My Daughter, My Mother (53 page)

Sooky breathed in deeply, smiling to herself, and bent over the desk again. Picking up her pen she was just writing the next sentence of her essay when the door opened. She turned, squinting, only just able to see Harpreet’s outline in the doorway.

‘Sorry, Sukh,’ Harpreet said.

Sooky was alerted by the tone of her voice. There was worry in it, and warning.

‘It’s just – Dad’s home. He and Mom want to talk to you, downstairs.’

Somehow she already knew. It was something that had been nagging at the back of her mind, like the pain of a boil that has not yet reached the surface. When she saw them both, she knew for sure.

The two of them were in the front room, sitting side by side on the sofa as stiffly as if they were posing for one of those old-fashioned photographs where, on pain of death, you mustn’t smile. If it hadn’t been so serious it would have been funny, the way Mom’s
chunni
was so neat, and Dad was sucking in his belly and trying to sit up very straight.

It suddenly occurred to Sooky that they were very nervous, which made her stomach clench with dread in sympathy.

‘Shut the door, Sukhdeep,’ Khushwant said with overdone cheeriness.

She obeyed and sat down like an interviewee. Mom and Dad looked at each other.

‘You want me to get married, don’t you?’ Sooky said.

They exchanged glances again.

‘We-ell,’ Khushwant said. For the first time ever it occurred to Sooky that they were a bit afraid of her, of her strength and her ability to do what was best for herself, if necessary. ‘It’s not so much that we
want
you to . . .’

But his eyes were begging.
Please, Sukhdeep my daughter, don’t fight this. Please do the right thing, put us right again with the community, with tradition, with what is right . . . Don’t continue in a state of disgrace forever!

‘It is a chance for you,’ Meena said, sitting bolt upright. ‘There is someone who has asked to meet you.’

‘Okay,’ Sooky said cautiously. ‘Tell me.’

‘The thing is, he lives in Birmingham and he would be prepared to allow you to go on studying,’ Meena said, all in a rush.

Sooky frowned suspiciously. ‘Doesn’t he want children?’

They looked at each other again. It was Khushwant who explained. The man in question was called Arun. He was a Jat by caste, of course, and had a good job working in insurance. But he was thirty-two years old and a widower. His young wife had died of a brain haemorrhage more than a year ago. He had two children already, a boy and a girl.

‘Oh,’ Sooky said. ‘I see.’

Even though she had been expecting something like this, she still felt stunned and a bit sick. She found she was shivering.
Arun
. A man called Arun. Longing and dread threaded through her, confused.

‘How old are the children?’ she asked.

Khushwant looked helplessly at his wife.

‘The boy is ten years old, he is called Deep,’ Meena said. ‘The girl, Leela, is eight.’

Sooky swallowed, looking down. All the possibilities of her life rushed through her mind. Study, a career, a husband, a father for Priya, sex, love even – no, that might be asking too much. But one thing she saw with horrible clarity: the alternative. She would stay home, the divorced, disgraced one. This would keep happening: men would be brought for them to view each other. As time passed she would get older, and the men might get older too – or a lot younger than her. It would become more and more agonizing as the years went by. The pressure would never go away for her to make things right.
Arun.
She tasted his name. He had had grief and bad luck, just as she had. He might be all right, who knew?

‘There is no need to be deciding anything too quickly,’ Khushwant said into the silence.

Sooky looked up. ‘He’s really okay about me doing my degree? And he knows about Jaz – and Priya?’

Khushwant and Meena were nodding as eagerly as toy dogs in the back of a car window.

‘Okay then,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll see him.’

Sixty-Seven

Margaret sat beside Alan as the car sped smoothly along the M5.

‘Valentine’s Day treat,’ he’d said, even though it was two days later, as they’d had to wait for the weekend. The bouquet of spring flowers that, to her amazement, he had presented to her on the day were still brightening their living room with vivid yellow, white and blue.

‘We could wait until it’s warmer – in the summer?’ she’d suggested.

‘We can go then as well, if you like,’ Alan said. ‘Rationing’s over now, you know.’

