Your Roots Are Showing (28 page)

That Wednesday evening, Lizzie stood at Tessa’s door, alternately knocking and ringing the bell. They’d arranged to run from Tessa’s house in The Dene to the High Street and from there to the school running track near Knole. Depending on how they felt after a couple of laps, they might then run on through the Kissing Gate toward Knole House and do a half circuit of the park itself.

That was the plan, anyway, if Tessa would jolly well answer the door.

Lizzie gave the doorbell another impatient jab and began to do some stretches. As she leaned forward over her left leg, she looked at it in wonder. What had happened to the orange-skin dimples? Likewise the little pocket of flab that used to hang down under her thigh and wobble if she wriggled her leg? And where had that long, lean calf muscle been hiding all her life?

She’d taken to wearing Lycra cycling shorts, a la Tessa, because the sight of her glorious new legs always added a spur to her labors out on the road. If she was flagging even slightly, she only had to look down at all that lovely muscle to be pumped full of energy and conviction all over again.

She’d never forget the first afternoon Tessa had seen her in the cycling shorts.

“Blimey,” Tessa had said. “Are those prosthetics? What happened to the trusty old Roman columns?”

Then she’d rushed over to give Lizzie a rib-cracking hug. The two of them had run like blazes that day; they’d run as if they had wings on their heels, as if they were on steroids, as if running were as natural a state of being as lying slumped on the sofa, eating Maltesers by the handful and watching reruns of
Men Behaving Badly
.

Lizzie rang the doorbell again.

It wasn’t like Tessa to keep a person waiting. Tessa had a lot of bad habits, one of which was excessive punctuality.

At last Lizzie heard footsteps approaching, but the gait didn’t sound like Tessa’s. Too slow, too hesitant; too light for a man, so it couldn’t be Greg.

The door opened slowly — but Tessa always flung doors open. Who on earth could it be?

“Tessa? Tessa! Oh God, what’s happened?”

Tessa just shook her head and gestured to Lizzie to come inside.

At a glance, Lizzie could see there’d be no running tonight. Tessa looked a complete wreck. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying; her face was blotchy and damp; her hair hung lifelessly at her shoulders, as if she’d taken a shower and then forgotten to blow-dry or even brush it.

When they were both sitting down on the black leather sofa, Tessa heaved a wobbly breath and said, “It’s okay, Lizzie, don’t look at me like that. I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. Just being a bit of a prat, is all.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Yeah, well, nobody’s died or anything. I’ve just been having a little sob session because — well, because the bloody Curse is back again, if you must know. Two days late, sod it. I was beginning to get my hopes up, that’s the worst of it.”

“Oh. Oh, Tessa, I’m sorry. It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

“Fair? Nothing’s bloody fair. Fairness is a man-made construct, and we can’t even make it work in our own justice systems. Why would it work in nature?”

“Well hello, Lizzie. Long time no see.” The sound of Greg’s suave, public school voice gave Lizzie a bit of a start, given the circumstances. He’d walked in from the kitchen, wearing a striped apron. Lizzie jumped up and flashed him a bright, nervous smile.

His strained face softened slightly and he gave her an answering grin. It was — what? — more than eight years since Lizzie had first laid eyes on Greg Martin at Evelyn Buckley’s summer pool party, but he hadn’t changed much. He was still the wry, rough-hewn chap with impeccable manners who’d tended to Tessa’s wounded ego when she’d failed to dazzle James.

Urbane as ever, even with a wife in tears, Greg walked over and placed a hand on Tessa’s shoulder. He kneaded her lightly in the collarbone area, then ruffled the bedraggled looking hair.

Only after Tessa had glanced up at him with a watery smile did he turn to give Lizzie an appraising look. He pursed his mouth in a silent whistle. “Well done, Lizzie,” he said with feeling. “You look bloody fantastic. Tessa told me you were whipping yourself into shape, but I had no
idea
you could look so . . . so . . .” He described a narrow shape in the air with both hands, apparently at a loss for words.

“So lean and mean? So firm and forceful?” Tessa suddenly piped up, twisting her ravaged face into a smile.

“Whoa, Tess!” Greg raised his eyebrows at this unwarranted attack on their guest. “Steady on, woman. Claws in, claws in.”

