فصل 09

CHAPTER NINE

I called on Tuesday lunchtime, when a joint one-day strike by French and German air-traffic control had left the bar almost empty. I waited until Richard had disappeared to the wholesaler’s, then stood out on the concourse, outside the last Ladies before security, and searched my phone for the number I had never been able to delete.

The phone rang three, four times, and just for a moment I was filled with the overwhelming urge to press END CALL. But then a man’s voice answered, his vowels clipped, familiar. ‘Hello?’

‘Mr Traynor? It – it’s Lou.’

‘Lou?’

‘Louisa Clark.’

A short silence. I could hear his memories thudding down on him along with the simple fact of my name and felt oddly guilty. The last time I had seen him had been at Will’s graveside, a prematurely aged man, repeatedly straightening his shoulders as he struggled under the weight of his grief.

‘Louisa. Well … Goodness. This is – How are you?’

I shifted to allow Violet to sway past with her trolley. She gave me a knowing smile, adjusting her purple turban with her free hand. I noticed she had little Union Jacks painted on her fingernails.

‘I’m very well, thank you. And how are you?’

‘Oh – you know. Actually, I’m very well, too. Circumstances have changed a little since we last saw each other, but it’s all … you know …’

That temporary and uncharacteristic loss of bonhomie almost caused me to falter. I took a deep breath. ‘Mr Traynor, I’m ringing because I really need to talk to you about something.’

‘I thought Michael Lawler had sorted out all the financial matters.’ His tone altered just slightly.

‘It’s not to do with money.’ I closed my eyes. ‘Mr Traynor, I had a visitor a short time ago and it’s someone I think you need to meet.’

A woman bumped into my legs with her wheeled case, and mouthed an apology.

‘Okay. There’s no simple way of doing this, so I’m just going to say it. Will had a daughter and she turned up on my doorstep. She’s desperate to meet you.’

A long silence this time.

‘Mr Traynor?’

‘I’m sorry. Can you repeat what you just said?’

‘Will had a daughter. He didn’t know about her. The mother is an old girlfriend of his, from university, who took it upon herself not to tell him. He had a daughter and she tracked me down and she really wants to meet you. She’s sixteen. Her name is Lily.’

‘Lily?’

‘Yes. I’ve spoken to her mother and she seems genuine. A woman called Miller. Tanya Miller.’

‘I – I don’t remember her. But Will did have an awful lot of girlfriends.’

Another long silence. When he spoke again his voice cracked. ‘Will had … a daughter?’

‘Yes. Your granddaughter.’

‘You – you really think she is his daughter?’

‘I’ve met her mother, and heard what she had to say and, yes, I really think she is.’

‘Oh. Oh, my.’

I could hear a voice in the background: ‘Steven? Steven? Are you all right?’

Another silence.

‘Mr Traynor?’

‘I’m so sorry. It’s just – I’m a little …’

I put my hand to my head. ‘It’s a huge shock. I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of the best way to tell you. I didn’t want to just turn up at your house in case …’

‘No. No, don’t be sorry. It’s good news. Extraordinary news. A granddaughter.’

‘What’s going on? Why are you sitting down like that?’ The voice in the background sounded concerned.

I heard a hand go over the receiver, then: ‘I’m fine, darling. Really. I – I’ll explain everything in a minute.’

More muffled conversation. And then back to me, his voice suddenly uncertain: ‘Louisa?’

‘Yes?’

‘You’re absolutely sure? I mean, this is just so –’

‘As sure as I can be, Mr Traynor. I’m happy to explain more to you, but she’s sixteen and she’s full of life and she’s … well, she’s just very keen to find out about the family she never knew she had.’

‘Oh, my goodness. Oh, my … Louisa?’

‘I’m still here.’

When he spoke again I found my eyes had filled unexpectedly with tears.

‘How do I meet her? How do we go about meeting … Lily?’

We drove up the following Saturday. Lily was afraid to go alone, but wouldn’t say as much. She just told me it was better if I explained everything to Mr Traynor because ‘Old people are better at talking to each other.’

We drove in silence. I felt almost sick with nerves at having to enter the Traynor house again, not that I could explain it to the passenger beside me. Lily said nothing.

Did he believe you?

Yes, I told her. I think he did. Although she might be wise to have a blood test, just to reassure everyone.

Did he actually ask to meet me, or did you suggest it?

