The Way We Were (33 page)

‘Hello, Mrs Bodrugan.' Cat smiled, easy and friendly, as if she were in the habit of wandering in without knocking. ‘Just thought I'd see if anyone was around. Andy said to send his love if I saw you. I called but you didn't answer and the back door was open so I came in. The dog barked but he didn't seem to object too much.'

She touched Frobisher lightly on the head but he was already turning away, going back to the kitchen. Julia's heart jumped and hammered. She hadn't seen Cat since the children's schooldays and it was as if time had swung backwards and Angela had walked in: thin as a pin, chic in black linen. Julia believed that she'd seen a ghost.

‘I didn't hear you,' she said. ‘Well, I heard the car. I thought it was Liv coming back. Didn't you see her? You must have passed her.'

Cat's smile widened but she didn't answer and Julia felt inexplicably frightened. In her mind's eye she saw the bag still hanging on the chair in the kitchen; Cat had walked straight past it. She knew exactly why Cat had come and she swallowed in a suddenly dry throat whilst managing to smile.

‘You should have telephoned,' she said. ‘You're looking very well. Would you like some coffee?'

‘Thanks.' Cat followed Julia into the kitchen. ‘Mum said to say “Hi” if I saw you. I'm staying with her for a few days. When I said I was going over to Rock she said to drop in, just in case you were around, to say hello.'

Julia pushed the kettle on to the hot plate and got down the mugs, and all the while the bag hung on the chair with the bundle of knitting on its thick wooden needles sticking out at the top. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cat was scanning the dresser, the windowsill, looking for something. Julia made the coffee and sat down.

‘How's Andy?' she asked. ‘We haven't seen him for a while.'

‘Andy's fine. Actually he sent a message. He asked me to pick something up for him.'

‘Really?' Julia looked surprised. Her hands were locked in her lap and she didn't attempt to pick up her mug of coffee.

‘I don't know if you've seen all the fuss in the art world at the moment?' Cat waited, watching for a reaction. ‘No? Well, it's all a bit silly but Andy asked me to ask you if I could bring back a little statue. I remember I saw it when I was a child. It's Merlin as a boy. Andy thinks that there's a very faint chance that it might be a copy made by this man who's on trial in Paris. If that's so it would make it an interesting piece and he said he'd like to take it to an expert to have it checked.'

Julia frowned. ‘I think I can remember it,' she said slowly. ‘But I haven't seen it for years.' She shook her head. ‘It was a silly little thing, as I remember, but the children liked it. I've no idea where it might be. Tell Andy I'll have a look for it if he's really serious. Sounds crazy to me.'

Cat watched her. ‘I was wondering if it belonged to Tiggy'

‘To Tiggy?' Julia shrugged, as if puzzled by the question. ‘Why should it have? To be honest, I simply can't remember much about it. There were always so many toys and odd bits and pieces when the children were small.'

‘I was talking to Mum about it this morning and we were remembering a big scene right here in your kitchen when I picked it up and Tiggy came in and screamed at me for touching it. That's why we wondered if it might have been hers. Mum said she had no family but everyone has a family, don't they?' A pause. ‘Who was she?'

Julia's gut churned; her hands were icy. ‘She was a school friend of mine,' she answered. ‘Her parents died young in an accident when she was very small and she had no brothers and sisters, just a grandmother. She was Tiggy's only relation. She died just after Tiggy came to stay with us. I was her best friend, that's why she came to Trescairn. And she was Charlie's godmother, of course.'

‘And Zack's mother.'

‘Yes. She was Zack's mother.'

Cat's watchful slant-eyed stare was disconcerting. She finished her coffee and put down her mug. ‘Is it OK if I use the loo before I go, Mrs Bodrugan? I'd better be getting on.'

Julia watched her go out; she unclenched her hands, drank her coffee quickly. Putting her hand down behind her she felt the reassuring weight in the knitting bag. She heard the creaking of a board and light footsteps in the bedroom overhead: she waited. Presently Cat reappeared.

‘Finished?' Julia asked brightly.

