After the Fall (5 page)

‘You’ve given us a whole stack of reasons.’ Lou downed her glass. ‘A mile-high pile of excuses. And not one of’em was the real one.’

Four

Dad was working when I tapped on his open door. He handed me a mug of something he called tea, and pottered back to his patient. Today it was his old friend Flora. She ran the garden centre and kept putting out her spine.

Dad lives on the outskirts of Bedford, three streets away from the house where I was brought up. In spite of being on the wrong side of seventy, my father is still a great chiropractor. In fact, he’s the only man I know who can manipulate my neck and stop a migraine in its tracks. Kit tried, once. Big mistake. Nearly wrenched my head off. I couldn’t reverse the car for a week.

I waited in the kitchen, listening to the rise and fall of voices and dutifully drinking the undrinkable: one of Dad’s herbal brews. It tasted like an infusion of silage. Bernard, the rusty black cat, sat neatly on a rag rug by the stove like a small, curved vase.

My dad’s eccentric, I’ll admit. The kitchen walls were painted in blurred gradations of gentle colour, and bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling. There were crystals and an oil burner lined up along the dresser. And all this new-age mumbo jumbo worked, that’s the beautiful thing. It did the trick. Dad’s kitchen always felt serene. Wacky, but serene. I loved it in there.

He’s into the Steiner thing; didn’t discover it until middle age. Now he’s quite a big cheese in the movement. I never argue with him about it. Mum did though, and eventually—once Lou and I were grown up and off her hands—she left him for Vincent Vale, a widower who owned an upmarket country pub. Vincent, she said, was reassuringly dull. He made her happy for the last ten years of her life, so perhaps she was right to go.

Once Flora had limped out, Dad stood by the stove, stretching the kinks in his own spine. He doesn’t look like a witch doctor; he’s more of a fox terrier—wiry and tough, with curly grey hair and eyes that miss nothing. ‘And what brings you here on a Monday?’ he asked.

I told him. He didn’t respond at all, at first. Didn’t recoil in horror or fire off a round of reproach; just crouched down and riddled the stove, which banged and sputtered. I watched a twirl of vapour rising like a genie from his oil burner.

‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘I see. It makes excellent sense.’

I’d never felt so grateful. Having Dad’s blessing changed everything. ‘You’ll come and visit?’ I asked.

‘Hope so, if I can square my conscience with the carbon output. In the meantime, let’s organise one of those terrifying video internet things. Then I’ll be able to see the boys’ cheeky grins, and my Sacha becoming the woman who’s going to save the world.’

‘Our house is on the market.’

‘I know.’ Dad plonked the kettle onto the stove, and crystal spheres bounced across the cast iron. ‘I saw a bloomin’ great orange sign.’

‘You saw . . . when?’

‘Um, let me see . . . Thursday last week? I dropped by. There was nobody in.’ He bent to stroke Bernard’s smooching little body, and the cat licked his hand. ‘So I’ve been waiting for you to visit.’

I felt terrible. We should have fronted up days ago but initially it hadn’t seemed real; more like a computer-generated cyber adventure.

‘How are the children?’ asked Dad, sitting down opposite me. ‘Excited?’

‘Sacha’s not.’

‘No.’ He smiled gently. ‘She’s sixteen, never known any other life.’

‘But New Zealand is a teenager’s paradise! Beaches, mountains, athletic young hunks who surf and play rugby and generally live life to the max.’

‘Perhaps she’d rather have Ivan.’

I harrumphed. ‘Have you
met
Ivan?’

‘I have, actually. She brought him here. A steady young man, I thought.’

‘Steady! Yes, that’s a good, limp-wristed word, Dad. I like that. It encapsulates everything about Ivan Jones.’

Dad tapped the table. ‘You should be grateful for
steady
, Martha. You’re much too quick to dismiss people. It isn’t wise. Be careful what you wish for.’

I forced back another mouthful of his brew, making a face. ‘This is vile.’

‘Dandelion root. Marvellous for your liver.’