They’d developed a joking way of talking, a banter by which he often teased her out of her gloomy, glass-half-empty view of life.

‘You’re just putting it off,’ he challenged her.

‘I’m not! It’s just . . .’

‘You’re frightened it’s not going to be the same.’

‘Well, it’s not, is it? Let’s face it, it was forty years ago – it’d be pretty peculiar if everything had stayed the same.’

‘But it’s the same in your mind.’

‘Yes. It is.’

She knew that was what she was scared of – losing the images of paradise she had held onto all these years. And of being overwhelmed by emotion. But she didn’t mind Alan’s teasing. She knew he had been through just the same with Abergavenny. That was the thing with Alan. He understood. She looked round at him with a surge of love and gratitude. There he was, miraculously beside her, concentrating on the driving, his salt-and-pepper hair neatly clipped round his dark-eyed face. The face she loved abundantly.

‘What’re you looking at?’ There was still teasing in his voice.

‘You. Because I can. And you can’t look at me.’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, I see. Well, I’ll make up for that later, Margaret my girl, that I will!’

They were in a green Montego saloon, which he had bought with the insurance on his other smashed-up car.

‘Is it new?’ she’d asked, awed, when he first drove up in it.

‘No. Not quite. But the “not quite” makes a big difference to the price, I can tell you!’

It still smelled new inside. Margaret rested her head back and closed her eyes.
I’m here
, she said to herself.
I’m really here.

She could hardly believe the process that had brought her to this day: the upheavals of the past – six? – yes, six or so weeks since she had announced to Fred and the girls that she was leaving, to be with someone else. Margaret Tolley, yes, she, Margaret Tolley, had sat at the table with them just after Christmas and said it. She thought about talking to Fred first, on his own, but that just felt impossible. The shameful truth was that she could not have begun to talk to him, not on their own – that was the sad fact of the matter.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to them. Something drove her on. She had thought and thought about it and never imagined she would get the words out. ‘Something’s happened. I’ve fallen in love. And I want to be with him. I have to – it’s just how it is. I’m ever so sorry. I don’t know how else to say it.’

The girls were both there, and Dave and Geoff, Karen’s new boyfriend, whom they all liked. Margaret felt like someone else. Who was this new person in new clothes, who for the first time ever felt so sure of something? It wasn’t that she was proud of it, not of causing such hurt. But she simply had to be with Alan.

They all sat staring at her. For a few seconds Margaret wondered whether she had said it at all, or whether she had been hallucinating. If they had just carried on drinking their tea and eating cake, she wouldn’t have been unduly surprised.

‘I thought . . .’ It was Karen who spoke first. Karen who, God knew, had grown up so much in the last year! ‘Well, I thought there was something different about you, Mom.’ But Margaret could hear a tremor in her voice.

Margaret saw Dave reach for Joanne’s hand, to offer comfort. Then all of them looked at Fred. He was holding a cup of tea and his hand began to shake, so that the remains of the tea started to slop. Joanne reached over and took it from him. Fred’s eyes never left Margaret’s face – his expression cut her to the heart, and she was glad of this.

‘I . . .’ he started to say, then ground to a halt. He seemed to be finding it hard to catch his breath, and tears rose in his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Fred,’ she said. ‘I’ve not been much of a wife to you.’ Suddenly she was weeping; they all were. Dave and Geoff put their arms round their partners.

‘Oh, Mom!’ Joanne said. Then, not seeming to be able to find any other words, she turned to Fred and said, ‘Oh, Dad!’

Fred pushed back his chair from the table and stood up. ‘Are you serious?’ he said in a choked voice. ‘You look serious.’

Margaret wiped her eyes, nodding.

‘After all these years. I never thought . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I need to get out.’

They heard him put on his coat, sniffing, then the front door opened and closed. They let him go, let him be alone for a while.

When he had gone, Margaret told the others what had happened.

It had taken time to sink in – for all of them. One of the most humbling things that had ever happened to Margaret in her life was to witness the reaction of her daughters. Karen was full of psychology. She said it was best to get things out into the open; how the Valium had allowed her to stifle her feelings all these years, when it had been obvious that she and Fred were not especially happy. Her coming off the drug, Karen said, had allowed Margaret to find herself.

