Chapter 20
20
‘O h my God, Kay!’ Her head between her legs, Helen’s voice was muffled. ‘How many more of these am I going to find?’ she said and sat upright, waving an empty packet of Maltesers.
‘ That ,’ and Kay glanced sideways, ‘isn’t empty.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Helen turned the pack upside down and a solitary Malteser rolled into her palm, white with age. She dropped it back in, crumpled the packet and stuffed it into a carrier bag, already full of empty Maltesers packets. ‘Why don’t you just get it valeted?’ Her voice was muffled again as once more she bent forward to scour for more rubbish under the passenger seat of Kay’s car.
‘I’ve been a little busy, Helen,’ Kay snapped.
The whip-like lash of Kay’s response stung and it had Helen sitting up and leaning back, the rubbish bag between her knees.
’It’s not exactly on my priority list.’
‘Right.’ Helen folded the top of the carrier over and pushed it into the door pocket. Of course, the car wasn’t on Kay’s radar. She’d only just gotten her mother settled in the home and hadn’t they just been talking about how that might, finally, allow her to claw a little time back? Time in which to do many things other than have a car valeted? ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.
‘What for?’ Hands on the wheel, Kay did a double take.
‘It was thoughtless of me. I forget how busy you are.’
‘Well, hopefully it’ll get a little easier now,’ Kay sighed, and her shoulders rose up as she took a deep breath.
‘Hopefully.’ Helen leaned her elbow on the window rim. Outside, the Surrey Hills flashed past and for the ten-hundredth time in the last half hour, she picked up first her phone, then Kay’s. No messages from Caro, no missed calls. Nothing. Despite the numerous messages and calls left for Caro. ‘So,’ she said brightly, ‘what will you do?’ And she bent again to retrieve the rubbish bag. Anything to stop the thoughts that she couldn’t stop thinking, that she knew Kay could be thinking too. ‘You’ll have a bit more time in the evenings surely?’
‘Not that much.’
‘But you won’t have to pop in every night, will you? Or does your dad need—’ Her voice stuck in her chest as again she leaned forward, this time scooping up an empty salt and vinegar crisp packet.
‘Leave it, Helen!’ Kay did a double take at the rubbish in Helen’s hands. ‘Just leave it. OK?’
Helplessly Helen nodded. She crumpled the crisp packet and crumpled the rubbish bag and sat with the crumpled mess in her lap and stared at the road ahead. If Caro would just call or message they could stop the car, turn around and leave her to work out whatever it was she needed to work out. And perhaps they still should. Except when she’d suggested to Kay that they take a drive down to Salisbury, that after what had happened to Caro… she might be… she might need… Kay had agreed. Instantly. And if Kay thought they should go… Well, Helen didn’t want to consider the depths of that. It wasn’t like Caro to do anything stupid, was it? She didn’t know, because if recent events had taught Helen anything, it was that she didn’t have a clue what anyone might do. Libby getting herself pregnant and then ignoring the fact? Caro getting herself pregnant?
Even she herself, embarking on that wild and glorious week in Cyprus…
‘Tap dancing,’ Kay said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘Tap dancing,’ Kay repeated. ‘I told you. I was thinking it might help me get a bit of energy back.’
‘Quitting this rubbish will help more,’ Helen said and held up the bag.
‘I know. But I’ve been snacking in the car since Alex was a baby. Think I’m too far gone to stop now. Car journey equals chocolate.’
‘Understandable.’
‘I just get so tired.’
‘That’s understandable too.’
‘No, I sort of mean it, Helen.’ Kay stretched her arms out and pressed the heels of her hands into the steering wheel. ‘By the end of the day I am bone-weary. Finished. A little chocolate on the way home helps.’
The tone of Kay’s voice had Helen turning towards her. For years now, Kay had had only one expression: utterly knackered. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
‘Fine.’ Kay waved the question away. ‘I’m fifty, that’s all. Too much on my plate.’
In response, Helen took her seatbelt and pulled it loose so she could shift around to face Kay better. She wasn’t convinced by the fine. Not at all. Kay did have too much on her plate. She always had had. ‘The complaint at school has gone away, right?’
‘It’ll never go away,’ Kay said wryly. ‘Like your old tweets, it’s there for life.’
‘I don’t tweet.’
‘Me neither.’
’So that’s one thing to be grateful for.’
‘God, imagine if it had been around when we were young.’
‘I can’t,’ Helen said seriously. ‘I have thought about that and every time I do, my legs go cold.’
