Life Begins (33 page)

Dominic was indeed at a loss. The rain had held off, but it was getting increasingly cold. He could see the goose-bumps on Charlotte’s bare legs and the fine hairs on her arms standing up with cold. The mother’s injury was obviously much worse than she had let on. It was clear that she needed tea or brandy, but as he pushed his way back out of the long grass Charlotte only tucked herself more tightly into her stony corner, folding her arms as if to ward off approach. The little dog shuffled closer to her feet, then slumped down, as if having settled, reluctantly, on a decision to keep guard.

‘Is it your mother?’ Dominic asked, tentatively now, pulling the sleeves of his jumper, which was old and loose, right down over the tips of his fingers. ‘Is she very unwell?’

‘I suppose you know where you came from, don’t you?’ Charlotte snapped in response. A solid background, solid family, solid education – you’re just the sort.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘And your wife, I suppose you miss her.’ She was looking
at him over her shoulder, her green eyes like flints. ‘I envy you, feeling things
clearly.
’

Dominic puffed out his cheeks, struggling and failing to find the wherewithal to take offence at this garbled interrogation. She was clearly messed up, he reminded himself, suffering, and he knew too well what suffering could do, how it could warp what had once been a perfectly balanced view of the world. ‘Grief is very unclear, actually. Up and down, angry and relieved… that sort of thing. And Maggie was a vegetarian, I don’t miss that.’ He paused, hoping she would smile. ‘In fact, if you want proof of how
unclearly
I see things, when I glimpsed you just now, from the road, I thought you might be her ghost. That’s why I followed. She had red hair, too, you see, but much more orange than yours – a real carrot-top, like Rose.’

Charlotte blinked and looked away again, saying after a few moments, ‘I’m so glad our children have become such good friends.’

‘So am I. Shall we go now? Have some tea – or something stronger, if you like?’ Dominic rubbed his palms together, fighting real impatience now, and thoroughly chilled.

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlotte murmured, ‘behaving like this… what you must think of me…’

‘Nonsense. Tea, that’s the thing.’

‘I’ve had some difficult news.’

‘Yes
, of course, your mother –’

‘No. Not her. My father… It turns out he wasn’t my father. My mother was pregnant by someone else – a
married
someone who had no interest in leaving his wife and died soon afterwards anyway. She told me last night. Dad took her in, saved her reputation with marriage. He must have thought he loved her, but it didn’t last. Then she had nowhere else to go, no money. They stayed together because
of that – and because of me,’ Charlotte added in a small voice. ‘He tried to explain it all to me just before he died but she stepped in without his knowing. To protect me, she says.’

‘Well, I guess that’s understandable.’

‘The thing is, I loved him so much more than her. He was a lousy, unfaithful husband.
Wz fucked
around.’ Charlotte spat the word, expecting a flinch, but Dominic, who had moved closer and was staring at her intently, didn’t move. ‘I knew that. I even
saw
him with one of his women once, when I was little – it fucked
me
up for years – and yet… and yet I would have chosen him over my mother any day.’

‘Love is a funny thing.’

‘He wrote me this, you see, just before he died, explaining…’ Charlotte thrust her hand into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out the now crumpled piece of paper with its faint, scrawled biro writing, read so many times she could have recited it. ‘He wrote me this and she took it away. Till last night.’

‘To protect you,’ Dominic reminded her, a little desperately, ‘because
she
loved
you.
Like I said, love is a funny business – no rules, absolutely none.’

Yes
, maybe, but… there we were, my mum and I, being nice to each other, being
natural
for the first time
ever
, and she goes and –’ Charlotte pressed her upper teeth into her lower lip, but the convulsions came anyway, dry, strange sounds from deep inside. She gripped her ribcage, as if fighting a caged malevolence. ‘Everything – keeps –
changing –
every time – I try – and get – a grip – it
changes
… I don’t know anything any more – what’s real, who I am.’

‘That’s nonsense.’ Spellbound but feeling increasingly out of his depth, Dominic was almost pleased when the weeping started, and the dreadful body-shakes, since an obvious
need for physical consolation presented itself. Setting the wide-berth policy temporarily to one side (the hardest of hearts would have done no less), he said, ‘Hey, now,’ and put his arms round her. Charlotte remained curled into herself, tucking her head and arms into her chest, as if she would have pulled herself into a shell had she possessed one. Nobody really knows who they are,’ he ventured, finding quiet comfort in the platitude himself, as if seeing the truth behind it for the first time. ‘Most lives are spent trying to work it out.’