‘And Dad’s so cut off from himself,’ she said. ‘I mean, when was the last time you two ever really
talked
to each other?’

Margaret said she couldn’t remember. Before, she would have said it wasn’t about talking. She and Fred had, as Karen also said, ‘ticked the boxes’. They had had two children, brought them up right, worked hard for a living and never sponged off anyone else or had any handouts. What else could you expect from marriage? Fred had never laid a finger on her in a harmful way – that counted for a lot. But now . . . Oh, there could be so much more, so much!

Fred, as ever, said nothing. For a fortnight he came and went, barely speaking, as if nothing had happened. Margaret began to think he would never react to what was happening. She felt guilty and sad, but his silence did not help. It just felt as if he didn’t care, when she knew he probably did.

Joanne was so kind it brought tears to her eyes.

‘It’s taken me a while to get over the shock,’ she said. ‘I mean, we weren’t exactly expecting it. Especially with the things you used to say about . . . But never mind that. I really do hope you’ll be happy, Mom. I’ve never thought you were very happy. You never seemed to have much of a life, to be honest. So I hope it works out for you.’

Both the girls said they would help look after their dad – keep an eye on him. They met Alan, and though it would take time to get used to each other, all had gone well. They said they liked him. After a month at home, giving everyone time to get used to the idea of her leaving, Margaret had moved into Alan’s house, further out of town.

‘In the long run, I think we should move,’ he said. ‘Get a new place of our own – but we’ll sit tight for now, shall we, get used to things? We could move a bit further out, nearer the country?’

Sitting in the car beside him, she was filled with sorrow and joy and gratitude for everybody. Even Fred, in the end, had told her he hoped she’d be happy. This had made her cry for a long time.

‘I hope you find someone,’ she told him. ‘I’d like to know you’re happy too.’

Fred nodded in a vague sort of way that had also wrung her heart. But she had to go.

They parked in a quiet spot in Buckley, just along the road from Orchard House. It was a bright day, the sun trying to burn through the haze, and there was a cold wind blowing, which whipped Margaret’s scarf out behind her. They wrapped up well, and Alan took her arm.

‘Ready?’ he said. He put his hands on her shoulders for a moment. ‘It’ll be all right.’

‘I know. It just feels . . .’ She shrugged.

Alan took her hand. No one else was about. As they walked along, seeing the house come into view, she said, ‘Ooh, this feels really queer.’ Then, further along, full of wonder: ‘It looks
just
the same! Well, almost.’

They stood outside as past and present collided. It felt so strange to be standing here again.

‘The drive wasn’t like that – it was rougher, of course. I remember standing here waiting for Tommy: he came just once. He got down, just there. They fetched him on a cart . . . no cars – not like that, of course.’ She nodded at a smart blue car on the drive. ‘The trees have grown – oh, and there are some new ones. Course it all looks in better nick, painted up and everything. Not like in the war . . . My, oh my!’ She stared up at the windows. ‘Now, which one was my room? John and Patty were at the back – that was mine, I think, the second one along.’

She put her hand over her mouth, musing. It still felt as if Miss Clairmont or Mrs Higgins might come bustling out of the house, with Dotty barking madly beside them. That was the last thing she’d seen – the house receding, Dotty barking – as Ted Winters dragged her away. She remembered the boots she had been wearing, the holdall as Ted Winters flung it away over the gate . . .

She gazed at it all for some time. She had never written back to the sisters. Could things have been different – could they have kept a thread going after the war? Might she have come for visits, the place becoming a part of her life instead of a lost dream?

Tears didn’t come as she had expected. There was nothing she could change now. She felt resigned and sorry, that was all. And very sad for the lost child she had been, for the wife she had been. I may not have been the best mother ever, she thought. But my two never had anything like that happen to them – nothing like. And they’d been so kind to her lately. She couldn’t have been all bad, could she?

‘Ah, now this is different . . .’ Further along there had been a rickety iron fence through which you could see into the paddocks where they had played for so many hours. Now there had grown up a beech hedge, well tended and blocking the view.