Kay laughed and momentarily it broke the knot of tension between them. ‘All the stupid things we said and did. Imagine. Preserved forever.’
‘Let alone the perms.’
‘Exactly!’ And now they both laughed.
And as Helen turned to the window, the laughter felt like a cushion at her spine. Caro would be fine. Of course she would. Her mother had had a stroke. That’s why she’d disappeared like this. She would be fine. This was Caro! Quitting her job… well, that wasn’t Caro. Burying the worry, she turned back to Kay. ‘But it is over?’ she asked. ‘There won’t be any further action?’
‘As long as I attend the course, yes. It’s finished.’
‘Right. And your mother has her place now.'
‘She does.’
‘And Alex is on the list for supported housing?’
‘If he survives this motorcycle race.’
‘ Kay! ’ Helen snapped her head around. ‘ Don’t say that! ’
‘Joke,’ Kay said, raising a hand of surrender. ‘Joking.’
Helen frowned. Kay’s face, her rigid hunched shoulders, screamed the opposite of joking, screamed in fact worried beyond belief . ‘Don’t shoot me,’ she began tentatively.
‘But?’
‘Alex is much more capable than I think you sometimes give him credit for. Building that bike for a start…’
And suddenly Kay’s hand was at her mouth, pressing back a sob of emotion.
‘Kay… I didn’t mean?—’
‘No.’ Kay shook her head. ‘You’re right. He is more capable, and I do need to let him go, but God it’s hard, Helen. It’s so bloody hard.’
Helen nodded. There was a lump in her own throat now. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s hard enough when…’ Her voice trailed off. What was she going to say? When they’re normal? It was always so difficult to talk about Alex. The difficulties which made him not normal. In fact, that was the only word any of them had ever been able to fall back upon. Difficult. Alex had difficulties. Autistic, but high functioning. Intelligent in some ways, without an iota of common sense in other ways. He’d grown from the cutest open-faced, straightforward little boy into a heavy, clumsy, loud-voiced man, whom it was best not to engage with on the subject of orchids, or Star Wars or any of his other pet subjects. He didn’t come with a remote. He came with Kay, and if she wasn’t in the room to give him a certain signal it was impossible to stop him talking not to you but at you. Alex, who had been Libby’s best pal all those pre-school years, but whom she had left behind when primary school beckoned and there were smart, chatty girls to be best friends with. And although they had briefly met again at secondary, half a term was too much for Alex. Bullied and shunned as he was, it had torn Libby’s heart out trying to protect him. And Helen’s. And for fuck’s sake! The memory reared its huge ugly face up so close, she actually flinched, shifted her weight and moved away from it. Because how the hell had Kay coped? If it had been hard on them, how had it been for Kay to see her boy hurt? (This was something Helen could never really think too long on, it was too painful.) Soon enough, Kay had gotten Alex moved to a lovely special needs school where he’d spent the rest of his school career and from which he’d graduated to the garden centre where he was happy. And now, this next stage. Independent living. Every move forward was a teetering precipice of worry haunted by ghosts of the future sent to torture Kay with horror scenarios of what might go wrong when she was no longer there. No wonder it was hard. No wonder she couldn’t bear it. Helen turned her head to look at Kay again. Life had taken so much from her and given back so little. ‘Will you please go to the doctor’s, Kay?’ she said. ‘I'm worried about you.’
Kay glanced at her. ‘Because I’m tired? I’m fifty, Helen. It’s normal.’
‘Because you’re tired and stressed and anxious.’
‘They’ll give me anti-depressants. Or sleeping tablets or?—’
‘I know you’re worried about Alex, but some of it will also be hormonal. I feel so much better than I did a few months ago.’
As if someone had pulled a string, the corner of Kay’s mouth twitched up. ‘I bet you do,’ she said. ‘Good sex can do that, as well as hormones.’
Helen smiled. ‘I haven’t had sex for weeks now, not since?—'
‘And I haven’t had it for years!’
Helen laughed.
‘Maybe,’ Kay said. ‘Just maybe, the sex was so good that the after effects are very long lasting.’
‘Maybe,’ Helen murmured. She closed her eyes. When she did this, she could still see Kaveh’s copper-coloured skin and his black eyes. ‘Just make an appointment,’ she said. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘Good.’ She opened her eyes in time to see signs for Andover flash past. ‘Shall I call again?’
Kay nodded. ‘From my phone as well.’
Moments later, Helen had let both phones drop into her lap.
‘Voicemail?’
