Sylvia lay flat on her back on Fran’s tartan rug staring up at the pale, cloudless sky, and holding out her glass to David, who promptly topped it up with champagne. It was, she thought, warmer than the other Mother’s Day picnic, when her fingers had turned blue and wrinkled from staying so long in the icy water. She sat up, crossing her legs and looking around her; surprisingly little had changed about the place. She hadn’t been to this beach, to any beach, for years; she’d forgotten how good it felt to be watching the water, to smell the salt breeze and the seaweed. A seagull dived and swooped towards the picnic baskets and she watched David shoo it away. How lucky Fran was to have at least one of her children here, and how sweet David was, so much at ease with this group of women.
On Friday a parcel had arrived from England with a card and a long letter, and in silver tissue paper was a beautiful nightdress: very pale pink satin trimmed with silver grey lace. Sylvia had taken it from the tissue paper and stood in front of the mirror in her jeans and jumper, holding the nightdress against her. It was perfect, Kim had got it absolutely right, but she knew she couldn’t wear it, couldn’t get into bed beside Colin wearing this beautiful nightdress, feeling as she did. She had rewrapped it in the tissue and tucked it away in the cupboard, wondering if or when, and under what circumstances, she might feel able to put it on.
‘Your husband couldn’t come then, dear?’ Lila asked, perched above her on a canvas chair. ‘Fran said he had to work. Was it a serious operation? It must be very difficult for doctors having to rush off at all hours. I have a very nice young doctor, his name is Ahmed. I don’t suppose your husband would know him?’
‘No, Mrs Whittaker,’ Sylvia said, turning to her with a smile. ‘No, my husband’s not a doctor, he’s a clergyman, a Canon.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, don’t call me Mrs Whittaker. It’s Lila, you know that. A Canon, really – that’s nice, although I can’t imagine why Fran told me he was a doctor.’ Lila took a sip of her champagne and waved across to Fran, who was sitting on the other rug with Bonnie. ‘Fran, Fran! Sylvia’s husband is a Canon, he’s a vicar, not a doctor at all; you got it all wrong.’
Fran rolled her eyes, smiling conspiratorially at Sylvia. ‘Sorry, Mum, silly old me.’
Sylvia rested her elbows on her knees and thought about Colin, about the affectionate, considerate way he had bent to listen when the woman spoke to him outside the cinema, and then steered her across the street. She was still numb with shock, not just that he was deceiving her but that he was doing it so blatantly. That afternoon she had caught the bus home and walked back to the house feeling not hurt, not angry, just numb and confused.
When Colin arrived home around six-thirty, self-assured, smiling, looking just as he always did after meetings or lectures or services, she had watched closely for signs of guilt or insecurity. Not the obvious lipstick-on-the-collar signs, but the more subtle ones: elation, nervousness, overcompensation. There were none. He looked totally relaxed and she wondered if this was because it was the first time and he thought he’d got away with it, or because he’d been doing it for so long that he knew he could get away with it.
‘Fascinating,’ he said with a smile when she asked him about the lecture. ‘Absolutely fascinating, lots to think about. It’s part of a series – I’m going again next week.’
‘Really, that’s nice,’ she said, curious to see if he would detect the insincerity in her tone. ‘And the meeting?’
‘Oh, fine,’ he said, thumbing through the mail. ‘Boring, you know what these things are like.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t. Tell me.’
He looked up instantly then. A sliver of insecurity flickered across his face and was rapidly replaced by a reassuring smile. ‘Just the usual community stuff – how to stretch the social welfare dollars.’
‘Oh that,’ she said, and he’d nodded and wandered off into the study, from where she heard the sound of his paperknife slicing through envelopes.
Because it was impossible for her to define how she felt, Sylvia had thought at length about what she wanted to do, and had decided that first she needed to know more. No action was the best solution until she knew just what she was dealing with, and the first step in that direction was to find out if the lecture series was real and, if not, to see what happened on the day of the next ‘lecture’. Meanwhile, she wondered how many past lectures, meetings, and pastoral visits might have served as cover for similar encounters. There were so many committees and fundraising projects, meetings and talks, that she had never queried, and why would she? And of course there were also the retreats, retreats that lasted a weekend, sometimes a whole week, during which there was no contact, no phone calls because it was time spent in thoughtful, prayerful solitude, communicating with oneself, and with God – or perhaps not.
