The Dream House (48 page)

She had hardly been into her parents’ bedroom in this new house. When she knocked on the door and peeped in, it was to see her father sitting on the old walnut double bed that had followed them across continents, a small suitcase open beside him.

He smiled at Kate weakly. ‘Just thought I’d pack her a few things,’ he said. ‘But I suddenly feel tired.’

‘I’ll help you,’ she said, giving him his coffee. ‘Tell me what to do.’ And she went to drawers, bringing out a nightgown and underwear, spare slacks and a blouse, then through to the bathroom to collect some wash-things. When she returned, her father was riffling through the drawer of her mother’s bedside table.

‘This is where she kept the pills – look,’ he said, indicating a few crushed tablets in the bottom of the drawer. ‘And I just didn’t notice.’ He moved over to a little armchair and sat down, nursing his coffee in a morass of gloom.

Kate carefully pulled out the drawer and started sorting through the muddle of items, intending to clean away the powdery mess. Amongst the tangle of long bead necklaces, an eye bath, some plasters and some half-eaten packets of mints were a pottery hedgehog and an enamel brooch Kate had once made, two little boxes covered in velvet and some homemade cards. She placed the hedgehog on the bedside cabinet and opened one of the boxes. In it were what looked like small grey and white bits of gravel – she knew at once what they were as she had started her own collection with Daisy – a child’s milk teeth. She opened the other box – another set. Shutting the lids, she turned each box over. Under one was a sticker on which was handwritten
Nicola
. Under the other,
Kate
.

The cards were tatty and handmade. They included a drawing of a Father Christmas from Nicola to Mummy and Daddy, and a Valentine’s card saying,
Mummy, I love you from Kate xxx
, which Kate vaguely remembered having made when she was nine or ten. Hidden amongst the cards were several photographs. Three were of Kate: one as a toddler, then one of her aged ten, and the last one of her in a cerise party dress at fifteen; only one was of Nicola. Under everything else in the drawer were two little polythene sachets. Each contained a curl of dark hair.

Kate sat in a dream, absorbing the fact of these items. Her mother, who had always seemed so emotionally distant, had carefully kept Kate’s baby teeth, a curl from her first haircut, had hoarded the precious cards, little presents Kate had given her, all these years. Her mother loved her.

Her hands started to tremble slightly as she went about replacing everything in the drawer. Then she became aware that her father was watching her intently.

‘I – I didn’t know Mum had kept all these,’ she said shakily. ‘I thought she threw them away, the things I made. That she didn’t like them because they got crumbly and old, made a mess probably.’

Her father put down his coffee and leaned towards her.

‘She might not have shown it very well, but she always treasured what you gave her.’ He sighed. ‘She wasn’t always like this, you know,’ he said gruffly. ‘Sad, I mean. She was so full of life when I met her, always laughing. She loved dancing. It was at a dance that I first met her.’ He fell silent, remembering.

‘It was at Sandhurst, wasn’t it?’ Kate waited for him to go on.

He nodded. ‘Yes. A schoolfriend invited me. He introduced me to Barbara. Oh, she was so beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. In a silvery dress, she was, it shimmered like water. And she was kind. She could see I didn’t know anybody much there. I still don’t know what she saw in a quiet type like me.’

In that moment, seeing her father sitting straight and proud, a light in his eyes, Kate knew exactly what Barbara must have seen in him – solidity, gentleness, faithfulness. This was a man who would never let her down, who would protect her from the world, who would stand by her whatever happened. And Barbara had been right.

‘I was only able to dance with her twice that evening,’ he went on, ‘but I persuaded Bob to set us up as a foursome with his girl. Bob had a car and we had some great times, driving down to the coast, dancing, the flicks. We all got on so well. It turned out that Bob’s girl – Janey, her name is – had known Barbara’s brother. Your mother had had some sadness in her life, with Kenneth being killed in Egypt, as you know, and I think I reminded her of him a bit. Anyway, she was my girl, and I was so proud when she agreed to marry me.’

Kate waited.

‘It all went well until her first pregnancy. I don’t know whether she’s ever told you, Kate, but she lost the baby.’

‘No!’ This was new. Out of the blue.

