Mrs. Bernard, however, was suddenly quiet. She gazed at the contents of her plate for a minute, then looked over at Hal, her face blank. "How's the business?"
He paused for a minute before replying. "Not great. But there's an antiques dealer over at Wix who has promised to put some work my way."
"I guess it's a bit like mine," said Daisy. "When things get tight, people don't spend money on the insides of their houses."
"You've been talking about that dealer for weeks. You can't hang around waiting forever. Shouldn't you wind it down now? Try to get a job somewhere?"
"Come on, love . . . not here." Mr. Bernard reached an arm toward his wife.
"Well, there must be places that need people who can do carpentry. Furniture warehouses and suchlike."
"I don't make factory furniture, Ma." Hal was struggling to maintain his smile. "I restore individual pieces. It's a skill. There's a big difference."
"We had terrible trouble getting work in our first couple of years," said Daisy quickly.
"Hal's got some things in the pipeline," said Camille, her own hand sliding under the table toward her husband's. "It's been a quiet time for everyone."
"Not that quiet," said her mother.
"I'm taking it one day at a time, Ma. But I'm good at what I do. The business is a good one. I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet."
"Yes, well, you want to make sure you don't go bankrupt. Or you'll drag everyone down with you. Camille and Katie included."
"I've got no intention of going bankrupt." Hal's face had hardened.
"No one ever has any intention of going bankrupt, Hal."
"That's enough, love. . . ."
Mrs. Bernard turned to look at her husband, her face childishly mutinous.
There was a prolonged silence.
"Anyone want some pudding?" said Daisy, trying to fill the gap. She had found an old hand-thrown bowl in one of the downstairs cupboards and filled it to the brim with glistening fruit salad.
"Have you got any ice cream?" said Katie.
"I don't eat fruit," said Mrs. Bernard, standing to clear the table of plates. "I'll make us all a pot of tea."
"DON'T TAKE MUM'S COMMENTS TOO MUCH TO HEART," said Camille, appearing at Daisy's side in the kitchen as she cleared the plates. "She's not really nasty. It's all a bit of a front."
"A cold front," joked Hal, who appeared behind her. He followed her everywhere, Daisy had noticed. She was increasingly uncertain whether he was being protective or just needy.
"She's all right underneath. She's just always been a bit . . . well, sharp, I guess. Would you say sharp, Hal?"
"Your mother makes a steel blade look cuddly."
Camille turned to face Daisy. Daisy focused on her mouth. "Actually, you're okay. She likes you."
"What, she said so?"
"Of course not. But we can tell."
"It's the way she hasn't been baying for your blood at midnight, her fangs dripping saliva."
Daisy frowned. "It doesn't feel--You surprise me."
Camille smiled brightly at her husband. "It was her idea that we all come today. She thought you might be lonely."
Daisy smiled less brightly, her faint pleasure that Mrs. Bernard liked her after all dampened by the idea that she was now an object of pity. She had spent twenty-eight years being a girl everyone envied; the sympathy mantle did not sit comfortably.
"It was nice. Of you all. To come, I mean."
"A pleasure," said Hal. "To be honest, we were keen to see the house."
Daisy flinched at his choice of words, but Camille didn't seem to notice.
"She never really welcomed visitors up here, you see," Camille said, reaching down for Rollo's head. "It was always her little bolt-hole."
"Not so little."
"We only came up on the odd occasion. And Dad never really liked it here, so it's not like it was ever a family home."
"So you won't miss it."
"Not really. Most houses I don't know are just a series of obstacles to me."
"But didn't you mind? Her always coming away from you all?"
Camille turned to face Hal. She shrugged. "I guess it's only what we've always known. Mum has always had to have her own space."
"I suppose all families have their eccentricities," said Daisy, whose family didn't.
"Some more than most."
