Meg had told me the story of her broken marriage, her battle with the bottle and her anguish when Sacha was taken away to live with his father because of her drinking. Meg had become estranged from all she cared about – her ex-husband (‘a saint whose patience snapped’), and her son (who was only permitted to see her at weekends). I had felt very sad for her, and completely helpless.
‘Of course, I like Meg,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I like lots of people. I
Will pulled me close. ‘Listen, Fanny. Here’s a chance to practise what we preach. But not just for the sake of a cause, for the sake of my
‘But Will, this is a marriage, not a… charity.’
I sensed he was struggling with the legacy of an old, difficult history. ‘Fanny, when I really needed her, she was there for me,’ he said simply. ‘It doesn’t seem fair for me to turn my back on her now…’ He brightened. ‘Also, we don’t have much money to buy enormous amounts of help, and you need help. Meg can do her bit. You could spend more time in London… I think it will help our marriage.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t think it is a good idea.’
He looked down at our clasped hands and made a final appeal. ‘She’s losing her flat and she hasn’t got a job at the moment; she can’t cope. I owe her so much. In one way or another, her life has turned out pretty badly, and I can’t help feeling that quite a lot of that is my fault.’
It was a long time before I got to sleep.
When I woke, Will was beside the bed with Chloe draped over his shoulder. ‘She’s hungry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to do with her.’
Everything had changed. The room swam and my heart pounded in protest. Every nerve in my body screamed with exhaustion. Downstairs, a basket of dirty washing required attention. There was not much food in the fridge, and dust still crusted the radiator. I pushed my hair out of my eyes, and pulled myself upright. ‘Give her to me.’
Will laid Chloe in my arms and I put her to suckle. ‘You win,’ I said to Will. ‘Meg can come and live here. But only for a few months, until everyone is straightened out. Just till I’m back on my feet and she’s feeling better.’
It all happened very quickly, and while the house at Stan-winton was being altered to accommodate Meg (Will did not find the time to do any DIY), I flew with Chloe to see my mother in Montana. Father was dead set against the idea. ‘Why bother?’ he demanded, with a rare flash of bitterness. ‘You can come and live here while the house is a mess, if that’s the problem.’
‘She has a right to see her granddaughter.’
‘Nothing stopping
Sally was waiting for us by the barrier at the airport. I had not seen her for three years, and it took me a moment or two to recognize her – she could have been any one of the middle-aged women dressed in tracksuits or capacious jeans and fleeces who milled around the concourse. Sad or funny? My mother was somewhere in that crowd and I wasn’t sure who she was.
Finally I spotted her in a brown suede jacket with hair – frizzy and overlong – settled round a pale, freckled face innocent of make-up. Arms folded, she was leaning on the barrier and looked scared. Big, burly Art was beside her, smiling benignly as he scanned the arrivals. His baggy jeans and checked shirt were deceptive: he made a good living. Granted, property in Montana was not like property in New York, but there was plenty of it and more space.
‘Hi!’ cried Sally, in a voice from which all traces of her English origins had long gone. She kissed my cheek briefly, embarrassed, and turned to Chloe. ‘Why,
I relinquished Chloe and Art pumped my hand up and down. ‘We sure appreciate this,’ he said. ‘Sally has been unreal with nerves for the past few days. Haven’t known what to do with her.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother give a tiny shrug.
Sally and I sat in the back of the station-wagon with Chloe between us while Art drove extra carefully through the town and out the other side. He did not say much but his was an easy silence. Sally did not say much either, except ‘Hasn’t changed much since you were last here. More houses, which is a pity.’
Paradiseville had been so named because at the height of gold fever it was thought a seam ran through the mountain foothills to the south and a cluster of tin and wooden shacks had mushroomed down by the river. It had grown from there.
Art gave a satisfied laugh. ‘That’s fine by me. Good business, don’t knock it.’
A person can comment,’ Sally said sharply.
I had forgotten that the landscape of Montana was a spectacle on the scale of grand opera or a wide-screen cinema epic. Nature was big here. It was like walking into a great golden tidal wave into which red and ochre had been mixed. But the details were lovely too. Cobnuts lay on the ground and spilled their tender contents out of their husks, berries dozed in the hedgerows, and horses grazed against a backdrop of mountain.
I pointed all this out to Chloe, who took no notice.
To be honest, I remembered the house better than I remembered my mother. Constructed of clapboard, which had been painted off-white, it had a balcony that ran round it, and a swinging seat at the front, where I knew I would sit and rock Chloe.
Sally slid out of the station-wagon. ‘I didn’t know what stuff you needed so I asked Ma Frobber down the way. She put me right and lent me her stuff. She’s had six.’ Sally smiled a little anxiously. ‘Hope it’s OK.’
It was fine, except that Chloe was jet-lagged and refused to sleep for most of the first night. Naturally, in the small house, her crying was magnified and, as I strove desperately to pacify her, the light was switched on more than once in Sally and Art’s room.
After breakfast, I sat on the swing seat with her. Sally plumped up a cushion which had a black horse embroidered on it and wedged herself beside me. ‘I had forgotten,’ she peered down at Chloe, ‘how awful it is.’ She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt, revealing freckled forearms. ‘I was no good at it at all,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve got no advice or handy tips.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of it yet, either.’
‘I reckon a person is given only one talent. Mine’s for horses. I always thought if you could cope with horses, you could cope with the kids. But it doesn’t work out like that.’
Chloe began to grizzle and Sally set the seat to rock, which seemed to settle her, and we sat there, talking of nothing much, until the sun slid round and hit us hard. Then we retreated to the kitchen. With one foot on the borrowed baby-bouncer, I drank bitter coffee and jiggled Chloe while Sally prepared a meal of stew and carrots for later.
I tried not to stare at my mother, but I couldn’t help it. So much of her – how she walked with a little drag of her right foot, the mole on her arm – reminded me of myself. Could I edge closer and try to cross the barrier of time and our history? It was impossible. All we shared was a set of genes, and that was not enough.
Now I had Chloe I perceived my mother from a different perspective. I knew what it was like to hold a tiny person against my body and I knew that they depended on you absolutely. Thus, the question,
Sally chopped vigorously at a carrot. ‘How is your father?’
Sally would have had to nerve herself to ask the question and I was careful with the reply. ‘I don’t think he ever got over you,’ I said.
She put down the knife and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Yes, he did. He knew perfectly well that we… did not suit each other. He wanted one thing, I wanted another. In the end, I chose for him.’
‘You make it sound so simple.’
Sally switched on a gas-ring and slapped down a frying-pan. ‘It was. If two people can’t live together, one of them has to go. Anyway, I’d met Art so I went. It was better that you stayed with Alfredo.’
I bent over to check that the strap holding Chloe was tight enough. ‘I used to search for you in the street. I made up stories about you and imagined you might fly into my bedroom at night. I used to try to stay awake in case
