird to be elegant, don't you? This one was heavy and clumsy, all flopping wings and trailing legs.'

‘Willow'd never seen a heron before, Mum. I had to tell her what it was.'

‘Looked more like a vulture,' said Willow.

Laura picked up Beth's scarf from the floor and looped it over a peg. ‘They're not exactly elegant when they're taking off, I agree. But once they're in flight … Well, maybe not elegant, but they're certainly imposing. Beautiful, I'd say.'

Vince looked across at her and smiled, but Beth was unimpressed. ‘I think their legs look weird when they fly. Like a daddy-long-legs. Like they're too long and might snap off.'

‘How far did you walk?' Laura asked her.

‘As far as the second sluice, just this side of Wicken. Then there were cows on the dyke, all standing round the stile on the far side, and we didn't fancy it. Willow doesn't like cows. It's that blowy noise they make, she says.'

‘Quite right,' said Vince. ‘Stary-eyed, slobbery creatures. And their feet had churned up all the grass and turned it into an absolute mudbath.'

Beth nodded relishingly. ‘Mud and poo.'

‘Dinner isn't quite ready yet, anyway. Another twenty minutes. Maybe you girls could set the table? I thought we'd eat in here, since the dining room is still full of furniture. If that's OK?'

This last question was directed mainly at Beth, who was a stickler for Christmas tradition, but it was Vince who answered, with a mock-solemn bow of the head. ‘We'll be honoured. The kitchen is perfect.'

‘As long as we can still have candles and crackers and everything. We have got crackers, haven't we?'

Laura grinned at her daughter. ‘In the corner cupboard. Top shelf.'

While Beth and Willow began to count out knives and forks, Vince approached the Rayburn and lifted a pan lid. ‘Smells good. I can see this is going to make up more than amply for yesterday.'

‘Yesterday?'

‘At Mum's. She's not very good with her hands these days. Rheumatoid arthritis – she's got it bad in her fingers. So it was me doing the cooking, but acting under instruction. And I'm no good at doing anything when I'm being watched, least of all by my mother. A recipe for disaster and recrimination, all round.'

‘Oh, I bet you managed all right.' She remembered his interest in her cookbooks, the day he and Willow first looked round.

‘Put it this way,' he said grimly, ‘roast parsnips are not supposed to come in handy at the end of the meal for cracking walnuts.'

Laura bent to open the oven and lift out the turkey, to suitable expressions of appreciation; Vince closed the oven door for her and then watched as she slid the bird on to a serving plate.

‘It's a good big 'un.'

‘Twelve and a half pounds,' she said. ‘I don't think we'll starve.'

She shuffled saucepans about to make room on the hob for the roasting tin. ‘Please could you pass that bottle of wine from on the work surface there, over by the kettle? And pour one for yourself. The glasses are just next to it. Er, and Willow, too, of course, if you'd like one.'

Did Willow drink? She really had no idea. But she was seventeen and virtually an adult, so it must surely be right to offer – especially at Christmas.

‘What about me?' Beth demanded.

‘I bought some of that apple juice with elderflower, the one you like. It's in the fridge.'

For the moment – for this year, at least – this answer satisfied her. ‘Great. Cheers, Mum.'

Laura poured a generous splash of red wine into the roasting tin and began to work at it with a wooden spoon.

‘The real McCoy.' Vince peered over her shoulder, and waved his wine glass approvingly at the tin. ‘Yesterday I was only permitted to use hot water from the kettle. Not the same thing at all.'

Willow and Beth, who had finished laying the table, also hovered close with their drinks. ‘Mum makes the best gravy ever,' announced Beth. ‘Her Christmas dinners are seriously brilliant.' She took a sip of apple juice, then frowned at Willow. ‘Sorry, though. I shouldn't go on about it, should I? Not when your mum is so hopeless and you never had proper Christmas and stuff.'

‘Beth – ' Laura spun round, spilling turkey juices from her spoon to the floor. But it was too late.