‘Yeuch. Look, Ivan is a nice lad. I bear him no ill will. If he was my babysitter I’d break out the chocolate Hobnobs. But he has all the charisma of a supermarket trolley and he does
not
figure in Sacha’s future.’

Dad just chuckled.

‘I caught her smoking the other day,’ I said. ‘She came back from Lydia’s house smelling like a hobo. I found some cigarettes in her pocket.’

‘You searched her pockets?’

‘Kit thinks I should turn a blind eye. He says Sacha has never rebelled before and a little bit of acting out is a good thing—we don’t want her to be a prig.’

‘Smart lad! I’d add my sixpence to that and ask you, Mrs Goody-Two-Shoes McNamara, to explain what you were doing in my potting shed at the age of fourteen.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Martha, you used to sit in my deckchair and puff away like a dark satanic mill. I know for a fact you took a cup of cocoa so you could drop your fag in it if anyone came along.’

‘Says who?’

‘I took a swig one time. Not a mistake I’d make twice.’

I grimaced. ‘Okay, fair cop. Did Mum know?’

‘Don’t be silly. Why would I tell
her
? When did you give up?’

‘Pretty quickly. Couldn’t afford it.’

‘There you are, you see? If I’d burst in like the drug squad, it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference. You had your waltz with nicotine and moved on—unlike Louisa, admittedly. Sacha will do the same if you leave her be. Probably has already.’

I sighed. ‘God help her if she turns out like me. What a blueprint.’

We fell into companionable silence. A blackbird warbled, out in the rain. It was a wonderfully English sound. Bernard’s tail flicked.

At length, Dad stirred. ‘Had any interest in the house?’

‘Some.’

‘Offers?’

‘Nope. Sacha must be telling everyone the place is haunted.’

‘Martha.’ He regarded me carefully. ‘D’you want this?’

‘Kit—’

‘I didn’t ask what Kit wants.’

‘I’m terrified,’ I confessed, sagging. ‘I’ve worked in the same unit for ten years. I’m team manager, I’ve got my friends and my little power base. I know everyone around here and they know me: the lady in the post office and the GP and the man at the fuel station who’s only got one arm. In a crisis there are twenty people I could call on. I’m so
comfortable
here.’

He listened without comment, head tilted, grey eyes fixed on mine.

‘On the other hand, that’s just the point,’ I said. ‘We’ve had it good. Too good. I hate smug people who can’t see that their world is very small. I think we all need a shake-up.’

‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Right. But Martha, don’t go if it’s only because you’re running from something.’

‘What would I be running from?’

‘Everyone has their demons.’

‘Not me.’

‘You can’t run away. They follow.’ Dad’s got X-ray vision, I reckon. He sees everything. ‘Incidentally, Sacha’s been asking me about her father. I gather she collared your Aunt Patricia, too.’

I felt my face redden. ‘There are no monsters under my bed, Dad.’

‘Good. Go for positive reasons, or else stay put. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.’

Bernard began to wind around our ankles. His purr was filled with creaky miaows, silkily insistent. I was wondering who else Sacha had hassled.

‘I’m going to miss you lot.’ Dad reached down to scratch his friend in that soft place all cats have, just behind their ears. ‘Hell, yes. It’s going to be quiet around here. My Sacha, and those boys . . . can’t imagine not hearing the racket as they run up to the front door. They always tussle over who’s going to ring the bell.’

‘But neither of them can reach it.’

Dad smiled, sadly. His face was like a ploughed field.

‘The housing market’s dead,’ I said, lifting Bernard onto my knee. ‘You never know, this move may never actually—’ I hadn’t even finished the sentence when my phone sang from the depths of my handbag. Bernard pounced on the sound, tail high as a flag.

I dug out the phone. Flicked it open, and gaped at the message.

‘Our poor house,’ I said.

