Brother and Sister (23 page)

"He hardly knew her," Nathalie said, turning her head away to look down the length of the garden. "I mean, what does that
say? What kind of man goes to bed with someone he hardly knows?"

Lynne took a breath. She pushed a tumbler towards Nathalie.

She said, in a voice whose firmness quite surprised her, "In Steve's case, a bewildered and unhappy man."

Nathalie's head whipped round.

"What do you mean?"

"He couldn't get through to you. None of us could. You were going on this mission, and whatever effect it had on anyone round
you, you weren't going to stop."

Nathalie stared at her mother.

"Are you saying that Steve screwing around was
my
fault?"

Lynne picked up her drink.

"There's no need to use that disgusting language to me."

"Oh, for God's sake—"

"But if you want my view, dear, you didn't exactly drive him to it, of course you didn't, but you gave him a very strong impression
that you didn't want him, that you didn't need him. You'd got David and you'd got this mission, and you didn't need anyone
else."

"So in your opinion, that excuses screwing around?"

Lynne put her glass down. She turned and looked full at Nathalie.

"As he appears to have slept with the girl once, and feels terrible about it, I would say yes."

"And what would you know about such things?"

"Enough," Lynne said crossly, "to try and get you off your silly high horse."

Nathalie took a breath. "Stop it—"

"I'm not afraid of you, dear," Lynne said. "I have been, in the past, but I'm not now. You've had terrible things happen to
you but you've had wonderful things happen too. I haven't helped in the past, either, I know, because I was so insecure about
a lot of things, but
all
this, the last few months, has made me feel a bit better about life in general. I know I can't lose you now, however angry
you are with me, and if I can't lose you even if you won't speak to me, I can get on with loving you without worrying."

Nathalie stared at her.

"Of course," Lynne said, "I'd like to punish Steve for what he's done. Just like I'd like David not to have married a Canadian,
so he hasn't got this option. But even more, I'd like to see you really take stock of what you've got, and make something
of it."

Nathalie was still staring.

Hardly moving her lips, she said, "Like what?"

Lynne shifted. She smoothed the front of her overshirt, aligning the buttons.

"Well," she said, "you could start by seeing that what Steve did was wrong but part of what you did was wrong too. You don't
betray people just by sleeping with someone else, you can betray them by taking someone else, not them, into really important
confidence."

Nathalie dropped her glance.

"I think," she said, "I've had enough of this."

"I expect you have."

Nathalie shifted on the bench.

"I think I'll go now—"

"All right, dear."

"I think I'll go before you tell me that if I'd married Steve in the first place, none of this would have happened."

Lynne glanced at her.

"It hadn't crossed my mind."

"No," Nathalie said, "too many other little homilies crossing it already." She stood up. "Nothing's as simple as you make
it look."

"No?"

"No!"

"It only has to be a drama," Lynne said, "if you want it to be."

Nathalie flung her head back. "
Look
who's talking!"

"Maybe," Lynne said, "but we can all learn."

"Platitudes," Nathalie said, "cliches. All you ever do—"

"Then why did you come round? If I'm so unsatisfactory to talk to in every way, why did you come to see me?"

There was a pause. Nathalie clenched her fists, then unclenched them, and said, in a low fierce whisper, "Because you're my
mother.
"

Lynne stood up slowly, too. She put her hands together, and held them, to prevent herself from putting her arms round Nathalie.

"What about your real mother, then? What about Cora?"

Nathalie looked away.

"I don't know—"

"Are you going to just drop her now? Are you going to let all that effort and pain and discovery go to waste? Are you going
to tell her that now you've got what you wanted, you've no more use for her?"

"Mum—"

"Well," Lynne said, "I can't do any more about you and Steve. I've said all I'm going to say, and it's up to you two. But
I'm not going to let that poor woman languish up there in Northsea, thinking nobody cares."

"Mum—"

"Think what she's been through. All these years.
Think.
"

"I do think," Nathalie said, "I do. But I don't know what to do."

"Well, I'll do it," Lynne said. She unclasped her hands, and folded her arms instead. "I'm going to telephone her."

On the coffee table close to the wing chair in the sitting room, Connor had left a brochure for Elegant Resorts. He had left
it there especially, pointing it out several times, and telling Carole that she was entirely free to choose, that whether
this special holiday he was planning—he hadn't actually uttered the words "second honeymoon" but he intended them as plainly
as if they had been stenciled on his forehead—took place in Mauritius or Thailand or the Maldives was a matter of absolute
indifference to him. The point was, he said, holding Carole's gaze with his deliberately significant one, that she should
be taken somewhere entirely to her liking, somewhere that could, in a blur of white sand and blue sea, gently, completely
and finally erase the deeply disturbing few months and land them back on the serene shore of all their familiar former securities.