She nodded and turned to the window. ‘Where are we going to start?’ she said quietly. There hadn’t been much point in trying to cross this bridge earlier, but surely, they’d come to it now. Salisbury was on the road signs, and the fact was that all they had was a half-remembered memory of stopping at Caro’s mother’s house, after their Stonehenge weekend thirty years ago. A terraced house with a blue front door, past a leisure centre if she remembered correctly. It wasn’t much of an address. ‘We don’t actually know her mother’s address.’
Kay shook her head. ‘I never visited, apart from that one time.’
’Ditto.’
Helen looked down at her hands. ‘Do you think she was ashamed, Kay?’
‘Of her mother?’
Helen didn’t answer. It was such an awful thing to accuse Caro of. ‘How many times did she ever come back?’ she whispered.
Kay shrugged.
‘Christmases?’
‘Her father’s funeral.’
‘When she left the day after.’
‘I remember.’ Kay nodded, her voice low.
‘When my mother died…’ Helen stared out of the window. ‘I was there every day, for months.’
‘Did Caro ever tell you the story of how her grandmother died?’ Kay said and lowered her chin to match her voice.
Helen turned. ‘Yes. The bomb shelter? How her grandmother pushed her mother in, but there wasn’t room for her? That her mother waited at the garden gate for years after? Just so awful, Kay. A child, waiting at a gate for a mother that’s never coming home.’
Kay nodded. ‘Right. Well, she once told me that her therapist said?—’
‘Caro’s had therapy?’
‘You didn’t know?’
’No… I mean I’m not surprised.’ Helen wasn’t surprised. In fact, the sentence made perfect sense. Caro’s had therapy. Of course, she would have. But there was a sting in the tail. A little slap. Caro had had therapy and talked to Kay about it, but not to her? Which is exactly what she’d done before Cyprus.
Kay shook her head. ‘I forgot. It was all so long ago, I forgot you didn’t know. She didn’t tell me at the time either, it was years after.’
‘Don't worry about it,’ Helen said quietly. She eased back in her seat. ‘Why should she have told me, when there’s so much I’ve never told her.’ And as outside the rolling landscape of the south-west flashed by, an equally gentle truth unravelled itself in Helen. She’d hardly been truthful with herself, let alone anyone else. So indeed, why should Caro have confided anything to her. ‘Go on then,’ she said now, ‘what did the therapist say?’
One hand on the wheel, Kay brought the other hand to her mouth and bit down on the skin at her thumbnail. ‘She told Caro that her mother has been re-enacting that ever since. The pushing away.’
‘Pushing away…’ It was a horrible image.
‘The therapist,’ Kay continued, ‘told Caro that it would have been such a traumatic incident, it would have affected her mother’s future relationships for the rest of her life. I mean, think about it from the child’s perspective, Helen. Your mother pushes you away and then never comes back? That’s your pattern. That’s your pattern for motherhood, unless you’re lucky enough to have someone to explain it.’
Helen took a deep breath, releasing the air very slowly. She was thinking of her own mother, whom she missed in some small way, every hour, of every day. With whom she had had such an uncomplicated and easy relationship. How blessed she had been to get that pattern. And how easy then to pass it on to Libby, who would pass it on to her own child. And the thought was a solid lump in her throat; at least she’d managed to get something right.
‘It’s funny, because Caro’s always used those words, hasn’t she?’ Kay said. ‘When she ever tried to explain it, she’s always said that she felt her mother has pushed her away. Her whole life.’
‘That’s exactly what she says.’ Helen bit down on her lip. Kay’s explanation was awful and rational. Ever since she’d known Caro, back when they were just eighteen, on the brink of adulthood, she’d seen the ruthlessly independent way she’d approached life. Keeping everyone at arm’s length, as if the only thing keeping her safe in life was her rock of stoicism. Which it obviously had. Because loving someone who wasn’t capable of loving you back wasn’t the best survival method for a young child. Zipping it up and helping yourself made more sense. She turned to Kay. ‘When was Caro having therapy?’
‘Just after Mike got married.’
Helen nodded. Mike was Caro’s most significant ex. They had been together a decade or more. All through Caro’s thirties anyway, and after they separated he’d become a father and a husband within a year. So that was when Caro had been through therapy. Right when Helen was in the thick of family life. Libby eleven, Jack eight, Lawrence climbing a mountain somewhere. ‘She never told me,’ she said more to herself than to Kay.
‘Sometimes…’ Kay didn’t finish.
‘Sometimes what, Kay?’
‘Sometimes, Helen. And don’t shoot me now… It hasn’t been so easy to talk to you.’
