The Other Half of My Heart (19 page)

Tina's dress is crushed black velvet, with a neckline that scoops from shoulder-tip to shoulder-tip, just under her clavicle. It fits her body neatly, and ends at her knee. Her tights and shoes are black and her fingernails are newly painted the pale, frosted pink of candyfloss. She looks at herself in the mirror, up and down, thinks of the Fielden girls with their choice of ball dresses, with fish-tails and trains and bows on the shoulders or at the top of perky backsides, and makes up her mind that if ever there was a time to be happy in her skin, it's tonight. She might not look fancy compared to the others, but she feels fancy enough. She just hopes that she's fancy enough for Roddy.

‘Thanks, Katrina,' she says.

‘Don't hug me, you'll smudge!' her friend says, and calls, ‘Here she comes!' from the bedroom door.

Katrina ushers her downstairs. Tina wonders whether this is what being a bride is like, even the most ordinary of activities managed as though they are tricky fences, and applauded and wondered at accordingly. ‘Goodness!' says Alice, with delight and an undertow of reproach. ‘You see how lovely you look?' Her father nods and smiles.

This is ridiculous, Tina thinks, being congratulated for looking like a girl for once. But actually, they all look different. Special. Her mother is in the cerise that makes her skin come alive, and is as thrilled as a three-year-old by her new shoes, which she keeps pulling back her dress to admire. ‘I can climb a ladder in these, you know, Katrina,' she says, and Katrina laughs.

Howard tuts and says, ‘Katrina, you have no idea what I have to put up with.'

Katrina isn't listening because she's straightening Sam's tie. ‘I can get it ninety-five per cent there,' he says, ‘but the other five per cent always eludes me.' Katrina steps back to admire – ostensibly, the tie, but her eyes stray up, down.

‘It seems a shame that you're not coming with us,' Sam says to her.

‘It's fifty pounds,' Katrina says, a shrug in her shoulders, ‘and I'm saving for a car.'

‘Well, next year,' Sam says, ‘will you come with us? With me?'

‘Of course I will,' Katrina says. She looks at Tina, as if to say, did you hear this?

‘Photos!' Alice says, but before she can line them up, arrange them, there's the sound of a knock, only just louder than the hammering rain.

Howard opens the door and Fran steps over their threshold. There's a flurry of greetings, and then she says, ‘Fred's just turning the car round.' Her hair is twisted up on the top of her head, and she wears tiny sapphire studs, no other jewellery apart from her wedding ring. Her dress is deep blue satin, and she holds the skirt scooped in her arms as though it's a cat she's just found in the washing basket.

‘Well, you all look lovely,' Fran says, surveying. ‘Tina, Roddy won't be able to take his eyes off you. You're all he's talked about since he got back.'

‘Really?' Tina says. She doesn't think she's spoken a word about Roddy. But she's thought about him. And Aurora.

‘You'd better watch out, Tina,' Sam says, ‘they're doing the mother-in-law look.' And Alice and Fran are smiling at each other in a way that seems all conspiracy.

‘No time for this,' Howard says matter-of-factly, ‘let's get this show on the road.'

‘I'm afraid we've got Anastasia in the car with us,' Fran says, ‘because she couldn't make up her mind which dress to wear, and then the dress she chose means that she doesn't think she'll be able to get up the coach steps. It's sort of a – oh, I don't know. Mermaid? Fish-tail? Very tight around the knees anyway.'

‘Oh, I know the sort of thing,' Alice says. ‘Lovely if you have the figure for it.'

Sam has whispered something to Katrina, who is giggling.

‘Anyway,' Fran says, ‘we were hoping we'd have room for Sam, but now there's Anastasia, which means there are five of us. Edward and Arabella went ahead with the place cards and seating plan so that the restaurant can have them set up when people start arriving. These things never go to plan, do they – so … Sam, I'm sorry, would you mind going on the coach? Or Roddy says if you don't mind squashing into the back of the Cosworth you can get a lift with him and Tina. He says he'll be here at half past.'

‘I'm easy,' Sam says.

‘Well, Aurora says she'll save you a seat if you do want to go on the coach. I think Roddy well and truly put her off the Cosworth this afternoon.'

‘You can come with us,' Tina says to her brother.

‘Are you sure? I don't want to be a gooseberry.'

‘You won't be.'

Katrina dashes back home under a borrowed umbrella when Fred, Fran, Howard, Alice and Anastasia drive away. Sam and Tina stand in the porch, waving them off. The rain stutters, then stops. The air smells good after it, full of roses and hedges and a comforting warmth.

