Mothers & Daughters (12 page)

‘Timber,' said David, following my gaze.

All my mind could see for a few seconds was a sequence where it was Matty beneath the pole. If Matty had been in the garden then, if he'd been playing in the reeds just there . . . I stood and stared at the spot.

‘Are you all right, Carol? I don't think there's too much damage. Shall we go and see?'

I took myself over to the door and opened it. The air was fresh and clean on my face, but the vision lingered.

‘Do you want a hand?' asked David.

‘No. I'll just go and right that planter. Won't be a mo.'

As soon as I was outside, my hair whipped around my face and my blouse flapped against my sides. The leaves of Laverne's aspen shimmered above the fence like fish scales. I picked my way across the long lawn and walked round the path to where the damage was. When I got close I could see the planter had cracked at the rim, creating a lip through which dark compost trickled, but was otherwise intact. No stems were broken, no flowers had come off. So I bent down and pulled the pot upright, patted the lobelias in securely, then set it back on its bricks. Then I knelt to sweep up the crumbs of earth. The water in front of me was cloudy with a film of particles across the surface, but that would soon break up.

I stood again and looked back at the house. Through the patio doors I could see Jaz and Ian; I didn't mean to spy, but I couldn't help myself. Jaz I made out fairly easily. She'd changed seats, and was now opposite the fireplace. I couldn't see Ian at all. Suddenly he moved and I realised he was crouched at Jaz's feet, like a man about to propose. They were too far away for me to make out any detail.

My chest went tight with hope and anxiety. So much hung on this afternoon, more than I thought I could bear. I flicked my gaze across to Laverne's, but her lawn was now deserted and her windows were dark. I knew they sat in the front to watch TV, and that's probably where Matty had gone. Back in my kitchen, David got up and began to pace about, his hand to his ear, his head cocked. Man on mobile. All of them seemed very far away. I knew I ought to go in, but I couldn't do it. Instead I stepped up to the fence and leaned against it, not caring about mildew marks or splinters.

‘Come on, love,' I whispered. ‘Come on, Jaz. Move it forward. Be brave.'

The light was changing around me, the afternoon turning
towards evening, and everything in the garden seemed very sharp and clear: the rags of dandelion leaves at my feet, the shrivelled heads of last year's lilac, the yellow-brown knuckles on the horsetail stalks. Once Jaz built a den in this section, resting the back panel of a wardrobe against the post and incorporating the side of the shed as one wall. I remembered her ferrying picnic cutlery and paper plates across the grass, and later having a major sulk at me because I'd said she couldn't use one of my pillows outside. It didn't feel like that long ago, but it was almost two decades.

Which made me think of what David and I had been discussing, about our generation having had the best of it, and that started a series of images falling like dominoes. Grass-sledging on an old door down Latimer's Bank; Eileen secretly drawing faces on the bananas in the school Harvest display; a yellow skirt of mine with white ric rac braid round the hem; Phil in his first work suit, a brown creation with huge lapels. I thought of the first time Phil asked me out, how he'd leaned against our gate at Pincroft whistling ‘Maggie May'. How had I got here, to this point? Standing in my own garden, afraid to go in. And I wondered what David's youth had been like in comparison, and whether he'd always been so self-assured, and how we'd have got along if we'd known each other then. I was just trying to imagine what his wife might have been like, when the scene in the living room changed.

David took his hand away from his ear and looked round, as though distracted by a noise. Seconds later, Jaz was on her feet, Ian leaning sharply backwards to get out of the way and then he was up too, and both of them were waving their arms. I saw David slide his hand into his pocket, glance towards the living-room door and then turn to face the garden, searching for me.

I came out from the shelter of the fence and hurried back along the path. As I drew nearer I could make out Jaz's face; it
had that chiselled look she gets when she's beyond all that's rational, and my heart sank. Ian had his back to me by then, but his gestures looked like pleading ones.

I wrenched at the door handle and slipped back inside the kitchen. There was no need to say anything. David shook his head at me and we both stood there listening to the row. After a while he walked across and put his hand on my shoulder, and the gesture brought tears to my eyes.

‘Should we go through?' he said. ‘I think we should go through.' Then he looked down at my face. ‘Oh, Carol,' he said, and I let myself fall towards him to be held, just for a second.

That's when the living-room door burst open and Jaz flew in.

‘Get him out!' she was shouting. ‘Get him out of here! Get him out of this house!'

‘Right, now, come on, calm down. There's nothing to be gained by all this shouting,' David began, letting me loose. I saw his chin go up assertively, and thought even through the chaos, Here's a man who's used to people listening to him. But I knew that tone wouldn't work with Jaz.

‘Hey, love,' I said.

‘Get him out!'

Ian appeared behind her. ‘I didn't mean it like that,' he was saying. ‘Please, Jaz, you know that's not what I meant.'

‘Get
him out!
' She put her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut.

‘Let's all take a short break,' said David.

‘No,' I said. ‘I'm sorry, David, that won't do it.'

‘What, then?'

‘I think Ian had better go. For now. We can re-group later.'

‘Please, oh, God,' said Ian, though it wasn't clear who he was addressing. It wrung me out to hear him.

I went to put my arms round Jaz and she was stiff as a board. ‘Sorry,' I mouthed to the others.

David stood for a few seconds, then nodded at his son. ‘Get your coat.'

They shuffled round us into the hallway, David steering Ian as though he was dealing with an invalid. Over the top of Jaz's head I watched the two men, one tall and skinny, the other slightly shorter and thicker-set, and it reminded me of a war film I'd caught on TV a week ago, where the Captain led his shattered men to safety. David hauled their coats off the newel post and opened the front door. I was waiting for him to turn and say goodbye, but he didn't.

