She got bored eventually and walked home along the south side of the river to collect her car for the drive to George’s house in Fulham.
By eleven on Saturday morning they were sitting in their matching dark blue towelling dressing-gowns, having breakfast in the garden. There weren’t many flowers among the low-maintenance evergreens, but pots of pink and white lilies pumped their richly spicy scent into the air, a few late roses flopped at the end of thin spiky stalks. Daisy-like flowers spread like pools over the hand-made Suffolk bricks, which George had had laid in place of the original scrubby lawn.
A bumble-bee was hovering between flowers, buzzing like mad, and a few sparrows quarrelled at the far end of the garden. Broken snail shells lay in a pile on the bricks, smashed by a hungry thrush, and silvery trails veining several routes to the lace-like hosta leaves showed where slugs had been.
George leaned down to reach for his cup, without looking away from the newspaper. Trish watched him, a slow, contented smile lengthening her mouth. The smell of the coffee reached her, strong and fragrant, and she picked up her own cup to drink again. She did not run to Jamaican Blue Mountain in Southwark, but if that was how George chose to spend his money, that was his business. For herself, the thought of spending thirty-five pounds on a pound of coffee beans that tasted hardly different from any others seemed
bizarre, as did the incredible weight of newsprint he had delivered to the house.
He liked to have all four broadsheets and sometimes two or three tabloids as well each weekend. It entailed buying a vast number of recycling bags in which to get rid of them, and hours spent reading them, but why not? It was an innocent pleasure and a tiny extravagance compared to some she’d known.
He sneezed explosively as he opened a magazine, allergic probably to the ink on the coloured pages. Trish got up to refill her cup and collect another croissant from the basket by the pots. The fat bee droned past her, its fur laden now with gold pollen, and settled in one of the regale lilies. She brushed one of the flowers, releasing an extra strong puff of scent, lucky not to have to worry about hay fever or asthma.
A moment later all the happy, self-indulgent peace was driven out of her.
‘Did you see this?’ she demanded.
‘Snoutrage,’ George said, looking up to grin at her. ‘What is it this time, Trish?’
She knew he didn’t like being distracted by snippets from particularly interesting articles, but he’d given up pointing out that he’d be reading the paper himself any time now and didn’t need her to tell him what was in it.
‘This story here about the parents of some junkie who died in his squalid flat, while he was looking after his two-year-old son.’
‘Yes, I saw that. It’s in all the papers. Awful for the child, of course. But at least it survived.’
‘But now, after all that horror, they’re trying to find a reason to repudiate him. It’s unspeakable.’
George turned in his chair. His expression was benevolent, but she knew what it hid. It wasn’t only uncontrolled anger he disliked; it was vehemence of any kind, especially in her.
She was coming to believe that it frightened him. Once she would have forced him to accept her as she was, but, watching him moderate habits and ways of talking that upset her, she had learned to give a little. And, after all, it wasn’t the vehemence of her thoughts he minded, just its expression.
‘You mean you’re angry that they’re having a DNA test done to find out if it’s their grandchild before they’ll take it into their home?’ he suggested casually, much too casually for her current state of mind.
‘Him
not “it”,’ she said, as sharply as she ever spoke to George. ‘Exactly. How could they?’
‘Be fair, Trish.’
‘Think about the child, for God’s sake. He’s been brought up by the junkie since birth, and it says here that no one can trace the mother; he was a child of the family. He belonged. And now he may end up in care just because the grandparents … Oh, people do make me angry.’
‘I know they do.’ George put down his paper and cradled the big white cup of coffee in both hands.
His strong, hairy legs were planted square on the stone flags about a foot apart, the dressing gown just covering his knees. He looked what he was: a clever, well-off man in his mid-forties, certain of his place in the world and his opinions, not trying to be young or glamorous. To her he was infinitely more attractive than a smoothie like Malcolm Chaze.
George must have seen the change in her, for his voice was lighter as he said, ‘The junkie was in his late forties, wasn’t he?’
She nodded.