‘This is weird. Like being an adult,' Sam says.

‘I suppose it is,' Tina says, although she's not feeling much like one. ‘Oh, and don't tease Katrina.'

‘I wasn't teasing her.'

‘About the ball next year.'

‘I wasn't teasing.'

‘What about—' Tina struggles to remember Sam's girlfriend's name, ‘Debbie?'

Sam looks blank. ‘Oh, you mean Dana. Oh, that crashed and burned. Not literally.'

‘I thought you liked her.' There had been photos, at Easter, and talk of summer plans together.

‘The thing is, for all the attractions of Oxford, I haven't seen a girl in the world I like as much as Katrina.'

‘You never liked her before.'

‘Well, university opens your eyes to a lot of things. Including how lovely Katrina is.'

‘Are you teasing me?' All of her instincts – twinstincts, Katrina calls them – say that he isn't, but this is such an unexpected idea. When Sam had gone to Oxford Tina thought it would be the start of his great adventure, and that he'd never look back.

‘No, I'm not teasing. I need to know where I'm going to be, though, so I can persuade her to come with me. You and Roddy can keep the Missingham fires burning. Double wedding, then Katrina and I will be off somewhere exciting, and you and Roddy can stay here. We'll come back and be prodigal once a year; you can come to us for holidays. Happy ever after. Job done.'

‘You are teasing me,' Tina says. But if he is, it's the best sort of teasing, a tease with a little bit of truth to it. Because Tina would marry Roddy right now if he asked her, although if he didn't she would happily sleep in his shirt, with him at her side, for ever.

 

SINCE THE THROCKTON
Spring Fête Bettina and Rufus have managed only a quiet dinner and a couple of nights together. On one of the nights Bettina had been quieter than ever, and had been asleep – or appeared asleep – when he came out of the bathroom to join her in bed. The next morning, a Monday, they had had gentle, half-asleep sex; Rufus had gone to work leaving Bettina already at her laptop. Throughout the other night Bettina had tossed and turned in her sleep, waking Rufus with muttered gibberish spiked with the occasional clear word: bob, perry, snowdrop. He has put her unsettled night down to her being in his bed rather than him in hers and it gets him thinking, about how the future might be easier.

When she leaves him, Bettina kisses him on the mouth and says, I'm sorry to be always rushing, but there's a lot going on at the moment. And she's gone, before Rufus can formulate the thought that, if the fête was taking up all of her time and the fête is now over, then surely there should be more time for them, not less. He has noticed that her limp seems more pronounced. He's just done a barn conversion for an orthopaedic surgeon, who says that surgery has come on a great deal in fifteen years, and he would be happy to meet Rufus's paramour – the surgeon's word, although Rufus rather likes it – and see if he can fix her up. (‘Fix her up' Rufus likes less.)

But when he had asked Bettina about the limp, she'd smiled a sad smile and said, I don't think it's fixable because I don't think there's a medical reason for it. I think I limp because of what I lost. It makes him think that, if surgery can't solve the problem, then perhaps love can. So he loves.

It's just over two weeks since the fête, a few minutes after eight on a warm Monday evening, when Rufus comes home to find Bettina waiting at his door. She's pale and determined-looking, her skin pinching at the corners of her eyes. ‘I was watching for your car,' she says. ‘It's my mother.'

Rufus assumes that Alice has died. He puts a hand to Bettina's waist as he reaches to unlock the door. ‘I'm so sorry,' he says, and steps back so that she can go into the flat. But she stands outside. ‘No, not that,' she says, ‘but I have to go. She's getting worse. Her chest. It's getting worse.'

‘I see,' Rufus says. He doesn't quite. Unless, ‘You want me to drive you there?'

‘Yes,' Bettina says, ‘no. I mean, I don't really want to go in a car. But I think the trains might take too long. They rang at four but I didn't hear the phone. I've taken my anti-sickness tablets.' Her eyes are darker than usual in her paler than usual face. Her lips are the same colour as her skin. She's shaking. There's a piece of paper in her hand; she holds it out and it vibrates in the evening air. It's the letterhead of the care home, with the address.

‘Are you ready to go?'

‘Yes.' She's holding her usual handbag, a woven brown leather satchel that doesn't look as though it will hold very much.

‘You don't want to take anything?'

‘I just want to go.' Her voice is steady but her eyes plead. So Rufus closes his front door again and walks her to the car; opens the passenger door for her, and then gets in the driver's side. He's in, seat-belted, and has set up the sat-nav before Bettina has got in and closed the door.

