Life Begins (44 page)

Even remembering the moment now, with whistles blowing, children shrieking and Sam getting in line for a throw-the-furthest competition with a tennis ball, Charlotte could feel her lip curling in a smile of shocked disbelief. ‘But–’ was all she had managed.
But.
And then they had been out of the door and driving in convoy again, this time with Martin in the lead and Sam stretched out on his back seat, going via her house so she could abandon the Volkswagen to join them for the ride to A and E.

She had clambered in and clasped Sam to her, sensing the reticence in the limp response but understanding its origin at last. And when Martin said, ‘Shit,’ and pulled into a petrol station, granting them a few quiet minutes alone in the car, she had announced fluently, firmly, ignoring the
crimson flush in Sam’s pale face, that there was nothing going on between her and George’s father and that if anything in Suffolk had led him to believe otherwise then he was wrong and she was sorry. They were friends and that was all, and he could trust her, because she had never lied to him and had no intention of starting now. ‘And I like Cindy,’ she had blurted, rather less fluently, ‘and I am so pleased she and Dad are happy and having a baby, and you should be too.’ And Sam had gripped her neck and pressed his face into her chest, with no reluctance now but just like in the very old days, when his love had had no agenda but pure need and she had been naïvely happy to close every other avenue of her life in responding to it.

Dominic, in contrast, had received a
but
, Charlotte reflected glumly. The man clearly wasn’t a gossip but it still irked her. And, she recalled, indignation rising, if Jason (who
was
a gossip) was to be believed, Dominic’s imminent tenure of Ravens Books was to begin with the search for a full-time assistant instead of an amateur enthusiast with limited hours. Since she hadn’t had the chance to speak to him herself it was impossible to know. He had ventured into the shop once when she wasn’t there, and two attempts to reiterate thanks over Sam had found only his answering-machine.

That he had his back to her now was almost certainly no coincidence either, Charlotte observed grimly. He was talking with some animation to Naomi, who was wearing a daringly short yellow sundress and looking greatly refreshed since her twenty-four-hour sojourn in Josephine’s loft. She and Graham were having counselling (Josephine had informed Theresa, who had told her) but didn’t want anyone to know. Naomi reckoned she had been fighting a touch of post-natal depression since the twins, while Graham had owned up to anger-management issues. They were
making a clean breast of things, listening to each other’s needs.

Like Theresa and Henry… Charlotte shifted her gaze to her friend and her husband, the latter celebrating the rare treat of an afternoon out of his consulting rooms by wearing a Panama hat and a Hawaiian shirt of livid orange and green. They had set up camp with Thermoses and sandwiches on a blanket near the marker for the long jump, casting fond glances at George who was limbering up nearby. Catching Charlotte’s eye, Theresa waved a plastic mug and pointed at a Thermos, offering an exaggerated frown of disappointment when Charlotte shook her head.

But she was a little thirsty, Charlotte decided, wondering if she had time to fetch the bottle of water she had left in the basket of Mr Beasley’s bicycle. She squinted back across the playing-field, noting with pleasure that an old lady was patting Jasper before gasping at the realization that it was her mother. Her mother who, since her mysterious road trip, had taken to making regular, sprightly telephone calls, probing for Charlotte’s news, singing the praises of a taxi driver called Bill and, more recently, Bill’s daughter, Jill, who had apparently displaced Prue and the visiting nurses and had a passion for playing cards.

‘Sam, look, it’s Granny,’ she exclaimed, hurrying over to point out the surprise. ‘I must go and give her a hand. Look, don’t throw the ball yet, okay? Tell Mr Tyler, I’ve asked specially for you to go last.’

‘Mu-um…’ Sam groaned. ‘I
can’t
do that – the order’s already been decided. And I knew Granny was coming because she texted me about it.’

‘Texted
You?’

‘Yeah, she’s got a phone,’ replied Sam, in the manner of one having to explain something very simple to someone of
limited intelligence. ‘She wanted to surprise
you.
And Jasper. She’s going to take him home.’

‘Oh. Golly… Oh, look, here she comes – she’s bringing him and dogs aren’t allowed. Oh dear.’

