The Birdcage (23 page)

‘Oh, don't!' cried Tilda, almost crossly. ‘Don't, Ma. It's fine. Honestly. Jake
does
look like David. I want him to.'

‘Of course you do,' murmured Teresa, touching her grandson's fist, feeling the powerful clutch of the tiny fingers. ‘But it doesn't help you to get over it, does it? Not with this reminder so constantly with you.'

‘I don't want to get over David,' said Tilda fiercely. ‘I love him. He was everything to me and I don't want him to be air-brushed out of my life as if he never existed.'

Teresa settled Jake, fiddling with his little T-shirt, uncomfortable as she often was in the face of Tilda's passion. She'd never been as much at ease with her older daughter as she'd been with Julia: but then, Teresa reminded herself, Tilda was her father's child. Where Julia – so like herself – was biddable, open to advice, Tilda had always been stubborn. Justin had backed her up, undermining her mother's influence, encouraging Tilda to be headstrong.

‘I shall marry David,' she'd said when she was six – and so she had, despite her mother's warnings of the problems of being a soldier's wife. Teresa pursed her lips as she bent over Jake, murmuring to him. It wasn't that she hadn't liked David, quite the contrary; in fact, when she'd been a young woman she'd had quite a serious crush on Piers: all the Hamilton men had something special about them. The fact remained, however, that from his birth upward it was clear that David was going to be a handful: if there were anything difficult or dangerous going, then David was up for it. Remembering, Teresa couldn't help smiling to herself. He'd been irresistible in that indefinable, attractive, sexy Hamilton way – but a worrying prospect as a son-in-law. She'd pointed all this out to Justin but he'd refused to attempt to persuade Tilda to wait a few years; to enjoy her job in London as a PA to the director of an advertising agency; to meet other men. He'd been so proud of David, sure that he had a brilliant career ahead of him in the army. What a tragedy then that, after the tour in Bosnia, he should have been killed in a car accident half a mile from home; what a pointless waste of his life.

‘I'm not suggesting that you should forget him.' Teresa took her mug of tea. ‘Of course not, but—'

‘But what?' Tilda sat down opposite and looked at her challengingly, though she smiled at her mother, remembering her conversation with Gemma earlier.

Teresa looked back at her daughter's lovely face, seeking for words that were neither banal nor instructive.

‘I just care about you,' she said at last, defensively.

‘Oh, Ma, I know you do.' Tilda sighed with frustration. ‘Now I've got Jake I'm beginning to understand, at last, how you've felt about me and Jules all these years. It must be hell watching your children deliberately taking risks or putting themselves into danger. I'd kill anyone who hurt Jake and I can see just how easy it would be to wrap him up in loving, caring, smothering bubble-wrap and never let him out of my sight. Don't think I don't know what you want for me.'

‘I just want you to be . . . sensible,' muttered Teresa.

‘I know.' Tilda grinned at her. ‘How d'you spell it?'

Teresa smiled unwillingly. ‘Hopeless,' she said. ‘Just like your father . . . Have you heard from him?'

‘I had a postcard of the Yorkshire Moors a couple of days ago. You'll be glad to get the house sold up so that you can join him, won't you, although I shall miss you. He said that he's booked out a few days' holiday for Jake's baptism in September so you must let me know if you want to stay here with us. We'll probably be having one or two people overnight. Saul will be staying, of course.'

‘Saul.' Teresa put down her mug and stared at Tilda. She repeated the name brightly, as if this was a whole new idea to her. ‘Now that's nice. I'm very fond of Saul.'

‘So am I,' agreed Tilda calmly. ‘And of course he was David's greatest chum, which is why he's going to be Jake's godfather. Did I tell you he's coming down next weekend for the party?'

‘Yes, you did say something about it.' Teresa hesitated, longing to ask a few questions, took one look at Tilda's warning expression and beamed at her instead. ‘That'll be fun for you, darling. Piers is a sweetie but it's good to have people of your own age around and Saul is just the person to . . . well,' she hesitated beneath the steady gaze, ‘to take you out of yourself. I mean,' she went on hurriedly, ‘that it's good to have a change.'

