‘What is the deal?’
She hadn’t given Margaret the opportunity to explain even this much herself, so her mother wasn’t the only one guilty of not listening. Sometimes, she thought, we bring out the worst in each other. We work against one another’s grain, setting up ridges and splinters.
Trevor threw his cigarette end into the hedge. ‘It’s a maverick set-up, as you would expect with anything connected to Sullavan. Kandahar is down at the base of the Antarctic peninsula. It was built in the 1950s for the British Antarctic Survey, who closed it down in the late 1990s as surplus to requirements. The bay gets iced up in winter and it’s difficult to supply as a year-round station. They were on the point of dismantling the buildings and clearing the site when Sullavan stepped in and offered to buy it as the base for his pet project: United Europe in Antarctica. It was much cheaper for BAS to sell the place standing than pay for clearance, so Sullavan got quite a bargain. Now he’s got to get some decent science underway; it probably doesn’t matter too much exactly what so long as it has popular appeal and preferably a few familiar names connected with it. Which is where Margaret comes in.’
And by extension her daughter, neither of them went on to add.
‘I see.’
‘Not tempted?’
A lawnmower was whining monotonously somewhere in the middle distance. The gardener was probably Roger Armstrong, a mathematician whose garden on the other side of the lane was tended with millimetric precision, in striking contrast to the Peels’. Trevor liked to wander between his hedges and stand rocking on the balls of his feet while he peered into his tangled flowerbeds. He believed that a garden should be a place to stroll or sit and think, a sanctuary, not a job of work. Today, as if to prove him right, it looked beautiful in its dishevelment. Clumps of goldenrod glowed in the sun and even the mildew on the asters took on a silvery glamour. Thanks to Roger Armstrong’s efforts the air was full of the lush scent of late-season grass.
‘Not in the least.’ Alice smiled. It was easy to sound entirely certain.
Her father put an arm round her and hugged her. His smell, as always, was a compound of cigarettes and wool and something of himself, perfectly clean but also animal like a horse or a dog. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.
‘Well, then. I’m glad you’re so contented,’ Trevor said easily.
As she lifted her head Alice heard a sigh and then a click, as if there had been a second’s interruption of time. She looked along the path towards the goldenrod, seeing it as if she had never looked at it before, all broken up into waves of different depths of colour, and hearing the lawnmower’s buzz separated into a series of vibrating notes that sprayed through the air like drops of molten metal.
Is this what happiness means? she wondered. Just this?
The thought sounded a single hollow note within her head.
Then the world remembered its path and moved forward again. There were just ragged yellow flowers that were not much more than weeds and the sound of a neighbour working in his garden on a sunny Saturday morning.
‘What about Mum?’ Alice asked. ‘Will you get her to have a rest on this holiday?’
Trevor hunched his shoulders, spread his hands slightly. They had been exchanging this gesture for many years, the two of them. They left the shade of the sycamore tree and walked back up the slope of grass to the kitchen door. Dandelion clocks released small seed parachutes as their feet brushed past. Margaret had turned the music up again. The orange lilies had been put in a green enamel jug and placed beside her computer.
The two old people tried to persuade Alice to stay for lunch. Margaret even said she thought there was some cold ham somewhere, by way of an extra inducement.
‘No, I’ve really got to go because we’re having all these people round this evening, and I’ve still got to make the food and buy wine,’ Alice said.
‘Can’t Peter do something?’
It wasn’t that Trevor and Margaret disliked Peter, more that they didn’t understand how he lived a life with no particular plans, not even a proper routine. They thought that his habits and the hours he kept were incompatible with a productive existence. The few pieces of his work that they had seen left even Margaret with nothing to say. They believed that art lived on gallery or drawingroom walls and didn’t incorporate the contents of builders’ skips.
For his part Peter was always polite to them, but the politeness had a resistance to it that was almost ruder than if he had dispensed with it and just been himself.
‘It’s easier if I do it. He’ll be in charge of the barbecuing. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to drive you to the airport on Tuesday?’
‘Your father’s arranged a car to pick us up.’
‘Is there anything else I can do? Shopping? Packing?’
‘I’ve travelled to a few places in my life, Alice. I can manage a ten-day package trip to Madeira.’
‘I know you have, I know you can. So. Have a lovely time. Just sit in the sun. I’ll call you before you go.’
Alice hugged her mother as she left. In her arms, Margaret felt as light and dry as a leaf. Alice had been aware of the change for the past year or two, but it was still uncomfortable to recognise that the woman who had been such an embodiment of strength for her whole life was growing weaker.
‘Think about Kandahar,’ Margaret called after her, as a parting challenge. She believed in having the last word.
Trevor came out to the car to say goodbye. ‘I’d go, you know, if I were in your shoes,’ he said, startling her so that she paused, halfway into the driver’s seat.
‘But you never did go.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t. Maybe I should have done, but that sort of thing was Margaret’s role. She was the adventurer, so I was the stay-at-home. I loved her far too much to risk offering any competition, and then you were born and I didn’t want to miss a single day of your life. But if I were you, now, today, that would be quite different.’
Not for the first time, Alice reflected on her father’s unselfishness. He possessed enough for two. For three, if she counted herself into the equation. She had no children, no husband, yet, no evident ties – except for Pete, although he was enough to keep her firmly anchored. At least I’ve come far enough to recognise that I am selfish, she thought. Trevor was beaming at her. The breeze fluffed up the white feathers of his hair.
‘Then you wouldn’t have been you. You wouldn’t be you now. I don’t want you to be any different from the way you are,’ Alice told him.
He nodded. ‘I don’t think you need have any anxiety on that score. No new tricks for an old dog, you know.’
‘Good.’ She kissed his cheek. As always, Trevor convinced her that the world was a secure place.
‘Have a lovely holiday. Look after Mum.’
‘You know I’ll do that.’
He stood back to watch her go, his hands in the pockets of his shapeless trousers and his hair like thistledown in the sunlight.
It was 5.30 and Alice was lying in a hot bath when Peter appeared in the bathroom doorway. She saw his reflection first in the steamy mirror, then turned her head to smile at him. He was carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
‘I think I’ll join you.’ He grinned.
Pete