These Days of Ours Page 8

Dad shook his head. ‘Those days are gone, son.’

  Detecting a morbid edge to Dad’s mood, Kate launched into an impassioned case for her father to finally travel to China and shake Jia Tang’s hand.

  ‘There are things to sort out at home,’ said her father.

  ‘Like what?’ Kate was fired up about the injustice. ‘Painting Mum’s toenails? This is your dream, Dad, and it’s achievable. One of us should see our dreams come true. I’m working on Mum.’

  Dad’s No! was adamant and he welcomed the change of subject Becca brought with her, as she forced them to budge up on the bench. ‘Nobody’s touched the quiche. I put some on a plate for Julian but he’s on his phone doing some property deal.’ She nodded approvingly. ‘That man’s never off duty.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Dad.

  ‘Come on, Charlie.’ Becca prodded her husband. ‘Time for Flo to do another circuit.’

  ‘Sometimes, Flo has a look of Kate, don’t you think?’ Dad smiled at Flo’s effusive burp. ‘Same dreamy eyes.’ He carefully passed her to Charlie. ‘She’s all yours, almost-son-in-law.’

  ‘Ha!’ laughed Becca, from halfway across the garden. ‘Almost!’

  ‘That was a close shave for all of us,’ laughed Charlie. ‘Phew!’ He wiped his brow as he followed Becca.

  ‘He was joking, love.’ Dad’s smile faded when he caught the look on Kate’s face.

  ‘I know that.’ She laughed. It had a tinny sound, like a broken toy. ‘I’d better go and find Julian.’ She picked up her glass burden once again. ‘He’s fretting to get home.’

  ‘I know how he feels,’ said Dad.

  There were people everywhere, all of them in Kate’s way, leaning over each other to grab at tiny triangular sandwiches as if famine had broken out. A semi-circle of fawning women surrounded Charlie, who was jiggling Flo and holding forth knowledgeably on formula milk and nappy rash. Uncle Hugh hovered, rocking back and forth on his heels. Somehow his title had got lost in the mix; Aunty Marjorie was more of a grandmother than Uncle Hugh was a grandfather. The look on his face said different. Kate noticed how he tailed the hiccupping little bundle as the baby was shown to the masses, exuding quiet pride in his miracle of a granddaughter. He jumped out of Kate’s way with a Sorry, love!

  Taking two more laps of the garden, looking for Julian’s golden head above the fray, Kate wondered what kind of a daddy he would make. Would he take to it as passionately as Charlie, who had confounded everybody with his enthusiasm for Flo, after he’d begged Becca to wait?

  As she entered the house, its cloistered feel was welcome. Kate paused in the quiet passage. Julian was philosophical, never accusing, but she felt his impatience. She felt his suspicion, never uttered, that she was the reason they had no children.

  Closing her eyes Kate let it wash over her, the feeling that somewhere, circling the stars, drifting through the universe, was a child. Her child. It would come when it was ready; it would come at the perfect time.

  There was no way to share this certainty with Julian, a man who believed only in what he could touch and feel.

  Suddenly, Aunty Marjorie materialised, and marshalled Kate’s help in handing out yet more quiche.

  Looking for somewhere to dump the tray – when would Aunty Marjorie learn that her quiche tasted of flip flops? – Kate skulked by the downstairs loo, eavesdropping on the genteel argument leaking through the door.

  ‘You never think of me, do you? Tell her. Or I will!’

  It was, Kate realised, her mother’s voice. She pressed her ear to the door.

  ‘Do you think it’s easy,’ said her father, in a hushed howl, ‘to tell your own daughter such a thing? That you’re leaving her?’

  ‘But you can leave me easily enough. Is that it?’

  The door was yanked open and Kate slid away like a cat burglar as her mother stormed out, making, no doubt, for Aunty Marjorie like a menopausal heat-seeking missile. Where are you, Julian? She scanned the party, as a hand caught her arm.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ said her husband, drawing her into the utility room, a temple to white goods that smelled of fabric conditioner.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ What she expected Julian to do about her parents, Kate wasn’t sure, but he would do something. Julian always took charge. He would straighten out what must be a misunderstanding. Her father was a stayer. Like her. Like Julian. Some things in life you could rely on.

  Or so she hoped. ‘You first,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve just wound up a ve-ry sweet deal.’