‘One morning, she woke me and said, “I can’t feel it moving.” She still had three months to go and they made her wait weeks until it was born of its own accord. It was a little boy. It was terrible, going through all that, knowing the baby was dead. And they wouldn’t even let me be with her.’

‘Was this in Hong Kong?’

‘We were still stationed in Kent then. We went to Hong Kong soon after. She was still depressed, quiet and thin. But Nicola started very soon after and we thought things would get better.’

‘And did they?’

‘No. Nicola was beautiful, so beautiful when she was born. I cried when I first held her, after all that had happened, but Barbara, she was like a broken spring. It was an easy birth, I was told, but Barbara was terrified the whole time that the baby would die, and she couldn’t bond with Nicola, was frightened she would lose her. I thought it would help to get her involved more with the regiment, looking after the NCO wives, some secretarial work. Anything to get her out of the nursery. But nothing seemed to help. She went to the doctor, and he said it was baby blues but that she must pull herself together. She would recover once she realized the baby was thriving and start enjoying motherhood. But she never really did. And then you came along, so small and pretty, a little Bright Eyes. She has always loved you, you know, your mother. Don’t ever doubt that. But she has never been able to show it in the usual ways.’

Kate looked down at the little drawer of mementoes, now neatly arranged, and bit her lip. She could hardly take all this in.

‘It sounds like what I had, doesn’t it?’ she said, meeting her father’s eyes. ‘Post-natal depression.’

‘I think that’s what a doctor today might say,’ her father agreed, ‘but of course no one talked about that sort of thing then. Especially not ex-pat army doctors. And in those days, you just put a brave face on such things.’

‘Then, losing Nicola . . .’

‘Was a terrible blow for both of us, all of us. But for your mother – she felt so guilty, that she’d been so inadequate as a parent. She felt she had lost her chance forever.’

Kate was surprised by a sudden bolt of anger. ‘She had lost her chance with Nicola, yes. But not with me. She still had me. You . . . she . . . you forgot me. All you could think about was Nicola, Nicola, Nicola.’ She went on passionately, ‘Dad, did you never consider after Nicola died that
I
might be hurting too? That
I
needed comfort? Not just Mum, not just you. She was my sister. Instead, you buried yourself in your grief. You both forgot about me – maybe you blamed me for not dying instead of her, I don’t know! And now it is photos of Nicola you have downstairs, not pictures of me and my family. The dead, not the living. You hardly see Sam and Daisy or even remember their birthdays.’

Her father buried his face in his hands. Kate saw that he was trembling. Was he crying? After a moment, he looked up at her with a strained white face. ‘I must take a lot of the blame for that,’ he said. ‘I’ve been so careful to guard your mother. She loves you, I know she loves you. It’s not her fault, it’s a sort of illness with her. And the drink, this terrible self-harm, it’s her way of dealing with it all.’

‘Have you never talked to a doctor about it all? Found a specialist for her?’

‘We’ve never found anyone who’s done more than give her the anti-depressants.’

‘Well, Dad, you’ve got an opportunity now. It’s really important that you push the doctors until you get Mum to see a psychiatrist and that you explain everything to them – the whole history and that you get Mum to do what they recommend. The counselling is an essential part of it all these days – it’s her best chance. Otherwise, she’ll go on doing this until she succeeds.’

Weary now, she went over and, putting her arms round her father, hugged him. Then she picked up the little drawer and slotted it back into the cabinet before turning her attention to her mother’s overnight bag. On impulse, she hurried downstairs and picked up the single photograph of Sam and Daisy – the one take several years before – and returning to the bedroom, placed it in the little holdall by the washbag and zipped the bag closed.

The next morning, Maggie rang to tell them that Barbara had been moved to a recovery ward. Now that she was settled, Maggie was going home.

When Kate and her father arrived, Barbara was fully conscious, but very tired. Kate sat on the chair by the bed while her father fussed about with flowers and the contents of the holdall, showing his wife the photograph of Sam and Daisy before balancing it on the bedside cabinet.

‘How do you feel now, Mum?’

‘My throat hurts,’ Barbara whispered. ‘And I’ve got a headache.’

‘Why did you do it? Please tell me.’

But her mother turned her face away, her expression closed.