Carole had opened the brochure a few times. She had looked at pictures of vast white beaches and vast white beds and supine
people being restoratively massaged in bowers of frangipani. She had remembered previous holidays of this nature with Connor,
holidays of extraordinary, immediate routine in a cocoon of improbable comfort, almost stifling in their regularity and impeccable,
unbearable service. She remembered coming out of the sea once, the warm, clear, aquamarine tropical sea, to find yet another
respectful immaculate boy waiting, crisp in the hotel's livery, holding both a towel for her and a glass of iced water on
a tray, complete with an orchid, thinking to herself, This is completely, utterly
idiotic.

So in her view was the purpose of the brochure. It was idiotic to suppose that anything could be changed, or retrieved, by
going somewhere else, by living in a bubble of la-la land for two weeks. It was idiotic to suppose that she was the same person,
that their marriage was the same institution, that Connor could, just by shelling out thousands of pounds, reinstate himself
in the place he presumed he had been all these years, the place he had chosen to see as both acceptable and unassailable to
her. And it was the most idiotic of all for her just to go along with it all, just to get carried off on a plane and be dumped
like a helpless parcel for a whole lot of indifferent people, directed by Connor, to unpack.

She picked up the brochure and looked at it. Then, still carrying it, she went across the hall of the flat to Martin's closed
bedroom door. She knew he was behind it. Because it was Saturday afternoon, he had refused to play tennis with his father,
and had announced loudly, in the injured tone he adopted habitually now, that as he couldn't afford to go out day
and
night on weekends he preferred to economize during the day and just stay at home.

Carole knocked.

There was a pause and then Martin said, "Come in."

He was lying on his unmade bed, trainers on the duvet, reading a copy of
GQ.
Carole held out the brochure.

"Did you see this?"

Martin snorted. His eyes didn't leave his own magazine.

"All right for some."

Carole sat down on the edge of the second bed, pushing aside a heap of Martin's clothes to make room.

"I don't want to go."

Martin's body tensed.

He said with elaborate indifference, "Oh?"

"No."

"You always used to like it—"

"No, I didn't. I went along but I didn't like it."

"Lucky old Dad then."

"He liked it. He wanted to go. He booked those holidays. He wants to book this one."

Martin looked sideways at her.

"Why're you telling me?"

Carole dropped the brochure on a pile of sweaters.

"I want you to help me tell Dad."

"
What?
"

"I want you to help me tell Dad that I don't want to go on this holiday. I want you to help me tell him that this won't make
any difference, that we can't pretend what happened didn't happen, and just go back to where we were. Or where we
thought
we were."

Martin put the magazine down and eased himself into a sitting position.

He said sourly, "I don't need you sucking up to me."

"If that's how you choose to see it—"

"I do. You'd have gone on seeing David if I hadn't made sure you didn't. I
know
you would and don't try and tell me otherwise. And don't try and get round me now."

Carole looked down at the floor.

"I know I can't see him."

"What?"

"I know I can't see David. I don't know if I wanted to see him for him or because he's so like his father to look at. If it's
any consolation, he didn't feel like my son, he didn't feel like my child. He just felt like someone I'd been missing, someone
I can't have, so it's better not to pretend I can. I'm grateful to you for putting a stop to it, I'm grateful."

There was a small silence, and then Martin said grudgingly, "You're a mess, Mum."

"Probably."

He made a gesture towards the floor.

"This holiday—"

"I can't."

"What'll you tell Dad?"

"That it will be a terrible waste of money, that it won't change anything, that it can't put the clock back."

Martin said unexpectedly, "He won't get you."

Carole looked up.

"No. And there's something else."

Martin's knees came up, almost involuntarily, and he held them hard against his chest.

"You're not bloody leaving—"

"No."

"But you've thought about it—"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

She looked away.

"Because of you."

"Don't give me that!"

"True," she said. "I may be a lousy mother but I am capable of attempts at redemption."

Martin let his knees go.

"Don't expect
me
to be bloody grateful—"

"I don't. I'm doing it as much for me as for you."

"So it's a line to give Dad—"

Carole stood up and walked to the window.

"I shan't even mention this aspect to Dad."

"Well then," Martin said, "why would he buy all your reasons for not wanting the holiday then?"

Carole swung the blind cord.

