As the train pulled into Ashleigh station she scanned the platform for any sign of her father, who she expected to be waiting eagerly for them. Her mother seemed to have retreated further into herself as they drew closer to ‘home’, so Annabelle decided not to ask her how best to handle the forthcoming encounter. She assumed that if her mother knew then she would have said something, but the silence between them was eloquent and so she opted to leave her mother to her reverie and resigned herself to dealing with the situation as it unfolded. There was a single taxi waiting outside the small country station, and she was surprised to see that the driver was an Indian. She looked around and blinked slowly, in an owl-like fashion, as she took in the full reality of where she was. ‘Magnolia Cottage’, said her mother, ‘off Willoughby Lane.’ The man smiled and started the engine, and as the taxi gently crested the stone bridge which spanned the river her mother slipped her gloved hand into that of her daughter.
Her father was standing by the window when the taxi pulled up, and he watched impassively as his wife and pregnant daughter passed through the wrought iron gate and began to make their way up the garden path towards him. He showed no interest in waving to them, or in any way acknowledging their presence. For her part, Annabelle looked at the newly planted flowers and plants that edged the path, and she blocked out her mother’s twittering voice which rose and fell with a feverish anxiety. The door was never locked so her mother simply ushered Annabelle inside. They moved into the living room where her father continued to stare out of the window with his back to them both. She noticed that the antique occasional table was set with three cups and saucers and a cake stand which held a half-dozen scones and three slices of Madeira cake. Carefully arranged around the base of the cake stand were delicate glass dishes containing various jams, and one that held two dollops of clotted cream, so she could see some evidence that she was expected. ‘William?’ said her mother. Her startled father turned around and blinked, as though only now becoming aware of their presence.
‘Annabelle, it’s so good to see you after all this time.’ He came towards her with his arms extended and kissed her once on either cheek without seeming to notice her protruding stomach. ‘Please, take a seat. Goodness, we have so many.’
He gestured in the direction of a number of comfy chairs with overly plumped cushions, and he continued to seem somewhat disconcerted, and a little embarrassed, that there was so much choice available to his guest. Unfortunately, her father seemed to have aged cruelly, and there was little evidence of the military man with whom she was familiar. He had not only lost his hair and his posture, but she could clearly see that his hands were shaking.
The civilised gentility of tea offended Annabelle, who soon understood that this was a world that, inadvertently, her husband had helped her to escape from. The fact that she had called their home from Paddington station, and left her husband a deceitful message about a play opening in Watford, made her feel sick. Her mother tried to keep a tight grip on proceedings by repeatedly bringing the conversation back to the subject of flowers, but then the kettle began to whistle and she hastily stood up and announced that she would make another pot.
‘Mint? Jasmine? Or should I just bring more of the same?’
Annabelle smiled and shrugged her shoulders. She watched as her mother retreated to the kitchen.
‘Your mother likes to blather.’
Annabelle looked at her father, who was staring intently at the scones without showing any real inclination to pick one up. Her mother returned almost immediately and began to flutter nervously about as she served the tea, and then she asked Annabelle if she wanted to see what they had done with her old room, or perhaps she would like to see the new conservatory, but all Annabelle wanted to do was go back to London and resume her life with her husband. Eventually, the conversation touched upon urgent matters relating to local efforts to block the motorway extension, and her father’s success with turnips and beetroot at the county’s agricultural fair, and then her visibly fatigued mother asked her when exactly the baby was due, although she knew full well, practically to the hour, when she was likely to become a grandmother.
‘Do you know what it is yet?’ asked her father.
Annabelle shook her head. ‘No, we’re not sure.’
‘Well,’ said her mother, ‘it will be one thing or the other, that’s for sure.’
Her father pursed his lips. ‘Yes, quite. I’m afraid your mother and I had no idea what you would be, that is until we had you, of course.’
‘I had her, William,’ smiled her mother.
‘Yes, yes, of course you did, but I was involved,’ insisted her father.
‘I think Keith would like a son.’
‘Would he, indeed?’ mused her father. ‘I see.’
She looked at her father and could see his mind working rapidly, so much so that his lips began to move as though he were rehearsing the opening of a sentence. Then he hummed reflectively and knitted his fingers together in what she assumed to be an imaginary golf grip.
‘You see, Annabelle, I received a note, anonymous of course, shortly after we last saw you in Bristol. In your salad days, as it were. Your mother may have mentioned something to somebody at bridge, or perhaps I blabbed to Walter or Barry in the pub, but some chap, or woman for that matter, wanted to know what it was like to have a “nigger-lover” for a daughter. He wrote that he hoped I would never have the ill manners to pollute our village with my mongrel family. Now then, what do you make of that?’
After the unscheduled visit to Magnolia Cottage, she resumed meeting her mother for monthly lunches at Harvey Nichols, which were only interrupted by a break shortly before she gave birth to Laurie. Her husband had forgiven her for lying to him and ‘sneaking off,’ as he put it, to Wiltshire, and when he returned after his door-slamming exit he told her that he’d sat in the pub and thought about things and he could understand why she might have wanted to go and see her father after all this time. When she told him what had transpired, and that she had shouted at her father and told him that it was his responsibility to deal with racist abuse, and not wait for a decade and then dump it in her lap, her husband shook his head and bent over and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Fucking wanker,’ was all he said, before announcing that he was going upstairs to get ready for bed. She had asked her distraught mother to call for a taxi to take her back to the station, but her father seemed genuinely annoyed, as though he had made some huge effort that had gone unrewarded. He reminded her that she hadn’t even bothered to have a scone or a piece of cake.
The taxi wound its slow way through the narrow country lanes that were walled on both sides by seemingly ancient bowed trees. Annabelle noted that, according to a neat billboard by the roadside, an archaeological dig sponsored by Cambridge University had recently unearthed evidence of pre-Roman settlement, a discovery which her parents had failed to mention. Once she reached Ashleigh station, Annabelle realised that she had just missed a London train so she would have plenty of time to think about how she was going to deal with this mess when she got home. Sitting alone on the empty platform, Annabelle suddenly felt herself convulse into floods of tears. She hated these people, the women with their starched hair and silk scarves, and the men in blazers and slacks, making conversation about nothing, smiling ‘yes, yes’, laughing nervously at their own jokes, trying to be decent, but beneath the façade full of contempt and wanting only to be among their own. What the hell was the matter with them? Jesus Christ, she was pregnant. She was having his grandchild and he wanted to know what ‘it’ was as though he was talking about a dog? Really, what the hell was the matter with him?