Relative Love (25 page)

Pamela, hearing the emotion in his voice but too tired to respond to it, told him he was right but also a trifle sentimental and could they put the light out because she was sleepy. They turned towards the middle of the bed, kissed, and turned away – so that their backs were facing each other – to sleep. John, as he did so often these days, thought of death, daring it to frighten him. Which it did, though not quite as much as usual, partly because of the sentiments he had just expressed to his wife and partly because of Tina. The thought of his little granddaughter on the other side already was somehow of great solace.

Pamela, lying in the dark next to him, thought of Tina too, and then of the baby clothes, boxed in the attic just as her own unhappiness had been boxed inside her heart. She curled her knees up to her chest, as she had in childhood, glad she had done her weeping and got it over with; glad she had been brought back to her senses. She would throw out the contents of the suitcase at the very next opportunity, she decided, transfer them to a bag for the dustbin men to wheel away.

Dan lay with his hands behind his head staring up at the ceiling for most of the night. Sally, restless as always, turned many times with heaving sighs, once muttering something under her breath. He had seen Cassie in the restaurant, but only as they were leaving. His response had been to usher his wife hurriedly to the exit. Having the two women in his life in the same room
made him feel more desperate, more aware that he was straddling two realities, in danger of crucifying himself with the effort of preventing them either bumping into each other or swerving even further apart. All hopes of resolving things that night were in tatters. The first hurdle had been George and Polly (as if they sensed his plans) choosing that evening, of all evenings, to be especially endearing, curling on his lap for stories and telling him tales of what they had got up to in school. Then his sleeping two-and-a-half-year-old, rotund in a new jumpsuit and pressing her muslin comforter to her peachy cheeks, had made him think of Cassie’s niece. His children hadn’t died, yet he was thinking of deserting them. Becoming a weekend dad. Parenting by proxy. Then Sally had sniped at him about something trivial and he had thought, Yes, I can leave after all, I need to leave this woman or I will go mad.

The second hurdle to his plans, however, had proved insurmountable: in the restaurant, snapping her breadstick into smithereens, Sally had relayed the grisly news that an inconclusive smear test the month before had prompted a second test, which had in turn disclosed the existence of some dodgy cells. She had seen a specialist that morning who had told her they needed to do more tests. She hadn’t told Dan before because she hadn’t wanted to worry him, she said. But since the specialist – when she had pressed him – had admitted what Dan himself would know only too well, that a worst-case scenario could involve a hysterectomy, a course of chemotherapy and the removal of all her lymph nodes, she had felt it was time to tell him what was going on. She followed up these revelations with a plea for forgiveness about how difficult she had been in recent months: worries about her health hadn’t helped and she was sorry.

Hearing her out, Dan had felt like a condemned man. Of course he felt compassion, concern, all those things, but he also felt trapped. A husband could not leave a sick – possibly very sick – wife, no matter how badly he and she were getting on. He just couldn’t do it. It was too cruel, too … Dan hesitated to use the word even inside the privacy of his own head … immoral. Yet letting Cassie down, keeping her waiting, felt immoral too. He couldn’t be without her, yet he couldn’t have her. It was unspeakable. If he told Cassie he had to see Sally through a possibly serious illness she might give up on him and then he would die of misery. Cassie was the stardust in his life, the reason he sang in the shower and ran for buses, the reason he tolerated NHS bureaucracy and tetchy patients. She was his joy and he needed her.

Very very quietly, aware that he was breaking one of his own cardinal rules, Dan rolled over and reached for his mobile phone from his bedside table. ‘Darling,’ he typed, ‘saw u 2nite. love u. plse be patient. r time will come i promise. D.’ He then lay back in the dark in the same position, with his hands under his head, feeling pins and needles creeping up his forearms and into his palms, while tears squeezed their way out of the corners of his eyes and down his temples.