Willow said nothing at first, but only glared from Vince to Laura to Beth. Her cheeks were white; the outdoor colour had fled in an instant, leaving only strange smudges of angry red at her temples.

‘You.' When at last she spoke, she was looking straight at Laura. ‘You told her what I said.'

‘I only thought – ' she began, then stopped, abashed. There was really no excuse for repeating what Willow had said to her. Yes, it had been well-intentioned; she had wanted to prime Beth, to give her some awareness of Willow's past, some sensitivity to her feelings about Christmas. But it was still wrong; she had no business betraying Willow's flimsy confidences.

‘I'm sorry,' she said.

‘You talked about me, the two of you. Poor Willow. Better be nice to her – poor fucking deprived Willow.'

‘Willow.' Vince placed a hand on her arm, but she shook herself free.

‘It's only bloody gravy, anyway. What's wrong with crap out of packets, like the rest of the world eats? And you.' The green eyes were on Beth now, and narrowed to slits, like a cat's. ‘You, with your cosy bloody life. Spoiled little princess Beth. What do you know about my mother? Nothing, that's what. You know nothing. You don't know you're born.'

She was out of the room almost as soon as the words were spoken, and running for the stairs. Vince took two steps as if to go after her, then seemed to change his mind. But Laura's eyes were on her daughter, who stood stiffly, still clutching her apple juice; her shoulders were fixed at an odd angle, slightly hunched, as if she had received a physical blow and was waiting for the pain to register. Then her face contorted. She thrust the glass down on the table and stumbled towards the hall. Laura followed almost immediately. She didn't wait to say a word to Vince, but as she reached the landing, she heard his feet on the stairs behind her, and halted for a moment.

‘In there,' she said, with a thumb at the spare room, before she turned and knocked at Beth's bedroom door.

There was no reply, nor any sound at all from within, not even audible crying. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.

‘Beth?'

Nothing. The figure on the bed neither moved nor acknowledged her presence. She was bent forward from a kneeling position, head down so that her face was pressed into the pillow, and arms clasped tight around her knees. If there were tears they were silent ones; no sobs stirred her back and shoulders.

‘Sweetheart?' Laura crept closer to the bed, unsure quite why she was cushioning her tread, as if to avoid disturbing a sleeping Beth. ‘Are you OK?'

Such a stupid question, even though it was what everyone always asked. Better just to sit down on the bed and say nothing.
I'm here. I love you, and I'm here
. After a short time, she stretched out a hand and smoothed it over her daughter's back. She could feel the rigid tension in every knot of her spine. She lifted her hand and repeated the motion, stroking slowly downwards over the vertebrae, coaxing them to unlock.

Finally, after a minute or two, she sensed beneath her fingers the faintest of loosenings. Perhaps a minute more and Beth spoke. ‘I was trying to be nice.'

The licence to speak brought a wash of relief. ‘Of course you were. I know that. Willow knows that, too, really. You meant to be sympathetic, of course you did. It's just, well, it isn't always nice to feel people's sympathy.'

Maybe she'd said too much, because Beth's back had stiffened again; but then she felt a tremor which broadened into a heave, and her daughter was crying. The sobs were ugly: wet and clogged and gulping, and out through them came a single, strangled word. ‘S-s-sorry.'

‘No, love – don't be silly.' Laura leaned forward and wrapped her arms round her daughter's back. ‘It really wasn't your fault. There's nothing to be sorry for. You meant no harm. As you say – you were trying to be nice.'

Beth continued to cry for some time without saying any more, and at length the sobs subsided and her breathing calmed. She remained crouched in that awkward posture, making no attempt to rise or turn; she accepted her mother's embrace but did not return it. From her own semi-recumbent position, Laura glimpsed a movement. She saw the doorway, and framed in it, silently, Vince. He caught her eye and raised one questioning brow.

He must have left Willow and come along the landing to see how Beth was feeling. It was kind of him – and wrong of her to feel it as an intrusion. She resisted the impulse to sit up, to let go of Beth. Without speaking, Vince advanced a step into the room.

