Mothers and Daughters (12 page)

‘Darling, it was always going to be hard.’ She held her close, biting back her views on being seduced by a married man, and she felt the movement of the child within, filling her with a sudden joy. She sat back, put her hand on Evie’s stomach. ‘I felt it, it’s… well it’s a person, a person we have to love, look after.’

‘Of course it’s a person, Mum, not an elephant, though I feel so fat it might as well be,’ Evie snapped, her face tear-spattered and grumpy. ‘Nick said he’d help. Was longing for it to be born, but now, because Freya is so upset, he thinks it best if I come home with you and he’ll visit me. He said he would anyway,’ she added in a small, lost voice that smote Alice’s heart.

Alice struggled with her fury with Nick. The selfish bastard, impregnating her daughter and then leaving her to cope with the consequences, but Evie was not an innocent child, surely she could have rebuffed his advances, or at the very least taken precautions? She’d never said he’d forced her or got her drunk or anything, and they’d obviously slept together more than once. Evie was just like countless other women, some far older and more experienced in life than she was, who’d been seduced by Nick’s charm.

‘Come back home with me tomorrow and let’s see what happens,’ she said gently. ‘We must think of Freya and his other children, but Nick must face up to his responsibilities and provide for his child. I suspect he’s feeling bad now that everyone knows about it, but somehow things will work out.’ She wondered if Evie had really believed that Nick would leave his wife and their children and set up home with her and their baby. Freya might chuck him out, and Alice wouldn’t blame her if she did. She hadn’t thought seriously enough about the situation herself either, not faced it in a constructive way. What with that and missing Julian, and Laura springing her marriage to Douglas on her and her concerns about that, she hadn’t thought through what the birth of the baby would actually mean. For a start this poor child needed a bed, clothes and a buggy. Had Evie thought of buying or borrowing those? Later she would have to make a lot of important decisions on her own, for she doubted if Nick would bother. She would need childcare while she worked, it would be tragic if Evie had to give up her work, then schooling, money for clothes and such and all as a single mother.

‘If only Dad were here, he’d know what to do,’ Evie said.

‘He wouldn’t have approved and he’s not here, so we’ll have to cope with it ourselves. Get packed and we’ll leave for London first thing in the morning, and perhaps we ought to go and buy a few things for the baby,’ she said, leaning close to kiss her daughter before leaving the room, fearful of Evie’s future.

Alice drove over to her sewing ladies Amy and Edith, who lived in a thatched cottage in a small village close to Bury St Edmunds.

After leaving the material with them for the curtains and Cecily’s carefully written-out instructions and measurements, she drove on to Bury to buy food for the day. A quick look round Evie’s kitchen had revealed that, apart from fruit and biscuits, there didn’t seem to be much of anything.

Having bought a chicken and some vegetables and feeling faint from her early start from London, Alice decided she’d have a coffee before going back to Evie. As she crossed the square, she saw Freya and a small girl coming towards her. She stopped, wishing frantically she could disappear, but before she could escape up a side street they’d seen her and there was no way she could get away.

‘Alice,’ Freya stopped in the middle of the pavement confronting her. She was a voluptuous woman, who obviously cared little about trying to be a size zero. She wore a beautiful turquoise garment that flowed around her and a silk scarf in cobalt and jade, tied bandeau style round her head to secure her thick, dark hair. She was like a bird of glorious plumage standing out against the rest of the dull sparrows.

‘Freya, how are you? Good to see you.’ Her words felt trite and mechanical, but however was she supposed to greet her?

Freya sighed. ‘Not happy, as you can imagine, Alice – that bloody old goat, it’s time he was neutered, I’m…’ She paused and Alice wondered if the child should be listening to this, but she seemed happy enough peering into the shop window beside them. ‘I’m spitting, and I don’t suppose you’re very pleased about it either.’

‘No… I don’t know what to say… it must be so hurtful for you for…’ she glanced at the little girl who was now pulling on her mother’s hand as if impatient to be off. ‘For everyone,’ she finished lamely.

‘It’s not the first time,’ Freya said. ‘Look, I’ve a few minutes; could we have a coffee, just talk about it. I… I’d like to know if Evie’s going to stay in Suffolk or go back to London.’