He turns the key in the ignition and the engine starts. He feels how her body reacts, a jolt of tension running through it.

‘Would you like the radio on, or some music?'

‘Music, please. Nothing with words. You choose.'

Rufus does. He wonders whether the shaking is actually shivering. It's cooler now that the sun is going down. Although Bettina is wearing a cardigan, it doesn't look warm.

‘Are you cold?' he asks.

‘I don't know,' she half smiles, as if to say, fancy not knowing whether I'm cold or not.

‘I'll put your heated seat on. Tell me if you get too hot.'

‘Heated seat?'

‘Yes. It'll take a minute or two, but then you'll feel it.'

The other half of the smile comes along. ‘It's my first time in a heated seat.'

Rufus reverses out of his parking space. A glance tells him that Bettina has, somehow, got paler still, the tone of her skin moving from ricepaper to tracing paper. He stops the car and touches her knee, and asks: ‘Do you need anything else?'

‘I've taken my tablets. I won't be sick,' she says. ‘They make me drowsy, though. I might go to sleep.'

‘That seems like a good way to spend the time,' Rufus says, thinking that she might not get a lot of sleep tonight. ‘Are you ready?'

She nods, closes her eyes.

Bettina doesn't recognize the classical music but it's just right. Complicated and intense, neither sad nor ecstatic, it holds her in a place between panic and peace that isn't comfortable, but it's bearable. Her hands pick at each other but the rest of her is still. She breathes in leather and Rufus's aftershave, which is musky, almost sweet. She keeps her eyes closed and waits for the journey to be over, although she doesn't really want to arrive. Somewhere, she dozes, but she doesn't know how long for.

It's after half past nine and moving from dusk to darkness when they pull into the car park, which is emptier than Bettina has ever seen it. Rufus parks by the door, switches off the engine, gets out, opens her door for her, leans over to unbuckle her seat belt. He says, ‘Take your time,' although she clearly can't, with someone already holding the care-home door open for her.

Bettina gets out of the car, turns round, puts both hands on the roof, closes her eyes, opens them, closes them. Tries a deep breath. Decides that she isn't going to be sick. Rufus touches her shoulder. She takes her hands off the roof and feels her weight square above her feet again.

‘I'll park, then I'll wait in reception for you. Don't worry about me. Just let me know if you want me.'

‘Ms May,' says the woman at the door, by way of greeting. Bettina recognizes her as one of the managers, and someone who has always seemed calm and capable. She's glad to see a face she knows. She nods a greeting and walks into the squat, nondescript building that she likes to think of as her mother's home, and would like to think that her mother thinks of as home too, although there's no telling. She can't for the life of her remember the manager's name, although she's sure it's something biblical. Ruth, maybe, or Naomi. Sarah. No – Rebecca.

Too soon, they are at the door, and Bettina finds that her mother is sleeping, but it seems to be a shallow sleep; her hands under the blanket are twitching, and there's no snoring, a sure sign that Alice is either drifting down to slumber, or up from it. The nurse stands and greets Bettina with a small smile. She shakes her head when the manager asks if there's been any change.

Bettina rarely sees her mother in bed. Her visits usually involve sitting in the garden or, in poor weather, settling down by the window in the main room where they can still see the flowers and trees. Although Alice has never articulated it, she has never seemed to want to spend a lot of time in her room, and Bettina has assumed that she associates it with being alone, never her mother's favourite way to spend time. On her last couple of visits, with Alice incapacitated by bruising or by her cough, Bettina had found it strange to see her mother in a single bed. She looks displaced, wrong, without the allowance of space for her husband beside her. The feeling is made worse because the room has recently been redecorated. The paint is bright, the bedding new, and against it her mother looks frail and shabby, an old rug put on top of a new carpet. Bettina sits in the chair near the head of the bed. She touches her mother's forehead, which is hot, and reaches under the duvet for her hand, which is cold. She moves her mother's arm, as biddable as a doll's, and puts it on top of the bedclothes, so that she can hold her hand between both of her own. Alice's hand takes Bettina's and grips it, tightly. Bettina knows that the need to hold a hand is a reflex common to all dementia patients, but she appreciates it, anyway. She thinks about nail varnish. She looks at the pattern on the bedding. When she had realized after her last visit that her mother was likely to be spending more time in bed, she'd ordered it online and had it sent straight to the care home. It's as pretty as she'd hoped, a pattern of entwined leaves and bright magenta flowers, hummingbirds hovering here and there.