Daughters (31 page)

And she had said: ‘Isn’t that for me to decide?’ And, because she understood only too well that opportunities quickly melted away, she went on the attack and texted to his mobile: ‘Please, don’t run away.’

At six o’clock, Maudie appeared in the kitchen, one eye made up in smoky greys and greens, the other bare. She held up her mobile. ‘Disaster,’ she announced, in tragic tones. ‘The limo has broken down and they can’t supply another.’

Lara stared at her daughter.

‘Mum?’ Maudie shivered. She gazed beseechingly at Lara. She knew what was being asked.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive you all down.’

So it was that Lara found herself hovering alongside Vicky by the entrance to the clubhouse at Walmer Park racecourse outside Winchester. From this vantage point, they observed a progression of Lincolns and Chryslers deposit their passengers. An Indian boy arrived in a gaily decorated
tuk-tuk.
A girl rode up on her horse with – presumably – her adoring father driving the horsebox behind her. Yet another arrived on stilts.

The girls were in dresses the colours of sweets. Tangerine, turquoise, plum and liquorice black. Behind them
trailed their reluctant and self-conscious Prince Charmings. Raw haircuts, hired dinner jackets, new shoes. One or two had bottles stuffed obviously into their jackets.

Without so much as a glance, they flocked past Lara and Vicky.

She caught Vicky’s eye. ‘Invisible.’

‘Invisible.’

A pair of olive trees in tubs flanked the entrance (décor surely far too exotic for this staid English venue?) and the door was decked out with fairy lights. Beyond the reception area was the dance hall into which the guests were drifting.

Tess disappeared into the Ladies. Maudie paced up and down outside – a tall, nervy figure, who, despite the tuition, was not quite steady on her heels. ‘This is so stupid and demeaning,’ she had said before leaving home. ‘Why am I doing it?’ The silver in the dress caught the evening sun and, for a second, her tall figure blazed with a halo.

Lara thought Maudie looked as beautiful as it was possible to be and marvelled that, somehow, she and Bill had managed to produce her. Who else could match her wayward, independent, stubborn Maudie? She visualized her sailing into her future in a haze of silver light – successful, loved, wanted.

The door to the Ladies opened and out glided Tess in cherry red satin and green peep-toe shoes, her hair an almost convincingly natural blonde waterfall. Maudie whispered into Tess’s ear, swayed slightly, righted herself and the pair moved towards the dance hall.

A sobbing girl shot out, her white dress shockingly
splattered with red wine. Handkerchief in hand, her escort panted after her. But the girl slammed into the Ladies.

‘Fuck!’ said the boy.

Vicky was dressed in a tight skirt and clinging, sleeveless sweater, which did not flatter her arms. She grabbed Lara’s hand. ‘My God, this is costing. Have you totted it all up?’

Lara tore her eyes away from Maudie’s receding form. ‘No. I thought best not to yet.’

Vicky gazed fondly after her daughter. ‘It’s known as Losing Virginity Night. You did make sure Maudie was OK?’

Lara was at her most wry. ‘I think that’s irrelevant by now.’

‘Mind you,’ Vicky checked herself. ‘It took Tess three hours to do her hair, I don’t imagine she’ll want to mess it up.’

A posse of four girls and their swains pushed past them. The girls were brighter than birds of paradise, their necklines low, their skirts short.

Vicky said, ‘Isn’t it awful to be that age?’ She rubbed her plump arms. ‘The agonies.’ Lara looked at her with sharpened interest. ‘None of us have it easy,’ continued Vicky. ‘One day, I’ll tell you about it. Shall we go and have dinner?’

Vicky was in top, gossipy form, and they enjoyed their pizza. Afterwards, they looked in on the clubhouse to check that everything was OK before they went home.

Inside the hall, it was crowded, dim and noisy. The beat of the music was almost an assault. The strobe picked out jerky, writhing figures, and Lara assumed Maudie and Nick were down there among the seething throng.

Leaving Vicky in conversation with another friend, Lara headed into the garden. With just a couple of flowerbeds and a hornbeam hedge, it wasn’t much of one. Plenty of couples were there, too, some off their heads.

The night air was balmy on the skin. In the distance, she could just make out the racecourse and figures were running up and down the aisles in the stands. Behind the hedge, more couples were feasting on each other.

