The Daughter (4 page)

The street was empty. Orange lights shimmered in the oily puddles. The pine furniture shop was shuttered, and faint noises and shouting laughter came from the pub. My old Peugeot was alone in the parking lot; with my back to the dark space behind me, I fumbled for the keys, fear briefly prickling in my mouth. Once inside, my other life was instantly present in the smell of dog, mud, and wet suits; it reminded me of the fullness of our lives. What we had was hard won, but most of the time I knew we were lucky. There was a tattered sheet of math homework on the floor and a pair of sneakers stuffed under the front seat. I found a jelly candy in a crumpled cellophane bag jammed into the side pocket. It tasted sugary and sharp. I turned on the ignition and eased the car forward.

 

Chapter 4

DORSET, 2010

ONE YEAR LATER

I
n the fields near the cottage the dense scent of earth, sharply cut with grass, brings the memory of children playing late in a darkening garden, or is it the smell of funerals? Naomi's face floats in the gray space in front of me, her cheeks shadowy as if in a box. Quick, think of the sea, whose sound is following us. But the distant suck and splash become a heartbeat. At six weeks she was all heart. I'd sneaked an early scan but the translucent throbbing muscle on the screen had made me tense even then. How could it not get exhausted? Later, checking some childhood cough, my ear pressed against her perfect skin, I had heard that fast bird-­beat. Was it conceivable that she realized at the end, if there had been an end, that her heart was slowing? Is there enough blood in a dying brain to register that the heart has stopped? My feet catch against the jutting root of a tree and my head hits hard against the roughened trunk. I'd forgotten the shock of physical pain; chili in the elephant's eye.

I used to keep a supply of bandages in the linen closet. The dusty shelves are full of old blankets but at the back my fingers close over the little cloth bag. Once she fell off the garden wall, tearing her scalp. When I brushed her silky hair at five, I could see the tiny scar.

Was she hit on the head? Scalp wounds can be fatal so quickly. I thought I was done with this torture, but this is a bad day when thoughts slide along memories, sharpening them like knives.

I quickly clean the cut, pat it dry, and pull the edges together with Steri-­Strips. As I finish, Bertie noses into my leg, whining softly. I've forgotten to feed him, and the steadying little ritual of opening the tin, spooning dog food into his bowl, mixing in biscuits, restores the evening's normality. It was the same back then.

BRISTOL, 2009

SEVENTEEN DAYS BEFORE

The pile of ironing on the stove was warm under my hand, and the fat orange heads of a bunch of chrysanthemums glowed against the black outside the windows. A peppery smell of meat scented the kitchen from the casserole I had left to cook slowly while I was at work.

Bertie pushed his head against my leg and the day began to lose its grip. I fed him and took him out. As he scuffed in the blown leaves and drank from puddles, lights glowed from the windows of the houses we passed; I caught the gleaming edge of a bookcase in one, in another a table set with shining glasses. It was hard to imagine that these perfect houses had closets somewhere like the one we had at home stuffed with bits of alarm clocks, old keys, computer leads, and mugs with broken handles. As I passed the last house, someone inside closed the tall wooden shutters.

The Downs at the end of our road led to a grassy stretch above the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The steel girders had vanished in the dark and the fragile light-­beaded strands looked as if they were floating. A memory glittered like the river far below; the bright sea in Corfu had shone with a million broken points of sun last summer. Swimming, I had glimpsed darkness beneath me shelving down into the depths, and terror had crawled at the edges of my scalp. If I forgot how to make the automatic movements that kept me afloat, I would sink, drifting unseen and helpless into darkness, hands grasping at emptiness. I had turned onto my back and swum to the rocks; as I sat on the rough gray surface surrounded by the rasp of cicadas and the scent of thyme, the heat had seared away the fear. Pulling Bertie after me, I began to hurry home, my feet echoing on the pavement; it wasn't possible to forget automatic movements, that was the point. Your body remembered.

