Next of Kin (35 page)

‘Why?' Dilys said suddenly. ‘Who for?'

‘You don't need to know,' Lyndsay said. She glanced at Hughie. ‘Only we need to know that.'

‘What about our shares?'

‘Can't you keep them? Or, if you don't want to, sell them to someone else?'

Dilys leaned across the table.

‘
Tell
her,' she said urgently to Harry. ‘Tell her she can't do this. Tell her it won't work.'

He regarded her for a moment and then he looked at Hughie, very still, and Rose, now sticking her fingers into the dough and then peering into the holes she'd made.

‘Sorry,' Harry said.

‘What do you mean, sorry?'

‘I can't do that,' Harry said. ‘I can't tell her that.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because' he said, closing his eyes again and feeling for the words, ‘I can't tell her from my heart that I think she's wrong.'

From the garden at Tideswell, Judy could see Zoe's red head, high above the hedge, going back and forth in the cows' yard, on the slurry tractor. Judy had never driven a tractor in her life, never wished to; at least, all the years of her growing up she had never wished to. She wondered if Zoe was doing it on purpose, showing off. If so, whatever Judy's feelings, it was the only bit of showing off she had done so far. In fact, she had been absolutely unobtrusive since Judy's return, quiet and quietly occupied. On the very first night when Judy had prowled the landing full of offended resentments, Zoe had come out of Robin's bedroom, fully dressed, and had slipped past Judy without a word and gone into her own room, closing the door and leaving Judy in a silence that frustrated her of all further action. She had stood there for ages, under the bleak central light outside Robin's bedroom door, raging with the desire for a scene and the knowledge that there was, at this precise moment, nothing to have a scene about. Zoe had pre-empted her. Judy had come back, so Zoe had withdrawn from Judy's father's bed and left Judy furious, and empty-handed.

Judy bent among the roses and grasped another tough and flexible clump of bindweed. It came up with suspicious ease, in a tangle of spidery white roots, confident in the knowledge that it had left far more of the same roots comfortably behind than Judy could ever hope to pull up. There was something about it, in Judy's present mood, that reminded her of Zoe, with its invasiveness and lawlessness and untouchableness. You couldn't affect Zoe, you couldn't make her
mind
. She would simply slip away from you, if confronted, into her own world and challenge you to prove any harm she was accused of doing. Of course she wasn't doing any harm, except to Judy, and the harm she was doing to Judy was entirely of Judy's own permitting, even creating. ‘I hate this place,' Judy had said to Zoe. ‘I don't want to be here.' But Zoe hadn't hated it, and she hadn't taken anything Judy had wanted, as her own. Up to now, that is. Judy yanked out another spiralling green tangle of weed. Now was so very, very different. It was so different that for the moment Judy couldn't think what to do about it.

She couldn't, to start with, think what to do about Robin. He had been surprised to see her but kind, in a wary way. In her anger, she'd thought he was wary because he had bloody good reason to be, sleeping with Zoe as he was. But she soon saw that he wasn't remotely self-conscious about that, just as Zoe wasn't; he was wary because he'd never got her right, never known how to handle her, even in her baby days. She had made it plain, all her life, that as far as she was concerned he got it wrong, all the time, and all he was doing now was waiting to get it wrong again and then for her inevitable offended reaction. But, for the first time, she was slightly awed by him. She didn't feel able to confront him. She told herself that this was Zoe's fault but she knew that wasn't true. She knew the change wasn't in Robin or in Zoe. It was in her.

She bent to scoop the huge, light pile of bindweed off the grass and dumped it in the wheelbarrow. It was a cloudy day, but heavy and hot. She wheeled the barrow part of the way towards the corner where Caro had made a compost heap, and then left it there and went into the house in search of a drink of water. Robin was in the kitchen, opening his mail with his thumb.

‘Oh—'

He looked up.

‘What?'

‘I thought you were out—'

‘I was. I will be again in a minute. Does it matter?'

