‘I thought I might come up for a couple of days.’
It was Alec, interrupting mealtime preparations as usual. Why was he not busy, for goodness sake, in a restaurant of all places?
‘Could you leave it till Easter? I’m run off my feet just now.’
‘Busy time for me, the holidays. No, I’d rather come this weekend, if possible.’
‘I’ve got Gill this weekend.’
‘I won’t land on you – is there a good B&B in Dingwall?’
Ring the Tourist Information Centre, she wanted to retort, but did not. ‘Well, I suppose if you’re not staying here …’
‘I need to see Kate.’
‘Are you taking her home?’
He hesitated, which meant no. ‘How is she?’
‘Fine. So you’re not taking her home?’
‘If she’s settled it would be best not to disrupt things. I thought I could reassure her.’
‘About what, exactly?’
Alec was vague, slipping as usual from her grasp. This time, however, what she felt was relief that he was leaving Kate with them. He had taken her away before with no warning. The teenage Kate, lank and sulky, was nothing like the rosy cheerful infant Frances had looked after so long ago, but her presence had touched a wound she had thought healed over.
‘It’s a long time ago,’ she had told Kate. ‘I don’t mind any more.’
She did mind. However little she allowed herself to think of it she still had a vivid memory of that dark February morning when Susan, instead of sleeping late as she usually did on her day off, got up at eight. Dressing Katy she said, ‘I’m taking her to Aberdeen to see Mum and Dad. I’ve got three days off, then it’s the weekend. I’m on nights next week, so it’ll give us a good break.’ She smiled at Frances. ‘You too, eh?’
‘A bit sudden isn’t it? Katy’s no bother,’ Frances said. Hearing her name, Frances’s voice, the child ran towards her. Only last week, they’d had a tea party for her second birthday with cakes and candles and three other toddlers, children of Frances’s friends. Susan had been working so Frances had done it all. Andrew was home from nursery at lunch-time and Jack out of school at three o’clock, so they had joined in, raising the pitch of excitement much too high, the little ones shrieking in delight as the boys showed off, inventing dangerous games.
Susan packed up with remarkable thoroughness for someone who had only just decided to go away. Perhaps she was actually thinking of moving back to Aberdeen, and this was the first step. It would be a relief if she did. Frances longed for her house, and her marriage, to be clear of Susan. She and Alec got on well, that was not the trouble. They liked the same television programmes and music and they both liked to drink. That was where the trouble lay. Too much money, and time, in Frances’s view, was spent on drinking.
If Susan left, things would settle down and Alec would turn more of his attention to the boys again and to Frances herself. Had it not been for Katy, she would have asked Susan to leave months ago.
She watched Susan pack up with mixed feelings, but drove her willingly to the station, Katy wide awake and chatty in the child-seat.
‘Just drop us off, no point in your waiting,’ Susan said, as she got herself and Katy onto the pavement, She put up the buggy then hauled her bags out of the boot.
‘I’ll find a parking space, then come and give you a hand – ’
‘Don’t bother. I’m fine.’
She headed off, laden but confident, the lone parent struggling bravely, through the station entrance. Frances watched her go, her bell of shoulder length hair brightly fair in contrast to her dark jacket, jeans and boots. Frances’s heart jolted at the sight of the tiny figure in the push-chair, sitting still, overawed by the vastness and echoing sounds of the station concourse.
The last of Susan.
Not, as it had turned out, the last of Kate. This time, Frances did not intend to miss her so much when she went away.
Susan had not been going to Aberdeen and Alec had not gone to work. They had met and gone away together. Alec had almost nothing with him, so perhaps he had still been swithering. How had Susan persuaded him? Frances did not let herself speculate about that.
It had not been the last of Alec either. He came back to collect clothes and other belongings, and make financial arrangements for them all. It seemed he had the offer of a job with a branch of his company in Leeds. They would live in Leeds together and Susan would get a part-time job nursing.
‘And Katy?’ Frances asked, her voice trembling.
‘We’ll get a childminder.’
‘A childminder!’
She almost said, leave her with me. Of course that was impossible. She was a single mother with no income of her own. She was going to have to survive, and make sure her boys did too. That was enough to cope with. Sometimes she wondered if Alec might have stayed if she had given him the slightest opportunity, if she had pleaded with him. But she had turned her back on him in disbelief and contempt. Later, she understood that she had been in a state of deep shock and in that state she had focused painfully on the loss of the child. Not her own miscarried baby, but Katy. She missed with a profound physical ache the weight and warmth of her in her arms, her presence in the house. With Susan and Alec at work, or as she now realised, in the pub together, Jack at school and Andrew at nursery, she had spent many hours of many days alone with Katy.
Eventually she came to terms with the loss, knowing she must. What choice had she? Lying awake one night next to Andrew who’d had a nightmare and was restlessly taking up most of the double bed, she reached this stark conclusion. Dry eyed, she waited for daylight. I won’t cry any more, she decided. What was the point?
It was a pity her parents couldn’t be so pragmatic. Her father’s anger against Alec and Susan blazed as far as Northumberland and gave her no peace. In the end, she gave in to his demands and moved to Aberdeen, partly to reassure him she had survived, partly to make it easier to go back to work and become independent of Alec. It had been the right thing to do, even if she had not done it for the best reasons. In taking care of their grandsons, her parents had to keep silent about Susan at last. Frances sometimes thought as she accommodated her life to suit them, taking responsibility for the future on her own shoulders, her life would have been easier if she had been alone.