"Because I want the money."

"You have such a
nerve.
"

"I want the money he would spend on this holiday," Carole said, "to add to some of my own to set up another business."

Martin snorted.

"He'll never agree. Set up a business without him? In your dreams."

Carole took the wooden acorn at the end of the blind cord in her hand, and inspected it.

"It would be without him, certainly. But I think he'd agree if I told him it was with you."

"Enough," Martin said.

Carole turned.

"I mean it."

"You think I'm useless," Martin said. "You think I couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery."

"But I could."

Martin shouted, "Don't patronize me!"

"Your IT skills are better than mine. You can do accounts even if you couldn't do a business plan. I can do business plans."

Martin rolled over.

"Go away."

Carole let the acorn go.

"I can't make it up to you in all the ways you want me to make it up to you if you won't even let me try."

Martin said nothing.

"We'll fight," Carole said, "we'll get on each other's nerves. We may lose every penny."

"We fight anyway—"

"Only," Carole said, "because you insist we do."

"You
lied
to me!"

"I lied to everyone."

Martin rolled back.

"So what'll convince me you won't do it again?"

Carole shrugged.

"There's nothing personal to lie about anymore. You know everything. And if it isn't personal, it can't hurt you. Also, I
think I can say I've never told a business lie in my life."

"Crap."

"Well, a
personal
business lie then."

Martin got slowly off the bed and stood up. He bent and picked up the holiday brochure from the floor.

He rifled through it then said, with his back half turned to her, "When's Dad back?"

CHAPTER TWENTY

P
olly, Steve thought, had rather liked being in hospital. The ingenious operation had left no outward evidence and amazingly
little discomfort.

"Ow," Polly said loudly when anyone came within inches of her head. "Ow, ow,
ow.
"

"Point to the place where it hurts you," the surgeon said, sitting on Polly's bed.

"Here," Polly said, pointing. "And here and here and here."

The surgeon laid his hand on her knee.

"And here?"

She glared at him.

"Sometimes."

He smiled.

"You'll probably have to wear earmuffs because everything will sound so loud."

"It won't," Polly said, "it will be exactly the same."

He gave her knee a pat, and stood up.

"You do it your way, Polly." He glanced across at Steve and Nathalie. "It's healing nicely."

"Ow," Polly said.

Evie had come in with new pajamas, and Lynne had sent flowers and Marnie had made chocolate brownies the size of dice. Everyone
had come to see Polly, trooping into the hospital in that half-fearful, half-respectful mood that hospitals induce, bearing
grapes and jelly beans and plastic puzzles. In the bed next to Polly a sad, slablike boy who never removed his baseball cap
lay and watched her visitors and tributes with open resentment.

"What's his name?" Nathalie asked Polly.

Polly glanced at him. She was wearing sunglasses that Ellen had brought her with frames like pink glitter daisies.

"He's just a boy."

"He must have a
name
—"

"No," Polly said, "some of them don't."

Nathalie went over to the boy's bed.

"Would you like a brownie?"

He stared at her for a moment, and then he raised one hand and slowly tipped the peak of his cap down until it obscured his
face.

"Another time," Nathalie said.

She came back to Polly's bedside and the blue plastic hospital chair. She didn't look across at Steve but then she hadn't
looked at him much. In fact, she hadn't, he thought, looked at anyone, not her parents or his parents, or David and Marnie
and the children when they came. He'd wanted her to look at David and Marnie particularly so that he could see if she thought
that they were changed somehow, that a sheen of confidence had gone off them, that, standing there by Polly's bed with Mamie's
arm through David's, they had looked, for the first time Steve could remember, vulnerable, almost doubtful.

Marnie had done something to her hair, too. There seemed to be less of it somehow, and instead of being in a plait, it was
loose behind her shoulders, in a strange rippled curtain, making her face look younger but also less certain, as if some sort
of control had slipped from her, and she hadn't yet found a replacement for it. And the way she held David's arm was uncharacteristic
too, more dependent than anything Steve had seen in her before, and David had her arm pressed against his side, and when they
looked down at Polly, they were looking with great intensity, as if they were trying to memorize every detail about her.

"We're going to Canada," Daniel said to Polly, sprawling on the foot of her bed. She didn't look up.

She said, "You always go."

"No, to live, stupid. Go to school and everything. And skiing."

Polly said nothing. Ellen had held out the sunglasses in their pink plastic envelope.

"I expect you'll come. To stay with us."

"Yes," Nathalie said.

Polly took the sunglasses.