THE TWINS WERE
playing their guitars, sprawled on the window seat. Ed nodded briefly, his shoulders hunched, his long fingers flicking over the strings. He had grown this year, thinned out so the bones of his face were angular under the skin, his cheeks hollowed, but as I stared at him, absorbing the changes that still surprised me, his eyes looked quickly away from mine and I remembered that he had tried to call me.

“Sorry I missed your call, darling. I wanted to phone back but there was an emergency. Maybe leave a message at reception another time, or wait till I get home?”

Ed shrugged. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but then I hadn't for a while now. I couldn't even remember when we'd last had a conversation. Naomi had been quieter too. I paused as I took my coat off. Was that what happened as children grew? A process so gradual that in the future I would never be able to pinpoint the exact moment when I became just a figure in their hinterland, watching from a distance. My eyes went to Theo; head back and eyes closed, he was strumming and singing loudly, tie half off, his art books scattered over the floor amid toast crumbs. He looked up suddenly and grinned, his wide mouth splitting his freckled face. I wanted to hug him. Theo at least was still Theo, jokey, uncomplicated, and happy. Ed was watching, so I smiled at both of them. They had always been different, though they'd had exactly the same love and attention. Perhaps it proved the point that character is predetermined. I liked that explanation; it let me off the hook.

Four ounces of butter and four ounces of sugar, soft drift of flour, brilliant yellow egg yolks. Sharp white apple flesh cut into the baking pan, batter poured on top, into the oven. Another kind of automatic; colored in and scented.

The back door crashed open.

“Hey, doggie.” Naomi in a belted black coat bent over Bertie. “Did you miss me, then?” Her fair hair fell forward in a shining sheet onto his nose, and he sneezed noisily. She looked up, but her smile faded when she saw me by the stove and she didn't return mine. Her voice was sharp.

“I know what you're going to say, but don't bother. I'll do homework backstage. I can't miss rehearsals. Going to change.”

“I wasn't going to say anything about homework.” I was stung. “But if you've got lots . . .”

She turned silently and then she was climbing upstairs with dragging footsteps. A distant door slammed. She used to race up those stairs. She was tired. I sliced the tops off beans; they were still her favorite, tossed in butter with a sprinkling of roasted almonds. Tired and edgy. The play rehearsals were relentless on top of the standardized tests. The boys gathered books, drifted to the stairs, talking. Theo quietly mocking Ed, something about girls, low-­voiced so I wouldn't hear.

Peace then. The safe feeling of children home and doors shut against the night. I drained the potatoes and beat them into soft clouds, made Naomi sandwiches to keep her going, and prepared a thermos of hot chocolate. I'd save her some supper. Jade Price's image hovered in the warm kitchen for a moment; she'd looked so thin this afternoon. I wondered whether anyone would be giving her supper.

The back doorbell rang: Naomi's friends collecting her on the way to rehearsal. She came back through the kitchen, and then disappeared amid a welter of young voices.

Upstairs, the front door opened. Car keys rattled onto a table, quick footsteps came down the stairs into the kitchen.

“You smell of hospitals,” I murmured, my cheek against Ted's rough cold one. The sharp tang of disinfectant always clung to him when he first came home, layered under the faintest scent of lavender from the operating room scrub. I wanted to stay close, but he drew back and smiled, looking over my shoulder.

“Hey, that looks good.”

He leaned past me to break off a fragment of warm cake, and then bent to pull a wine bottle off the rack. He poured two glasses and held one out.

“How was your day?” he asked.

There was a shine of excitement on him, so I didn't tell him about the bruised child, Naomi's irritation, or that I had remembered how it felt to be in the sea, out of my depth.

“Fine,” I said. “What about yours?”

“Fantastic. The child's completely better. Lots of international interest, the press has been phoning the hospital all day.”

He started pacing, unable to keep still, running his fingers through his hair so it stuck up in blond clumps. As I watched him, the thermos on the table caught my eye, left behind with the neat little packet of sandwiches.