And so, just the day before yesterday, having phoned the university and learned that there was no lecture series, Sylvia had set out, rather earlier than the previous week, to see if the two o’clock screening was a regular date. She had felt perfectly ridiculous in her hat and sunglasses, and was overwhelmed with anger at Colin for making her behave like a cliché. She hovered for a while near the front of the bookshop, picking up and putting down books and then, concerned that the staff might think her a potential shoplifter, found a seat in the nearby coffee shop, masked, she hoped, by a veranda post.
The audience from the two o’clock screening straggled out and dispersed and there was no sign of them, but as Sylvia was about to pay for the three cups of coffee that had left her hyper and twitchy, she saw them. They were walking along on the other side of Lygon Street, Colin, on this occasion, wearing a blue shirt that he usually kept in the car for those pastoral visits with people he thought might be a little intimidated by ‘the uniform’. Sylvia stared hard at the woman. She was probably in her thirties, attractive but no great beauty, with an athletic build and short blonde hair cut in layers. She was wearing a navy blue sweater and faded jeans; they were holding hands again, but this time as they paused at the lights waiting to cross the road, Colin did the most extraordinary thing. He let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulders. He was the taller by at least six inches and he drew her closer to his side and kissed the top of her head, and with that intimate gesture he thrust a knife into Sylvia’s heart, slicing through the numbness. A gasp burst from her throat and she put a hand on the table to steady herself. The woman looked up at him and smiled and, as the lights changed, they strolled across the street, arms around each other, and turned into a side street.
Sylvia’s original intention had been to follow them if she saw them but now, reeling with shock and hurt, she left the café and wandered blindly back towards the bus stop, dredging the recesses of her memory for a time, any time, when Colin had ever demonstrated such spontaneous affection towards her. She found she had to rewind more than thirty years to recall one. He had always been acutely embarrassed by the slightest gesture of affection in public, and now here he was strolling down the street with his arm around an unknown young woman, seemingly entirely at ease with something that, even as a young man, he had always shunned. And most extraordinary of all was the fact that he was doing this openly. He knew so many people that the odds of being recognised were high. Even if he wasn’t worried that she would find out, he would surely realise that this could get back to the Dean or the Bishop. Sylvia couldn’t avoid feeling that it was somehow deliberate, as though he was challenging all of them – her, the church hierarchy, the community, everyone. Maybe even God?
Numbness had been replaced by hurt and anger, furious anger, and resentment, but Colin’s clandestine affair had also relieved her of the burden of guilt she had felt at her own disaffection. It released her from the responsibilities that had imprisoned her for years, leaving her free to act for herself, and although she didn’t yet know what she was going to do, she was absolutely sure that she was going to do something very soon. Sylvia uncrossed her legs and stretched them out in front of her, listening to Irene and David praising Lila’s ham sandwiches and, further off, to Fran and Bonnie puzzling over the long forgotten names of the others who had been at the first picnic.
‘To mothers, grandmothers and daughters!’ David said, holding up his glass of mineral water in a toast.
‘And sons,’ Irene smiled, raising hers towards him.
And fleetingly Sylvia remembered Simon, who had been at the first picnic and whom Irene had lost. ‘And sons!’ she added, raising her glass, and the others chorused the full toast, and broke into joyful, sentimental laughter.
Fran stood up, flexing her legs to get rid of the pins and needles, transferred herself to the chair that Lila had just vacated, and watched as her mother and her son wandered towards the water’s edge. Lila was hanging on to David’s arm, telling him some long and involved story about the dances she used to go to as a young girl. They moved slowly, David guiding her across the uneven sand, his head bent to hear what she was saying, and Fran thought Lila looked smaller, as though she had shrunk. Was she actually smaller or was it simply the effect of seeing David’s youth and height alongside her? Lila was wearing a pair of purple cotton trousers, a lavender blouse, and leather pumps in a different shade of purple.
One Christmas a few years earlier, Fran had bought her mother a framed print of a poem called ‘Warning’. Lila had unwrapped the print and studied the poem for a few moments in silence and then began to read it aloud.
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple,
With a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter . . .
