A Place for Us (11 page)

David had shuffled closer to her, sideways, like a crab, then put his arm round her thin shoulders. “Darling. Did you believe her? Is that why you ran off ?”

Florence had nodded.

He’d been silent then, and Florence was terrified, more afraid than at any time with Daisy. That he was going to say,
Yes, it’s true, I’m not your daddy.

She could still remember that feeling now. The black hole of fear that the one person in the world she loved more than anyone else would be taken away from her. That Daisy would win, that she’d have been right.

Her father had pulled her head close to his. She could hear him
breathing fast. She held her breath.
Please. Please don’t let it happen. Please . . .

But after a while he simply whispered in her ear, “That’s rubbish. You know you’re much more my daughter than she is.” Then he sat back a little. “Don’t tell anyone your old dad said that, hmm?”

“Oh, no,” Florence said, giving a little secret smile, still looking down, but when she stole a glance up at him shortly after, she saw he was smiling too. Then he held out his hand. “Come back with me? Ma’s made a lemon cake and she’s been so worried about you. We all have.”

She stood up, brushing the fresh black earth off her pinafore, her tights. “Not Daisy. She hates me.”

“Wilbur’s just died, she’s sad about that. Let’s be kind to her, though. She doesn’t have what we have.” It was the only time he acknowledged it really, and she always remembered it. “Come on. It’s time to go home, Flo.”

They trudged back up the road to Winterfold, and as they reached the drive her father had said, “Let’s keep this to ourselves, shall we? You pretend to Daisy she never said anything. And if she does ever say something, tell her to come and see me and I’ll set her right.”

There was a tone in his voice then, and she nodded. When Dad was angry he was scary, really frightening. Florence wondered if he ever said something to Daisy, because she left Florence alone for a month or two, until the next time, the wasps’ nest, which nearly killed Florence, and which she knew she couldn’t ever actually pin on Daisy. Daisy wasn’t stupid. She’d always known exactly when to pounce.

•   •   •

Eventually Florence stopped running. She collapsed onto a graffitied bench in an old square filled with bashed-up cars, staring at the cobbles below her. There was no one this time to come and pick her up, to tell her it was all a lie. No one who’d say, “They’re all wrong and you’re right.”

She knew her dad hadn’t told her the truth. She didn’t know how or why, just knew. Daisy was never wrong about things like that, and when she’d pinched Florence’s arm and said, “You were a bastard orphan and no one wanted you, little sister, so they picked you off the scrap heap, otherwise you’d have been kept in a home,”
Florence knew she was right. She didn’t know how she’d found out: Daisy knew how to get into secret
drawers, how to hear private conversations, how to twist and turn situations to get what she wanted from them.

It struck Florence then, sitting on this bench surrounded by empty Peroni bottles and cigarette butts, the night’s chill cooling her sweating limbs, that it was all the same now. She’d been fooling herself again.

She wondered when she could go back to the flat, if Peter would still be there. She wondered how long it had been coming, this realization that despite how she liked to run away, she’d got it all wrong. How long she’d been kidding herself about her life here, about living away from home. And as she sat with her head in her hands, she wondered if she’d always known that at some point, she’d have to go home and face the truth again. What came next she didn’t know.

Karen

“
H
ELLO, LOVE.
S
ORRY
I’m late. How are you?”

“Oh, hello, Bill.” Karen didn’t look up from the couch where she was reading a magazine, or pretending to read. She raised an eyebrow and turned a page. “How was your day?”

She didn’t need to watch to see his little ritual every evening. She knew it off by heart. The way he carefully wound his scarf once around the banister. Always just once. He’d take off his coat, thumb precisely flicking the buttons out, one-two-three in a row. A little shake before deftly hanging it up with one finger. Then the clearing of the throat and a rub of the hands. That hopeful, kind look on his face.

He wore that expression now. “Good, thanks, my love. I’m sorry I’m late. Mrs. Dawlish . . . she’s very shaky since the fall. I paid her a quick visit to drop off the pills and ended up staying on for a cup of tea. And—how about you?”

