Joanna Trollope: The Other Family

Tamsin shook her head.

‘Wel then—’

‘But he might!’ Tamsin said in a wail.

‘What d’you mean?’

Tamsin began to cry again.

‘He told Tamsin,’ Chrissie said, ‘that he was tired of waiting for her to move in with him, and that he could only suppose that her reluctance meant she didn’t real y want to, so he’s told her to go away and decide, and tel him final y in the morning.’

‘Wel ,’ Dil y said, abruptly conscious of her own currently single state, ‘that’s easy, isn’t it?’

‘No!’ Tamsin shouted.

Dil y glanced quickly at her mother.

‘I thought,’ Dil y said to Tamsin, ‘that you wanted to move in with Robbie?’

Tamsin howled, ‘I can’t , I can’t , can I?’

‘Why not?’ Dil y said.

‘Because of Mum ,’ Tamsin wailed, ‘because of Mum and this flat and Amy – and Dad dying. And everything. I can’t .’

Dil y swal owed.

‘There’s stil me—’

‘You haven’t got a job—’

‘I might have!’

‘Oh God,’ Tamsin said, ‘ might this, might that. Why don’t you ever do something?’

‘Why don’t you ?’ Dil y said crossly. ‘Why don’t you move in with Robbie?’

‘Exactly,’ Chrissie said.

They both turned to look at her. She had spread her hands out in her lap, and she was looking down at them.

‘I wasn’t sure,’ Chrissie said, ‘when or how I was going to say this to you. I certainly didn’t plan on saying it today, but here you both are, and now seems as good a time as any.’

She paused. Tamsin sat up a little straighter, and lifted her arms, in a characteristical y settling gesture, to pul her ponytail tighter through its black velvet band.

‘I think the house is sold,’ Chrissie said, ‘and I think I’m going to take the flat. And I’ve definitely accepted the job, for a trial period of three months, even though I don’t think of it as that, I think of it as something I’l do as wel as I can until I can do something better. I get the feeling Leverton’s understand that.’

The girls waited, watching her. She went on surveying her hands.

‘I haven’t thought what I’m going to say for very long,’ Chrissie said, ‘but the reason I’m talking to you is that, having had the thought, or, to be honest, having had it suggested to me, it strikes me as the right thing to do. The right way forward.’

She stopped and looked up. Tamsin and Dil y were sitting bolt upright, knees together, waiting.

‘What?’ Tamsin said.

‘There’l always be a home for you with me,’ Chrissie said, ‘always. And there’s one for Amy now, of course, if she wants it, which she doesn’t seem to. But it’s there for her, a bedroom, even if she isn’t in it. But – it’s different for you two, isn’t it? And it’s different for me now too, different in a way I never imagined, never pictured, and I can see that none of us are going to move forwards, move on from Dad dying, from life with Dad, if we just go on living round – round this kind of hol ow centre, if you see what I mean, living al clinging together because that’s al we know, even if it isn’t doing any of us any good.’

She paused. Dil y looked anxiously at Tamsin.

‘So?’ Tamsin said.

‘I think,’ Chrissie said careful y to Tamsin, ‘that you should go and live with Robbie. I think you should make Robbie your priority as you once appeared to want to because if you make me your priority you’l get stuck and then we won’t like each other at al . Wil we? And Dil y. I think you should take any job you are offered and ask about among your friends for a room in someone’s flat—’

Dil y gave a little gasp.

‘And discover,’ Chrissie said firmly, ‘the satisfaction of standing on your own two feet. I’l help you as much as I can, but I’m not suggesting you live with me for exactly the reasons I gave Tamsin. It won’t be easy, but we won’t get trapped in resentment, in the past, either. We are al going to try and make something of our lives and of our relationship. I don’t actual y think our relationship would survive living together. Do you?’ She stopped again, and looked at them. She seemed suddenly to be on the edge of tears. The girls were gazing back at her, but neither of them was crying.

‘And so,’ Chrissie said, not at al steadily, ‘I intend to live in that flat on my own after the house is sold. You’l be so welcome there, any time, but you won’t be living there. You’l be living your own lives, lives where you can begin to put the past behind you, where it belongs. Elsewhere.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

Margaret had done what Scott caled getting them in. She was at one of the low tables with armchairs, in the first-floor bar of the hotel overlooking the river, and she had ordered a gin and tonic for herself, and a bottle of Belgian beer for Scott, and it was very pleasant sitting there, with the early-evening sun shining on the river and the great bulk of the Baltic on the further shore with some daft modern-art slogan on a huge banner plastered to its side. Amazing what people thought they could get away with, amazing what people put up with, amazing to think of the contrasts. There was the pretentious nonsense al over the Baltic – it had just been a flour mil when Margaret was growing up – and then, at the other end of the scale, there was the old Baptist church in Tynemouth, now deconsecrated and a warren of gimcrack little shops with Mr Lee’s Tattooing Parlour right under the old church window which said ‘God is love’ in red-and-white glass. Just thinking about it made Margaret want to snort.

‘Penny for them, Mam,’ Scott said, dropping into the chair opposite her.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t want to know.’ She waved a hand at the Baltic. ‘That rubbish, for starters—’

‘He’s a serious artist,’ Scott said, ‘and if you don’t behave, I’l take you to see his video instal ation.’

‘You wil not—’

‘Amy liked it,’ Scott said.

Margaret’s expression gentled.

‘Amy — ’

Scott grinned.

‘She’s texting, al the time.’

Margaret said, ‘Dawson liked her. Even Dawson. He won’t sit on just anyone’s lap.’

‘We’ve al gone a bit soft on Amy—’

‘Wel ,’ Margaret said more briskly, ‘she’s got work to do.’

‘She’l do it.’

‘She’s not very practised. She’s been sheltered. Over-sheltered. She thinks money’s just pocket money. She doesn’t know anything about money

—’

‘She knows enough to get Mr Harrison to give her a job.’

‘Nonsense,’ Margaret said.

Scott pul ed out his phone, and pressed a few buttons. Then he held the phone out to his mother.

‘Read that.’

Margaret leaned forward, putting on her reading glasses. She peered at the screen. She said, ‘So he says there’s work for her. I doubt it. He’l only have her fetching coffee.’

‘She won’t mind that. She’l be learning. She’l get to see his acts. She’l be performing. She can sing.’

Margaret leaned back.

‘I know she can sing. It’s not much of a voice yet but it’s in tune—’

‘Bang on the note.’

‘Don’t make a fool of yourself over her, pet,’ Margaret said.

Scott took a swal ow of his beer. He grinned at his mother.

‘She’s on a mission to find me a girlfriend.’

‘Good luck to her.’

‘I don’t mind,’ Scott said, ‘I don’t mind if she manages it—’

‘What’s got into you?’

Scott raised his beer bottle towards his mother.

‘Same as you.’

‘I’m just as I was,’ Margaret said.