Caroline arrived next morning. Since Ella hadn’t heard the car, her arrival at the back door brought a shock of joy.
‘Oh, Carrie, pet.’
‘Oh, Mum.’
They hugged strenuously.
Caroline disengaged herself and said tenderly, ‘Poor Mum. Try not to blame yourself too much.’
Ella stared in amazement, then retorted, ‘The way you’ve been carrying on, you ought to be glad it’s a man.’
And that, she thought later, was the shortest reconciliation on record.
Caroline stared back in disbelief, then subsided into a chair and began to weep bitterly and – there was no doubt about it – sincerely.
‘How could you? How could you say such a wicked, vulgar thing? I know it’s been hard for you, you’ve been going through a very bad time, but you shouldn’t let it destroy you. Saying such wicked, immoral things – I never thought I would hear you say such a dreadful thing. And having those terrible people in the house, letting them corrupt Sophie. Perhaps you didn’t see what would come of it. You couldn’t have thought of anything as bad as this. You were just taking petty revenges, having these people in the house, expecting Dad to support that wretched man – ’
‘William paid for his own food. And if anyone is complaining about that electricity bill, what unbelievable pettiness!’
She was losing control. What could Caroline know about electricity bills?
But Caroline didn’t ask. She looked for a moment shifty and uncomfortably exposed.
‘Perhaps you’re not sorry. Perhaps this is your way of saying to Dad, look what you’ve done. Now Sophie’s life is ruined, look what you’ve done.’
‘Sophie’s life is not ruined. William is a man of good character and a very fine writer.’
‘Oh, good character. He’s shown that, hasn’t he?’
Ella could not defend William’s character without exposing Sophie’s disgrace.
‘You are talking rubbish.’
‘Oh, yes.’
Caroline’s tears were dried.
‘That’s the answer always, isn’t it? I have to be talking rubbish. Any time I tried to set a standard, I got no help from you. You let that pair get away with anything they liked, you never checked them. The stupid way they talked and carried on and you just sitting and smiling as if they were being clever.’
This was a new phase. Caroline’s voice had risen and was bolting with her.
‘You saw to it that Dad didn’t check them either. We never had a father. You saw to that. “Don’t disturb your father.” “Don’t upset your father.” “Don’t make a noise. Your father’s had a very tiring day.” Oh, it sounded fine and considerate, but what it meant was “This is my department, and I don’t brook any interference.”’
There was enough truth in this to madden Ella.
‘Don’t you worry about my motives, Caroline. Take a good look at your own.’
Sophie had said, ‘Go take a look in the glass.’
‘Just what do you mean by that?’
Ella halted. She was losing Becky. She was in danger of losing Becky for good. She must make things no worse.
‘Except, of course, that I’m in the wrong, as usual.’
Ella with difficulty let that pass and said more calmly, ‘I think you had better go now. This is doing no-one any good.’
Comfort in cliches again.
Caroline got up and went with dignity.
Brook no interference. Brook no interference.
That wasn’t Caroline talking. The feelings were hers all right, pouring out of her like blood or bile – stunned as she was by them, Ella could not deny it – but not the words. Not all this analysis either. Explaining people’s motives – it sounded like Martha. No, surely not Martha. She wouldn’t be holding discussions with Caroline.
Caroline hates me. Caroline has always hated me.
She sat motionless at the kitchen table. Sophie found her there twenty minutes later, still drowsy with shock.
‘Hullo, Mum,’ said Sophie, then repeated in a different tone, ‘Hullo. What’s up?’
‘You just missed Caroline.’
‘What rotten luck.’
Ella no longer had the right to protest at the sarcasm.
‘Has she been upsetting you?’
Ella was past all pretence.
‘She hates me. Caroline hates me.’
‘Caroline hates everybody except Max and Becky and I wouldn’t answer for them for long if they didn’t toe the line. I don’t know why it’s such a shock to you. She’s always needling you.’
‘She can be a bit tactless sometimes. I never thought – ’
‘Tactless! Caroline’s never tactless. She knows very well what she’s doing. There is one thing Caroline’s really good at. She knows how to put the needle in and at that she’s an expert. And looking like an angel as she does it.