I couldn’t remember. My brain had set up a kind of static buzz just speaking to him again.

What if I’m not what he’s expecting?

I wasn’t sure he was expecting anything. He’d only just discovered he had a grandchild.’

Lily had turned up on Friday night, even though I hadn’t expected her until Saturday morning, saying that she’d had a massive row with her mother and that Fuckface Francis had told her she had some growing up to do. She sniffed. ‘This from a man who thinks it’s normal to have a whole room devoted to a train set.’

I had told her she was welcome to stay as long as (a) I could get confirmation from her mother that she always knew where she was, (b) she didn’t drink and (c) she didn’t smoke in my flat. Which meant that while I was in the bath she walked across the road to Samir’s shop and chatted to him for the length of time it took to smoke two cigarettes, but it seemed churlish to argue. Tanya Houghton-Miller wailed on for almost twenty minutes about the impossibility of everything, told me four times I would end up sending Lily home within forty-eight hours and only got off the phone when a child started screaming in the background. I listened to Lily clattering around in my little kitchen, and music I didn’t understand vibrating the few bits of furniture in my living room.

Okay, Will, I told him silently. If this was your idea of pushing me into a whole new life you certainly pulled a blinder.

The next morning I walked into the spare room to wake Lily and found her already awake, her arms curled round her legs, smoking by my open window. An array of clothes was tossed around on the bed, as if she had tried on a dozen outfits and found them all wanting.

She glared at me, as if daring me to say anything. I had a sudden image of Will, turning from the window in his wheelchair, his gaze furious and pained, and just for a moment it took my breath away.

‘We leave in half an hour,’ I said.

We reached the outskirts of town shortly before eleven. Summer had brought the tourists flocking back to the narrow streets of Stortfold, like clumps of earthbound, gaudily coloured swallows, clutching guidebooks and ice creams, weaving their way aimlessly past the cafés and seasonal shops full of castle-imprinted coasters and calendars that would be swiftly placed in drawers at home and rarely looked at again. I drove slowly past the castle in the long queue of National Trust traffic, wondering at the Pac-a-macs, the anoraks and sunhats that seemed to stay the same every year. This year was the five-hundredth anniversary of the castle, and everywhere we looked there were posters advertising events linked to it: morris dancers, hog roasts, fêtes …

I drove up to the front of the house, grateful that we weren’t facing the annex where I had spent so much time with Will. We sat in the car and listened to the engine ticking down. Lily, I noticed, had bitten away nearly all of her nails. ‘You okay?’

She shrugged.

‘Shall we go in, then?’

She stared at her feet. ‘What if he doesn’t like me?’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

‘Nobody else does.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘Nobody at school likes me. My parents can’t wait to get rid of me.’ She bit savagely at the corner of a remaining thumbnail. ‘What kind of mother lets her daughter go and live at the mouldy old flat of someone they don’t even know?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Mr Traynor’s a nice man. And I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought it wouldn’t go well.’

‘If he doesn’t like me, can we just leave? Like, really quickly?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll know. Just from how he looks at me.’

‘We’ll skid out on two wheels if necessary.’

She smiled reluctantly.

‘Okay,’ I said, trying not to show her that I was almost as nervous as she was. ‘Let’s go.’

I stood on the step, watching Lily so that I wouldn’t think too hard about where I was. The door opened slowly, and there he stood, still in the same cornflower blue shirt I remembered from two summers previously, but a newer, shorter haircut, perhaps a vain attempt to combat the ageing effects of extreme grief. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something to me but had forgotten what it was, and then he looked at Lily and his eyes widened just a little. ‘Lily?’

She nodded.

He gazed at her intently. Nobody moved. And then his mouth compressed, and tears filled his eyes, and he stepped forward and swept her into his arms. ‘Oh, my dear. Oh, my goodness. Oh, it’s so very good to meet you. Oh, my goodness.’

His grey head came down to rest against hers. I wondered, briefly, if she would pull back: Lily was not someone who encouraged physical contact. But as I watched, her hands crept out and she reached around his waist and clutched his shirt, her knuckles whitening and her eyes closing as she let herself be held by him. They stood like that for what seemed an eternity, the old man and his granddaughter, not moving from the front step.

He leaned back, and there were tears running down his face. ‘Let me look at you. Let me look.’

