A Place for Us (28 page)

He’d hung in the doorway. “Please, Karen. Stay as long as you want. I know it must be difficult for you. It’s my responsibility too.” Then he cleared his throat. “Isn’t it?”

“I suppose it must be,” she’d said. “All the evidence would suggest it is.”

Joe had swallowed, and for a split second he looked terrified. But it was so fleeting she might have missed it. He’d hugged the towel he was holding to his chest. “I love kids, Karen, you know that. I won’t let you down. I’ll be there, I promise.”

Four months ago. Karen heard the thundering footsteps on the stairs, and her heart lifted. “There he is,” Sheila said, smiling. “He’ll make it all all right, just you see if he doesn’t.”

“You’ve already done that, Sheila,” Karen said, raising her mug as Joe came in.

“Sheila! We got Brian to commit to becoming our supplier, and we’ll sell his meat through the pub.” Joe vaulted over the back of the sofa, landing next to Karen, who was jolted into the air, spilling her tea.

“Oh!” Karen mopped at her dripping lap.

He cupped his hand under her mug. “I’m so sorry, Karen. How are you?”

“I was tired, but that’s woken me up.” She smiled at him. “Let me get you a cup of tea.”

“I’ll get it,” he said, standing up again. “I can’t stay long.”

“I thought you weren’t working tonight?” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. After all, they were merely flatmates, and he was absolutely adamant he was going to do right by her—they’d talked seriously about her buying the dilapidated cottage two doors down, Karen pulling up Excel spreadsheets on her laptop and tapping figures into her computer, going through the motions of some plan that, frankly, alternately depressed her and terrified her. All so that when the baby was born he could come and help most days, and even stay over there instead when Jamie was down—the cottage was bigger, it had a garden, and Jamie and this new little thing, his half brother or sister, would have room to grow.

When they sat on the sofa to watch TV on the rare evenings Joe spent in, there was at least two feet between them. They couldn’t ever agree on what to watch anyway. She liked documentaries about people with bodily disorders. He liked US TV series. He thought she was prurient for recording programs about men with engorged testicles or conjoined twins; she thought he was bloodthirsty for enjoying the spectacle of a fantasy king murdering a prostitute and someone being made to wear his own severed hand round his neck. She knew all this, but she couldn’t say it, couldn’t joke about it, the way she used to tease Bill about his love of Ealing comedies.

“I am working, I’m so sorry,” Joe said, peering through the hatch from the kitchen. “But I’m going to quickly make you some bubble and squeak on a tray. I brought most of the ingredients up with me. Sheila”—he threw her a balled-up wad of paper—“here’s the receipts for the fishmonger. He says we’re his best customer now. Can you do me a favor? Start running Karen a bath?”

Sheila unfolded the receipts and put them into her pocket, watching Joe affectionately. “Hot baths and tea on a tray? Ooh, you’re a lucky woman, Karen.”

Karen watched Joe’s head moving back and forth in the kitchen, and she felt the baby move, shifting and sliding around inside her. All she could think of was that bubble and squeak was Bill’s favorite meal, the one he’d cook singing along to his northern soul albums in his tuneless, awkward bass.

“I must be, mustn’t I,” she said.

Cat

C
AT HAD SOLD
the red Lanvin shoes on eBay eventually, for one hundred euros. She had taken out a credit card too, and with that paid for the Eurostar for her and Luke to go back to Winterfold in early April to see her grandmother. They arrived very late on Friday, and the plan was to leave before lunch on Sunday.

Staring out of the train at the still-freezing English spring, she told herself that coming back was the right thing to do, though Gran had told her not to. Everything had changed, that day in November. So there was no point in fearing what might come, as she had always done: it had already happened. No point in hanging on to memories. No point in fearing a debt when the people who needed you needed you now.

That first night back she lay next to Luke on one of the high twin beds in Lucy’s room and wondered if she’d been right. Martha was sleeping in Cat’s room. Something about damp in her own room. Cat didn’t believe her. She’d said she had to go somewhere the next morning, to get some milk. When Cat asked her where, Martha had said, “Bristol.” Cat had laughed, thinking it was one of her grandmother’s impenetrable jokes, but she had been quite serious.