Beth, apparently unaware of his presence, began to speak. ‘She said it herself. She said herself about her being useless. You remember, that time, Mum, when I asked about her name? ‘‘A waste of space'', that's what she said. ‘‘Useless bloody hippy''.'

‘Beth – '

‘Well, she did. It's what she said. I only said the same thing she did, that's all, and without the swearing.' She snorted noisily, and swallowed. ‘It's not fair.'

Laura was considering her answer to this when Vince took another step forward.

‘Maybe we shouldn't look for logic.' His voice was gentle, but beneath her Laura felt Beth's spine brace, her muscles clench. ‘Maybe we're none of us entirely logical,' he continued, ‘when it comes to family.'

‘ 'S'not fair.' The assertion, however, carried rather less conviction than before.

He was standing over the bed now. Laura half wondered whether he would sit down, perhaps even put his arm round the two of them. She couldn't have said whether she wanted him to or not. She lay still and closed her eyes.

‘Willow may say all kinds of things about her mother. Hurtful things. She may even mean some of them – although also she may not.' He didn't sit. He just stood where he was, but his voice was very soft. ‘Willow may say things. But it doesn't mean she likes it when other people do.'

Laura felt Beth shift and twist; she sat up, allowing Beth, too, to straighten to a kneeling position and turn to face them both. Her eyes were red and swollen. Laura put an arm back loosely about her shoulder and was about to tell her again that it wasn't her fault when something caught at the back of her throat.

Smoke. Scrambling off the bed, she ran to the bedroom door and sniffed. The bloody gravy. She must have left the roasting tin on the hottest part of the Rayburn.

‘Damn it.'

Acrid fumes already filled the stairs and hall as she raced down; in the kitchen it was black and choking. She grabbed a cloth and lifted the roasting tin off the hob. The outside of it was red hot and hissed angrily where she laid it on the damp draining board; the inside was blackened to a sticky, charred mess. The gravy was ruined, the tin wrecked.

‘Damn. Bloody hell fire and blast.'

She knew that Beth was in the doorway with Vince, and she shouldn't be standing here swearing like this. She knew it was stupid to be so upset, stupid to cry about something as banal as gravy. And maybe it was just the smoke, after all, that was stinging her eyes and making them swim with tears. But her throat felt peculiarly tight, and Vince's hand on her shoulder was only making matters worse. She must get a grip before she made an utter fool of herself.

‘So stupid of me,' she managed to say. ‘Leaving it on the heat like that and going away. I just wasn't thinking.'

‘I was the last one out,' said Vince quietly. ‘And anyway, who needs gravy?'

‘Right. We're fine, Mum. We've got cranberry, haven't we?'

‘You're very sweet. But still, I can't believe I did anything so idiotically thoughtless.'

She'd caught no hint of Willow standing by the hall door, until she heard her speak. ‘Dangerous, too.'

They all swung round to look at her. Her face was pale but her voice was matter-of-fact. ‘You could have burned the house down.'

The end of the Christmas holidays marked a loss for Laura. The awareness didn't strike her at once; it crept over her only after Beth had been back at school for a week or so, and withdrawn back into her term-time self. It was only then that Laura appreciated the comfortable, open, unself-conscious child that had been hers during their fortnight at home together – and mourned her passing.

It was not too distant for her to recall the experience in her own case. She remembered how, at primary school, your worlds could still be all of a piece, with no real separation between school and home. How you could tell your mother everything that had happened, and feel she knew and understood every corner and cranny of your life, how it was imperative, indeed, to feel she did so. And Laura had felt the same way with Beth, too, until this year. The name of every classmate, the detail of every friendship, could be relayed and absorbed. But of course it had to end. She must adjust to the acceptance that Beth had now, as she herself had had, two selves. There was the home self, who had laughed and chattered her way through the holidays, or even when upset had shared her woes. Then there was the school self, who now sat sullen at the breakfast table on weekday mornings and hardly raised her eyes from her cereal. She would not mind so much – or if she minded, she could at least accept it as a necessary change – if only she could be sure that this school Beth was not as unhappy as she often seemed.