She glanced at me, embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

‘Yes. Yes, I can see it. Look at you! Look at you!’ His face swung towards mine. ‘She looks like him, doesn’t she?’

I nodded.

She was staring at him, too, searching, perhaps, for traces of her father. When she looked down, they were still holding each other’s hands.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was crying. It was the naked relief on Mr Traynor’s battered old face, the joy of something he had thought lost and partially recaptured, the sheer unexpected happiness of both of them in finding each other. And as she smiled back at him – a slow, sweet smile of recognition – my nervousness, and any doubts I’d had about Lily Houghton-Miller, were banished.

It had been less than two years, but Granta House had changed significantly since I had last been there. Gone were the enormous antique cabinets, the trinket boxes on highly polished mahogany tables, the heavy drapes. It took the waddling figure of Della Layton to indicate why that might be. There were still a few glowing pieces of antique furniture, yes, but everything else was white or brightly coloured – new sunshine yellow Sanderson curtains and pale rugs on the old wood floors, modern prints in unmoulded frames. She moved towards us slowly and her smile was faintly guarded, like something she had forced herself to wear. I found myself moving back involuntarily as she approached: there was something oddly shocking about such a very pregnant woman – the sheer bulk of her, the almost obscene curve of her stomach.

‘Hello, you must be Louisa. How lovely to meet you.’

Her lustrous red hair was pinned up in a clip, a pale blue linen shirt rolled up around slightly swollen wrists. I couldn’t help noticing the enormous diamond ring cutting into her wedding finger, and wondered with a vague pang what the last months had been like for Mrs Traynor.

‘Congratulations,’ I said, indicating her belly. I wanted to say something else, but I could never work out whether it was appropriate to say a heavily pregnant woman was ‘large’, ‘not large’, ‘neat’, ‘blooming’, or any of the other euphemisms people seemed to use to disguise what they wanted to say, which was essentially along the lines of Bloody hell.

‘Thank you. It was a bit of a surprise, but a very welcome one.’ Her gaze slid away from me. She was watching Mr Traynor and Lily. He still had one of her hands encased in his, patting it for emphasis, and was telling her about the house, how it had been passed through the family for so many generations. ‘Would everyone like tea?’ she asked. And then, again, ‘Steven? Tea?’

‘Lovely, darling. Thank you. Lily, do you drink tea?’

‘Could I have juice, please? Or some water?’ Lily smiled.

‘I’ll help you,’ I said to Della. Mr Traynor had begun to point out ancestors in the portraits on the wall, his hand at Lily’s elbow, remarking on the similarity of her nose to this one, or the colour of her hair to that one over there.

Della watched them for a moment, and I thought I noticed something close to dismay flicker across her features. She caught me looking, and smiled briskly, as if embarrassed to have her feelings so nakedly on display. ‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’

We moved around each other in the kitchen, fetching milk, sugar, a teapot, exchanging polite queries about biscuits. I stooped to get the cups out of the cupboard when Della couldn’t comfortably reach that low, and placed them on the kitchen worktop. New cups, I noticed. A modern, geometrical design, instead of the worn flowery porcelain her predecessor had favoured, all delicately painted wild herbs and flowers with Latin names. All traces of Mrs Traynor’s thirty-eight-year tenure here seemed to have been swiftly and ruthlessly erased.

‘The house looks … nice. Different,’ I said.

‘Yes. Well, Steven lost a lot of his furniture in the divorce. So we had to change the look a bit.’ She reached for the tea caddy. ‘He lost things that had been in his family for generations. Of course, she took everything she could.’

She flashed me a look, as if assessing whether I could be considered an ally.

‘I haven’t spoken to Mrs … Camilla since Will …’ I said, feeling oddly disloyal.

‘So. Steven said this girl just turned up on your doorstep.’ Her smile was small and fixed.

‘Yes. It was a surprise. But I’ve met Lily’s mother, and she … well, she was obviously close to Will for some time.’

Della put her hand to the small of her back, then turned back to the kettle. Mum had said she headed a small solicitors’ practice in the next town. You’ve got to wonder about a woman who hasn’t been married by thirty, she had said sniffily, and then, after a quick look in my direction, Forty. I meant forty.

‘What do you think she wants?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What do you think she wants? The girl?’

I could hear Lily in the hall, asking questions, childish and interested, and felt oddly protective. ‘I don’t think she wants anything. She just discovered she had a father she hadn’t known about and wants to get to know his family. Her family.’