“Crap. Annoying.” Karen ran one finger over the bridge of her nose up to her forehead.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Bill picked up the post on the hall table, thumbing carefully through it. She watched him in silence.

Their marriage was based on silence these days. More and more. What they didn’t say was everything, and what they did, inconsequential.

After a minute or so Bill looked up from his credit card statement, his brow furrowed. She could tell he was trying to remember what she’d said, pick up the thread, carry on with the steps of the dance. “So, what’s up? Is it work?”

Karen shrugged. “They’re announcing the layoffs next month.”

His eyes flickered briefly to meet her gaze. “Are you worried? Surely not. Your review was great, wasn’t it?”

She wasn’t in the mood for him to be right. “That was four months ago, Bill. It’s a big company. Things change fast. You don’t—” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Never mind.” She sounded hysterical, she knew. Sometimes she felt as though she was going mad with it all. “I can feel a headache coming on. I might go out for some fresh air in a bit. I said I’d pop round Susan’s birthday card.”

“Oh, right.” He dropped the little pile of his post onto the bureau and stood behind her, then tweaked one of the cushions on the sofa. “That’s nice.”

“What’s nice?” Karen had picked up the magazine again.

“You. Seeing Susan. I’m glad you two are friends again.”

“After I set fire to her hair, you mean?”

“Well, it’s nice you have a friend in the village.”

She threw him a glance of amused contempt. “You make it sound like it’s a real achievement.”

Bill went into the kitchen. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He never picked a fight, and it drove her insane. She really wanted him to tell her to shut the hell up and stop being such a cow. To grab her by the shoulders, kiss her, and tell her she was in need of a good seeing-to. To sweep the damned letters off the stupid hall table and push up her skirt, bending her over the immaculate cream Next sofa, until they collapsed on the floor, tangled, smiling, his hair ruffled, their warm bodies flushed with the sensation of nakedness. She wanted to see the man she’d fallen in love with, the sweetly awkward, fastidious, and kind man who was late for their first date because he’d stopped to help a young mother whose car had broken down by the A36. Who lived to be useful to others, who made himself indispensable, who chuckled with hilarity like a toddler being tickled when he spoke to his daughter, who used to look at Karen as though she were a goddess come to life before his very eyes. Everything was always all right when Bill was in the room.

She blinked, staring into nothing, and then followed him into the kitchen.

“How was your day?” she said, guilt making her attentive. She smoothed her hand over his close-cropped hair.

Bill was rubbing his eyes, tired. “Oh, all right. I had Dorothy in again. She’s in a bad way. Oh, I bumped into Kathy, she said she’d had Mum’s invitation to the drinks on the Friday. Everyone seems excited about there being a party at Winterfold again. Very nice.”

Karen went over to the fridge. “Supper’s ready, in fact. Want a glass of wine?”

Bill shook his head. “A cup of tea’d be nice first.”

“I’m not making tea. I’m opening wine.”

“Right, I’ll put the kettle on, then,” he said imperturbably.

Karen poured herself a drink, her mind already running through the list she kept at the front of her thoughts. She had an early start tomorrow, 8:00 a.m. train from Bristol to Birmingham for a conference. Suit hanging in spare room. Sandwiches for train. Presentation locked and loaded on laptop. Rick’s notes typed up—her boss e-mailed her all the time, and you had to transcribe it to make sure you’d got everything he’d said. Rick was exacting, to say the least, but Karen liked order. And she liked a challenge, relished it, in fact. Lisa, her best friend back home in Formby, was always saying Karen was born to have children.

“You’re the most organized person I know,” she’d said, last time Karen was back home. “You’d deal with the—Megan, leave it, okay? You’d deal with not being able to take your eye off them, getting everything ready in the morning, knowing how to get one into the bath and give the other his tea.
No! Niall!
You stop that, you little monster. I’ve had enough of you, I’m telling you. Honestly, Karen, you’d be great. . . . Any plans?”

