The Reading Group Part 21

When Andrew returns to his hometown in upstate New York for his mother's funeral, he does not intend to stay. But the dreams and memories of seventeen years ago persist, and in the darkened farmhouse he relives that hot, b.l.o.o.d.y night when Eden Close was blinded by the same gun that killed her father. Eden and Andrew had been childhood companions smoking, fis.h.i.+ng, skating and fighting until the day the tomboy turned temptress. Now Andrew is drawn again to this lost, blind girl of his youth, drawn to save her from the cruel neglect she has endured for seventeen sightless years without him. But first he must discover the grisly truth about that night...

'Susan?'

'Is that you, Poll?'

'Yeah, it's me. It's not a great line.'

'Are you okay? You sound weird.'

'Suze... Cress has had the baby. She's had a little boy.'

'Oh, my G.o.d, Poll, that's early.'

'I know.'

'That's fantastic! I can't believe it. I'm shocked. When? Where?'

'About five hours ago I just left them at the hospital. I'm in the car now.'

'Are they both okay?'

'They're fabulous. Both of them. He's a stunner, Suze. Absolutely gorgeous. Five four, so he'd have been a whopper if he'd gone to term, ten fingers, ten toes. Biggest s.c.r.o.t.u.m you ever saw.' Polly was laughing and crying.

Susan wanted to hug her. 'Oh, Poll, I'm so happy for you. Does he have a name?'

'They're going to call him Spencer.'

'Okay.'

'You know how it is, don't you? You hear the name, you think "oh, Christ" but five minutes later, he's Spencer. Like he'd been born with a nametag.'

'I know. And how's Cress? How was it?'

'Quick for a first one, they said. She was amazing, Suze. I don't think I've ever been prouder of her. She did it all herself. And I was right there the whole time.'

'And Elliot?'

'Him too. He can't speak. It's like he's in shock. He's with them now. I've to get home for Daniel, but I'll go back in later. I think they'll keep her in for a couple of days, with him being so early, but he's had a feed already, clever boy, so it shouldn't be for long. Suze, he's so beautiful.'

'You sound so happy.'

'I feel like I've taken something. I'm euphoric.'

'Guess you won't be coming to the reading group tonight, then?'

'Will you say sorry for me?'

'No apology needed, I'm sure they'll be thrilled for you.'

'Better go.'

'You give them our best love, won't you?'

'I will. Come and see us as soon as we get home.'

'Try stopping me! Congratulations, Poll, to all of you.'

'Thanks, Suze. Love you.'

'Love you too.'

Harriet was the first to arrive. It didn't matter how early you got to Nicole's, you never caught the tail end of any chaos and Harriet should know she'd tried often enough. There was never so much as a footprint on the cream carpets (rather like Baptists, apparently the twins and Martha had taken a Ribena pledge as soon as they could talk), or a handprint on the pale biscuit walls, or a fingerprint on the highly polished kitchen granite, let alone ketchup smears on the tea-towels. At Harriet's house, William and George were just as messy as Josh, Martha just as lethal with felt-tip pens as Chloe. Here, it was simply not permitted, expected or tolerated. For years now Harriet had marvelled at the control Nicole exerted, almost as much as she had been horrified by it.

It was no different without Gavin. Would her own home look different without Tim? The laundry pile would teeter a little less precariously without his s.h.i.+rts, and there would be a smaller pile of partnerless black socks waiting in vain to be reunited. Was that all?

Nicole was different, though, and Harriet was worried about her. She was brittle, and taut with the effort of keeping it all in. She hadn't told the kids they presumed Dad was away, working; it wasn't unusual. She looked as if she had lost weight. The pregnancy was still hidden. Tonight, in bootleg trousers, her stomach looked almost concave.

'How are you doing?' Harriet asked.

'Oh, you know.'

Harriet didn't. 'You look tired.'

'I am. Not sleeping brilliantly. I've got a lot to think about.'

'Of course. Have you seen Gavin?'

'No. Don't worry, I'm not going to. Not until I've figured everything out. I promise.'

'Don't promise me anything. It's not up to me. Are the kids okay?'

'They've barely noticed he's not here. Just goes to show how absent he was from their lives before. I haven't lied to them, it just hasn't come up.' She laughed bitterly, and changed the subject. She wasn't ready to talk about what she was going to do, not even with Harriet.

'Did you finish the book?'

'Yeah in Portugal. I read loads. I'll say this for Tim, he's brilliant with the kids when we're away. Like he wants to make up for all the time he misses with them while he's working. He just takes them off in the morning and I don't see them again until teatime. I get out of all those ghastly things like the water parks. Now, that's my idea of h.e.l.l, wandering around all day in a swimsuit, coming down vertical drops at thirty miles an hour with your legs crossed, knowing that if you don't, you'll get twenty pints of water flushed up you.'

Nicole winced at the thought. 'I haven't asked you much about your holiday. Sorry. Was it good?'

'It was fine. Things are easier when you're away. Everything seems a bit better in a different place with the sun s.h.i.+ning.' She caught Nicole's eye. 'As long as there isn't a floorshow like the one you got.' They smiled at each other.

'I can't see Tim doing that,' Nicole said.

'Me neither,' Harriet agreed. 'While you're away, you think everything might be okay. You don't have to be back long to realise nothing's changed.'

'Oh, Harry, you do know this is all in your head, don't you?'

'Is it?' Harriet looked sad.

The doorbell rang. 'Saved by the bell!' Harriet went to answer it, shrugging off her melancholy. She turned back to Nicole. 'I guess you don't want to tell the others about Gavin?'

'Not yet.'

'Okay.'

'Not because I'm going to have him back.' Nicole was desperate for Harriet's approval.

'Nic! Stop. Don't tell them. I agree. Stop justifying yourself to me. You really don't have to. Okay?'

Nicole smiled gratefully. 'Okay.'

Polly had telephoned each of them to tell them Susan's mother had died a couple of weeks back. They felt a connection to the news they might not have felt if they hadn't talked about it together earlier in the summer. Obviously neither of them had met Alice, and neither of them had lost their mothers, but they remembered Susan, close to tears in Harriet's kitchen, talking about how it felt, and they knew it would have hit her hard. Nicole had sent a card. Harriet had been round one afternoon and left an enormous box of chocolates on the doorstep, with a note that said she was thinking of her and that cocoa solids helped. But they hadn't seen her until tonight.

Harriet hugged her. 'h.e.l.lo. How are you?'

'Two pounds heavier. Thanks for the chocolates.'

'Beats Prozac. I'm sorry about your mum.'

'Thanks.'

Nicole came into the hall, and Susan let herself be held again. She found other people's sympathy stifling. Politeness required them to talk about it to you, and then you have to answer. And because she was your mother, and not your husband or your child, and because she was an old lady, and because, let's face it, she'd lost her marbles, you were supposed to be philosophical about it. Reflective, sad, but not desolate. Desolate was how Susan felt, when other people made her think about it. She wanted to answer 'How are you?' with 'I'm an orphan', or 'I'm all alone', or 'I miss her', or 'I wasn't ready'. You weren't allowed to say that, though. That wasn't what people wanted to hear. But everyone meant well. She kept saying that to herself.

Nicole didn't ask. Her embrace was eloquent enough. She was strangely sensitive, Susan thought, for someone so controlled. She was glad she had come tonight, although she had been tempted not to. 'You can't hibernate,' Roger had told her, and he was right. Besides, tonight she had a s.h.i.+eld of good news.

'That's brilliant news. Ooh!' Harriet was squealing. 'I love baby days. They're the happiest!'

'I love the name! Spencer Bradford.' Nicole rolled it around her mouth, thoughtfully. 'He sounds like your mate. Spence. Like it.'

'Have you seen him yet, Susan?'

'I'm going round in the morning,' Susan said. 'Polly brought them home this afternoon.'

'Do give them all our love, won't you? I haven't got a card or a present or anything yet. I thought we had a few weeks to go.'

'Polly did, too. I think he caught everyone on the back foot.'

Nicole opened the fridge and brought out a bottle of champagne. 'This calls for a celebration, don't you think?'

'I love the way you just happen to have cold champagne to hand. I could just about manage flat lemonade.' Harriet laughed.

'Old publis.h.i.+ng habit. You just never know...'

She uncorked the bottle expertly. Harriet took three flutes down from the dresser, and Nicole poured. Full gla.s.ses for Susan and Harriet, half for herself. She held the gla.s.s round the neck, instead of at the stem, so that Susan wouldn't see.