‘You're hopeless, Ma,' said Tilda good-naturedly. ‘I know just what you mean – in fact Gemma and I were discussing it this morning. It's a pity she couldn't come to lunch. I told you that she sent her love, didn't I?'

‘You did,' said Teresa. ‘I should like to see her again. Such a pretty girl.' She shook her head. ‘I must admit that I had my doubts about that marriage.'

‘She and Guy had known each other for ever,' protested Tilda. ‘Just like me and David.'

‘I don't think that it was quite the same. Gemma was always such a naughty girl and, though I don't know Guy very well, he seems a rather forbidding young man. He makes me feel nervous, quite unlike Saul. You'd never imagine that Saul and Gemma were brother and sister, would you? She's so blonde and he's so dark.'

Tilda remembered Gemma's remark. ‘Do you think he's too kind?'

Teresa looked at her, puzzled. ‘Too kind? Can anyone be too kind?'

‘Gemma thinks so. She says that the unknown quality is what women like in men.'

‘The unknown quality: how typical of Gemma,' Teresa snorted scornfully. ‘Oh, we might
think
we want the challenge of a man with a reputation, we flatter ourselves that we're the one who will reform him, but when we're two months into our first pregnancy what we long for is the kind of man who will boost our morale and make us feel good.' She hesitated. ‘The truth of the matter is that women don't know what they want and I have to admit,' said Teresa with the air of one who is trying to be fair, ‘that I've always felt that it's rather unreasonable for women to expect men to know that today it's the time of the month when we'd like to be dragged upstairs and made passionate love to but tomorrow we'll want to sit in a corner feeling tearful and needing someone to make us cups of tea.'

‘Well,' said Tilda lightly, rather taken aback by her mother's unexpected burst of outspokenness, ‘I have to agree with you and, though I can't say that David was a great hand at making cups of tea when I had PMT, he
did
have a certain unknown quality.'

Teresa smiled down at the sleeping baby. ‘He certainly did. So Saul will be staying here and Felix will need a bed for the night, won't he? Are you sure that it will be OK for me to stay overnight?'

‘Of course it will. And what do you think of my plan to get Piers a puppy for his birthday? Don't you think it's a great idea? Alison totally disapproves.'

This last remark was quite enough to distract Teresa from any thoughts of Saul; Alison, as an in-comer, was poaching on old preserves and Teresa disliked her on principle.

‘I think it's a splendid idea,' she said warmly. ‘Piers has always had a dog about although Joker was very special, wasn't he?'

‘Joker connected him with Sue and David,' said Tilda rather sadly. ‘He was a kind of continuum when everything was falling apart and he helped Piers to get through some very dark times. When Joker died it was rather as if a whole era had come to an end. Poor old Piers was absolutely gutted. He wept buckets when he thought no-one was looking and I think that it enabled him to grieve for everything at once. Queer, isn't it, that you feel you can weep and despair over an animal's death when you can't if it's a person? Joker's death released some of the pain for him. His bed's still there.'

‘I always look for him when I drive in.' Teresa blotted a tear or two of her own. ‘He used to lie out in the sunshine in the garth when he got old and couldn't go about with Piers any longer. Poor old Piers really has had a rough ride one way and another. Sue was terrific fun but she was utterly exhausting, about half an hour of her company was quite enough, and, of course, his mother was such a difficult woman. Very possessive and tough as old boots.'

‘Did you get on with her?' asked Tilda, her curiosity roused. ‘I can remember her a bit. She was here, in those days, of course, and Piers and Sue were in the cottage in Porlock. I came out with David a few times when he was small, to visit her and Felix, and I remember her as being fearfully distant and terribly critical. Felix was quite different.'

‘Oh, everyone adored Felix but Marina was a real cold fish,' said Teresa. ‘Piers always gave the impression that he stood between them as a kind of mediator – awful for a child – and then Sue came along and simply took him out of it. She was like some Act of God, sweeping everything before her. There was a crusading spirit about her which was difficult to resist. Of course, Marina was awful to her. She was terribly jealous of all Piers' girl-friends but Sue simply took no notice of her. I'm not certain that Piers ever knew quite what hit him.'

