Five Unforgivable Things

Natalie saw the look of surprise that flickered across the woman’s heavily made-up face before it was swallowed up in what was clearly a well-practised customer-friendly smile. It was a look she was used to, one that told her she was not quite who, or what, had been expected to come rolling in.

‘Sorry … about the carpet.’ Natalie turned her head to indicate the small trail of dirt and soggy leaves her wheels had brought in with them.

‘That’s all right. Can’t be helped.’ The woman’s face flushed as she came forward, fiddling nervously with the tape around her neck.

‘I’d like to look at a dress, please,’ Natalie said. ‘The ivory one in the window. And, I’m sorry, but I might need a bit of help to try it on.’

***

The house felt cold and empty when she got back, echoing with an unfamiliar silence as she eased her chair into the hall. The one thing you could say about a house normally full of women was that it was rarely quiet, and Natalie was surprised just how much she was missing the hustle and bustle of her family in full swing. Only two nights and the girls, at least, would be back. Mum was a different prospect altogether. If she wasn’t standing on her head or wrapping her legs around her own neck at some yoga class, she’d be trying out a new aromatherapy course or letting herself be hypnotised into thinking she was once Cleopatra, or sitting in a circle in the woods with a group of protesters, waving ‘Save our copse’ placards while communing with the lesser-spotted tree frog. This time it was something involving immersing herself in healing water, though quite what it was that needed healing, Natalie wasn’t at all sure. She’d said she’d be back on Sunday but, with Mum, it was best to take all plans with a pinch of salt and just wait and see what happened.

She knew she should go and check on Ollie but the thought unsettled her. She never knew what mood he might be in, and if it was a bad one she didn’t want to have to cope with it alone. If he’d just lay off the booze for a while, it might help. Laura had been gone almost five months now, and his way of grieving, which involved nothing more than bemoaning his life and the world in general through the bottom of a bottle, was never going to work. Oblivion, yes, but bringing her back, no. And as for even the slightest movement towards acceptance or recovery, definitely not.

Natalie had liked Laura. Loved her, even. She and Ollie had lived together for almost two years and they’d all thought of her as family. Natalie had been thrilled at the prospect of the little niece or nephew they’d announced was on the way, and Mum had been so excited she’d got an old pair of knitting needles out, not that anyone had ever actually seen her use them. In the end, she didn’t get the chance.

The miscarriage had been devastating, for Laura, for Mum, for all of them, but on the face of it, Ollie had seemed to cope remarkably well. He’d done all the right things, assuring Laura they could try again, that it was just one of those things, and that everything would be fine next time. But, as things turned out, it wasn’t. And Natalie knew it was hard for him, being the man, trying to be the rock that Laura needed, when it was so obvious that all he wanted, every time, was to curl up in a ball and just sob his heart out.

Laura left after they lost the third. Just after Easter. Said she couldn’t take any more, that Ollie deserved someone better, someone whole, someone who could do this one simple thing that her body was refusing to do, and no amount of pleading would change her mind.

Natalie had always expected Laura to come back. Ollie probably had too. At the start, anyway. Her giant Easter egg was still sitting on the dining table, unopened, unmoved, untouched, since the day she went, its huge yellow ribbon like one of those ‘Come home’ messages tied around a tree that you hear about in songs. But she didn’t come back. She just went off, not even leaving an address behind, asking them all to respect her decision and not come after her, and poor Ollie still hadn’t got over it. Losing her, or the babies.

There were three tiny crosses on the wall over the bed at his flat, each one carefully carved out of wood. He’d put his heart and soul into making those crosses. Not bad for a man who said he didn’t believe in God, and who spent far too much time with a glass of whisky in his hand, even more so in recent weeks, when there had been no work to think about. Natalie used to envy him those long school holidays, with nothing but a bit of lesson planning to think about, but now she was grateful that September had come around and he’d finally had to go back. He wouldn’t risk his career, would he?

Ah, but it was Wednesday, she realised, with a sudden sigh of relief. Ollie’s chess club night. He’d be out for most of the evening, and with other people, so she wouldn’t have to do her Good Samaritan act after all. He’d probably be drinking, between games at least, but there was little she could do about that. She wasn’t his keeper. None of them were, even though Mum seemed to think it was their mission to help him. To save him, even. But then, Mum knew, better than any of them, how it felt, struggling to have babies, and losing them. No matter how many survived, it was still the ones lost along the way that left their special mark.

