Unbecoming (28 page)

‘I was very interested. I’ll have you know I was sent for.’

‘Mum asked you to come?’

‘No,’ Mary said. ‘It was a man. He wrote me a letter.’

It was Dad who’d written! Of course. That’s what Mary said at the care home. ‘Steve wrote you a letter?’

‘That’s right,’ Mary said proudly. ‘It said,
come quick, we need you
.’

Dad
needed
her? What the hell for? At the care home Mary had said she was helping. But helping with what? Katie peered at the photo looking for clues. She and Mary looked happy enough, so it wasn’t that some shocking tragedy had occurred. In fact, they looked very happy. Mary looked like the kind of grandmother you’d see in movies – someone who’d take you to a fancy restaurant or a night at the theatre, who had energy for things and was always up for a laugh. She wasn’t the young beauty from the photos, or the old woman in front of her now. She was someone entirely new. And Katie – well, she was grinning like the baby in the wedding photo, like Mary sometimes did – head tipped back, eyes shut, total joy. Tears pricked Katie’s eyes. She never laughed like that any more.

‘To tell you the truth,’ Mary said, sitting next to Katie on the bed, ‘I have a very bad feeling about this.’ She tapped the photo with a finger. ‘I keep meaning to ask what happened in the end, because I have to say, it feels as if someone made a terrible mistake.’

It was upsetting her and there was nothing Katie could do about it. She passed Mary a tissue, then wiped her own eyes too. They sat there looking at the photograph together and neither one of them had a clue.

Is this what dementia felt like? It was horrible. It felt like going mad – being presented with evidence that something had happened when you had no memory of it at all.

And this picture must’ve been in Mary’s possession all this time. Where had it been? Not on the wall certainly, or Katie would have seen it. Had Mum trashing the room brought it to the surface somehow?

‘Sorry,’ Mary said, dabbing at her eyes. ‘It’s a terrible lost thing that happened, that’s why.’

‘It’s a blue blank, Mary. For both of us.’

‘Is that why I can’t remember?’

It hurt. It felt raw and terrifying. Katie held the photo out so they could both see it clearly. She wanted to know what it meant with such urgency. It felt like the answer to everything. But getting stories out of Mary was like trapping a wild animal. You had to be patient. You had to not let her see you were coming. You had to go cautiously down pathways, and if they were blocked you had to turn round and go back on yourself. ‘It’s a lovely garden,’ Katie said. ‘I like the paddling pool.’

‘Beautiful,’ Mary agreed. ‘We could water the flowers.’

‘Did you ever go in the house?’

‘I was in charge if you want to know the truth.’

‘In charge of the little girl?’

‘Although I have to tell you, it didn’t end well.’ Mary wiped a fresh tear away. ‘Sometimes I think the wolves took her, because I never saw her again.’

Katie nodded, best to agree, best to open all the doors and let this story out, whatever form it came in. She wished she knew how to hypnotize people. She held the photo higher and let it glimmer in the light shining through the curtain. She hoped it was mesmerizing. ‘A long time ago,’ she began, ‘you went to see Katie and Chris and Caroline and Steve.’

‘No,’ Mary said, ‘Caroline wasn’t there.’

Katie’s heart leaped. Mum wasn’t there? She took a breath, started again, ‘One day, Mary Todd got a letter from Steve and the letter said,
Come quick
.’

‘No, the letter said,
Where’s my wife, do you know? My wife has completely disappeared
.’ Mary snapped her fingers. ‘Just like that.’

She made it sound like a terrible magic trick. She made it sound as if mothers were liable to vanish at the drop of the hat. ‘Where was she?’ Katie asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘Having an adventure.’ Mary leaned in as if they might be overheard. ‘I was relieved, if you want to know. I didn’t think she had it in her.’

Katie didn’t either. Mum as adventurer wasn’t someone she recognized. ‘So, Steve sent for you and you arrived at the house …’

‘That’s right. I walked round the side of the house and there they were in the garden – three of them in a little row.’

