Relative Love (15 page)

Stumped by this, Helen opened her eyes. Chloë appeared to have fallen asleep, spreadeagled awkwardly across the bags. Helen folded the newspaper and slipped it back into the side compartment of Peter’s briefcase. Skiing was one of the rare leisure activities that still bound her family together, despite their disparate ages and temperaments. And this year they were going to Verbier, to a hotel recommended by one of Peter’s fellow silks. It sounded spectacular, within walking distance of the main lifts, with an indoor swimming-pool and a huge outdoor spa where residents could wallow in heated comfort under the stars. The cost was huge, but Peter, usually wary of overpriced resorts, had made a grand speech about starting to spend some of their considerable wealth instead of accumulating it and how a bit of indulgence would do none of them any harm. It was because of her, Helen knew, because of how she was behaving.

‘I’m just going to the loo, okay?’

Peter had returned to his seat and was busy with a wodge of papers, scribbling tiny clusters of notes in the margins. He peered at her over the rim of his spectacles, nodding absently.

In the ladies’, Helen washed the newsprint from her hands, then stood at the row of basins, wondering if the light was cruel or whether she really looked as bad as her reflection suggested: violet shadows under her eyes, lifeless, ash-streaked hair, colourless lips, pasty washed-out skin and all of it somehow so
tight
-looking, as if her jaw and cheekbones were trying to push their way out of her face. Most of the women Helen knew considered themselves too fat; several were openly envious of her slim figure. But Helen struggled to derive any satisfaction from her appearance. All of her, she decided, not just her face but her whole body, looked
etiolated
, like a plant that had survived for years without proper sunlight.

‘Going anywhere nice?’

A woman had appeared from one of the cubicles and was standing at the basin next to her, spreading a thick line of crimson round her lips.

‘Uh … skiing. Switzerland.’ Helen knew she sounded unwelcoming, as if she resented being talked to. Which she did. ‘And you?’

‘Lanzarote. A bit of sun.’ The woman dropped her lipstick back into her handbag and began to backcomb her hair, which looked dry and brittle from many previous such assaults. ‘But, then, you need it at this time of year, don’t you? Bloody February. Gets to us all.’

‘Oh, doesn’t it?’ Helen felt tears prick her eyes as the pendulum of her emotions swung the other way. In an instant all the hostility was gone. Instead she experienced a rush of absurd affection, as if this woman could see to the heart of her and knew every vibration of confusion and misery swirling inside. ‘I hope you have a nice time.’

‘And you, dear.’

Helen returned to her seat feeling much better. Peter was right: a little luxury was just what they needed. A week of exercise, bracing mountain air and five-star food would do her the world of good. She kissed Peter, who looked surprised, and gave the children the packet of sweets which she had been saving for later on. ‘I’m going to ski the socks off you lot,’ she said. ‘I really am.’

Elizabeth and Serena took the tube to Oxford Street. Tina, awed by the rumblings of the trains and the crush of people went wide-eyed and quiet until they emerged on to the street, where she whined and plucked at the straps across her stomach. When Serena gave her a beaker of orange juice, she sucked the spout for a few seconds, then hurled it on to the pavement.

‘Oh, God, I’m afraid it’s going to be one of those days. Is there anything special you wanted to get, Elizabeth? Don’t let Tina put you off. I can buy time with a biscuit – I’ve got some really chunky ones that keep her quiet for ages. And these work wonders too,’ she added, pulling out a bunch of keys from her bag, which her daughter immediately swiped from her hand and attempted to shove into her mouth.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Tights … I think I need tights. And I could do with some new bras, though I hate buying bras – they never fit properly.’

‘M&S, then?’

‘Fine by me. Don’t you want anything?’

‘Lunch mainly.’ Serena grinned, then added kindly, ‘Just a bit of window-shopping will be a treat, honestly. Although if we’re going to M&S I might keep an eye out for some pyjamas for Ed. He’s in the most phenomenal growing phase at the moment and, of course, can’t have hand-me-downs from the girls. Long gone are the days when I could get away with that.’