SEVERAL HOURS LATER HAL AND CAMILLE STROLLED back through Merham arm in arm, Rollo a few paces ahead, Katie skipping backward and forward, apparently involved in some complicated negotiation with the edges of the paving slabs. Occasionally she would run back and thrust herself pleasurably between them, demanding to be swung upward, even though she was too tall and too heavy. It was beginning to lighten up in the evenings now, the dogwalkers and evening travelers looking rather less resolute and windblown, walking with their heads up instead of braced against the gale. Hal nodded a hello to the owner of the newsagents, who was just closing up for the evening, and they turned the corner into their own street. Katie ran on ahead, shrieking at some friend she'd spied at the top of the road.
"Sorry about Mum."
Hal put his arm around his wife. "It's okay."
"No. It's not okay. She knows you're working as hard as you can."
"Forget it. She's just worried about you. I guess any mother would be the same."
"No. They wouldn't. They wouldn't be that rude anyway."
"That's true."
Hal stopped to adjust Camille's scarf. One end had started to work its way toward her feet.
"You know, maybe she's right," he said as she rebuttoned the collar of her coat. "That dealer's probably stringing me along."
He paused. Sighed, loudly enough for Camille to hear.
"Is it that bad?"
"We've got to be completely honest now, haven't we?" He smiled mirthlessly, mimicking the counselor's words. "Okay . . . it's not good. In fact, I've been thinking I should start working out of the garage. Silly paying for the workshops when . . . when there's nothing in them. . . ."
"But Daisy said she might be able to find--"
"It's that or pack in the business altogether."
"I don't want you to give up the business. It's important to you."
"You're important to me. You and Katie."
But I don't make you feel like a man, thought Camille. I still somehow make you feel diminished. The business is the only thing that seems to keep you upright.
"I think you should give it a while longer," she said.
DAISY, SETTLING DOWN FOR THE EVENING WITH A SHEAF of fabric samples, felt a little better. Camille had invited her to come to the salon for a treatment. Her treat, she said. As long as Daisy would let her do something adventurous. Mrs. Bernard had agreed to look after Ellie on a more regular footing, hiding her evident pleasure under a tart litany of conditions. Mr. Bernard had told her not to let the buggers get her down, with a wink in the direction of his wife. And Ellie, unusually, had gone to sleep without even a murmur, exhausted by the unaccustomed levels of attention. Daisy had sat on the terrace, wrapped up against the evening chill, looking out to the sea and smoking a leisurely cigarette as she worked, feeling, briefly, not lonely. Or not as lonely. It was a feeling that might well have lasted a few days. So it had seemed doubly unfair when the fates, in the shape of her long-silent mobile phone, had conspired to destroy her temporary equilibrium.
First Jones rang and told her (not asked, she noted) that he wanted to meet the following evening for A Talk. Words guaranteed to place a clammy hand around her heart. Seven weeks and three days ago, Daniel had told her he wanted A Talk. "We'll go out somewhere. Away from . . . distractions," Jones said. He meant Ellie, she knew.
"I'll baby-sit," Mrs. Bernard had said approvingly the following day. "Good for you to get out a bit."
"As the hangman said to the condemned man," muttered Daisy.
And then, on Monday, shortly before he was due to arrive, the phone rang again. This time it was Marjorie Wiener. To
tell her, breathlessly, that she'd finally heard from her son. "He's been staying with one of his old friends from university. He says he's been having a bit of a breakdown." She sounded flustered. But then Marjorie Wiener always sounded flustered.
Daisy's initial heart stop had been replaced by a slow, simmering anger, which swiftly rose to the boil. A breakdown? Surely if one were having a nervous breakdown, then one couldn't be together enough to recognize one was having a breakdown? Wasn't that what catch-22 was all about? And how easy for him to have a breakdown with no child to look after. Because, as far as she was concerned, a breakdown was a luxury--she didn't have the time or energy for a bloody breakdown.
"So is he coming back?" She was having difficulty keeping her voice level.
"He just needs some time to work things out, Daisy. He's really in a state. I've been quite worried about him."
"Yes, well, you can tell him that he'll be in even more of a bloody state if he comes anywhere near us. How does he think we've survived without him? Without even a bloody five-pound note from him?"
"Oh, Daisy, you should have said if you were short. I would have sent some money--"
"That's not the fucking point, Marjorie. It's not your responsibility. It was Daniel's responsibility. We were Daniel's fucking responsibility."
