Two

The voice announces the train’s imminent arrival at Great Malvern. Vanessa snaps her drawing pad shut and pushes it into her bag. She stands up and reaches for her laptop and cloak in the overhead storage. Her case is wedged in the narrow space between the seats. The brakes squeal and she clutches the back of the seat as the train slows to a halt.

Cordelia is waiting on the platform. Her face is pinched into that anxious little frown she’s always had. She catches sight of Vanessa and her expression changes. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s been able to make Vanessa’s heart jump with her sudden leaping grin. Just like her father.

Vanessa gives her a hug. ‘Hello, darling. Lovely to see you.’

Cordelia squeezes her tight. ‘It’s great you could come.’

The welcome is a relief. There have been too many times when it hasn’t been like this. Vanessa leans back, head on one side. ‘Let me look at you properly.’

Cordelia’s wearing a high-necked cream jumper with green ribbon threaded through the waist and round the cuffs. It’s one of Vanessa’s own designs. ‘I should use you as my model.’ She adjusts the frill around the waist. ‘Very sexy.’

The colour rushes to Cordelia’s cheeks. It’s one of the physical attributes they share – pale skin that flushes easily, Irish skin.

Vanessa follows Cordelia to the car. Cordelia’s thick black hair bounces on her shoulders as she walks. From the back, in her skinny jeans, she looks like a girl, her body boyish. It’s hard to believe she has a teenage daughter. It doesn’t seem two minutes since she was young herself: distant, brooding, constantly angry.

As they drive out of the station, Cordelia hums softly. Vanessa glances across at her. Usually Cordelia wears her hair drawn back. The style emphasises the angular line of her jaw, the pronounced cheekbones. Today, it’s loose and curls round her face. She meets Vanessa’s eyes and smiles. She seems happy.

A ball of apprehension lodges itself in Vanessa’s chest. ‘You will tell Cordy I’m back?’ he said, his eyes dark with urgency, his hand tightening over hers, and she found herself nodding. Found it impossible to refuse. Now, it seems so unfair. Why has he landed her with this?

They stop off at The Blue Boar and order wine and plates of pasta.

The waiter arrives at their table with a basket of rolls. Vanessa reaches for one and breaks off a bit.

‘So how’s life?’ Cordelia asks. ‘You haven’t been to stay for ages.’ She settles herself in the chair opposite.

‘You know how it is with the business.’

‘All work and no play … ’ Cordelia looks up from buttering a roll. ‘Hey, what happened about that man? Have you seen him any more?’

Vanessa’s stomach lurches. Has she got the word guilty branded across her brow? ‘What man?’

‘I can’t remember his name. Charles somebody … ’

‘Oh … ’ she laughs, ‘you mean Charles Miller. We’ve had dinner a few times.’

‘He seemed really keen.’

‘He’s nice, but we’ll see,’ Vanessa says. ‘What about you? What are you up to?’

‘It’s busy at the art shop.’

‘But your own work? You are still painting?’

‘Of course.’ A little wrinkle appears between Cordelia’s brows. She fiddles with the cutlery, setting a knife and fork in front of each of them.

Vanessa recognises her don’t ask me anything else face. It’s always the same with Cordelia – like a dance, every step towards each other matched by one away.

‘And Savannah?’ A different subject might be safer. ‘How’s my beautiful granddaughter?’

She tries to listen as Cordelia talks about Savannah. How on earth can she bring the subject up? She tunes in again: ‘… and she came home with this dreadful top that cost £40 … ’ Vanessa concentrates on Cordelia’s voice, but other thoughts rush in, like draughts from an open door: I need to talk to you. No, too much like a soap opera. I don’t want you to be upset. Implies she will be. I’ve got a surprise. Nothing seems to strike the right note.

She forces herself to pay attention.

‘… and I’ve been called in to see her teacher.’