She poured some baked beans into a pan and toasted a couple of slices of bread. She’d have a quiet evening in, with an easy meal and a good book, and make the most of this rare time by herself. It might give her the chance to think clearly about the wedding arrangements too, without the constant input of the world and his wife telling her what to do, who to invite, what was expected, how much they all wanted to play their part.

Why was it so wrong to want to keep things small? Phil wouldn’t care one way or the other. He was happy to leave the decisions to her. Whatever made her feel most comfortable. All the fuss of parading up the aisle, with everyone watching, and bridesmaids and ushers … none of that mattered in the grand scheme of things, did it? It wasn’t as if she could link her arm through Dad’s and walk beside him. She’d have enough trouble managing her dress and making sure her hem didn’t get caught in her wheels. That was the bridesmaids’ job, really, if she relented and decided to have any, but short of crouching down next to her or edging along on their knees, she couldn’t picture how it could be made to work. In fact, beautiful though that dress was earlier, the impracticalities of wearing something like that, something meant to flow and sway and skim along the floor, probably made it a no-go. Dresses like that just weren’t meant for the likes of her.

After a lifetime of trying to be as unobtrusive and normal as she could, so people wouldn’t stare at her or ask all those embarrassingly awkward questions, it wasn’t easy to find herself thrust forward, forced to take centre stage. Wasn’t it possible to just be the bride, to slip into the church and marry the love of her life without having to lead an attention-grabbing cavalcade of followers up the aisle? And in a dress bunched up around her lap too? It was a shame, but wedding dresses – proper wedding dresses – were expensive. It was a lot of money to spend, money they were going to be quite short of once they’d paid for the honeymoon and all the adaptations Phil’s small house needed just so she could get comfortably through the front door and up the stairs. No, it would have to be something simpler, shorter, cheaper …

When the phone rang it made her jump. She’d been staring ahead at the wall, imagining the worst, as usual. The beans had gone cold on the plate and she was surprised to find she had tears in her eyes.

‘Hey, Nat. How are you, sweetheart? I miss you.’

Phil. Wonderful, kind and caring Phil. Not for the first time, she couldn’t help wondering what on earth he saw in her, Natalie Campbell, a girl who couldn’t walk or run or even give him a playful kick when he deserved one. Why her, when he could have had anyone? She didn’t know the answer, never had, but she did know she was so very, very lucky to have him.

Chapter 3

Kate, 1977

Dan was so bloody annoying sometimes. He knew I couldn’t get away from the bank much before five – I hadn’t worked there long enough to feel I could ask for favours – and he’d booked us onto a six o’clock train. How was I meant to get home, changed, packed, back out again and onto a train in less than an hour? I hadn’t even decided what to wear yet. What sort of thing was expected in the wilds of rural Somerset in mid-September, at a farm I had never seen but had always imagined as a mixture of elegant low-beamed interiors and squelching knee-deep mud imbued with the smell of cows the moment you stepped outside? And what did he expect us to do about food? I was sure it wouldn’t be the sort of train that served meals, not on our limited budget, and I’d only had a cheese sandwich and the edible half of a windfall apple at lunch.

I hadn’t met his family before and wasn’t totally sure I was ready to now, but there were only so many excuses I could come up with and, after almost a year of going out together, I’d pretty much exhausted the list. No, this was it. The packed Friday-evening train, the awkward introductions when they came to pick us up at the station, assorted aunts and uncles and cousins all coming to get a look at me at the party on Saturday evening, and the spare bedroom that had once been his sister Jane’s set aside especially for me, no doubt with a vase of freshly picked flowers awaiting me beside the bed. It was all arranged, set in stone and there was no getting out of it now.

