Mothers and Daughters (24 page)

‘Thought it was you, Alice.’ She kept her eyes firmly off the pram, ‘You’re still here? I thought you might have gone home… though of course,’ her laugh was shrill, ‘here is your home too.’

‘I’m going tomorrow, I’ve just been waiting for Evie to finish her work so I can take it with me to hand over to her editor. Safer than posting it, I hope so anyway.’

There was an awkward silence, the pram and its occupant like a huge embarrassment between them. Alice held firmly to the handle, wondering whether to make a remark about wanting to see the gardens and saying goodbye or waiting for Freya to make her excuses to leave herself. Before she could make up her mind which was the best option Freya said, ‘Well, as he’s here I suppose I’d better look at him, it’s not his fault, poor little mite.’ She leant over and peered into the pram. He was sleeping, looking pink and perfect and the image of her wayward husband.

‘I can see a little of Evie about him. How is she, is she happy?’ Freya’s face was hard now as though she’d clamped a mask over it to control her real feelings of pain and fury. Whatever must it be like to not be able to trust one’s husband, wonder how many more of his offspring would appear in the neighbourhood? How fortunate she’d been with Julian.

‘I’m so sorry, this must be so awful for you,’ Alice said, ashamed it was
her
child who had caused such mayhem.

‘It will be his last, any more and he is out, I’ve told him that. But Alice,’ Freya took her arm as if she was about to break some bad news, ‘I hope Evie is not waiting for him to turn up and love her. He won’t you know. His affairs, and often there are more than one going on at the same time, run their course and then it is over. He might break her heart if she still loves him.’

Alice thought of Laura, her heart was more fragile than Evie’s. Evie might be furious to have been taken in, annoyed with herself for being such a fool, but she’d get over it, she had Bunny, and perhaps more importantly for her pride, her exquisite drawing and the chance of a brilliant career before her, whereas Laura only had Douglas, kind and dull and probably safe but without the excitement of Nick.

After a few more moments of discussion they – or rather Freya – decided to have tea in the hotel on the square. There was room for a pram there and it was quieter than some of the smaller places in the town.

They had just ordered, and Freya, sitting back in her chair, confronted her as if she was about to interview her, asking what Evie was going to do and if she was returning to London. Alice had no idea; they hadn’t discussed it, with Evie’s mind having been more preoccupied with her deadline than the future of her and her child. She was about to explain this, thinking that as Freya was an artist too, she’d understand, when to her horror she saw Nick coming in, towing a skinny, red-headed girl behind him.

Freya was sitting in a hefty winged chair facing her and could not see her husband, and Nick had not seen either of them. Alice seethed with anger: how dare he be unfaithful to his wife and Evie too. Freya, catching her expression, frowned and turned round in her chair and at the same moment Nick saw them. Not to be outdone, the baby woke and began to cry. Alice desperately rocked the pram but his cries became louder, and then a waitress brought their order. Alice picked Bunny up and held him to her, throwing Nick a despising look.

He’d been intent on making for a quiet corner in the room and not seen them until he was almost upon them. He started, turned to leave but Freya, stopped him in his tracks, saying coldly,

‘This is your last baby, Nick. Be thankful he is healthy, you’re getting too old to have children now, old fathers can produce dud offspring, you know. Anyway, if you stray again you might lose us all. My patience with your tomcat behaviour is exhausted.’

As she spoke she did not even glance at the red-headed girl behind him who, faced with them, looked scared, creeping closer to Nick as if for protection, unsure what to do.

‘My darling, what a funny remark, I don’t understand.’ Nick laughed awkwardly, glancing at his son. Alice turned him round so he could see his face. Nick made no attempt to touch him but studied him intently a moment as if, Alice thought, he wanted to reassure himself he had fathered him.

‘I don’t think it funny at all, nor, I’m sure, does Alice,’ Freya said, picking up the espresso that sat before her and taking a large gulp. ‘Now you’re here, Nick, you can give me a lift home and come to the supermarket on the way. We need to stock up and I can do that now you’re here to help.’ She took another gulp from her coffee, reached towards him and put her hand into his pocket and took out his wallet and, extracting a £10 note, put it on the table to pay for their tea, waving away Alice’s offer to pay.