Vanessa fingers one of her rings, the silver snake figure from Venice. She’s always had a passion for rings; some she bought herself, like the gold and onyx one she got in South America, others were gifts, like this Celtic one Jake gave her for her sixtieth birthday. Just the one finger is bare.

She can feel Cordelia’s eyes on her. She twists the ebony signet ring round and round on her little finger.

‘I knew you weren’t listening,’ Cordelia says. ‘Is there something wrong?’

Cordelia’s always been on the alert for things going wrong. Vanessa can remember getting home after evenings out when she was a little girl. No matter what the time was, she’d be standing at the window, pale face squashed against the glass, waiting. As the front door opened, she’d fling herself into her mother’s arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ the babysitter used to say. ‘She wouldn’t go to bed until you were home.’

Vanessa takes Cordelia’s hand. It feels cold and she wants to hold it between her palms, willing warmth into it. ‘I’m not sure. You might think so.’

‘You’re not ill, are you?’

‘Nothing like that.’

‘What then?’

Now. She’s got to say it now.

‘Your father’s back.’ Vanessa stares at the basket of rolls. Blood pounds in her ears as she waits for Cordelia’s reaction. There’s nothing. She looks up. Cordelia’s lips are drawn back: it’s hard to tell if a laugh or a scream might come out. Vanessa focuses on that front tooth, the one that’s slightly discoloured from the bulimia. Usually she hardly notices it; now it taunts her: this is your fault, it seems to shout.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

There’s a burst of laughter from a group of men at the next table.

Vanessa glances across at them and feels Cordelia’s hand slip from her grasp. She turns back. ‘Are you all right?’

Cordelia is examining her hand with exaggerated interest. There’s a mark on the side of her palm where the onyx ring has dug into it. ‘It was a surprise. That’s all.’

‘I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Why?’

‘He is your father.’

‘So?’

The word explodes in Vanessa’s face.

‘I didn’t realise you were still in touch.’ Cordelia’s voice sounds breathy.

‘We’re not … I mean we weren’t … ’ Vanessa studies a line of Toby jugs on a shelf behind Cordelia’s head. Rotund and grotesque, they leer at her. ‘He found me through the business and emailed. He’s been in Argentina and came back about six months ago.’

‘You haven’t seen him, have you?’

‘Would you mind if I did?’

‘You were the one who wouldn’t have his name mentioned.’

‘There are things I’d like to talk about.’

‘What things?’

‘Things from the past.’

‘You mean you want to drag all that up?’

Vanessa picks up her glass. How can she explain to her daughter the intense need she has to unpick the past, as she might a garment that hasn’t worked out as planned, rewind the wool, ready to knit it up again in a more pleasing design. She makes a circling movement in the air with the glass, and the liquid slips from side to side. ‘Things it would be good to resolve.’

Cordelia glances over her shoulder as the waiter approaches with their food. ‘If you don’t want us all to get hurt again,’ she says, ‘you should leave the past where it is.’

Vanessa and her granddaughter stay awake chatting. Savannah is on a mattress on the floor. In the single bed pushed hard against the wall, Vanessa feels like a child again.

Savannah tells her a long complicated story about her war with her headmistress, ‘fart-face Wentwitch’ as she calls her. Vanessa can’t help laughing out loud.

‘Ssh!’ Savannah warns. ‘Mum’ll hear.’

‘We’re only having a chat.’

‘You never know what with her hormones and stuff.’

Vanessa smiles into the darkness. Savannah seems fearless in her opinions, her clothes, loud music. Vanessa wishes she could have given Cordelia that sort of belief in herself. Love for her granddaughter is easy and uncomplicated.

About midnight, they hear the front door slam.

Vanessa jumps. ‘Who on earth is that?’ Her heart is racing.

‘Patrick.’ Savannah’s voice is matter-of-fact.

‘Patrick? Who’s he?’

‘Mum’s toy boy. He lives here.’