Although Kay’s voice was hesitant, her words felt sharper than a razor. Feeling the sting, Helen stared straight ahead. She might have half expected Caro to say this, but Kay as well? ‘Why not?’ she managed finally, but she knew why.
‘Because… Because when someone’s life is perfect, Helen, it’s hard.’
‘My life wasn’t perfect,’ she said.
‘Well… Put it this way… you made it seem like it was.’
And how could she deny that? She had. For as long as she could remember she had spent an inordinate amount of time and energy (and money) creating and maintaining the quintessential image of a perfect existence. Lakeland catalogues, Boden shirts. Waitrose 28- day-cured ham. Homework journals dutifully signed and returned, dinner parties scheduled, pansies in spring, asters in autumn. She couldn’t deny it, she’d known even as she was doing it. Smoothing over frustrations with a perfectly ironed Cath Kidston tablecloth. ‘It was far from perfect,’ she said, and her voice cracked.
Kay was nodding. ‘I know. I know. We can see that now. But before… You never said.’
‘No.’ Helen nodded. She hadn’t ever said. She hadn’t ever spoken of the long, lonely weeks Lawrence was away climbing a mountain or swimming lakes. And she’d certainly never spoken of her greatest fears – not that he’d die, but that she’d be left managing on her own. She’d never admitted how tedious and dull she’d found his slideshows, how embarrassing she’d found his self-absorption. Why not? This she could answer as well. Because it was too hard to admit that she’d made the wrong choice. And that was because of Caro. At university, Lawrence had picked her, not Caro. So how could she possibly have faced up to the fact that actually, she’d won the booby prize and Caro had won the main event? Because it was Caro who had gone ahead to forge an exciting and independent life, while she’d stayed home to wash socks. She’d had no choice. She’d had to make it sound perfect. She was Helen. The girl with the golden hair. The girl who could have had her pick. And she’d picked wrong ?
She turned to the window. The thought made her sad. Made her feel as if she’d wasted a lot of time when there wasn’t that much time to waste. Maybe if she’d opened up earlier, they could have helped. Back at university the three of them had told each other everything. When not so much as a tampon was owned and they were as equal as blades of grass under one sun. So what had changed? When did she fall for those false idols of money, status, appearance?
She stared out of the window as they sped through the Wiltshire downs – around them, ahead of them, the soft folds of chalk stretchedaway and away into a timeless distance. None of them had managed to escape life. Not her, not Caro, not Kay. It had crept up behind them, silent as fog, engulfing them with responsibility, luring them with everything they thought they should be wanting. And honestly? It had taken turning fifty for her own personal mist to begin to clear again, for her to glimpse new land on the other side. Kay, who had always been able to hold her course truer, was battling through, and would, Helen felt sure, get there. Which only left Caro. Most vulnerable of all. Almost certainly unable right now to see her hand in front of her face for the thick slice of sludge life had wrapped around her. She shivered. Caro had never spoken of therapy and mothers pushing daughters away, just as she, Helen, had never spoken of how deeply unhappy her marriage had been and if she knew just one thing now, it was this – not speaking of something doesn’t make it go away. If they got through this, which they would, because Caro was going to be fine, she would, she determined, spend what was left of her life honestly. Authentically. And she wouldn’t insult her two oldest friends, who were like family, with anything less than honesty. Family. Yes, Kay and Caro were like family. And then she remembered. Something she hadn’t thought of in years. Someone she’d met just once, for no longer than a few minutes, who she’d couldn’t picture but could name. Sean. She turned to Kay. ‘Caro has a brother.’
Kay snatched a glance. ‘She does, doesn’t she?’
‘Sean. He was at graduation.’
‘I… I can’t remember.’
Helen frowned. ‘Shall I Google him?’
‘Try Facebook?’
Caro’s brother was on Facebook and within the space of two minutes, Helen had tracked him down and sent a message to which he had responded.
She zipped out another message and again within a few seconds her phone pinged. Astonishing. It was astonishing. ‘He’s at the hospital now,’ she said, and her phone pinged with a third message.
‘What about Caro?’ Kay flicked her indicator on, ready to turn off the A303 for Salisbury. ‘If she’s at the hospital as well she might not want to see us.’
Helen frowned.
‘What?’ Kay said. ‘What?’
‘She’s not at the hospital.’
‘Well, where is she then?’
‘She’s at Stonehenge.’
‘ Where? ’ Kay flicked off the indicator.
‘Sean says she left about an hour ago. That we should try there.’