Perhaps it was summer’s lease. Perhaps it was the sex going on around her or the changes ahead, but every detail pressed into her memory.

It made her think of Robin.

Then, from behind the hedge, she overheard a stroppy-sounding Maudie say, ‘Nick, don’t.’

‘You don’t have to go,’ said Nick.

‘I don’t have to, but I want to.’

‘What about us?’

‘There isn’t us, Nick. Not really.’

‘Maudie, look at me. Now say that again.’

‘
Don’t.
’

‘It’s Alicia, isn’t it? What’s she got on you?’ His voice had turned mean and ugly. ‘She’s persuaded you all men are awful, or some such crap.’

‘Nick!’ Maudie was beginning to lose her temper, too. ‘Don’t hassle me.’

‘Don’t I count?’

‘Yes, you do. Yes, you do, Nick. Here, now, this evening. Please, don’t make it more difficult.’

There was a long silence. Then Nick repeated his question: ‘Don’t I count?’

‘No,’ said Maudie. ‘Yes …’

Lara turned on her heel and made for the clubhouse where Vicky found her. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

She explained and Vicky laughed. ‘Poor Nick. Poor Maudie. I’m never sure if it’s better to learn sooner or later how one’s body and heart get one into terrible trouble.’

Vicky was spot on. Maudie was less hurt than confused – while Lara was less confused than hurt. Irony? As a professional, she dealt most days with the fallout from love turning sour, or love merely bumping along. She of all people knew you had to be strong and tough to deal with its pleasures and pains; sorrow was part of its essential nature. Those who negotiated through the squalls deserved applause.

Back at home in the small hours, the mothers having ensured that the girls and any of their London-based friends knew where to catch the hastily commissioned mini-van back to London, she was woken by noises in the garden. She slipped downstairs and opened the front door to discover Maudie bent double being violently sick.

The worst scenarios flashed through her mind. ‘Have you taken anything, Maudie?’ She shook her. ‘Have you?’

‘No.’

‘Drink?’

Maudie raised a pair of streaming eyes to her mother. ‘Shut up, Mum.’

‘I warned you,’ Lara said, as she led her indoors.

Maudie threw her a look of utter hostility.

Lara ran a bath and helped Maudie into it. Her daughter sat quietly while she sponged her with warm water, then dried her and got her into bed. White and exhausted, she lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes.

‘Did you enjoy any of it?’

‘No,’ she said flatly.

Duncan was sitting on the edge of the bed in Jasmine’s flat. It was mid-afternoon on Sunday and they had just made love unsatisfactorily. Jasmine was preoccupied and Duncan was tired.

He persisted: ‘What’s the matter?’

She thought of the conversation with Maudie.
Say nothing?
She twitched the sheets over her bare breasts. This was a new burden: to remain silent or not? Did silence constitute a moral stance or an evasion? ‘Duncan,
have
you talked to Andrew recently?’

He shrugged. ‘You keep on asking me that. We’ve probably said hello.’

‘No,
properly
.’

Duncan got up and pulled on his jeans. ‘Jas, are you about to embark on a meaningful conversation?’

Her sense of humour made a brief appearance. ‘You’re spared. It’s not about us.’

‘Lord, for your small mercies, thank you.’

She regarded him speculatively. Reason, honesty, openness. These had to be at the heart of any relationship and were supposed to drive the affairs of the world. She hauled
herself out of the bed. ‘Andrew was seen with another woman.’

He came round to her side of the bed and grabbed Jasmine by the shoulders. ‘And
who
told you that?’

‘Doesn’t matter who told me.’ She searched his face and discovered unwelcome information. ‘You do know.’

His hands fell away. ‘I never said that.’

‘But you suspect.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘It’s none of our business.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No!’ He spat out the word. ‘It isn’t. What Andrew does is his business.’

She wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. Dumping her underclothes in the laundry basket, she got out a fresh set. ‘Duncan, he’s about to marry my sister.’

‘And?’

‘Apart from anything else, I feel so angry with him. I trusted him.’

‘Isn’t that for Eve? Not you?’

She pulled on her T-shirt. ‘It’s OK, then, to be cavorting with a girl from the office.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘You seem to suggest –’

‘
I
seem to suggest!’ Duncan fastened his belt. ‘Am I hearing right?’ He glared at her and got no response. ‘You know what? It’s what I think. I don’t know what Andrew is doing, or not doing, and I’m not going to ask. He’s free to do as he wishes.’