‘Her toy boy?’ Vanessa feels something on her face and she sits bolt upright, imagining an insect crawling over her. Her hand brushes against the wall. Savannah’s small room feels suddenly claustrophobic; she longs for Lyme Regis and her own bedroom under the eaves, where the skylight sheds grey shadows on all but the blackest of nights.

‘I told her to tell you about him.’

‘Why didn’t she?’

‘She said something about you meeting him before you jump to conclusions.’

Vanessa is still conscious of her heartbeat. She lies back on the pillow and covers the place with her hand as if that will calm it. She forces back the grenade of questions poised to explode.

‘It’s okay, Granny,’ Savannah’s voice floats up to her. ‘He’s not a perv or anything.’

‘You like him?’

‘Yeah, he’s dead rich.’

‘That’s not everything, Savvy.’

‘What? Clothes, gigs, going up to London instead of stuck in this dump. One of his friends has got a model agency.’

Vanessa thinks of some of the models she’s known, hollow-eyed and gaunt from parties and drugs.

‘Patrick says if I want to be a model – ’

‘I can give you some modelling work, part-time.’

Savannah lets out a snort. ‘No offence, Granny, but Lyme Regis isn’t exactly Paris or Milan.’

‘Modelling’s not as glamorous as it seems,’ Vanessa says.

Savannah doesn’t answer and soon after Vanessa hears the soft sigh of her breathing, regular and repetitive. She closes her eyes but an image of Savannah strutting along a catwalk jerks them open again. How on earth can this Patrick suggest such a thing to an impressionable girl?

It’s still early when she wakes. There’s something different. She turns on her back and adjusts to the darkness. Indistinct shapes gradually emerge. Her senses, finely tuned in the dark, pick up a whisper of breath from her left, and she remembers where she is.

She reaches for her mobile on the bedside table and clicks the button to illuminate the screen: 06:30. She’s usually up by this time. She slides out of bed and pulls on the loose cotton trousers and big jumper she wears first thing. She pushes her feet into her flip-flops and creeps from the room. In the bathroom she splashes cold water on her face, pulls an elastic band from her pocket and piles her hair on top of her head.

In the kitchen while she waits for the kettle to boil, she studies the drawing of a knee-length coat she began on the train. She pencils in folds that fall from above the waist, so that the coat will flare and swirl. She’s just bought a new yarn, a blend of wool and soya bean fibre with a wonderful drape that should knit up beautifully.

She sets up her laptop on the table, a mug of hot water and lemon beside her. There are sixteen emails waiting. She scrolls through them. They’re mostly from customers, a couple from her knitters and the rest from Josie, her manager at the shop. In the early days, she worked on her own, but now the business has got too big, what with orders from around the world, new designs each season and the workshops she runs.

She despatches replies, arranging meetings, checking her diary, her finger clicking on ‘send’ again and again. Each time her eyes return to the one email she’s determined to leave until last.

By seven o’clock she’s dealt with the urgent items. She makes tea and opens a fresh page in her sketchpad. Josie’s bought some recycled sari silk direct from Nepal, and Vanessa is planning designs to show off the vibrant textured yarn. She takes off the rings on her right hand and lines them up on the table in front of her. Her fingers move across the page swiftly: clear, bold strokes, shading here, a detail added there, just as her tutor, Carla Scott, used to show her. She knows designers who use the computer, but she enjoys the contact with the paper, the feel of the pencil between her fingers. What still gives her the biggest kick, though, is to pick up needles and wool and let her imagination produce a garment. Some of her best creations appear like that.

She studies her drawing. The design is not working. The frills running down the front of the cardigan from shoulder to waist look too fussy. Her laptop’s still open and her eyes steal in that direction. You have 1 unread message. It’s ridiculous; she’s making something out of it by not looking. Why doesn’t she open the message, read and delete it?

She pushes the sketchpad to one side and leans over to the keyboard. She clicks on the message symbol. The sender’s name leaps out at her. In the subject line she reads What’s new? It was always that: what’s new? What’s happening? She clicks again and the message unravels on the screen.