It wasn’t anything special, really; but it was picturesque, and it had been home since Sacha was a seven-year-old chatterbox with corkscrew curls. She never stopped smiling in those days, and Kit used to say she never would. We got married from that house; I remembered Dad handing me into the wedding car. We planted two apple trees when the twins came along. Their first wobbly steps were in the kitchen, chasing after Muffin. Every clang of the plumbing, creak of the stairs or rattle of the front door was profoundly familiar. When the wind blew, it made exactly
that
kind of droning sound through the Expelair in the bathroom. In the mornings the dust beams whirled in front of
those
windows in the hall. The dimensions, acoustics and smells were ingrained in our subconscious. It was our friend. We were traitors.

‘The estate agent,’ I said, reaching tremulously for my silage tea.

‘An offer?’ Dad was craning his head to see.

Hi. Gd news. The Simpsons have made an offer at asking price. Pls phone
or call in at your earliest convenience. Dave

‘Whatcha going to do?’ asked Dad.

I didn’t know. My brain was making a run for it.

‘Do you go forwards?’ Dad leaned back, eyeing me. ‘Or do you hightail it home to your warm, dry burrow?’

I shut the phone, swinging it like a pendulum between my fingers. ‘The point of no return,’ I said.

*

English rain. A pink Beetle was parked beside the for sale sign, and I felt a twinge of irritation. I’d worked all day, broken the news to Dad, collected the twins from nursery and been elbowed twice in Tesco. I’d also sold my beloved home. I didn’t feel kindly disposed towards gnomes.

While I lifted out shopping bags, Finn sat Buccaneer Bob in a booster seat, singing as he clicked the seatbelt around his old friend. Bob was a gift from Kit’s Great-Aunt Sibella, whose portrait hung in our hallway. He’s a rag-doll pirate dressed in black, with a rakish eye patch and a red parrot on his shoulder. They’ve been friends since the day Finn was born. The family live in fear of losing the wretched thing. On one cataclysmic occasion, Finn left Bob in the Reading motorway service station. He was inconsolable. Breaking into a cold sweat, I drove straight back—a four-hour return run—and prostrated myself tearfully before the extravagantly pierced youth in Burger King. Pierced Youth regarded me unemotionally, chewing the cud like a cow in the queue to be milked. Then he reached behind the counter and produced Bob. I could have kissed the boy. Actually—if I’m going to be honest—I
did
kiss him. He was mortified. I saw him using antibacterial handwash on his face as I skipped away.

Now, his pirate safely buckled in, Finn snapped into his customary high-velocity state and sprang out of the car, leaping two-footed into a vast puddle.

‘Brilliant,’ I grumbled, as sludge splashed over both of us.

He grinned unrepentantly and stamped in the water, uttering bloodcurdling battle cries. Keen-eyed and lawless, the child was a miniature version of his father. I recognised Kit’s intensity in the fine-boned face, Kit’s laughter and passion. Sometimes the look in Finn’s blue eyes was a little too knowing.

Charlie was both kinder and more cautious. He did his best to copy Finn’s giant leap for mankind but lacked his brother’s agility. Predictably, he slipped and sat down—legs stuck out, jeans and red wellingtons submerged. Even his fair curls were sodden by the swell of muddied water that sloshed over his jersey. He sat looking up at me, bug-eyed, waiting to see whether I would go into orbit.

Shaking my head, I gave him the thumbs-up. Then I scanned the garden for Ivan. There he was, perched with half a buttock on the swing, rocking himself on gawky legs.

‘Ivan!’ I forced a grin that actually hurt my facial muscles. ‘How nice. But Sacha isn’t here, I’m afraid. Just me and two feral boys.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Can I have a word, Mrs McNamara?’

I ground my teeth. First, I had asked him fifty million times to call me Martha. Second,
Can I have a word?
I mean, for God’s sake. Only policemen in really bad television dramas say that.

‘Come on in!’ I threw open the front door.

Finn and Charlie were happily engrossed in their water world, squatting down and commentating animatedly. Ivan tottered awkwardly behind me, fingering his little beard. I threw a despairing glance up at Great-Aunt Sibella as I passed her in the hall. She was never one to suffer fools.

‘Tea?’ I switched on the kettle with an irritated jerk before opening the back door for Muffin, who was gazing through the glass, her nose button-black beneath the shaggy fringe.