You (28 page)

Romy nodded.

‘Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know, sis. Sometimes I see him at the market. I looked all last week. He lives in this caravan in a garden centre near Widecombe where he works a bit! His caravan’s called Turd Towers. I miss him a load. He just comes here when he wants. When I don’t expect it.’ She giggled. ‘I want to . . . him,’ she said calmly. She lay back.

‘You can’t,’ said Romy stiffly.

‘Ha! Virgin. Virginia, I’m going to call you. In front of Mum.’

‘Oh God,’ said Romy.

‘Virginia. Virgin Virginia Vagina of St Anne’s Convent with all the other scabby nuns and lesbians. Do you think Ruth’s going to turn out to be a bit of a lezzer?’

‘Leave Ruth alone.’

‘She’s getting weirder than ever, poor lame kid,’ said Izzie, rolling up a new cigarette. ‘She’s gone really like deranged here. Emo. I think she’s getting knockers. Hurry up or she’ll out-virgin you. Out-un-virgin you. She’ll get there before you and smother some farm boy on the bus while you dry up.’

‘Shut up. Poor Ruth. Why is she so, such –’

‘Such a weirdo? She’s just shy. She always has been, hasn’t she? She can’t open her mouth.’

‘And she wants to be with Mum all the time. But she’s eight.’

‘She loves Ma sooooo much. But old Ma can’t be with her like
all
the time, stroking her head and reading all their sappy treehouse skating books together. Have you seen how much Ruth batters at Ma if she’s in one of her moony dopey moods, all blank and not listening?’

‘She needs some friends.’

‘But she only loves Ma.’

‘And you.’

‘Yeah, and me. Ruth’s a mute.’

‘Oh Izzie . . .’ said Romy. ‘Shut up now. And if Mummy sees your Facebook photos she’ll ban them.’

‘Mummy? You’ve gone well posh. Anyway. She can’t be bothered to go spying on me when she’s clattering on her laptop. It’s usually
Dad
who’s the strict bastard? She was always the gimpy one. But I can’t say a thing without her being really harsh at the moment.’

‘She’s got too much work to do,’ said Romy. ‘She’s got to do this book.’

‘Cocking book,’ said Izzie, dragging on her cigarette. ‘She needs to give me a break.’

‘She always gives
you
slack,’ said Romy, a tightness entering her voice.

‘Yeah yeah, I’m the favourite,’ said Izzie airily, dragging on her cigarette and hiding her expression beneath a cloud of smoke. ‘It’s just like because I’m a bastard. Bit of a darkie. She’s a soft touch.’

Romy giggled. She heard another owl and shuddered.

‘You really hate it here, don’t you, sis?’ said Izzie as though the idea had only just occurred to her.

‘I hate it,’ said Romy. ‘I – I
despise
it.’

‘I think it’s wicked,’ said Izzie. She got up and looked out of the window. ‘Did you hear a noise?’

‘No,’ said Romy.

‘I’m just wondering if he’s going to come and see me.’

‘Why would he? You’re fifteen.’

‘Exactly,’ said Izzie. She twisted her hip in a provocative pose as she stood. ‘I’m going to go and find him on Thursday. Double maths? Make him shag me. Think I might want a kid soon too.’

‘I have to do some prep,’ said Romy, ignoring her.

‘You’re a sap, sis,’ said Izzie, gathering up her tobacco and Rizlas.

Cecilia worked on her book while Ruth read, then she went down to help her find her daisy-patterned pyjamas, which were hanging in the darkness of the boiler room. Once a dairy with its stone sinks, it was too swollen with shadow for children to want to visit alone. Cecilia held Ruth’s hot clutching hand to lead her through the house, past piles of unsorted washed clothes on the stairs, a mess ever growing as she worked more urgently on her book, then she stroked Ruth’s arm in bed, tickling and scratching it as she liked, and telling her of the pleasant aspects of the moor, the curlews, whortleberries and wild strawberries in the lanes, the cushions of emerald-coloured moss that she would find, to counteract Ruth’s darker fears of bats and gales and malign spirits. She pulled her to her, feeling her flopping zigzags of mouse-coloured hair and stroking her forehead. She kissed her goodnight then went to Romy’s room.

