Read Online The New Woman by Charity Norman - Free Book Online Page A

Livingstone and made a career out of being a farmer’s wife. Kate had always thought this was a crime—her granny was a bright woman, could have done anything with her life.
    ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said fervently. ‘It’s been fucking awful since I arrived.’
    ‘Tut-tut. Language.’
    ‘ Jolly awful. I’ve felt like screaming. All that frozen civility, and both of them behaving as though they were going to burst into tears. Now I know how kids of broken homes feel.’
    Meg was digging around in her handbag. ‘Doesn’t sound good. Mind you, in years and years stuck together, you’re bound to have some tiffs. Maybe she wanted a dog, and he didn’t. Maybe she turned down a promotion and he thought she should have taken it. Could be any number of things.’ She pulled out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one?’
    ‘No, thanks. I don’t smoke tobacco, I only smoke hooch. I’ve told you this about a million times.’
    ‘Rude not to offer.’
    ‘I can’t believe you’re still poisoning yourself, at your age.’
    Meg flicked a lighter, inhaled that first lungful of nicotine. ‘I can’t believe you’re still nagging me about it, at my age. Anyway, I’ve cut down. Four a day.’
    ‘Did you and Grandad have many fights?’
    ‘Our fair share.’
    Kate leaned back, resting her head against the wall. ‘So . . . what do we do, Granny? I can’t take much more. All this tension gives me a sense of doom. Should we have it out with them?’
    ‘No,’ said Meg, and blew out a plume of smoke. ‘No, I wouldn’t confront them. Leave them be. The one time Robert and I were in real trouble, our marriage was saved by good old-fashioned sweeping under the carpet. We were both hopping mad but neither of us was honest enough to come out and say so. After a couple of days, we forgot we weren’t talking. The day after that, we had a laugh about something—I’ve forgotten what—and that was that.’
    ‘What was it all about?’
    ‘I didn’t want more children. Robert did. He’d set his heart on having a boy. I said it wasn’t him that had to carry it for nine months. Gail hadn’t been an easy pregnancy, and Wendy almost killed me.’
    ‘Quite right!’ Kate straightened her spine in sisterly solidarity. ‘A woman’s body is her own.’
    ‘All right, you can hop off your soapbox. “Anyway,” I said, “what’s the point?” Didn’t he love his daughters? Did he think he’d love a son more? What made a boy so special?’
    ‘I’m proud of you, Granny!’
    ‘He said . . .’ Meg paused, balancing a tall pile of ash on the end of her smouldering cigarette. ‘People never have ashtrays anymore, do they? Smokers are a dying breed . . . Ah, a plant pot. Perfect. He said he loved Wendy and Gail to bits but he wanted a son. Someone who would be just like him, a miniature Robert Livingstone. Someone to take over the farm when he was gone.’
    Kate sighed. ‘Dear oh dear. And this was the twentieth century, right?’
    ‘He imagined them making model railways. Shooting. Playing with Robert’s woodworking toys. Running the farm together.’
    ‘His daughters could have done all those things!’
    Meg looked doubtful. ‘Well, anyway, nature took over. Soon after that argument I found out I was expecting again. You might call it a mistake, or you might call it a miracle. Either way, it was your dad.’
    ‘So, Grandad was happy?’
    ‘A pig in clover.’
    ‘Yeah, well.’ Kate shrugged. ‘I can forgive him the medieval values, since he was Grandad . . . and since it was Dad who came along.’
    The pair fell silent, looking across the lawn. Kate could see the hole her dad had dug that morning, ready to plant the memorial tree. She felt better for talking to Meg. She and Simon used to go and stay on their grandparents’ farm when they were small, and it was the highlight of her year.
    She was topping up their wine when a black Jeep came crawling through the gateway, navigating around the deeper