‘Steve and Katie and Chris …’

‘That’s it.’ Mary’s eyes were bright as she studied the photo. The air felt full of memories. Katie could almost hear long-ago voices stirring to life.

‘I walked up the path,’ Mary said and she sounded very sure, ‘and there was Steve, standing at the back door with the baby in his arms and Katie at his side, her hair bright as flame.’ She smiled, losing herself in the memory. ‘I had never met her, but every inch was familiar.’

Here it comes,
Katie thought.
Bring it on …

Mary shakes Steve's hand, agrees that yes, she does travel light as she puts her suitcase on the grass. She coos at the baby, then crouches down to get a proper look at her granddaughter. ‘Hello, Katie.'

‘Hello.' The girl's eyes are merry with the strangeness of it all. ‘Are you really my granny?'

‘I really am.'

‘I never had one.'

‘Well, now you do.'

They gaze at each other.

‘I made lemonade.' Katie points to a rickety garden table and a jug full of melting ice. ‘It's got real lemons.'

‘Took her hours,' Steve says.

‘Is that right?' Mary says. ‘Well, I'd love some. Lemonade is just about my favourite thing.'

‘Mine too,' the girl says approvingly. ‘You should've come to my party cause we had lots. I was four and I had a caterpillar cake.'

Mary smiles. Caroline has slipped through her fingers for years, but here is a new opportunity. A beautiful granddaughter!

‘Does my mummy know you're here?' Katie asks.

‘Well …' Mary begins.

Steve ruffles the child's hair. ‘Talking of cakes, how about you
fetch the one we bought, Mrs Chatterbox? You think you can manage that?'

The girl nods, suddenly solemn with responsibility. ‘Shall I get plates?'

‘Napkins. And I'll pour the lemonade.'

Mary is given the baby to hold. He reaches out to pluck at her nose. He fills up her mouth with sweet baby fingers.

Steve says, ‘You wouldn't think to look at him now, but that little fella was up half the night.'

He'd said on the phone the baby cried a lot, was a fussy eater, slept badly. But he isn't crying now. And Mary enjoys the weight of him, the warmth, the way he nuzzles into her neck as she sits down on a bench by the back door. She nestles him closer and leans in to smell the top of his head, because she knows there's a place there, a soft place, right at the top of the skull, which smells of life. She breathes him up. She thinks of the sons her mother lost – Herbert, Stanley and William. Like prayers, those names.

And this boy, this little Christopher, is alive and in her arms. He gives a yawn. She sees right inside the soft oval of his mouth. What a miracle he is. And despite what Steve said on the phone, you can't tell, just by looking, that there's anything wrong with him at all.

Steve hands her a glass of lemonade. The ice cubes creak like tiny glaciers. ‘I'm really grateful,' he says. ‘I feel like the walls are closing in. I can't believe she ran off and left me to manage the kids.'

Ah
, Mary thinks,
I see
. And the picture slides into focus. ‘Tell me more about this little one,' she says.

‘He has an undiagnosed disorder.' Steve takes a swig of his drink. ‘Whatever the hell that means. On one hand, the sky's the limit, isn't it? No one can ever say, “Oh, he'll never be able to do x or y.”
But with no prognosis, it's like you're stuck in the dark. Will he walk? Will he run or jump? Will he talk? Will he be dependent on us for ever?' Steve gives Mary the smallest of smiles. ‘Every time we take him to a specialist, I think,
don't tell me they've found anything, some terrible genetic thing
. But another part of me thinks,
please give us some information
. All they've said so far is that he has some kind of global developmental delay.'

Mary takes a sip. It's sweet and sour at the same time. Pat used to make lemonade like this. She swallows. ‘Have you heard from Caroline since we spoke?'

‘A postcard, that's all. She misses us, and she's sorry. Nothing to say if or when she's coming home.' He gives a hurried look into the house, perhaps making sure Katie isn't listening. ‘You think you know someone, don't you? But it turns out I married a stranger.'

