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What had incited her to invite Jessica to the PRC?
Harriet had an almost pathological hatred of Jessica Palmer, whose misshapen life filled Harriet with horror. She treated her as though tragedy was contagious, because even dullwitted Harriet realised that the grief that comes with tragedy has the ability to shape lives in a way happiness never does.
Sighing, Kate turned the corner onto Lordship Lane.
Jessica sat for a while, listening to a dog barking somewhere close by, then turned the keys in the ignition.
Twenty minutes later, she walked into the newly openplanned offices of Lennox Thompson.
Most of the staff were out on viewings or valuations—apart from Elaine and the manager, Jake, who was almost ten years Jessica’s junior, on the Oxford Alumni, and seriously addicted to coke, which gave his skin a grey pallor that was only heightened by being perpetually offset against the white shirts he insisted on wearing.
Jake thought Jessica and him had things in common—primarily their education—which led him to keep up a repartee with her that was at once fraternal and elegiac.
Jessica knew it wasn’t Oxford they had in common—it was tragedy.
In Jake’s case, the fatal error of perpetually trying to impress parents who had never learnt how to love their children—he once told her his father used to make him weed the borders naked, as a punishment.
In Jessica’s, never having made any provision—emotional or material—for Peter’s untimely death.
‘Guess what?’ Jake said, looking up as Jessica walked into the office.
‘What?’
‘They’re opening a branch of Foxtons here.’
‘Foxtons?’
He nodded, pulled at his nose and said, ‘With a promotional six-month zero per cent commission. It’s going to kill us,’ he added, starting to chew on his nails before shunting his chair backwards and disappearing, jerkily, towards the loos at the back of the office.
Elaine looked across at her.
Jessica was about to say something when her mobile started to ring.
‘Jess?’
It was Lenny—her stepmother.
She didn’t feel like speaking to Lenny right then and started to scratch nervously with a drawing pin at the edge of her desk.
‘I was just phoning to see if Arthur got into St Anthony’s.’
‘I don’t know—the post hadn’t arrived when I left this morning.’
‘Oh.’ Lenny paused at Jessica’s flat tone.
Jessica let herself fall back in her chair, slouching uncomfortably as she started to swing it from side to side.
‘Well, give us a ring later.’
‘I will. How’s Dad?’ she said, with an effort.
The line started to break up and Jessica, now swinging aggressively from side to side, hoped they’d lose the reception altogether, but Lenny was still there. It was something she’d been trying to come to terms with since she was fifteen—the fact that Lenny would still be there—always.
‘I said—how’s Dad?’
‘He’s fine—engrossed in some new cat-deterrent he got by mail order this morning.’
At the beginning, because of what happened between Joe and Lenny, it had been more necessary for Lenny to get on with Jessica than it was for Jessica to get on with Lenny, and this early imbalance in their relationship had never really been redressed. Lenny had made huge efforts—Jessica could see that now, from the vantage point of being thirty-five—and not only out of necessity. Lenny had genuinely cared, but at the time Jessica felt she was owed too much to bother responding to overtures made by the woman her father had been having an affair with while her mother was still alive, who became the woman he moved in with after she died.
‘You keep cutting out—where are you?’
‘I don’t know—somewhere between Brighton and Birmingham; on a train. How’s work?’
‘Fine—yeah, it’s fine.’
‘Well, you know where we are if you need anything—why not bring the kids down and have a weekend to yourself?’
‘I don’t know—it’s busy at the moment.’
‘We haven’t seen them in ages, and Dad’s started on that tree house for Arthur.’
Jessica tried to think of something to say to this, but couldn’t.
‘And I miss Ellie—I really do.’
‘I’ll call,’ Jessica said, as the line broke up for a third and final time.
As she came off her mobile, the office phones started to ring. ‘Lennox Thompson sales department—how can I help you?’
‘I’d like to speak to someone about the Beulah Hill house you’ve got on the market.’
‘Well, you’re speaking to the right person.’
‘Wait a minute—is this Jessica?’
‘This is Jessica—Jessica Palmer.’
‘Jessica—it’s Ros.’
‘Ros?’
‘Ros Granger from No. 188?’
‘Ros…’ Why was Ros calling? Ros never called her…
had never called her since she took Toby to McDonald’s in Peckham that time for Arthur’s fourth birthday. In fact, nobody from the PRC apart from Kate had phoned since Arthur’s fourth birthday—and that was nearly a year ago.
‘So—how’s it all going?’
‘Fine.’
Ros let out a long, smooth laugh as though Jessica had just said something funny. ‘I was phoning to arrange a viewing -.’