She got up from the table, and blew Alice a kiss, and firmly taking Nick’s arm led him out of the hotel, preventing him from any further contact with his son, though he showed no inclination to want any. She ignored the red-headed girl, who looked stunned, obviously not knowing that Nick was already married and throwing a horrified glace at Bunny, who now was red in the face was screaming for his bottle. The girl turned and scuttled away, no doubt relieved at her lucky escape.

Alice missed the baby, her grandson.

To her relief she didn’t feel any older, or for that matter any more staid and sensible now she had reached this milestone so much earlier than she had wanted. She kept reminding herself that she was now a granny, and after Laura and Douglas’s wedding she would also be a mother-in-law
and
a step-grandmother to two other children. ‘Glammy granny,’ as Evie called her to flatter her hoping to make the situation she disapproved of sound exciting. She didn’t feel glamorous, she felt exhausted by the last few weeks and lack of sleep while ‘Bunny’ had settled into life. So, apart from delivering Evie’s illustrations to her publisher, she stayed quietly at home for a couple of days before ringing Laura.

‘Oh, you’re back, I thought I’d come down and see you all at the weekend… see how my dress is getting on,’ she added as if to convince Alice, and perhaps herself, that the main reason she was going was to check on her dress, which was coming along wonderfully.

‘Yes, I’m back. Evie’s finished her work and has more time to devote to motherhood, while she waits to hear if she has to redo any of the drawings or produce more.’

‘That’s good.’ There was a pause and Alice braced herself for Laura to ask about Nick but she did not, she rushed on, ‘Oh, Frank said to ring him when you’re back. He said he’d take you paragliding. Is that a good idea, Mum, I mean you’re not old but… you know it’s…’

‘Not for grannies, you mean, darling. Grannies come in all shapes and sizes, these days and it won’t stop what I want to do. I didn’t expect to be a grandmother so soon, but now I am I’m still the same person I was before.’

‘You’re not really, Mum. You’ve changed since Dad went. I mean, doing all these mad things; you’d never have done them if he were still here. I don’t know why Frank suggested it…’

‘I suggested it, and I’d love to do it. You’re too like your father, darling, not wanting to do anything risky.’ She didn’t add, although you are rushing into a marriage and taking on someone else’s children when you’re still quite young yourself, which is very risky indeed.

She telephoned Frank after she put the phone down to Laura, before she lost her nerve. She wanted to see him and yet she felt wary of him, though she didn’t know why. Was she afraid she was becoming attracted to him, that her body would betray her by wanting to be in his arms, in his bed?

She’d no idea how today’s ‘dating’ worked. Petra was the only person of her age she knew well who indulged in it and it seemed to be awfully hard work, keeping fit and keeping one’s eyes open for any passing, attractive man, going on dating sites, trawling through photographs of men as you might trawl through a clothes catalogue, and perhaps not as tempting. She didn’t think she could be bothered with it all.

‘Alice, you’re back.’ Frank sounded pleased. ‘How are you… and Evie and the baby?’

The sound of his voice made her heart leap in the most annoying way. She was about to say ‘I’m exhausted’ but she did not. ‘Fine, thanks, but it’s good to be back and important for Evie to learn to cope by herself.’

‘It is. Now, do you feel like celebrating your return by going paragliding?’

She laughed, ‘Yes… when can we go?’

To her surprise he said, ‘Why not today? Being a weekday we’ll probably get a slot. I’ll make the arrangements and pick you up about 10.30, that OK? Oh, and wear boots that support your ankles, we could land on rough ground, and warmish clothes as sometimes it’s cold up there.’

‘Lovely, yes, see you then.’ She rang off and sat there a moment, his voice lingering in her ears. She must not be like Petra, ready to leap into bed with any half-decent man and some not decent at all, though why was she thinking of going to bed with Frank when he’d only offered to take her paragliding? No doubt he had a swarm of women buzzing round him and would not want to complicate his life by getting romantically involved with her. She’d never had a proper sexual relationship until she met Julian and she’d never wanted to stray, but now she was alone and still young there were times when her body felt cold and lost, but that didn’t mean that sex with Frank was on the cards, she told herself firmly.

They arrived at the club late morning. ‘I’ve booked a session almost immediately. I thought we’d fly in tandem if that’s all right.’