‘She'll come back,' Mary says. ‘You'll work things out.'

He sits down heavily on the bench next to Mary and stares at his son. ‘Or she won't. And we won't.'

The baby's eyes are heavy with sleep. Mary wills him to give in to it. She wonders if this situation has ever occurred before in the history of the world – a man begging his mother-in-law to help with his children when she's never met them before and is entirely estranged from their mother. ‘She doesn't know I'm here, does she?'

He shrugs. ‘How can I tell her if she doesn't phone?'

‘She'll call eventually. Will you tell her then?'

From somewhere inside the house, there's the sound of cupboard doors opening and shutting. ‘The one under the kettle,' Steve calls, ‘by the biscuit tin.' The baby's eyes flicker open and immediately close again. Steve gives Mary a weary smile. ‘I'll say I asked you to stay, that I needed to get back to work.'

‘And what do you think she'll do?'

‘Be grateful? Shouldn't a grandmother be the perfect solution?'

‘I doubt she'll see it that way.'

‘Well, I don't know what else I was supposed to do. We don't have any other relatives.'

From the kitchen now, the sound of drawers opening and closing. Mary shifts the baby's weight on her arm.

When Steve had written it had crossed her mind to write back and tell him no, he should sort this out himself, it risked too much – the last thing in the world she wanted to do was hurt Caroline by interfering where she wasn't wanted. But a chance to meet her grandchildren? Just to spend a day or two, a week or so, in their company … And if Caroline needed time away and her husband couldn't manage, then perhaps this was a way of supporting her? Steve had put his phone number at the top of the letter. How could she resist?

She'd talked it through with Jack. ‘What if she comes back and finds me there?'

‘You'll talk, that's what. You'll mend this falling out at last.'

‘She might not want to talk. My being there might make everything worse. It's a big risk to take, Jack.'

‘When did a big risk ever stop you doing anything, Mary Todd?'

They laughed at that.

‘Seriously,' Jack said, ‘you should go. I haven't known you long, but I know this is breaking your heart.'

Ah, she was going to miss him.

‘She told me she was going swimming,' Steve says. He sounds sullen. ‘She took nothing except her passport and purse and she got on a plane and went to Malaga. I didn't see her note until the afternoon, by which time I was frantic.' He turns to Mary, his eyes
glistening. ‘Why would she do that? What sort of mother just leaves her children and walks out the door?'

All sorts of mothers, Steve
.

‘So I wrote to you,' he says. ‘So what? I'm sick of this rift between you two. On and on it goes. I mean, it's not as if you actually killed Pat with your bare hands, is it?'

A blackbird sweeps across the garden and settles on a branch by the shed. Mary watches its throat quiver before it spills liquid notes into the sunshine. She puts her lemonade down and moves the baby back to her shoulder. Her arm's gone numb with the weight of him.

‘You want me to take him?' Steve says.

She shakes her head. ‘Caroline came to visit me when she was pregnant with Katie. Did you know?'

His frown tells her he didn't. This man is discovering new things about his wife all the time.

‘She just turned up on the doorstep. She said becoming a mother made her realize how furious she was with me and she needed to get it off her chest. She didn't want to come into the house, didn't want a cup of tea, so we stood in the front garden and she let rip.' Mary laughs, a soft sound. She's surprised to be laughing. ‘I decided the best policy was not to interrupt, but by the time she'd finished, everything I wanted to say just sounded like an excuse.' She turned to Steve. ‘I caused her immeasurable pain and I had no words for her.'

‘You wrote. She was always getting letters.'

‘Oh, letters. What good are they? I should've taken her away from Pat sooner. Either that, or left her alone completely. She belonged nowhere, that's what she told me.'

‘She kept the letters. That's how I got your address. That's got to be a good sign, right? I mean, how long can someone hold a grudge?'

Mary has a feeling he's about to find out. Most men can't let their woman run off and not want some kind of revenge. She wonders what Steve is capable of. It depends exactly what Caroline's up to, of course. And who with. And how long it takes her to come home.