‘I was just going to have a coffee. I left London at dawn this morning… I had some material to take to Amy and Edith… I’m… we’re going back tomorrow,’ Alice said. ‘But what about…’ she smiled at the child, not knowing her name. ‘Won’t she be bored?’

‘Oh Lexie won’t be bored if there are chocolate biscuits,’ Freya said.

‘But we’ll be late for my friend, she’s got chickens,’ Lexie addressed her. ‘But chocolate biscuits…’ She danced up and down beside her mother. She was a beautiful child with wispy blonde hair and merry blue eyes, just like her father’s, and Alice wondered if Evie’s baby would look the same. Feeling it move this morning made her wake up to the fact that here was a little person who in a few weeks would arrive in their lives clamouring to be cared for.

‘We didn’t make a definite time, just before lunch,’ Freya said to Lexie. ‘We have time for a quick one.’ She gestured to the café on the corner of the street and Alice followed them in.

‘I don’t remember seeing you before, do you live here?’ Lexie asked Alice when they’d sat down and ordered coffee and chocolate biscuits.

‘I only live here sometimes; I really live in London,’ Alice said, watching as the child unpacked a pink cloth bag of treasures that she laid out on the table in front of her. She was soon engrossed in these – tiny dolls and animals, a couple of marbles, a notebook and pencil and various pieces of plastic jewellery – so Freya and Alice could talk quietly together.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Alice started. ‘Julian’s death unhinged us all and perhaps Evie was looking for… well hardly a father figure, but still it’s not right.’

‘It’s not the first time, but it better be the last,’ Freya said grimly. ‘They usually look like him, so there’s no need for a paternity test,’ she added darkly.’

‘I’m… just so sorry,’ Alice said weakly.

‘It’s hardly your fault that Nick can’t keep his trousers up. I knew it before I married him, but I love him and love is a foolish thing, like quick sand sucking you in and not letting go.’ Freya took a savage gulp of her cappuccino. ‘I’ve thought of leaving him many times, even have a couple of times, but quite honestly there is no one else I’d rather be with. When he’s at home with us he’s great, and the children adore him. I’ve wondered if he’s jealous of my work, as you can imagine he likes… needs… to be the centre of attention, but I don’t see why I should stop working, especially as I’ve just got a big commission from the V and A for their shop.’

‘Freya, that’s wonderful, congratulations.’ Alice was impressed; Freya was a potter, and her work was sublime.

Freya shrugged, ‘Perhaps he chases after other women to punish me.’

Alice laid her hand on Freya’s arm, her eyes wide with horror, ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ she said, thinking that he probably would.

‘It’s complicated.’ Freya began. ‘He… didn’t make it in the art world and I have… though he’s great with gardens. He needs an awful lot of attention.’ She sighed, ‘It’s the old story, crap parents, put themselves first, kept abandoning him. There was something sort of lost about him when I met him at Art school, and I imagined, foolishly,’ she smiled sadly, ‘that I could save him, love him enough, but in truth no one can replace the love a mother is supposed to give her children. One of the reasons,’ Freya glanced at Lexie who, seemingly oblivious to their discussion, was quietly bossing about her toys, ‘I’m determined our children will have as a secure upbringing as possible.’

‘But don’t they know. I mean, don’t they hear the gossip?’ Alice asked, knowing there were older children in the family but not sure of their ages.

‘Yes, but as long as we are together at home, which we are, it doesn’t seem to affect them, not yet anyway,’ Freya said.

There was a moment’s silence between them, both waiting for the other to speak. Alice felt enormous sympathy for Freya, a good woman in love with a hopeless man, struggling to keep her career and home life on track while Nick sabotaged it, playing the little boy who couldn’t help himself, causing mayhem. And now
her
daughter was caught up in it, bringing yet another child into his dysfunctional world.

Seeing her expression, Freya said, ‘He won’t leave me, you know, even though he professes to love these women at the time, it never lasts. He won’t leave me and the children.’

‘No, I don’t expect he will,’ Alice said quickly, not wanting Freya to think she hoped for that, she didn’t. Who’d want their daughter to set up home with a man who so obviously didn’t agree in remaining, or even trying to remain, faithful to his wife and children?