Lila had paused and looked at Fran. ‘I like this,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Fran, I like it very much,’ and she read on, intermittently aloud: ‘I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired . . . And make up for the sobriety of my youth . . . Who wrote this poem?’ she asked, turning the frame in her hands and reading the poet’s name at the bottom. ‘Jenny Joseph, I see. Is she a friend of yours, Fran? I’d like to meet her.’
Fran shook her head. ‘She’s English. The poem was written in the sixties.’
‘Pity,’ Lila said. ‘She knows a thing or two, this Jenny Joseph. ‘I shall go out in my slippers in the rain, And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens . . .’ And Lila read softly on to the end of the poem and sat for a moment staring at it as a tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the glass. Then she pulled down the sleeve of her cardigan and wiped the tear away. ‘I think this is one of the nicest presents I’ve had in my whole life, Fran,’ Lila said, crossing the room to kiss her.
A couple of weeks later, Lila had called and asked Fran to drop by and pick up a bag of old clothes to deliver to the charity shop. Fran was on her way home after interviewing a famous visiting gourmet chef and was not far away, so she made the detour.
‘It’s me, Mum,’ she called, letting herself in through Lila’s back door. ‘Oh, a new dress! What a lovely colour.’
‘Yes,’ Lila said, twirling slowly for Fran to admire the purple and lilac print. ‘I spent my whole pension on some new things, come and look.’ And she drew Fran into the bedroom where a variety of different outfits in various shades of purple, lilac and lavender were spread out for inspection. And on the wall above Lila’s bed, replacing the Mediterranean seascape, was the poem. Since then Lila had purpled her life, a little at a time, from her wardrobe, to her bed linen, to the cotton mats she crocheted for her dressing table, to the purple mugs she bought to replace her old china.
‘I left it a little late, really,’ she said thoughtfully when Fran commented on the newly acquired purple bathmats and crocheted toilet roll cover, ‘so I have to make up for lost time.’
Fran thought she was lucky that so far Lila had not chosen to splash out on the red hat, or experimented with spitting, both of which were options considered in the poem.
Taking a couple of surprisingly lively steps back from the water’s edge, Lila appeared to be showing David a dance step, and Fran watched in fascination as David put his right arm around Lila’s waist and took her right hand in his left, and the two of them began a stately dance. She held her breath trying to stifle the sob that rose in her throat. Silhouetted against the late afternoon sky she could see David’s new fragility. It was spiritual more than physical, although he was also thinner than when he had gone away. But since he had broken his news she had noticed other things; the slight discolouration in the whites of his eyes, the shadows beneath them which she had, at first, attributed to jet lag, the sudden onset of fatigue; things apparent only to a mother now searching constantly for signs.
David turned Lila gently, swaying to and fro and laughing, throwing back his head, the soft fair hair, so like Fran’s own, catching the last gold of the sun’s rays. Did he really understand what this meant? Did he understand what it meant for relationships, for his work? Late that night, after they had sat for hours talking, crying, hugging or holding hands, each trying to comfort and reassure the other, David had eventually drifted off to bed and Fran, whose response to most crises was first to acquire as much information as possible, had done some research on the Internet. She had to assume that he knew as much as she did, probably more, and she wanted to ask him, but he seemed to prefer to let it rest and now she was trapped, the victim of her own restless knowledge.
‘Look at those two,’ Sylvia said, sitting down beside her, nodding towards the pair dancing by the water. ‘Aren’t they beautiful? Don’t you wish you had a camera?’
Bonnie sneaked a look at her mother, who had turned her chair to capture the last of the sun’s rays on her face. She breathed a sigh of relief that she had managed to stop herself from pointing out that Irene wasn’t wearing sunscreen. Since the conversation about Greece and then her talk with Sylvia, she had been shocked at the number of times she’d had the urge to organise Irene, or say something relating to her safety. The effort of restraining herself was enormous and she had begun to wonder if she had been as neurotic with Jeff. Probably not. He’d certainly have told her if it had annoyed him and, anyway, men just loved to be the centre of attention, to feel they were being looked after. In a couple of weeks’ time Irene would be on her way to Greece and Bonnie would be alone again; the prospect of the empty house hovered threateningly like the entrance to a cave.
She wondered how her mother had coped with her first months as a widow and realised that when she and Jeff had returned to Zurich, three weeks after her father’s funeral, she had given little thought to the huge burden of grief and adjustment that Irene was facing alone. Bonnie felt a deep sense of shame that she could have been so insensitive.