  In the new spirit of wifely enthusiasm she asked was it the wharf, or the big old warehouse in Spitalfields or maybe the deconsecrated chapel ripe for conversion?

  It was none of those profitable but dull things. ‘It’s a house. The house.’ Julian nodded encouragingly until Kate caught up with him.

  ‘What?’ She put her hands to her face.

  She hadn’t made a very compelling case for the house. Scepticism had been writ large all over Julian as Kate guided him through high ceilinged rooms hung with yellowing paper, all reeking of damp and mould and dead people’s lives. The reasons she loved the strict, tall, Georgian building were all to do with the heart. The house needed rescuing; she never could resist a sob story.

  The house yearned to be loved. True, it was tough love it craved. Walls must be torn down, floorboards pulled up. Out of the rubble a handsome home would emerge, its elegant windows shining and its painted front door ajar, welcoming them into its peachily lit parlours, and bedrooms in the eaves and a kitchen glowing like a furnace of happiness in its belly.

  ‘Just like that?’ Kate was giddy. Only this morning the house had been a mere idea.

  ‘Why hang about? I move fast. As you know.’

  He was triumphant, a Napoleon in a linen suit. Kate bit her lip, damming up the question that wanted to be asked. Why didn’t you tell me? She hadn’t wanted it dropped at her feet, like an offering. She’d wanted them to negotiate together, plotting and scheming. ‘You’re amazing,’ she said, meaning it, absolving him speedily.

  ‘It’s a long time,’ said Julian, ‘since I felt this excited about a purchase.’

  That was what she needed to hear. ‘I have so many plans.’ Once she started talking about reclaimed fireplaces she might never stop. ‘It’ll be ours.’

  Julian’s ferocious work ethic had inspired her to build her own mini empire in the image of his enterprise. With the money he loaned her – she insisted it was a loan; he was relaxed about it – Kate had bought the three shops she used to manage. She was proud of that, gave it her all, but the house would be their joint project. A home for them both, not a showhome pad.

  And, if Kate was honest with herself – this sometimes happened if the wind was in the right direction – a substitute for the baby that had yet to make an entrance.

  ‘Did you remind them I asked for ten thousand off the asking price?’ It had taken nerve to suggest that to the estate agent but she’d wanted to impress Julian with her hard-headed tough-talking ways.

  ‘I knocked fifty grand off the asking price.’ Julian ruffled her hair. ‘Clever you. Finding a gem. Doing your bit.’ He frowned. ‘Kate! You’re doing it again. Going off somewhere inside your head.’ Julian tutted. The delicious spell was broken. ‘I want my wife back, please.’

  ‘I was just daydreaming.’ Kate offered her face to his on tiptoe. ‘About you. Stripped to the waist. Wielding a sledgehammer. Covered in dust.’ She kissed him and they were there, knocking down a wall, doing something solid and practical and sexy. She pulled away and they were back at the christening.

  ‘Oh God, Julian, something’s happened. It’s Mum and Dad.’

  Kate explained, and as she knew he would, Julian took charge. ‘It’ll be some misunderstanding.’ Instantly, her fears were scaled down. ‘I’ll go and find them, sort it out.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘And you stop collecting empties. My wife is no waitress.’ He twirled Kate to face the door. ‘Join the coven that
’s taken up residence in the kitchen.’

  Grateful, trusting – Julian will get to the bottom of this – Kate held out her arms as Flo was handed into them like a relay baton, by a perspiring distant relative.

  ‘You’re hungry, aren’t you?’ Kate recognised the grizzling noise. ‘You want some lovely mushed up banana, don’t you?’ And a sleep. Flo was badly in need of peace and quiet. As am I.

  The kitchen was crammed with women trying to be useful and getting in each other’s way. Decamping back to the utility room with Flo and a banana, Kate was soon joined by Becca. With a sinking sensation in her stomach she recognised the expression on Becca’s face as Needing To Talk.

  ‘What?’ she said flatly.

  ‘What do you mean what?’ said Becca innocently.

  ‘Your mummy,’ said Kate to Flo as she spooned mashed fruit into the baby’s mouth, ‘needs to say something to me but she doesn’t know where to start.’

  ‘And your godmother,’ said Becca to the baby, ‘is a know-all.’ She leaned back against the washing machine, arms folded. ‘You’re right, though, Kate. I’m disappointed.’