Cat stared at her. ‘I'll tell Andy I saw you,' she said, ‘and that you'll look for the Merlin.'

‘I'll
tell him,' said Julia. ‘I'll phone him tonight.'

‘The newspaper report says that this man who's on trial is a widower but there's a son called Jean-Paul who lives in Switzerland,' said Cat as she went out to the car. ‘What did you say Tiggy's real name was?'

‘Antigone,' answered Julia promptly. ‘Antigone Dacre. Her father was a classics tutor or something at Oxford, I think. Goodbye, Cat.'

Watching her drive away, Julia was reminded of Angela's visits all those years before. She went back into the house, took the bag from the chair and put it back again. Aunt Em had suggested that she should drop it down a mine shaft or throw it off a cliff but now Julia had an irrational fear that Cat might be watching her; parked up somewhere waiting for her to go out. Perhaps she'd arrived earlier, when she and Aunt Em had been with Caroline, and had parked higher up on the moor watching for the car to come back. She'd have seen Aunt Em driving away and Liv arriving almost immediately afterwards and had waited for her to leave; which is why she hadn't passed her on the road.

Julia was suddenly seized with a fit of nervous laughter: all that stuff about Tiggy's name being Antigone had come from nowhere. And they'd sat drinking coffee with the little Merlin within touching distance. Clearly
The Child Merlin
knew how to look after himself.

1977

It is nearly Easter before Angela comes visiting again at Trescairn. Unannounced as usual, with Cat in tow, she appears just after lunch one wild, windy afternoon, with lambs crying in the fields below the house and an untidy party of rooks circling above the church tower.

Julia opens the door, Zack astride her hip, and Charlie following behind, pushing himself along on a small wooden tricycle. She'd seen the car pull up on the drive and experienced the familiar twinge of apprehension but now, standing at the door, looking at that narrow, slant-eyed face, she feels a new, unusual surge of confidence.

‘Hi,' she says amiably ‘Have you ever heard of the telephone, Angela? Isn't it rather a bit off your road to come all this way only to find that I'm out? Trescairn isn't exactly on the direct route between Minions and Rock.'

‘Oh, but you're never out,' observes Angela, smiling. ‘You're always here, doing your motherly thing. The original earth mother, Pete once called you. The prototype. Such a good example to us all.'

Julia stands aside to let them come in but she smiles too. ‘I suspect you've often called when I've been out,' she says. ‘And you've peered through all the windows and then driven away again. Isn't that so, Cat?'

The question is so quick and natural that Cat answers automatically. ‘Yes,' she says, ‘and Mummy gets cross and drives very fast afterwards. But she looks in through the windows like you said.'

Julia laughs, genuinely amused. ‘Just to make certain we're not all lying on the floor trying to avoid you, like Uncle Matthew in
The Pursuit of Love
.'

Angela puts her bag on the kitchen table and takes out her cigarettes; she is disconcerted but still in control. ‘Nonsense,' she says lightly. ‘I think that happened once. I banged on the window in case you hadn't heard but I was in a hurry anyway so it didn't matter. So how are you? Great news about Perisher. Pete's just so thrilled, isn't he?'

‘Oh, yes. Pete's thrilled. We're all thrilled.'

‘When he came to see me he could hardly stop talking about it. He was really worked up. Mind you,' she gives her subtle, secret smile, ‘Pete gets worked up pretty quickly, doesn't he? Anyway, that's my experience. He's hoping to get a boat in Faslane, did he tell you? He hardly talked about anything else the whole time he was with me.'

‘Well, given you must have had barely five minutes on the doorstep it's hardly surprising, is it? Not long for an in-depth discussion about anything. He was pretty irritated to have to get a taxi that morning simply to collect some books that Martin could have dropped off here any time. And as for Celia phoning up specially to tell me that she'd seen him, well, I thought Pete was going to implode when I told him.'

It is clear that Angela is taken aback; for the first time in their relationship the balance of power shifts. Julia knows quite surely that Angela suspects that she's lost control, that her subtle hints and allusions no longer have the power to hurt, and Julia's own feeling of triumph contains an unexpected tinge of compassion.