‘You’re not thinking of moving as well, are you?’
‘Who else have you been speaking to?’
‘Nobody,’ Jessica said quickly.
Ros paused. ‘Today would be good.’
Chapter 8 (#ulink_1a5c23cf-21ec-509c-90b3-ebc63bd31ce1)
Even late as she was after the impromptu Beulah Hill viewing, Kate still found time to stop at St Anthony’s vicarage on the way to Village Montessori. Jolting over a speed bump at the crest of the hill, she was sure she saw someone—the vicar?—in the vicarage garden, and on an impulse decided to stop, parking behind a distinctive black Chrysler just pulling away, which—if she hadn’t been so preoccupied—she would have recognised as Evie McRae’s.
She got out of the car and started to walk through the dull April drizzle, trying not to slip on the overspill of gravel from the vicar’s newly gravelled drive. Ignoring the increasingly invasive smell of wet tarmac, which always made her panic, she emerged from behind a bank of hydrangeas with what she liked to think of as a healthy smile on her face.
‘Hi,’ she said across the uneven trail of hydrangea cuttings littering the immaculate lawn.
The Reverend Tessa Walker—it was the vicar—looked up, a pair of secateurs in her hand. She managed to master her annoyance at the interruption—the second interruption that morning—but it left her face looking glum.
After what felt like a minute’s silence, Kate said, ‘Sorry—this is a bit impromptu; I should have phoned. Actually, I did phone, but no one was in and then I was driving past and I saw you in your garden and…’ She inhaled a lungful of wet tarmac and then panic set in as the memory of long wet suburban days fell over her…She stared blearily at the Reverend Walker, trying to claw her way back into the present moment. ‘I tried to phone, but there was no answer and…’
The Reverend Walker lost the grip on her secateurs so that they hung from the band round her wrist. She didn’t attempt to speak; she just carried on staring at Kate.
‘I’m Kate—Kate Hunter? I come to church here on Sundays. Every Sunday…here to St Anthony’s every Sunday—well, most Sundays…’ She paused, letting out a nervous laugh that made her feel like the only child in a roomful of adults.
The Reverend Walker said nothing. She was too busy thinking…this woman comes to my church every Sunday and I don’t recognise her. It made her feel old.
The drizzle was gaining momentum. There was going to be a downpour, which hadn’t started yet, but there was so much moisture in the air that Kate could feel it collecting on her eyelashes.
The sound of children being let out onto a playing field reached them through the dense, moist air and she started to panic again. Nursery—she needed to collect Findlay and Flo from nursery. ‘I came here to talk about a child,’ she said suddenly. This sounded epic; she hadn’t meant to sound epic.
The Reverend Walker said, ‘A child?’
‘My son—Findlay.’
‘You want to talk to me about your son?’ the Reverend Walker said, helplessly. Was this the first time the woman had mentioned a child? She didn’t know any more. It just seemed as though she’d been standing on her wet lawn among the hydrangea cuttings for weeks, and now wasn’t a good time for anybody to be talking to her about their children—because she was undergoing a crisis of faith; a profound crisis of faith. With an effort, she twisted back to Kate. ‘You’re having concerns about your son?’ she said, trying to sound less helpless this time.
‘Concerns?’ Kate echoed.
‘Spiritual concerns?’
‘He’s five years old,’ Kate said, trying not to yell. ‘No, it’s nothing like that. I just came to check that you wrote the letter to St Anthony’s confirming the fact that Findlay comes to church here on Sundays. You needed to write a letter—about Findlay. It was part of our application, and I just wanted to check that it was done because I got a letter this morning saying he didn’t get a place.’
A place where? Heaven? Full of a sudden dread, the Reverend Walker wondered whether they were talking about a dead child—the woman’s son? Was he dead? Had there been a funeral she’d forgotten to attend? A child she’d forgotten to bury? She started to walk slowly, earnestly, towards Kate.
‘We’ve been coming here to church since he was nine months old and this morning—this morning—I find out that he doesn’t have a place at St Anthony’s, and nobody seems to know why. Every Sunday—nearly every Sunday—for over four years, and he doesn’t get a place.’
The clouds gathered and the moisture thickened until it officially became rain—the steady sort of rain the birds carry on singing through.
Kate tried to breathe in but there was no air anywhere, her nostrils were full of rain and it seemed as though the Reverend Walker was staring at her from the end of a long green tunnel.
‘We’ve been coming to St Anthony’s every Sunday,’ she said again, before realising that she was repeating herself.
