The Reading Group Part 11

Harriet couldn't help laughing. Arrogant, but accurate. 'I'll see what I can do.' And she hung up. Which she thought was pretty cool.

Polly and Jack Jack had left a message on the machine. 'I'm running late, love. Could you bear to find your own way to the restaurant and I'll meet you there? Take your reading-club book, 'cos I might be five minutes late I've only just got out of this blessed meeting, and I've got some things on my desk that won't wait until tomorrow. I'll see you there. Looking forward to it, I really am. Love you.'

Actually Polly was quite pleased. It would make it more of a date, arriving separately. She pulled at her hair in the hall mirror. She'd better go and make herself presentable. Even better than presentable would be good: she wanted tonight to be lovely.

They hadn't been out for dinner alone since February, Polly thought. They'd gone out, of course, foursomes, a couple of parties and a gruesome Sunday lunch at Susan's with that sour-faced sister of hers, to a few loud and mindless films at the cinema with Dan, but not on a proper date. Not for ages. She knew she'd been taking him for granted. That was the paradox: they were a young couple, but trapped in middle-aged lives, dealing with the problems of young-adult children before they'd even married. Her young adult child, to be accurate: he hadn't dumped any emotional baggage on her doorstep it was all one-way traffic. The joys of the modern family unit.

She'd read an article in the paper at the weekend, some smug television personality on her second marriage, writing about taking her kids into her new relations.h.i.+p. 'He knew the score from the start,' she wrote. 'We came as a job lot.' The new man in question had been quick to add, obsequiously, 'It wasn't a struggle, I loved the boys almost from day one.' Well, newsflash to perfect people from TV land: a job lot was a struggle for everyone. And there are different kinds of love: you could never love a child who didn't belong to you with the same visceral fervour you felt for your own child. If you hadn't had your own child, like Mr Smug TV, or Jack, you didn't understand that love, not properly. Polly decided that the best you could hope for was to fall in love with your stepchild, which was easier if it was a Mark-Lester-in-Oliver lookalike, much harder if it was a spotty youth on the cusp of adolescence, and even more so if you were talking about a beautiful young woman. A pregnant beautiful young woman.

She'd been pus.h.i.+ng him away a bit, she knew, partly because she was so used to coping on her own, so that it had become, if not quite a reflex, a point of honour to do so. And partly because she felt so protective of Cressida, but partly, too, because she felt he didn't entirely understand how it felt. He'd been trying, G.o.d knew, and he'd been a hero with Daniel, as good as taking over the practical side of his life the football practices, the weekend matches. With Cressida he'd been gentle: without initiating a conversation with her about it, he'd treated her with something like tenderness. It was over Cressida that things between Jack and Polly had become strained. He'd said all along, prefaced every conversation, by saying that as he wasn't Cressida's father he couldn't understand exactly what she was feeling. Then he'd told Polly some truths, objective, impartial observational truths, like it not being her right to tell Joe or his mum. That was what had made her cross, if she was honest. She didn't always want to hear sense. Sometimes she just wanted support; a comforting 'there there'. Men wanted to find solutions, make things okay. Jack knew she was strong, and probably thought comfort was patronising. She didn't always have the energy left, after Cressida, to explain to him what she needed, just resented him for not giving it to her automatically.

He was still fantastic, still far and away the best man she knew. And Dan's reaction to Cressida's predicament had cast Jack in an even more glowing light. Polly had gone to tell him one evening at Cressida's request she wasn't frightened of what he would say, she had said, just felt stupid and embarra.s.sed.

Dan's first response had been arm gestures and swearing, and Tina had calmed him down with murmurs and strokes. Polly watched in something like fascination how one man could choose two such different wives still amazed her. It was so clear to her now, though, that Tina was exactly what he had needed all along. No wonder their own marriage hadn't lasted. It never stood a chance!

