Parallel Life (2 page)

‘Toy trains,' scoffed Hermione. It was time for some people to grow up. Such a fuss Gus had made when the attics had been done over for her to live in. The man had almost wept when his railway layouts had been dismantled and removed.

Lisa sauntered in. ‘Good morning,' she said to no one in particular. ‘If anyone finds an earring, it's mine.' On any other morning, she would have been able to miss breakfast and locate her missing decoration, but Mother-in-law dictated that Tuesday was a family day. Butler and Wilson was expensive tat and deserved some respect. Perhaps the lost piece was outside the house?

Hermione glared at her small congregation. Benjamin, her grandson, had taken to living separately – his own kitchen and bathroom. Gus was . . . She sighed quietly. Gus was Gus. He was her only son and had been named, at his father's insistence, after Gustav Holst. Originally a doctor of medicine, Gus Compton-Milne had not related well to his fellow man, and he had wandered off into the bowels of medical research. His tracts on the subject of killer bacteria were renowned worldwide, and he had even managed to give the odd lecture at Yale and Harvard. Yes, his lectures would be very odd, Hermione judged.

Lisa. Poor Lisa. The mother of Hermione's grandchildren had been chosen at random, it seemed. Gus had married her within weeks of meeting her and had given her sparse attention once the two statutory offspring had been delivered. The neglected woman worked hard, supporting her family financially, and, in order to keep some sanity, taking a series of lovers about whom no one was supposed to know.

Munching on toast, Hermione allowed her gaze to stray once again to her son. Gus had a woman. She was a common-or-garden type and she had enough room in her loft for all his bloody children's trains. Gus was a remarkably stupid man. He didn't deserve his wife. He certainly didn't deserve Harriet.

Harriet. Now, there was an almost perfect pearl. Harriet had given up her chance of university to stay at home and . . . And what? And sell jewellery in the second of the Compton-Milne shops? Why had the child taken upon herself the task of looking after Ben? Whether Harriet stayed or went, Ben would always be a bloody mess. Look at him! He was staring hard at his plate, was probably envisaging a million microbes clomping in clogs across its ceramic surface. He should work for his silly father.

‘This family is a mess,' declared the grandmother. ‘Harriet, you should not be here. Ben, you need some psychological help.' She grinned at Lisa. However naughty she became, Lisa would always be forgivable. As for Gus – what was the point? She could shout and bawl, but he would not hear. Gus marched to a different drummer. His children did not count. His wife was of no significance. His mother lived where his trains used to be. ‘Multiple sclerosis is the least of my woes,' moaned Hermione. She would do better to conserve her limited energies . . .

The day still wouldn't make up its mind, mused Harriet Compton-Milne as she dried the bench with a handkerchief. ‘No guts,' she muttered under her breath. Light showers, the odd flash of sun, some mist earlier on. It was a half-hearted day. Heavier clouds had begun to drift in like late trains at Trinity Street. They rested on Harrie's shoulders with all the other stuff: the anger, the panic, the why-am-I-here business. Now, there was the why-was-Dad-standing-across-the-road stuff, but that probably wasn't worth thinking about. His woman must live in these parts, Harrie concluded absently. A spit of rain hit her arm.

She sat down and gazed at a park area that had once been pretty: flower beds, lawns, a bowling green. All gone now; all replaced by battered beer-cans and bottles from which liquid had been released into the stomachs of several errant teenagers. She was old before her time, could not remember feeling young. Bitter at twenty-one? Ridiculous. It was almost four o'clock. What the hell was she going to say this time? Should she help herself along with a few milligrams of diazepam? What about stepping in front of a bus? That would provide a solution of sorts, she supposed.

Raising her head, she stared into Bolton, noting that the day was not warm enough to show the blue rinse of pollution that inevitably wigged its busy streets. She could see all the way across to Bolton School, her old alma, the institution that had fitted her for Oxford. Why hadn't she taken her place among those spires and buttresses? Were there buttresses in Oxford?
She asks the questions
, Harrie advised herself before rising from the bench, leaving the park and crossing Wigan Road.
I'm supposed to supply the answers to her queries. Bloody psychoanalysts
. There was, she believed, a Bridge of Sighs – one in Cambridge, too.

