Windfallen

  "Yes. You're right. I did."

  It was a thing they did now; this going out together on a Saturday night, heedless of whether they had the money or were too exhausted to really want to. Camille's mother would have Katie--which she loved--and the two of them would make an effort for each other. They would dress up smartly, as if, as the counselor put it, they were still courting. And they would make conversation with each other, away from the sedative of television, the distractions of domesticity. Sometimes Camille suspected that neither of them could face it, that Hal was struggling to come up with the requisite compliment to show he'd noted her appearance. It was hard finding two hours' worth of fresh conversation with someone you'd been speaking to all week. Especially when you weren't allowed to spend your whole time talking about your child. Or the dog. But sometimes, like tonight, she heard an honesty in his remarks and felt reassured by the routine of it, from her lengthy soak in the tub to the way Hal still pulled the chair out for her before she sat down. The way they just occasionally made love at the end of the night. You had to make time for each other, the counselor had said. You had to build your routines. And they still had a lot to rebuild.

  Hal ordered the wine. She knew which one it would be before Hal even spoke: a Shiraz. Probably Australian. Under the table she gently rested her leg against his and felt an answering pressure.

  "My mother's sold the house."

  "The white house?"

  "Yes. Not Pops's house."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. She won't tell me."

  "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

  Her antennae were finely tuned for disparaging remarks, but Camille recognized only an acknowledgment of her mother's secretive nature.

  "Who's she sold it to?"

  "A hotelier. He's going to turn it into a luxury retreat."

  Hal whistled through his teeth. "He'll have his work cut out. She's had nothing done to it in years."

  "She had part of the roof done a few years ago, I think. But I don't suspect money is a factor."

  "What, he's loaded?"

  "I got that impression."

  "I wonder what she got for it? It's a great site. Great views."

  "I think the fact that it was untouched worked in its favor. They all advertise 'original features' now, don't they? And I think she sold some of the furniture with it."

  Hal murmured his assent. "I would have liked to live in that house," he said.

  "Not me. Too close to the cliff edge."

  "Yes. Yes, I suppose it is."

  Sometimes they managed whole stretches of conversation without either of them making reference to or even privately thinking about it. She fought the urge to say something else about the house, just to prolong it. That was the thing they never told you about breakups, that you lost the person on whom you usually just offloaded all those mildly interesting observations you collected throughout the day. Things that weren't interesting enough to merit a phone call to a half friend or acquaintance, just things one wanted to remark upon. Hal had always been good like that. They had never run out of stuff to say. And she was grateful.

  She smelled the duck before it was placed in front of her: hot, fatty, succulent, with the tang of something citrusy in its sauce. She realized that she'd eaten nothing since breakfast. Saturdays often got her like that.

  "Are you going to your mum's house tomorrow?"

  "No."

  "So where are you going?" said Camille.

  She realized as soon as the words were out that they had come out wrong. Some slight inflection had given them an edge she hadn't intended.

  She backtracked. "I just wondered if you had any special plans."

  Hal sighed, as if weighing up how to respond.

  "Well, I don't know if this really counts as 'special,' but one of my neighbors from Kirby is holding a lunch party on Sunday, and Katie and I are invited. He's got a little girl. A year younger," he added. "If it's all right by you, I thought we might go. She and Katie got on quite well."

  Camille smiled, trying to cover the sudden discomfort that had enveloped her. The thought of the two of them being invited anywhere without her was painful, the idea that Katie had been making friends, laying down roots at that place where he lived . . . she closed her eyes.

  "Is that okay?"

  "Of course it is. I was just interested."

  "You can come if you want. I'm sure you'd like them. I would have asked you anyway, but you usually like to have your time on Sundays."

  "No, no . . . you should go. It's just . . ." She paused. "I just know so little about your life over there. It's . . . it's hard for me to imagine you . . . her . . ."

  Hal put down his knife and fork, apparently considering this. "Yes," he said finally. "You want me to drive you over sometime? So you can get an idea of where she spent her time?"