They set off, Serena manoeuvring the pushchair expertly through the crowds and pausing every so often to point out something in a window to her sister-in-law, who seemed distracted. The day was overcast but mild for February. So much so that both women soon had their coats off, Serena tying hers carelessly round her waist, while Elizabeth slung hers over one arm. Underneath she was wearing a long brown skirt and a beige polo-neck, neither of which flattered her colouring or her shape. ‘You should wear brighter colours,’ announced Serena, once they were inside the shop, driven to such frankness by the sight of her sister-in-law eyeing up a horrible black sack of a skirt. ‘More like this.’ She took the black skirt from Elizabeth and replaced it with a shorter, prettier purple one, with wide panels and a small frill round the hem. ‘Which would go beautifully with this.’ Turning to another rail, she seized a lilac cotton top with a round neck and three-quarter-length sleeves. ‘I can just see you in these.’

Elizabeth groaned but looked pleased. ‘Well, I can’t. My God, and look at the prices. I’m buying underwear, remember?’ They soldiered on into the lingerie department, where Elizabeth bought a sturdy bra and a pair of thick black tights.

Over lunch a little later as she studied her sister-in-law’s rather heavy features, noting the tall but broad frame, the strong, dark Harrison brows and the brooding look that clouded her handsome blue eyes, it occurred to Serena that having to grow up with all the parent-pleasing accomplishments of Peter and the charm of Charlie and Cassie could not have been easy. Even at her happiest there was a tension in Elizabeth’s manner, a profound impression of uncertainty. She seemed to be opening up now, though, since they’d ordered a second glass of wine.

‘We’re all just acting, don’t you feel that sometimes? Playing our parts.’

‘I suppose so.’ Serena spoke guardedly. She enjoyed all the components of her life far too much to worry about where they came from. ‘I know just what you mean,’ she added, with rather more encouragement, reminding herself that one of the original intentions behind the expedition had been to cheer Elizabeth up.

‘Striving to be things,’ continued Elizabeth, ‘mothers, wives, workers. I tried to say that to Colin the other night, but he’s too stressed to think about anything except not being the only deputy head. This woman he’s sharing the post with, he can’t stand her. He
cares
so much – he feels it undermines him. I tried to say that it shouldn’t matter so much, that it’s only a job, one small part of who he is and what he does, but he got so cross. He gets so cross. He says I don’t understand, that I’m just not ambitious in the same way. Do you and Charlie ever have conversations like that?’

‘Not exactly.’ Serena sensed that they were now close to the root of her sister-in-law’s gloom and spoke carefully, wanting neither to discourage further confidence nor to appear greedy for it. The women she knew talked frankly to each other all the time, pouring out their feelings in huddles round kitchen tables over mugs of coffee and packets of biscuits. Relationships, children, money – no subjects were barred. A good bellyache about what was getting them down always helped: it made big issues seem small and manageable. It made them all feel less alone. But those sessions were voluntary and about trust, which had to be mutual. Elizabeth, Serena knew, wasn’t like that: there was a solitariness in her, something ring-fenced and tightly private. Her life consisted of rushing around after Colin and Roland and doing her job. Even before the arrival of this new, visible unhappiness, Serena had never seen her sister-in-law relax properly, not even at Ashley House. ‘But, then, Charlie isn’t really ambitious, is he?’ Serena pointed out. ‘He would be perfectly happy looking after the children all day.’

They both laughed, united by the pleasure of knowing and liking someone so well. ‘You are the best thing that ever happened to him, Serena, you really are. It makes me feel …’ Elizabeth’s eyes flooded with tears. At which crucial moment Tina, waking from her nap to find herself both hungry and nose-to-nose with an unfamiliar table-leg, began to sob violently, prompting looks of disapproval from neighbouring diners. Serena jigged the pushchair in a vain attempt to ease her back to sleep, while Elizabeth hastily dabbed a tissue at her eyes.

‘I’m going to have to let her out for a bit,’ said Serena. ‘When she gets like this she just needs to run around. Perhaps we could walk to St James’s Park or something. She’ll want food soon and then she’ll probably sleep again.’ She unstrapped her daughter, who clung briefly to her leg, then waddled off to smile radiantly at an unsuspecting businessman. He tried to ignore her, then gave up and smiled back, even offering a quick peep-bo from behind his napkin. The waiters, who were swarthy and Spanish-looking, stroked her tufts of fluffy hair as they dodged round her, their faces creasing with indulgent affection. Tina patted her palms together and tottered on to the next table, delighted to have both her freedom and a receptive audience.