When he had calmed down, she had found herself taking Cressida's speaking part in a repet.i.tion of all the conversations the two of them had already had. Then he had said she had to have an abortion. She couldn't have a kid. What about the studying? What did Joe have to say for himself? Defending Cressida's decision was a useful exercise: it made sense when you said it out loud. It sounded reasonable. Dan had retreated into self-pity his party trick. Why hadn't Cressida come and told him herself? He'd been a good dad, hadn't he? He'd always been there for her.

At that point Tina stepped in. 'Come on, Dan, imagine how hard it would be to tell you this. She probably knew you'd go off at half c.o.c.k. She knew it would hurt you, upset you. I think she did the right thing, sending Polly. Give you a chance to calm down before you meet up with her. Get it into perspective. Get over the shock.'

This was the longest speech Polly had ever heard Tina make, and she was grateful to her.

Jack had even told Danny himself. They had asked him to, of course. He would never have presumed. Dan was completely revolted by that sort of thing just now. Cressida being pregnant was irrefutable proof that Cressida was having s.e.x. Bad enough that Jack and mum were at it, but Cressida as well? It was all too much. So they reckoned it might come better from Jack. And it seemed it was. One morning, after Jack had picked up Danny from football training, Danny had come into the kitchen, swallowed at the sight of his sister, and then, on the way past to the fridge, given her a half hug half swipe, his face lost for just a second in her neck. 'All right, ugly?' he said, and then necked a bottle of milk straight down.

Later, when the kids had gone upstairs to their respective pits, Jack had smiled at Polly. 'That was a beautiful moment, don't you think?!'

'Oh yes, Kodak quality.' Polly had smiled back.

'I think he thought I was going to tell him you were pregnant, so it was probably a relief when it turned out to be Cressida. I guess a niece or nephew is at least more palatable than a brother or sister.'

She slid her arm around his waist. 'Thanks, Jack.'

'All part of the service.'

You see, he was so good at that. At making her feel safe and like she was part of a team, like she didn't have to be responsible for every little thing on her own.

In the restaurant, she ordered a gin and tonic and some sparkling water, and sat back to read a few pages of Guppies for Tea, this month's choice. It was beautifully written Polly could hardly believe that the author, Marika Cobbold, could write so well in her second language but it wasn't a very comfortable read. Not for someone staring down the barrel of old age, and, most especially she imagined, not for Susan. She wondered if it had been a tactless choice Clare had suggested it months ago after she had talked about it to someone on the ward and it had come up on the list for this month. Susan had been at the meeting, and she hadn't seemed to baulk, but then, Polly reasoned, she wouldn't. Susan was a coper, a doer, a Stoic. It was probably only Roger who knew the full picture, but Polly thought she saw more than most. Susan hadn't talked much about Alice these last few weeks since Margaret had left. She had always managed to turn their conversations to Cressida and the baby. When Polly tried to return to Alice, Susan looked sad. 'Cressida has choices, Poll there's so much more to talk about. Mum has no choices, and neither did Roger and I. What can you say?' And then the shrug, and the faraway look.

She'd been with Susan, once, to where Alice was Susan went every day, sometimes more than once. It hadn't seemed so bad to Polly or not as bad as Margaret would have had you believe: it was clean, there were nice prints on the walls, and silk flower displays in all the communal rooms. They'd turned up at lunchtime, daft really, and that hadn't been too nice dozens of old people sitting in silence, dribbling soup down themselves, with one poor woman sobbing for her Colin. The private patients sat at tables with linen cloths. How absurd. As if age and ill-health hadn't completely levelled the playing-field.

But she, Polly, was seeing it objectively: this new, dishevelled, empty-eyed Alice was Susan's mum, and that must be dreadful.

They had rescued her from an unappetising plate of something indeterminate with custard and taken her back to her room. Polly had gone through all the motions, chatting to an uncomprehending Alice about Cressida, Daniel and Jack. She left out the baby, but told Alice about the wedding.

'Getting married?' Alice asked incredulously, looking first at Polly, and then, puzzled, at Susan.

Polly and Susan had laughed.

'Yep, I guess getting her head round that one is a bit of a challenge.' Susan snorted.

'Oy, it's not that hilarious. I'm only forty-four, for Chrissakes.'

