Joanna Trollope: The Other Family

She subsided on to the bench. It was wonderful there, so big and so bleak, al that sea and sky, but it was sobering too, laden with al those lives, those past lives, battling and struggling and hating the sea as much as they needed it, relied on it. Amy put her hands into her hoodie pockets and breathed deeply, in and out, in and out. This was the sort of place that last night’s music had come from, it was people who’d lived and laboured here who had instinctively recorded how they were feeling, how they were thinking, in a way that could be easily remembered, could be simply passed on. She sniffed once or twice in the wind. If she shut her eyes, she could conjure up that girl last night, the girl with the flute and the lovely, light, straightforward singing voice. If she kept them shut, she could imagine Scott as a boy down here, as a teenager in his school uniform with his tie bunched up in his blazer pocket, and not just Scott, but her father who might even – even – have sat on this bench, or whatever was here before this bench, and looked at the sky and the sea and the gul s, and thought and thought about music too.

She opened her eyes and tipped her head back, wriggling herself down until her body was in a straight line, shoulder to heel, the back of her head balanced on the back of the bench, and stared up at the sky. She felt taken over, bowled over, blown away by a sudden and extraordinary wave of happiness.

‘Don’t read anything into this,’ Margaret said.

Bernie Harrison was in an armchair in her sitting room, legs crossed, very comfortable. He had a cup of coffee balanced on the arm of the chair and Dawson, stretched in his usual place along the back of the sofa, was keeping a discreet but definite eye on him.

‘What would I read?’ Bernie said.

He was wearing wel -pressed summer trousers and brown-suede loafers, which were entirely appropriate to the dining room of the Grand Hotel at Sunday lunchtime.

‘Wel ,’ Margaret said, trying to sound unconcerned, ‘this might look like a family occasion, but it isn’t. I’m not, as it were, introducing you to the family.’

‘Ah,’ Bernie said. He smiled at her. ‘You manage to put things so graciously.’

‘It’s better if we are al quite clear where we stand.’

‘So,’ Bernie said easily, ‘I have been asked along to leaven an awkward social lump, have I?’

‘You’ve been asked,’ Margaret said, ‘to make a foursome.’

‘Not like you to be nervous, Margaret.’

‘No.’

‘But I’m flattered. Yes, I’m flattered. When did you last ask anyone for help?’

She didn’t look at him, but she smiled.

‘A while back.’

‘What do we know about this child?’

Margaret sighed.

‘She’s eighteen, she’s bright, she’s musical, she’s the youngest of three. She’s talked a bit to Scott on the telephone but she’s never been north and she’s not going to like my guest bedroom.’

‘Why is she in it?’

‘Because,’ Margaret said firmly, ‘she can’t possibly stay with Scott. I promised her mother.’

‘Did you? You spoke to her mother?’

‘I did.’

‘Successful y?’

‘No,’ Margaret said.

Bernie turned his head.

‘There’s a taxi pul ing up outside.’

Margaret gave a little gasp.

‘Oh my God—’

‘Stay there,’ Bernie said.

He stood up and walked to the window, carrying his coffee cup.

‘Deep breaths, Margaret. Yes, it’s them. Scott, I’m sorry to tel you, looks like an off-duty footbal er but the girl looks lovely. Tal and slim. Long, dark hair. A skirt, you’l be pleased to hear. What there is of it. But I can’t see any luggage.’ He turned and glanced at Margaret. ‘I think your guest has come to stay in what she stands up in.’

Amy had never been anywhere like the dining room of the Grand Hotel. It had upholstered chairs, and ornately draped curtains at the huge high windows, and the wal s were decorated with long, narrow panels of stylized fruit and flowers. The carpet was very thick, patterned with medal ions in russet and green, and so were the tablecloths and the napkins, which sat like smal icebergs in a forest of glassware. The tablecloths even had undercloths, which went right down to the floor, which was just as wel since they enabled Scott to stick his feet right out of sight so that they didn’t offend his mother.

Amy wasn’t quite sure what other things might offend his mother. They had, the previous afternoon when she got back from North Shields, gone shopping to buy her a skirt, and it hadn’t struck either of them, til they saw Margaret’s eyes on Amy’s legs, that the length of the skirt might signify as much as its existence in the first place. Margaret looked OK to Amy, because she was as Amy was expecting her to be, but she also looked a bit unpredictable, as if she might suddenly object to something that had never previously occurred to anyone as a potential flashpoint. Amy thought of catching Scott’s eye, and winking, but then she remembered that Margaret was Scott’s mother, and therefore not an appropriate subject for complicity, and refrained.

The other man, the sort of grandfather man, was fine. He’d told Amy he was an agent, that he’d known her father as a boy and as a young man, and he mentioned several names, people he represented, whom Amy had heard of. He seemed very easy and friendly, and Amy wondered if he was a kind of boyfriend, if that was the right word when you got as old as that, and he teased Scott about his appearance and Scott, who looked perfectly normal to Amy, didn’t seem to mind and just said cheerful y, ‘Places like this need a bit of shaking up, Mr Harrison,’ and Mr Harrison said,

‘Oh for God’s sake, lad. Bernie.’ And Scott had laughed and shaken his head and said, ‘Can’t do it, sir. Sorry.’

The menu was enormous. Margaret watched Amy reading it and then she said, in a voice with far more warmth in it than it had had before,

‘Choose whatever you like, pet. You must be hungry. They never give you anything but rubbish on the train.’

Scott shot Amy a warning look.

‘Thank you,’ Amy said politely.

‘Was it a good journey?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘And was Scott on the platform to meet you?’

‘Yes,’ Amy said. ‘Yes, he was.’

‘And what,’ Bernie Harrison said in a jocular voice, ‘do you think of the Frozen North so far?’

Amy put her huge menu down. She turned to look straight at him.

‘I think it’s wonderful.’

He said, laughing, ‘Wel , the station’s wonderful—’

‘ It’s nice of you, dear,’ Margaret said, ‘ but you’ve only seen that and Scott’s flat.’

‘I love Scott’s flat,’ Amy said.

‘Thank you,’ Scott said.

‘And,’ Amy said, deliberately ignoring him, and now looking straight at Margaret, ‘I love North Shields and the river and the metro and the bridges.’

She stopped. There was a brief silence.

‘Excuse me?’ Margaret said.

‘We went to a folk club on Friday,’ Amy said. ‘It was amazing. I – I just loved it. I loved the music. I can’t stop thinking about the music. I think it’s –

it’s so, so great. Up here.’

‘You came up on Friday ?’ Margaret said.

‘Yes.’

Margaret looked at Scott.

‘You told me—’

‘Stop it,’ Bernie Harrison said.

‘No,’ Scott said to his mother, ‘you wouldn’t be told.’

‘I promised your mother—’

‘This isn’t about my mother,’ Amy said. ‘It isn’t about any mothers. It’s about us – us children .’

Bernie Harrison reached out and took Margaret’s nearest wrist.

‘There you go—’