The Full Legacy (11 page)

Kay grinned and I realised my mistake without her needing to explain.

‘Okay... I get it....’ I said bitterly. ‘He’s the bloody son, isn’t he?... I’m going to lie down. I think the whole world’s gone mad.’

Then I got another cola out of the fridge and gave up on trying to stay upright for the day.

The Garden

On Tuesday evening, Kay tried to talk to me again. I was outside, watering the garden amidst a cloud of midges. They were taking rather too close an interest in me and I could have done with one of those wide-brimmed Crocodile Dundee hats with corks to keep them at bay.

Even so, it was a beautiful, gently warm summer’s evening and I was feeling nice and mellow as I worked. I’d been thinking about Turner and I was in tune with some pretty sensual memories. The softness of the air caressing my bare arms and legs reminded me of our lovemaking. I found myself smiling up into the evening sky as the shadows lengthened.

Then I heard the back door opening and turned to welcome Kay.

‘It’s looking really good,’ she said, ambling up to me. She had a cheese and Branston sandwich in one hand and a condensation beaded can of Carlsberg in the other. She wafted lazily at the midges.

‘We could do with a smoker out here,’ she said. ‘That’d keep ‘em away.’

‘Yeah,’ I stepped back onto the crazy-paving to take a look. Everything seemed much fresher now that I’d watered it. I might even have smelt the freshness if it hadn’t been for the sour tang of pickle leaking from Kay’s sandwich.

She bit through the two thick slabs of wholemeal bread and munched heartily. The very sight of it made my jaw ache. The lager looked tempting though. I reckoned there must still be another one left in the fridge.

‘No Ros tonight?’ I asked, brushing my hair back out of my eyes and flopping down onto the garden bench.

Kay sat beside me.

‘No, she’s at her yoga class.’

‘Yoga, eh?!’

We grinned at each other, amused.

‘Don’t suppose it’ll last any longer than her Transcendental Meditation phase,’ she added. ‘Anyway, how are
you
feeling now?’ She sounded very tentative suddenly, knowing she was heading into a sensitive area.

‘Oh, okay.’

‘No more spooks then?’

‘No.’ The shadowy sense that had felt so alien at first was almost a part of me now... Like a transplant that had taken.

‘You’re losing weight.’

Was I? Now I came to think of it, my trousers
were
feeling a bit on the baggy side. I looked down at myself.

‘Oh well,’ I said. ‘I probably needed to.’

Kay looked dubious. ‘You’re really pale too,’ she persisted. ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you... if you were worried about anything?’

I nodded, not really listening. I was fascinated, as always, by the way she was eating her sandwich. She kept twisting it round 180 degrees and licking the edges to stop pickle dripping everywhere. She was wearing stone coloured shorts too. I feared for them.

‘What kind of day have
you
had?’ I asked.

I knew it had been a long one. She’d only just got in.

‘Oh, not bad.’ The sandwich was all gone now. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and took a swig of the lager, perching her foot up on the edge of the wooden seat and resting her elbow on her knee. She scowled across over next door’s privet hedge, into the setting sun. ‘Granny group this morning. Mixed singles tonight. I spent the afternoon checking out some new equipment in the gym. I suppose all jobs get to be pissing boring when you’ve done them for long enough.’

I was surprised to hear her talk like that. I hadn’t realised she was so fed up.

‘I’ve never got bored with mine,’ I said.

‘Yeah, well I don’t suppose I’d get bored either if I spent most of my life photographing women in their undies.’

She rubbed at her eyes and nose, irascibly, digging around in her pocket for a tissue. It didn’t seem like a good time to ask what the difference was between undies and leotards in the interest stakes. The pollen was obviously bothering her. Her voice was getting thicker and snufflier by the minute. She blew her nose loudly. ‘Anyway... Look, Gill...’ she hesitated, and I knew she was going to say something I wouldn’t like. ‘I think you ought to know that a friend of Georgie’s was out on the town last night and she saw Suzanne.’

My stomach clenched.

‘So?’

‘She was with Turner.’

I literally saw red. It was like a cascade of blood sweeping down over my eyes. I struggled to keep my breathing steady.