Alice smiled at them indulgently, as if they were teenagers laughing at boys. 'You young things! We'd better start saving coupons then. In such a hurry, you young people are.'

They giggled again. 'If only the kids could hear her call us that!' Susan said. She combed Alice's hair gently while they talked on, and Alice sat still, eyes closed, enjoying her daughter's touch.

Afterwards, Susan linked arms with Polly on the way out, past manicured flowerbeds, to the car. The giggling turned into a swallowed sob, as giggling is often wont to do. 'Thanks for coming, Poll. That was great. You're good at this sort of thing. Until today I hadn't seen her smile since she went in there.'

'You're welcome. Any time. Honestly.' Polly took a deep breath. 'Suze?'

'Yes?'

'Roger and I were talking, a few days back. He's worried about you, hon. He thinks you're up here too much and it's making you too tired.'

Susan had stiffened, but had not taken her arm away. 'She's my mum, Polly.'

'I know, I know. Really I do, and so does Rog. It's just...' this wasn't easy to say '... well, if she doesn't understand time so well any more, and she doesn't really know if you've been or not, do you really need to put yourself through it so often? Couldn't you give yourself a bit of a breather?'

Now Susan did take away her arm. 'She's my mum, Poll.' Again. 'You don't just think I'm going up there for her, do you?'

Jack was a noisy b.u.g.g.e.r as soon as the door of the restaurant opened she knew it was him. Loud apologies to someone he'd jostled, asking for her, so sorry to be late, got held up, and then he was there, a light sheen of sweat, a briefcase, a jacket over his arm and a redundant umbrella the big corporate kind.

He was a nice-looking man, with a big smiley face. Polly felt a stab of possessive pride.

'h.e.l.lo, darling. Sorry I'm late. Get my message?'

'Yeah, no problem. I've been reading.'

'Good, good. Good?'

'Well, to be honest, I've been thinking about Susan and Alice. That's sort of what the book is about.'

'Right.' Jack grimaced. 'Heavy stuff?'

'A bit.'

Jack pulled it from her, slipped a card advertising the restaurant in at her page, snapped it shut and slid it into her open bag on the floor beside them.

'Right, well, that's enough of that, then. Tonight, Mrs soon-to-be-Summers, is declared a non-misery evening. I've got you all to myself, for once, and I'm banning all talk of Cressida and Daniel and, for that matter, Susan and Alice, much as we may love them all. I want to have a light-hearted, delightful, possibly drunken meal with my gorgeous and, may I say, terribly s.e.xy fiancee.' He gave the old-fas.h.i.+oned word resonance and gravitas. How could she help but love him? That was absolutely what he deserved. He kissed her hand with a flourish.

The waiter appeared. 'To drink, sir?'

She raised her gla.s.s. 'I'm on gin.'

'b.u.g.g.e.r that, mother's ruin. I'm not having you snivelling over your tiramisu. A bottle of champagne, please. Two gla.s.ses.' He handed the gin and tonic to the waiter. 'And you may take that.'

'Certainly, sir.' The waiter was smiling, enjoying Jack's theatrical style.

Jack was reaching into his briefcase. 'And I've brought just the thing to get the conversation going.'

Polly started to laugh. He was holding up an ancient, well-thumbed copy of Your Wedding, obviously stolen from some reception area.

Three hours, two bottles and a great deal of sn.i.g.g.e.ring later, after Jack had forbidden her to wear at least three-quarters of the dresses advertised, but marked with a biro the lingerie he favoured; after a heated debate on the honeymoon, and an agreement that, yes, he would look an idiot in morning dress, they had arrived at a date. He had watched her face as she calculated months, and raised a hand imperiously. 'Aha. Now, over most things you and your gal pals will have total control. This decision, along with the wine, I claim as my own.' He had already done the counting. 'I have always wanted a Christmas bride. How about it?'

She had never loved him more.