‘Brushing up your tan before you head off to Italy, Irene?’ Lila said as David led her back to her chair. ‘I hope you’re going to send me a postcard.’
‘It’s Greece, Lila,’ Irene said, opening her eyes and turning towards her. ‘And of course I’ll send you a card. I’m certainly not going to lose touch with you again. And when I get back I’m going to bore you to death with my photographs.’
‘Oh, I’ll enjoy that,’ Lila said. ‘And, Bonnie, you’re to come and see me while your mum’s away. I want to show you my unit. I’m changing everything to purple, like the poem. I want you to see it.’
‘Another bottle of champagne, I think,’ Bonnie said several hours later, struggling out of her chair and making her way, somewhat unsteadily, to the fridge.
‘I don’t think I’d better,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’m supposed to be driving.’
‘You’re already past it,’ Fran cut in. ‘You’d better leave the car here and we’ll share a cab. So, let’s just have one more?’
‘No, no!’ Bonnie said, steadying herself against the fridge door. ‘You can’t possibly go home. It has to be a sleepover, like in the old days. Go on, say you’ll stay.’
It was well after nine, and David had taken Lila home, leaving Fran free to spend the evening with Sylvia and Bonnie at Irene’s house.
‘A good idea,’ Irene said, getting up from her chair. ‘Neither of you should drive. I’m off to bed now but all the beds are made up, and you’re welcome to stay.’
‘See,’ said Bonnie, weaving her way triumphantly back across the room with the champagne. ‘You must stay or Mum’ll be disappointed.’
Sylvia looked at Fran and raised her eyebrows. ‘Okay with you?’
‘Fine – I’ll phone David and let him know. But what about you, will Colin mind?’
‘Stuff Colin,’ Sylvia said, and Bonnie’s eyebrows almost shot off the top of her head. ‘He’ll be out but I’ll leave a message on the machine.’
Bonnie took extra care refilling the glasses and then sank back into her chair, kicking off her shoes and tucking her legs under her. ‘I am extremely drunk,’ she announced. ‘I can’t remember when I was ever as drunk as this. Here’s to meeting again.’ They raised their glasses and chorused the toast.
‘This is so nice,’ Sylvia said, resting her bare feet on the edge of the coffee table. ‘Just like old times, except we used to be sharing secrets in the bedroom while the adults were in the lounge. Now it’s the other way around.’
Bonnie grinned. ‘Secrets, yes. . .’ She paused, trying to make sure the words came out right, and held up her hand as they began to laugh at her. ‘Stop laughing at once, both of you. If we’re saring shecrets – I mean, sharing secrets – I have a very serious question to ask Fran.’
‘Ask away, Bon,’ Fran said, shaking with laughter, swinging her legs up onto the couch and settling back against the cushions. ‘Ask away.’
‘I can only ask while seriously under the influence, so you have to forgive me in advance.’
‘I forgive you in advance,’ Fran said, trying to keep her face straight.
‘The olive grower,’ Bonnie said. ‘Is the olive grower your lover?’
Fran spluttered into her champagne. ‘Ah,’ she said, getting her breath back, ‘wouldn’t that be nice. But actually, Bon, the olive grower and his partner are the two most gorgeous gay men I’ve ever met in my life. So, unfortunately, no. There hasn’t been a lover in my life for the last ten years at least.’
Bonnie looked crestfallen. ‘Amazing,’ she sighed. ‘I was so sure. I thought if I ever needed advice on that score you’d be the one.’
‘Not me, darl, certainly not me. For enormously fat women in their fifties, lovers, like really nice clothes, are not on the radar.’
‘Such a shame,’ Bonnie said. ‘I’d constructed such a sexy scenario for you. And anyway, you’re not enormously fat. I’m sorry about the lover, though.’
‘Me too,’ said Sylvia, ‘although frankly I think celibacy may have a lot going for it. Men are not my favourite species at present. But I could help with the clothes, Fran. If you draw what you want I could make it up for you, or we could design it together. I am a demon with the sewing machine.’
Fran sat forward. ‘Really, Syl? That would be fantastic. I can never get anything nice in my size. If you’re big you’re supposed to be broad shouldered and tall as well. All we big women aren’t like Maggie T, and I always end up with shoulders near my elbows and waistlines round my knees.’