Sam raised his eyes to the sky for the benefit of his friends as his mother hurried off, then checked for Rose, who was miserable at having been assigned the ignominy of the fancy-dress race – the event for losers, although none of the teachers admitted it. Secretly, Sam thought it was quite cool of his granny, who never usually went anywhere, to attend his sports day, even if it was mainly because she wanted to collect her pet. It helped to make up for the last-minute absence of his dad, who was in the hospital with Cindy, thanks to some drama with blood loss, which was too gross to contemplate but which had got Sam thinking that acquiring a baby sibling was probably preferable to having something going wrong with one
en route
to being born. They had both been brilliant since the attack, not once saying (even though they must have thought it a million times) that it had been his fault for leaving the compound. What his mum had said at the garage had been an incredible weight off his mind too. In fact everything had been going so much better since getting into trouble at school and now the knife fight (as he had taken to calling it in front of his friends) that Sam had even caught himself speculating whether bad stuff had to happen for life to feel really good.

He arched back for the throw, arm straight, picturing a cricketer on a boundary, trying to use all of his shoulder as he swung forwards for the release. He knew it was good from the smooth way the ball flew out of his hand, and because Miss Johnson, who was helping Mr Tyler, began trotting backwards from the marker flags of previous turns, stumbling in her effort to keep her eyes on the sky.

‘Oh, hooray,’ exclaimed Jean, delighted to be looking in the right direction as the ball bounced, momentarily forgetting poor dear Jasper, whom Charlotte had forced her to leave tethered to the bicycle. ‘Hooray indeed. I just wish I could clap. Oh, and I’ve got something for you – that cheque. Were you ever going to tell me I’d forgotten to put it in the envelope, you dear silly girl? Could you fish it out of my bag? These things are so much easier when you’ve got two hands. It’s in an envelope – there, that’s it. In fact, it’s just as well I
did
forget it as, thanks to the maturing of one of Reggie’s little schemes, I was able to make it out for a bit more than I’d originally planned. I say, is that nice lady over there offering us tea? I think she is, Charlotte dear. Look, she’s waving and pointing and I can’t think who else she means.’

But Charlotte couldn’t speak. With recent events she hadn’t given her mother’s oversight with the cheque a moment’s thought. Even as she eased her finger under the flap of the envelope, her focus had been more on the joy of Sam’s astonishing throw. ‘Mum, I can’t take this,’ she murmured at last, staring in disbelief at the figures in the box, which, like the words – and in spite of being made out in Jean’s uncertain, old-lady scrawl – made absolutely clear her intention to pay the bearer on demand the sum of sixty-three thousand pounds.

‘Of course you can. It’s only sensible. It turns out Reggie had a terror of dying in penury. All sorts of investments he made have been coming good gradually for years – most of them a surprise to my accountant, let alone me. And I can assure you I’m acting on his advice, because of the tax side of things, living seven more years and so on. Call it an early birthday present, Charlotte dear, if it makes you feel better. Oh, look, now she’s coming over. The lady inviting us to
tea – she’s coming over, and a man in a horrible shirt. Is that her husband?’

‘Mum, I – Thank you.’ Charlotte slipped the cheque into her pocket as Theresa and Henry approached. ‘Wow – we need sunglasses to look at you,’ she quipped, trembling still on account of the cheque, and glad of the shirt, as a talking point and because it was so glaring and endearing, so typically the
old
Henry, that the silliness in Suffolk felt buried for good.

‘I can’t believe we haven’t met,’ exclaimed Theresa, sweetly, grasping Jean’s good hand during the introductions, ‘and I’ve been waving you over because we’ve made too big a picnic as usual, haven’t we, Hen? Charlotte, you should have told us your mother was coming,’ she scolded, her eyes blazing with warmth. ‘She didn’t tell us!’

Jean smiled, delighted at the fuss. ‘She didn’t know. It was a surprise. I wanted to see how Sam was doing for myself – after that
horrible
business the other weekend – and to collect Jasper at long last,’ she added quickly, not wanting to darken her mood or anyone else’s by instigating a postmortem on her grandson’s recent trauma. ‘I feel up to walking him again now, you see. The dear little chap does
love
his walks. I should think he’s quite worn you out, hasn’t he, Charlotte?’

‘As I’ve tried to tell you many times, Mum, I’ve loved every minute.’

‘She has, honestly.’ Theresa looped her arm through Charlotte’s, fearing from her friend’s somewhat dazed expression that some of the old mother-daughter prickliness might have been reasserting itself. ‘But tell me, Charlotte, are you quite sure now was the best time to acquire a
bicycle
?’