Susan and Mary Roman blinds were boring to make. You had to concentrate because the sewing was fiddly, and there were all those lengths of cord. Also, you didn't make so much money with blinds: on curtains there was more to be made on the fabric, which they bought at trade and sold on at a small profit unless Susan took a liking to a client who had her heart set on something she couldn't afford. Sometimes it was nice to see the delight when you offered to pa.s.s on the trade discount. Soft-furnis.h.i.+ng Santa.

Susan liked swags best, with their yards and yards of soft fabric. Not in her home, of course dust traps! To look at, she preferred blinds, clean, simple and, in the right material, stunning, maybe with a pelmet or a lambrequin if the window or the room's decor could take it.

Thank G.o.d for Mary, who liked making blinds. That was one of the reasons she made such a good companion in the workroom. She also made wicked flapjack, which she brought in every Monday, and shared Susan's pa.s.sion for Radio 4, which played all day long while they worked. It was so much more interesting than gossip. Mary had been with Susan for fifteen years or so Susan had forced her to come out for lunch about six months ago when she'd realised it was their anniversary. This morning they'd both been doing what they did best. Susan spent a couple of hours helping a rich young banker's wife go through the books for an extensive selection of magnolia linens at 100 per metre, trying to decide which one was just perfect for the enormous Georgian windows in her new home. By the time she left, on a cloud of Chanel, with a dozen swatches to show her decorator, Mary had sewn and threaded three plaid roman blinds for a new kitchen.

'Brilliant! They look great. I'll drop them off this afternoon on my way to see Mum. Henry's going round to fix the poles in the morning.' Henry was their token male, an ex-accountant who had chucked it all in when his youngest child left home. Now he hung poles and ratchets for their customers, and occasionally offered hara.s.sed housewives advice on paying their nanny's tax and National Insurance. 'Did you get anywhere with Lady Bountiful?' This was Susan and Mary's private name for the girl who'd just been in. They had done rooms in the new family seat before and were quietly amused by her grandiose schemes, and less authentic accent Susan thought they were probably dreams she'd been working on since childhood in her single bedroom in Balham.

'Who can tell? I don't know why she doesn't just bring the b.l.o.o.d.y decorator here it'd save us a fortune in samples, and, anyway, it's pretty obvious it's what he says that goes.' She reasoned Lady Bountiful's taste inclined more naturally towards the brighter chenilles and velvets than towards the earthy, natural shades fas.h.i.+on demanded. 'Bodily fluid colours', Mary called them. 'Fancy a coffee? Let's eat lunch outside it's gorgeous, the first hot day we've had this year.'

The workshop was part of a collective that took up two of the three vast barns attached to an old farmhouse, whose present owner kept the third as an art studio from which he ran watercolour courses in the summer. Mary and Susan shared with an upholsterer and a cabinet-maker. The barns were set at the end of a steep track two or three miles off the road, and they had a spectacular view over the valley behind. Just being here made Susan feel calm.

Outside they sat together, sipping coffee and eating their sandwiches. The sun was warm on their necks.

'Clare asked me to tell you she won't be coming to your reading club this week. She's sorry but she can't make it.'

'That's a shame. We'll miss her. She's really come out of herself, you know. She reads the books with a very different perspective from the rest of us she has lots of interesting things to say. She isn't ill, I hope?'

'No, nothing like that.' Mary sighed. 'You may as well know, she's left Elliot. Moved back in with me and her dad, a few weeks back.'

'Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry. I had no idea.'

'No, well, you know me I don't like to talk too much about these things. She seemed to be enjoying the group, too. Always been a bit of a bookworm. When she was a little girl I used to have to get books out of the library in threes and fours for her, she devoured them so fast. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was one of her favourites. And Rebecca she loved that.' Susan remembered that Clare had suggested it. 'Clever little girl she was her teachers said she could have gone to university if she'd wanted to. She never did, though. She always had her heart set on training as a nurse, then as a midwife. That and Elliot was all she ever wanted.'