Later, Serena would remember each of these moments with the clarity of slow motion. At the time, she was preoccupied with settling the bill and with her sister-in-law, whom she sensed had been close to saying something of huge emotional import. She would remember, too, the feel of cold air on her back as the door to the restaurant opened and closed behind them, releasing some lunchers into the street outside. And she would wonder a thousand times, a million times, why that cold air on her neck had made no impression at the time; what failure of intuition had prevented her turning round. Even when Elizabeth dropped coins into the saucer as a tip, saying, ‘Where’s Tina?’ she had felt no alarm, but instead wasted several precious seconds looping bags over the handles of the pushchair and pulling on her coat. And when she finally did turn, and saw no sign of her daughter, even then she did not panic. Toddlers toddled. They explored corners and spaces under chairs. She had learnt over fourteen years and with four children that they bobbed out of sight and bobbed back again. But she began to look more earnestly, apologising to diners as the pushchair bumped against the backs of their chairs. A Saturday lunchtime in the West End had ensured that the place was full to bursting, its windows steamy with breath and the vapour of hot food.

It was only at the screech of tyre on tarmac, a long ear-splitting screech, like the cry of an animal in pain, which would ring in her ears for ever afterwards, that Serena awoke to the nightmare unfolding around her. She thrust the pushchair to one side, barged between the tables and ran outside. She looked up and down the street, hearing nothing but the blood pounding in her ears.
The pavements on both sides of the road were swarming with people: hateful, uncaring strangers, going about their trivial lives, ignorant of her terror.

Then she heard someone shout, a male voice, high-pitched with shock, ‘It’s a child.’ And she knew, even as she pushed through the crowds, slowing now at the edge of the pavement a few yards away, that it was her child. ‘She’s mine,’ she said, long before she got there. ‘She’s mine.’ It was a relief just to see her, to see the familiar clothes: the green dungarees, bulging round the bulk of her nappy, the bib still flecked with dried biscuit, the tiny corduroy pumps that passed for shoes still firmly on her feet. She was lying on her back at the side of the road, looking as relaxed as she did in her cot sometimes, staring up at the sky, just as she liked to stare, glassy-eyed with exhaustion, at her mobile of coloured elephants.

‘Best not to move her.’

‘It’s the mother.’

‘Poor soul.’

‘Call an ambulance.’

‘One’s on its way.’

‘The bike just hit her and drove off. I saw the whole thing.’

Elizabeth, elbowing her way through the crowd, the pushchair bashing her ankles, the handles of her shopping-bags cutting into her arms, started towards Serena and stopped. She was on her knees, stroking Tina’s face with her palm. There was a halo of crimson blood round Tina’s head. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, it’s Mummy. It’s Mummy and I love you very much.’ A woman, standing near by, started to sob. Otherwise the crowd was still. A siren sounding in the distance grew louder.

Serena shuffled closer, pressing her knees into the spreading pool of blood. She bent her head and put her mouth close to her daughter’s ear, feeling a wisp of the soft baby hair tickle her lips. ‘You’re going to be all right, my darling. You’re going to be all right.’ There was terror inside her, but for the moment it was caged in shock. Her voice, she was relieved to hear, sounded calm, quite unlike the gibbering inside her head, the echoing screech of rubber. Or had it been a scream? Had she heard her daughter scream? The thought of Tina suffering even an instant of pain or fear was so unbearable that Serena, losing her guard for a moment, let out a low, involuntary groan. She wanted only to gather her child into her arms but knew she shouldn’t, that it would be better to wait for the ambulance team. Instead she smoothed back the baby curls from Tina’s small round face and gently cupped both her hands under her head, wanting to protect the pulpy underside of her skull from the dirty road.

Pamela was touring the garden in her Barbour and wellies, making mental notes of what to talk to Sid about when he came on Monday. Lunch had been served and cleared away and the children dispatched on an errand to the village shop. She had given them a short list: eggs, frozen peas and corn flakes, none of which she really needed (not for a couple of days anyway), but they had seemed a bit listless and she thought it wise to give them something to do. She found it disheartening that, these days, bored children did nothing but slump in front of screens and always did her best to offer alternatives. Not so long ago just being at Ashley House would have been entertainment enough, with a huge garden to play in and boxes of old toys stored under the beds upstairs. But as they got older it was getting harder. Chloë still loved a lot of the toys, particularly the dolls’ house, and the boys (when the weather was fine) still disappeared to play games in the woods, but not nearly as often as they used to. Ed seemed to think his footballing
skills were too superior to waste on his cousins, and the bikes remaining in the garage were mostly too small or unrideable. Things changed, Pamela mused, feeling suddenly wistful. Children grew and the present became the past the moment one experienced it.