Della warmed and emptied the teapot, measured out the tea-leaves (loose, I noted, just as Mrs Traynor would have had). She poured the boiling water slowly, careful not to splash herself. ‘I have loved Steven for a very long time. He – he – has had a very hard time this last year or so. It would be …’ she didn’t look at me as she spoke ‘… very difficult for him if Lily were to complicate his life at this point.’

‘I don’t think Lily wants to complicate either of your lives,’ I said carefully. ‘But I do think she has a right to know her own grandfather.’

‘Of course,’ she said smoothly, that automatic smile in place. I realized, in that instant, that I had failed some internal test, and also that I didn’t care. And then, with a final murmured check of the tray, Della picked it up and, accepting my offer to bring the cake and the teapot, carried it through to the drawing room.

‘And how are you, Louisa?’

Mr Traynor leaned back in his easy chair, a broad smile breaking his saggy features. He had talked to Lily almost constantly throughout tea, asking questions about her mother, where she lived, what she was studying (she didn’t tell him about the problems at school), whether she preferred fruit cake or chocolate (‘Chocolate? Me too!’) or ginger (no), and cricket (not really – ‘Well, we’ll have to do something about that!’). He seemed reassured by her, by her likeness to his son. At that point, he probably wouldn’t have cared if she had announced that her mother was a Brazilian lap-dancer.

I watched him sneaking looks at Lily, when she was talking, studying her in profile, as if perhaps he could see Will there too. Other times I caught a flicker of melancholy in his expression. I suspected that he was thinking what I had thought: this new grief that his son would never know her. Then he would almost visibly pull himself together, forcing himself a little more upright, a ready smile back upon his face.

He had walked her around the grounds for half an hour, exclaiming when they returned that Lily had found her way out of the maze ‘on your first go! It must be a genetic thing.’ Lily had smiled as broadly if she had won a prize.

‘And, Louisa? What is happening in your life?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Are you still working as a … carer?’

‘No. I – I went travelling for a bit, and now I’m working at an airport.’

‘Oh! Good! British Airways, I hope?’

I felt my cheeks colour.

‘Management, is it?’

‘I work in a bar. At the airport.’

He hesitated, just a fraction of a second, and nodded firmly. ‘People always need bars. Especially at airports. I always have a double whisky before I get on a plane, don’t I, darling?’

‘Yes, you do,’ replied Della.

‘And I suppose it must be rather interesting watching everyone fly off every day. Exciting.’

‘I have other things in the pipeline.’

‘Of course you do. Good. Good …’

There was a short silence.

‘When is the baby due?’ I said, to shift everybody’s attention away from me.

‘Next month,’ said Della, her hands resting on the swell of her belly. ‘It’s a girl.’

‘How lovely. What are you going to call her?’

They exchanged the glances that parents-to-be do when they have chosen a name but don’t want to tell anyone.

‘Oh … we don’t know.’

‘Feels most odd. To be a father again, at my age. Can’t quite imagine it. You know, changing nappies, that sort of thing.’ He glanced at Della, then added reassuringly, ‘It’s marvellous, though. I’m a very lucky man. We’re both very lucky, aren’t we, Della?’

She smiled at him.

‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘How’s Georgina?’

Perhaps only I would have noticed how Mr Traynor’s expression changed, just a degree. ‘Oh, she’s fine. Still in Australia, you know.’

‘Right.’

‘She did come over a few months ago … but she spent most of her time with her mother. She was very busy.’

‘Of course.’

‘I think she’s got a boyfriend. I’m sure someone told me she had a boyfriend. So that’s … that’s nice.’

Della’s hand reached across and touched his.

‘Who’s Georgina?’ Lily was eating a biscuit.

‘Will’s younger sister,’ said Mr Traynor, turning to her. ‘Your aunt! Yes! In fact, she looked a little like you when she was your age.’

‘Can I see a picture?’

‘I’ll find you one.’ Mr Traynor rubbed the side of his face. ‘I’m trying to remember where we put that graduation photo.’

‘Your study,’ said Della. ‘Stay there, darling. I’ll get it. Good for me to keep moving.’ She levered herself out of the sofa and walked heavily out of the room. Lily insisted on going with her. ‘I want to see the rest of the photographs. I want to see who I look like.’

Mr Traynor watched them go, still smiling. We sat and sipped our tea in silence. He turned to me. ‘Have you spoken to her yet? … Camilla?’