"Really, Daisy, there's no need for language like--"
"Is he going to ring me?"
"I don't know."
"What, he asked you to ring me? Six years together and a baby, and suddenly he can't even speak to me in person?"
"Look, I'm not particularly proud of him at the moment, but he's not himself, Daisy. He's--"
"Not himself. He's not himself. He's a father now, Marjorie. He's supposed to act like a father. Is it someone else? Is that it? Is he seeing someone else?"
"I don't think there's anyone else."
"You don't think?"
"I know. He wouldn't do that to you."
"Well, he seems to have had no trouble doing pretty well everything else to me."
"Please don't go getting yourself in a state, Daisy. I know it's hard, but--"
"No, Marjorie. It's not bloody hard. It's bloody impossible. I've been left alone with barely a word of explanation by someone who can't even bring himself to talk to me. I've had to leave our home because he didn't think about the fact that I and our baby had no money to support ourselves. I'm stuck in a building site a million miles from nowhere because Daniel took on a bloody job that he had no intention of completing--"
"Now, that's hardly fair."
"Fair? You're going to tell me what's fair? Marjorie, no offense, but I'm going to put the phone down. I'm going to--No, I'm not listening. I'm putting the phone down now. La, la, la, la, la . . ."
"Daisy, Daisy dear, we'd really like to see the baby--"
She had sat, trembling, her dead phone in her hand, Marjorie's feeble request buried under her burgeoning sense of outrage. He hadn't even thought to ask how his daughter was. He hadn't seen her for more than six weeks, and he hadn't even wanted to make sure she was okay. Who was this man she had loved? What had happened to Daniel? Her face crumpled, and she dropped her head onto her chest, wondering how this pain could continue to manifest itself so physically.
And even as she fought to contain her sense of anger and injustice, a creeping voice asked whether she should have lost her temper at all. She didn't want to do anything to put him off coming back, did she? What would Marjorie say to him now?
Conscious suddenly of another presence in the room, she turned to find Mrs. Bernard standing very still in the doorway, Ellie's dirty clothes in the crook of her arm.
"I'll take these home with me this evening and put them through the wash. Save you walking all the way to the launderette."
"Thank you," said Daisy, trying not to sniff.
Mrs. Bernard still stood there, looking at her. Daisy fought the urge to tell her to go away.
"You know, sometimes you just have to move on," the older woman said.
Daisy looked up sharply.
"To survive. Sometimes you just have to move on. It's the only way."
Daisy frowned. Opened her mouth as if to speak.
"Still. As I said, I'll take these home with me when I leave. The little one dropped off with no trouble. I've put the extra blanket on, as it's a bit chilly with that easterly wind."
Whether it was the wind or the Wieners, Daisy found herself infected with a kind of recklessness. She had run upstairs and pulled on a pair of black trousers--the first time she'd been able to do so since Ellie's birth--and a red chiffon shirt that Daniel had bought her for her birthday, back before she'd become pregnant and consigned to shapeless tents. The combination of stress and a broken heart might inflict terrible damage to your peace of mind, she thought, her jaw set, but, boy, did it help your figure. She teamed this with a pair of stiletto-heeled boots and an unusual amount of makeup. Lipstick could do wonders for one's sense of self-worth, her sister had said. But then Julia had never been seen without it, not even in bed with the flu.
"You can see your bra through that," remarked Mrs. Bernard as Daisy tripped down the stairs.
"Good," said Daisy spikily. She was not going to be swayed by Mrs. Bernard's miserable asides either.
"You might want to tuck your label into your collar, though." Mrs. Bernard paused. Smiled to herself. "People will talk."
JONES RUBBED AT HIS BROW AS HE PULLED THE SAAB into Merham High Street and headed up toward the park. His head had begun pounding shortly after he passed Canary Wharf, and by the time he was halfway along the A12, the slight throb over his eyes had become a full-blown headache. He had fumbled in his glove compartment on a whim and located the headache pills that Sandra, his secretary, had secreted there. A bloody marvel, that woman. He would give her a raise. If he hadn't already given her one three months ago.