“She's stopped screaming. No more hallucinations.” He looked at me, blue eyes shining. “An operation to cure psychotic symptoms—­it's a groundbreaker.”

At supper Theo's freckled face and Ed's darker one lifted, dipped and lifted, eating, looking up at Ted. He took us through the tense moments of delicate probing to destroy disordered cells deep in the brain. The child had presented classic symptoms of psychosis with paranoid delusions. On the ward she had thrown scalding water on other children and bitten nurses. Today, after the operation, she was drawing flowers.

The phone rang, the
Daily Mail
wanted to know about this new miracle cure. Ted took the phone upstairs to talk.

Theo pretended to drill Ed's head with the blunt end of a fork. “I'm going to cure you, once and for all.”

Before Ed could escape, Theo had pushed him off the chair and wrestled him to the ground, shouting, “The voices in my head are telling me to kill you.”

“If you go away now and do your homework, I'll let you off the washing-­up.” That kind of deal usually worked. “Theo, have you shown Dad your art project yet?”

“Which one?”

“ ‘Man's Place in Nature.' He's bound to see it in the exhibition.”

“I can't, he'll kill me.”

“Darling, just get it over with.”

Once they had gone, the kitchen felt drained of noise. I began to gather the smeared plates. Ed had left most of his supper. Too much toast. I was still there when Naomi came slowly through the door, an hour later than I thought she would.

“How did it go?” I asked, looking at the dark shadows under her eyes.

“Fine.” A smile hovered. I waited for a little story about someone joking around; maybe the director was pleased with her singing or the way she said her lines. I watched her pull off her coat, pour herself a glass of milk, and lean against the stove to drink it.

She seemed to be somewhere very far away; she looked sideways at me, not fully meeting my gaze.

As she headed toward the stairs, I couldn't help myself: “So what happened?”

“Stuff. I'm tired.”

Once she would have followed me around, a flow of talk, questions, doubts, jokes. I would have had to tell her I needed space to sort e-­mails, but she would have followed me to my desk, sat on the arm of the sofa, carried on talking. That seemed a long time ago.

Now, as she brushed past me, there was the faintest scent of something acrid. Tobacco.

“Naomi?”

She turned impatiently.

“You haven't been smoking, have you?”

Her blue gaze seemed clearer than usual. She shook her head. “Izzy was smoking in the changing room afterward. She was upset because Mrs. Mears kept going on at her about her lines, so . . .” Naomi shrugged. “Where's Dad?”

I stared at her for a moment. I didn't believe her, but I would know if she was habitually smoking: her clothes would smell of tobacco. She would be coughing. One cigarette really wasn't a big deal. I let it pass.

“The great neurosurgeon is in his study, fielding the world's press,” I replied.

She started going up the stairs.

“Aren't you hungry, sweetie? You forgot—­”

But she'd disappeared into the shadows at the top of the stairs.

 

Chapter 5

DORSET, 2010

ONE YEAR LATER

I
forget when I last touched anyone or was touched. I kissed Naomi's hand in the kitchen a year ago. The warmth of Theo's rough hug last Christmas has long faded. I see Ed every month but he avoids the slightest brush against me. Ted and I shared a bed till I left, but we lay apart, facing away from each other. In the nursing homes I used to visit on my rounds, the residents sat beached at the rim of a room, old hands reaching for mine, greedy for contact; now I've turned it around. Not touching has become a scrupulous act. I take care to avoid the accidental touch of fingers in the shop as the man gives me my change. If someone comes to the door, I step back. So when I see the old lady lying across the steps of her bungalow as I come back up the lane one afternoon, I am surprised how automatic it is to reach out to her. Her skin is pale but her pulse is full and regular, my hand on her chest lifts and falls. Beneath her eyelids the pupils are equal in size. She looks so peaceful that I hesitate, wondering how to rouse her without startling her. I know that jolt into reality, though sometimes I was glad of it.