She just has time to read the opening words Greetings my darling one. Why haven’t you replied to my emails? when there’s a noise in the hall. She moves the cursor to sign out. Behind her she hears the door open. You have successfully closed your mailbox. She swings round.

A tall man with striking silver-grey hair is framed in the doorway. He’s wearing jeans and a pink shirt. A black jacket dangles from one finger over his shoulder.

Vanessa gets up.

He steps towards her and she feels the impact of his gaze. There’s a gleam in his eyes she would once have found impossible to resist.

‘You must be Patrick.’

‘Got it in one.’

Vanessa holds out her hand, wondering what sort of handshake he’ll have. Instead he reaches for her hand and rests his lips against it for a moment. ‘I knew Cordelia would have a beautiful mum.’

He manages to make the gesture and comment seem genuine rather than corny, and Vanessa laughs. ‘Equally that she’d have beautiful friends,’ she says.

He grins, an expensively-capped-white-teeth sort of smile. ‘Cordelia tells me you’re a fashion designer.’

‘That’s right.’ She sits down, relieved to hide her baggy trousers and sweater behind the table.

He gestures to her sketchpad. ‘I see you’re already hard at it.’

‘Mornings are good for work.’

He hangs his jacket over the back of a chair. ‘Best bit of the day.’ He crosses to the sink, and she hears water splashing into the kettle. He leans back against the worktop, his arms folded across his chest. ‘I’ve tried to persuade Cordelia to get up with me. I like to go for a run first thing, but she’s a night owl.’ His speech is quick and staccato as though he doesn’t have time to waste.

He spoons coffee into a mug and pours in boiling water. He stirs vigorously, the spoon rattling against the sides of the mug. ‘Sorry I got back too late to see you last night.’

‘That’s okay. I had a nice evening with Cordelia and Savannah.’ She stares at his smooth, newly-shaven face. Do you know my daughter didn’t tell me about you? she wants to say. Have you any idea how much that hurts?

She clears her throat loudly, as if the sound will drown out the noise of her thoughts. Reaching up, she drags the elastic band from the top of her head. She smoothes down the hair, gathers a fistful in her left hand and snaps the band into position once more. She looks up and finds Patrick’s eyes still on her.

He pulls out a chair at the side of the table and swings it round. He straddles it, resting his arms along the back. He reaches forward and picks up one of Vanessa’s rings, the emerald Andrew gave her the day Jake was born. She watches as he twists the stone from one side to another. ‘Pretty,’ he says, returning it to the line of other rings.

He takes his phone from an inside pocket and checks for messages. His restlessness unsettles her, but she can’t deny he’s an extraordinarily good-looking man. His silver hair, in that spiky style she sees on so many of the young men at fashion shoots, is intriguing on someone of his age. She studies the roots, wondering if he dyes it. She remembers a model she met at one of the shows. He could only have been about twenty but his hair was completely grey. ‘My unique selling point,’ he said.

Patrick looks up from his phone. ‘I’ve asked Cordy to marry me.’

Vanessa blinks. It’s a long time since she heard anyone call her daughter Cordy. It was her father’s name for her and it stopped overnight when he left. ‘Have you?’ she says. ‘And what did she say?’

‘Nothing yet.’ Patrick takes several sips of coffee, his eyes remaining on Vanessa. ‘I’ve told her to take as long as she likes.’

‘Oh.’

‘Has she said anything to you?’

‘No.’ Vanessa picks up her pencil. She holds it lightly between her forefinger and thumb, twisting it round and round.

‘She’s frightened of marriage,’ Patrick says.

Vanessa pulls her sketchpad towards her. She begins drawing. With a few quick lines, Patrick’s face emerges on the page. She’s always enjoyed drawing faces – the shape of them, the slant of the eyes, the mouth – faces can give you all the answers and at the same time tell you nothing. ‘Is she?’

‘Yeah, it’s the commitment she can’t handle.’