CHAPTER 10

Photograph 337, Album Three

Location: the hallway, Sunnybank, Shropshire

Taken by: Carol

Subject: Jaz, the evening she turns fourteen, with Nat. Carol's driven them to Manchester and back, because this is the birthday treat Jaz requested months ago. She wanted to go clothes shopping with her best friend, asked for no presents but money
.

Initially the girls' plan is to go alone, on the train, but Carol puts her foot down. It's too far, they're too young. ‘Quicker if you go by car,' she says. ‘More time for the shops.'

A good argument, that, and the girls concede the point. It's not like they have to go round with her. Mrs Morgan can look in Lakeland or something, while they buzz off and have fun
.

When they get to the Arndale, though, it becomes clear that Nat at least wants to stick by Carol's side. ‘What do you think of this, Mrs Morgan?' she keeps saying, riffling through one clothes rail after another. ‘Do you like that?' Carol can't see any of the garments suiting either of them: a baby pink cardigan with pom poms at the neck; tweed jodhpurs; a fringed velvet cap. Meanwhile Jaz casts longing looks across the atrium and sighs loudly
.

When at last Jaz says, ‘Are you coming, or what?' Nat claims to have period pain, and says that she must go somewhere she can sit down. Carol spots her cue. ‘We'll meet you in River Island at twelve,' she tells her daughter. Then she takes Nat to a café, installs her behind a hot chocolate, and asks her what's going on
.

Nat's sulky little mouth turns down even further
.

‘Come on,' says Carol, trying not to be irritated
.

‘She hates me and I don't know what to do,' says Nat
.

‘She doesn't hate you,' says Carol
.

‘She does,' says Nat
.

It transpires that the casting list went up yesterday for the school play, and Nat's been the bearer of bad news. Jaz is not to be Eliza, nor even Mrs Higgins or Mrs Pearce. She's an Ascot lady – one of the crowd, merely
.

‘Did you get a bigger part than her?' asks Carol. But no, that's not it. Nat isn't even in the play
.

‘She really, really wanted to be Eliza,' says Nat. ‘I think she's cross with me because I was the one who told her.'

‘But that wouldn't make sense,' says Carol
.

Nat gives her a look that says, Boy, you can be thick at times
.

‘Well. She'll get over it. Don't fret. You're her best friend,' says Carol
.

‘The problem is, I like Jaz more than she likes me,' says Nat, with a rare flash of perception
.

‘Nonsense,' lies Carol
.

On the drive home, the atmosphere is better. Her lap laden with carrier bags, Jaz is starting to thaw. By the time they're on the motorway, it's grins all round. Carol glances from time to time in the mirror. Every day, it seems, her daughter becomes another degree less fathomable
.

We'd taken a jigsaw with us this time to keep Matty occupied: coloured dogs that fit into matching slots on a board. Each dog had a wooden peg through its middle and an expression of injured surprise on its face.

I put Matty down on the carpet, Jaz unloaded his kit, and the nursing assistant cranked Dad's bed up into a sitting position.

‘Now then, how are you?' I said, bending to kiss him. His cheek was cool and dry, slightly stubbly.

The nurse was ahead of me. ‘He's had some disturbed nights lately so we've been letting him lie in. He missed his shave this week.'

‘I can do it,' I said.

Jaz gave me a funny look. ‘You're going to shave Grandad?'

‘It's no bother. I've done it before.'

Eew
, said her expression. I ignored it.

‘Jaz has come to see you, Dad. And she's brought Matty. We think he might be cutting a tooth.'

Matty sat on the carpet, gnawing hard at one of the wooden dogs and drooling onto his T-shirt.

‘Yeah, great timing, Matts,' said Jaz. ‘Just what I need at the moment.'

In the locker next to Dad's bed I located his electric razor and some moisturizer.

‘I don't know how you come here week after week,' Jaz had said on the way in.

‘I come to see your grandad.'

‘I know. But it's so depressing. The place, I mean.'

‘Not really.'

The razor buzzed in my fingers and I turned Dad's face gently towards me. ‘Just tidying you up,' I told him. ‘Hold still.'

Close to, I could see all the damage that age does: the liver spots, the detail of loose skin over bone, the criss-cross of lines
under his eyes. There was a little cyst on his upper lid, and his eyebrows were shaggy and needing a trim. A huge sense of protectiveness welled up in my chest, and I wanted to hug him to me. Jaz's presence held me back, though. When the razor made contact with his chin he flinched. I made a soothing sound, and slowly moved the foil up and down, around the moulding of his face.

‘When you were little,' I said over my shoulder, ‘Grandad let you make a perfume shop in his shed. Do you remember, Jaz?'

‘No.'

‘He saved you all his jam jars, cleared a shelf and helped you make labels.'

‘Perfume?'

‘Out of rose petals. He let you take half his best roses. You used to mash them up in water.'

‘Oh, yeah.'

When I turned round, she was stretched out on the floor next to Matty, twirling a wooden dog by its peg.

‘And you used to sell them to us for twenty pence a jar.'

‘Yeah, they used to go all stinky in a day or two. I never learned, it was always a disappointment. I'd go, “Smell this beautiful scent” – then
ugh
.'

I smiled at her. Underneath my fingers, Dad shuddered.

‘You used to spend hours together, you and your grandad. Hours and hours, nattering away. I think there were things you'd tell him that you wouldn't tell me or your dad.'

Jaz rolled over and sat up. ‘What was Grandma like? I don't really remember her.'

A shrew, I thought. That's the word you'd use. Critical, negative, pessimistic. Must have made Dad's life grim. Didn't do much for mine either.