  She wanted nothing less. "No. No, I'm not sure I--"

  "Look. We won't go. You're uncomfortable. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

  "I'm not. Really. Go. It's just a fact in our past, and it's good that some good things came out of it. You go."

  One had to be open about what had happened to the relationship, to face up to the past in order to move forward. That's what the counselor said.

  They sat eating in silence for some time. To her right a couple had begun to argue, urgently, in whispers. Camille kept her face to the front, listening to the strain in the woman's voice.

  The waiter came and refreshed her glass.

  "The duck looks good," said Hal. He shifted a little so that he had increased the pressure on her leg. A delicate pressure, but there all the same.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, it is."

  WHEN HER FATHER LOOKED IN TO CHECK ON HER, KATIE was awake, reading a dog-eared paperback that he knew she'd read twice before. She refused to read anything new at the moment; just reread four or five of her favorite books in rotation, despite knowing the endings and even some of the passages by heart.

  "Hey, you," he said softly.

  She looked up, her half-illuminated face clear, guileless. Her eight-year-old beauty made his heart constrict for future hurts and heartaches.

  "You should be asleep."

  "Did you have a nice time?"

  "We had a lovely time."

  She seemed reassured. Closed her book and allowed herself to be tucked in. "Are we going to Kirby tomorrow?"

  "Yes. If you still want to."

  "Is Mummy coming?"

  "No, no. She likes us to have some special time."

  "But she doesn't mind?"

  "Of course she doesn't mind. She likes you to have new friends."

  Katie lay silently as her father stroked her hair. He did this often these days, just grateful for the fact that he could now do it any night he wanted.

  She shifted, turned to her father, her brow furrowed. "Daddy . . ."

  "Yes."

  "You know when you left . . ."

  He held his breath.

  "Yes."

  "Did you get fed up of Mummy because she couldn't see?"

  Hal stared at her duvet, with its pink pattern of comic cats and plant pots. Then he moved his hand and placed it over his daughter's. She upended hers, so that she could squeeze it back.

  "Sort of, sweetheart." He paused, let out a long breath. "But it wasn't about Mummy's eyes. It really wasn't about Mummy's eyes."

  ELEVEN

  The traditional seaside town was "in" again. She had read it in one of the color supplements and several interiors magazines, as well as a feature in the Independent. After a few lengthy decades when the pleasures of windbreaks, gritty sandwiches, and mottled blue legs had been superseded by Coppertone tans and cheap package holidays, slowly the tide had begun to turn again, and young families especially were returning to traditional seaside towns, trying to recapture the mythical innocence of their youth. The more affluent snapped up run-down holiday cottages or bungalows, while the remainder were buying up beach huts, sending their
values soaring to headline-grabbing levels. Sidmouth in place of St.-Tropez, Alicante supplanted by Aldeburgh; anyone who was anyone was now strolling through some allegedly unspoiled seaside town eating at family fish restaurants and extolling the joys of the good old bucket and spade.

  Except no one seemed to have told Merham. Daisy, driving slowly through the little town, her visibility impaired by the travel cots, high chairs, and garbage bags of clothes she had somehow squeezed into the trunk of her car, stared at the dusty knitting shop, cut-price supermarket, and Seventh-Day Adventist Church and felt a sudden sense of foreboding. Primrose Hill this was not. Even bathed in the milky bright light of a spring afternoon, the town seemed faded and tired, stuck in an unlovely combination of eras when anything bold or beautiful was deemed "showy" and unwelcome.

  She stopped at a crossing as two old women shuffled slowly across, one leaning heavily on a trolley basket while the other sniffed into a patterned handkerchief, her hair pinned down by a clear-plastic helmet.

