The Would-Begetter (34 page)

‘Oh for heavens sake,
Gwladys
then!’

‘Darling? How are you? Well I just thought I’d phone…’

‘No I’m here, in Somerset, at Jess’s flat. We thought we’d come round…’

‘But Hannah…’

‘But
Gwladys,
I’m not interfering. I just…’ Caroline put the phone down slowly. ‘She hung up on me,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t want to see us. She says if we go round there today, she’ll run off! So what the hell do we do now?’

‘Drink this,’ Jess said, putting down a mug of coffee. ‘It’s a tricky one, isn’t it. How about getting on with the boring stuff today, and waiting until tomorrow to go to Hector’s?’

‘I wanted to see Hannah
at once,
Caroline said, ‘but I suppose you’re right.’ She took a gulp of coffee. ‘Oh dear, patience never was my forte.’

But soon afterwards she pulled herself together and elected to begin on the housework. Jess, who had always admired her, now saw that her regard was well-deserved for although Caroline was clearly worried and upset, she was still able to discipline herself to get on with the job in hand.

‘Why don’t you go round to the
Chronicle
now?’ Caroline suggested, ‘while I make a start on this.’

‘Well, if you’re sure?’ Jess said. ‘Great. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

It was years since Caroline had dusted anything. As she went round the flat she felt rather like a child playing at being grown
up, and the thought entertained her. Jess, as promised, was soon back.

‘Hoovering is quite fun for a change, isn’t it,’ Caroline remarked to her, as she pounded up and down the carpet in the living room.

‘Fun?
It’s the thing I most loathe doing!’

‘How was the
Chronicle?’

‘Oh fine. Nigel was there on weekend duty. It was lovely to see him, but strange to be back in that atmosphere again. The new building even smells like the old one now. Some sad news though; Nige says last month’s best unused headline was:
Nightmare Mother-in-law Drives Wife into Arms of Vicar.
It sounds right up Barry’s street; the sort of story he most loves to write, but for one thing.’

‘What?’

‘It’s his wife, Jackie, who’s run off! So Barry’s been left to bring up the four children on his own, and the horrible irony is that his awful old mother, who was the cause of all the bother, died the week after Jackie left! Poor Barry. Life always seems to shit on him from a great height. He’s having to work part-time and is even thinking of giving up his job altogether and living on social security.’

‘That’s dreadful.’

‘I know. Certainly makes you think. Now, what’s next?’

They went out and bought some more plates and mugs, and collected current leaflets from the Tourist Office. They took blankets to the launderette, and replaced three light bulbs. They bought a plunger to unblock the lavatory, and had two extra keys cut. And then they went for a long walk by the sea to unwind, and to work up an appetite for supper.

The tide was in, and the sun glinted on the incoming waves as they spread their line of foam on the sand in a brief fizz of white with each gentle approach. The two friends walked there, where the sand was damp and firm underfoot, and they stared out over the Bristol Channel at the pair of islands, one steep and one flat, which today were blue-sharp in outline. The smell of the sea lingered in their nostrils, and the cool breeze lifted their hair and waved it around their faces. Herring gulls hung overhead, trumpeting. Behind them, nearer to the pier, the first families of the season sat, wrapped in anoraks
and eating ice creams, but the beach ahead was empty and inviting.

‘Race you to that washed-up oil drum!’ Jess challenged, beginning to run.

‘Cheat!’ Caroline cried, starting after her.

‘What d’you fancy – Chinese, Indian or Italian?’ Jess asked breathlessly as they got there together, and stopped to admire the view.

‘Indian,’ Caroline said at once. ‘I could murder a biryani. D’you know, Jess, if I wasn’t so worried about Hannah, this could be the best weekend I’ve had in years!’

Caroline woke next morning puzzled as to where she was, and for a split second before she remembered about Hannah, she felt gloriously free. Then, guiltily, she decided that whatever Hannah/Gwladys said, she couldn’t put it off any longer. She must attempt to see her at once.

At breakfast she began to get cold feet again and Jess, alert to this possibility, suggested they might first go over towards Glastonbury, find Zillah’s camp and give her the cheque.

‘And then,’ she promised, ‘we’ll go and sort out Hector and Co.’

It took about an hour to reach Zillah, but Caroline was happy to sit back and be driven, able to look at the view and to notice with pleasure a single heron on guard beside one of the many drainage ditches.

