Nicci French - The Memory Game

‘Before we found Natalie, Martha, were there ever times when you’d go a whole day without remembering her?’

It was the wrong question, I knew that, I knew the answer, yet I also knew that we had to talk about Natalie. Martha poured boiling water over the tea leaves, and lifted a large cake tin down from the cupboard.

‘What do you think?’ She put a ginger cake and knife on the table. ‘For a long time I felt guilty. Not just about her going, or dying, or whatever, though that too, of course. About our relationship.’

I waited.

Martha poured two cups of tea and sat down at the table. ‘My last memory of Natalie is of her shouting at me.’ She looked into her tea, then said, ‘No, that’s not what I mean really. My last memory is of me shouting at her. Of course we used to have lots of trivial rows, cigarettes on her breath, that sort of thing. And she would give me this slightly distant smile that she always had when she was being told off and it would make me angry. It’s the sort of row that is a part of being a parent, but this one we never made up. Sometimes I wonder if she died hating me.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘When Alan and I came back from that awful anniversary cruise and arrived at the big party, I wanted to talk to Natalie but there were so many people I had to see and I didn’t and then it was too late.’

‘Of course you blame yourself and feel guilty, Martha,’ I said, ‘and of course you shouldn’t.’

I remembered experiencing a shadow version of the same feeling when my mother died. In the weeks after her burial I’d been in an agony of loss, remembering all the times I’d criticised her, been contemptuous of her, not appreciated her, not thanked her enough, not had that final settling of accounts, when we’d somehow have reconciled ourselves to all the raggedness and imperfections in our relationship.

‘You have to remember the whole life, Martha, and not just the last weeks or days,’ I said, lamely.

‘I do. But the last quarrel somehow summed up all that was wrong with us.’ Martha looked at me steadily. ‘I’ve never said this to anyone, Jane.’

‘Said what?’

‘I’ve never told anyone about my quarrel with Natalie.’

‘What was the quarrel about?’

Martha picked up the knife and cut two slices of cake. She must have baked it for me when she heard I was coming. ‘Drink up your tea; it’ll get cold.’

I sipped obediently.

‘It was about your father and me, Jane. Our affair.’

I went on sipping my tea, but my hands felt very large and clumsy around the tea cup. Carefully, I put the cup back on the table, with an effort so that it wouldn’t spill.

‘Go on.’

‘I had had a brief affair with your father in the summer of the previous year. He and your mother were not getting on very well, and you know what Alan was like. He was away in America for much of the summer. I was lonely; all the children were growing up and I felt my life was slipping by.’ She stopped and made a sharp gesture with her hand. ‘Enough, I don’t want to make excuses for myself. I’m not proud of it, and it didn’t last long. We never told anyone. Christopher didn’t tell your mother; I never told Alan. And we were very secretive about it. We never wanted to hurt anyone.’

She took a very small, neat bite of cake.

‘Natalie found a letter Christopher had written to me. She must have gone through all my drawers. She confronted me with it: she wasn’t angry exactly, that was the funny thing, more triumphant. She said that I pretended to be so much better than Alan, and really I was just the same. She said she was going to tell your mother and Alan. She said’ – Martha’s voice was dry – ‘that it was her duty.’

Martha stopped, and the kitchen felt very still as she waited for me to speak.

‘Did she tell anybody?’

‘I don’t think so. Not that I ever knew.’

‘But she might have told Alan.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why are you telling me now, after all these years?’

Martha gave a weary shrug. ‘Perhaps because it’s a good time to uncover family secrets. Perhaps because I will die sometime soon, and I needed to confess, and I thought you might understand. Perhaps because you’re the one who’s rooting around for the truth.’

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t know what I was thinking. I tried to imagine my father with Martha, but I could only picture them as they were now: old, with papery skin and liver spots and stubborn habits. Martha turned back the pages to the drawing of the little girl and the setting sun.

‘That’s Natalie,’ she said. ‘I know it doesn’t look like Natalie, except the mouth maybe. But it’s how I always think of Natalie. She was a loner, you know. She snooped round other people’s lives and she had boyfriends and went to parties, but she was always alone. I was her mother, but sometimes I felt she was a stranger. All the boys, oh they pretended to be grown up and independent, and they shrugged me away or were rude to me when their friends came round, but they needed me and they were always so transparent. Natalie, though, I often felt rejected by Natalie. I’d always thought we would have an intimate relationship, two women in a house of men.’

She stood up and cleared away our plates.

‘You make those phone calls you were talking about; I’m going to get those cuttings for your garden.’ Pulling on her jacket, she picked up a pair of secateurs and disappeared into the garden.

Mechanically, I did as Martha suggested, and hunted through my address book until I came across the name of Judith Parsons ( née Gill, one of my best friends from school). She was surprised and thrilled to hear from me: how was I in London, how were my sons, isn’t it awful how time flies, yes it would be wonderful to meet up – sometimes she and Brendon came to London and then she’d be sure to give me a ring. As we were about to say goodbye to each other I asked, casually, guiltily, oh, by the way, did she happen to have Chrissie Pilkington’s phone number. I was going to be working near where she lived for a few days and thought it would be jolly to catch up with her. Judith’s enthusiasm dampened slightly. Yes, she had the number, but she was Christina Colvin now: I jotted the details down in my address book, dialled again.

Christina Pilkington-now-Colvin was not so happy to hear from me. I could understand that. It had been twenty-five years since we’d last seen each other. I brought back memories she must have wanted suppressed. But she reluctantly agreed to have me round for tea later that afternoon. I wrote down directions, and just before I put the phone down she said, suddenly, ‘My husband will be there, Jane.’

Martha loaded the cuttings into the back of my car, then gestured towards the pile of children’s books on the table.

‘They’re for your grandchildren, Jane. One day.’ And then, at last, we hugged each other.

The Colvins lived just outside Oxford in a large neo-Tudor house, all timber and diamond windows, with a swimming pool in the garden, and an avenue of rhododendrons. I’ve always hated rhododendrons. Bright flowers and shiny leaves and nothing lives under them.

I would not have recognised Chrissie. When I knew her she was thin and tall, with startling blonde hair always piled on top of her head. Now she seemed shorter – or perhaps she seemed shorter because she was so much wider. Her substantial body was packed tightly into smart white trousers and a green shirt, and placed on high heels. Her wild skinny beauty was quite gone. I could see she was anxious beneath her make-up. We shook hands; neither of us could decide whether to kiss each other on the cheek, and as we were havering, a stout man in a grey suit came out of the house, hugged me warmly and said over the top of Chrissie’s half-hearted introduction: