Flight (21 page)

He remained in the doorway a few moments longer, a strange expression fixed in his eyes. ‘OK,’ he finally said, and reached out to snatch his tie off the wardrobe door. ‘Sure you’re OK? Well – I’d better get a move on or I’ll be late for work.’ Pausing in the hallway, he looked back at her, awkwardly winding the tie around his hand. ‘Good luck with telling your workmates,’ he said, and then he vanished down the stairs like a stranger.

Wren got dressed for work, where she would successfully conceal her pregnancy for another two long weeks, before being outed by Shelley Cowley who had observed her ongoing abstention from tea and coffee, and who
knew all the signs
. Shelley, as it turned out, was the first to tell Wren she was blooming, but she would be by no means the last.

Blooming
, Wren thinks now as she follows Willow and Badger along towards the beach.
Flowers bloom, not women
. She rests against one of the rocky boulders at the mouth of the cave, scooping up a large nugget of polished glass from the sand as her eyes travel across the merging panorama of sky and sea. The glass pebble appears to be the very
colour of the sea today… could almost be the essence of the ocean, made solid. She pushes it into the palm of her hand; it’s just the kind of trinket she would have collected up and taken home as a child, a totem of time and place, a souvenir. She unfurls her fingers and lets the nugget drop to the sand between her boots. She’s been out here for hours, where it’s safe, where she doesn’t have to think, to speak, to face Laura’s questions and challenges. Badger and Willow are having a mad five minutes, chasing each other in wide galloping circles, coughing out barks of excitement and kicking up the sand in their wake. Occasionally they halt at a distance, tails waving stiffly, their wrinkled mouths turned up in anticipation as they wait for the other to begin again. Wren wonders at the joy of a dog’s life, the art of simple pleasure. Given the same circumstances, were all dogs happy, did they all share the same capacity for inner calm? Or were they like people, some born with bottomless wells of cheer, others with innate fear or disquiet lurking in their depths?

She recalls the morning Arthur stopped her at the beach kiosk to first tell her about the pups: the gentle pressure he exerted, how he tenderly cupped his hands to illustrate the tiny size of them.

‘They’re old enough to go to new homes this week,’ he said.

He had tried to persuade her to take on a pup before, a few years back, after Kelly died. But she wasn’t ready then, didn’t want the responsibility, the risk of another loss. Kelly had only been with her for a year, wandering in off the beach in a state of neglect, and Wren had had no idea where she came from or how old she was, though it was clear she was getting on in years. She was a mix of all sorts, the size of a cocker spaniel, with a terrier face and shaggy matted hair.
Her eyes were the colour of Laura’s and Robert’s, warm and intelligent, and Wren had felt obliged to let her stay, to ease her passage in her elder years.

‘You know I don’t want another dog,’ she had replied. Arthur simply nodded, dropping her money in the cash box. ‘What kind are they?’ she asked, immediately vexed at herself.

‘Sausage dogs – miniatures. Mostly chocolate and tan, and a couple of dapply ones too.’

‘My dad had a dachshund when he was a boy,’ she said. The image of an old photograph came to mind, of her father, then a young boy in shorts and side-slicked hair, sitting on a beach with his dog between his feet. ‘Sacha, they called it.’

Arthur eased back in his camping seat. ‘The thing is, Rosie’s loath to let ’em go, so she’s insisting that they go in pairs.’

Wren took a sip of coffee from the polystyrene cup and studied his face. ‘Have you seen them?’

He nodded. ‘I could fit the whole litter in one of my shoes.’ A rumble of laughter threatened to escape, lighting up his eyes. ‘You’d like ’em, Wren.’

She knew what he was doing; he was a wily old man. He fiddled with his coffee machine, opening it up to empty out the filter, glancing at her furtively to gauge her reaction.

‘I could take you to have a look, if you wanted. Be a shame to miss ’em when they’re so small. Grow up quick. I don’t mean to keep – just for a look.’

Wren scowled at him and started to walk away across the car park and towards the beach, irritably chewing the inside of her lip. She stopped to turn back, to where Arthur was standing behind his counter, his hands cupping his elbows. ‘What time?’ she shouted over.

‘I’ll stop outside yours on my way past at two. No pressure. Just a little look!’

She raised a hand and headed out to her rocks, feeling momentarily lifted from her solitude. That evening, she returned to her cottage carrying a cardboard box containing two dachshund puppies and a month’s supply of puppy food.

Now, as Willow and Badger return from the water’s edge, she realises another decade has passed, without her noticing. If Laura hadn’t reappeared like this, would she have just gone on, not noticing the passing of time, other than the changing of the seasons, and the gradual decay of her body and home? The dogs will mark time, she supposes, when they pass on, and she will miss them. And what will that leave her with, living alone in a tiny stone cottage at the edge of the world?

Snapping her fingers lightly, she rises from her boulder seat and starts to make her way back home.

Eliza Adler wasn’t able to talk for long when Wren phoned to deliver the news that she was about to be made a grandmother. Some important guests were expected at her Paris apartment in the next half-hour or so, and she still hadn’t polished the glasses.

‘Would you mind awfully if we talked about this some other time, darling? Of course, it’s lovely news – wonderful! It’s just I’m in a bit of a tizz at the moment, what with this dinner we’re hosting tonight. Listen, I’ll be in London next week – how about a quick get-together then? We could have tea at Claridge’s, like we used to?’

‘Next week? I didn’t think you were in the UK again until the autumn.’

‘Oh, well, it’s only a fleeting trip – I didn’t mention it because I wasn’t sure we’d have time for anything other than Siegfried’s business – anyway, we’ll
make
time, won’t we?’

They fixed a date, and Wren hung up the phone, feeling, as always, crushed by her mother’s levity. The following Wednesday, she took a day off school, claiming she had an antenatal appointment, and took the bus into central London, checking her reflection and powdering down the perspiration shine of her forehead before stepping off at her final stop outside Claridge’s.

She had visited the tea room many times as a child – it was her mother’s celebration spot of choice – and after all these years she still felt awed as she entered the elegant art deco foyer, as grand and resplendent as it ever was. Her mother was at her favourite table on the far side, having arrived, as always, ahead of Wren. She liked to sit at a distance from the entrance, Wren remembered, where she might
watch the comings and goings – and avoid anyone we’d rather not see!
Now, as Wren raised a hand and made her way over, she realised they had never once bumped into anyone they knew in the swanky hotel. Like so much else, it was all just elevated bluster, Mother trying to construct an image of a loftier lifestyle than the one they really lived. When Dad was alive Mother had always been saying snooty things of that kind, but with a smile and a kiss he would put it down to her unfortunate downwardly mobile marriage, at which Eliza would coyly smack him away and flutter her eyelashes. They had been so completely in love. Wren missed the mother she had been in those days.

‘Darling – look at you!’ Her mother rose from her seat and clasped Wren to her shoulder, pushing her back at once to run her eyes over her, assessing her head to toe. ‘My
goodness
, you look – you look – ’

Wren pulled out a chair. ‘Please, don’t tell me I look blooming.’

‘Actually, I was going to say
exhausted
! Are you looking after yourself?’

Wren laughed, relieved for once at her mother’s honesty. ‘I’m fine, really. I’ve been queasy for these first two or three months, but – touch wood – I’m over the worst. Perhaps I really will be blooming the next time you see me.’

Her mother ordered afternoon tea, and a glass of champagne for herself, Wren having declined one several times before she would take no for an answer. Once the waiter had laid out their spread and checked that they had everything they required, they were left alone, and Wren began to fret about all the things she wanted to say to Eliza, to ask her, to discover. She was edgy, awkward in her mother’s unflappable presence, and she feared she might let the meeting pass in a shallow whirlwind of small talk, only to watch her sail off again, once more absent from their lives until long after the baby had arrived.

‘Are you sure you’re alright, darling? You look terribly distracted.’ Eliza poured their tea and served Wren a selection of sweet pastries from the tower of confection that dominated the table.

Wren broke the corner off an apple scone and popped it in her mouth.

‘Do use a knife, dear,’ her mother said, tapping the white tablecloth next to Wren’s setting of silver cutlery.

Unfolding a starched napkin, Wren draped it over her lap and studiously smoothed out the creases.

‘Mum, I’ve always wondered why it was just me – why you and Dad never had any more children?’ There, it was out.

Her mother paused, a piece of pastry midway to her mouth. She returned it to her plate. ‘Goodness, what’s brought this on?’

‘I’ve been thinking – I suppose since I discovered I’m expecting myself – I was thirteen when Dad died, so I’m guessing you must have decided long before that that you wouldn’t have any more children. I was just curious. I would have loved a brother or sister.’