  Daisy had driven around for almost fifteen minutes trying to find the house, and during that time she had seen only two people under retirement age. The car dealership was dominated by a banner offering "motability" deals for the physically challenged, while the only visible restaurant stood between a hearing-aid shop and no fewer than three charity shops in a row, each displaying a sad haul of unfashionable crockery, oversize men's trousers, and unsanitary cuddly toys. The town's only redeeming feature, as far as she could see, was its endless beach, ruler-marked by rotting breakwaters, and the manicured, post-Palladian splendor of its municipal park.

  Spying a youngish man with a little girl, she wound down her window and called out. "Excuse me?"

  The man looked up. His clothes betrayed his relatively young age, but his face, behind thin-rimmed glasses, was exhausted, prematurely lined.

  "Do you live here?"

  He glanced at the girl, who was clutching a box of batteries, trying fiercely to pry one out. "Yes."

  "Can you point me in the direction of Arcadia House?"

  His head jolted a little in recognition, and he looked at her a bit more assessingly.

  "You're the designer, are you?"

  Oh, God, it was true about these places. She mustered a smile. "Yes. Or at least I will be if I can find it."

  "It's not far. You want to turn right, head down to the roundabout, and follow the road up all the way past the park. It's set into the cliff. It's the last house you'll come to."

  "Thanks."

  The girl tugged at her father's hand. "Dad . . . ," she said impatiently.

  "I think you'll find the owner's there waiting for you. Good luck," he added, suddenly breaking into a grin, and then he turned away before she could ask him how he knew.

  THE HOUSE MADE UP FOR IT. SHE KNEW IT AS SOON AS she glimpsed it, felt that flicker of excitement, the pleasure of a new canvas, as soon as it laid itself out, broad and white and angular, before her at the apex of the curved drive. It was bigger than she'd expected, longer and lower, with layers of cubed-glass windows and portholes gazing wide-eyed out at the glinting sea. Ellie was still asleep from the journey, so Daisy opened the car door, peeled herself from the plastic seat, and stepped out onto the gravel, her stiffness and sweatiness evaporating as she took in the modern lines, the brave, brutal angles of it, and breathed in the fresh salt air. She didn't even need to look inside; she knew that, set as it was like some great outcrop of rock against the vast curve of the ocean, under a wide-open sky, this house contained rooms that were generous and flooded with light. Daniel had taken photographs, had brought them to her when she was at home with the newborn Ellie, and she had worked on her ideas at night, drawn up her initial sketches from those. But they had not done it justice, had given no hint of its minimalist beauty, its severe charm, and the plans they'd had for it already seemed too tame, too mundane.

  She glanced behind her, checking that Ellie was still asleep, then ran lightly down to the open gate that led through into the stepped garden. There was a paved terrace, its whitewash worn and blistered with lichen, while down a series of steps, hung with lilac, a path led through overgrown walled enclosures to the beach. Above her the breeze murmured meditatively through the branches of two Scotch pines, while a colony of excited sparrows dived in and out of an unruly hawthorn hedge.

  Daisy stood gazing around her, her mind already a jumble of ideas, each swiftly conjured and discarded as she took in some new feature, some unusual marriage of space and line. She had briefly thought of Daniel, of the fact that this should have been their project, but she pushed his image away. The only way she was going to be able to do this was if she treated it as a new start, as if, like Julia had said, she had already pulled herself together. The house helped; she tripped down the stairs, peering into windows, turning to take it in from different angles, seeing its possibilities, its latent beauty. Oh, God, but she could make this place magical! It held more promise than anything she'd ever worked on before; she could turn it into something that would grace the pages of the hippest style magazines, a haven that would provide a draw for anyone who ever had a notion of what style really meant. It will design itself, she thought. Already it is speaking to me. The house is speaking to me.

  "Trying to exercise her lungs, are you?"

  Daisy spun around to see Ellie, tearstained and hiccuping, in the arms of a short, elderly woman with gunmetal hair tucked back behind her ears in a severe bob.

  "Sorry?"

  She moved forward, up the steps, and the woman handed Ellie to her, several thick bangles colliding on her arms.

  "Thought you must be hoping for an opera singer, the way you left her howling."