"I'll come," she said, "when I'm not too busy."

"Polly!"

"In the holidays," Ellen said. "In the summer."

"It nearly is the summer—"

"Well," Ellen said, "when you're free."

Polly put the sunglasses on.

Nathalie said, too quickly, "Polly's got someone to meet here, first, someone important. She's coming a long way to meet Polly."

Steve put his hand on Nathalie's arm. She shook it off.

"She's called Cora," Nathalie said.

Daniel glanced up.

"Who's she?"

"She's—another granny. Another granny for Polly."

Polly sighed. She removed her sunglasses.

She said loudly, "I've got enough of them already."

David began to laugh. He took his arm away from Mamie's and put his hands over his face, laughing and laughing.

"Oh Polly—"

She regarded him. Steve bent and kissed the top of Polly's head.

"Thanks, Poll."

"Ow," Polly said.

He glanced at Nathalie. Her face was expressionless.

"Come on, Nat—"

David took his hands away from his face.

He said, in the tone he used to reprove his children, "Lighten up, Nathalie."

Marnie gave a tiny gasp.

"It's OK," Nathalie said tightly. "It's OK." She shot David a lightning look. "It's just that there's a lot to get used to
all at once, don't you think?"

Marnie nodded.

"You just wonder what'll work out and what won't—" Ellen's head came up sharply.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Marnie said, swallowing, "that Canada's a big adventure, but it's very different. It'll be very different for me,
too."

"Sh," David said.

"I'll miss you," Marnie said, dropping suddenly to her knees beside Polly's bed. "I'll
miss
you, Polly."

Polly looked embarrassed. Marnie looked up at Steve and Nathalie.

She said, "I'll miss you, too. I'll miss all of you, I will, I really will, I didn't realize—" She bent her face into the
blue cotton of Polly's bed cover and said thickly into it, "I thought I wanted to do this, I thought I wanted—"

David bent and put his hands under her arms to lift her.

"Come on, Marnie, come on—"

Marnie was crying now.

"I mean it, I mean it, I didn't mean to drive you all apart, I didn't—"

Nathalie leaned across Polly's bed and put a hand on Mamie's arm.

"It's all over. Promise. All that, over—"

"But it's
changed
things!"

"It was bound to," David said. "Change had to happen." He got Marnie clumsily to her feet.

"We were all part of it," Nathalie said. "We
all
were."

"What?" Ellen said.

There was a silence.

Ellen said sharply, "This adoption business?"

"Well," Daniel said, reaching for another of Polly's grapes, "
I'm
going to Canada."

David held Marnie upright.

"We're coming with you, mate."

Marnie put a hand out towards Polly.

"Promise you'll come soon. Promise."

Polly said loftily, "When my ear is completely better."

"Of course."

"Which may be
ages.
"

Marnie bent and kissed Polly's head lightly.

"Bring them all—"

Polly nodded. Steve glanced at Nathalie. Nathalie was looking at David and David had his gaze fixed above all their heads,
at the hospital's cream-painted wall.

"Bring some stuff for the blackfly," Ellen said to Polly. "They are
vicious.
"

Now, a week later, Polly was back at home and behaving badly and Nathalie had permitted Steve back into their bedroom but
was wearing pajamas. He felt himself to be on remand, electronically tagged as to his whereabouts, required to show remorse
and the capacity to reform but, at the same time, to be capable of demonstrating a desirable, powerful maleness which Nathalie,
in her present state, could not do without. It was because of this latter quality, this need to be strong and sheltering,
that Steve had not told Nathalie about the business. He had told her that Titus was quitting—in fact, she had asked in one
of her first outbursts after the revelation of his affair with Sasha how Titus could stand to work with him for another minute—but
he had not revealed that Justine and Meera were going too, that Justine had, in fact, already gone, leaving her desk in a
state that would have looked like a childish revenge if Steve had felt less unhappily responsible for her state of mind. He
had not said a word about Meera because it was, in a way, the departure he felt most keenly about, the one that most pointedly
showed up his own weakness, his own inability to put the professional before the personal, his own folly and destructive risk-taking.
To fail in Meera's eyes was something he could not, in his own mind, even tiptoe towards without wincing. And when she offered
to stay, while he found a replacement, as long as that period didn't exceed a month, and he accepted with pitiful alacrity,
he knew he'd sunk in her estimation about as low as he could go.

"One month, then," she said. "From this Friday. No overtime."