‘Sometimes these choices are made for us,’ her mother replied.

‘You
couldn’t
have any more?’ For some reason, this explanation had never occurred to Wren.

Her mother appeared to study her shell-coloured fingernails, her hands resting decorously either side of the striped china plate.

‘Were there complications with me? Maybe I should know about it – the midwife asked me what I knew about my own birth – it often follows a family pattern, you know?’

‘There were no complications, Wren; I had a perfectly acceptable birth – rather good compared to many other young mothers I knew. I… well, I just wasn’t terribly well
suited
to it.’

‘To what?’

The waiter passed alongside their table, discreetly checking that everything was in order.

‘I struggled a little, after you were born. I was never really the Earth Mother type – as you know.’ She smiled indulgently, brushing Wren’s wrist with the lightest of touches. ‘Do you remember Anouk, who looked after you were little?’

Anouk
. Lovely Anouk, with her soft, yielding bosom, her attentive blue eyes and patient warmth. She had been too young to be a mother figure; Wren had always imagined her
as a big sister, or a young aunt – until she’d left suddenly during the heatwave summer, when her own mother took ill in Holland. She’d sent a postcard, a picture of a tulip field spreading out in a rainbow of colour, but after that Wren had never heard from her again.

‘We hadn’t planned on a nanny but I found the whole thing very trying – the feeding, the crying and so on. I was just shattered, I suppose, completely tired out – and Daddy and I decided that it wasn’t a good idea to go through that again, not when we were perfectly happy just the three of us. That’s why we had Anouk to live in for the first few years, to take some of the strain.’

Wren tried to picture her mother ‘shattered’, and she couldn’t bring it to mind, simply couldn’t envisage it in any way. ‘But you’re so in control, Mum. I can’t begin to imagine you not managing. Remember those huge parties you used to throw on my birthdays – all those children running around, shouting and crying and making a mess. When Tommy Mann threw up Wotsits on your Chinese rug, you just shrugged it off and gave him a winner’s rosette.’

‘Yes, but it was
Anouk
who had to clear it up, darling.’

Her mother’s transparency, her easy admission of imperfection, was deeply unsettling.

‘But all my friends thought you were brilliant! You were a great mum!’ The words came out in a rush, and as a complete surprise to Wren. She had had no idea she felt like this about her mother; as a teenager, and as an adult, she’d always had her down as a rather selfish woman, distant and uninterested.

‘Oh, I was good at the showy stuff – still am! That’s why Siegfried snapped me up so quickly: I’m a wonderful organiser! But the baby phase… I’m sorry to say, it almost
finished me off.’ A shadow passed across her composed features, a wrinkle of pain pricking at her mouth.

‘Was it depression, Mum?’ At once Wren wanted to spill out everything – to speak aloud, for the first time since the day she’d conceived, about the darkness that had blanketed her light, about the fear and futility that crept across her thoughts in the waking hours, about the certainty that it
wouldn’t
be alright, that this whole thing was a huge, huge mistake. ‘Was it postnatal depression?’

Eliza laughed, a controlled tinkling sound. ‘Goodness, darling – our generation weren’t as keen to stick labels on everything as you youngsters! It was something and nothing – over in a flash – and it all turned out fine in the end, didn’t it?’

Wren picked up a scone and broke it in two, sending tiny crumbs ricocheting across the perfect white tablecloth.

Laura’s car is gone, and Wren finds herself rushing to the rear of the cottage, to let herself in through the unlocked door, checking for signs that she’ll be back. She is shocked at the surge of horror she feels at the thought of never seeing Laura again, a feeling so conflicting with her craving to be left in peace.

In the bathroom, Laura’s toothbrush has been left on the shelf, but that doesn’t mean anything. Wren goes from room to room, trying to remember what Laura brought with her – a rucksack, a coat, a pair of gloves? There’s nothing of Laura’s to be found, but Wren can’t allow herself to think this is the end of it. The essence of her still hangs in the air – the promise that she’s coming back, that she won’t be gone for long. Willow and Badger stand on the threshold between
the living room and the kitchen as Wren stands beside the sofa, slowly scanning the room for clues. She marches past the dogs, opening a cupboard and snatching up a couple of rawhide strips, which she throws far out on to the sunlit grass, closing the door behind the dogs as they chase down through the garden to sniff out their treats, their heads low to the ground, their tails erect.