Mothers and Daughters (13 page)

Julian enjoyed taking photographs and had made up yearly albums. She took a couple of relevant albums out of the cupboard; these were taken before most people stored their photographs on a computer and she preferred them this old way, in a book, browsing happily through them.

She hadn’t seen the pictures for years. After Julian’s death they’d been too painful to look at, but now the three of them, her in the middle and a daughter each side, sat close together on the sofa looking through the book.

‘But you’re so young, and look at your figure, Mum, in that bikini, so thin,’ Evie exclaimed. ‘And Dad, so fab looking,’ she added wistfully.

Alice made herself look at them. There was a bright-faced Margot in skimpy shorts showing off her long legs, and Petra with Hugh, whom she’d married and later divorced, and Julian, the most attractive, gorgeous man in the group, his arm round her, and how happy she looked, dazzling because she was in love for the first, the only time in her life and, she remembered, with a stab of loss, they had just started sleeping together.

‘Is that Frank?’ Laura asked, pointing to a dark-haired young man who was laughing at something Petra had said, or anyway looking her way.

‘Yes.’ Alice studied him; he was in some of the other photographs too. He was tanned, his face expressive with full lips creased in a smile, his thick dark hair, worn slightly long, his large eyes dark too, ‘like liquid chocolate’ someone had teased him and he’d retaliated saying one of his ancestors was Italian, possibly a pirate, he’d added mischievously.

She remembered him now, as he was then, a man of adventure, completely the opposite of Julian who was more cautious, but then Julian was older.

What was Frank like now? They’d soon find out, he’d be here in a matter of days and she hoped she’d be able to prise him away from her girl friends long enough to discuss the wedding arrangements with him, although they were still almost three months away from it, and Douglas and Laura seemed to have it under control.

Alice left the plan of meeting up with Frank to Laura; they were now texting or emailing each other frequently. She wasn’t going to ask what they discussed; if he wanted to talk to Alice he easily could and she felt a little miffed that he had not.

All she knew was that Frank would be taking the three of them out to dinner on Saturday night. She did not sleep well the night before the outing; somehow Frank coming and making concrete arrangements for the wedding confirmed that it was going ahead, that he was taking Julian’s place because he was not here, would never be here again.

Her life had been devastated by Julian’s death and in the matter of a few months it would be changed again by one daughter becoming a mother and the other a married woman and stepmother, and her a granny, not, as Evie teased her, so much a glammy one as a reluctant one.

She spent much of Saturday outside pruning her shrubs. There seemed to have been a growth spurt in the small garden and the plants were struggling for space with each other. Evie asked to be left undisturbed while she worked in Julian’s study on her illustrations and Laura sorted through her clothes, discarding the ones she no longer wanted to wear.

When life got complicated Alice liked to prune the plants. It soothed her mind, cutting off branches, perhaps cutting off problems. The escallonia had got too big again and she began to cut it back, climbing up into the thick branches, stretching to pull them down with their shiny green leaves and few remaining white flowers. She lost track of time, enjoying the task, the smell of the sap and the leaves, the easy way her secateurs cut through the wood and a better shape to the shrub began to emerge.

‘Mum there you are, I thought you’d gone out, or were sleeping,’ Laura called her from the kitchen step. ‘What are you doing massacring that tree? You look such a mess and Frank is here. He rang and I told him to come straight over.’

‘Frank?’ Oh, no, not already, it couldn’t be dinnertime yet. She tried to see him through the branches, feeling hot and bothered, her hair was all over the place and scattered with leaves, and her face was surely dirty. She felt as ungainly as an elephant as she began her descent. He was supposed to be coming over this evening when she’d showered and brushed up and put on something pretty.

‘Alice.’ His voice was deep and warm. He came out into the garden. ‘Just like you to be up a tree.’ She heard the laughter in his voice, and it echoed with something far away in her distant memory. He came over and stood under the shrub.

‘I didn’t expect you so soon,’ Alice said lamely, struggling to get down. She bent, scrabbling at the trunk, trying to find a place to put her foot.

‘Let me help you.’ She felt his hand on her back, guiding her down, she slipped and fell the last bit but he caught her and for a second she lay against him and the feel of him and his masculine scent reminded her so painfully of Julian she almost wept. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be in a man’s arms and reluctantly, and rather embarrassed, she moved away from him.