BRISTOL, 2009

SIXTEEN DAYS BEFORE

I woke with a sudden start. In my dreams I had been tumbling through space full of harsh voices, and the relentless fall of water. There had been tapping, coming closer; Jade was crying somewhere. The relief of morning seeped into me gradually. The crying became the call of gulls, blown inland by the wind. There was a magpie outside our window, chattering as he swayed in the empty lime tree branches; the twiggy ends were tapping against the window. Somewhere in the house above me, Naomi must have been having her morning shower. The water would be falling around her in a shining column.

I curled my feet around Ted's and watched him as he drifted lighter in sleep. His cheeks were looser than they used to be; the light picked out gray flecks in the blond where the hair feathered into his neck. I moved closer, shaping myself around him. Our bodies felt warm and safe together. The frightening dream melted away.

We'd planted two lime trees close together eighteen years ago, when we knew I was pregnant with twins. We had a competition to see whose grew the fastest, but in the end they had twisted together into one huge trunk. Even the branches were entwined. In the summer the morning light in our room was stained green, but at this time of year twigs filled the space with black crossing lines.

Ted made a content waking sound. He always woke happy. His hand felt hot on my shoulder and moved slowly down my arm, then to my back, pulling me close in. Our faces touched, his mouth on my cheek.

The radio switched itself on, cued to start at seven. Tuesday, the third of November, the voice told me. I had to get up now. I needed to catch the pediatrician, and I was on call. Regret and guilt slipped around me like a familiar coat.

“Sorry.” I kicked back the duvet. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“I'll put the kettle on.” His footsteps went slowly down the stairs; his voice came back up sounding distant.

The bright hot water around me in the bath was soothing. No harm done, I thought, as I watched Ted's calm face while he cleaned his teeth. I sipped the dark coffee he had brought me. It doesn't matter.

We talked through our day to come: my visit to Jade Price, Ted's clinic, and the lecture he would give after that for the students. He paced onto the landing and back as he dried after his shower, thinking, talking. Suddenly he caught sight of the posters for Theo's art project stacked outside his bedroom door ready for laminating at school. He stopped abruptly, and crouching down began to leaf through. So Theo hadn't shown them to him last night; he was keeping his head down. They were a series of Naomi in the autumn woods in the Brecon Beacons, taken on different Sundays in October. Each time the trees lost more leaves, Naomi had taken more clothes off. At first just her gloves, then her shoes, her coat, and her sweater. Ted whistled in admiration at the way Theo had captured the shapes and colors of autumn, and Naomi's pale face glowing against the trees. He grew quieter as he worked his way down the series. In the end, Naomi was naked; caught within twigs. Her eyes stared out, darkly challenging the viewer. I sensed Ted's dismay in his silence.

“Sweetheart”—­I stood behind him, wrapped in a towel, my feet puddling the wood—­“I know what you're thinking . . .”

“You don't know what I'm thinking,” he said quietly.

“It's a metaphor. If we open ourselves to the natural world, shed our sophisticated layers, it will protect us in turn. I know Theo—­”

“Stop saying you know everyone. You don't.” His voice got louder. “It's got bugger all to do with the natural world. He's exploiting her, making a series of risqué photos to get attention. She's too young to see that, but surely you can.”

“Ted, it's art.”

“I can't believe you'd use that clichéd excuse for pornography.”

“It's not pornography.” My voice was rising too. “She was wearing underpants, for God's sake; she kept her coat on until she was hidden. Nikita was there. Naomi threw her clothes out to her as she undressed.” I paused for breath. How could he think Theo would exploit her? He and Naomi had always been the closest of the three children, even when they were little.

“You're missing the point again,” he said curtly.

I stepped back from the fight. There was no time.

“Let's talk about it tonight, with Theo.”

“Nothing more to say.” He shrugged.

Time had run out. Arguments were often left unfinished and seemed to disappear, untended bonfires burning out, leaving only a pile of ashes behind. Ted, with clothes on, was harder, surer, walked quicker. He gave me a kiss that missed my mouth, his eyes somewhere else. The door shut behind him.