Of course they would all be lovely. Well, they were Dan’s family, and Dan was lovely, so they were bound to be. But I was nervous, if not actually downright scared, and had no idea how to admit it. It felt so important that they liked me, and accepted me, because Dan was without doubt the best thing ever to happen to me, and I badly wanted these people, their home, their way of life, to accept me, wrap themselves around me and let me in. But what if they didn’t? What if I wasn’t what they had in mind for Dan at all? After all, what did I know about farming or about living in the country? I was strictly a town girl and always had been. I had never even owned a pair of wellies!

‘My mum will love you,’ Dan had assured me when I’d tried to voice my concerns the night before. ‘Almost as much as I do. And Dad … well, you’ll probably hardly see him. But right now, Rich is out and I have the flat, and you, all to myself, so …’ And he’d nuzzled my neck and run his fingers through my hair, and steered me gently towards his bedroom, and after that I’d got so caught up in other things I’d forgotten to worry about it any more.

Trevor was slumped in front of the telly when I got in from work. It was only a quarter past five but he was already asleep, his head lolled to one side, his big grunting breaths lifting the edge of the newspaper that lay open across his chest and dropping it down again, as regular as the clock ticking away behind me in the hall.

I kicked off my shoes and padded past the open door of the living room, trying not to wake him up, and went into the kitchen, flicking the kettle on and grabbing a digestive biscuit from a packet which someone, probably Trevor, had left open, with a trail of careless crumbs scattered not only on the table but across a good part of the floor as well. Still, there wasn’t time to start making any sort of meal, so I took another couple and ran up the stairs with them, hurriedly peering in through each of the open doors at the top, but there was no sign of Mum. Just when I could have used her help, too.

I threw my small case open on the bed and piled in all the essentials I didn’t have to think about. Toothbrush and paste, shampoo, hairbrush, pyjamas, a spare bra and tights, three pairs of knickers – not the slinky ones, just the everyday kind, as there seemed little chance of Dan getting anywhere near them. I’d travel in jeans and a jumper, with a coat in case of chilly country weather and the high probability that someone would expect me to walk somewhere, involving fresh air and fields, so all I really had to do now was sling in another pair of trousers, a t-shirt or two and choose a dress for the party. Oh, and shoes. What on earth should I do about shoes?

***

We made it to the station with moments to spare, the case heavier than I’d expected it to be, bumping hard against my knees as we ran, hand in hand, along the platform and clambered in to the waiting train just before the guard started slamming the doors shut behind us.

‘Okay?’ Dan said, shoving our bags up into the rack above our heads and plonking down into the seat beside me. ‘All set for the big welcome?’

‘As I’ll ever be, I suppose.’

‘They’re not ogres, you know. A bit rough round the edges, maybe, but that’s just how it is, being farmers. You won’t even notice after a while. All the crumpled corduroys and big boots and mucky fingernails …’

‘And that’s just your Mum!’

‘Ha, ha. No, seriously though, Kate, they’re probably just as nervous as you are. A city girl in her posh clothes turning up in their little village, seeing things through city girl’s eyes.’

‘Posh clothes? You must be joking. Look at me!’

‘I am looking at you, and you look great. Okay, not posh, then, but smart. Different. Smart clothes don’t usually figure all that highly where I come from. Not every day, anyway, but they know how important you are to me. They’ll make an effort to make a good impression, I’m sure. You won’t be looking at overalls or mucky boots this evening. Dad will have been ordered to have a shave. And probably a bath too! Believe me, Kate, they’ll want you to feel comfortable while you’re staying, and to have a good time. Just take them as you find them, and they’ll do the same. They’re family. My family …’

‘Yes, I know.’ I gazed out of the window as the train started to chug its way out of the station. ‘It’s just me being silly.’

‘Well, don’t be.’

‘So, how about the party tomorrow? I didn’t know what to bring. Long dress, short dress, jewellery, high heels?’

‘Whatever you’ve brought will be fine. It’s not a fashion show, and nobody’s judging you. Although Mum will have got her pearls out specially, I bet. And bought her first new dress in yonks. It’s not every day a couple get to celebrate twenty-five years of marriage, is it? I wonder if we’ll be that lucky?’