Rain began to fall properly. Well, the day, at least, had made up its mind. Thunder rumbled down the moors, while a fork of bright electricity warned the world that some ill-humoured deity was still in charge. She ran into the large terraced house and sat in a waiting room. It was beige, brown and cream. Abstract prints punctuated walls painted in magnolia over geriatric wallpaper. It was supposed to be a calm atmosphere, she believed. Outside, the storm raged noisily, seeming to echo her own inner turmoil. One of the gentler Beatles songs played in the background. ‘Strawberry Fields'. She was unaccountably angry. Depression, she had been told, was self-loathing. Her own illness wanted to make her sleep all the time, but she resisted the urge. Life went on. It wasn't fair, but it went on. The woman was smiling and beckoning Harrie into the inner sanctum.

She rose. ‘Here we go again,' she mumbled as she entered the consultation room. The doc was already seated – she was a fast mover. More magnolia in here, but with a bit of maroon thrown in as some kind of blessed relief; a few French Impressionist prints on the chimney breast. Oh, bugger it . . .

The door wouldn't slam. It owned one of those swing-slow contraptions at the top, and Harrie gave this item a baleful glance before focusing sternly on Miriam Goldberg. ‘You should have a noisy door,' complained the new arrival. ‘A heavy slam is probably just what the doctor ordered for cases like mine.' The anger drifted away, because she could not be ill-behaved with so pleasant a woman.

Miriam shuffled some papers and tried not to smile. ‘Sit down, please.'

‘Have you nothing I can break?'

‘Not today, no. Would you like a jelly baby?'

.Not unless it comes with a knuckleduster or a shotgun.'

‘All right.' The doctor grinned. ‘I could buy seconds from the market and you could smash crocks later in the backyard.' She shook the jar of sweets. ‘There are black ones. I always think black ones taste best, don't you?'

‘I'm not racist, so I'm not bothered.' Harrie chewed a nail instead. These visits were a waste of time. She had stuff to do. Waiting at the shop were two rings with suspect settings and some new stones to be sorted. ‘Ben's at the dentist,' she murmured. ‘This is his first time on his own, and he'll be terrified.'

‘Where's your mother?'

‘God knows. Or perhaps the devil does. She's having dinner and bridge tonight with some of her cronies. She can't play bridge for toffee.'

‘Try her on jelly babies.'

Harrie flopped into the chair for clients. ‘You should see someone about your fixation with those sweets.'

‘Physician heal thyself?'

‘Exactly. Go on, I'll have a yellow one.'

While Harrie chewed, Miriam Goldberg hung on to her exasperation. ‘At eighteen,' she began eventually, ‘your brother is old enough to cope with his own teeth.' Why should this poor girl take all the flak? ‘And, if he can't manage by himself, shouldn't your mother go with him?'

Harrie raised her shoulders. ‘I have no answer to that one.'

The psychologist reined herself in. She was here as a professional to listen to Harrie, to help her externalize her feelings and cope with daily disaster. ‘How's your grandmother?'

The girl swallowed the remains of her sweet and smiled broadly. ‘Utterly and dreadfully wonderful. She got Sky Plus, so she's happy. My grandmother is now self-crowned queen of UK Drama. She watches anything and everything, though I am slightly concerned regarding her new affiliation to the crime channels.'

‘And your parents?'

Harrie sighed. ‘What good is this doing, Doc? What am I to say? I don't know. I don't know how they feel about anything. Dad seldom shows emotion, because he's too busy trying to save the world from the little people. He says it will not be a neutron bomb, but a microbe that will see us all off. And as for Mother, after so much Botox, her face shows hardly any reaction, and she was never one for words.'

Miriam shook her head slowly. The Compton-Milnes were round the twist, and Harrie was paying the price for all of them. ‘But she's a jeweller – she has to talk to people.'

The young client shook her head. ‘But not to me – never in depth. Anyway, don't make the mistake of oversimplifying the dynamics within my family. It's easy to say that my father is a boffin, my brother a genius, my mother a fool.' She leaned forward. ‘Do you know how long it takes to make a diamond?'

‘A million years?'