Any plans? Any plans?
She perfectly recalled Lisa’s intense, slightly cultish expression, the one all mothers assume with childless people, like they
have
to understand exactly what it’s like because they can have no concept of how wonderful and natural and fulfilling it is. She’d left soon after. But the truth was that what she couldn’t forget, what she found more disturbing, was the warmth created by the mess and haphazardness of Lisa’s life. Her bungalow near the sea, overflowing with broken toys and discarded clothing. Awful childish paintings stuck all over the place. Silly magnets on the fridge, “World’s Best Mum” and all of that. But it was a home, a safe, welcoming place; and as Karen set the little dining table, she looked around at the life she had created with Bill. She couldn’t see how any number of armless dolls and pieces of Lego would make their cottage feel like home.

Karen’s parents had divorced when she was ten. She and her mother were both neat freaks, and enjoyed nothing more than having a really good go at the oven. After her mother had been to Winterfold for the first time, just before Karen and Bill’s marriage, Mrs. Bromidge had grabbed Karen’s arm on the way home.

“That fireplace!” she’d said. “Doesn’t it drive them up the wall? All those ashes? It’s summer, they don’t need to keep it burning—why don’t they get a nice fire effect? Or get gas?”

Her daughter couldn’t help but agree. Karen often thought the difference between her world and the Winters’ was that she believed in gas fires and much of the time at Winterfold seemed to be spent lighting or replenishing the fire in the huge hearth of the sitting room. But she didn’t say that to her mother. She had to be loyal to this strange family she’d chosen to enter. She made sure Bill’s house had a gas fire, though.

New Cottages was a row of four almshouses down from the church, one of which Bill had bought after his divorce. A couple of months before their wedding Karen had, with Bill’s agreement, had the place redecorated so it felt a bit more modern, a bit less like the home of people who wore nylon nighties and smelled of Yardley English Lavender perfume. She’d moved those possessions of hers that weren’t already there over from her single girl’s flat in Bristol. There wasn’t really room for them. It was a tiny house. That first night, over Chinese takeout and some white wine, sitting on a blanket on the new cream carpet because the new sofa hadn’t arrived yet, Bill had said, “If something or someone else comes along, well—we’ll have to think about scaling up, won’t we!”

He’d said it in that Bill way—gently joking, with a puckered brow, so that she could never quite tell how serious he was about it. And when, a year and a half later, she’d mentioned it—“I’ve not been on the Pill for nearly a year, Bill, isn’t it strange nothing’s happening?”—he’d just smiled and said, “It’ll take a while, I think. You’re thirty-three, but I’m old. I’m fifty!”
That was what he’d kept on saying.
It’ll take a while
. Eventually, as with so many things in their marriage, she’d given up. He was so closed-up, like a clam, like his mother. Karen liked Martha, always had. But she didn’t know her. She just knew that behind that cool exterior there was something there, some secret storm. But did Martha ever show it? Course not.

She was getting more and more frustrated, trying anything to get
a rise out of him. When, a year ago, Karen had thrown a tea mug at him and the splintering china cut his ankles, Bill had said, “That was a bit dangerous, Karen. Maybe don’t do it again.” Six months ago, she’d stormed out, after a row about something so stupid she couldn’t even remember it now. She hadn’t come back till morning. He hadn’t texted her until lunchtime.

Do you know where the torch is?

Why was he like this? How could he be so passive? It drove Karen mad. At first she’d tried to change him. Lately, she’d simply stopped trying.

•   •   •

They had dinner in silence, opposite each other at the tiny table. Bill ate methodically, lining up each morsel of food like a balancing act; Karen sometimes found it hypnotic. When the watery garlic butter burst through the meat of the chicken Kiev and landed on his napkin and not his shirt, she was almost disappointed.

She was silent because she’d got used to it. Before, she’d chattered away. Now it was less effort, less disappointing, to just sit there and eat. Like those couples you saw on holiday, sitting there with nothing to say to each other. She’d think things instead. Wonder about this or that, her mind racing, her heart pounding at how bad she could be if she pushed herself. It surprised her, she’d never thought she was the kind to have an overactive imagination; and she was in the middle of a mental conversation with him about their sex life when suddenly she heard Bill say, out of nowhere, “I wonder if Daisy’ll come to this thing.”