Everywhere she looked, the house seemed to be covered up, like shrouds over the dead. Curtains drawn. Dust on surfaces. Doors shut, locked. Shawls and blankets she’d never seen before covering chairs and sofas, and when Cat asked why, Martha said simply: “They’re dangerous. They can’t be touched.”

“Of course,” Cat said carefully, trying not to show Luke how much this scared her. It was because they were the pieces of furniture Southpaw
had sat in, the things in the house he had used most frequently. His chair in the kitchen, a heavy oak thing with arms and carved feet: Martha said it had woodworm and might have to be thrown away.

On Saturday morning, they sat in silence, Luke pushing cereal around his bowl, Cat eating some toast, Martha quite still, staring at nothing, humming very slightly. It was a cruelly cold day. A gray sky, no sign of spring.

“I have to go in a minute. The traffic into Bristol will be poor.” Martha stood up.

“Bristol?” Cat had forgotten momentarily. She rubbed her eyes. “No, Gran. Don’t be . . .” She trailed off.

Her grandmother’s tone was even. As though Cat were being hysterical. “I need some milk, and I don’t get it from the shop anymore. Problems with supply.”

“Gran—you really don’t have to go into Bristol, honestly. I’ll walk into the village in a little bit, get some milk, some things for you.”

“No, thank you.” She collected the plates, though Cat and Luke hadn’t finished.

Luke climbed onto David’s chair, pulling an old green shawl to the floor. He rocked it back and forward, against the table.

“Luke, stop it,” Cat said.

Martha, at the sink, turned. “Don’t do that,” she said, but Luke ignored her. The old chair creaked as he teetered backward, his full weight on it.

Cat said, “Luke. Stop it now.”

“I want to sit in it,” said Luke. “I miss him. I miss Southpaw.”

Martha crossed the kitchen. Her expression remained unchanged. With one firm movement she grabbed Luke’s skinny arm and yanked him out of the chair. As if he were a rag doll. She staggered a little, catching the weight of him against her, and his legs flailed wildly in the air; then she let go, and Luke fell to the floor.

“I said, don’t do that.”

Luke lay crying on the floor, looking at his great-grandmother with a bewildered expression. Cat helped him up with one hand.

“Darling, she asked you to stop.” She hugged him close to her. “I’m sorry, Gran. He was cooped up in the train all yesterday, and now—”

“I don’t care.” Martha was facing away from them; she turned and draped the shawl over the chair again. “Perhaps you’d better go out now, then.”

•   •   •

Cat, who was used to being in control of everything, felt helpless. She couldn’t remember being at Winterfold and wanting to escape. She didn’t know how to talk to her grandmother. Lucy, with whom she spoke regularly on the phone now, had warned her, but Cat realized she hadn’t really grasped it.

They walked down the lane, Luke happy again, running in zigzags, Cat holding the list Martha had given her. It gave her a shock to see Gran’s strong, elegant, sloping handwriting again.

Milk

3 limes

3 potatoes

Bombay Sapphire gin. From the pub. Not from the post office. They only sell Gordon’s gin.

Pushing the scrap of paper into her pocket, Cat ran to catch up with Luke. She didn’t want to go into the pub. She didn’t want to see Joe.
I mean,
she’d tell herself when he came into her mind on those dark winter nights in Paris, lying in the chilly, tiny
chambre de bonne
in the Quai de Béthune,
it’s almost comical—the first man I allow myself to like, the first man I kiss in years, about
whom I think:
For once, you might actually be a good guy, a nice man.
 . . . ha.