‘I have to go to see Dora,’ she murmured.

‘Why?’ said Romy distantly.

‘She’s received a letter from the hospital. I’d better be with her. Will you listen out for Ruth for me?’

Romy nodded, averting her face, and Cecilia held her shoulder, her head bowed. She caught sight of herself in Romy’s mirror as she left. She saw, even in the evening light, that the shadows under her eyes had deepened into a kind of sooty spilling of tiredness on the fairness of her skin.

She made her way with a torch up through the back vegetable garden whose long grass was still damp at its roots, and remembered walking in that air-bent garden as a child, holding her father’s hand as she stumbled uphill. She sent a little message to him. She let herself through the gate that led to Wind Tor Cottage, where Dora’s head bobbed past the window at the sound of the latch.

‘Darling!’ she said at the door.

Cecilia smiled.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Shall we open the letter?’ She held Dora’s arm.

‘No!’ said Dora with a lift in her voice. ‘I just did it. Before – before you came. The fact that you might come made me dare to do it. That lymph node is clear, darling! They think I’m clear for the moment as long as I have the radiotherapy. No chemotherapy.’

‘Oh! Fantastic!’ said Cecilia, and hugged Dora and hugged her again. ‘That is brilliant – wonderful news. Really wonderful. Oh thank goodness.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Dora. She lifted down a bottle of wine.

‘I shouldn’t –’ began Cecilia.

‘I’ve been saving it.’

‘You have some.’

‘Join me,’ said Dora.

‘OK,’ said Cecilia. ‘Thank you,’ she added flatly, perceiving again the quiet power Dora exerted, a force that she had barely understood in youth.

‘Oh good!’ said Dora.

‘Are you getting enough help?’ said Cecilia. ‘You know I could do more.’

‘Darling, you couldn’t. You couldn’t possibly with three girls and a book to write. And that house . . . I remember – I remember how much work it took.’

‘Until my deadline’s over, I’m letting it do its own thing: drift, crumble. Collapse,’ said Cecilia. She shrugged and smiled. ‘I can’t begin . . . I don’t think I could ever be like you were. You kept it so warm and lovely.’

‘
Thank you
,’ said Dora.

‘You did. Does that girl help you enough?’

‘Oh yes. She’s really very good. Strong. How are the girls? Are they all in bed now? Are they tired?’

‘They,’ said Cecilia, ‘they’re fine.’

‘I’m so glad,’ said Dora. ‘I think about them all at their schools and I wonder how they’re doing, who their friends are, what they’re up to in the day. They’re all so different. I don’t think I ever stop thinking about them!’

‘Nor do I,’ said Cecilia. ‘All of them,’ she said. She couldn’t look at Dora.

‘They’re really wonderful!’ continued Dora, her eyes shining, pausing as if to enumerate each girl’s particular qualities in her head. She topped up Cecilia’s nearly full glass, filling silence with activity.

‘Thank you,’ said Cecilia flatly again.

She took a gulp of wine. She half caught Dora’s eye. Repressed emotion glinted from her. Something had set it off. Yet Dora skated over the danger patches, blithely ignoring them, debatably oblivious.

‘All of them,’ said Cecilia again, unsteadily. She waited. The words sat in the silence. The fire spat. She instinctively wanted to smooth it over, but she forced herself not to. It was all too easy to regress, to become irritated and sulky yet self-sacrificing in Dora’s presence, using abnegation as a passive weapon in the face of Dora’s intractability.

Dora pressed her lips together. She breathed out slowly. A possible glitter of moisture appeared and passed in her eyes. The muscles supporting her frequent smiles sagged and aged her instantly.

Grief passed over Cecilia’s face.

‘After – after, Celie – after fifteen or so years of such intermittent contact, I can’t talk about it,’ said Dora. ‘I simply can’t,’ she said in more emphatic tones. She smiled. The very structure of her face was lifted again. She held her wine to the light, and she maintained the smile with determined focus. The glaze of denial in her eyes made her look almost mad, Cecilia thought.