‘Frank, how good to see you. Sorry I’m such a mess, I had a sudden urge to tame this tree.’ There was a slight look of defiance on her face, knowing how hideous and grubby she must look.

‘I’d say you’ve overdone it, one side’s thicker than the other,’ he smiled at her, his eyes appraising her. He was older now, of course, his dark hair feathered with grey, his face lined, but somehow that gave it a nobility; he’d certainly give George Clooney a run for his money.

‘You have made a mess of it, Mum,’ Laura scolded her. ‘Well, Frank it’s good you’re here, she’s been test-driving sports car and told my stepson she’s going to go paragliding and he won’t stop talking about it, wanting to go with her. Now you’re here I hope you’ll be a calming influence.’

‘I doubt it,’ Frank said and the look he gave Alice made her heart flip, or more likely it was just protesting at her climbing trees.

Alice pulled herself together, ‘Let’s have a drink out here, what would you like Frank, it’s lovely and sunny so we can sit outside and catch up on everything. Laura will see to it while I go and spruce myself up. I’m longing to hear what you’ve been up to all these years.’

‘You look fine as you are,’ Frank said. ‘Let’s drink the champagne I’ve brought with me to celebrate us being together again. I’ve been cooped up travelling most of the day and I’d like to sit outside.’

Alice and Frank sat on a bench in the corner of the garden; Evie sat on a chair and Laura on a cushion on the ground. It was Laura who asked the question Alice longed to know but wondered how to put.

‘Are you married, Frank, and have children?

‘Yes to both questions,’ Frank said and Alice was engulfed in a wave of loneliness. She was getting used to it now, the feeling hit sometimes when she was with couples, reminding her she was now on her own.

Laura blossomed as she talked to Frank, her face glowing, her eyes shining, her hands swooping like graceful birds while she spun him stories of her life. Alice had not seen her so animated since her father’s death. It was as if she’d been starved of the attention only a father could give her and she needed to offload all her achievements and fears, craving his approval and support. Did she shine like this when she was alone with Douglas? She had a feeling she did not. Frank seemed to bring light and life to them, while Douglas, kind though he seemed, held his emotions in check as if they were wrapped tightly in cling film, and he was afraid to unleash them.

Now and again Alice wondered if she should butt in and tactfully curb Laura’s deluge. She kept expecting Evie, who hated to be in her sister’s shadow, to interrupt, but she did not; she looked tired, drained of her usual bright energy, though she watched Frank with fascination.

Alice caught Frank’s eye and, as if he read her intention to curb Laura’s verbal outpouring, he responded with a tiny shake of his head, so she sat beside him, still and quiet, studying him surreptitiously.

He was toned as if he played a lot of sport, his skin lightly tanned. He wore well-cut grey trousers and a mid-blue shirt open at the neck, and a navy jacket, surely Italian chic. He sat slightly sideways on the bench, one arm was elegantly draped over the back of it, the other held a glass of the champagne he had brought – ready chilled – to toast their meeting after so long. On his ring finger glinted a wedding ring. Where, and indeed who was his wife?

‘So,’ Laura finished at last, ‘I’m marrying Douglas but I find his family, or anyway his mother, Elspeth, such a pain. How can I cope with that?’

‘In-laws can be a curse to a happy marriage.’ Frank turned to Alice, ‘Remember Sybil?’

Alice grimaced, ‘I’ll never forget her.’ Julian’s mother was highly organized, too organized. She remembered Cecily’s description of how it annoyed her and how she’d crept downstairs at night to mess up her immaculately kept doll’s house. Sybil was always bossing Alice to do far more than stay at home, ‘playing’, as she termed it, with her interior decorating business, and looking after her family. She had died soon after Evie was born so neither girl had known her.

‘His mother was a frustrated director of a huge company if ever I saw one,’ Frank said. ‘She could have run anything, the treasury or even the country. She was on every sort of committee, studied another language while she cooked the supper, and ran her family like a boot camp.’ He laughed, turning to Alice, his eyes tender. ‘One of the things that fascinated Julian about you was your untidiness. He found it a breath of fresh air after Sybil.’