‘It’s not mine,’ Charlotte corrected her, laughing. ‘It’s Mr Beasley’s – the bloody car finally chose this afternoon to
conk out in earnest. I was getting cross because he was watching me through the curtains and then he goes and wheels that out of his front door. It belonged to his wife, apparently, so I’m very honoured.’

‘You’ll be needing Mr Jarvis the mechanic, then,’ said Henry, latching on to what he imagined to be the safest of subjects. ‘I never gave you the number.’

A long moment followed. At least, it felt long to Charlotte, still dizzy because of the money and trying not to grip Theresa’s arm as she laboured for a response that would keep everything from blowing apart. A lie never went away, she realized, never blunted, never lost its power to be discovered and inflict pain. ‘Oh, but you did, Henry,’ she managed, keeping her voice dull and steady. ‘You kindly phoned, remember? The day Theresa and I met for lunch? Although, needless to say, with all that’s been going on, I couldn’t find where I’d written it down so I’ll probably have to ask for it again anyway.’

‘No worries.’ Henry coughed into his hand.

‘Tea anyone?’ Theresa sensed awkwardness but was prepared, in her new state of happiness, to overlook it. She and Henry were closer than they had been for years, agreeing about the children, laughing at the same things, making love like newly-weds at mad times and in new positions. It wouldn’t last, she knew. It was a manic patch, before humdrum normality reasserted itself, the product of a mutual, tacit celebration of Henry’s return from an invisible leave of absence that had swept through their happy home like a cold wind. Something had almost happened, then not. Theresa wasn’t sure what or with whom and no longer cared. They were in the same groove again, going forwards together, not looking back as surely as vertigo sufferers know never to look down.

∗

Gathering for the grand finale of the sprint races, Charlotte noticed, but managed not to point out, that Sam’s plaster was showing a smudge of leaked blood. Her mother was leaning on her now, visibly tired having been introduced to her friends, including Naomi and Jo, who had charmingly insisted that she organize a return visit to coincide with one of their mah-jong sessions. ‘Such lovely friends, dear,’ Jean had murmured. ‘A girl needs good friends.’

Spotting Dominic again, this time with the young woman from the restaurant, Charlotte was glad she had colluded in their private game of mutual avoidance. The brother was there, too, attracting undercover stares because of his famous face, but doing a good job of appearing not to notice. The girl stood between them, her loose blonde hair streaming. She wore high-heeled gold sandals and a denim miniskirt cut high enough to reveal the splash of a large
café-au-lait
birthmark across the back of her left thigh. She held a tiny crocodile-skin bag in one hand and a mobile in the other, pink and slim as two fingers and flecked with glitter.

Charlotte offered Sam the thumbs-up and checked on Jean, who had left her side to perch on a shooting-stick Theresa had kindly fetched from the boot of the Volvo. There was a false start and a second. Then the line of runners blurred as Charlotte’s thoughts ricocheted back to the birthmark and the suddenly crucial question of whether or not Dominic had placed his lips upon it. That soft, broad mouth travelling over one’s skin… what would it feel like? She gripped her bare elbows, aware of her body goose-bumping in spite of the now belting afternoon heat.

The race was over and she hadn’t watched. Sam had come third – or was it fourth? He looked happy, she saw with some relief, panting, wiping the sweat off his forehead, patting the shoulders of his competitors as if they had survived a battle
on the same side. Catching his eye, Charlotte pulled a face of exaggerated sympathy. Sam shrugged, then dived into his kit-bag for a wad of papers he started hurriedly to press into the hands of the now dispersing crowd.

‘Advertising Dad’s concert,’ he confessed, grinning guiltily, as he skipped past. ‘I’ve had them for ages. George has asked me to tea, is that okay?’

‘Of course.’ Charlotte laughed at the tatty flyers. Having agreed to drop Sam off, she had lately been pondering whether to attend the event herself. Martin singing Mozart… she had to see it with her own eyes. And she was rich! The thought popped into her head like an exploding light.

‘Excuse me. Do you have a moment?’ Dominic had appeared from nowhere. She was pleased to notice that, close to, he was messy, unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes – a far cry from the alluring figure invading her thoughts a few minutes before.