Things I Want My Daughters to Know (37 page)

“What do you mean?” She’d expected him to tell her to catch the next train. That he’d be her refuge.

“You need to sort this out, before we go away.”

T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w
273

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes,
you do.
” Ed took a deep breath. “Listen, Amanda. I love you.” It wasn’t how she had imagined he’d say it and she’d hear it, although she had known for a while that he did. “I really love you.” It was the first time he’d said it. She wished she could see his face. “And I want to go

‘traveling’ with you. I don’t want to ‘run away’ with you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. If you’re honest with yourself. You run away. When it gets tough. It’s your thing. In some ways, I think you’ve been running away all your life. Maybe this is what from. Stop doing it. Change the habit. Face it, deal with it, and then we’ll go wherever you want.” Then, again, “I love you.”

Wow.

Lisa had called Jennifer.

“You told Mark about Amanda’s letter!”

“How do you know?”

“I know because—for some unknown bloody reason Mark blurted it out to Amanda—she’s home, by the way.”

“Oh God. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose he wanted her to talk to him about it. But I ended up getting it in the neck. Thanks a bloody lot.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re an idiot. Why would
you
tell
him
?”

“I know I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean to. It just . . . it just came out.”

“Yes. Well. I’m not going to be the only villain of the peace. I’m going to bring Amanda ’round and the three of us are going to talk it out.”

“Okay.”

“And, Jen? Don’t you dare start on your Heywoods theory. Do you hear me?”

After she’d hung up, Jennifer sat by the phone chewing her thumb-nail. It was obvious that Lisa didn’t know about the row, just about the revelation. Mark had kept the shameful secret of her behavior to himself, 274 e l i z a b e t h

n o b l e

at least. She still felt awful about it. She wanted to cry every time she thought about it. But then she wanted to cry a great deal these days.

She hated the distance between them. Several times she had picked up the phone to talk to him. To try again and apologize for what she’d said. But it seemed so huge to her, and it got bigger each time she thought about it. She didn’t even know where it had come from, but it was obvious, even to her, that in vino veritas she had some real issues. She didn’t remember everything, but she knew she’d said vile, unkind things. She read Mark’s silence as disgust, and she was afraid she might have severed things between them permanently, but she was too frightened to find out.

And now she had to face Amanda. . . .

“I’ll start,” Amanda began, once Jennifer had played hostess with the tea. “I suppose this seems like an OTT reaction to you two. It probably is. I guess it doesn’t really matter who knows. I would have liked to be the person who made those decisions, about who knew, and I felt like you—Lisa—betrayed my trust, and like you—Jennifer—were just interfering. But you’re right, Lisa. It’s not that much of a big deal.

“I think the reason I’m so mad is that I can’t do anything with this information. I have nowhere to take it. Mum’s dead. Dad’s dead. Mark didn’t know anything about it. I’ve got all these questions I can’t answer.

That festers, you know.”

They nodded.

“It played on something that’s always bugged me a bit. I always felt like I fell in the gap between two families. The one you two had with Mum and Dad. And the new one she had with Mark and Hannah. Like I had middle-child syndrome, with a twist.” She smiled faintly. “It probably sounds like bollocks to you two.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jennifer replied.

“And also, it shook the way I see Mum. And I hated that. She’d been it, for me. My ‘real’ dad was pretty much crap. My great dad wasn’t actually my dad. There was just Mum. I was really, really pissed off with her when she turned out not to be perfect. I was much happier blaming
T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w
275

Dad for what happened between them, and for what happened to us as a family. And it wasn’t his fault. Not all his fault, anyway.”

“She fell off her pedestal.”

“Exactly.”

“So where is she now?”

“Just on the ground, like the rest of us.”

“Actually, she’s under it. . . .”

“God—you’re sick.”

“Not as sick as she was.”

“Lisa! Stop it!”