‘Oh, for goodness sake Kay!’ I staggered to my feet, hardly able to see. ‘So
what?
They
work
together, remember.’

‘Not on a night, they don’t.’

‘Well, they’d probably been at some meeting or other.’

‘No, Gill. Not at 10.30.’

Kay stood up too, balanced her drink on the edge of the bench, and reached for my arm. Her hay fever was getting worse. She was wheezing a little as I snatched myself away from her. I was so angry I wanted to hit her. I had never ever felt that angry in my life before. And I was so angry I wasn’t even shocked by it.

‘Everybody’s so bloody interested in Turner, aren’t they?’ I snapped.

‘It’s because we...’

I didn’t let her finish.

‘Everybody thinks they know what’s best for me... and for Suzanne... and for Mary... Well, they
don’t
Kay, so don’t come running to me with your stories.’

I picked up the watering can and stomped off towards the garden shed, emptying out the last dregs of water on the flower beds as I went. It was getting dark, and not only in my soul. It was time to put everything away.

‘Ten thirty,’
Kay’s voice followed me, still trying to get me to hear.
‘Taking their time over coffee and liqueurs at some flash restaurant down town.’

I felt sick. I slammed the shed door after me as I got inside. The mellow smell of wood preserver greeted me. There was an old work bench down the wall under the cobwebby window – a rickety wooden seat under the bench. I hung up my watering can and sat down, rocking myself on the chair, my elbows on the workbench and my head in my hands. I remembered all the times this exact same thing had happened with Corinne.... well meaning friends trying to warn me and make me face up to what was going on. Kay of all people knew about that.

‘Oh,
shit!
’ I groaned, rubbing my hands through my hair in frustration.

I could feel tears stinging my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to feel that much of a fool. Since Corinne, I’d always held back from caring enough about anyone to be hurt that badly by them. But with Turner I’d seen all the signs and I’d gone for it anyway. Maybe I’d inherited my mother’s unerring capacity to attract and fall for the wrong people. Kay was right when she said she’d got under my skin. I was falling in love and it hurt like hell.

I took a deep breath.

‘I’m old enough to look after myself!’
I announced, swinging out of the shed on a wave of
‘fuck you all!’
bravado. I didn’t feel brave. I felt like I’d felt at Corinne’s funeral with Kay sitting there at the back of the crematorium and everybody’s eyes flitting between us, their whispers rustling like a breeze through leaves in autumn.

But Kay wasn’t there anymore.

The lager can was on its side, trickling Carlsberg into a steadily growing pool on the crazy paving. I stared at it, shocked.

Then suddenly, I was very afraid.

I broke into a run.

I found Kay in her room, panicked, grey, and wheezing like someone who was having all the breath squeezed out of them. She was searching frantically for something in her dressing table, tugging out the drawers, tipping clothes all over the floor. She looked glazed, completely unfocused as she half registered me standing in the doorway.

‘H... I’m... H....  H.... InHaler...’ she gasped.

I never was good at thinking under pressure. The thoughts always got jumbled up in my head. I struggled to grasp onto what she needed. Then, even when I realised what it was, I couldn’t remember where I’d last seen it.

Suddenly, I knew.

‘It’s in the bathroom cabinet,’ I said, already on my way there, flinging open the mirrored door and plowing through ancient containers of Paracetamol – Friar’s Balsam – Arnica – before I got to the box with its tiny aerosol.

Kay was slumped by the side of her bed by the time I got back. She looked like a fish, half dead on a river bank, washed up, past struggling, all her effort going into the unequal fight to keep alive.

The relief on her face was pitiful when she saw the aerosol. She grabbed it from me, gasping out as well as she could and then sucking on the mouthpiece like a diver whose oxygen line has been blocked.

I sat down beside her and put my hand gently on her arm, breathless myself, and badly shaken.

Slowly, her breathing steadied and her colour returned. Against my shoulder, I felt her starting to relax. And then she began to cry.

I held her in my arms, sobbing too, with tears of relief. Whatever had happened between us in the past, I loved her. I rocked her as she clung to me.

Eventually, her tears passed.

We both leaned back against the unmade bed and stared at the wreckage.