‘Then his parents must be getting on, in their sixties at least, probably seventies. They must have been to hell and back already with a heroin addict for a son.’
Trish scowled, in spite of herself, and drank some more
coffee. The fact that you could be besotted with someone didn’t stop you feeling furious with some of their views.
‘Trish, be reasonable,’ he said again. ‘A drug-addicted child is a torment to any parent. I had some clients once who had to take out an injunction to keep their own twenty-six-year-old daughter away from the house.’
‘But that’s …’
‘No.’ George was firm. He knew where she was coming from, and he wasn’t afraid of disagreeing with her. ‘It wasn’t outrageous.’
Trish shrugged.
‘The girl had been an addict for eight years by then. She’d been on the streets; she’d had gonorrhoea. She was sharing a flat with a low-life for whom she went out thieving. She’d had pretty much everything portable from her parents’ house. And this was a girl with a good brain, a good education, a supportive family, and no problems with her parents until she got hooked. They did every single thing they could, paid for cure after cure in all the best places. Nothing worked. She was back on drugs within weeks each time.’
‘And now?’
George shook his head. A flutter of pink petals from the climbing rose above his head floated down and settled on his hair. Feeling something, he put up his hand to brush them off, looking like a bridegroom embarrassed by confetti. ‘I don’t know. She’s probably dead. They never speak of her. But they’re still suffering. They always will. Parents do, you know, Trish. It’s not only the children who are made unhappy in families.’
‘I know, George.’ Trish got up and went to pick the last few pink petals out of his hair. He put his coffee cup on the ground again and put both arms around her waist. She kissed the top of his head. ‘Even so, I do think it’s an outrage that these particular parents aren’t taking the child in. Whatever
he’s like, whatever he’s seen, he’d be reclaimable with proper care.’
George hugged her more tightly. ‘You know, I love the way you refuse to back down, but this passion on behalf of stray babies is a bit worrying. Are you about to go broody on me?’
She was surprised he’d noticed and put both hands on his head to tip it up so that she could see his face properly. His eyes were softer than usual.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said honestly. ‘I do keep thinking about it, but it would …’
‘Change the way we live?’
‘Mmm.’
‘No more hanging about with the papers at midday on Saturdays? It would mean charging off to football and ballet.’
‘And all sorts of other things. Hormone upheavals that might send my brain into outer space and stop me being who I am. I might never get myself back. And we’d have disagreements – quarrels even – about upbringing. You know we would.’
‘And school fees,’ he said, ‘and exam nerves. And worrying that they’re out late and might be taking E when they go clubbing. And who they want to marry, and whether they’re paying enough into their pension schemes, and—’
‘Oh, stop it,’ she said, laughing. ‘I know I’d worry too much. But it’s a thought that does keep cropping up.’
‘I know.’
Something in his voice made her say carefully, ‘You too?’
He nodded.
‘Then we will have to think about it,’ she said, breathing carefully. It was all rather alarming.
‘But we’ve plenty of time,’ he said, picking up her doubts.
‘A bit, anyway.’ She took her hands away from his head and moved back out of his grasp. ‘I must dress. May I have first bath?’
‘Naturally.’
She took
The Times
Metro section with her, so she could read the book reviews in the bath. She wished George had two bathrooms and that one of them had a proper shower. She’d lost the habit of baths years earlier. Still, they spent all the week at her place; it was his turn from Friday to Sunday. Wallowing like a mudfish was a small price to pay.
‘Ms Maguire?’ said the stringy-looking man, who bent down to the open window.
‘Yes. And you must be Adam Gibbert. Do, please, call me Trish.’
‘Thank you, and thank you for coming all this way. It means a lot to us all that you’ve taken Deb on like this. D’you want to park over there, behind the Volvo? There’s just about space, and you’ll be safer off the road with a car like that.’
‘Great.’
Trish waited until he’d moved out of her way, then manoeuvred her big soft-top Audi behind his battered estate car. The gravel crunched under her wheels and slipped as she turned the tyres.