‘I could make you some lovely things,’ Sylvia said. ‘We can work out the patterns and then we could go together to that fabric shop just off Lygon Street. They have gorgeous materials from Europe, really unusual.’
‘Me too,’ Bonnie said. ‘Can I come? I know that shop, I used to go with Mum years ago – the one not far from where we had coffee, Syl?’
‘That’s it,’ Sylvia said. ‘I nearly went there that day but something stopped me. Something amazing stopped me.’ She paused, her heart suddenly beating faster as she realised that speaking it would make it real, and then there could be no going back. After this she could no longer pretend to herself, to Colin, or to anyone else, that nothing was happening.
‘I saw Colin with another woman, a younger woman, holding hands, and then I saw them a second time and he was kissing her.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Caro said, dumping herself on the sofa and kicking off her shoes. ‘You mean she’s not coming home tonight?’
David shook his head and handed his sister a cup of coffee. ‘That’s right. I took Grandma home and Mum’s staying at Bonnie’s place. She phoned about half an hour ago. D’you take milk, Mike?’
‘I’ll just have a beer, thanks, Dave,’ Mike said, helping himself to a can from the fridge. ‘We came back early to surprise Fran. Caro said she was having a Mother’s Day lunch, but there was no one here, so we hung about for ages, then we went home and came back again.’
‘She even had her mobile switched off,’ Caro said irritably. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t tell me it was a picnic instead.’
‘Why would you need to know?’ David said, sitting down with his coffee. ‘You’d opted out of Mother’s Day and were having a romantic weekend.’
‘Is that what she said?’ Caro asked, putting down her mug and slopping coffee in the process, ‘that I’d opted out of Mother’s Day?’
David shook his head. ‘No, that’s what I said. Mum said you were going away for the weekend to celebrate the baby.’
Caro, slightly mollified, got up and went to the kitchen to collect a dishcloth. David had annoyed her immensely ever since he got back from Qatar. He’d seemed pleased about the idea of being an uncle but also vague and distracted, and she’d always been jealous of the way he and Fran got on. It went back to the divorce, and David being four years older, suddenly becoming the man in charge of things, or at least that was how it had seemed at the time. In her heart, Caro knew she was probably being unfair, but knowing something and getting rid of the feelings attached to it were worlds apart. Resenting David and competing with him had become part of who she was, and it was easier when he was away.
‘So much for trying to do the right thing,’ she said, mopping up the spilled coffee. ‘Well, I suppose she was pleased to have you there. Was it deadly boring?’
‘On the contrary,’ David said in a tone that got right up Caro’s nose. ‘It was great – sort of old-fashioned and nice. I like those women, wish I’d met them before. Strange how they all lost touch. Anyway, they’ve clearly stitched up the gaps and are making up for lost time. Did you two have a good weekend?’
‘Terrific,’ Mike said. ‘We went to this gorgeous boutique bed and breakfast place. Wonderful food, lovely scenery, and it’s attached to a vineyard – superb wine.’
David raised his eyebrows at Caro. ‘Should you be drinking wine?’
‘A glass now and again won’t hurt,’ Mike said, smiling at her and reaching out for her hand. ‘Not now she’s past the first trimester.’
Caro moved closer to him. Mike was such a great ally in her struggle to be as good as David. ‘Just because you’re on the wagon it doesn’t mean everyone else has to be,’ she said.
‘Of course not. But sometimes there are very good reasons,’ David said. ‘I just thought it was supposed to be bad for pregnant women – ’
‘So what’s your very good reason?’ Caro cut in sharply. ‘Did you join AA or something? I seem to remember that a night getting wrecked used to be one of your favourite regular pastimes.’
David paused, drawing in his breath. He hadn’t anticipated this but they would have to know sometime. ‘Mmm, it sure was,’ he said. ‘But I had to give it away. You might as well know, I’ve got Hep C.’ He looked across at Mike. ‘You’d know what that means – stuffed liver, nausea, all the rest of that crap. I had to come home to see a doctor here, organise medication . . .’
‘Oh, my god!’ Caro said, putting both hands protectively on her stomach. ‘It’s not catching, is it? I mean, you won’t give it to the baby?’