  ‘In me?’

  ‘We barely see each other any more.’

  Before Kate had time to splutter at that fiction, Becca said, ‘Why can’t you be happy for me? I didn’t have Flo to spite you, you know.’ She fumbled with a tissue she plucked from her sleeve. ‘I’d give my right arm for you to be a mother. You know that.’

  Kate didn’t know that, because she’d never discussed babies with Becca. There had never been a right time to do so with a woman either recovering from the loss of one child or high on hope at the conception of another. There had never been anything in Kate’s attitude to justify this chin wobbling and nose dabbing. ‘Hang on, when have I ever—’

  ‘You don’t know what I went through to have Flo.’

  Looking down at Flo’s domed head, crowned with its fluffy halo of hair, Kate said, ‘I think I do, Becca.’

  ‘No,’ said Becca darkly. ‘You do not.’ The tears arrived and Becca burbled through them, opening and slamming drawers like a demented robot. ‘If I could wave a magic wand and give you a baby, I would. I wish this was a double christening. Don’t hate me because of Flo.’

  Aunty Marjorie swung into the utility room, felt the atmosphere and froze, before backing out like a Nissan Micra reversing out of a tight parking space.

  ‘You’re being daft.’ Kate wiped banana from Flo’s chin. ‘I see a lot of you. Not as much as when you lived in London, admittedly, because I have a more than full time job and I don’t always have the energy to travel out here to the arse end of nowhere. You’re the one who moved away!’

  ‘You’re the boss. You can take time off whenever you like.’

  ‘Being the boss means longer hours. It’s not like when we used to play shops.’ Kate didn’t expect Becca to understand: she hadn’t worked since she’d left her receptionist job in 2000. She said, more gently, ‘You’re telling yourself stories, Becca. How could I, of all people, begrudge you this little dumpling?’ She handed over the baby and Becca broke down, sobbing over Flo’s head. ‘Sssh. Please. Whatever you’re crying about, it’s not us. Can we stop this?’ She bent and parted Becca’s blonde hair to peer at her face. ‘Sorry, cuz, but I don’t envy you. Which is a shame, because we both know how much you love being envied.’

  A sniffle converted to a giggle. ‘It’s the hormones,’ said Becca.

  ‘Them again,’ sighed Kate theatrically. ‘This is very you, Becca, to move away and then scold me because you feel isolated.’

  ‘I know you all think I’m a drama queen . . .’

  ‘If you’re leaving a gap there for me to contradict you, you’ll be waiting a long time.’

  ‘Cow.’ Becca threw a crumpled tissue at Kate. ‘But I feel things deeply, you know?’

  ‘So does everybody. We just don’t turn every day into a three act opera.’ She added, perhaps a little late, ‘But it doesn’t matter. You’re just you.’

  ‘Julian disapproves of me,’ said Becca, with an inward, thwarted look. ‘I thought we were friends again but . . .’

  ‘Julian loves you.’ How easily that tripped off Kate’s tongue. A huge word like love and she could misuse it just like that.

  ‘He does, doesn’t he?’ Becca’s confidence was a buoyant critter, never on the floor for long. ‘You’ve tamed him, you know.’

  ‘I’ve never tamed anything in my life.’ Or wanted to.

  ‘He was kind of bigger and more brash before you came along. Now he’s more quiet, easier to handle.’

  ‘You make him sound like a cat I found in an alley.’

  ‘A pedigree cat!’ laughed Becca. ‘A big pedigree tom cat.’ She fixed Kate with a look and Kate stood to attention: that look reminded her of their mothers’ way with a glare. ‘You’ve tamed me, too. I’d be worse if you weren’t around.’

  ‘Worse? Don’t talk about yourself like that.’ Kate didn’t want to hear such language from Becca. ‘You don’t need correcting or . . . or taming, you twit.’ Kate had never suspected Becca of this kind of self-knowledge; she’d believed her profoundly unaware of the effect she had on the family, of the allowances they constantly made for her. ‘You’re perfect just the way you are.’

  ‘I need you, Kate.’ Becca sounded about ten years old.

  ‘And I need you, you idiot.’ Kate put her arms around mother and child. It would be difficult to make more time for Becca when she factored in the new house as well as the shops, but she’d do it somehow.