Somebody’s voice—a long way off—was saying, ‘Only fifty per cent of places are offered on the basis of faith; the other fifty are offered according to catchment area criteria and whether a child has siblings at the school. Do you want to come inside?’ the Reverend said at last.
‘We’ve done everything right—everything,’ Kate yelled. ‘Right down to sitting through sermon after sermon on those fucking Sudanese orphans.’ She broke off, vaguely aware that the rain was running so steadily down her face now it was impairing her vision. The right-hand side of her head seemed to be filling with blood, and the weight of it was pulling her down through the rain towards the lawn. She stumbled, but managed to regain her balance. This prompted the Reverend Walker to say, ‘Come inside,’ again.
Kate stared at her, suddenly intensely aware of the fact that she was, in effect, accosting the vicar in her garden. If she took a look around her, the evidence would be there: her footprints in the gravel on the drive, and across the wet lawn behind her. God. This was exactly the sort of thing her mother would have done. God.
The church bells began ringing and, pushing the vicar’s hands away, she turned and ran back across the lawn and gravel drive, her head thumping so badly with migraine now that it was beginning to seriously affect her balance. She staggered towards the Audi. Somewhere beyond the bells there were screaming children and, beyond them, a dog was intermittently whining and yapping.
A workman standing in front of a Portaloo on the drive next door was staring at her. How long had he been standing there?
Ignoring him, she yanked open the driver’s door and fell into the car—the sound of the wet afternoon immediately muffled by safety glass as she slammed the door shut.
What was it she’d yelled at the Reverend Walker? Something about Sudanese orphans…?
Afraid, she phoned Robert, but Robert didn’t answer his phone.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_f907d902-87dc-5762-b4eb-8f108c9925b9)
She pulled up in front of Village Montessori nearly twenty minutes late—which, following stringent regulations, she’d have to pay for by the minute—with a full-blown migraine; but at least the rain had stopped. She retrieved Flo from the sensory room where she was lying on her back with fifteen other babies—who looked as if they’d just been thrown out of heaven, and landed on a rug of synthetic fur—all jerking their arms and legs towards the ceiling where silver spirals were revolving, overlooked severely by the black and white faces on the Wimmer-Ferguson Mind Shapes mural. There was a CD of rainforest sounds playing.
Mary handed her Flo from among the minute bodies jerking on the floor, and Kate wasn’t entirely sure—if it hadn’t been for Mary—that she would have recognised her daughter. The lighting in the sensory room was eerily low and Kate wondered how Mary coped, sitting among the parakeets and the jerking, snuffling bodies, with the door shut. Surely Village Montessori was in breach of EU health and safety regulations?
Once in her mother’s arms, Flo showed absolutely no sign of recognition. It must have been the same with Findlay at this age, but with Flo, for some reason, Kate felt less able to cope. Flo twisted her head blearily from side to side, blinked her wet eyes at nothing in particular, posited a dribble of something white and curdled on Kate’s lapel then concussed herself on her collarbone—and started to cry. Kate felt a wave of violence pass through her that she found difficult to control—because of the migraine.
Her arms started to shake and she experienced an almost vertiginous nausea as she tried to remember the names of familiar sights and sounds. This had been happening to her at least twice a day since Flo was born—the first time, slumped in a hospital bed at King’s, she had been staring past the mass of bouquets on the table at newborn Flo, in her Perspex hospital tank, and there, right in front of her, her daughter turned into a piglet.
Findlay, sitting on the end of the hospital bed, pushing a small fire engine with a broken ladder along the railings, became a centipede, and Robert became a bear—a huge bear clumsily trying to pull the blue curtains round the bed for some privacy.
Now, all she wanted to do was hurl Flo over Mary’s shoulder through the silver spirals and into the wall behind her, where the impact would no doubt make various bits of Flo burst open and trickle over Wimmer-Ferguson’s impervious black and white faces. Then everybody—including Mary—would be able to see that Flo wasn’t a human baby after all; she was in fact nothing more than a tiny pig.
Kate stood with her arms shaking, listening to Mary give her a rundown on all Flo’s bowel movements since 8.30 a.m.
Then it passed, and after it had passed, she remembered to smile adoringly at Flo—like the woman on the front of the Johnson & Johnson’s wet wipes packet—and nod and say ‘great’ in response to Mary’s monologue.
Mary looked surprised, indicating that ‘great’ wasn’t quite right.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Kate said, hoping she was still smiling.
‘I saw Findlay today—he’s a big boy now—he’ll be leaving us soon?’
Kate was aware of Mary—who had been Findlay’s primary carer as well—watching her.