The discovery of the Tylenol was the one high point in a week of lows. Which said something about his week. Alex, his ex-wife, had announced that she was getting married. One of his most senior barmen had almost come to blows with two influential journalists who'd decided to play naked Twister on the pool table. It hadn't been the nakedness he'd objected to, he protested to Jones afterward, it had been the fact that they wouldn't move their drinks off the baize. But now there was barely a day where the Red Rooms wasn't mentioned in society or gossip columns as "past it" or "failing," while his attempts to woo the columnists with a crate of whiskey had come unstuck when they reported the gesture and branded it "desperate."
And in a month's time a rival club--the Opium Rooms--was opening two streets away, its proposed membership, ambience, and ethos suspiciously close to the Red Rooms', its arrival already generating a buzz in the circles Jones called his own. That was why this Merham retreat had become so important; you had to stay ahead of the game. You had to find new ways to keep your members close.
And now this bloody girl was screwing it up. He had suspected that she wasn't up to it when she kept whining on about his calling "at a bad time." He should have listened to his gut instinct; in business there were no bad times. If you were professional, you just got on and did the job. No excuses, no prevarication. It was why he didn't really like working with women--there was always some period pain or boyfriend that meant they couldn't quite focus on the job at hand. And then if you confronted them about it, they usually burst into tears. In fact, apart from his secretary, there were only two women he felt completely comfortable with, even after all these years: Carol, his long-standing PR person, who had only to raise a manicured eyebrow to express disapproval, whose loyalty was absolute, and who could still drink him under the table. And there was Alex. The only other woman who wasn't either particularly impressed by him or frightened of him. But Alex was getting married.
Alex was getting married.
When she first told him, his first, childish, instinct had been to ask her to marry him again. She'd burst out laughing. "You're incorrigible, Jones. It was the worst eighteen
months of both our lives. And you only want me now that someone else does." Which had, he had to admit, been partially true. Over the years since, he had made the occasional pass at her--which she gracefully refused (he was secretly glad)--but they had each valued their continued friendship (to the annoyance, he knew, of Alex's new partner). But now she was moving on, and things were going to change. And the seal on their past would be absolute.
Not that there weren't distractions. It was very easy to get laid running a club. When he started out, he frequently slept with the waitresses, usually tall, slender, wanna-be actresses or singers, all hoping to rub up against some producer or director while serving drinks. But he had realized quickly that that led to staff rivalries, tearful demands for pay raises, and eventually the loss of good staff. So for the last year and a half he'd led the life of a monk. Well, a mildly promiscuous monk. Occasionally he would meet a girl and take her home, but it seemed to give him less and less satisfaction, and he always offended them because he could never remember their names afterward. Half the time it wasn't worth the aggravation.
"Jones."
"It's Sandra. Sorry to bother you while you're driving, but the date has come through for your licensing appearance."
"And?" He fiddled to get the hands-free set into his ear.
"And it's the same time as your trip to Paris."
He spit out an expletive. "Well, you'll have to ring them. Tell them to reschedule."
"What, Paris?"
"No. The court appearance. Tell them I can't make that date."
Sandra paused. "I'll ring you back," she said.
Jones pulled the Saab up the hill and onto the gravel driveway that led to Arcadia. Problems, problems, problems. Sometimes he felt that he spent his entire time sorting out other people's messes, rather than simply getting on and doing what he did best.
He turned off the engine and sat for a minute, his head still painful, his brain too full of stress and clutter to appreciate the silence. And now here was more. The girl was going to have to go. It would be for the best. He was a great believer in terminating a situation before it got too bad. He would cut his losses and go with the other firm, the one based in Battersea. Just please don't let her burst into tears.
Jones reached into the glove compartment and shoveled another handful of headache pills into his mouth, wincing as he swallowed without water. He sighed, closed his car door, and walked up to the front door. It was opened, before he could ring the bell, by Mrs. Bernard. She stood with that steady gaze she had, the one that suggested she knew quite what you were all about, thank you.