‘And the rest.' Harrie picked up a pencil and twisted it in her fingers. ‘To explain humanity would take the same period of evolution, and we don't have time to start planting trees.'

Miriam Goldberg frowned. ‘Harrie, what about you?'

‘Me?' She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. She was a qualified jeweller and was carrying on in the business created by her grandfather after the collapse of the cotton industry. She could match stones, mend a watch and make platinum shine like an item stolen from clear night skies. ‘I'm just here,' she concluded. ‘I'm just carrying on carrying on.'

‘Still taking the don't-jump-off-the-roof pills?'

‘Of course.'

Miriam shifted in her chair. This girl was stunning enough to be a fashion model, though she was no coat hanger. All curves were present and correct, so she wasn't sufficiently skeletal for a life of cocaine and catwalks. She had brains enough to have passed with flying colours every exam on her list, yet she had chosen to sell fripperies in the bigger of the family's two shops.

‘When are you going to start thinking about yourself, Harriet?'

‘Harrie.'

‘You are brilliant, talented and beautiful.'

‘Gee, thanks.'

The therapist stood and walked to the window. She knew Harrie's reasons for staying in Bolton, but they were as flawed as any impure diamond on a cutting bench. ‘There are carbon deposits in your arguments.'

‘Then I'll never be set in eighteen carat.'

‘The flippancy hides a multitude of worries. When did you become a worrier?'

‘Can't remember.'

‘It's been always, hasn't it?'

Harrie indulged in a second jelly baby. She chewed thoughtfully, taking care to swallow before replying. ‘I can't remember not being worried. Dad's never been there, Mum's always seemed an airhead, and no one ever took care of Ben. Woebetide has been the nearest thing to a parent since Gran lost the use of her legs.'

Miriam turned. ‘Tell me about Woebetide.'

Oh, God. Harrie thought about the woman who had slipped easily into the position of Gran's carer. Woebetide was no oil painting. In fact, her exterior had frightened off a long line of Jehovah's Witnesses and double-glazing salesmen, yet she had intelligence to spare and an accent that had defied thirty years of exile from her beloved Mayo. She was kind, noisy, firm and loving. With no children of her own, she had been nanny and housekeeper for the whole of Harrie's lifetime.

‘How did she get her name?'

Harrie laughed aloud. ‘She woe-betided everything. It was, “Woe betide anyone who breaks one of the new plates,” and, “Woe betide whoever took the cream off the top of me trifle,” – except, of course, she says “troifle”. The house has staircases, bedrooms, bathrooms and a Woebetide. She's part of the scenery that comes to life occasionally. If the house were sold, she'd be included in fixtures.'

‘So she comes to “loife”?'

‘Yup.'

‘And you love her.' This was not a question.

‘With all my heart. And Gran. She's always been a marvellous woman. Even with MS, she never complained. I remember when she first found out she had it – she came home and said that she would soon be able to sit down and forget all about jewellery. Sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, she would shed a tear. But she's brave and naughty. She's exactly how we should all be in old age. She certainly rages against the dying of the light.'

Miriam Goldberg smiled and returned to her seat. ‘Harrie, the tablets are helping, but only you can climb out of the pit.'

‘It's not a pit; it's a swamp. Quicksand.'

‘Suicidal?'

‘No. I'm not brave enough and not sufficiently cowardly.'

Miriam sat down and placed clasped hands on her desk. ‘Stop being a martyr.'

‘I can't leave him. Anyway, there's always the Open University, though they do seem to offer a whole bundle of Mickey Mouse subjects. But Ben needs me. He's the one who'll do really well at university.'

‘No. I think Ben needs
me
.'

‘You'd never get through to him. He's closed down.'

‘Like your parents?'

Harrie nodded. ‘He works hard, never plays, talks only to me. At school, he keeps his head down and carries on with his work, gets bullied, comes home, fears doctors, dentists, fears most people. He has me and only me. And I am forbidden to discuss him.'

‘And you will dedicate the rest of your life to him?'

‘I don't know.'

Miriam glanced at the wall clock. It was plain that Miss Harriet Compton-Milne had set herself in reinforced concrete. A clever and capable girl, she had denied herself the chance of a future because she dared not leave her brother in the care of his own parents. ‘They'd still take you at Oxford.'