32
J aney curses her teen excitement that her crush is phoning her.
On the other hand, after the awful morning she’s had, it’s nice to have something nice.
Clinic hadn’t been much better; one of her lovely clients, Bettina Murray, had been brought in by her distraught daughter.
She kept pulling out her hearing aid, claiming it was aliens controlling her.
Hearing aids were brilliant for slowing the path of dementia.
But she could tell from the slumped shoulders of Bettina’s middle-aged daughter that they had got there too late.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she had said.
‘We’ll manage, won’t we, Mum?’ the woman had said.
‘I need to get to work,’ the old woman had muttered. ‘I’m late, I think. I don’t want to be late. Do I work here? Where are the children? I should be at work.’
‘She was a teacher,’ says her daughter. ‘A great one.’
‘Conscientious,’ says Janey, and they share a look. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Do you want them back?’ says the woman.
‘Keep trying,’ says Janey. ‘I promise, it can really help.’
‘I’m LATE FOR WORK,’ shouts Bettina, terrifyingly loud suddenly. She stamps a tiny foot, smart in court shoes.
‘It’s okay, Mum,’ says the woman, at full volume, gradually standing up and tenderly putting Bettina’s coat on her. ‘It’s an inset day. Come on, I’m going to take you to the Costa and get you a wee cup of tea.’
‘AND A WEE BISCUIT.’
‘Always a wee biscuit,’ says the woman, leading her out, and Janey doesn’t want to ask herself if Essie would, could, ever be like that for her.
*
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lowell apologises immediately. Even just hearing his deep burring tones, the soft East Coast tinge, somehow makes her feel better. ‘I know you’re working.’
‘It’s okay, it’s my lunch break,’ Janey says. She almost says, you are the only good thing that has happened to me today . But she doesn’t need to add hysterical to the adjectives she gloomily imagines already accompany his opinion of her – comfortable, dependable, all the sexy ones.
She notices she hasn’t had a message from Essie. She is, she realises, still too upset to call her daughter. Because part of her is still angry, and she knows that’s dangerous. She needs to wait for the flame to burn out, in case it flares up again. Her daughter is so hard on her.
‘Oh, then—’
‘No, it’s okay. I’m running early; I have time. Is it the pups?’
‘It’s Verity.’
*
She meets them by the war memorial park.
Felicity flops out of the back of the car, obviously happy to have a break from the pups.
She’s not quite back to normal; her nipples are hanging down very far, and her belly is covered in loose, floppy skin.
It’s the first time Janey has smiled all day.
‘Welcome to your new body, sweets,’ she whispers to the hound as she comes up to lick her.
Lowell is signing for Verity to get out of the car, but nobody is emerging.
‘What’s up?’ murmurs Janey.
‘Her mum wants to take another week on her yoga retreat and for Verity to stay here, through the whole Easter holiday,’ says Lowell. ‘Verity is taking it very personally.’
‘So this wasn’t organised or . . . ’
‘I don’t mind,’ says Lowell immediately.
‘I know you don’t,’ says Janey. ‘I wasn’t implying . . . ’
She steps towards the car. ‘Hi,’ she signs to Verity, who has glanced up from her iPad, and scowls. Then she drops her head into the iPad. She can’t hear if she isn’t looking at you.
‘You’re going to have to wrest that thing off her for starters, I think,’ says Janey.
Lowell looks as if she’d just suggested he wrestle a bear for a jam sandwich. He screws up his face. ‘Do you think?’
‘You’re her dad! How’s it been? I thought it was going better.’
‘So did I,’ says Lowell. ‘Then I tried to get her to eat supper and she found some bacon in the fridge and it kind of unravelled from there. Then she wouldn’t go to bed and sat up till four, so she’s probably not at her best. Neither am I.’
Verity gives them both a side-eye so intense coming out of her little pale face that Janey is quite discomfited. This child is so unhappy.
‘She hates me,’ says Lowell in despair.
‘She doesn’t hate you,’ says Janey patiently. ‘She’s upset with other things in her life and you’re the safest person to take it out on . . . oh.’
‘What?’ says Lowell.
‘Nothing. God. I am the worst person to give parent–daughter advice at the moment.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Essie and I had a big fight. She did one small, totally understandable thing and I blew my stack.’
‘You?’
Janey is slightly comforted by the surprise in his voice. ‘Oh, yeah, she’s just . . . it’s been a tough . . . I thought I’d be so happy when she moved back in. I thought we’d have such a lovely time.’
She realises she is snivelling a little, even as Lowell is nodding his head in agreement.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘You don’t need this.’
‘So you’re telling me it might never get any better?’ says Lowell. ‘Jings. This is why people drink at lunchtime.’
‘No. No,’ says Janey, rubbing her eyes. ‘We’re not bad people. Are we?’