‘Mum, you’re always on at us to tidy up,’ Evie complained.

Alice ignored Evie’s comment mortified by Frank’s remark about Julian being drawn to her by her untidiness. ‘Oh, Frank. Did it really? That’s hardly very romantic,’ Alice said. Early on in the marriage she remembered Julian asking her quietly if a pile of clean laundry perching on the back of a chair waiting to be put away was to be a permanent fixture of the living room as it had been there some time. Her own mother had always been too busy doing other more amusing things to worry about keeping the house in pristine order.

‘But why didn’t she get a high-powered job if she was so good at running things?’ Laura asked.

Frank shrugged, ‘I think she tried, but it was harder in those days for women to get decent jobs in the more male-orientated companies, and she was quite difficult, being much cleverer than most of the men and she showed it too. A story went round that she was in the office of some chairman of a huge company and she ridiculed the firm’s figures, pointed out mistakes and told him in no uncertain terms how he could improve the efficiency of the company.’

‘Sounds just like her,’ Alice said. ‘And she was probably right too.’

‘Poor Julian,’ Frank looked thoughtful. ‘I wish I’d seen him more often these last years. We kept in touch though; through emails and phone calls, and then he got so ill and died quite suddenly it seemed. I… well, I was going through a bit of a tough time myself and I was working in India and I couldn’t get back for the funeral and I’m really sorry about that, Alice.’ He faced her, his eyes touched with pain. He put his hand on her shoulder a moment. ‘He was always afraid he’d die young like his father did, though he had regular check-ups, didn’t he?’

Alice nodded; lowering her head so he wouldn’t see the sudden rush of tears, but he guessed, for she felt his hand again, firm on her shoulder. There was a cold, empty space between them where Julian should have been, sitting there with a glass of champagne in his hand while he and Frank mercilessly teased each other.

‘I’m so glad we found you, Frank,’ Laura broke in. ‘I wish Dad were here but you are the next best thing.’

Frank flushed, his eyes suspiciously bright at her praise, but Laura didn’t seem to notice. ‘You’ll save me from having my other godfather giving me away, half-drunk and making pathetic, sexist remarks. So nothing like that from you, I hope, Frank. Promise no jokes about seeing me naked in the bath as a baby, or boyfriends I might have had. Nothing like that, promise?’

‘I promise. I don’t know any stories about you like that anyway.’ He smiled mischievously at Alice. ‘I know quite a few about your mother.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Alice protested, racking her brains as to anything she might have done in her youth that would shock her daughters.

‘I bet you’ve got a whole lot of secrets none of us know about, Mum,’ Laura said guardedly throwing a nervous look at Frank as if afraid he was going to reveal them.

Frank’s eyes were warm, like a shaft of sun on Alice’s face. ‘No, nothing really, just endearing. You were so young, much younger than Julian, and indeed me, but you had such a zest for life, a capacity for enjoyment, it’s that I remember most about you.’ His gaze rested on her and she remembered the good times they’d had, the sort of carefreeness when nothing went wrong and life held such promise.

All the time she’d known Frank she’d been in love with Julian and it had splashed her life with glorious colour, which had never really faded until Julian had died. How sad, she thought watching Laura that her marriage to Douglas did not seem to hold the same magic.

But good though her marriage was she wondered now why Frank, Julian’s great friend and Laura’s godfather hadn’t come to the house to see them on his visits to London, to see the children or the three of them go out to dinner together? Why Julian had said so little about him. She hadn’t even known that Frank had a flat here She was about to ask him when Laura said, ‘I don’t see why we have to have wedding speeches at all. They’re always cringingly embarrassing.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Frank laughed. ‘I’ll keep it short. I better show you the draft first for your approval.’

‘Just don’t go on and on about me, will you?’

‘Unfortunately I haven’t been able to see you for much of your life, though your father always gave me news about you… about you both, he was very proud of you.’ Frank smiled at Evie, who blushed and squirmed in her chair. Alice felt a pang of sympathy for her, guessing that she knew her father would not be proud of the predicament she’d got herself into now.

A little while later, Evie got up, saying she must finish some work before they went out to dinner, and she went inside. No one had mentioned her pregnancy, but when she had gone, Frank said, ‘So this baby, when’s it due?’