‘Mum, Dad’s been talking to me and I understand a bit more now, about why you hurt so much. But Dad and I, and Sam and Daisy, we love you. And we want you to get better. So you mustn’t do this again. You must get some help. Dad’s made me promise that you will get some expert help. We’ll pull you through this, we must. Sam and Daisy need you, they need their granny, do you understand?’

Her mother’s face was still turned away, but she nodded almost imperceptibly. And that was enough.

Kate rang Joyce from a payphone at the hospital. Her mother-inlaw had insisted she would go up on the train and fetch the children on Sunday night, but Kate was grateful to hear that Simon had volunteered to bring them down to Diss himself. He would meet Joyce at the station.

Kate remained at the hospital all day, helping her father talk to the doctors, arranging for her mother’s future care. When, the following morning, she set off for Suffolk once more, her father hugged her as he never had before.

‘You’re a brick, my girl,’ he said, and though she saw that his armour, his bluffness, his army correctness, were returning, there was something akin to a twinkle in his eye. It was still the beginning of things, but the bond between the three of them had been reforged.

When Kate met the children out of school on Monday evening, Sam ran to her and wrapped himself around her as though she were the only solid object in an unstable world.

‘What’s the matter, sausage?’ she whispered, holding him tight.

‘I love you, Mummy,’ was all he said. ‘Don’t go away again.’ Later, as they sat down to fish fingers, Daisy said, almost conversationally, ‘Mummy, is Granny Carter going to die?’

Sam sat up and watched his mother’s face, his eyes wide.

Kate could hardly breathe for a moment and then she said, ‘No, darling. She’s been very ill, but she’s going to get better.’ How could she and Joyce and Simon have been so caught up in their troubled adult lives that they hadn’t taken enough care of the children’s fears?

She explained to them now that Granny Carter was still in hospital but that the doctors and nurses were helping her and soon she would go home. She then moved on to ask them about their stay with Simon. Had they enjoyed themselves?

Sam resumed eating his fish fingers and nodded slowly. ‘We went to see the ships,’ he said, ‘and where people had their heads chopped off.’

‘Daddy forgot to ask Sam to clean his teeth,’ Daisy said in adult tones, and then clearly regretted the indiscretion because she quickly added, ‘but it didn’t matter, because he made Sammy brush them twice in the morning.’

They are already learning the knack of protecting me and Simon from one another, Kate thought sadly.

‘Mummy, do we have to go up to London next weekend?’ Daisy asked.

‘No,’ Kate said, wondering what the reaction would be.

‘Oh good,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s a long, long way. I’m going to ask Daddy to come back and live here.’

Kate had to hide her feelings, but she could have wept.

October 2004

‘I am so sorry, Kate. Have you been waiting ages?’ For all his sharply creased cords and spotless jacket, Max looked flustered as he put down the package he carried and unwound the scarf from his neck.

It was three weeks later, a surprisingly warm Saturday evening in October, and for the last twenty minutes Kate had been sitting in the bar of the Swan Hotel in Southwold nursing a glass of mineral water and watching the door in between reading a long progress report Jasmin had compiled for the next Save the School meeting. Really, that woman was amazing, Kate told herself, as she totted up the number of people Jasmin had approached and from whom she had received offers of money. She was also pleased that her own interview with a journalist on the local paper had paid off; there had been a large feature printed recently about the plight of the school, and she was sure this had helped Jasmin’s efforts.

‘Only a few minutes. Traffic, was it?’ she asked, smiling, and bundled her report back into her handbag.

‘No. Claudia was late picking up the children.’

Their table, at the back of the restaurant, was ready, so they went and sat down. When they had ordered, Max passed across the package he had brought. ‘The diaries,’ he said. ‘I finished the final volume last night.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘It’s an incredibly moving story, isn’t it? I’m gobsmacked really. I had no idea about any of it. No wonder the two sides of the family didn’t speak.’

‘It’s just not the kind of thing anyone can say “sorry” about and “let’s all have Christmas together this year”, is it?’

‘I don’t even know if Raven and Vanessa told my mother the full story,’ Max said. ‘She didn’t say much about it to me. I knew Vanessa had been married before and that her divorce was scandalous, but I just assumed it was because divorce
was
a scandal in the nineteen twenties.’