Chloë woke very early and lifted the corner of the curtain to look out of the window. She had had a dream about running away and thought, if the weather was nice, it might be an exciting thing to do. But in her dream she had had a big fluffy dog for company and had never been cold or hungry, whereas now outside looked quite empty and horrid with rain. So, although it would have been a good day to run away because she had a piano lesson and hadn’t practised, as well as a spelling test of words she didn’t know, she decided it probably wouldn’t be much fun after all. Instead she got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and some socks because her feet were icy, then went to check on the miniature cot where she kept the current favourite of her many dolls.

‘Good morning, Tina, it’s time to get up.’ She picked up the doll and patted its back a couple of times then dressed it in a pink satinette party dress and matching pink shoes, which were
annoying because they always fell off. The doll’s real name was Jessica, but Chloë had rechristened her Tina after her baby cousin got killed by the motorbike, which her mother had said was an odd thing to do, but in Chloë’s mind there had always been a whole string of names after Jessica (Florence Geraldine Wanda Tina Lucinda) so, as she tried to explain, all she had done was change the order a bit. She knew it was sad about her cousin and that she would miss helping her aunt Serena look after her sometimes, but everyone said Tina had gone to heaven, which couldn’t be too bad. Chloë propped the doll against the window so she had something to look at, then went to the bathroom to pee, wiggling her toes because it felt so nice to get rid of the ache in her tummy.

As she came out of the bathroom she heard the beeps of the alarm being deactivated downstairs, which was interesting because it was still very early, and also very good since it meant she could watch television. (She wasn’t allowed to turn off the alarm herself, except in an emergency, though neither of her parents had ever said what such an emergency would be. Theo was allowed to turn off the alarm but then her big brother was allowed everything, including staying up till after ten o’clock and having his own telephone.)

Chloë trotted downstairs, skated along the parquet floor in her socks and collided with Rika, who was standing, suitcase in hand, in the hall. Chloë had expected to see her father, who left early for work sometimes, and let out a squeal of surprise, prompting some frantic shushing from the au pair. ‘Where are you going, Rika?’

‘I am leaving this house, Chloë. Your mummy she say they don’t want me any more.’

‘Are you sure?’ Chloë, who had been aware of nothing beyond the usual tensions the night before, eyed her with suspicion. She looked upset and all puffy round the eyes, just like half of the grown-ups at Tina’s funeral. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to Izmir, to my home.’

Chloë let out a small gasp of envious awe. ‘Are you running away?’

‘I leave this here. So.’ Rika set down her suitcase and plucked a letter from her pocket, which she propped against a pot plant on the hall table. She raked her hair, which was white blonde at the tips and a smudgy brown everywhere else, behind her ears, then kissed her charge on top of the head, opened the front door and disappeared out of it, stumbling under the heaviness of her baggage.

Chloë remained in the hall for several minutes, torn between her plan of watching cartoons and a sense that the departure of Rika needed reporting to higher authority. Who would meet her at the school gates now? And who would cook her tea? She wasn’t particularly fond of Rika – the one before from Germany had been much nicer – but she was sort of used to her. And there were the biscuits she had baked from time to time, using half a tin of golden syrup, which she would miss terribly. She was saved from the decision by the appearance of her father, looking ruffled and grumpy in his pyjamas. ‘Rika’s gone but she left you this,’ she said, feeling important. Instead of thanking her or seeming pleased, her father ripped open the letter and stomped back upstairs where Chloë heard his voice raised and then her mother’s, and then both together. There were long words –
decision, thoughtlessness, consultation, audacity
– and other shorter, more worrying ones like
bloody
and
selfish
, with the gist, as far as Chloë could make out, being mostly to do with who would take the afternoon off to meet her from school. Then the bedroom door slammed and she couldn’t hear any more. She went and poured the biggest bowl of Coco Pops she had ever had and took it to eat on the sofa watching television. She ate very carefully, only spilling the tiniest little bit on her nightie and the carpet, which she rubbed with a tissue until the dark stain was speckled with lots of tiny blobs of white.