‘No,' Judy said. She felt she was blushing. ‘No. Of course not.'

He said nothing. She went across to the sink and turned the cold-water tap on.

‘Dad—'

‘Yes?'

‘Can I ask you something?'

‘Of course.'

She turned round, holding a dripping tumbler and fumbling in a trouser pocket with her other hand.

‘I went into Mum's room. I don't know why, but I went in and I looked in the drawers and things—'

Robin waited, his thumb in a half-torn envelope.

‘And I found this.'

She held out to him a small, thin, battered cardboard folder.

‘Yes.'

‘Do you know what it is?'

‘It's an air ticket,' Robin said.

‘Yes. But what is it?'

‘It's the return half of the air ticket your mother was given in 1971 to come to England.'

‘Which she never used—'

‘No.'

‘But you knew about it?'

He hesitated. Then he put down the envelope he was holding. ‘Yes.'

‘Did you look in her drawers?'

‘No,' he said, ‘but she showed it to me.' He paused, and then he said quietly, ‘Often.'

‘Often?'

‘Judy,' Robin said, ‘I don't want a row but the truth is that the ticket – that ticket – was produced several times a year, and shown to me.'

‘But it was only valid for six months—'

‘I know.'

‘Dad,' Judy said, ‘did she sort of threaten to leave all the time?'

He looked at her briefly, unhappily, but said nothing.

‘And she never did—'

‘No.'

‘She just liked the idea.'

‘Maybe,' Robin said. ‘It doesn't matter now.'

Judy said, almost as a cry, ‘It does! It does to me!'

‘Why?' he said guardedly.

‘Because I didn't know her! I only knew the bits she let me know!'

He bowed his head.

‘She couldn't settle,' Robin said, ‘and she couldn't leave. Perhaps the ticket gave her the illusion that she could.'

‘Oh Dad—'

‘It's OK,' Robin said.

‘But she taunted you—'

‘Not taunted.'

‘Didn't it drive you mad?'

He turned away and began to shuffle through the mess on the table.

‘I got used to it.'

Judy threw the ticket in the vague direction of the kitchen wastebin, and then she moved closer to Robin. Tentatively she put out a hand and touched his sleeve.

‘Dad,' she said, and was aware that her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Dad, I'm so sorry. So
sorry
.'

‘Satisfied now?' Gareth said. He stared at Debbie long and hard. ‘Got what you want?'

Debbie held the washing basket on her hip. It was full of laundry she'd been on her way to peg out on the line when Gareth had found her. He'd been holding a letter, and when he saw her, he chucked the letter into the basket on top of all the damp T-shirts and socks and said, ‘Read that, then.
Read
it.'

The letter came from near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. It offered Gareth, subject to interview, a place on a four-man team managing 400 cows. ‘32-point polygon,' the letter ran, ‘cubicle housing, automatic scrapers and mixer wagon feeding. There is an excellent modern house close to your work. We shall require, of course, the names of two referees.'

‘You've got an excellent modern house
now
,' Gareth said. ‘And I'm my own man, not part of a team. But if that's what you want—'

Debbie nodded, silently. Gareth was seldom angry and it disconcerted her when he was, but for all that, she wasn't going to lose the ground she'd gained.

‘It'll be less lonely, working with other people—'

‘I'm not lonely,' Gareth said.

She thumped the laundry basket down on the ground.

‘You're not the only one.'

Gareth snatched the letter up.

‘Look,' he said, ‘it's only the same bloody money.'

She said obstinately, ‘But it's a bigger place, more technical, more modern—'

‘You're not going to give in, are you? You've made up your mind and that's that.'

She bit her lip. She had made up her mind. Her instinctive fears had hardened into a resolution nothing would shift now. Nothing.

‘So,' Gareth said, ‘we take the kids away from an area they've settled in, from schools—'

‘They'll settle again,' Debbie said. ‘So will we.'