“Don’t worry, Greg,” Lizzie grinned. “I take it as a compliment. You don’t know how hard I’ve worked to look mean and forceful.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say it, old girl, but you look as sweet-tempered as ever to me. Just thinner, that’s all. Are you girls still planning to run? No? In that case, who’s for a snifter? Might as well have a double, Tess. Medicinal purposes.”

“You two have a drink,” Lizzie said. “I think I
will
run, after all. Just a quick one.”

That’s when she knew she
was
an addict; nobody turns down a double gin and tonic and the chance for a good gossip to go running alone in the drizzle.

Phones are not supposed to ring at two in the morning unless there’s some terrible news. Or unless, of course, you have a relative in another time zone who doesn’t always think before she dials.

Jolted awake in the deep, black stillness of the night, Lizzie didn’t panic at all. She just stumbled off to the office, hoping the ringing wouldn’t wake the children. Bloody Janie. She’d give her an earful.

“Lizzie? Is that you, Lizzie?”

Still half asleep, Lizzie was nonetheless able to identify the disembodied voice of her brother-in-law.

“Yes, yes, it’s me. Do you know it’s the middle of the night here, Simon?”

“Lizzie, Jane’s in the hospital.”

“What?”

“She’s got something bad. Preeclampsia, it’s called. Her blood pressure’s one sixty over a hundred and ten.”

Preeclampsia? Wasn’t that one of the few things that could still cause death in childbirth?

“And Lizzie, they’re getting ready to induce labor.”

“Calm down, Simon. That can’t be right. The baby’s not due for a couple of months.”

“Lizzie, I’m telling you, they’re saying it isn’t getting enough blood.”

“Oh God, Simon. Oh God.”

“Will you tell your mum and dad? I don’t feel up to breaking the news.”

“I’ll tell them. Look, give me the hospital’s phone number. Bloody hell, where’s a pen that works? Okay, okay, got one. So what’s the number there?”

Simon gave her the details and she scrawled them on the back of an envelope with a shaking hand.

“Jane’s asking for you to come,” Simon blurted out suddenly. “Oh Jesus, Lizzie, you wouldn’t recognize her. She’s all yellow and swollen. She hasn’t been able to put on a pair of shoes for days. And she says her head is killing her and she has a horrible pain in her side. Will you come, Lizzie? For God’s sake, say you’ll come.”

Lizzie’s mind was racing, but she didn’t even hesitate. “Of course I’ll come. You tell her to bite the bullet. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I’ve got to go now,” Simon said abruptly and hung up the phone.

There was no question of taking the twins to Australia. Just as soon as James understood what she was talking about when she phoned him at three a.m. he said of course he’d have them in Chipping Norton for the week.

“Do you absolutely have to go yourself, since your mum and dad are going?” he asked mildly.

“James, she’s asking for me specifically. And she’s scared to death.”

“Good God, Lizzie,” James said the next day as she opened the door on him. “You’ve cut your hair.”

Lizzie patted her bob self-consciously as the twins burst out from behind her and launched themselves at their father. “Yes, it was time for a change. Look, thanks awfully for coming on such short notice . . .” But Lizzie’s rehearsed speech dried up as she registered that somebody was standing on the pathway behind James.

“Mrs. Buckley, hello. So sorry to hear about your sister.”

There, in the flesh, stood a woman who was still recognizable as Sonja Jenkins — but only just. She had extremely blonde, extremely straight long hair cut in a jagged geometrical style such as you might see in an avant-garde magazine at the hairdresser’s. She wore a needlessly formal black suit that managed to look slightly indecent because of its tight fit over her strangely upstanding bosom. She looked anything but skinny and round-shouldered. All the bits of her that were on show gleamed with the sort of rich bronze tan you get topless bathing in a place like Mykonos. Or in six seconds at a Hollywood tanning booth. As reported, her eyes were startlingly green.

Lizzie had a sudden urge to slam the door in their faces.

“Sonja?” she croaked. “Well — hello. I didn’t realize you were there. James, could I talk to you a moment?”

“Fire away,” he said, hoisting Ellie up onto his back.

“Inside? If you don’t mind.”

“Oh — all right. Come on, you lot.” He plucked Alex off his leg and stowed a twin under each arm.

“Without an audience,” she added, looking meaningfully at the children.