Harriet proposed the toast. 'To Polly, Cressida and Spencer.' The three women raised their gla.s.ses and drank. 'And Elliot, I suppose,' Harriet added, as an afterthought. 'Not quite sure how he fits in, but here's to him anyway.'

'Exactly.' Susan didn't really know either. She guessed that would be up to Cressida. And that Cressida wouldn't really know either yet.

'So, no Polly. No Clare, obviously.' They exchanged glances. Harriet was dying to ask Susan what was going on there, but she didn't. 'Just the three of us. Hardly seems worth it.'

'Don't say that! I stayed up last night finis.h.i.+ng the book.'

'We both read it while we were away, didn't we, Harry?'

'Yeah. It was a brilliant book to read in the hot sun.'

'Absolutely. She captured that incredibly vividly, didn't she, the heat of that summer? So oppressive and stultifying. Is that a word?'

'I think so.'

'Polly's not here, so she can't tell us why she chose it.'

'Didn't she say that Cressida had had to read an Anita Shreve for A level, and that they'd both loved it?'

'Yeah The Pilot's Wife, wasn't it?'

'And this is her first.'

'Crikey. A levels have come on since I did them. What no Chaucer?'

'Don't! Well, I loved it. I guessed the ending, but that didn't matter.'

'Did you? I didn't. I mean, it was obvious that something funny had gone on, and that the murder wasn't random, but I didn't guess it was the mother. Or why she had done it.'

'It would make a brilliant film.'

'You always say that. I mostly hate films made of books I love. They're always disappointing, don't you think?'

'Aren't the best films of the cla.s.sics? Like Jane Austen. I read her at university, and she never got me going I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. But add Hugh Grant, or Greg Wise, bit of a soundtrack, nice scenery, and I'm her greatest fan.'

'You're a Philistine, Harry.'

'Maybe so, but I know what I like! Now this was as s.e.xy as h.e.l.l, didn't you think? All that al fresco loving! She makes being blind sound pretty raunchy. Like all the other senses have to compensate, I suppose. Touch especially.'

'It was s.e.xy, but incredibly poignant, too, didn't you think? There was that protectiveness about his love for her, which was incredibly tender.'

'And the happy ending. I'm a sucker for a happy ending. I almost thought we weren't going to get one. That's another thing about literary fiction. Sometimes it seems like they don't think a happy ending is highbrow enough. It felt all the way through like they might be overpowered by the past, and not be able to put it behind them, but they do, don't they? The truth comes out, she's pregnant. They leave the place, and all its memories behind them. She says, doesn't she?, right at the end, "You have made me give up all the secrets, and I am lighter now... we will leave this place and not come back, and in our dreams it will turn to dust."' Harriet turned to Susan, who hadn't said much. She was afraid she and Nicole were monopolising the conversation. 'What did you think, Suze?'

'I don't know.' She sighed. 'It seems to me I can't read anything at the moment without it being sort of autobiographical. I can't concentrate on what I'm reading because I keep cross-referencing it with my own life. Like Guppies for Tea. And The Memory Box. This was the same. I know what you meant, Harry, when you said we needed to read fewer men's books, after Atonement, but I didn't know then that they were all going to be wringing me out emotionally, month after month. I'm almost desperate for Nic's choice this month. No offence, Nicole, but I reckon you might choose something that's going to give me a break from all this angst.'

Nicole nodded confirmation. She had her choice for September in the study, and she was pretty sure it would satisfy Susan's criteria, if not Harriet's. Susan carried on, 'Polly didn't know Mum was going to die when she chose it, but there it is the reason he's gone back to his old home is because his mother's died. The bits where he's getting the house ready to sell, getting rid of all the memories of growing up there with her, resonated with me. Although he doesn't have the same kind of relations.h.i.+p with his mother as I did with mine. Full of secrets. There's that bit where he says he's trying to imagine her under the ground so that he can summon up the appropriate sorrowful emotions, which is different from me. I keep trying not to think about Mum so that it doesn't all seep out of me all over the place. But it's basically about mothers, and the nature of mother-love, isn't it, the whole book? Again.'

'He doesn't have successful relations.h.i.+ps with women in general, does he, apart from Eden? Not with his own mother, not with Eden's, not with his ex-wife. Those relation s.h.i.+ps are all portrayed fairly flatly. Like he doesn't really come alive until he rediscovers Eden.'