‘I wonder why they’re called that?’ she said to Jess, as she commented on it in passing. ‘The ditches, I mean – spelt r-h-y-n-e-s but pronounced ‘reens’. She was looking forward to meeting Zillah, and intrigued to discover what Hector’s other teenage bastard would be like. But in this last, she was to be disappointed. Florian was not there.

‘He’s never here,’ Zillah explained. ‘Even if he had a ball and chain attached to both ankles, he’d find some way of disappearing.’

She had seemed pleased to see Jess after the initial blankness of pre-recognition, and Caroline was relieved about this, because her first impressions of the camp were unequivocally negative. As they arrived it had come on to rain, a sudden April shower which transformed the ground in the centre of the camp, in moments, into a mudbath. Zillah hadn’t seemed
to notice the state of their shoes as she welcomed them inside, and Caroline, having looked about her at first for somewhere to wipe her feet, realised pretty soon that it was her own unsuitable ensemble that needed protecting from Zillah’s caravan, rather than the other way around.

‘Would you like to try some of this,’ Zillah offered, producing a half-f bottle and three tumblers. ‘Dandelion wine.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ counselled an earnest child in glasses, from a bunk high on the wall. ‘Tastes like cough mixture!’

‘This is Alaric,’ Zillah said. ‘Off you go now, and read in the other room, OK?’ The boy climbed down with a good grace, holding a large book in one hand. Caroline noticed with amazement that it was
War and Peace, volume two.

‘Is that the sort of thing he always reads?’ she asked when he had gone and shut the door behind him.

‘Yes,’ Zillah said matter-of-factly. ‘He’s a genius. My eldest is pretty bright too. My only mistake was in letting Hector father the middle one.’

‘Mine too,’ Caroline said, charmed out of her usual reserve by the other woman’s unexpected candour. ‘My only one, that is.’

‘Really?’ Zillah looked interested. ‘Boy or girl?’

‘She’s a girl. Her name’s Hannah.’

‘Easy or difficult?’

‘Well just at the moment, very difficult indeed!’

‘There you are,’ Zillah said triumphantly. ‘Bad blood! I always said so.’

Caroline smiled at her. She was certainly a good-looking woman – late thirties, early forties? She was living in a total hugger-mugger, even a slum, and yet she seemed completely assured and unapologetic about it. She didn’t rush round frantically trying to tidy things away, saying ‘Oh dear, you’ve caught me at a bad moment. I was just about to spring clean’ as a lesser person might have done. She didn’t even clear spaces for them to sit down, but seemed happy that they should push piles of clothes and books aside themselves for that purpose. Caroline, to her surprise, found this refreshingly admirable. Here was someone entirely comfortable in herself, who didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. She smiled again and drank deeply of the home-made wine. It was rather sweet for
her taste, but still welcome. A tortoiseshell kitten roused itself from its sleep further along her bench seat and seemed inclined to arrange itself more comfortably on her lap. Caroline edged away and fended it off, but the kitten persisted.

‘Push her down,’ Zillah advised. ‘Or you’ll get hairs all over yourself.’ She seemed to be waiting for them to declare their purpose.

‘We came to give you this,’ Jess said, handing over the cheque. ‘It got mixed up with Caroline’s one, by mistake.’

‘Well, thank God for that!’ Zillah exclaimed, taking it. ‘About time too! I’ve been on my beam ends this month. I’ve even tried going up to the phone box and ringing Hector’s house, but his wife always answers the damn thing so I’ve just had to put it down. I’ve been getting desperate, I can tell you!’

‘Oh dear,’ Jess said. ‘I’m sorry to hear…’

‘Florian’s in trouble again you see. There’s this huge fine to pay for his truancy from school, and no way I can cover it. And why should I? I reckon Hector should cough up. More wine?’ Caroline accepted a top up. ‘Does he pay you monthly?’ Zillah asked her.

‘He hasn’t paid me anything until recently. I didn’t want to be beholden.’

‘I’d take whatever’s going,’ Zillah advised at once. ‘He’s rich enough!’

‘But he’s never tried to dodge his responsibilities,’ Jess put in.

‘Mmmm’ Zillah said. ‘That’s a moot point. I’ve a good mind to go round there and have it out with him face to face. If I had transport I would! I’ve only held back this far out of consideration for Wendy, because she was nice to Florian years ago.’ She sipped her wine. ‘What’s she like?’

‘We think she’s having a bad time,’ Jess said. ‘She’s only just found out about Hannah and Florian, and it seems she’s really upset.’