I was still staring out of the window into the darkness, the buildings rushing past unseen, so I could only see him as a shaky shape reflected in the glass. Us? Lucky? Could he possibly mean …? No, now I really was being silly. If Dan was talking about marriage, about us getting married, he wouldn’t do it like this, would he? Dropping hints on a packed train. He’d do it properly, romantically, privately, and when we were both ready. But maybe he was ready. Maybe we both were? Oh, my God! Was this why he was taking me home to meet his parents? Was he going to propose?

I didn’t look at him. Whether it had been a deliberate ‘looking for a reaction’ moment or just an unguarded slip of the tongue, I’d let it go. Say nothing. Do nothing. Pretend I hadn’t noticed. I closed my eyes and leant my head against the cold glass, visions of rings and flowers and me in a stunning white dress floating through my mind. I waited, hardly daring to breathe, but he didn’t say any more.

When I did finally turn my face back towards him, he was reading a newspaper, his legs crossed, his body turned away from me, and whatever the moment had been, it was clear that it had well and truly passed.

As it turned out there was no reception committee. Dan’s dad was waiting outside the station, by himself in the dark, sitting sideways in the front of an old Mini that seemed too small to accommodate his long legs, and parked a bit haphazardly beneath a tree. I got the impression he’d been there some time, no doubt ushered out early to make sure he wasn’t late, because when I first saw him he was almost certainly asleep, his mouth open and his forehead marked with a big wide crease where it had been pressed for too long against the glass.

Dan laughed as he tapped on the window and his dad’s head flew up in surprise.

‘Oh, there you are, lad.’ He opened his door and slowly unravelled himself out onto the pavement. ‘And this must be Kate …’ He took my hand in his large weathered one and unexpectedly lifted it briefly to his lips before lifting my bag up as if it was light as a feather and chucking it onto the back seat. ‘Now, you sit up front with me, and our Dan can rough it in the back with the luggage. I’m Dan’s dad, by the way, as you’ve probably guessed. Samuel Campbell, at your service. But you can call me Sam. Everybody does. Now let’s get you home in the warm and see what Mother’s rustled up for supper, shall we?’

I liked Sam straight away. He had one of those crumpled brown faces that comes from spending a lot more time out of doors than in, and the car smelled of warm straw and a gentle hint of unidentifiable animal that I soon came to realise hovered about him most of the time, whether he was in the car or not.

We drove at breakneck speed through unlit country lanes so narrow I could hear the bushes brush and scratch against the side of the car on every bend. More than once I felt myself flinch, convinced we were about to find ourselves upside down in a ditch, but Sam obviously knew the area like the back of his own hand and we arrived, promptly and safely, at the farmhouse in less than ten minutes.

An old black and white collie came rushing out into the yard as soon as we opened the car doors and immediately leapt upon Dan, frantically nudging him with his nose and licking his hands, as if they were long-separated brothers. Which, in a way, I suppose they were. ‘Hello, boy.’ Dan knelt down in the gravel and let the dog lick his face. ‘Kate, this is Micky. He’s twelve, but it feels like he’s been here much longer than that. For ever, in fact. He’s half blind these days, but a more loving and loyal dog you couldn’t wish to find. Come over and say hello. Give him a hand and let him get your scent.’

I wasn’t used to dogs, let alone being slobbered over by one, but I did as Dan asked, which was why, when his mum appeared in the doorway, the hand I slipped into hers to be shaken was decidedly damp and smelly. She didn’t seem to mind, moving swiftly into a hug, one of her soft plump arms still draped around my shoulders as we went inside. ‘Dan’s never been great at introductions,’ she said, not in all honesty having given him much chance to try. ‘But I’m Molly. And I am so glad to meet you at last.’

There were just the four of us that first night, sitting around the huge kitchen table eating the most delicious beef with mounds of potatoes, which Molly proudly told me she grew herself in the vegetable garden right outside the window, adding that I was more than welcome to take some home with me as I’d clearly enjoyed them so much. I tried to say that they might be a bit heavy, what with us travelling by train, but somehow I already knew I’d have to take some just to keep her happy.

The bedroom Molly had prepared for me was just as I had expected it to be. A big metal-framed bed was piled high with layers of blankets and feather pillows, topped with a home-made patchwork quilt, and next to it, on a small pine cabinet, was a lamp with a frilly edged, slightly faded shade and the vase of flowers I would have bet money was going to be there. Deep-red dahlias, a couple of their spiky petals already detached and lying alongside.

