Written in Blood(73)

‘I might go to my nan’s after school.’

‘Oh. Thank you for letting me know.’ Sue gave the smile that constant disparagement had made a little foolish. ‘Bye-bye then.’

The door banged and they were gone. Sue felt, as she always did at such moments, immense relief slightly tinged with guilt. She put a few bits of coal into the greedy Aga, in situ when they had bought the place and always on the point of being given its marching orders, and drew the old armchair up close.

The house settled round her, silent and comforting. She breathed in and out slowly, calming down, letting go of the miserable sense of oppression that never left her when the family were present.

Family! What a misnomer that was. Whilst Sue was not foolish enough to be taken in by the sickly radiance of the cereal-crunching simpletons in television commercials, she was sure that, between their phoney jollity and the isolating and loveless desolation pervading Trevelyan Villas, there must somewhere exist a golden mean. Mothers and fathers and children who both argued with and supported each other, loved and hated each other, helped each other out in times of trouble and united fiercely at the merest hint of outside criticism.

She wondered, as she frequently did even when telling herself not to, if there had been a point somewhere in the past where she could have chosen a different path. She had got pregnant - so what? It had been 1982 - not the thirties when single mothers were practically stoned in the street. She could have resisted her parents’ pressure and that of the Claptons, terrified lest the neighbours discover that their son had got his ‘fiancée’ into trouble. Brian, newly in lust (for Sue had ‘fallen’ for Amanda the first time they had gone to bed), seemed very keen and, of course, an abortion was out of the question.

Sue had always loved children and had hoped one day to have at least four. When Amanda was a baby Sue had been as close to perfect happiness as she had ever known. Bathing and dressing her daughter, playing with her, teaching her to walk. Simply loving her. Even Brian’s rapidly souring demeanour and the start of his assertions that she had deliberately trapped him into marriage were rendered harmless by this golden centre to her life.

But then, gradually, everything had changed. Brian’s parents, only five miles away and doting on their only grandchild, demanded more and more of her time. Brian would drive over there every weekend, sometimes leaving Amanda for the whole two days. She would always return with an armful of presents, tired, fretful and sick from too many sweets.

At first, loving her daughter more than she feared her husband’s displeasure, Sue had argued against the duration and frequency of these visits. Perhaps one trip a month would be more suitable, just for the afternoon? And why shouldn’t they all go?

These suggestions had provoked endless rows, with Mrs Clapton insisting that Susan was trying to turn little Mandy against them and Mr Clapton begging everyone to keep their voices down as noise travelled in the summer even over the sound of lawn mowers. Amanda had screamed and yelled and kicked to demonstrate her own preference and, once having got the hang of the telephone, screamed and sobbed down that as well, leaving her devoted nanna quite heartbroken over the poor mite’s cruel deprivations.

Of course Sue gave way. It wasn’t hard, for the three of them had so firmly annexed the child that she sensed the battle lost before it was even properly engaged. Also she had, by then, started the village play group and was surrounded every day by toddlers with tears that needed mopping, grazes to be kissed better, tempers that had to be restrained and, most satisfying of all, ears yearning for stories.

This reflection brought Sue back to the present with a start. She jumped up to turn the clock round but it was all right, there was half an hour yet. She opened the cupboard under the stairs where she kept her paints and fabric trimmings, stuffing and glue. The night before she had completed ten finger puppets made from Tampax cylinders - brilliantly coloured monkeys and hobgoblins, witches and dinosaurs. She fixed an anteater, insolently sneering down an endless snout, to her little finger, waggled him about and imagined the children’s faces when all ten magically appeared as if from nowhere, nodding and chattering to them all.

Having packed her box Sue sat down again and ran through her check list. Pick up squash from village shop. Remind Mrs Harris she was on biscuits next week. Ask Marie Bennet if her husband would have a look at the electric kettle. Contact Rex.

She had called at the house again yesterday evening and was sure that he was in, for she heard Montcalm bark, but no one came to the door. This was not at all like Rex for, apart from his precious writing period, he was always delighted to see people, sometimes to a degree where it was hard to get away.