‘I don’t know where she lives. I was going to ask you for her details. I know Lily wants to meet her, too.’

‘She’s had a difficult time of it. George says so, anyway. We haven’t really spoken. It’s all a bit complicated because of …’ He nodded towards the door and let out an almost imperceptible sigh.

‘Would you like to tell her? About Lily?’

‘Oh, no. Oh … No. I – I’m not sure she’d really want …’ He ran a hand over his brow. ‘Probably better if you do it.’

He copied out the address and phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. ‘It’s some distance away,’ he noted, and smiled apologetically. ‘Think she wanted a fresh start. Give her my best, won’t you? It’s odd … to finally have a grandchild, in these circumstances.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Funnily enough, Camilla is the only person who could really understand how I’m feeling right now.’

If he had been anybody else I might have hugged him just then, but we were English and he had once been my boss of sorts, so we simply smiled awkwardly at each other. And possibly wished we were somewhere else.

Mr Traynor straightened in his chair. ‘Still. I’m a lucky man. A new start, at my age. Not sure I really deserve it.’

‘I’m not sure happiness is a matter of what you deserve.’

‘And you? I know you were very fond of Will …’

‘He’s a hard act to follow.’ I was conscious of a lump in my throat. When it cleared, Mr Traynor was still looking at me.

‘My son was all about living, Louisa. I don’t need to tell you that.’

‘That’s the thing, though, isn’t it?’

He waited.

‘He was just better at it than the rest of us.’

‘You’ll get there, Louisa. We all get there. In our ways.’ He touched my elbow, his expression soft.

Della, arriving back in the room, began to load the tray, stacking the cups so ostentatiously that it could only have been a signal.

‘We’d better get going,’ I said to Lily, standing as she came in, holding out the framed photograph.

‘She does look like me, doesn’t she? Do you think our eyes are a bit the same? Do you think she’d want to speak to me? Is she on email?’

‘I’m sure she will,’ said Mr Traynor. ‘But if you don’t mind, Lily, I’ll speak to her myself first. It’s quite big news for us all to digest. Best give her a few days to get used to it.’

‘Okay. So when can I come and stay?’

To my right, I heard the clatter of Della almost dropping a cup. She stooped slightly, righting it on the tray.

‘Stay?’ Mr Traynor bent forward, as if he weren’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

‘Well. You’re my grandfather. I thought maybe I could come and stay for the rest of the summer? Get to know you. We’ve got so much to catch up on, haven’t we?’ Her face was alight with anticipation.

Mr Traynor looked towards Della, whose expression halted whatever he might have been about to say.

‘It would be lovely to have you at some point,’ Della said, holding the tray in front of her, ‘but we have other things going on just now.’

‘It’s Della’s first child, you see. I think she’d like –’

‘I just need a little time by myself with Steven. And the baby.’

‘I could help. I’m really good with babies,’ Lily said. ‘I used to look after my brothers all the time when they were babies. And they were awful. Really horrible babies. They screamed, like, all the time.’

Mr Traynor looked at Della. ‘I’m sure you’ll be simply brilliant, Lily darling,’ he said. ‘It’s just that right now is not a very good time.’

‘But you’ve got loads of room. I can just stay in one of the guest rooms. You won’t even know I’m here. I’ll be really helpful with nappies and stuff and I could babysit so you could still go out. I could just …’ Lily trailed off. She glanced from one to the other, waiting.

‘Lily …’ I said, hovering uncomfortably near the door.

‘You don’t want me here.’

Mr Traynor stepped forward, made as if to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lily darling. That’s not –’

She ducked away. ‘You like the idea of having a granddaughter, but you don’t actually want me in your life. You just – you just want a visitor.’

‘It’s the timing, Lily,’ said Della, calmly. ‘It’s just – well, I waited a long time for Steven – your grandfather – and this time with our baby is very precious to us.’

‘And I’m not.’

‘That’s not it at all.’ Mr Traynor moved towards her again.

She batted him off. ‘Oh, God, you’re all the same. You and your perfect little families, all closed off. Nobody has any room for me.’

‘Oh, come on. Let’s not be dramatic about –’ Della began.

‘Get lost,’ Lily spat. And as Della shrank back, and Mr Traynor’s eyes widened in shock, she ran, and I left them in the silent drawing room to race after her.