“Come on you lot. Lighten up. For God’s sake. Think about it. So bloody what? Mum was a real person, not a saint. I’m more interested in what’s going on with the living. In what’s wrong with all of us, not what was wrong with her. I’m too bloody independent to let someone love me. Jennifer’s too flipping proud to admit she and Stephen have a problem. Or problems. Who the hell would know? Amanda runs away from problems. We’re all screwups, aren’t we, in our own ways? If we ever wanted to see what was wrong with Mum, we just had to look at the flaws and weaknesses we inherited. There you go. Haven’t had a chance to figure out what Hannah’s Achilles heel is yet, but she’ll have one.

Mum’s inability to walk past a fresh cream cake, probably. Or her insistence that you can’t carry a brown handbag with a black outfit.”

Amanda burst out laughing. “You silly mare.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“She’d bang our heads together.”

“I’d like to bang her head.”

“Fine. I’ll drive you down to that wretched field. You can swear your head off and kick the sod. The earth sod, I meant, obviously. Will that help, do you think?”

“No!”

“Do you want to kick Jennifer?”

“Lisa!” Jennifer interjected, shocked.

276 e l i z a b e t h

n

o b l e

“No!”

“Me?”

“Probably not.”

“Fine. Well then. Enough. What is it that Hannah says? Build a bridge, and
get over it.
I can live with the person she was and the things she did. I love her just the same. I always will.”

When Amanda called Ed that night, she couldn’t make him understand how a council of war that had started so tensely had ended with three sisters (half or not) crying with laughter and sadness and relief and anger, bemoaning and celebrating their mother, and eating fresh cream cakes.

Mark

Mark made his way back through the crowded pub with two pints of Old Peculiar in his hands. Andy had chosen to sit near the back, far from the after-work Jack the Lads and the trivia machine. It was quieter here, although you could still hear the Motown sound track playing through the loudspeakers. He put the drinks down, one spilling a little onto the cardboard coaster on the table, and pulled a couple of packets of Ready Salted crisps out of his jacket pocket.

“Thought you might be hungry.”

Andy picked up his glass and drank deeply, totally without saluta-tion, and almost without eye contact.

Mark hadn’t told Lisa he’d called Andy. She thought he was meeting Vince tonight. She’d gone out with Amanda, anyway. He hoped they’d sort things out. The atmosphere at home had been tense, to say the least.

He couldn’t remember a time when Amanda had been so angry. She and Lisa were determined to keep Hannah out of it, so they switched on and off depending on where their sister was. It was exhausting.

He’d been a little surprised when Andy accepted his invitation to meet. It all sounded a bit hopeless. Still, he had, and now they were here,
T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w
277

and Mark took a deep breath and dove straight into the shark-infested waters he had come to swim in.

“Listen, Andy, you can tell me to mind my own business if you want to. . . .”

“If I wanted you to do that, I’d never have agreed to meet you, would I?” Andy smiled weakly.

“I suppose not.” He’d thought they were friends, the two of them, but the truth was, if Andy and Lisa didn’t get back together, Mark knew they probably wouldn’t see each other again. They were strange relationships, the ones you had with your children’s partners. More intimate than the ones you had with most of your own friends. But more fragile, too. He’d always liked Andy a lot. He liked his quiet, dry sense of humor, and his gentle manner. He liked how Andy didn’t always need to fill silences. He liked how Andy was with Lisa.

Barbara had always said that he was the one for her daughter. She hadn’t necessarily had that sense with Stephen and Jennifer. She said, the night before their wedding, that she had her fingers crossed for the two of them. She’d always thought she needn’t have kept them crossed for Andy and Lisa. She said it was an obvious fit. She said Andy reminded her of him, a little, and maybe that was why, since Lisa reminded her so very much of herself.

And now he wanted to see if he could help.

“I suppose not.”

“How is she?”

Mark shrugged. “She looks about as good as you do.” Andy’s hair had grown over his collar. He looked disheveled and a little unkempt. His suit needed pressing, and his shoes were unpolished. He looked thin, too.

“Thanks.”