Lowell shrugs. ‘I’m a privileged white man, Janey. I’m literally the worst person in the world.’
And Janey chokes out a giggle and wipes the mascara from under her eyes.
‘Maybe you should do Verity,’ she says, ‘and I should do Essie. Like a reverse Strangers on a Train .’
She gets in next to the girl on the back seat of the car and watches the game she’s playing, jewels tumbling in a line. It’s beautiful and hypnotic.
‘You like the iPad?’ she signs, after a while.
Verity nods and signs that it’s her dad’s. ‘I want to keep it,’ she adds, obviously in case Janey has any pull in that department.
‘I imagine there’s a way,’ signs Janey, figuring that given how beautiful Lowell’s house is, he can afford it, ‘but it would involve stuff like having to put time limits on it and stuff.’
Verity is far too smart a kid not to realise she’s been played, but also, she accepts Janey as a competitor, and lays the iPad down beside her. Janey pretends not to notice or care. God, kids were so much easier at this age. She has no idea why she thought it was difficult at the time.
‘C’mon,’ she signs. ‘Let’s walk.’
They climb out and Lowell locks the iPad in the car, looking at Janey as though she’s a fearsome magician. She’ll explain later. At this point she’s more interested in what’s eating Verity.
‘What’s up?’ she signs, keeping her hands as relaxed as possible, as if she absolutely couldn’t care less if Verity was currently being gnawed by a wolf.
And Verity tells her.
*
After she’s finished explaining, the child seems different, as if a weight has been lifted off her. Janey, for her part, is amazed and delighted, and deeply nostalgic for the days when her own daughter’s problems were so easily solvable. Would give anything for it. Still no messages.
They’ve entered the fullness of the wood now, a giant clearing filling up with a purple blue sea. Verity has stopped, her eyes and nose full of the colours, the heavy scent of it all, completely enthralled, and dashed off ahead with Felicity, to bound among the blue.
‘Well?’ says Lowell, catching up with her.
‘I’m sure she meant well,’ says Janey diplomatically. ‘But your wife was worried that Verity would start her periods while she’s here.’
‘But she’s not even eleven!’
Janey shrugs. ‘Perfectly possible, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, lord,’ says Lowell, shaking his head. ‘I never thought of that.’
‘Unfortunately, Verity’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Thinks that means it’s definitely going to happen and she’s not very well prepared.’
‘What did Thalia give her?’
Janey screws up her face. ‘It’s not . . . I mean, it’s not a bad idea. It’s called a moon cup. But it’s definitely for what I’d call . . . advanced menstruators?’
Lowell’s face makes Janey want to laugh. If she could get any less sexy than the dog pee bit, or the counselling bit, perhaps it’s now.
‘Lowell, your face!’
‘Sorry,’ he says, lumbering onwards. ‘You’re right, of course. I’m the wrong generation for all that.’
‘You are not!’ says Janey. ‘You’re my age. Which means you just weren’t listening.’
‘I’ve got two brothers,’ says Lowell. ‘It never really came up.’
‘Where are you in that line-up, out of interest?’
‘Where do you think?’
‘I don’t know . . . if I had to guess, I’d say . . . sandwiched in the middle, trying to get on with everyone at once?’
He smiles. ‘Exactly right! That’s how I feel.’
‘Me too,’ says Janey. ‘Squished.’
She has been focusing on him, and keeping an eye on Verity and Felicity, who have raced ahead, and realises suddenly that she’s trampled on a load of bluebells.
‘Oh, no,’ she says, looking down in dismay. The bluebells have so brief a span; to make it even shorter through carelessness feels terrible.
‘There’s plenty more,’ says Lowell, looking ahead.
He turns around the wood, a woodpecker in the distance; early swallows overhead.
They both look around for a while. ‘I was trying to think if there was anything I could possibly say; anything about these bluebells that a million people haven’t said before, a load of poets and clever people and all that. ’
‘I know,’ says Janey. ‘But it doesn’t seem to capture it, does it?’
‘When I was wee,’ says Lowell, ‘I didn’t notice them at all. I mean I’m sure my dad pointed them out but . . . ’ He waves his hands around. ‘It was boring, go out and play stuff, you know.’
‘I do,’ says Janey. ‘You wanted a BMX.’
‘I had a BMX,’ says Lowell.
‘You posho.’
He grins. ‘I’m not even going to mention the ponies.’
‘Good,’ says Janey. ‘Wait – ponies, plural ?’
‘If you’re after me for my money,’ says Lowell, ‘I can assure you, it’s all long gone. Tax and care homes. My mum’s body held out a lot longer than her mind.’
He winces; he’s tried to make light of it, but he hasn’t quite judged it right. Janey likes this in him, his obvious discomfort in getting it wrong.
‘What was she like?’