  Daisy ran a hand gently over Ellie's drying tears. Ellie leaned forward, resting her face against her mother's chest.

  "I didn't hear her," Daisy said awkwardly. "I couldn't hear anything."

  The woman stepped forward, looked past the two of them to the sea. "I thought you girls were all supposed to be paranoid about baby snatchers these days. Afraid to leave them for a minute."

  The woman gazed neutrally at Ellie, who was now smiling back at her.

  "What is she, four, five months? You've all got it ass-upward as far as I can see. If you're not fretting about what you're putting in their mouths or popping them into cars for ten-yard journeys, you're leaving them to scream in an open car miles from anywhere. Makes no sense."

  "We're hardly miles from anywhere."

  ". . . giving them to nannies and then complaining when they get attached."

  "I don't have a nanny. And I didn't leave her deliberately. She was asleep." Daisy heard the petulant tremor of tears in her voice. They seemed to be permanently there these days, waiting just under the surface to break through.

  "Anyway. You'll want the keys. Jones or whatever he calls himself can't be here till the middle of the week, so he's asked me to get you settled in. I've left you my granddaughter's old crib--it's got a few bite marks around the top, but it's still sound. There's still some bits of furniture in there, and cooking things in the kitchen, but I left you some bedlinens and towels, because he didn't say what you'd be bringing. And there's a box of groceries in the kitchen. Thought you probably wouldn't come with much."

  She glanced behind her.

  "My husband's going to bring up a microwave later, as we couldn't get the range working. So you'll have something for bottles. He'll be here about half six."

  Daisy hesitated, unsure how to respond to this swift shift from censure to generosity. "Thank you."

  "I'll be in and out. I won't get in your way. But there are some things I've still got to remove. Jones said I could take my time."

  "Yes. I . . . I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name."

  "That's because I didn't give it to you. I'm Mrs. Bernard."

  "I'm Daisy. Daisy Parsons."

  "I know."

  As Daisy held out her hand, shifting Ellie's weight on her hip, she noted the older woman's swift glance at
her ring finger.

  "You'll be staying on your own?"

  Daisy looked unconsciously at her hand. "Yes."

  Mrs. Bernard nodded, as if that were entirely to be expected.

  "I'll go and check that the heating's working, and then I'll leave you to it. You won't need it now, but there's a frost due tonight," she said, walking slowly away. As she got to the gate at the side of the house, she turned and called back. "There's all sorts already got their knickers in a twist about this place. They'll be along before you know it, telling you where you're going wrong."

  "That's something to look forward to, then," said Daisy feebly.

  "I shouldn't take any notice. This house has always managed to upset them, one way or another. Don't see as how you'll be any different."

  IT WAS ONLY WHEN ELLIE HAD FINALLY SETTLED, safely wedged into the double bed with a clutch of pillows, that the tears had come. Daisy had sat in the half-furnished house, fatigued, lonely, and suddenly without the distractions of her daughter, unable to escape the mammoth task she'd taken on and the fact that she'd taken it on single-handedly.

  She had picked at a microwave meal, lit a cigarette (a renewed habit), and wandered through the decrepit rooms with their smell of mildewing fabrics and beeswax, and slowly her visions of glossy pages and stark, modernist walls had been overtaken by alternative images: those of herself clutching a screaming baby, faced with recalcitrant workmen and a furious owner--while outside, a crowd of angry locals demanded she be removed.

  What have I done? she thought miserably. This is too big, too far beyond me. I could spend a month on one room alone. But there was no going back; the Primrose Hill flat was empty, her remaining furniture in her sister's barn, half a dozen explanatory messages apparently unheeded on Daniel's mother's answering machine (flustered and apologetic, she had said she didn't know where he'd gone either). If he didn't pick them up, then he wouldn't know where to find them. That's if he was ever going to find them. Or even try.

  She thought of Ellie, peacefully asleep, unaware that her father had deserted her. How would she cope with the knowledge that he hadn't loved her enough to stay around? How could he not have loved her enough?