Across the room, facing the window, was a small dressing table with one of those old-fashioned three-sided jointed mirrors that let you see yourself from all angles at once. The top two drawers had been cleared to make space for my things, and the lower ones, which I shouldn’t have looked in but did, were crammed full of all sorts of old stuff left behind by the previous occupant, Dan’s now-married sister, Jane. No wardrobe, which worried me a bit, having brought the kind of dress that would definitely benefit from being hung up for a few hours to de-crease itself. I later discovered that Jane had taken the wardrobe with her when she’d left, her new home having a greater need for it than her abandoned and now little-used bedroom here. Still, when I closed the door to get changed in private, I did find a plastic hook glued to the back of it. That would just have to do.

The small window looked out over fields; not that I could see them until the next morning as it was so utterly, scarily, pitch dark outside on the night we arrived. Not a streetlight or a passing set of headlights to shed even a glimmer across the all-enveloping blackness. And the quiet! I couldn’t get to sleep, and in the end, I had to open my door just enough to pick up the distant comforting sound of Dan’s familiar snoring seeping out from his room across the hall.

***

Dan’s family was nothing like mine. Different places, different values, different lives. If it wasn’t for that chance meeting with Dan at the party our paths would never have crossed. But that’s probably what happens to all of us, isn’t it? How friends, colleagues, couples come together. Sheer chance. A meeting of place and time, and circumstance. If he’d arrived a few minutes later at the door I would have been long gone, out into the rain. Earlier, and I would have been still upstairs, just another blurry face, merging into all the others in the dark of the party.

They say opposites attract, don’t they? Farm boy, city girl. Him so careful, always planning and worrying, while I just took my chances, took life as it came. Together, and happy, nevertheless. But sometimes I think we just wanted different things. Expected different things. And, even though it was Dan who broke us, I know I played my part. Maybe we were doomed to fail, or is that just the sad me, the defeated me, talking? Star-crossed lovers. Isn’t that what Shakespeare said? Not that Dan and I were anything like Romeo and Juliet, but we did love each other. Shared something passionate and caring, and special. For a long time, we did.

The girls think I’m off communing with nature somewhere. I never elaborate, never try to explain, how much I need these talks we have, how much I need to get away sometimes, just to be alone. How much I need you. I sometimes think you’re the only one who understands, the only one who never judges, who sees me exactly for what I am. I don’t think of you as my guilty secret. Never that. I don’t want anyone to think I’m mad. Or desperate. But you are my secret, just the same.

***

Twenty-five years! I watched Dan’s parents taking an inexpert but exceedingly happy turn around the dance floor, and wondered how different things might have been if my dad had lived long enough for my own parents to celebrate such a momentous anniversary. As it was, there was just Trevor, like a big balding cuckoo in the nest, trying to fill my dad’s shoes and failing miserably.

It was hard to imagine being with the same man for so long. Day in and day out, living, breathing, eating, side by side. Sharing the same bed, going on holidays together, making babies. None of my boyfriends had lasted more than a month or two before Dan, and most of them I would be perfectly happy never to set eyes on again. It made me wonder what I’d seen in them in the first place, how I could have been dragged in by some phoney chat-up line or the lure of muscly arms or twinkly eyes, but I suppose you have to work your way past the initial attraction to find out if there’s anything solid enough underneath to make a man worth keeping. With Dan, I knew I had finally found it, and this weekend, with me being included in the celebrations and so thoroughly embraced by his family, I was getting the impression that Dan felt the same way, that this really could be some kind of trial run for something more permanent. Our future together was starting to feel more secure, more certain, more wonderful, every moment we were here.

I had never been to a party quite like it before. It was in a big open-fronted barn tucked away behind the house, on their own land, with a couple of spotlights attached to electric cables draped high over the beams and managing to provide enough light to dance by, while fat white candles flickered more intimately on the tables. I did worry the flames might be a little too close to the bales of hay, or straw, or whatever it was, stacked around the edges, but that was just the townie in me talking. These were country people who lived with barns and straw every day of their lives, and I had to suppose they knew what they were doing. They certainly knew how to have a good time.