‘So we go up straight away then?’ She tried to ignore a lurch of panic in her stomach.

‘You’re not turning chicken on me are you, Alice?’ he laughed. ‘I’ve been here a few times while you were with Evie and they are all well trained. Would you rather go up with one of the younger men, or a woman, they have some female instructors too?’ He turned to her, his eyes sparkling with merriment.

‘Are you able to take me up?’ she asked. ‘Do you need some sort of safety qualification… Health and safety and all that?’

‘I’ve done it enough to be qualified to fly tandem, but it’s up to you if you’d feel safer with one of the instructors. I won’t mind. I’ll fly up on my own at the same time and we can drift across the sky together.’

Alice thought a moment, wondering if he’d prefer to fly alone but she trusted him, would rather be with him than some young, perhaps over zealous person who might show off with some scary manoeuvres. ‘I’d rather fly with you if that’s all right,’ she said, warmed by his sudden smile.

‘Of course, it’s all right,’ he said. He turned into a parking space and turned off the engine. ‘Trust me, you’ll love it,’ he said before getting out to open the door for her.

They were warmly welcomed, and as if the instructors guessed her fear they started at once to fix her and Frank up with the two-seater kite; Frank was to sit behind her and control the kite, all she had to do, she was assured, was sit back and enjoy it.

She, Frank and a couple of cheerful instructors, Ben and Cherry, went down to the take-off point. Today, the wind being where it was, they were going to jump off a hill. Better not to think too much about it, Alice thought, while she tried to concentrate on Cherry telling her how to stand, take off and land.

She felt afraid yet excited too; she’d wanted to do this for so long, ever since she’d seen it in Switzerland while staying at a skiing resort, the colourful kites drifting above the mountains in the clear, blue sky.

‘Ready?’ Frank said in her ear and she nodded, fear suddenly taking hold of her, but they were running, running over the drop. Panic clutched at her but then they were up floating in the sky and it was so vast, so beautiful and silent, that for a moment she could not speak, she was so intoxicated by the wonder of it all. Frank searched for thermals in the air and they were soaring up, floating above the landscape. He was close behind her, just the two of them alone in such beauty.

‘OK?’ Frank said behind her.

‘Awesome, absolutely awesome.’

He pointed out a few landmarks and there was the sea, brilliant blue, eating away the land and then a forest, a mass of green heads clustered together, tiny houses tucked into the countryside, glistening ribbons of rivers chasing to the sea; she was spellbound.

She didn’t know how long they were up there, time stopped, she’d never be able to explain this exhilaration, floating in the silence of the sky, but Frank understood and she would treasure sharing this intimate time with him.

Eventually, they landed in a field, surprising the sheep grazing there who regarded them balefully while munching the grass.

Alice took off her helmet, shaking her hair free. She was hit with a keen sense of loss: up there they were different people, fused together by the kite, now here on land, standing together, she felt shy of him, even though he’d been on the edge of her life for so long, she felt she knew so little about him. She’d just experienced the most wonderful sensation, an experience so difficult to describe, showing how insignificant they were against the mighty expanse of the universe. Now back on the ground again she felt insecure, adrift.

Frank rang the club on his mobile, stating where they were so they could be picked up.

‘They’ll be here in about twenty minutes,’ he said to her. ‘We might as well sit on that tree trunk and wait until they come.’

He seemed withdrawn into himself; perhaps he too was overcome by the majesty of the sky. When they were sitting rather awkwardly side by side on the tree trunk, felled by some storm and left to lie there, she had a sudden vision of the young man whom she’d mistaken for Julian coming out of his block of flats. To fill the silence she said, ‘The oddest thing happened when you were away, I went past your flat to post Margot’s invitation for her party and I saw a young man the image of Julian. Well an image of Julian when he was younger…’ She stopped, Frank’s face was ashen, he choked, tried to smile.

‘It obviously wasn’t Julian, but he did look so like him,’ she went on with an attempt of a laugh, wishing she hadn’t said it now, he’d think her mad, having delusions.

Frank stayed silent, his eyes fixed on the ground by his feet. Perhaps mentioning Julian suddenly like this had upset him. She struggled to think of something to say to make things easy between them, but before she could, he said quietly, still gazing at the ground.