‘All this,’ she gasped, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Please stop apologizing. I broke down in the post office once – an old lady took me home for tea. And in a cinema – that was almost worse, being hissed at for ruining the film. Oh, yes, and in the school playground
twice –
poor Rosie –’ He broke off, as Charlotte, merely sniffing now, having gained control of herself at last, pulled free of his support.

‘You’re very kind, Dominic.’ She blinked at him, red-eyed and intensely calm, as if a tempest had literally blown through her and left a new stillness. ‘In the last few months things – demons – have been catching up with me… ancient things, creeping out of the past.’

‘I think Maggie might have been unfaithful. A schoolteacher. I found emails after she had died.’

‘Oh dear… I – I’m so sorry.’

‘Please, don’t be. It took me a while but eventually I realized that it didn’t change anything. We were mostly very happy. And I’ve come to see that we can only hope ever to know parts of other people, let alone ourselves.’

‘That’s so true,’ Charlotte agreed softly, then added, on a burst of harsh cheeriness, ‘Does unhappiness make you wise, do you think?’

Dominic laughed. ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Some compensation but, sadly, no, I don’t think it necessarily follows.’

‘I’ve been mostly unhappy for so long I think it might have become a
habit,
’ she confessed. ‘Do you think that’s possible? And through it all,’ she rushed on, not waiting for an answer, ‘I’m beginning to understand that I’ve always looked for other things – other people – to blame. In fact,’ she paused, releasing a sharp wild laugh, ‘it’s a wonder I’ve got any friends left. No wonder…’

‘Yes?’

‘Never mind.’ Charlotte shook her head. The poor man had done enough. He was blue with cold and she felt the same. Whether she had driven Martin into the arms (no matter how outstretched) of Cindy was hardly something anyone else could be expected to comment on, let alone a hapless semi-stranger whose capacity for tolerance must already have been tested to its limit. ‘That tea you mentioned, is it still on offer?’

‘Absolutely. And if my dear brother has got his act together there might be some supper too, if you like.’

‘Gosh! Supper, on top of a free counselling session in a graveyard. Thank you so much, but I really couldn’t.’

‘Who said it was free?’ Dominic murmured.

‘Pardon?’

‘Feel free to change your mind – about supper.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

He led the way back into the overgrown grass and this time she followed, with Jasper trotting happily behind. As they were about to go through the hole in the fence, Dominic stopped and put a hand on her arm. ‘That thing about Maggie, I’ve never told anyone else – ever.’

‘Thank you,’ Charlotte said, since the confidence had felt
like a gift. ‘The thing about my dad, about seeing him with someone, I never told anyone that either.’

‘What a pair,’ said Dominic, grinning as he held back one of the loose slats, widening the gap for her to pass safely through the fence on to the pavement.

Benedict had his own system when preparing for auditions: no alcohol the night before, an early alarm call, an hour of yoga, then a morning run while his stomach was still roaring for food. Hunger could be energizing, he had discovered, especially if one was performing the ever-draining, arduous task of inhabiting another psyche. That morning he had thought himself sufficiently deeply into the character of the divorced lawyer to decide that the man had a soft spot not only for Persian cats but also for romantic poetry (Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ being an especial favourite), and that behind vicious cynicism there lurked a damaged heart longing to be healed. By the time Benedict had completed three circuits of the park and was jogging down the high street he not only knew every detail down to the lawyer’s preferred brand of aftershave, but had conjured a back-story of such heartbreak and intensity that it would have served in its own right as the synopsis for a feature-length film.

Pleased with himself, starving, Benedict paused for a moment of on-the-spot jogging outside the Italian café only to find himself peering through the glass window over a pagoda of fresh pastries at his brother. Occupied by the day’s paper and a large plate of cooked breakfast, Dominic didn’t look up until Benedict, ignoring the stares of other diners at his half-familiar face and sweating, dishevelled state, tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Hey, mate, taking a little extension on the bank holiday, are we?’

‘Ben – hey! Christ, you look revolting.’

‘Thanks.’ Benedict untied his fleece from his waist, placed it on the chair and sat down. He summoned the waiter, then ordered a pint of orange juice and a cooked breakfast with extra bacon. ‘This is great, isn’t it, running into each other? I’m always telling people London’s a village, but no one believes me.’