‘Oh he’s finally told her, has he?’ Zillah said. ‘I was always amazed she didn’t guess, way back, but there you are. Funny how easily people can be conned, isn’t it? And it’s not only the Wendys of this world who fall for it! What is it about Hector, do you suppose? I’ll admit he’s sexy…’

‘And he has a certain obvious charm,’ Caroline said.

‘He’s entertaining,’ Jess said defensively. ‘And I’ve certainly not been conned by him.’ She’d gone pink.

‘Mmmm’ Zillah said again. ‘Perhaps you could speak to him for me then?’

Caroline drained her glass and put it down. She was beginning to feel almost comfortable in this grotty caravan. So, I’ll be covered in dust and hairs when I leave, she thought. So what? She looked at Jess, who was smiling at the kitten as it tried to scale the curtains. She caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, I suppose we’d better be off,’ Jess said, taking the hint and getting up.

‘Look Zillah,’ Caroline said on impulse, ‘why don’t you come too? We’re going over to Hector’s now, to try to persuade my daughter to come home. You could help us to teach him a lesson.’

‘But,’ Jess said quickly, ‘what about Alaric?’

‘Oh he’s very sensible,’ Zillah said. ‘I could ask Rose in the next van to keep an eye, but he can make his own lunch, no bother.’

‘So will you?’ Caroline was keen to co-opt all available moral support.

‘Well, how would I get home?’

‘Oh we’d give you a lift back, of course, wouldn’t we Jess.’

‘Well… yes I…’

‘Right,’ Zillah said crisply. ‘Let’s go.’

Ever since Hector had sprung his daughter on her without warning and then selfishly, to ‘make a clean breast of everything’, had told her at the same time that Florian was his son, Wendy had felt bewildered and wretched. It was as though the whole world, which she had always known and trusted, had suddenly been revealed to be a mirage, and everybody but her had known it all along. She felt betrayed and despised and, yes, stupid too. She didn’t know what to say, how to react, what to
do.

Her first action had been to scream at Hector, but eventually she’d thought about the girl downstairs, and how she must be feeling, and how it wasn’t
her
fault. So Wendy had made a supreme effort to act with dignity, and had cooked them some
supper. She couldn’t understand half of what the girl said, but she and Morgan seemed to hit it off at once, mostly on account of his drawings. Hannah/Gwladys seemed to think they were remarkable. She said Morgan ought to train as an architect; that he could be famous! They were getting on so well together that Hector was beginning to look miffed. Wendy almost smiled.

But then, as the days went by, all the negative aspects of the situation caught up with her, and she was overcome with despair. She began staying in bed, sleepless and unable to stop weeping. She couldn’t bear to go out, and so Hector was obliged to do the shopping. She wasn’t hungry, and the very thought of cooking made her ill so she stopped doing any. She saw the confusion on the faces of those around her and, for once, she couldn’t care. Everything seemed futile, hopeless. She found even the smallest decision too hard to make. Depression had closed in around her and had crushed all her initiative. What was the point? Her husband didn’t love her. Her son didn’t need her. She didn’t want to have to face another day.

After Hannah had been with them for a week, things came to a head for Wendy. She felt she couldn’t go on. Her home, her privacy, her
life
had been invaded and she was expected to behave as though nothing had happened. How long would Hannah stay? Would Hector expect Florian to join them too? How would she cope? Why
should
she cope? But where would she go if she couldn’t? She had a car, but no money and no convenient relatives or friends to escape to (except for Ifor and June who might side with Hector). She felt trapped, and it was unendurable.

It was mid-morning, and the Sunday papers lay in roughly folded heaps where Hector had left them. Hannah and Morgan had gone out for a walk by the sea. Hector, clearly quite unable to deal with this new boneless Wendy, had brought her up a cup of tea.

‘D’you need anything?’ he asked, assuming a
you-know-I’m-useless-at-this-sort-of-thing-but-you’re-putting-me-in-an-impossible-position-and-I’m-doing-my-absolute-best
sort of expression. Wendy knew that he expected her to rally at this and become normal
again, but she hadn’t the will or the energy even to try.

‘No.’

‘Well, is there anything I can do?’

‘No.’

‘Oh… well you see it’s just that Ifor’s invited me to play golf at his club today. We arranged it weeks ago, but I don’t like to leave you like this.’ Wendy said nothing. She didn’t care whether he stayed or went. It was all the same to her. ‘So… will you be OK, if I go?’