The Reading Group Part 32

The women were fascinated. This was infinitely more interesting, suddenly, than Santiago and his desert quest for treasure.

'I was her sister's child. She had a sister, Dorothy. She got pregnant, wasn't married, had me in secret. Then she was killed. Mum Alice took me in, pretended I was hers.'

'Jesus, Suze.' Polly, who had been sitting opposite, got up and went over to sit beside her. 'What a shock that must have been.'

'I couldn't take it in at first. I still haven't. Everything I ever thought about myself, where I came from, is different now. I'm not who I thought I was. At least, I don't feel like I am.' Her voice was trembling.

'I'm not surprised,' Harriet said. 'Why did she never tell you? Did she say?'

Susan shrugged. 'Not really. That's part of what's so frustrating. I'm cross with her, you know, on some level, for dying before she told me. The letter said something about being jealous of Dorothy for being my real mum, something like that. I think she was saying she loved me so much she never wanted me to know I wasn't hers.'

'As if that would have made any difference, after she had brought you up and everything. It wouldn't? Would it?'

'I'd have been curious, I think. I might have tried to find out more about her, about my dad. But no. She was my mum. She was the one who had raised me. If anything, it might have made me appreciate her all the more.' Tears welled in her eyes. 'And I still miss her so much. She's only been dead a couple of months, and I'm still upset about losing her, especially in that ghastly way. Slowly, mind first. It was cruel. And now all this. I don't know how to feel, to be honest.'

Polly put an arm round her. She'd been so lost in her own family, in the joy of having Jack back, that she hadn't called to see how Susan had got on at the cottage. She couldn't imagine how it would feel to find out that your whole life had been built on a lie. 'I can't believe it,' she said. 'It's like something out of a Catherine Cookson novel.'

'I know. It doesn't seem real, does it? We forget, I think, what it was like for women who got pregnant out of wedlock even just forty-odd years ago.'

'Did Margaret know?' Polly asked.

'No, no one did. She was just as shocked as me. Just as upset too, maybe even more. Mum and I were always closer than the two of them. I think that was part of why she went away as soon as she could she was always so jealous. I'm wondering now whether Mum was just trying harder with me because I wasn't hers.'

'I don't think so,' Polly said. 'The two of you were so alike, so close. That wasn't affected. Anyone could see it.'

'She was your mum, wasn't she, in everything except genetics? I'm sure that's how you should carry on thinking of her.' Harriet said softly.

'I couldn't have loved her any more if she truly had been,' Susan agreed. 'I've always been grateful to her, for her. That was why looking after her, after she got ill, was so important to me. It was why I hated putting her in the home. It felt like I wasn't doing for her what she had done for me. Put me first. Now I know she didn't have to do that because I wasn't hers. She chose to do it. Out of love for her sister, I suppose. That makes the debt feel even greater.'

'It's not a debt. That's stupid. Parents taking care of children isn't at all the same as children taking care of parents. I don't want that for my kids. Do any of you?' Harriet looked around. 'I mean, I don't look after them so that they can grow up and look after me. That's not how it works.'

Nicole nodded in agreement. 'Don't let yourself get bogged down by guilt, Susan.'

'Absolutely not.' Polly was emphatic.

Susan smiled at her friends. Their support and affection was palpable, and she was glad of it. They were right, she knew. Her life wasn't built on a lie. It was built on an act of supreme kindness and love, and she would get used to this new order, to a history where Alice hadn't given birth to her, and to a future without Alice. Maybe with Margaret in it. That felt like a fitting tribute to the sister who had done so much for her own.

They all looked at their orange copies of The Alchemist. Real life had taken over. 'Now, if this Santiago had had a brother, instead of a flock of sheep, and a hidden letter, instead of some stones with daft names, you'd have been talking good story!'

Susan laughed loudest the peculiar laughter that was sixty per cent tears. 'Harriet! I love you! You're absolutely outrageous.'

'I know, I know. Don't thank me!'

7.15 P.M.

'We're cutting it a bit fine.'

'We've got plenty of time. It doesn't start until eight thirty this month, does it?'

'That's right. But don't forget it's our turn to do the food.'

'Forget? Moi? Never! I've bought chicken, and salad in a bag. No problem. No one expects homemade this close to Christmas.'

'Speak for yourself. I was up until eleven thirty last night making a sherry trifle.'

'You raver!'

'Don't you dare make fun of me. You try coping with a teething baby at our age.'

'Cressida's home for the holidays. Did I miss something? Shouldn't she be the one pacing the hallway in the wee small hours?'

'She should, I suppose, but she was so tired. She's been working hard, and there were a few parties and things at the end of term. I wanted to let her sleep.'

'You're hopeless, Polly Bradford.'

'I know. Hopeless, but happy.'