‘But Mum, you were the one who never did toe the line. You were the expert at handling her. Do you expect her to love you for it?’
But I loved her. I understood how she felt. I couldn’t let her behave badly but I knew how she felt.
‘She was always under David’s shadow. I understood that. It was hard for her.’
Sophie said, ‘It wasn’t David’s fault, was it? Other people can live with things like that. I’m sorry, Mum, but Caroline’s a born … a very nasty piece. Sometimes I wonder Max doesn’t see it. I suppose that’s why they say love is blind.’
A glance at Ella’s stricken face informed her that parents were susceptible to the same emotional weakness. She fell silent, abashed.
Later, she asked, ‘What about me? Is anyone interested in what I’m doing?’
Ella answered sourly, ‘Everyone is a good deal too interested in what you are doing.’
‘Hey. Is that what she was on about? She knew I’d moved out. That was quick, wasn’t it?’
‘These things get about, I suppose.’
‘Yes. Well. About William. He’s agreeable, but he says I have to think it over. He says you can’t make a decision like that in a hurry, especially when you’re upset. I was in a state, wasn’t I?’ She looked back with some amusement at this piece of the remote past. ‘But meanwhile I have to find somewhere to live and he hates it at that place so we might as well join forces, sort of.’
William, it seemed, had all the vicious instincts of a conscientious school counsellor. Ella felt that socially she had no further to fall. She might blush for Sophie but Sophie could not blush for herself.
‘Besides, he does need help with the clean copy. He’s getting it into a terrible mess.’
She spoke complacently. Even if what Rob said about her was true, she seemed to pride herself more on her typing than on her animal magnetism. ‘If we get on all right together, then we’ll stay together. If not …’ she shrugged.
This was a long way from fainting with joy on a moonlit beach. Well, that had proved to be no guarantee, either.
‘What’s for lunch, Mum? I’m starving.’
Seeing Ella still absorbed in thought, she opened the refrigerator, investigated supplies and said, ‘Toasted ham sandwiches do you?’
As she assembled the sandwiches, she chatted easily.
‘I’ll be spending my days househunting and my evenings typing. Unfurnished places are much cheaper if you can find them. It would be handy if I could have the stuff out of my room.’
‘I should think you could have that. I’ll find out.’
I am being dismembered.
Caroline hates me and I am being cut to pieces.
‘Do you think I could borrow David’s good sleeping-bag? It’s still here, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sure he’d be delighted to lend it to you,’ she answered wryly.
‘Good. I’ll take it first and ask later. I had to go sometime, Mum, you know. You couldn’t be expected to make room for me when you get your unit. It was better to go like that, on the spur of the moment. Made it easier, for me, anyhow.’
‘I suppose so.’
Sophie brought the food to the table and said desperately, ‘Don’t let her upset you like this. She’ll come back. She’ll run out of excuses and she can’t bear to be in the wrong.’
‘Don’t talk like that, please, Sophie. I don’t want to discuss it.’
Sophie drew a harsh breath.
‘Well, I hope you know she’s buddies with Louise, and I bet that’s where she got the news. David would have told Dad and that creature would have been on the phone to Caroline as fast as light.’
The voice behind Caroline: Louise. Louise having interesting, civilised discussions about her character.
Ella stared at the sandwich on her plate.
‘Well, you had to know sometime, Mum.’
No, I didn’t. I didn’t have to know about this at all.
Caught between guilt and grievance, Sophie said childishly, ‘Is there something wrong with the sandwiches?’
Ella shook her head and began to eat.
The offence was serious.
It’s you and David who make her what she is. You can’t help being what you are and neither can she. But what could I have done? Lucky I didn’t know how she felt, for I couldn’t have acted differently and I would have found it much harder.
Sophie said in a subdued voice, ‘I’ll go and get the sleeping-bag and the typewriter and be off.’
When Ella said ‘Would you like me to drive you back?’ it seemed like an attempt at reconciliation.
‘If you give me a lift to the station, that would be fine.’
At the station, she said, ‘Mum, you were always fair to everybody. You never favoured any one of us more than another.’
But it was life that showed favours, life that wasn’t fair.