They both knew it wasn't true. She had wanted so much more than that. As if acknowledging this, Mary went on, 'I read in the papers sometimes, you know, those stories about women who have babies for their daughters who can't. I'd have done that, but I'm too old. We waited too long to have her ourselves. It took me years to fall with her. Now I've been through the change, you see. I'd've done anything else, if I could. We both would. Reg said he'd sell the house to pay for treatment if there was anything they could do, but there isn't. These days, we think doctors and money are the answer to every problem, but there are some who just aren't meant to have children of their own, and she's one of them, my little girl.'

Mary wasn't the kind of woman to invite physical contact, and Susan didn't know what to say. Eventually she said, 'Do you think they might get back together? There's no one else involved, is there?'

'I don't think so, not like that. No one real.' Mary turned to look at her. 'That house is haunted, I think. They're haunted by the ghosts of all the babies they've lost, the life they wanted.' She shook herself, as though she'd said something stupid. 'I thought keeping them together was the best thing I could do for her. I thought that in time they'd heal each other, that they'd learn to have a happy life together without children. They were so happy, you remember?

Susan did, vaguely. She remembered them one day, years ago, when Elliot and Clare were still teenagers, buzzing about in the workshop. They'd gone outside, and he'd been chasing her, laughing. He caught her eventually, held her shoulders while he hooked her legs away with his foot so that they fell together to the ground. He'd smoothed back her hair behind her ears and kissed her, his hands on her cheeks. Then she remembered Mary coming in with wedding photographs, hundreds of them, it had seemed, Clare dazed with happiness as she gazed up at her new husband.

'Yes, I remember.'

'But that's not right either any more. Home is the best place for her just now, and for me. I want her with me. I need to take care of her.'

That was it, wasn't it, Susan supposed. The steel ribbons that bind us Mary and Clare, me and Mum, Polly and Cressida, Cressida and her unborn baby. Harriet and Nicole and their children. Me and my glorious boys. Clare would never have that.

Mary shrugged. 'Ah, well, this won't get the work done, will it? I'm off back to it. Thanks for the coffee, and the shoulder.'

'That's okay. I'm sorry, Mary. Send Clare our love. Tell her she's welcome back at the reading club as soon as she's feeling up to it. I'll let you know what the next book is, and then she can decide.'

'Cheers, Susan. She'd like that, I'm sure.'

Susan had watched Mary, all the rest of the afternoon, but she'd closed back off again, as quickly as she had opened outside on the bench.

Cressida What a stinking irony. Four months ago she had been going to the loo praying to see blood in her knickers, on the toilet roll. Now she'd been through all this s.h.i.+t, the scan, the fights with Mum, the break-up with Joe, telling Elliot, and at the end of it she'd made up her mind, and nearly everyone else's, and she had been starting to feel almost good. And now there was blood.

What could it mean? Everything had been going the way it was meant to with the baby. She certainly felt pregnant. Her b.o.o.bs were enormous, and her hipster trousers were starting to be uncomfortable she'd had to abandon the black ones already. Her hair was thick, and those last few spots had gone, and she was peeing for England. So far, so textbook pregnancy. She'd been reading her book, the one Mum had bought her, What to Expect When You're Expecting a corny-looking tome, with some pregnant woman in a Laura Ashley smock sitting in a rocking chair, that had turned out to be a brilliant reference tool checking off her 'symptoms' each week, looking at the pictures of the baby. Although she'd stuck a b.l.o.o.d.y great paper clip on the chapters on delivery. Not right now, thank you very much. It was in, and it would be coming out, and that was all she needed to know at this stage. The midwife she'd seen at the hospital had said young mums usually had an easier time of it in labour than older ones, 'like sh.e.l.ling peas', she said, which was scant comfort; babies' head, mummies' bits you figure it out. When she was in town, she looked with new curiosity at the young mums she pa.s.sed. They'd done it, and they could still walk. Some of them could still wear hipster trousers. How bad could it be?

She had spent hours looking at herself naked in her bedroom mirror, turning this way and that, watching the subtle but inexorable changes in her body. Sometimes, fully dressed, she had shoved a cus.h.i.+on up her top and clutched melodramatically at the small of her back, trying to imagine how she would look nearer the time. She'd copied down a few numbers off the board in the obstetrics department she particularly fancied a yoga cla.s.s she'd seen advertised there: it sounded like a chilled-out way to get ready for the birth. 'Dunk Your b.u.mp' at the local pool sounded quite fun, if you could get your head round the idea of appearing in front of the hunky lifeguards looking like Moby d.i.c.k with varicose veins.