Susan reached over from the driving seat and squeezed her friend's knee. 'I'm so glad, sweetheart. So very glad.'

'Haven't finished the bleeding book, though, have I?'

'Naughty!'

'I know, I know. There's no excuse, really.'

'I think yours are better than most.'

'Yeah!' Polly smiled ruefully.

'I'm coming anyway. I won't get a chance to see Nicole and Harriet again before Christmas.'

'Absolutely. They'd be mad if you didn't.'

'Now, how many of these bags are yours? Nearly all of them, I think.' She gestured at the back seat of the car, which was crammed with carrier-bags.

They'd spent the day in London, which Roger had said was madness, so close to Christmas. Madness it had indeed been, but wonderful too. The city had been heaving with shoppers, irritable at their own inefficiency, shoving and jostling along crowded streets, too warm for the time of year. Both women were glad they had done their serious shopping already, Susan at a big out-of-town mall with Roger, one Sunday weeks ago, and Polly, bleary-eyed, on the Internet over November nights, with Spencer hoisted over one shoulder, unwilling to return to his cot.

This had been a different kind of shopping day altogether. The kind where you go to Harvey Nichols for lunch and drink champagne. And stop at the Nail Bar for a manicure. The kind for which Polly had shaved her legs and worn nice underwear. They'd found it, too. In the first shop. The perfect wedding dress. It was a silk sheath, long and slim-fitting, the exact colour of cornflowers, to be worn under a long velvet coat just a shade darker, with wide lapels overst.i.tched in a floral pattern with a silver thread. For her head an Alice band in the same silk, from which a tuft of cornflower feathers, studded with diamante and seed pearls, sprang jauntily. In her wild curls they sparkled and twinkled. Susan had cried a little when she came out of the changing room. 'You look so beautiful.'

'Yes, maybe, but will baby sick sponge off?'

Polly had felt tearful too when she had turned to the three-way mirror and seen herself, because someone beautiful was looking back. It wasn't just the dress, she knew that: it was happiness that made you glow that way, made your eyes sparkly and your carriage upright so that the perfect dress looked like that on you. Okay, so maybe the unhappiness that had gone before had seen off a few pounds, which meant it didn't pull across her tummy or make her thighs look like those of an All Black front-rower, but happiness had lent her ingredient X. She wasn't even going to look at the price tag. Whatever it cost, it was worth it. She wondered whether you could get real cornflowers in December.

She opened the pa.s.senger door and gathered up her shopping. 'Thanks for today, Suze. I had a fantastic time, I really did.'

'Me too, hon. I'll see you later. Jack going to drop you off?'

'Yes, he is. He's here already, I see.' Jack's BMW was parked in the driveway.

'Now, don't you dare show him the dress. I know you're keeping it all low key and everything but that doesn't mean all the decent traditions go out of the window. He's not to see it. Promise?'

'I promise.' Polly laughed. Susan was very old-fashioned: she had already declared that Polly was sleeping at her house on the thirtieth, 'whether you're worried about Cressida coping with Spencer or not', because she didn't trust Jack not to come round and try his luck, and she certainly didn't trust Polly not to let him.

Polly turned at her front door to wave Susan off. 'Don't show him the other stuff either!' Susan cried, before she drove away. She meant the Janet Reger nightdress she had bought Polly as a wedding gift, sh.e.l.l pink and lacy, quite the most beautiful thing Polly would ever have slept in (or not slept, as she hoped the case would be).

Jack had seen her on the drive, and the door opened just as Polly scrambled in her handbag for her key.

'What aren't you to show me?' He had Spencer in his arms.

'None of your business!'

They leant forward to kiss, and Jack rubbed his nose against hers. 'Good day, darling? Mission accomplished?'

'Absolutely. You?'

'Fine. And this little man has been making teeth, his mummy tells me.'

Polly dropped her bags against the coat rack, slouched out of her jacket, and held out her arms to Spencer. 'Oh, my clever, darling boy. Have you been busy while Granny's been away?'

Now Jack, handing over the baby, took in the number and size of the bags. 'Not as busy as you, by the look of it. Did you find some s.e.xy swimsuits?'

He was taking her to Barbados on New Year's Day, for a whole week on honeymoon. He'd wanted to keep it a secret, but she had tickled and kissed and teased it out of him. She'd never been anywhere remotely like that. She'd come down that morning waving the navy-blue utilitarian swimsuit she had been wearing for her morning dip at the leisure centre over the past three years, chlorine-bleached, threadbare around the arm and leg holes and definitely not s.e.xy. Jack had said he thought he might take someone else on their honeymoon if that was the best she could come up with. Then he'd gone to her, while she was waiting for her toast to pop up, cupped her bottom in his hands, and suggested, low in her ear, that she look for something with altogether less Lycra, in a colour that didn't remind him of the fourth-form swimming gala. Spencer had been gurgling beside her, in his bouncing chair, gumming one of his rattles. Now Polly said to him 'Oh, yes, I'll look out for a hot pink thong bikini, shall I? That'll give the fish something to think about, won't it? Yes, it will.' Even Spencer had giggled.