Karen blinked. “What thing?”

Bill speared a single pea with one tine of his fork. “Ma’s party. Wonder if she’ll even remember it’s her own mother’s eightieth birthday.”

Karen didn’t know quite what to say. “Course she will, she wouldn’t forget a thing like that. Anyway, your mum’s asked you to all be there, hasn’t she? That odd invitation and everything.”

“I’m not sure. It’s typical Ma. It’s her strange sense of humor.”

Karen wasn’t sure about that. She had the feeling it was more than having a slightly idiosyncratic sense of humor. “Okay, then. Well, I’m sure she’ll be there.”

Bill opened his mouth, then shut it, then said slowly, “You don’t know Daisy.”

He wants to talk about it
. “Well, I know what you lot say about her. Or rather don’t
say about her. She obviously loves your mum, even if you and Florence don’t like her much.”

“Of course I like her. She’s my sister.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Bill sighed. “I mean . . . there’s something there. Despite everything she’s done, I still love her. We’re family.”

“What exactly did she do, though?”

He shrugged, a classic boy’s slump of the shoulders. “Nothing. She just isn’t very . . .” He mashed a clump of peas against his knife. “She’s mean.”

A bark of laughter escaped Karen. “Mean! What, she used to hide your things and call you Smelly? That’s no excuse, Bill!”

“She called me Lily,” he said, staring at the plate. “Billy Lily. ’Cause she was Daisy Violet and Florence’s middle name’s Rose, and she said I was the biggest girl of all.” He rubbed his eyes. “But you’re right, it’s silly. She didn’t do anything terrible—”

“I thought she stole the Girl Guides’ money from the bring-and-buy stall at the church fête and spent it on pot?”

“Oh, yeah.” Bill was stroking the bridge of his nose. “How d’you know that?”

“Sources.” She tapped her nose. “Lucy told me.”

“How does
she
know that?”

“Your daughter knows everything,” Karen said. “And she told me Daisy nearly set the barn on fire smoking a joint with some guy from the village when she was back from traveling.”

He stared at her for a second, almost visibly debating whether to have the conversation or not. “Well, I have to say she was a bit of a druggie before she took off. And she did stuff. I’ve often wondered . . .” He stopped.

“Wondered what?”

“It sounds rather hysterical if you say it out loud, I’m afraid. Events beyond my control. Although now she’s turned into this angelic figure who saves orphans and raises all this money, we’re not allowed to criticize her.” He laughed. “Don’t mention that to Ma, will you?”

“You lot are crazy,” Karen said, piling the plates together with a crash
and almost throwing them onto the breakfast bar, which connected them with the kitchen. “Why don’t you ever talk about it? I mean, why did she leave in the first place? She never sees Cat. It’s mad.” She could hear the Mersey in her voice, coming out the more she spoke. “And Cat’s mad too, while we’re at it. Over in Paris and won’t let anyone visit her, like she’s a leper or something.”

“That’s not true. Cat comes home.” She knew Bill was very fond of his niece. “She’s just busy, that’s all.”

“She works in a flower market, how’s that busy? She used to be some amazing fashion journalist mixing with all these designers and all sorts, and now she’s selling potted plants, Bill.” She knew she sounded cruel, but just for once she wanted to shake him out of his quiet, repressed complacency. “She hasn’t been home for more than three years. Don’t you have to wonder what that’s about?”

But her husband merely shrugged. “She had that chap, Olivier, he sounded like bad news. He went off to Marseilles. Had a dog, Luke. Left the dog behind, left Cat to look after him, from what Ma said. The whole thing was a bad business, poor old Cat.” Bill poured himself another glass of wine. “He was a nasty piece of work.”

Karen found she wanted to scream. “What does that mean? Was he abusive? What did she need to get over?”