‘If I’d known I was finally going to be able to lure you into my room I’d have tidied up,’ she quipped weakly.

How typical of Kay to play it for laughs.

‘Come on,’ I joined in. ‘I saw you quite deliberately making a mess to put me off.’

I held her hand, not willing to let her evade the main issue quite so easily. ‘I’ve never seen you this bad,’ I said.

‘No,’ she looked miserable, and still very shaken. ‘A frigging aerobics instructor who can’t breathe... great, isn’t it!’

I rushed to be practical about it. ‘The pollen count must be very high,’ I said. ‘And it’s probably not good for you to be hanging around in the garden for long at this time of the year. You’ll just have to go back on your antihistamines again.’

‘Yeah,’ she pretended to be comforted by the rational explanation. But still she was scared. ‘I’ve never felt anything like it,’ she said. ‘I felt like somebody had their hands around my neck - Like somebody was squeezing the life out of me.’

I thought guiltily about how, in my moment of anger, I would have liked to do just that. I tried to push the memory from my mind.

‘Well,’ I said, rubbing her arm reassuringly. ‘It’s over now. I’ll go and get your tablets. I bet you’re not even meant to drink with them either. Shame really. I wouldn’t have minded cracking that other can of lager to calm our nerves.’

First Out

By Wednesday, thankfully, there was a cooler breeze around. The sun shone from a perfect blue sky. I’d spent the afternoon out at Ascot, snapping racehorses in full flight for a friend of David’s who was designing a really nice quality brochure for the owner of one of the stables there.

The day out had done me good. For once, I smelt of the countryside and fresh air rather than perming lotion and black coffee. I was sure that if Turner was just marking time with me, I’d be able to handle it. And I was feeling better – lighter than I had for ages.

Turner had arrived early and was already chatting to Michelle in the salon. She was rather more respectably dressed than she had been the last two times we’d met, in a lightweight summer business suit in grey with a plain white blouse. Her hair shone like jet in the diffused light slanting through the heavily decaled windows of the salon. I could tell she was on a charm offensive with my best friend, even through the shop window. She smiled as she looked up and saw me in the doorway. And whatever her long term intentions, I could tell that she cared for me in that moment. It was written there in her eyes.

Justin and Tracey were still hard at work, so I limited my greeting to a quick cheek-peck. It wasn’t easy. Michelle smiled at my self-restraint.

‘I’ve just been telling
Mrs Shaw
about your misspent youth,’ she said quietly, letting me know she’d sussed about last Friday. ‘I think it’s important not to have any guilty secrets, don’t you? ... Anyway, she assures me that I haven’t put her off you, despite my description of you waddling onto the stage of Green Lane Comp in a tree costume, so I guess she must like you a bit.’

I squirmed. ‘Oh, Michelle... Please!’ I felt like a teenager being embarrassed by my mum. I glanced around the salon to make sure no-one had heard, painfully aware that I was blushing.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Turner watching me intently, her eyes narrowed as she took me in. In that moment, I didn’t care who else she was seeing or whether she would ever have any intention of loving me. Every inch of me yearned to hold her – not even, necessarily to make love – but to just lie with her in my arms. I felt like an addict needing a fix.

‘I’ll take my stuff into the studio,’ I said.

‘Oh, can I see?’

In the changing room she kissed me, smelling salty, fresh. I opened my eyes to see our reflections merging in the mirror.

‘I’ve been counting the days,’ she said finally, working magic with her words, so gentle to my ears, stroking through my hair with her fingers, cupping my face.

Suddenly just holding her wasn’t enough. I took a deep breath and stepped back.

‘Where would you like to go?’ I asked, smoothing myself down instinctively.

‘I don’t care, so long as it’s someplace no-one will mind me gazing into your eyes.’

Somewhere Gay then...

On the tube I restrained myself from GBHing the loud-shirted young executive who dared to ogle Turner’s legs.

After all, I told myself, she didn’t exactly dress to discourage. Even so, I kept a brooding eye on him as he rubbed his sweaty palms on his thighs and mopped his face with a handful of Mansize Kleenex. And I felt an uncharacteristically malicious pleasure when he realised too late that he was at his stop and leapt to his feet just in time to see the doors closing right in front of his nose.