‘Do you want some tea?' she asks, putting Zack into the high chair and giving him his brightly coloured teething ring. ‘I can't be too long because I've got to fetch the twins from school.'

‘Thanks.' Angela sits down. She looks thoughtful, as if she is already planning a new line of attack. ‘I've been seeing the new tenants in. Nice couple, no kids, thank God.' She glances at Zack, as if this has triggered an idea. ‘Zack's grown. You know that rumour is still going round that he's Pete's. I suppose it just seems so amazing that you should be prepared to bring up someone else's baby.'

Julia begins to laugh. ‘You don't give up easily, do you? I told Pete that you'd said that to Tiggy and he was disgusted. Any-way, Zack's not someone else's baby. He was Tiggy's baby and now he's
our
baby, just as much as the twins or Charlie, and you can think what you like about it.'

In that moment she is struck by a different kind of exaltation. By saying the words she's made them true: Zack
is
their baby, hers and Pete's. She is filled with relief yet, almost immediately, she is seized with misgiving. Cat is watching her slyly. She's taken Zack's teething ring away from him, holding it just out of his reach, and she's put one foot on the handlebars of Charlie's bike so that he can no longer push it forward. Zack grizzles; reaching for the teething ring that jiggles so tantalizingly just beyond his grasp; whilst Charlie, shouting frustratedly strives to pit his weight against Cat's restraining foot. Her look dares Julia to comment on the power she has over the two smaller children and Julia has an instinctive feeling that the battle is not yet over, but that the lines are drawn up against a different protagonist.

‘It's a pity Cat doesn't have any brothers and sisters,' she says sharply. ‘Perhaps they'd teach her to grow up a bit and be less tiresome.' She takes the teething ring from Cat and puts it back on the high chair's table, lifts her sharply to one side and gives Charlie an encouraging push. ‘She must be so popular at school.'

As soon as she's made the sarcastic remark she regrets it. It's cheap, trying to score points over a child: foolish to feel frightened of her, but her irrational fear remains.

‘Do you want some juice, Cat?' she asks, trying to overcome it. ‘Or milk?'

Cat shakes her head, refusing to answer, reaching up to the little Merlin, who stands on the lowest shelf of the dresser. Julia swiftly puts it out of reach on to a higher shelf and Cat begins to whine. Charlie watches her curiously.

‘What is that thing?' asks Angela, irritated. ‘There was a fuss over it once before, if I remember. Why can't she play with it? Is it valuable?'

‘Not particularly,' Julia answers, making the tea. ‘Well, it has a sentimental value. It's pretty heavy and if she drops it on her toes, or on Charlie's, it could be very painful, that's all.' She puts the mugs on the table and sits down. ‘So tell me about the new tenants.'

Later, after they've gone, she takes Zack out of the high chair and cuddles him, her cheek pressed against his silky head. As she holds him she thinks about Tiggy: the schoolgirl, lonely and uncared for, longing for a family to which she might belong. How she hated the big London flat, empty of any love, inhabited by the series of au pairs who were harassed by her father. Julia holds Zack more tightly: he must never, never know the ugly truth about his grandfather's behaviour. She remembers that first frantic telephone call; Tiggy's flight to Hampshire, and the story she told about her father. It was difficult to comprehend such a betrayal. The weight of so terrible a secret was such a heavy one that, in the end, she told her mother Tiggy's tragic little history, swearing her to secrecy. Her mother became quite rigid with horror.

‘Poor child,' she said. ‘Poor little Tiggy. Don't forget, Julia, that she's welcome here at any time during the holidays. Keep an eye on her, darling, won't you?'

And she
did
keep an eye, watching over Tiggy, taking her home for holidays when she wasn't with her grandmother. Even after Tiggy's father moved to Paris, and severed all except financial connections, she remained watchful. By the time they left school their friendship was firmly fixed and, when Julia married Pete, Tiggy was a bridesmaid and, later, Charlie's godmother. Then there was that second phone call, and another flight, this time to the west.

‘I don't want my father to know about my baby' she said. ‘Not ever. Promise me, Julia, that you'll never say a word to anyone.'