He glanced up at the clock on the wall above her desk. It said ten to six. She had left precisely at five-thirty, leaving
no sign behind her that the evening's departure was any different from any other evening's. Her desk was immaculate, her bin
empty, and a faint breath of Issey hung in the air like the ghost of a reproof. Steve sat down in her chair and looked up
at the ceiling beams. They did not appear to him a source of comfort tonight, but merely old, interesting pieces of ex-tree
which had seen every kind of human stupidity and were perfectly indifferent to his. He thought, staring upwards, that someone
else might have to work under them soon, that he might have to sell everything he had worked for because he had let so much
slide, because he had made a mess of things, because he had done exactly what his angry, disappointed father had said he would
do if he turned down the Royal Oak in favor of art college.

Somebody knocked on the door to the staircase. Steve sat up, alert.

"Come—"

The door opened slowly.

"I saw the light was on," Titus said. "I wondered if you were working—"

"Have you ever knocked on a door in your life?"

"Not since school—"

"No."

"I wasn't sure," Titus said, "what you'd be doing. If you see what I mean."

Steve put his hands behind his head.

"I am contemplating the future."

"Oh."

"I don't like the look of it."

Titus came further into the room and stood a foot away from Meera's desk.

"None of it?"

Steve eyed him.

"Why do you ask?"

Titus looked away. He cleared his throat.

He said awkwardly, "I—I'm sorry about Nathalie."

"What?"

"I'm sorry," Titus said, "that I insisted you tell Nathalie."

"You were angry—"

"I was. Steaming. I wanted to bloody kill you. But I didn't want to kill Nathalie, I didn't want to hurt her at all."

"Titus," Steve said, "why are you here?"

Titus gestured. He was wearing a denim jacket and half the collar had got tucked in.

"I—um—wanted to see if she was OK. With Polly in hospital and all that."

"Nathalie?"

"Yes."

"Do you mean, has she forgiven me?"

"Yes."

"I don't know," Steve said.

Titus put his hands in his pockets.

"Are you talking—"

"Sort of."

"And her brother's going to Canada, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"So she feels a bit, well, abandoned—"

"Yes," Steve said. He unlocked his hands and leaned forward. He said, "It wasn't you. I had to tell her anyway."

"I don't know," Titus said. "I don't know about all this soul-bearing. I wasn't brought up to it. I shouldn't think my parents
have ever talked about love in their lives."

"And have they been faithful to each other?"

Titus shrugged.

"Haven't the faintest. Don't want to think about it."

"Well, Nathalie is the kind of person who does. And so am I."

Titus gave him a quick glance.

"So there's a long way to go."

"Yes."

Titus took his hands out of his pockets and gestured towards the rest of the room.

"What about this?"

Steve stood up slowly.

He said, "Maybe it will have to go." He took a breath, thinking of Meera, and then he said, "I've neglected it."

Titus took a few steps away and then said, his back to Steve, "I could stay."

"You what?"

"I could stay. If you like."

"Well—"

"You're a nightmare to work for," Titus said, "but I like what you do."

"Thanks."

"And to be honest, I'm not in a mood to start looking, I'm not in a mood to go to London and chance my arm."

"Titus," Steve said, "it mightn't work. It might have gone too far to rescue."

"We could start again. We could be bloody associates."

"I don't know. I can't promise you anything. I can't even plan anything until I get down to a cold-towel session—"

Titus turned round.

"Are you turning me down?"

"I think so."

"What kind of stupid death wish is this?"

"Maybe," Steve said slowly, "I have to do something with Nathalie now. Maybe, if she'll agree, we'll have to rethink everything,
including how the money's earned."

"Don't you think," Titus said angrily, "that you
owe
me something?"

"An apology, yes. But not a job."

"
Jesus,
" Titus said.

Steve moved forward. He put a hand on Titus's arm.

He said, "I couldn't handle you now. I'd like to, but I couldn't."

Titus glanced at him.

"At least that's honest."

Steve said nothing. Titus moved his arm and stepped away towards the door.

"So it's the open road for me."

"Yes."

"Will you write me a reference with bells on?"

"Of course."

Titus paused in the doorway. He gave a quick look at the photographs hanging on the wall beside Steve's desk.

He said, "You're a lucky sod. You always were," and then he went out onto the staircase and slammed the door behind him.

Steve walked down the length of the studio, and looked down into the street. He saw Titus pause on the pavement below him
and collect himself for a moment, squaring his shoulders, lifting his chin. And then he saw him walk purposefully out across
the road, deliberately not looking, deliberately making a car swerve to avoid him. And then he crossed the far pavement and
vanished into an alley that led to the center of town.