‘Ben, you’re talking as if we haven’t met for twelve years when it’s been a mere twelve hours. Your house is now
half a mile
from mine, so it’s hardly any wonder our paths should, occasionally, coincide.’

‘Why aren’t you at work?’

Dominic slowly carved his last sausage into quarters. With Charlotte holding back to drive and Benedict on a dry run for his audition, he had washed down the tasty but slightly odd goose concoction the previous evening with sufficient quantities of wine to feel very much in need of a fried breakfast once he had waved Rose off to school. Jobless, faintly hung-over, he should have been feeling blue but instead, strolling towards the café with the sun in full bloom – again – and a newspaper under one arm, he had been aware of a tingling of contentment and hope, as if he were about to embark on some long, well-deserved holiday. Unwilling to risk shattering this happy illusion now, he skewered a piece of sausage and countered Benedict’s challenge by asking why he wasn’t at – or on his way to – his audition.

‘Because it isn’t until this afternoon… I say, she didn’t stay, did she?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’ve got that look about you – tail up, daft grin, dopy eyes. And you were all over her last night – so keen on the bookshop all of a sudden because it turned out she works
there and had only just heard about it being up for sale, and yet when I suggested you buy the lease off Dean and Jason the other day you dismissed it out of hand. Whereas last night it was Mr Bountiful, wasn’t it? “Yes, it
might
be an interesting challenge to run a
bookshop,
”’ Benedict mimicked, hitting the lower, slower timbre of Dominic’s voice exactly, then breaking into guffaws that were silenced only by the arrival of the waiter with his food.

‘Yes
, well…’ Dominic began stiffly, his buoyant spirits deflating just as he had feared, albeit for a reason he couldn’t possibly have anticipated. ‘That was
before
I lost my job. And no, for Christ’s sake, of course Charlotte Turner didn’t stay the night. Really, Ben, sometimes your taste for gossip is pretty hard to take.’

‘Lost your job?’ Benedict spluttered, his mouth bulging with bacon and fried egg.

‘Yes
, I am now, officially,
redundant.
I’d have thought you, of all people, would be pleased,’ remarked Dominic, drily.

‘Yes
, well… so long as you’re cool about it,’ Benedict conceded, pressing his napkin to his mouth to stifle a burp. ‘Redundancy isn’t quite the same as resignation, is it? Blimey… the bastards.’ He tossed the napkin on to his side-plate. ‘No
wonder
you were all over that woman about books last night.’

‘I was
not
all over her,’ Dominic wailed. ‘In fact,’ he added, tightening his voice into a tone of genuine anger and waving at the waiter to bring the bill, ‘fuck off about the whole subject, okay? Just fuck – right – off.’

Benedict sprawled, unoffended, in his chair. The sweat had dried now, leaving his hair in clumps and his shirt feeling stiff and rough against his skin. ‘Seriously, bro, steady on there, okay?’

‘By “there” you mean?’

‘She’s very pretty, I grant you. Amazing skin, cheekbones, and that vulnerable look, which I’m told reduces a large percentage of the male population to jelly, and as for the colouring…’ Catching his brother’s deathly glare, Benedict skipped on hurriedly: ‘A nice kid too, in spite of his dodgy beginnings, as we’ve agreed, and I’m sure that if you choose to take up the reins of the book trade his mother will prove a wonderfully effective employee but…’

Dominic pretended not to listen. He offered the waiter a brief, broad smile and paid the bill for them both. Benedict, he thought grimly, did not know when to stop. He would endure a few more minutes, then go home and pack his things for a trip to the aerodrome. Space, air, a view of the world, that was what he needed; perspective, peace. Yes, he had enjoyed the previous evening enormously. So what? So had Benedict, and the children for that matter, both begging Charlotte to have another coffee so it wouldn’t end. It had been a good, happy occasion, merriment round a kitchen table, innocent and heart-warming. Of course, her working in the bookshop had been a pleasant surprise, as had her knowledge of the issues facing independents. But Sam’s imitation of Miss Brigstock had been just as enjoyable, while Rose pretending to be a tree had made them all beg for mercy, they were laughing so much. Watching how Charlotte clutched her stomach, the tears streaming down her face, Dominic had half wondered if he hadn’t dreamt their encounter by the crumbling church. It had caused him to marvel, too, at the extremities of human emotion – grief and joy – poles apart, and yet with such similar blunt tools of expression.