The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (39 page)

‘My fault,’ he said. ‘Please do what you planned. I’ll be fine.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.

She could see that he tried to disguise the look of relief which came over his face. She went to him. They were not a demonstrative family but for once she held him close to her.

‘Let’s have a drink,’ she said, embarrassed for having got that near.

He coughed and moved away but she felt better and he looked better. She remembered how they had been as children, so close, telling secrets and sledging down the banks of the river. He had been her big brother and she had adored him; even as a young man he was good at sorting problems, all she had to do was tell him. No wonder Lucy had wanted to marry him. Now he needed her.

Later, when they had made their way down the whisky bottle and beyond, he wound his way to bed and she climbed the stairs. In her room she unpacked her cases. It might be
a kind of prison, she thought, but it was also a refuge, and she did not have the courage to leave now that Lucy was not coming to take over her role. There was some stupid satisfaction in that.

She liked Lucy very much but she loved her brother. He might in time find someone else he wished to marry and she might think again of going south and having new adventures. She started to decant her clothes back into the wardrobes and drawers and thought she could hear the sound of the trains going south. She did not mind so very much.

Spring can be pitiless, and this one was. Every day it rained and as the weeks went by it got no better. Emily was reminded of that old northern joke: the only way to tell the difference between the seasons is that the rain is warmer in summer. Emily had never seen anything like it. She sat by the window and watched it day after day. She longed for winter. How could you hide when the tulips were drowning in their beds? Emily sat outside, wishing it were winter when it was dark at five o’clock.

In her world now it was always too late for tea and too early for whisky. Edgar would not be home until at least seven – often it was eight or even nine. Some evenings he came home only when she was in bed and she would hear him creep in so as not to disturb her. She knew why he was hiding at the office. He could not forgive himself for having jilted Lucy and though his sister had not reproached him, he seemed to think that Emily blamed him for what had happened. She needed to talk to him, to tell him that they could at the very least have dinner together and talk. It was all that was left.

Even when the days lengthened and the evenings should have become lighter they didn’t because the rain was incessant and the days full of heavy cloud.

She didn’t even know what day of the week it was, just that the air should have been softer and dry and she should have been sitting under the shade of the apple tree drinking iced tea and contemplating gin and tonic for later. She was, however, outside. The rain had ceased for once and she was huddled there, thinking that she should go inside as it was about to start once again. Liza, who had taken on Norah’s role of housekeeper, opened the door of the conservatory.

‘You have a visitor.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Mr Fred White.’

Norah’s husband. What on earth was he doing here? Emily wondered.

‘Send him out.’

Liza hesitated, then closed the door. Emily wished she had said that she was not at home; she couldn’t imagine Fred White had anything to say to her that she wanted to hear.

It was only a minute or so later that Fred stepped into the garden, carefully as though he feared he might slip on the wet stones, and turning up his collar against the rain.

‘Miss Bainbridge.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s good of you to see me here in the garden and in such grand weather.’

That almost made her laugh. Fred put just the right intonation into his voice, as if she were slightly mad but he was prepared to put up with it. She was surprised; she had not taken Fred for a wit, she had thought he was an ignominious gnome.

‘Would you like a cigarette?’ she offered.

‘Aye, thanks, I wouldn’t mind,’ Fred said, and they went back into the shelter of the porch above part of the patio.

They both puffed away, the cigarettes making comforting little swirls of blue smoke against the dark day.

‘Norah said I was to come and tell you that we have a little lass.’

‘That’s very nice for you – I’m so pleased,’ Emily said, though every word scorched her.

Fred hesitated again. Emily waited, regarding him critically. Fred seemed to have grown; he looked a lot more substantial than he had been before the wedding. He was taller – or was he just standing taller, as though he was more confident now that he was a husband and a father? She thought with a pang that was what happiness did for you – security, a home, a loving family and a fireside. What more could anybody need?

‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘Norah and me, we would deem it a big favour, Miss Bainbridge, if you would be godmother to our little lass.’

Emily didn’t know what to say, she was so taken aback, and to her surprise so pleased. She liked Fred. Oh God!

‘Is Norah all right?’ she said.

Fred hesitated as though not certain he should speak on so delicate a subject.

‘She is now. The bairn was early you see. I don’t think it was easy for her. We were lucky it lived. I was that worried about her.’ Fred stopped there – men weren’t supposed to talk about such things – but Emily could not help being impressed with his attitude.

‘I’m not a Methodist,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t matter. We’d really like it if you would. Norah says to tell you that we are naming the bairn after you.’

Emily stared at him. The rain stopped and suddenly the light in the garden was the colour of lemon. It accentuated Fred’s neat head and dark hair. Emily thought she could see a rainbow just above them.

‘Norah would like you to come and see her when you have time. She would like to show you the bairn. She’s a bonny little lass. We … we sort of hoped that you might take to her and mebbe spend some time with us when you aren’t too busy, like.’

She wanted to cry and to laugh and to say that she had nothing but time, she had nothing to fill it, and she was desperate to see Norah, to be with her – but not the Norah he had married, not the woman who had borne his child, but the lovely giggling girl. That Norah was gone. He looked so honestly at her that Emily said she would go.

*

She tried putting it off. In some ways it was just like putting off the packing and in other ways it was not. Norah was living as Emily could never have lived and then she tried to look at her own situation. She thought Norah had been braver than she was and more honest and looked at things in a realistic light, and that was when she made her way down the street to where Norah and Fred had set up home. She banged on the front door and Norah’s mother answered. She beamed at Emily.

‘Why, Miss Bainbridge,’ she said, ‘come in.’ She held the door wide and Emily went into the hall, knocking the rain from her umbrella before she did so.

Norah’s mother ushered her into the front room.

‘We would have lit the fire if we had known,’ she said.