Naomi appeared as I was gathering my bags. She still looked tired, despite the night's sleep, and moved around the kitchen slowly, finding folders, scarf, and hockey boots. She seemed absorbed in the day to come and didn't look at me when I suggested breakfast.

“Not hungry,” she said briefly, knotting her scarf as she watched herself in the little mirror on the wall by the phone.

“Have something, darling. Toast? An egg?”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust without replying, and then bent to the dog.

“Love you, Bertie.”

She kissed the air above his head and left; the door slammed. She came back for her cell phone and left again.

The boys appeared, sleepy and silent. Ed looked disheveled, with unknotted tie and half-­combed hair. He poured muesli and ate it slowly, reading the side of the packet with concentration. Theo leaned against the fridge door eating the rest of the apple cake, his eyes closed. Then they left, bumping shoulders as they went out the door together, both carrying Theo's art folder, shoulders hunched.

It was time for me to leave. I followed them but turned at the door, sucked back by the warm disorder. Teeth marks in the buttered rind of toast, a glittery pool of spilled sugar, bent packets, open jars. I wanted to stay, shut the mess into cupboards, and restore order to the surfaces. My mother, as her younger self, seemed to be watching from the shadows behind the hanging coats in the hallway, so close I could feel her breath behind my neck, her chin on my shoulder. She was telling me to stay, tidy up, and keep watch as she had done. I quickly pulled the stacks of shoes apart until I found the new red ones with heels. I put them on, becoming the professional, the doctor, and I slammed the door shut behind me.

Outside I met Anya being dropped off by her husband. Under her coat was the patterned apron she wore to clean our house. She always worked calmly, her gentle hands honoring each task. No matter how hard I tried, I ended up pushing at things angrily, running from one unfinished job to the next. She and her husband came from Poland. Whenever I saw him, he scowled at me. I wanted to tell him that Anya made my life possible, but that would have made him angrier, as if my life was more valuable than hers. His hostile glance flickered over my warm coat, the leather bag, the tall house behind me.

As I unlocked the car, I waved to Mrs. Moore opposite; she was putting out her small items for recycling. Ted had left ours on the sidewalk last night: the rinsed bottles of Shiraz, the exotic cardboard sleeves from ready meals, copies of
The Telegraph
folded neatly edge to edge. Mrs. Moore straightened up, her hand in the small of her back. She looked toward me and her old mouth cracked open briefly. I could just see the soft shape of her son, Harold, as he bobbed uncertainly at the bay window. He was about thirty, with Down's syndrome. Her husband had left years before. I wondered, as I did whenever I saw her, what kept her going day after day. She was still staring at me as I started the engine and pushed the knob of the radio, and it came to me unexpectedly that it could be the other way around. Perhaps I needn't feel guilty about how much more I seemed to have than she did; she watched me rush in and out, she would know how late Ted came home from work every day. She might even feel sorry for me.

THE MORNING SLID
away quickly. Three women, one after the other, derailed by the mess of ordinary biology: periods, pregnancy, menopause. As I listened and examined, I wanted to tell them that this was normal life, not illness. In other cultures there might be celebrations; perhaps I was the celebrant here, providing recognition of these rites of passage. The last patient, though, Mr. Potter, was really ill. Aged ninety, he had polished his shoes, walked down the hill, and waited his turn to tell me he had left-­sided central crushing chest pain. I looked at his sweaty face, at the smile he was attempting that trembled on his lips. There wasn't much time.

“Sorry, Doctor, I didn't know. I thought it was indigestion. I didn't want to bother you.” He spoke with difficulty. Gasping for breath. “Who will feed my cat?”