‘Hang on. So you don’t think something’s wrong if Andrew’s seeing someone else?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘My God.’ She sat down on the edge of the rumpled bed. ‘How stupid I’ve been.’

Duncan tied up his shoes with savage little jerks. ‘You always have to make such a production of everything, Jas.’

‘So…’ she chose the words carefully ‘… if I was seeing someone else you wouldn’t necessarily mind because I’m free to do as I wish?’ He paled a trifle and straightened up. ‘Or you might be seeing someone else as well as this.’ She gestured to the bed. ‘Is that so? Be honest.’

How would it work? Phone calls. Meeting on a street corner or in a café in a strange part of town. The careful exchange of rules.
This doesn’t mean anything
. Hotel rooms with tiny soap tablets and notices saying that the towels wouldn’t be changed every day. The aftermath. Walking separately out into the street and thinking, That’s that. Then going home to sit opposite Duncan at the kitchen and sharing a meal. ‘Tell me about your day,’ he might say. And, with another man’s touch still fresh on her skin, she would tell him.

The idea was repellent … Intriguing? Disturbing?

‘So I can’t trust you?’ she said. ‘Or, rather, we should have discussed this before.’

He grew ever paler and rubbed his stomach. That meant she had got to him. ‘Now, you’re being ridiculous. And insulting.’

‘No. I’m trying to get at the truth. About what you think and believe. And what I think.’

Again, he touched his stomach. This time she was not going to fetch his stuff from the bathroom cabinet.

‘How have we got here? Why are we discussing us when we were discussing Andrew?’

‘The two are related. That’s why. Either you know something. Or you approve of what Andrew might be doing. I can’t tell. You won’t be honest.’

At that, he turned on her. ‘You’re driving me mad, Jas.’

This was the Duncan who could tip into a rage – the side of him that didn’t often surface. When it did, she usually managed to calm him. But not tonight. His angry eyes and white lips left her cold and distant. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said.

‘You don’t mean it?’

A mass of things slotted into place. Implacable and logical. ‘I do.’

Hostile and disbelieving, he stared at her. ‘You’re being idiotic.’

‘Go,’ she said.

He shrugged and walked out of the room.

‘And don’t come back,’ she called after him.

What had she said?
What had she said?

She listened to the click of the front door. To her surprise, she was extraordinarily calm – exhilarated, even.

She straightened up the bedroom and settled down to work. One, it was the week when the code-name for the big project switched (again) and the transition required her attention. Two, they were pitching for yet another bank, plus a big travel company and the company in San Diego … Before signing off, she switched into her emails.
There was one from Eve that started: ‘Timings. Final Dress Fitting. Rehearsal’.

The information seemed to come from a very long way away. And she regarded it with the detachment of someone who was quite removed.

Question: was she angry only for Eve … or was she also angry with Duncan? And were the two different things impossibly mixed up?

Later she pulled the ironing board out from its hiding place behind a curtain and embarked on the waiting pile. The iron emitted its characteristic syrupy hisses. The clothes smelt of steam and detergent. She concentrated on those things.

As she was putting everything away, her phone rang. ‘Maudie!’

‘I’m outside. Can I come in?’ Maudie shouted.

She arrived with hair tangled and damp from an evening downpour that had come out of nowhere. Her eyes were huge and her lips bloodless.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Can I talk to you?’

‘Come.’ She led Maudie into the kitchen. ‘Drink?’

‘Something soft.’

Juice carton in hand, Jasmine assessed Maudie’s state. ‘You had a big night, I take it? Did it go well?’

Maudie didn’t answer. Her hand shook as she accepted the glass. Jasmine thought, She
has
taken something. Ecstasy, coke, weed? ‘Hey, what is it?’

Maudie bowed her head over the glass. After a few seconds, she muttered, ‘It’s bad, Jas.’

It
is
drugs, she thought, and switched on the kettle for herself.

Maudie remained hunched over the table. ‘I know I shouldn’t mind. I know I shouldn’t care a toss.’ She looked up at Jasmine. ‘It’s so crass and awful, I almost can’t tell you.’

‘But you wanted to, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Also, I’m pretty unshockable.’

Maudie’s smeared mascara left small black spiders under her eyes. ‘Nick and me … you know.’ She made a wobbly but explicit gesture with her fingers.