‘But wasn't it extraordinary that she should just pack it all in and go off to the States like that?' Tilda shook her head. ‘It was so . . . unexpected.'

‘It was typical of Sue. She was completely committed to whatever it was she was doing at the time. She started her little business when David went away to school, you know, and it was then that she realized that she had a real flair for business. It was typical that she managed to run her shop and still be such a dedicated wife and mother, but once David went into the army those wifely, maternal instincts simply seemed to have burned out. That scene came to its natural end and she turned her whole attention to building up her business and expanding it abroad. It was a very amicable separation.'

‘She was so good at being a mum, that's what made it so odd,' said Tilda. ‘She was so competent and kind and they were all so happy here at Michaelgarth. And then, finish!'

‘Does Piers miss her?' asked Teresa curiously.

Tilda wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. ‘I don't think he does, not really. Or, at least, only as you miss something you've got used to and rather liked. He's certainly not heart-broken.'

‘That's what I thought,' agreed Teresa. ‘I think that Sue was a kind of bridge for him, away from Marina's clutches, and that in an odd kind of way the break was right for him too. I agree, he's never seemed heart-broken or angry, just happy to move on. Although I understand that Alison is trying to worm her way in.'

‘Oh, don't,' said Tilda involuntarily. ‘She's a nice person, actually, but she's just not right for Piers.'

‘What does he
see
in her?'

‘Well, she lost her husband at about the time that David died and I think he feels sorry for her and now he's got himself a bit stuck.'

‘That's just so like Piers,' sighed Teresa. ‘Marina got him into the mind-set of feeling guilty if he doesn't please women at all costs and he's still in the habit of it. He'll simply have to unstick himself. I think a puppy is an excellent start.'

‘I know Piers is thinking about getting one but it's as if he can't quite bring himself to do it yet. You don't think it's too soon after Joker?'

‘No, I don't, but I think it might be difficult for Piers to actually do it for himself. He needs to be bounced into it.'

‘That's what I thought.'

They looked at each other, smiling in complete accord.

‘Jake's gone to sleep,' said Tilda. ‘Put him in his chair and he'll sleep for an hour at least, and I'll show you the clothes that Sue has sent for him from the States. I have to say that she's got style. They're really cool.'

The telephone bell startled them: Teresa instinctively cradled the sleeping baby so that he shouldn't be woken whilst Tilda snatched up the receiver.

‘Hello? Oh, hello, Piers . . . OK, that's fine . . . Ma's here with me, actually . . . Yes, I'll tell her. Love to Felix. See you.'

‘It's OK,' Teresa put Jake gently into his chair. ‘It didn't wake him up.'

‘Piers sends his love and says, “Are you staying to supper?” He's dropping in on Felix and then meeting a client for a quick half in the pub but he won't be late and he'd love to see you.'

‘That's very sweet of him,' said Teresa, gratified. ‘Would I be a nuisance?'

‘Don't be daft.' Tilda slipped an arm about her mother's shoulders, giving her a quick hug. ‘Come on upstairs and see Jake's new gear and then I'll put you to peeling vegetables. There's no such thing as a free supper at Michaelgarth.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Felix moved quietly about the flat, carrying the tea-things into the long, narrow kitchen – his galley – putting the biscuit tin away in the cupboard. The half-glazed door opened on to the large square platform of an iron staircase and here bloomed a tiny garden of roses, miniature specimens in pots and tubs. He'd cut a perfect yellow bud for Lizzie.

‘Put it in your tooth-glass,' he'd said. ‘It'll be in full flower by tomorrow.'

She'd taken it, brushing it across her lips, smiling at him. ‘And you'll come and have dinner with me?' His hesitation had been unmistakable. ‘You promised.'

He'd nodded and, understanding his anxiety but refusing to let him retract, she'd kissed him and gone away. Now, as he washed the cups and saucers, rinsed out the teapot, his thoughts were full of conflicting emotions. How good it had been, how energizing, to talk openly about the past they'd shared, to fill in some of the gaps. Yet for both of them it was as if Piers were in the room with them, his imminent arrival colouring and reshaping their memories.