Compared to what had happened after that, she supposed her encounter with Joe was the light relief of the weekend. She was no judge of men, that was clear, and she thought she had probably had a lucky escape. Olivier, Joe—silver-tongued and black-hearted, both of them. And when she thought about his lips on hers, their bodies meeting in the chill damp, the way he’d pretended to understand, worming his way in, when Karen, his pregnant girlfriend, her
aunt
, was lying low at home less than a mile away . . . Cat, arriving at the village shop, shook her head, surprised at the power the thought of him still had, five months afterward, to make her this angry. She’d have to lie to Gran. Tell her the pub was all out of Bombay Sapphire.

•   •   •

After they’d done their shopping at the post office, Cat waved good-bye to Susan and chivvied Luke along the high street toward the playground. It occurred to her that by now, for all she knew, the Oak Tree was so famous there’d be hordes of people outside, food bloggers and critics and liggers waiting for Lily Allen or whoever it was who was supposed to love it there, and she was possessed by a curiosity to see how different it was now. On the pretext of looking at the new cul-de-sac of ugly executive houses that were being built right on the fields, she walked them briskly to the end of the high street; and as they passed, she glanced hurriedly in the windows of the Oak Tree. But it was late morning and the lights were still off, the stools and chairs on tables. No other signs of life. She glanced up at the rooms above the pub. Karen was living there with him now, she knew.

As they turned back and crossed the waterlogged village green toward the playground, Cat felt more cheerful. As if she’d exorcised some silly teenage crush, and now that it was over she could admit she’d liked him. She’d enjoyed kissing him. Joe Thorne was cute—he was handsome, funny, shy, he loved
Game of Thrones
, and he’d told her about
The Gruffalo
. So it turned out he was bad news. So what? He was just someone she’d kissed after a long day and too much wine. It was done now. She’d been living the life of a nun on an island the last few years. She needed more experiences like Joe.

“Mum, swing me?” Luke said, leaping up at her side, his face flushed with cold, his huge eyes imploring.

“Sure.” One of the many little pinpricks you felt about being a single parent was that there weren’t two of you to swing your child along on either side. So instead Cat did her special thing, which was to loop her arms under Luke’s shoulders and spin him around and around on the boggy grass till they were both dizzy and stumbling. She did it three or four times, then pretended to stop. “Okay, all done.”

“But that was hardly any spin! No! Again! More spin!” Luke laughed, jumping up and down, and she laughed back, the happiness at being alone with him in this huge expanse of green, away from the dark dusty house, the feeling of fresh country air in her lungs, in his little lungs too, making her almost drunk with sensation.

“Okay. One more.”

“Okay! Okay! Okayokayokayokayokay!!” Luke shouted, bouncing up and down.

“Spin!” Cat shouted, staggering around in a crazy circle, as Luke’s shrieks of ecstatic excitement grew louder and louder, and the more they both laughed, the unsteadier she became, going faster and faster. Suddenly one of her wellingtons squelched, suctioned in by mud and water, and she began to topple. She slid to the ground, Luke on top of her.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m covered in mud.”

“Joe Thorne!” Luke screamed. “Mummy, it’s Joe, he hit me with the car!” He scrambled to his feet and pointed, as if seeing a miracle. “Mummy! He’s got a boy with him. A BOY!”

Luke broke out of Cat’s grasp and ran toward the two figures on the other side of the cricket field, his little legs drumming on the ground.

“Luke!” she shouted. “Come back.”

When she caught up with him, she was panting hard. “Hello,” she said, not looking at Joe. “Luke, you don’t
ever
run off like that, do you hear me?”

“I wanted to see Joe, Mummy, don’t be strange.” Luke was jumping up and down, almost beside himself to see not only Joe but a big boy as well. “Don’t you want to see him? Who are you? Who is this? Is his jacket blue or green? I can’t tell.”

Joe pushed the little boy forward. “This is Jamie. He’s five, Luke. Luke’s three, Jamie. He likes
The Gruffalo
too.”

Jamie nodded shyly. He had thick, curly blond hair, which hung like a messy halo around his head. His skin was dark caramel, his eyes a warm gray.

“Hello, Jamie, I’m Cat.”

“Hullo.” Jamie had a deep voice. “Does he like Moshi Monsters?”