‘And now, after all these years of hard graft, I’ve got this commission from the V and A and I won’t give that up. I accept I’ll have to make some sacrifices – mostly putting up with Nick’s love life, but I’ve told him no more children. The women can look after themselves, but these children can’t.’ Freya regarded Alice intently. ‘I’m so sorry Julian is gone and you’re on your own, Alice, but I’m sure you’ll look after Evie and the child, so that might be one less mucked-up kid in the world. Nick will visit it, pay something towards it, but he won’t see it enough to be a proper father. I’m afraid Evie will have to find a father figure elsewhere.’

‘I understand,’ Alice said, having sussed that out for herself already. She didn’t want Nick in Evie’s life, but what about the child? Surely it had a right to know its father, even if he was a dysfunctional Casanova.

Despite Evie’s frantic text messages – her mood becoming ever more the tragic heroine – Nick did not come to the cottage to say goodbye to her. Alice said little, her heart aching for Evie’s distress but burning with anger too at Nick’s treachery with her daughter and his own family.

She had not yet told Evie about her meeting with Freya the day before and that she’d been left in no doubt at all over Nick’s idea of commitment for Evie and his coming child. He’d sown his oats and was not going to hang about to nurture his offspring, though, she supposed, he would appear from time to time with presents and a brief onslaught of love, namely because he was proud of his virility and the beautiful babies he fathered.

But even if he wanted to do more he’d have to choose between Evie and Freya, and there was no doubt that he’d choose to stay with Freya and their children, Freya was convinced of it anyway and that’s how it had been with his other affairs, and though she was furious with his cavalier attitude to her daughter, Alice accepted that staying with Freya and their children, was the right thing to do.

‘Let the dust settle, darling,’ Alice said. ‘We must set off or we’ll never get home. You must think of your own health and the baby’s, and it’s probably it’s a good thing to have a rest from all this. Have you got all your paints and stuff for your illustrations?’

‘Once I’ve gone he’ll forget me,’ Evie said dramatically as she checked the old vanity case she’d snitched from her grandmother where she kept all her painting equipment.

‘No one could ever forget you, darling,’ Alice said gently, ‘it’s just that he had no right to seduce you when he has a wife and family already.’

‘We fell in love, and I still love him,’ Evie retorted as though that explained everything, and perhaps it did, for love broke all rules and, more often than not, brought suffering with it.

Evie slept most of the way back to London and Alice, glancing at her from time to time, her face so childlike in repose, was suffused with love and fear. What would really happen once the baby was born? It wouldn’t stay a baby for long, decisions over school and home and childcare would have to be made and, like it or not, Evie would have to give up a lot of her freedom to raise it. Alice must now, before it was born, make it quite clear that though she’d help out, she would not take over.

Laura turned up at the house that evening, almost as if she was staking her claim to being part of the household too, and Alice was glad of it. Perhaps Evie could unload some of her feelings of injustice onto Laura, confide things to her that she felt her mother would not understand. Perhaps Laura could make her see sense, give up Nick and somehow get on with her own life and meet someone better who’d take on the child too.

But watching the two sisters together Alice became even more convinced that Laura thought herself in love with Nick as well, and although shocked at her sister’s predicament, part of her was envious. Evie saw Laura as the lucky one, getting married, though she wouldn’t want someone she thought as worthy as Douglas for her husband.

‘You should have known Nick never commits,’ Laura said as they sat over supper. ‘I don’t suppose he loves anyone but himself.’

‘That’s not true, you don’t know anything about it, about him,’ Evie retorted and Alice saw the quick dart of pain in Laura’s eyes, the tightening of her mouth.

‘Let’s forget him for this evening and talk about Frank instead,’ Alice said firmly. ‘He’ll be here in two days then he’s taking us all out to dinner. It will be fun to see him again; it’s been so long. Do either of you remember him?’

‘No I don’t,’ Evie said. ‘Have you got some photos of him, Mum?’

‘I suppose I have, I never thought of that.’ Alice got up from the table and went into what she still thought of as Julian’s study. It was a small, cosy room snitched off another larger one, with lots of book-laden shelves and cupboards.

Alice saw that Evie had taken the room over with her art things. She’d cleared the desk by the window and laid out the illustration she was working on and the paints and pencils around it. It would please Julian to know that his daughter was creating her beautiful drawings here, but guiltily she worried that it was a sign that Evie was moving back in.