The coming weekend, with both Alec and Gillian in the house, filled Frances with gloom. There was parents’ night to get through and two children in the school had been put on the ‘at risk’ register, so there was a meeting with Social Workers tomorrow. She had more on her mind than family, she thought, frustrated.
In the evening she spoke to her parents on the telephone. Still no-one had told them about Susan, but Frances felt this could not go on much longer. Her mother said, when she told her Gillian was coming for the weekend, ‘That’s nice she’ll be there for Katy’s birthday. You’ve still got her staying with you?’
‘Birthday?’
‘She’s fifteen on Sunday.’ Grace kept a birthday book; she was always on time with her cards and presents and attached more importance to this than either Frances or Gillian could bear, having other things on their minds.
‘Sunday! Right, I’ll have to get her something on Saturday, there’s no time before then. But I’ll have Gill and Alec on Saturday. What a nuisance. What do girls want at that age – clothes?’
‘You’ve such a busy life,’ her mother said reproachfully. ‘It’s very hard on you to be landed with Katy as well. What on earth is Susan thinking of? Don’t say anything to your father but I thought I might try and speak to Susan. What do you think?’
Frances heard the pleading note in Grace’s voice. She wanted Frances to give her blessing.
‘It’s up to you. It always has been. Nothing to do with me. Except – ’ She hesitated.
‘Is Susan all right? There’s something, I know that, what with Alec turning up out of the blue.’
‘Maybe now’s not the best time to try to speak to Susan.’
‘Have they fallen out, is that it? I knew it wouldn’t last, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before now.’
‘Not fallen out, exactly. Susan’s away from home.’
‘Away where?’
Frances backed off, unable to have this conversation by telephone. ‘She goes to this retreat for women, for meditation, that sort of thing.’
A pause, while Grace took this in. ‘So she abandons her daughter to you again.’
Her mother had not forgotten; for a few seconds, thirteen years vanished. Frances’s anger against Susan and Alec revived suddenly, a flame of pain burning as hard as ever.
‘I don’t know,’ Grace went on. ‘It seems a funny business. All we ever wanted, your Dad and me, was a quiet family life. It doesn’t seem much to ask.’
All these years, her mother had probably felt like this: resentful and annoyed, as if she had been the one betrayed.
‘We can talk about it when you and Dad come up at Easter, if you like,’ Frances said, weary of it now, longing to put the phone down.
‘I don’t know that there’s much to say. It’s very hard on you, dear,’ Grace said, her voice softening. ‘I’ll speak to your father. Are you sure you want us at Easter?’
‘Of course I do.’ What else could she say?
Grace had decided to change the subject. ‘How about Jack? We never see him, but I suppose student life must occupy him full time.’
By the time this terrible conversation was over Frances, wrung out and hopeless, had forgotten Kate’s birthday. Over the evening meal, she thought of it again.
‘You’re fifteen on Sunday, aren’t you?’
Kate looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’
‘I just do.’ I ought to, she thought, recalling suddenly a cake with two candles, a toddlers’ party. ‘I wondered if there was anything special you wanted to do. Go to the cinema or something? What sort of present would you like? Andrew always wants money.’
‘I like presents too,’ he said, grinning, ‘if there’s any on the go. Like a Ferrari or a Rolex watch, or maybe a round the world ticket?’
‘You’re hopeful,’ Frances retorted, getting up to clear the dishes. ‘No chance of any of those.’
‘It’s Ok,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t want any of them.’ She smiled and Frances, her heart turning over, thought, how pretty she is sometimes, and smiled back.
‘So, any ideas?’
‘Clothes? ’
‘Better give you money and you can choose your own.’ Frances sighed. ‘I’d take you up to town on Saturday myself but we’re going to have visitors.’
‘Who?’ Andrew asked as he cut himself another chunk of cheese.
‘Gill’s coming, and Alec.’
‘Nobody important then.’ He sloped off with the cheese and a glass of milk, disappearing up to his bedroom and computer.
‘Ignore him,’ Frances said.
‘I do,’ Kate answered.
‘Would you like anything else to eat?’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘You haven’t had much, are you all right? You look a bit peaky.’
‘I’m tired, that’s all.’ Kate pushed some crumbs around the table, poking them into heaps with one finger. ‘What’s Alec coming for?’
‘Just to see you.’
Kate looked up. ‘Does he want me to go home?’
‘It’s probably better if you finish the term here. What do you think?’
‘I don’t mind. Probably.’
Frances got up and began to pack the dishwasher, closing it with a rattle of china. Kate went on sitting at the table. Then, remembering it was time for a programme she wanted to watch, she got up and headed for the living-room.
Frances stood alone in the kitchen. ‘There you are, Susan,’ she said aloud. ‘Life goes on without you. Your husband runs his restaurant, your daughter goes to school and watches TV. So no need to hurry back, eh?’
She closed her eyes for a moment, reminding herself Susan was ill. How ill was she thirteen years ago, when she took my husband and Katy and left? Susan had been all right before that. Self centred, yes, careless, but lucid and sane – until she went off with Alec. Perhaps she had a conscience after all, and it drove her mad. For the first time, a quiver of pity encroached on all the other emotions Susan had aroused.