‘Anyway,' she says, ‘I'm here for her now. If she needs time for herself, then so be it. If this little one is hard work, then I'll do what I can. I want nothing more than to be part of this family.'

Katie comes wobbling down the step with a plate of Battenberg cut into very large slices. She holds it out proudly. ‘I cut it by my own. With a knife.'

‘Jesus,' Steve shakes his head. ‘I look away for five minutes!'

‘Not the sharp one, Daddy.' She holds the plate with one hand and wiggles some fingers at him. ‘See?'

He takes the plate. ‘Don't tell your mother. I'll never hear the end of it.'

‘She's not here.' She wiggles the other hand. ‘So I can't.'

‘I mean when she gets back.'

‘Will it be soon, Daddy?'

He distracts her with cake. She takes a piece and twirls off across the lawn.

‘She asks me every day,' Steve says quietly.

Lemonade is drunk and cake is eaten. Afternoon sunshine spreads across the lawn. Mary shows Katie how to make a daisy chain. The baby wakes up howling and is taken inside for a drink and a nappy change. Katie shows Mary where the paddling pool is kept, and together they heave it out from the shed and fill it with warm water from the kitchen tap. Pail by pail they fill it, splashing their toes. By the time it's full and Katie throws herself in, the water's already cold and she whoops with laughter.

‘I know what we'll do if you don't want to sit in it,' Mary says. ‘Let's give Mummy's flowers a drink.'

She wants to care for Caroline in her absence. She wants to care for the things she loves, and that includes not only her children but also her flowers. Jack has taught her the names and she recites them for Katie as they make their way round. ‘Poppy, buddleia, campion, aster, pennywort, hawksbeard, forget me nots.'

Hours go by. Mary wonders how many afternoons like this there will be. How long it will take Caroline to do what she needs to do out in the world and come home again. It'll be enough time to fall in love with one little girl and one little boy. She's certain of that.

She's already falling.

After supper is made and eaten and baths are supervised, Steve puts the baby to bed and Mary takes Katie out into the garden in her pyjamas to watch the sun sink beyond the fence. There are midges dancing above the paddling pool, so she pulls the child onto her lap and wraps her shawl round them both.

Katie tells Mary they are one fat lady. ‘We're called Rosie,' she says, ‘because of our hair.'

I have never been happier
, Mary thinks.
This is exactly where I should be and exactly what I should be doing
.

She takes a strand of Katie's hair and lets it fall through her fingers. ‘Mummy has our colour hair. Do you think she'll fit in our shawl? We could be an enormous Rosie if there were three of us.'

Katie looks delighted. ‘We can have three breakfasts.'

‘Like Goldilocks?'

‘And three chairs and a giant bed.'

They giggle together. It's wonderful to imagine the three of them together in a fairy tale.

Katie nudges closer. It's getting cold and Mary rubs her legs through her pyjamas to keep her warm. ‘If your teeth start to chatter, we have to go in.'

The blackbird makes a last visit. A moth bumps into the kitchen
window. Mary watches Katie notice these things. You, she thinks,
ah, the brilliance
of you
.

It's like being given another chance, a chance to get it right, to do it better.

Mary pops a kiss on the top of Katie's head. ‘We're going to have fun, you and me.'

The girl twists to look at her. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘All sorts. We'll make a list.'

Katie nods. ‘OK.'

Mary wonders if she should ask Steve before making promises, but she'll check with him later – what the rules are, what she's allowed to do or not, what's expected.

‘I choose the zoo,' Katie says. ‘And swimming.'

‘And I choose a place where you can buy the biggest ice cream in the world. It's so big not even an enormous Rosie could finish it. It's made of all sorts of amazing things and it's called a knickerbocker glory.'

Katie laughs. It falls out of her. ‘That's a silly name.'

Mary whispers it in Katie's ear to make her laugh again. She can feel the girl's laughter in her own bones.