Gareth came a step or two nearer and pushed his face into hers.

‘You haven't had to do the dirty work in any of this. Have you? It was me that had to see Robin, had to tell him all this stuff about a joint decision, when it wasn't, when it was you. And it's me that's got to uproot from work I know, work that suits me, and start again in bloody Leicestershire. You insist I do this, but you don't have to do anything yourself. You just tag along.'

Debbie muttered, her head bent, ‘I'm not doing it for nothing.'

‘Telling me you're not,' Gareth said. ‘Telling me.' He drew a breath. ‘We're going to look such fools,' he said. ‘Such fools. It's all going to settle down round here, and I need never have bothered myself.'

She gave him a sharp glance.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Lyndsay's back. Velma saw her. And now Judy's home.'

‘What difference will that make?'

‘Maybe they've come back for real. To stay.'

Debbie gave a little snort.

‘Don't make me laugh. What use will those two ever be? Of all the family, those two are the most useless of all and in any case, Robin and Judy have never got on, never.' She bent and picked up the washing basket again. ‘It'll be worse chaos than ever round here, if they're back. You'll see.' She paused, and then she said to Gareth with emphasis, ‘And there's still that Zoe. Isn't there?'

Zoe was sitting up in bed. She wore an old collarless flannel shirt of Robin's which she had found at the back of the airing cupboard, while looking for an old towel in the course of a hair-dyeing session. The shirt was huge and worn, and she had rolled up the sleeves so that the cuffs formed big soft pads round her elbows. She had put the bedside lamp on the floor and the light from it threw the room into weird relief, with huge, jagged shadows and a spooky glow across the ceiling. She had her knees drawn up, and a sketch pad balanced against them. She was drawing, in soft black pencil, the head of a cow, from memory.

It was well after midnight. The evening had been constrained, as all evenings had been since Judy returned. It seemed to Zoe, watching Judy, that Judy was bursting with something, overflowing with a need to ask or to tell, but holding back at the same time. Zoe wasn't going to help her. Or at least, she wasn't going to say anything that might help Judy until she had made things plain with Robin. When that might be, she couldn't tell. You couldn't hurry Robin, you couldn't corner him and insist upon his talking something through. You had to wait, in a way that reminded Zoe of waiting for weather, for the moment to be right, like the time of the moon.

She shifted in bed a little, and heard, simultaneously, the creak of floorboards out on the landing, a quiet creak, almost secretive. She held her breath. There was another step, and then a knock, a tap almost, on her door.

‘Come in,' Zoe said.

The door opened silently, revealing Robin in the pyjamas she had teased him about, blue-striped and schoolish.

‘Hi,' Zoe said, ‘I thought you might be Judy.'

Robin closed the door softly.

‘Has she spoken to you?'

‘Hardly,' Zoe said, ‘though she's busting to. I'm kind of waiting.'

Robin sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded her.

‘You look about ten.'

‘People always say that. I'm older than all of you.'

He grinned.

‘I know.'

She picked up her pencil and her pad and bent sideways to put them on the floor beside the lamp. Then she twisted herself until she was on her knees and could put her arms around his neck.

‘Robin—'

‘Yes,' he said, holding her.

‘Robin, I've got to go.'

There was a tiny pause, and then he said, ‘I know.'

‘I always did have to,' Zoe said, ‘even when I came, I knew I had to go. So did you.'

He held her hard.

‘I've been right for now,' Zoe said, ‘but I wouldn't be right for ever.'

‘I know that. But I don't want now to be over.'

‘It is over. It's changed. It's changed already. It changed when Judy came.'

‘She's given up her job,' Robin said, his face against Zoe's shoulder.

‘I thought she might. That's good.'

‘And she kissed me.'

‘Yes?'

‘And she said she was sorry. I don't know quite what for.'

‘For everything,' Zoe said.

‘She's never said such a thing before in her life.'