“I love them! I really do love them!” Luke bounced up and down as though he was on an invisible pogo stick, and Joe put his hand on his arm, laughing.

“All right, Luke. Eh, you silly lad, it’s good to see you.”

At the warmth in his voice, Cat involuntarily smiled at him, and their eyes met. He was exactly how she remembered him. Bit thinner. Stubble on his firm chin, his thick hair curly. Disappointment shot through her, taking her by surprise.

Joe’s eyes were fixed on her, his gaze steady. “I didn’t know you were back.”

“Just for the weekend,” Cat said.

“I wondered . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been wondering how you were getting on.”

“I hate Madame Poulain. I used to like her. Joe, can we watch
Ratatouille
again?”

“He’s talking to me, Luke.”

“I live in France, Jamie, do you? Can you speak French?”

Stoic, silent Jamie looked up at his dad with something like alarm.

“What’s with him, Dad?” he said quietly, and Cat covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.

Joe bent down, resting his hand lightly on the back of his son’s head. “Listen, Jamie, why don’t you show Luke the swing? He won’t have seen it. It’s new, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jamie said, his serious eyes meeting his father’s. “Are we still having lunch soon, Dad?”

“Course,” Joe said. “Can you pick some bay leaves off the tree over there, too? That’d be great. You know what they look like, don’t you?” He lifted Jamie up, then pretended to drop him, and Jamie gave a shriek of laughter and ran toward the playground, Luke following him, one red jacket, one blue, maybe green.

They stood together watching them go. Joe cleared his throat.

“I won’t ask how you all are. It must still be very hard.”

Cat shoved her hands in her pockets. “We’re okay.” The waves that hit her during the day at the market stall or staring out of the window of Madame Poulain’s sitting room, tears pouring down her cheeks, Luke saying, “Come here, Mummy! Maman! Why are you crying?” Flashes of her grandfather’s sweater he used to wear to keep warm in his study, navy wool, eaten by moths to a cobweb. His smiling, shining eyes, his darling hands, so swollen and painful. And her mother—she hadn’t even been able to think about her mother properly yet. Not at all. As for Gran, and the family and all of it—there wasn’t a place to start, a place to begin, a thread that would lead them out of the maze. Cat turned her head so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. “That’s not true. We’re not okay, really.”

He nodded, and he didn’t try to hug her, as Susan Talbot had done, or grip her hands with tears in his eyes, like Clover, or shake his head pityingly. He just said, “I’m so sorry, Cat.”

“Me too.”

“How’s Mrs. Winter?”

“She’s not great. I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not sure she really understands what’s happened.”

“What do you mean?”

Cat found she couldn’t explain it. “I think she is . . . I think she thinks he’s coming back.” She spoke softly. “Gran’s always right. She’s always had a plan. I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t think you can do anything,” he said. “Just be there for her.”

“I’m not, though, am I?” She thought it was a peculiarly insensitive thing to say. “I’m in Paris.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “I can’t do anything for her.”

“I’m sorry. It’s—it’s none of my business.”

“Too right,” Cat said, and he stiffened, and she instantly regretted it; she hadn’t meant to get into it, not now, it was so childish. One of the things that felled her constantly since Southpaw’s death, since Daisy’s body had been found: the struggle to think of anything else, anything that was normal. She had this idea that she should only be concentrating on them, grieving for them, and not on small, silly things, like how much she hated the way Madame Poulain’s lipstick bled out of her lips, thin red veins reaching up to her wet nose. How endless the winter seemed that year in the stall, and how useless her thermal socks were. How her rage at Olivier gathered new strength every day, so that she wished she could find him, grip his neck like he used to grip hers, watch the veins bulge in his face and see the fear in his eyes.
You nearly finished me off. But I have our son, I will find a way out, and you can’t do that to me anymore.
How angry she was with Joe, the memory of them that night, talking together on the porch, the dripping rain surrounding them like a curtain. She shuffled. “Look, forget it. Sorry.”