  ‘Trouble is,’ said Becca, ‘you don’t understand how hard it is to juggle a child and a husband and to live a twenty minute drive from the nearest shopping centre. You have it so easy, Kate.’

  Calling on years of experience, Kate bit her tongue one more time.

  ‘May I interrupt, ladies?’ Julian was stern. Becca responded to his demeanour by widening her eyes at Kate, giving her arm a squeeze and leaving them together.

  ‘Your parents are in the conservatory.’ Julian hadn’t returned with a ready made solution as Kate had hoped. ‘They looked so dour I daren’t go in.’

  The party had thinned out. Napkins were strewn on the conservatory’s tiled floor and paper plates were abandoned on each carefully distressed surface.

  Uncomfortable on a twee wrought iron bench, Kate’s parents were slumped, puppets whose strings had been cut. When they saw her, they sat up with discernible effort. She wondered how long they’d been doing that, brightening for her sake.

  Julian began. Kate, who couldn’t find the right words, was grateful that their marital see-saw was in good working order. ‘Something is obviously up, folks. Your daughter here is suffering. Can we talk about it? Kate and I might be able to help.’

  ‘Nothing’s up.’ Dad was there immediately with a rebuttal. ‘Like what?’

  Mum was doggedly silent. She looked at her lap with savage concentration, emanating energy as if she wanted to leap up and scream.

  ‘Dad . . .’ appealed Kate.

  ‘Love, it’s the end of a long day,’ said her father. ‘Let’s talk another time.’

  ‘Your daughter,’ said Julian, ‘overheard something very upsetting and she deserves an explanation.’

  Mum snorted. An expressive noise from the soundtrack of Kate’s childhood.

  ‘She heard you say something about splitting up.’

  The pair on the bench jerked, as if the ironwork was suddenly electrified.

  ‘What?’ scowled Mum.

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Dad.

  The silence persisted and Kate was at war with herself, wanting it to end but knowing it would end unhappily. ‘Please, tell me.’

  Mum said, ‘Your Father has—’

  ‘No.’ Kate’s dad held up his hand. It was, Kate noticed, bony and pale. More elegant than before but more grim. ‘This is my story. I’ll tell it.’ He told his daughter about the symptoms that had assailed him almost a year ago. He described
the constant nausea, the endless indigestion. ‘Mum nagged me to go to the doc.’ Instead of sending him home with a prescription, the doctor sent Dad to a specialist. ‘I had what’s called an endoscopic ultrasound.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Kate when he faltered.

  ‘And they diagnosed cancer of the stomach.’

  A sensation like snow falling. Like a cold blanket muffling the sunny room. Kate crossed into a different realm. A place where her father was ill. A new and icy place. Julian put his arm around her. Warm and heavy, it couldn’t quite cut through the chill.

  ‘Now, let’s be honest, everybody panics when they hear the word cancer, don’t they?’ Dad said, conversationally.

  Kate could imagine how her mother had reacted. Cancer was a voodoo word in the family, six letters which, if spoken aloud, might conjure up the ogre that took both Kate’s Irish grandparents long before their time. It was the troll whose touch shrivelled, whose breath destroyed.

  ‘My cancer was caught early.’ Dad reconsidered. ‘Early ish. Stage 1B and slow growing. All of which is good news, love. As far as any of this is good news.’

  ‘What are they going to do?’ Kate found her voice and a small, reedy voice it was.

  ‘They’ve already operated.’

  Kate leaned back, as if he’d slapped her. ‘You had an operation and I didn’t know?’ This was fantastical.

  ‘Well, we didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘We? I didn’t agree to any of this.’ Mum was robust. ‘I’ve wanted to tell you from the get-go.’

  ‘The oncologists weren’t too alarmed. The main fear with stomach cancer is that it spreads to the liver but the CT scan put their minds at rest.’

  Oncologist. Such an ugly word. ‘So the operation was a success?’ Kate wanted to stick her fingers in her ears. She could only bear one answer.

  ‘It was.’ Dad nodded and beside him his wife made a deep noise like a growl. ‘It was,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t even need chemotherapy.’

  The ugly words were coming thick and fast in this cute and stultifying room.

  ‘So, the plan was, I would tell you I’d had a brush with cancer and we’d all have a hug and that would be that.’