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Authors: Elizabeth Buchan
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understand each other very well, and it’s not a question of who’s older and who’s junior. We’re friends, that’s all.’ Leaning over, she dropped a kiss on Lara’s cheek. ‘Don’t look so worried. I’m a big girl now.’ She swung the strap of her bag on to her shoulder and picked up her phone. ‘I must see to my own life. So …’ Again, the kindly smile. ‘I’m just going round to Tess for half an hour or so.’
‘Why are you doing this, Maudie?’
Maudie had vanished.
The kitchen seemed empty. Cold. Maudie was going. Maudie was gone?
She rang Jasmine and told her of Maudie’s plans. ‘Jasmine, she’s barely out of nappies.’
‘Let me get this right. Maudie applied to Harvard and failed to mention it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Wait till I tell Eve.’
‘I find it difficult to take in. It’s awful, actually.’
‘I sympathize. To have such a clever, determined daughter must be hell.’
That made her laugh.
Jasmine said, ‘Did you know that Maudie means “battle maid”?’
‘How on earth did you find that out?’
‘I commissioned research on names. I store stuff like that in the office database. It’s surprising how often it comes in useful.’
‘And you and Eve?’
‘Didn’t have to research those. I’m a sickly-scented flower and Eve was the first woman.’
Again, Lara laughed.
Jasmine became serious. ‘Maudie has to go, Mum. She was laying the ground when she decided to go to sixth-form college and leave Brightwells.’
‘I can’t help wishing to stave off the day.’
‘I see. It’s “Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet.”’
Afterwards the phone rang and rang in the silent kitchen. For once, Lara did not pick it up for she knew it was likely to be Jane Hatfielde, a private client who had taken to ringing in the early mornings and evenings. ‘There are people who are quiet,’ she had explained to a much younger Maudie when she began her work, ‘but there are people who are noisy, and if they happen to be paying, they make themselves felt. It’s what happens.’
Young as she was, Maudie had an innate sense of natural justice. ‘But it shouldn’t be the fussers who get all the attention.’
‘That’s how it is.’
‘I’d fight them,’ she said. ‘But why do you have to work, Mum?’
‘I have to earn money because we have to look after ourselves. When you’re older, we’ll think about your future. I don’t want you to do –’
‘Do what, Mum?’
‘Do what I did.’
Flashback
.
Kneeling down in front of the chest, she opens the bottom drawer. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, is the white crocheted shawl. The paper is becoming brittle, but the wool is still pliant and downy as she ruffles it between her fingers. She remembers how transparent she had felt as she had stowed it away, so paper thin with grief that people might look through her. She remembers, too, how she wept and trembled, and how her mind refused to accept that Louis no longer existed. She remembers Bill saying, ‘I will never forgive you,’ and waking one night to find he was no longer in the bed with her. She remembers going into Maudie’s room – still a baby, the only baby – and holding her.
Sitting down at the table, Lara dropped her head into her hands.
Maudie was cutting the umbilical cord.
This was how it felt to disengage.
Goodbye to supervising every breath a child took.
Goodbye to piecing together childish tales. The pick ’n’ mix of woe and joy.
Goodbye to sticking plasters on grazed knees, fingers and toes.
Don’t be stupid, she thought. All that had ceased some time ago.
It didn’t seem like that. And the feelings of loss were as sharp as they had ever been.
Into her mind stole an image of the shrub in the garden at Membury that had had flowers like tumbling ribbons. She had looked it up. Witch hazel,
Hamamelis mollis
. A plant hunter’s trophy smuggled back from China inthe 1870s. Twigs had been packed, no
‘Why are you doing this, Maudie?’
Maudie had vanished.
The kitchen seemed empty. Cold. Maudie was going. Maudie was gone?
She rang Jasmine and told her of Maudie’s plans. ‘Jasmine, she’s barely out of nappies.’
‘Let me get this right. Maudie applied to Harvard and failed to mention it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Wait till I tell Eve.’
‘I find it difficult to take in. It’s awful, actually.’
‘I sympathize. To have such a clever, determined daughter must be hell.’
That made her laugh.
Jasmine said, ‘Did you know that Maudie means “battle maid”?’
‘How on earth did you find that out?’
‘I commissioned research on names. I store stuff like that in the office database. It’s surprising how often it comes in useful.’
‘And you and Eve?’
‘Didn’t have to research those. I’m a sickly-scented flower and Eve was the first woman.’
Again, Lara laughed.
Jasmine became serious. ‘Maudie has to go, Mum. She was laying the ground when she decided to go to sixth-form college and leave Brightwells.’
‘I can’t help wishing to stave off the day.’
‘I see. It’s “Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet.”’
Afterwards the phone rang and rang in the silent kitchen. For once, Lara did not pick it up for she knew it was likely to be Jane Hatfielde, a private client who had taken to ringing in the early mornings and evenings. ‘There are people who are quiet,’ she had explained to a much younger Maudie when she began her work, ‘but there are people who are noisy, and if they happen to be paying, they make themselves felt. It’s what happens.’
Young as she was, Maudie had an innate sense of natural justice. ‘But it shouldn’t be the fussers who get all the attention.’
‘That’s how it is.’
‘I’d fight them,’ she said. ‘But why do you have to work, Mum?’
‘I have to earn money because we have to look after ourselves. When you’re older, we’ll think about your future. I don’t want you to do –’
‘Do what, Mum?’
‘Do what I did.’
Flashback
.
Kneeling down in front of the chest, she opens the bottom drawer. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, is the white crocheted shawl. The paper is becoming brittle, but the wool is still pliant and downy as she ruffles it between her fingers. She remembers how transparent she had felt as she had stowed it away, so paper thin with grief that people might look through her. She remembers, too, how she wept and trembled, and how her mind refused to accept that Louis no longer existed. She remembers Bill saying, ‘I will never forgive you,’ and waking one night to find he was no longer in the bed with her. She remembers going into Maudie’s room – still a baby, the only baby – and holding her.
Sitting down at the table, Lara dropped her head into her hands.
Maudie was cutting the umbilical cord.
This was how it felt to disengage.
Goodbye to supervising every breath a child took.
Goodbye to piecing together childish tales. The pick ’n’ mix of woe and joy.
Goodbye to sticking plasters on grazed knees, fingers and toes.
Don’t be stupid, she thought. All that had ceased some time ago.
It didn’t seem like that. And the feelings of loss were as sharp as they had ever been.
Into her mind stole an image of the shrub in the garden at Membury that had had flowers like tumbling ribbons. She had looked it up. Witch hazel,
Hamamelis mollis
. A plant hunter’s trophy smuggled back from China inthe 1870s. Twigs had been packed, no
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