Adam Gibbert shut the gate at the bottom of his garden and she watched in the mirror as he came back to the car. He was tall and walked painfully, which made him look much older than Deb. Trish knew the age difference was only four years, which made him younger than Malcolm Chaze, his one-time rival. He didn’t look it.
He was wearing clean cream-coloured cord trousers, but they were split at the hem and beginning to fray. His shirt was made from dark green and blue checked cotton, like a primitive tartan. It seemed too vigorous a colour combination for his wattled neck and worried face. She thought he’d come over quite well on screen.
‘Come on in. Kate’s been determined to cook you a traditional Sunday lunch with all the trimmings, so it may be a bit late. But we can have a drink straight away.’
‘Lovely. I brought some wine.’ Trish leaned back into the car to find the bottle that had been rolling about under the passenger seat. She hoped it would be drinkable, and that he wouldn’t be insulted by it. Knowing that he was strapped for cash and trying to bring up four children while their mother served out her sentence, Trish hadn’t wanted to take lunch off him without giving something in return. Gibbert looked at the label with real interest and then glanced up, smiling shyly. ‘It’ll be a treat to drink something like this again. How very kind of you! Now, come on in and meet Kate and the rest of the family.’
He stroked his elder daughter’s back as he introduced her to Trish and she saw the girl smile at him. But the smile seemed forced. She didn’t look happy. Her oval face was still plump, but the shape of the appley cheeks suggested there might be striking bones under the puppy fat, and her long-tailed eyes were a deep, shining brown with glossy mink-like lashes.
‘Would you like some help?’ Trish asked, when they’d shaken hands. ‘Or would the greatest help be our getting out of the way?’
A flashing smile transformed the weary patience in Kate’s eyes. Her face was shiny with sweat and there was flour all down the front of her sagging black T-shirt, and in her long brown hair. She was in the process of putting a pastry lid on a pie dish full of browning lumpy chunks of cooking apple.
‘Do you know how to make gravy?’
‘In fact I do,’ Trish said. ‘The man I live with has managed to teach me after about three years together.’
‘Oh, brilliant. Could you do that, then? And, Dad, will you get the little ones washed? They’re mucking about in the
garden and it always takes ages to clean the mud off.’ She brushed the lank fringe out of her eyes with a floury wrist, sighing. A small piece of rolled dough fell off one of her fingers and lodged in her hair. She didn’t notice.
When her father had gone, Kate sighed again and rubbed her forehead, as though it was aching. ‘The potatoes have been in for ages.’
Trish knew the state of complete absorption in a tricky task that made you assume everyone nearby had taken each step with you and knew exactly what you were talking about.
‘But I don’t think they’re going to be properly crisp. I can’t work out how to get them like that. And the lamb will be done …’ Kate looked at the clock. ‘Oh, no! It was ready five minutes ago. But the pie …’ She bit her lips. Trish saw her battling for control.
‘Shall I get the lamb out?’ Trish said, careful not to sound as though she was taking over. ‘It won’t have spoiled, I’m sure. And it’ll do it good to rest while we get everything else done. In this weather, it won’t get cold. I think you’re amazing to cook a proper lunch for everyone like this.’
‘Thanks.’ The girl’s taut shoulders relaxed a little and a sloppy grin made her look much younger. ‘D’you think you could put a pan of water on? We’re going to have peas. They take five minutes, I think. I’ll just finish the pie.’
Trish did her best not to get in the way. When Adam Gibbert came in with the rest of his family and proceeded to stand over them while they washed their hands at the kitchen sink, forcing Kate to walk right round the kitchen table to put the pie in the oven, Trish wanted to shake him. Couldn’t he see what he was doing? There must be other places in the house where they could wash.
She looked at Kate and saw a remarkable tolerance in her face. Her smile was almost maternal as she watched his back.
Then she looked up and apparently read Trish’s expression without difficulty.
