Part 19 (1/2)

'Not quite up to it, I'm afraid.' I heard that his voice was slurred. 'Anyway, she's asleep.'

'All right, Fred, what time?'

'I'll pick you up at five-ish, that way we'll beat all the traffic and be there by eight. She's best in the mornings. She sleeps most of the afternoon.'

I had made this journey too often, recently: for the family mushroom hunt, for the funeral, for my bungled confrontation with Martha and then Chrissie. Fred had been drinking but had that been last night or this morning? I offered to drive but he waved me away. We drove through the dark morning in silence in his smooth, purring company car. Lynn had packed him a Thermos flask of good black coffee, and some sandwiches, cut into neat triangles and thinly spread with damson jam. I refused the sandwiches but accepted the coffee. Alfred opened the window when I smoked. I inserted one of the tapes I had brought up for Martha into his machine: songs by Grieg, pure and clear, filled the car.

At Birmingham, I said: 'Do you remember how she used to sing to all of us. At supper, or on walks, suddenly she'd start singing; not just humming, or singing so that we'd all join in, but belting it out loud, really loud.'

Alfred just grunted. Well, of course he remembered. But I couldn't stop.

'Or how she rode that old bicycle of hers, sitting up so straight in the saddle with her hair flowing back. We all used to laugh at her but she always got to the top of the hills first. Or how she used to sketch us. We'd be playing together, and not even know she was there, and suddenly she'd show us her drawing. Some of them were lovely. I wonder where they all went to. I'd love to have one.'

'I have this vivid image of her sitting in the greenhouse.' Alfred's voice was gruff and he kept his eyes fixed on the road. 'Every morning, she would go to the greenhouse and just sit on that tall stool. When we got up in the mornings, we'd often see her, absolutely still, gazing out at the garden, like a sentinel. I always found it oddly rea.s.suring. Whatever else happened, Mum was there keeping watch on our bit of the world. Have some more coffee.'

'Thanks. Do you mind if I smoke another cigarette?'

'Go ahead.'

We left the motorway and followed signs for Bromsgrove.

'Alfred, about Natalie...'

'No.' His voice was sharp, like the screech of a brake.

'I just wanted to ask...'

'No, I said, Jane. Later. After Martha. Wait.'

Martha's room was full of flowers and chocolates, like a hospital ward.

'It's extraordinary how people think that when you grow old, or ill, you like sweet things,' she laughed. She thanked me for my tapes; and Alfred gave her the cards his children had made for her. She looked at them all attentively, and put them carefully on the table beside her bed. We sat there, appalled at the thinness of her face. Her body barely disturbed the drape of the sheet, and her fingers lay like five whitening bones on the covers. There was an awkward pause as we tried to think of a suitable topic of conversation for a death bed.

'It's also funny,' she continued, 'how when it's most important to talk like now, when I'm dying it also seems most impossible. Or embarra.s.sing. Look at you, Alfred, you were about to ask me about the garden, or the weather or something, weren't you? And yet you might never see me again.'

'Mummy,' said Fred. It seemed shocking that a grown-up man should call anyone by such a childish, trusting name. I looked down at my hands, clutched in my lap.

'Fred, my love, why don't you go and see Alan. He's stalking round the garden somewhere. I want to talk to Jane, alone. And then to you alone. All right?'

When it was just the two of us, Martha said, 'I've had a long time to get used to dying, but it doesn't seem to make it any easier.'

'Are you scared?' I asked.

'Terrified is more like it. I think about this great black hole waiting for me, and it doesn't seem as if my life has really happened yet. It's gone too fast, I feel cheated somehow. I can't talk to Alan about that, though. He keeps talking about when I'm better, and where we should go on holiday this year. Half the time he's fussing over me so that I can't even drink a gla.s.s of water without him rus.h.i.+ng to steady my gla.s.s,' she lifted a trembling hand up, 'then other times he's saying I should get out of bed today, perhaps go for a walk in the garden. He cuts recipes out of magazines, and encourages me to try to cook them. Or he tries to cook meals for me, dumplings and things, and he puts about five times as much as I can possibly eat on my plate and watches me. He won't talk about arrangements. Real arrangements for after I've died.'