That was the trouble. Once you had made the decision to keep the baby, your mind raced on ahead, through the pregnancy, into infancy and way beyond. You found yourself daydreaming about the craziest things: what it would be, what you would do together, what it would like and not like. Cressida was sure the baby was a boy, her imagination was always working in powder blue, she didn't know why. She'd been doodling in cla.s.s the other day, a list of boys' names.

She couldn't be losing it now. Please.

She stood up, did up her trousers, flushed the loo and went out on to the landing. 'Mum!'

Polly came to the bottom of the stairs, alerted by Cressida's desperate tone. 'What's the matter, love?'

Cressida started to cry. 'I'm bleeding, Mum.'

'Right.' Polly leapt up the stairs two at a time. 'Don't worry, darling. Let's get you lying down.' She guided Cressida to her bed. 'How much blood, sweetheart? Just drops or a trickle? Does it hurt? Are you feeling okay?'

'Drops, just drops, I think, on my underwear. There's no pain at all.' She clutched at Polly's arm, her face ashen. 'Mum, what does it mean? Am I losing the baby?'

Polly had picked up the phone and was dialling. 'Of course not, sweetheart. Lie still, try to stay calm. I'm calling Roger.'

She sat down beside Cressida as the phone rang at Susan's house. Sunday afternoon. Please G.o.d, let him be there.

He was. He reacted with his usual, capable, calm kindness. 'You've got her up on the bed, have you? Right, make her a cup of tea, with some sugar in it, and one for yourself. I'll be right round. Don't worry, Polly, this isn't unusual. She's probably perfectly all right.'

Cressida didn't want Polly to leave her to make tea. 'Don't go, Mum. Please stay with me.'

They wanted to be together much more than either of them wanted a cup of tea with sugar in it. Polly held her daughter, stroking her hair, murmuring that it would be okay, that Roger was on his way, that she wasn't to worry. All the time her mind was racing. Surely Cressida couldn't be miscarrying, not now, not after all this. Her daughter's fear communicated itself to her, and she took deep breaths of her own. Not the baby. Not now. She didn't know who she was most afraid for, the baby, Cressida, or herself. Sc.r.a.ped knees she could deal with, broken hearts she could try. Losing a baby you wanted she wasn't equipped to deal with that. It wasn't fair for Cressida to experience a tragedy that she herself hadn't been through how could she offer comfort, how could she understand, how could she make it better? To have to watch your own child wild-eyed with fear and be unable to help was horrible.

When the bell rang Polly leapt up and ran downstairs. Roger smiled at her briefly, rea.s.suringly, then went straight upstairs. 'She's in my room, Roger.'

Susan had come with him, and she folded her friend in a bear hug in the hallway.

'Thanks for coming so quickly,' Polly said.

'Don't be daft. Leave Roger with her for a minute or two, while we make a drink.'

Polly looked up the stairs, unsure.

'It's probably nothing.' Susan had had a fair amount of experience, married to a GP. 'There are lots of reasons why a woman bleeds at this stage. The baby is usually fine.' She smiled at her friend. 'And the mother is always fine.'

Roger explained it to her the same way. He said he'd booked Cressida in for a scan at the hospital tomorrow morning, but that it was purely a precaution. He didn't think there was anything to worry about, although it might be best if Cressida stayed in bed today, and had a rest after her fright.

Polly was surprised by how overwhelmingly relieved she felt for all of them. After Roger and Susan had left Cressida fell asleep. It was childish, Polly thought, having complete faith in the doctor. If he said it would be all right, it must be so. For a long while, Polly sat and watched her, until she felt herself calm down again. Not once today had she thought it might be for the best if Cressida lost the baby. Not once had the thought even occurred to her. She wanted her to keep it.

Elliot.