As Gibbert took the younger three children into the dining room with a tray of cutlery, Trish remembered that Kate was just seventeen and in the first year of her A level course. What could Adam Gibbert have been thinking of to make her do the family’s cooking at such a stage? Trish stirred the gravy with such vigour that some splashed up over the side of the old-fashioned ridged cream enamel roasting pan.
‘Sorry,’ she said at once. ‘I’ll mop that up when it’s cool.’
‘You know, you’re really kind.’
‘Oh, Kate,’ Trish said, laughing over her shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t sound so surprised.’
The girl blushed. ‘No. I mean I’m sorry. It’s just that a barrister, you know … I was expecting you to be frightening. D’you think you will be able to get my mother out?’ Suddenly she looked terrified and started to brush the flour off her front. ‘That was a stupid thing to say. Sorry. I’m in a real mess. Sorry.’
Trish put down the big spoon and abandoned the gravy for the moment. ‘Listen, Kate. Obviously I’m going to do my best for your mother. But you must face the fact that there isn’t a lot—’
‘Oh, I know. Please don’t think I’m expecting you to get her out next week. I know things don’t …’ She was crying, the tears puddling with the flour on her face to make flat greyish cakes on her skin. ‘I know I mustn’t build too much on the TV programme.’ Kate wiped her face with a tea-towel. ‘Sorry. I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s just that I know she didn’t do it. I know it. If the law wasn’t such a lottery, she wouldn’t be in prison now. And Anna’s told me that you’re the best, that if anyone can prove the legal system got it wrong, you will. But, honestly, I promise I’m not going to blame you if you don’t. I
know it’s like moving the Taj Mahal with a knitting needle. I know it is.’
Her tears were falling faster than she could mop them up. It looked as though her attempt to reassure Trish was one more burden than she could bear. She started howling like a much younger child. Trish found a clean tea-towel and offered it silently, waiting until the storm was passing. When Kate was fairly quiet again, Trish took the towel back.
‘Kate, your mother is lucky to have a daughter like you.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, then turned aside to pour a shower of frozen peas into the boiling water. Some of them bounced into Trish’s gravy pan.
‘And so are the rest of your family. Now, shall we put the case to one side while we get lunch on the table? Then perhaps you and I can have a private talk afterwards. How would that be?’
‘That would be great. You are kind. I do try not to cry in front of the little ones, but when I talk about her, I can’t always help it. She’s so …’
‘As I say, she’s lucky to have you. Now, I think this gravy’s done. What shall I put it in?’
After lunch, while Adam took the boys and Millie out to play football, Trish and Kate did the washing-up and talked. Kate cried occasionally, but for most of the time she achieved impressive self-control. Trish didn’t discover any new facts, but she did get a better picture of the dead man.
‘He used to make such a fuss about all the pills he had to take,’ Kate said at one moment, as she carried the clean meat plates to their appointed cupboard.
Trish, who was doing the washing because she didn’t know where anything went, asked if there had been many pills.
‘Oh, millions. There were so many things wrong with him, you see. And he hated swallowing them. And he hated being
told what to do, specially by Granny and Mum. When it was Cordelia looking after him, he took everything without fuss. But she didn’t do it any differently from Mum and Granny. He just behaved better with her.’
‘D’you know why?’
Kate pushed away her fringe again. Her eyes were shrewd. Now that she had recovered and was letting her mind run ahead of her emotions, she looked quite different from the beleaguered cook who’d first greeted Trish: older and more sophisticated, but also slightly out of place in this old-fashioned kitchen with its metal cupboards, battered saucepans and blue-and-white marbled lino floor.
‘I think he felt she did him credit, so he liked her better, and he didn’t get anything out of making her miserable. My English teacher would say that there wasn’t any psychological advantage in turning her into the enemy.’
‘Whereas there was with your mother and grandmother?’ Trish suggested, impressed.
‘Yes, I think so. I’ve thought about it a lot, you see. He despised them, so he had to put himself above them. Making them scared and miserable was a way of doing that. He could feel bigger and better.’ Kate frowned, looking unhappy but a lot tougher. ‘But he wasn’t. He might have been cleverer, although I don’t think he was as clever as he thought. And Mum isn’t nearly as stupid as he made her think she was.’