Dear Clem
,

How are you? I am fine. It was my birthday yesterday and I got loads of money – twenty quid from Granny and Granddad
,
twenty quid from Aunt Cassie, fifteen quid from Uncle Colin and Aunt Elizabeth and some from your parents too
…

(Theo was deliberately vague about Serena and Charlie’s contribution since it had only been a tenner and he didn’t want to make his cousin feel bad. Everyone knew that, with Serena not working and having so many children, their branch of the family had the least ready cash. Although with Tina gone, they would presumably have more, but he couldn’t very well say that either.)

Mum and Dad sent me some stuff too, CDs, clothes and a brilliant book called The Director’s Cut. They have also promised me a more powerful microphone attachment for my video camera. Luckily Rika, our au pair, who was a real pain, has been FIRED. Some new person who lives in the street is now looking after Chloë till Mum gets back from work. Mum says Chloë is happy because this person has a dog!

Theo, on the point of making a pejorative comment about little sisters being a pain too, decided on reflection that this might be rather tactless and began a new paragraph instead.

We are going to Ashley House as usual for Easter. I guess you lot will be there too. Hope school isn’t too bad. Mine is fine, apart from games and corps (army training) which suck. If you could find the time to write back that would be cool, though don’t worry if you can’t. But I know you like writing because you keep that diary, don’t you?

From Theo

PS I’m going to carry on making my film of everybody at Ashley House. Would you consider being my producer?

The postscript was something of an afterthought. Theo had every intention of continuing with his documentary of the Harrison family, but remained uncertain as to whether Clem’s assistance would be a help or a hindrance. It might be useful to have someone to help with the new microphone, which, if he got the one he had seen in a catalogue, would be huge and need holding at just the right angle and distance. But the real impulse for the suggestion was guilt about writing the letter, which had everything to do with being seen to have a female correspondent by his peers and very little to do with deepening his friendship with his cousin. It had been a toss-up between Maisie and Clem, the latter winning because she was so much less attractive and outgoing and therefore more likely (Theo had weighed up the matter very carefully) to be bothered to reply. And he wanted a reply very badly – just one – before the end of term, so that he could hold his head high among the swaggering majority of his year group who seemed perpetually to be talking about girlfriends, texting girlfriends or receiving letters in pink envelopes with things like SWALK scribbled across the flaps.

Dear Theo
,

Sorry it’s taken so long for me to reply but now that we’re working on our GCSE courses we have so much more homework. I also had a piano exam (Grade V) and had to do lots of practice. It went okay, but Mum says I can give up whenever I want so it doesn’t really matter
.

YES!!! I would love to be your producer – thank you so much for asking. What do I have to do? I think we are going to be at Ashley House for quite a long time this holidays – to give Mum a break – and I was a bit worried about getting bored. So to be your producer would be just great. Maybe I could work on some scripts too. Think of questions to ask, etc. And what about Sid, are you going to include him? (I think you should, otherwise it’s not the whole picture, is it?) Anyway, let me know
.

I don’t like games either. I only have to do netball but I’m quite slow and always drop the ball. Luckily I’ve been off games recently because last week I fainted. It was weird, actually, and really embarrassing too, because it just sort of happened and suddenly there I was on the ground with everybody staring down at me. Embarrassing or what? But still, it’s cool being off games. Three days till we break up – HOORAY. See you very soon
.

Love from Clem

APRIL

Sunlight was falling through the kitchen windows, casting a soft honeycomb of squares across the freshly washed pinky-grey stone floor. On the table a bunch of once primly budded tulips had thrown themselves open overnight, exposing the rich velvet of their petals and the trembling dusty black stalks at their hearts. Their stems curved languorously over the edge of the vase, their heads nodding at the butter glistening in its dish nearby and the porcelain tureen of a fruit bowl, so laden with apples, pears, tangerines, apricots and grapes that Chloë, invited by her grandmother to help herself, let her fingers run over first one then another in an agony of indecision. Their fruit bowl at home was half the size and usually contained apples patched with brown bruises and bananas with uninvitingly mottled skins. She settled finally on a large satin green apple, tugged it loose, then watched in dismay as a landslide of apricots and tangerines tumbled on to the table. Samson, who had been perched on the chair next to her pretending to wash his face but really eyeing the butter, took fright and leapt off the chair.