Emily disclaimed, but she could smell the cold air. Shortly afterwards her hostess came back, looking flustered.

‘Our Norah says will you come into the kitchen, Miss Bain-bridge. I don’t think it’s right but with the weather being so awful Norah said you wouldn’t mind. I’m away home. Give my best to your brother.’

She shrugged into her outdoor things in the hall and Emily made her way as slowly as she could into the kitchen. There a small figure sat by the fire with a baby in her arms. Emily could hardly breathe, it hurt so much to see that not only had Fred mattered more than she did, but this child mattered in a different way. She knew that Norah would have died to protect this infant, just from the way she held it, cradled it, and Emily was ashamed of herself for wanting to matter more and being jealous not just of a man but of a tiny child. She hurt from knowing that her life was wanting in so many ways.

Norah smiled, but tentatively. Everything was different now. She was very thin and there were big dark smudges under her eyes.

‘Are you all right?’ was the only thing Emily could venture. She wanted to touch Norah but somehow the child in Norah’s arms made it impossible, so she could only gesture and give a forced smile and sit down.

‘I would get up and make tea but—’

‘I could make it.’

Norah laughed. ‘I’ve tasted your tea before,’ she said and Emily joined in. She remembered the time she had tried to
make tea for them and she had forgotten to boil the kettle so that the leaves floated on the surface of the cold water. ‘I thought you would have gone from here.’

There was something about the rhythm of what Norah said, of the very way she spoke, that fulfilled all of Emily’s dreams. Norah understood what she was going through, even now when she had other concerns, when their lives had changed so much.

Had there really been a time when she had hoped she and Norah could go away somewhere and live together and be happy? Even the lilt of her voice was heaven so that Emily had always willed her to say more. But Norah was careful with language, somehow aware of how much it might mean and that once a thing was said you couldn’t take it back.

There was something criminal about not being able to hear Norah’s voice. Emily longed for the sound of it in the darkness when she lay in bed beneath her brother’s roof. How could they both have had such bad luck? How could they both be single? Perhaps it would always be so. How would they bear it? How would they stand the lonely nights, the never being touched, the way that she would have to pretend that there was nothing wrong?

‘I tried to leave, but somehow I can’t,’ was all she managed.

Norah nodded and the baby slept on. The child was tiny – round face, eyes shut, quite a lot of dark hair – and she couldn’t make out whether it looked like Fred or Norah. But did it matter now? Everything that Emily had wanted was lost.

‘How is your brother?’ Norah managed into the silence.

‘I think he’s broken-hearted.’ Emily said it with a modicum
of lightness, but the words held in the air like smoke. Two broken hearts. The weight should have sent their house crashing down if there had been any acknowledgement in nature, but there wasn’t, the days went on and on. She got up in the mornings and was amazed how nothing was in sympathy. But why should it be? Day and night, night and day, on and on, regardless of people in pain or dying. She had learned to be grateful for it.

‘I didn’t think that Mr Bainbridge and Miss Charlton would work out,’ Norah said.

‘Unlike Fred and you.’

Emily wished she had not said it. Norah’s face went so dark and hot and she looked into the fire.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, and Emily was ashamed.

‘May I hold her?’ she suggested.

Norah looked surprised and then pleased. She handed the sleeping child to Emily. It didn’t feel wrong, that was the hard part; she liked holding a child in her arms.

‘Will you stand as her godmother?’ Norah said.

‘Didn’t Fred say?’

‘He wasn’t sure. We talked about it and I thought mebbe you would hate it so much. But you’ve meant more to me than anyone and I want my bairn with your name. Will you come?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Emily said. As she looked down the infant opened its eyes.

‘Do you think your brother would stand as godfather?’ Norah asked.

‘I think he would be delighted,’ Emily said.

Lucy spent every day at the office. She didn’t know what else to do and at least it gave her a purpose. As long as her father went with her she could maintain the charade that he was still a fine solicitor.

It was Friday, and she had just put her father into the wheelchair to push him home when he murmured something to her. She got down by his chair and smiled into his face. He smiled at her and half lifted a hand and then the hand fell and the light went from his eyes. Lucy waited for it to come back and when it didn’t she panicked. She got up and spoke to him again and again, saying anything she could think of and imploring him to be better.

He moved, his eyelids flickered, and she began to hope, and then she cried and she talked to him while his eyes lit once more and recognized her. She willed him to be all right, to be better, not to leave yet – she had not done what she had promised herself she would do so that he would be proud of her, and she wanted it so badly, just as much as she ever had, despite all that had happened. Her father could not die and leave her in such a state. It was selfish of her, she knew.

In the end she got him home as quickly as she could, crying all the way back. She thought she would never have wrinkles, she had so many reasons for these blessed tears. Her mother and Gemma both ran into the hall when she shouted. By the time they reached her the water was falling down her face like rain.

Gemma ran for the doctor and her mother talked endlessly to her father. Lucy knew that for your husband to die, no matter what age he was, no matter what the circumstances, was one of the worst things that could ever happen. Who would you talk to in bed at night? Who would you discuss your children with? Who would save you from the dark demons at four in the morning? Who would argue past events with you and be there for you in old age so that you could sit back and sigh and think about the past and perhaps envisage some kind of future twilight and a gentle death?

It seemed to Lucy a very long time before her sister came back with the doctor. He was the man they had always consulted, Dr Mackie. He had brought Gemma and Lucy into the world, her mother was always saying. They relied on him completely. Lucy did not think he had been good with Guy. Guy had suffered too much. She wanted to make sure her father did not. The illness was different of course, but she did not want him to treat it the same.

She was in the bedroom with the doctor while he looked at her father. Her mother and Gemma had gone downstairs.

‘Is there anything you can do for him?’ she asked, impatient as the doctor pondered.