Mark leaned forward on his elbows now. “She’s dreadful. I’ve never seen her like this, Andy. And I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry for her. I just need you to know. She isn’t sleeping, she’s barely eating. She’s weepy, she’s . . . she’s heartbroken.”

278 e l i z a b e t h

n o b l e

Andy rubbed one hand across his eyes. “I suppose you know everything?”

Mark didn’t want to talk in code. “I know about the . . . affair she had, yes. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Mind?” Andy looked like this was mildly amusing.

“Mind her talking to me.”

“No, I don’t mind that. No machismo at play here, I assure you.”

“I see that. So, yes, I know what happened.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What do you think?”

“About what she did?”

Andy nodded. “Well . . .” The question blindsided him a little.

Wasn’t it obvious? “I think she was a bloody idiot. I honestly don’t know what she was playing at, stupid girl, and I don’t think she does, either.”

Andy nodded again.

“I’m not making any excuses for her at all, Andy, so please don’t think I am. I don’t think there are any excuses for that sort of behavior.

It’s stupid and cruel and destructive and dishonest. It’s all of those things. God knows, I’m no expert. I don’t know whether she did it to keep you at arm’s length, or to test you, or . . . or whether she was just . . . mad for a bit. I don’t know why. And if I were you, I’d feel just like you feel. Or like I imagine you feel. But, for what it’s worth, I’ll tell you the one thing I do know . . . what I do absolutely and completely believe . . . that she loves you.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“She wouldn’t be in the state she is now if she didn’t.”

Andy didn’t say anything, so Mark asked the question he really wanted answered.

“How do you feel?” And got the answer he had hoped for. The answer that meant there was hope.

“I love her.”

T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w
279

“I know you do.”

They both drank, and sat. The silence was sad, but not awkward.

Eventually, Andy put his glass down.

“I’m not trying to punish her.”

“No.”

“I just don’t know if we can recover from this, you know? If I can. It’s a cliché, isn’t it? Forgive and forget. Either or. Or both. Don’t know which one is more important.”

“I think there has to be both.”

“I know.”

“And I think both have to be real.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t think you can make yourself feel those things. If you forgive her, you have to forgive her one hundred percent. And if you forget, you have to forget forever. As in it never ever gets mentioned again.

Not brought up in an argument. Not used as a weapon or a bargaining tool, or an excuse. It just goes away.”

“That sounds impossible.”

“Only you can know whether it is or not.”

“Do you think my ability to do that or not depends on how much I love her?”

Mark thought for a moment. “Entirely.”

“So if I love her enough, I can do that?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Could you have done it, if it had been Barbara?”

“By those criteria . . . too right. I loved her more than anything. The worst thing would have been losing her.”

He stared at his beer as the irony washed over them both.

Then, still looking down, and more quietly, he almost whispered,

“Don’t lose Lisa, Andy.”

�

April

Jennifer

The words
skiing
and
holiday
were not, for Jennifer, words that could ever be used in the same sentence. She arranged countless holidays for dozens of people every year, people for whom a weekend in Grindel-wald, or Easter in Val d’Isere, or a week’s heliskiing in Canada was heaven on earth. For her, skiing was an ordeal. A holiday was something that relaxed you, allowed you to recharge your batteries, took you away from stress and worry.
This
did
not
do that.

Bob Newhart wrote a very funny sketch about Sir Walter Raleigh introducing tobacco to England. Explaining how you took a leaf from a plant, rolled it up, stuck it in your mouth, and yes, Walt, yes, Walt, you set fire to it! Her dad had had it on vinyl, when she was young. He would play it and laugh until tears rolled from his eyes, even though he’d heard the punch line a hundred times.

Skiing was exactly like smoking. It made absolutely no sense when you explained it. You put these narrow little planks of wood on your feet—and P.S., you are freezing your arse off as you do so—and then you get dragged to the top of a mountain, where you throw yourself off and try to get to the bottom as fast as possible. Made no sense whatsoever. Oh, and it costs you thousands of pounds. To be scared for your life. And give yourself muscle ache like you couldn’t get anywhere else, doing anything else.