‘Thanks, Cas,’ Jack says as she walks towards the kitchen and just before she reaches the door she hears Jack asking Marcus, ‘So what brought on this surprise visit?’
She rolls her lips between her teeth as she walks back across the dappled lawn towards them with the sunflowers in a vase a couple of minutes later, condensation from the cold beer wetting her other hand. Marcus is nodding, a polite, worried smile on his face, as though he’s trying not to be rude to an overfamiliar stranger who thinks they’re acquainted. Something’s not right. Could it be he’s just nervous? Marcus and Jack haven’t seen each other since the wedding, after all. Jack said they hadn’t spoken then, so it’s the first time they’ve spoken since the magazine row.
‘I wanted the weekend to celebrate my wife, April, but you know Cassie –’ he looks up and smiles as Cassie approaches the table ‘– this lovely young woman, my stepdaughter, was too busy so I binned the idea.’
‘Are we still talking about this weekend?’ Cassie says, putting the sunflowers on the table and handing Jack his beer. She rattles around her head for something else to talk about, maybe the Fruit and Face portraits or the murder-mystery costumes again?
Her stomach drops as she recognises Jack’s mood. He’s not his usual measured self. He’s querulous and stressed; always a bad combination.
Jack shakes his head at Marcus. ‘Oh, come on, Marcus. Don’t put the whole weekend on Cas. If she didn’t want to go, she didn’t want to go. You could have gone ahead with it without her. End of.’
Marcus shrugs and frowns. ‘She said she was just too busy,’ he repeats.
‘But that’s fair enough. You can’t put the fact you cancelled on Cassie. You wanted to have the weekend and you chose to cancel, not Cas. Is that why you’ve turned up here like this? To try and prove she isn’t busy?’
Marcus’s frown deepens. He shakes his head. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Jack …’ Cassie still standing, puts a quietening hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t know how strange Marcus has been acting and she can’t tell him now, in front of Marcus. But Jack can’t feel her trying to calm him. Her hand falls away as Jack leans forward in his chair towards Marcus.
‘No, I’m sorry. It’s not fair, Marcus.’
Marcus lifts his hand to his forehead and massages his temple with thumb and middle finger. Cassie had forgotten he does that when he’s tired or confused by something.
‘I just came to see Cassie, my stepdaughter, not you.’ Marcus’s voice is quieter than Jack’s but Cassie can hear how much effort he’s putting into not shouting.
‘She told you she was busy today, Marcus. Jesus, can’t you take a hint?’
‘Jack, calm down,’ Cassie says, but she can see the muscle in Jack’s jaw bouncing and she knows he won’t calm down.
‘Cassie,’ Marcus says, glancing at Jack, ‘this isn’t right. I don’t know exactly what, but I know something isn’t right here.’
‘That’s enough, Marcus. You don’t get to turn up at my home and start saying shit like that to my wife when this is a tough day for her already.’
‘I think I should go,’ Marcus says, his thumb and forefinger back to his temples as he stands surprisingly quickly, upsetting the table. Making the teacups chatter against their saucers.
‘That’s the only sensible thing you’ve said so far,’ Jack says.
Marcus keeps his head bowed as he starts to shuffle away.
Cassie stands and calls to him, ‘Marcus, wait don’t go!’, but he doesn’t turn back; instead he keeps shuffling forward across the grass. Cassie feels a bruise settle over her heart.
She turns to Jack. ‘What the fuck was all that about?’
‘I’m just fed up of him walking all over you. Look at you, you’re shaking.’
‘That’s because of you getting involved, not because of Marcus.’ Her voice is shrill. She doesn’t care if Marcus hears them. She hasn’t felt this angry for months and it feels fucking wonderful. ‘Something isn’t right with him, Jack.’
‘Yeah, I know, he’s a fucking weirdo.’
‘No, Jack, for god’s sake, I mean I think he’s not well. He’s never been like this before. I was just going to ask him, suggest he goes to see a doctor, when you come storming in stressed from work and immediately having a go at him.’
Jack stands, kicking his chair away with the back of his leg. It topples back on the grass like it’s just given up. The muscle in Jack’s jaw pops as he says, ‘I was just trying to defend you, Cas, stand up for you like I always do when you won’t stand up for yourself; you never used to be like that.’
‘Oh, fuck off, Jack.’ Cassie turns to go after Marcus.
‘With pleasure,’ Jack responds, and swigs from his beer bottle as he stalks into the kitchen.
Cassie and Marcus’s abandoned teacups sit on the table, the saucers are full of tea. She never saw the point of saucers before, but now they suddenly make sense to her; many an argument must have started over a cup of tea. She has a powerful urge to smash the cups and fucking saucers against the side of the cottage. The sunflowers lean against their vase, their faces turned away as if shamed by what they’ve just seen here. Never has she seen such a pretty flower look so sad.
She hears Marcus start his engine and she desperately wants him to stay suddenly, to show him April’s paintings like she said she would, to try and find out what’s wrong, help if she can.
She runs round to the front of the cottage, calling his name, stumbling again on the pebbles but she’s too late; he’s already indicating out of the small drive and, as he turns away, an invisible force winds Cassie, like a strong gravitational pull on her lower abdomen, dragging. She clutches her stomach; it twitches and she knows something’s changed, and that whatever it is it can’t be good, because where she once felt a beginning, now all she can feel is the empty certainty of an ending.
13
Alice
‘Please, call me Elizabeth,’ the Obstetrics Consultant says, as I open the door for her into the family room. She has a homely Scottish accent at odds with her well-tailored suit. She reminds me of Jess and I wonder if people often misread her as I know they do Jess. I boil the kettle for tea as we wait for Jack and Charlotte.
‘Actually, can I have coffee instead?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘We’re in the middle of the terrible twos at home and you know what it’s like when you just can’t get the little imp to sleep. I’m running on caffeine.’
I smile and nod like I understand but I turn away from her so she can’t see my face as I try and think of a way to change the conversation that doesn’t seem rude, or force me to confess that, in fact, I don’t know what it’s like, not really. I’ve learnt most of the time it’s easier to go along with peoples’ assumptions.
‘We’re completely wrapped around her finger, of course. I’ve been told it won’t last for long …’ It sounds as though she’s looking for reassurance from me.