The whole tree, every leaf, every single bud, every last flower just waiting to strike you down dead.
Giving the laburnum a wide berth she locked the car and stretched, feeling the blood creeping back through her body. The night was warm and heavy with the perfume of honeysuckle and night scented stock. Kate drank it all in. On the surface it seemed that nothing had changed; the spare key was there, tucked under the stone cat by the conservatory door where it had been ever since she could remember.
Inside the air was cool and still and smelt of home.
Tick-tick-tick, the hall clock welcomed Kate in. She shut the door and finally felt the tension in her stomach easing. Home. Dropping her bag onto the chest by the hallstand, every sense was suffused by wave after wave of compassion and nostalgia. It seemed like a very long time since Kate had been there. Certainly a long time since she’d caught the house this unguarded, undefended by the bright voices of her mother or her sister and the kids. Pulling off her coat, Kate walked across the lobby and switched on the kitchen light.
‘Who the fuck is that?’ barked a male voice.
Stunned, Kate froze and looked up as the landing light snapped on. Peering over the handrail was a figure, a half-naked man, and behind him, leaning heavily against the doorframe and blinking down into the semi-darkness was her mother, Maggie.
‘I’ve rung the police,’ snapped Maggie, in a tough no-nonsense don’t mess with me kind of voice. ‘They’re already on their way. Stay exactly where you are and don’t do anything stupid.’
‘Mum?’
There was a peculiar little silence, and then Maggie said, ‘Kate, is that you? What the hell are you doing here?’
Which wasn’t exactly the sort of welcome Kate had expected.
‘Liz rang. She said you’d had an accident – she said …’ The words curled up and died in Kate’s throat. Her little sister, Liz, for whom every headache was a brain tumour, every chest pain a heart attack. It suddenly occurred to Kate that maybe it would have been a good idea to have rung the hospital and check on exactly how Maggie was and where she was before hurtling up to Norfolk.
Not that that explained everything.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Kate could see the man on the landing more clearly. He was naked except for a small pair of very white pants. They were tight high-cut cotton pants that did very little to cover his nakedness – rather they enhanced it. Behind him Maggie was wearing a plaster cast to the knee, a dark silky chemise and not a lot else.
Her mother.
Kate took a deep breath and made every effort to rekindle her explanation. ‘Liz said you’d fallen down and broken your ankle and that you were all on your own and had got stitches and – and that she couldn’t stay here with you because of the girls. And …’ Those weren’t necessarily the things Kate really wanted to say, so she stopped. ‘What exactly is going on, Mum, and who the hell is that?’
Maggie didn’t miss a beat.
‘Kate, I’d like you to meet Guy, Guy, this is my eldest daughter, Kate.’
Guy nodded. ‘Hi, I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, and as he spoke pulled a bath sheet off the banister and wrapped it tight around his waist. He had no hips to speak of; a belly like the underside of a turtle, broad shoulders, what could surely only be a sun bed tan, but no hips. Kate felt that the towel was more to cover her embarrassment than his.
‘I’ll go and put the kettle on, Mags-baby, go and get yourself back into bed. Would you like some tea, Kate?’
‘Er, yes, please,’ she mumbled.
He had to pass Kate on the stairs. He loped. He smelt of something trendy and couldn’t be more than thirty-five if he was a day. And he had been in bed with her mother. Her mother. Kate was very tempted to slap him.
‘Come on up,’ said Maggie, without a shred of the self consciousness or the shame Kate felt she surely ought to be feeling. ‘Why didn’t you ring to let me know you were coming?’
Making every effort to compose herself, Kate said, ‘Because Liz told me that you were still in hospital. Did you really ring the police?’
Maggie laughed. ‘No, no, of course not. You were making such a lot of noise that Guy thought if you were a burglar you were probably thick and might be taken in if we bluffed it out.’ She eased herself back into the bedroom, wincing with every step, and then lowered herself down very gently onto the side of her big feather bed. ‘There’s no way I could have stayed in hospital, it would have driven me crazy, and Guy was here, so they let me come home.’ As she spoke Maggie set about rolling a cigarette.
‘I thought you told me you’d given up.’
Maggie looked up at her. ‘Give me a break, Kate.’
Caught in the lamplight Kate could see that Liz hadn’t been exaggerating about the damage; one side of Maggie’s face was shiny, taut and navy blue with great claret and gold highlights, a row of stitches adding a macabre Frankensteinesque codicil to the fine skin above her eyebrow.
For the briefest of instants Kate caught a glimpse of the woman her mother really was. Maggie Sutherland was small framed and attractive in a handsome rather than pretty way; she had good bones and her hair, styled into a shaggy chin length coupe savage and coloured to a warm glossy chestnut, was thick and wavy and framed a strong jaw line. It was a face shaped by time rather than worn down by it. She watched Kate watching her, ran her tongue along the sticky edge of the cigarette paper and at the same time lifted one perfectly plucked eyebrow.
‘Well?’ she said, picking up the lighter from beside the bed.
‘You shouldn’t smoke.’
‘I don’t, at least not very much these days. And?’
‘What happened – and who is that?’ Kate indicated the stairwell with a flick of the head, unsure what she wanted to ask first, unsure whether she really wanted to hear the answers.
‘Oh, come on, Kate,’ said Maggie, through a rolling boil of cigarette smoke. ‘What do you call them when you’re over fifteen? His name is Guy Morrison and he’s my lover, my companion, and yes, before you ask, he is living here. He’s letting his place while we see if this works out. Kind of a trial run.’
Kate felt her jaw dropping but was powerless to stop it.
‘So that’s who Guy is.’ Maggie stopped talking and concentrated on flinching as she lifted her leg, trying to find a comfortable spot on the bed.
Kate felt her colour rising. ‘Liz told me that you were seeing someone, but I thought – well, you know I was thinking more whist drives, grey hair and driving gloves. Days out in the country with a picnic and a corgi – but he’s, he’s –’
Kate was squirming now. What exactly was it she was trying to say and why was she trying to say it? That Guy was way too sexy? Too young, far, far too good-looking. God, she would have been pleased these days if someone like Guy gave her a second glance, let alone clambered into her bed. Kate glanced back over her shoulder thinking about the way Guy had looked on the stairs; she’d have to make love with the light off and perpetually hold her stomach in. Kate tried to shift the image, while making a sterling effort to nip that particular train of thought in the bud.
Side-stepping what Guy might or might not be, Maggie continued, ‘You and I don’t see much of each other, Kate. We’ve both got busy lives – it’s not always easy to explain things over the phone.’ In contrast to her earlier conversation with Liz it was a statement with not the barest hint of accusation in it. ‘And anyway I assumed you knew. Liz met Guy when she was here at Christmas.’
Oh, Liz would have met him, thought Kate ruefully. How was it Liz knew all about her mother’s fancy man and why hadn’t she rung and told Kate? How could she have kept something like that to herself; Maggie was living with the man