'I wonder if there'll be a glamorous-granny contest at the hotel?'

'I didn't know they had Butlins on Barbados.'

'Ha, ha. I promised you five-star luxury, Mrs Fitzgerald-to-be, and that is what you shall have.'

'As long as you promise me I can sleep until lunch every day, I don't care how many stars it has.'

'That's not really what a chap hopes for on his honeymoon. A catatonic bride.'

She went to him now, but she used the same singsong voice she normally reserved for Spencer. 'Oh my poor darling. Are you afraid you won't get enough attention, poppet?' She put her arms round his neck and pulled his face down to kiss him, pressing herself against him.

'Do you two mind? There's a baby in the room. Not to mention an adolescent with hormones that need no encouragement. And a sleep-deprived zombie.' Cressida, who had just come down, gestured at Spencer, Daniel and lastly herself. She threw herself into a chair, her pyjamas b.u.t.toned up wrongly and her hair a mess. She was smiling.

What a strange, gorgeous family this is, Polly had thought. My baby has a baby. I'm like a teenager. Jack's something important even if it doesn't have a name yet to Daniel, Cressida and Spencer. Thank G.o.d. We've pulled it off. It's going to be all right.

'Hiya, Mum.'

'h.e.l.lo, love.' She kissed Cressida's cheek. 'How's he been today?'

'He's gorgeous, aren't you, darling? Bit sad earlier, but I think that's the teeth.'

'Did you find the gel? And his teething ring? It was in the fridge. I should have told you. Sorry.'

Cressida smiled at her mother. She'd come back from the kitchen with a bottle of milk for Spencer. 'I found it all. Don't worry. We've been fine. You've shopped for England, by the looks of it. Did you get lots of good stuff?'

'I did.' She couldn't resist a girlish shimmy. 'Want to see? I've got half an hour or so before I have to leave for the reading club.'

'I've got to give Spence his bottle.'

'Give him to me I'll do it. You two go. Come on, mate, we can catch the end of Question of Sport.' Jack took Spencer from Polly and rolled his eyes, pantomime-style, at her. Cressida handed him the bottle and laid the muslin square she'd been carrying across his shoulder, smoothing it down across Jack's work shirt. On impulse she kissed him quickly. 'Ta.'

Polly loved the pride, belonging and love in his face as he reached for the remote control, muttering to Spencer about women and shopping, and how they didn't understand the offside rule.

There was a card in one of the bags. Susan had said Mary had given it to her for Polly. She'd forgotten about it until now. She opened it: '15 November, with best wishes for a Merry Christmas And a Peaceful New Year.' It was a Save the Children card. Clare had signed it, with a single kiss, but there was a note on the left side:

This is the right place for me to be. I can do a lot to help, and that helps me. There are so many children here who need love, and I find, here, that I have so much love to give. I thought it had all gone, but really I just hadn't started. I hope that you and Cressida and baby Spencer are doing well.

I've started a book club! But we only have one copy of each book, so it takes a while to organise a meeting. I think of you every time I pick up a book. Love to all.

G.o.d, she was brave. The whole thing, going to Romania, breaking the cycle, was brave, but this struck Polly as one of the braver moments. She was imagining quiet, pa.s.sive Clare marshalling a reading group into discussion when Cressida came back in. She handed the card to her wordlessly.

Cressida read it, and when she spoke, her voice trembled. 'I'm glad.'

'Me too.'

'I feel like I've been forgiven.'

'I think you have.'

Cressida dropped her head on to Polly's shoulder. 'I never knew it would make me feel so lucky. Having him.'

'You never know before you know.'

They were quiet for a moment, sitting on the bed, with the card. Then Cressida stood up. 'Great dress, Mum. You'll slay him. But if you think Spencer's wearing that outfit, think again. My son is not being seen dead in silk bloomers.'

'My wedding, my ring bearer, my outfit.'

'He's my baby.'

They were playing now. Polly hadn't been sure about the bloomers: Susan had talked her into them. Why she had listened to sartorial advice from a woman who had kept her sons in girlie pageboy crops practically until their teens she wasn't sure. She held up her hand. 'Can't argue the toss with you now. I've got a reading-club meeting.'

'Oh, don't worry! It'll keep until tomorrow. Unless, of course, I burn the bloomers while you're at Susan's!'

'Don't you dare!'

'Ladies, ladies, please. There are chaps catnapping here. Move your a.s.s, Poll, or you're going to be late.' Jack was at the bottom of the stairs, waving his car keys at her.