He used the phone to speak to his neighbors while I organized his admission to coronary care. He was changing worlds: Behind him was his tiny clean council flat, the faded wedding photos on the brick mantelpiece, the flare of the gas fire with the empty chair opposite his, and the warm presence of a little cat. Ahead of him was a world of high bright lights, tubes, and bleeping monitors; the staff around the desk would be too far away, or too close, breathing into his face, or talking to him as if he were a deaf child. I wanted to tell him to wear his war medals.

FRANK SAT BEHIND
a leather-­topped antique desk, making phone calls. He lifted his eyebrows, smiled, and nodded at the chair. There were two mugs of coffee on the desk in front of him, the fragrance filling the room. I sat down.

He put the phone down and sighed, wrapping large hands around one of the mugs. His glasses were askew; no bit of desk was visible beneath the rubble of instruments, pens, and forms.

There had been a bureaucratic screwup by the Primary Care Trust; appraisals were changing again. The coffee warmed me and I began to relax. We talked about the morning.

“I've referred Jade Price to the community pediatrician. Possible child abuse. I didn't tell the mother I would at the time, so I'm going round to the house later today.”

Frank listened to the story, eyes wary.

“I know the Prices. Be careful, Jenny, and look from all angles. They don't strike me as abusive.”

“There aren't that many angles,” I said, remembering the bruises and Jade's exhausted stillness. “The family profile fits. Her father's an alcoholic bully. Her mother's depressed.”

“Why go round? You could simply phone.”

“It will be difficult to tell her I suspect the family of child abuse. I can pick my moment better face-­to-­face.” I paused as another thought occurred to me. “There might be more clues at the house as well.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“What? Why?”

“They could run rings round you, or get nasty. You seem a bit . . . preoccupied. I mean, not just about this. Something's ruffling the feathers.”

Frank hadn't been a family doctor for thirty years for nothing.

“Oh, you know. Family stuff.”

“Ted okay?”

“Fine, mostly. In fact, his star is in the ascendant,” remembering the glimmer last night, the excitement that had shone from him.

“Kids? My favorite godchild?”

“Naomi's changed. Quieter, I think. Can't quite put my finger on it.” As I said this, a pulse of worry thumped in my head. What was I missing?

“Up to something, I expect.” He grinned. “Fifteen-­year-­old girls spend their lives up to something.”

“She usually tells me.” Not lately, though, not for weeks. Months, even.

“Knowing Naomi, she will, in her own time. What does Ted say?”

“Hasn't. Well, I didn't run it by him—­too much happening.” I smiled ruefully. “We always run out of time. One of us goes to sleep.”

“God knows how you do it all. I've only got one and Cathy's at home all the time.”

I didn't like it when ­people said that. As if I must be cheating. There was no magic. It wasn't even difficult. I just had to keep going, and I knew exactly how to do that. Sometimes it felt as though I was escaping from one life to another and back again. I wasn't sure exactly what I was escaping from each time, but it seemed to work; I told my friends it gave me a built-­in excuse if something went wrong. Over time I'd realized that if it meant I had to leave the children to sort themselves out, they usually did. Now I had only myself to blame if Naomi was learning to be independent. I'd wait until her guard was down and she was ready to talk. I'd overlook the cigarette, then once she'd told me what the matter was, I would help.

If I was asked, I would say she was happy, that Ted and I were as well. I would say we were all perfectly happy.

THE PRICES' HOUSE
was on a road near the docks, a mile or so from the practice. The area near the river had been reconstructed; the old warehouses were now brick-­and-­glass offices and a gym. But the glamorous architecture didn't go deep. The Prices lived a ­couple of streets back. I parked the car and walked, looking for number 14. One or two windows had broken glass patched up with cardboard; in a front garden there was a television set leaning into the mud. None of the doors seemed to have numbers. I stopped near a group of boys who were standing around a motorbike, the sleek machine at odds with the street. The boys were thin, shoulders up against the bitter wind. One of them sucked at a can, tilting it high, carelessly, so the fluid fell on his face. A yellowing sheet of newspaper blew against my legs. I pulled it off and let it go, watching as it flapped against the lamppost. I went closer to the group.