‘I think you’re right.’ Trish meant it. ‘What do you think happened to your grandfather?’
‘I don’t know.’ Kate picked up the roasting tin that Trish had laboriously scoured and thrust it into the oven to dry in the residual heat. ‘I really don’t. If it wasn’t for the fact that they didn’t find the plastic bag on his head, I’d have said he must have committed suicide. But the bag was in Mum’s room.’
‘And there was really no one else in the house?’ Trish
watched closely for the betraying blush. She couldn’t help it. Here was a bright girl, who clearly adored her mother; a girl who could easily have retrieved the spare antihistamines from the rubbish bin, and known enough to check out the pills’ potential for damage. But no blush came.
‘No one any of us knew about,’ Kate said. ‘I suppose there could have been a burglar, but there was no sign of a break-in and nothing was taken.’
As she saw Kate frown, Trish hurried to ask another question before the girl could guess what she was thinking. ‘Can you remember when your mother had bad hay fever that last summer before your grandparents died?’
‘Of course. She was sneezing and wheezing and her eyes watered all the time. It was awful. I made her go to the doctor to get some pills, and she did in the end. They were called ast-something. I can’t remember exactly what.’
‘Astemizole.’
‘Yes. That’s right, I think. But she wouldn’t have taken them to my grandparents’ house. The hay-fever season was long over and she’d have no need to take them. I know she wouldn’t. She said she didn’t and she doesn’t lie. Ever.’
‘Do you know what she did with the spare pills?’
Kate shook her head. Her eyes welled with tears. But she didn’t look away. ‘She didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. Why would I?’
‘No, of course you wouldn’t. Now, where should I put this saucepan?’ Trish asked. Kate took it from her, wiped it, and bent down to put it in its place at the back of a cupboard. Then she started knotting the black plastic rubbish bag before hauling the whole thing out and carrying it outside.
When she came back, Trish said, ‘You’re very good at all this domesticity, Kate. You must have had a lot of practice. Have you always done such a lot in the kitchen?’
‘No, of course not. Only since the trial. Mum always did it.
I’m only trying to copy her. But there’s so much I don’t know how to do: cooking and things. The rubbish is easy.’
‘Did she do that, too?’
‘Of course. Except sometimes at weekends when Dad helped.’
‘I see.’
‘You want to know if I can swear she’d thrown away the pills, don’t you?’
Trish nodded.
‘Well, like I said. I don’t know. I wish I could tell you something that would be useful, but I don’t know anything. I’ve racked and racked my brains, and I can’t think of anything.’ Kate’s voice had been rising with every word, but now she was breathing slowly, obviously trying to get herself back together. ‘You see, you’ve come all this way for nothing.’
‘It hasn’t been for nothing, Kate. For one thing, I had a delicious lunch. And for another, I’ve got yet more support for my own certainty that your mother didn’t do it.’
Kate put down the bundle of knives she was drying and hugged Trish. Over Kate’s shoulder, Trish saw Adam Gibbert coming back into the house with the other children. He looked surprised to see them, and worried, too. Trish tried to signal reassurance. It didn’t seem to work.
Later, he left the rest of the brood with Kate while he escorted Trish back to her car. On the way he told her, while tears welled in his eyes, that he knew what all the extra work was doing to Kate and that she oughtn’t to have to do it when she was working so hard for her A levels, but that he didn’t see what else was to be done. He helped her with the subjects he knew, and he took on as much of the childcare as he could, all the shopping and a lot of the cooking. But it was still far too much of a burden for a girl of her age.
‘Maybe you need some paid help.’ Trish tried not to sound critical.
He bit his lip, still looking unhappy rather than ashamed. After a moment he said he couldn’t afford it, adding, ‘For a time I thought Deb’s sister might help out, but she won’t. And I can’t borrow – I’ve nothing except the house to borrow against and I can’t risk that. It’s the kids’ only security.’