He raised his eyebrows but set the children down. “Ellie, Alex, can you find me a dandelion? Or maybe three or four dandelions?”

“Yes, yes,” they shrieked, not stopping to ask why on earth he’d want three or four dandelions.

“I’ll find them first,” Ellie yelled.

“No, I woll, I woll,” Alex roared. And off they scampered.

“Please keep an eye on them, Sonja,” James called over his shoulder as he followed Lizzie into the house.

Lizzie closed the door and they stood looking at each other in the big empty hallway. Now that they were alone, Lizzie felt suddenly too embarrassed to say what she wanted to say. Her imagination was probably running away with her anyway.

James nodded at a suitcase propped against the wall. “That theirs?”

“Yes, and that big bag there.”

He picked up the case and slung the bag over his shoulder. “What’s the latest on Janie?” he asked before Lizzie could rally her thoughts. To his credit, he’d always liked Janie.

Lizzie bit her lip. “They’re holding things off as long as they can. Trying to keep the blood pressure down. Monitoring the baby.”

He nodded. “And you — how’re you coping? You look tired. And — thin. When did you get so thin?”

Lizzie shrugged. So much for dazzling him with her new image. “What’s
she
doing here?” she asked in a rush, jerking her head at the door.

“Sonja? I asked her to come. To help on the drive home — sing songs, tell stories, that sort of thing. The Smalls don’t travel terribly well, I’ve found.”

Lizzie took a deep breath. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Listen, James. I just want to say one thing. Well, maybe more than one thing. All this is very hard for me. Going away. Leaving the twins.”

He nodded, watching her intently.

“So I just want to have as little to worry about as possible. If you get my meaning?” She flicked her eyes toward the door again.

“Yes, of course. No, hang on . . . what
is
your meaning?”

“Look, I just don’t think we should confuse the children at this point. I mean, we
are
still legally married. So I’m asking you — I mean, I know I probably don’t need to mention it — but I’m asking you
please
not to have any women stay over while Ellie and Alex are with you.”

She was trying to shake the awful image that had popped into her mind of the children running into Daddy’s room in the morning to find the preternaturally bronzed Sonja with her strangely pneumatic bosom and catlike green eyes lying on the pillow where Mummy should be.

“For God’s sake, Lizzie,” James burst out angrily. He spun on his heel and made as if to walk away, but at the last minute, he turned back and said, through gritted teeth, “I’ll put off all the hot dates I was planning until
after
you get back. Was there anything else?”

“Yes, actually. There’s this.” She dug in her handbag and produced a piece of paper. “All the contact details for Sydney. You can probably still reach me at my e-mail address too.”

He took the paper, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket.

“Um, James? When I said that about women staying over? It’s just — I worry so much about the kids, whether we’re screwing them up for life. You know?”

He nodded curtly.

At that moment the door fell open with a crash. Ellie stood on the step, red in the face, hands on hips, tears coursing down her cheeks. “Daddy, there’s — huh — no — huh — dandelions. Mummy, Mummy, we can’t — huh — find any dandelions.”

Getting a firm grip on the suitcase, James strode over to his daughter. “Come on, Ellie-Belly, there has to be a dandelion out there somewhere. Let’s go take another look.”

Walking out after them, Lizzie called, “Try the field on the other side, there should be plenty over there.”

She felt a small jolt of satisfaction to see Sonja Jenkins, in the middle of the garden, balancing on one high-heeled shoe while she scraped at the sole of the other with a stick. A gleeful Alex raced around her chanting, “
You
stood in
dog
pooh,
you
stood in
dog
pooh.”

Good old Madge, or, possibly, good old Jack.

Lizzie directed Sonja to Bruno’s garden tap so that she could clean her shoe properly. After all, the children had to sit in the car with her for two solid hours.

At last Sonja’s shoe was more or less clean, Ellie had her four dandelions, both children had been persuaded to visit the potty one last time, the suitcase and bag had been thrown into the boot, and the moment of parting arrived.

Lizzie squatted down beside the car and held out her arms for the twins. Alex rushed up and roughly head-butted her. She pulled his golden orb toward her and deposited a kiss somewhere in the region of his left eyebrow. He wriggled away, giggling, and climbed up into the car. Ellie lingered, soft and clinging as a cat. Lizzie gave her a hard hug.