Vanessa keeps her eyes on her drawing, but she knows Patrick’s watching her, challenging her to react. ‘It’s a big decision,’ she says.

‘Having seen her parents’ relationship fail – twice.’

‘Twice?’ Vanessa looks up.

Patrick’s eyebrows are raised, and his mouth has that quizzical lift to it that says you know what I’m talking about.

Vanessa’s face grows hot under his stare. Patrick can’t possibly know, but she feels exposed. It’s as if Patrick was there that day. As if he watched them climbing the stairs to the hotel bedroom; as if he watched their illicit kisses; as if he saw her nakedness. The phone rang that day, she remembers, insistent, piercing …

‘There was no question of getting together the second time, ’ she says quickly. ‘Her father and I – ’

Without warning, Patrick gets to his feet. He straightens the chair and pushes it under the table. Her pencil leaps off the page. His whole manner has changed from the easy charm of a few minutes ago. A scar runs across his cheekbone, just below his left eye. Another scar, she thinks. So many scars. Patrick’s is hardly noticeable, but as she draws, it grows more pronounced on the page.

‘I was only going to say, her father and I – ’

‘I’m sorry to sound rude but that man makes my blood boil. He’s hurt Cordy so much. If I met him – ’

‘I think you’d get on.’ Stay calm, Vanessa tells herself. Don’t let him see how much he’s rattled you.

Patrick’s mouth is drawn downwards in a thin line; his jaw juts into the air. ‘I’m not impressed with men who abandon their kids.’ He thrusts his hands into his pockets, jingling some loose change. He chews at the inside of his cheek.

He doesn’t like losing his cool, Vanessa guesses. ‘It was me he left,’ she says, ‘not the children.’

Patrick leans forward, his palms resting flat on the table. His hands are white and smooth, the nails manicured. ‘Why do you defend him?’

She hesitates. Her answer must come out exactly right. ‘He’s my children’s father and he did love them very much, especially Cordelia.’

‘I love her and I want to look after her,’ he states as if it’s a mantra he’s repeated to himself over and over again.

Vanessa meets his stare for as long as she can. ‘I’m pleased Cordelia’s got someone who cares for her so much.’

All at once, the angry Patrick has gone. ‘Thank you, Vanessa. I will make her happy, you know. You can trust me.’

There’s an almost imperceptible emphasis on the word me.

‘I hope you will. She deserves to be happy.’

Patrick takes his jacket from the back of the chair and pulls it on. ‘Best make a move.’ He lifts the cuff of his pink shirt, and Vanessa catches a flash of gold on his wrist. ‘Mountains to climb and rivers to swim.’ He hooks open the kitchen door with his foot. ‘Thanks for our little chat, Vanessa. Have a fun day.’

A few minutes later the front door slams and the roar of Patrick’s car fades. Vanessa remains at the table. It’s twenty years since she gave up smoking, but she’s longing for a cigarette. Tapping the pencil against her lower lip, she half closes her eyes against an imagined spiral of smoke. She feels as if she’s just raced through a deluge of rain. Battered but energised at the same time.

A soft greyish light slides into the kitchen and she stirs herself to switch off the lamp on the dresser. She opens her laptop and brings up the emails. Greetings my darling one. Her eyes scan the rest of the message. She clicks on reply. Hello, she writes. It was always that in the old days on the phone: darling one, he would say in his loud exuberant voice and she would say hello, just like that, hello, no endearments, blandishments, affecting a calm she didn’t feel.

She starts to type:

I got your emails, and I’m glad the scan went okay.

I’m staying with Cordelia and Savannah for a few days. Savannah is beautiful, very like Cordelia at her age but with blonde hair. She makes me laugh.

I won’t be able to ask if you can visit. Cordelia is very ‘anti’. I didn’t dare tell her I’ve seen you.

Vanessa hears footsteps overhead, the bathroom door shutting. She resumes typing:

I don’t think we should meet again. It was good to catch up, but we can’t go back. Too much happened.

Vanessa