‘I never stop thinking about her, you know,’ she said steadily. ‘I am going to keep on asking you about her.’

‘Who?’

‘Who?
Her
,’ said Cecilia, then softened her voice.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Cecilia.’

‘I loved her.’

‘You didn’t know her. You really did not know that baby. It was just a few minutes.’

‘A few minutes,’ said Cecilia, her voice strained. ‘Not even that. Seconds, perhaps. Even
cats
keep their litters for longer than that.’

‘You agreed,’ said Dora, as she had never said before in such direct terms, her lips tightly pressed together.

Cecilia shuddered. She fought against her own fear of her mother.

‘Did I have much choice? Did I have the choice? I was seventeen. Eighteen.’ Her voice weakened. ‘I’d just given birth. I wasn’t even booked at the hospital! No healthcare team – just a so-called “independent” midwife. I – I never even thought about all that until afterwards.
You
wanted me to give her up. You – you organised that, right – right from the beginning.’

‘And you agreed,’ said Dora, sitting down. Her chest rose and fell beneath her corduroy.

‘I agreed. I agreed. And I will never forgive myself,’ said Cecilia, as though talking to herself. She ran her fingers across her forehead, up through her scalp. Her skin was flushed. ‘It was all arranged for me. I did agree. I agreed. I hate myself to this day that I did. But – You never gave me time to change my mind.’

‘Well –’

‘None of you, none of you did. You – you,’ said Cecilia, catching her breath raggedly. ‘You didn’t give me any choice. I want to know why. Why, why? You were such a
mother
. Why didn’t you want to keep her? Want me to keep her?’

‘There is no why. It’s so long ago, Celie,’ said Dora more gently.

‘I know, I know, that’s what I can’t bear!’ said Cecilia, the clock, a hook, a pewter container appearing to enlarge to fill her vision. ‘It’s too late! It’s over! She’s twenty-three now – her childhood’s over. And who knows what it was like? That’s what I can’t
bear
. I just cannot bear.’ She drew in her breath. ‘What was that like? I’ll never know, I’ll never know if her childhood was all right. I just want to find out.’

‘It would have been –’ Dora twisted her fingers. ‘You know, you did agree at that time.’

‘Would have been what?’

‘Nothing,’ said Dora, shaking her head, closing her lips.

‘
What?
’ said Cecilia urgently, taking Dora’s arm, spilling wine as she moved. She stared at the drops on the waxed surface of the table. ‘It would have been what? Why won’t you tell me?’ She said more calmly.

‘Celie,’ said Dora.

‘Tell me who took her,’ said Cecilia. ‘Who adopted her?’ Her mouth was an oblong of pain.

‘How can I tell you that? How can I?’

‘You can. You’ve got to. I know you know! I know. It’s too late now. I’m not going to do anything.’

‘Then why do you want to know?’

‘I want to know if her childhood was – passable. Jesus.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘At least all right.’

‘I’m sure it was.’

‘How do you
know
?’

‘They wanted a baby very much.’

Cecilia flinched. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Oh God.’

‘They couldn’t get pregnant. It wasn’t happening. The – contact I used told me. And there were you pregnant. Not wanting to be –’

‘I know. I know. I was –’

‘What’s done is done,’ said Dora, as she had said so infuriatingly frequently before.

‘That’s right. Sweep it under the fucking carpet. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Pretend everything’s nicey-nice, oh lovely, lovely, candles and wine. Schubert on the radio. Three lovely girls.
Pretend
,’ shouted Cecilia, shocked by the sound of her own voice, by how she was challenging Dora, the only person who could silence her.

‘Cecilia,’ said Dora.

‘Well tell me
who
,’ said Cecilia.

‘Adoption is anonymous.’

‘It fucking well wasn’t, though, was it?’

‘It was as good as,’ said Dora.

Cecilia clamped her hands on Dora’s shoulders. They were startlingly thin. She let them go, shocked.

‘I lose my temper,’ she said, ashamed. ‘I can never be as calm as you were. I’m sorry.’