'Can I do anything?'

She looked at me steadily, as if she knew everything. 'Yes. Alan's always trusted you. Keep an eye on him. Make sure he's all right, Jane.'

'I don't know if I can, Martha,' I said.

'Yes,' she said.

How do you say goodbye to someone whom you love, and whom you know you will never see again I leant over Martha, and she gazed up at me with milky, tired eyes.

'You're beautiful,' I said ridiculously, and brushed a white strand of hair from her forehead. I kissed her on both cheeks, and then I kissed her on the lips.

To me she said: 'I'm sorry.'

Fred drove much too fast going home. The roads were crowded, and it was foggy, but we kept in the fast lane, braking as shapes loomed up, hooting at cars that were prudently keeping their speed down. He didn't speak at first, and I was happier that way. He listened to the news on the radio, and a play I couldn't follow. About forty miles from London, he said, 'Jane, it's got to stop.'

I didn't pretend not to understand what he meant. 'Why do you say that, Fred?'

He thumped a fist on the steering wheel, swerved to avoid something dead on the road, and replied, 'Can't you see we've had enough of all this, this nonsense. I've spoken to Claud who I must say is being unbelievably understanding and protective of you in the circ.u.mstances and he said it was something to do with some therapy or other. And I spoke to Theo as well. What are you playing at?'

I opened my mouth to speak but he hadn't finished.

'I don't know why you should feel the need to take revenge, since it was you who left Claud, but never mind that. The point is, we can't take you poking into all of our lives any longer. And now that Mum's dying too can't you just lay off?'

'It's nothing really.'

'Oh, don't give me that c.r.a.p. What are you trying to do to us? Leave us all alone. Get on with your nice, cosy life and your navel-gazing therapy and just leave us all alone. leave us all alone.'

Fred had been drinking, of course. But was this what they all felt about me? There was a part of me that just wanted to be forgiven and be welcomed back into the fold. Something stopped me. We drove the rest of the way in grim silence.

I must buy a cat, I thought, as I unlocked my front door into my cold and silent house. Without even taking off my coat, I went to the phone in the living room, and punched in Theo's number. He answered on the first ring.

'Theo, it's Jane.'

'h.e.l.lo, Jane.'

He didn't sound too welcoming.

'I had to speak to you. I've just been with Fred.'

'Yes, I know, he's just called me on his mobile.'

'Do you feel the same way, Theo, that I'm just poking around in something that's not my business?'

'If you can even ask that, Jane, then you're considerably less intelligent than I've given you credit for. I think you're making a b.l.o.o.d.y fool of yourself.'

The line went dead. The doors of the Martello family were swinging closed against me.

I peered into my wardrobe. My grey gabardine suit, with a long tight skirt slit up to the knees? Too business-like. My red dress, low neck, long sleeves and tight down to my knees? Too s.e.xy. My black dress? Too cliched. Leggings, with a silk, Chinese-style tunic in autumn colours? Too safe. I tried them on, one after the other, turning round in front of the long mirror, and chose the Chinese tunic. Then I ran myself a bath, washed my hair, and dressed very slowly. I lined my eyes in dark green, brushed my lashes with mascara, glossed my lips in mulberry. I smiled and an anxious face smiled back at me. Too bright. I soaked cotton wool in make-up remover and scrubbed off the eye-liner.

It was only a dinner party, for G.o.d's sake, not an exam. I brushed my hair back and pinned it up. I chose some delicate ear-rings, amber drops, and dabbed rose water on my wrists. Just a dinner party with seven other people and Caspar's daughter in the background, and what if she took a dislike to me?