She was thirty-two when I met her. In looks she resembled Jessica, tall and slim with messy blonde hair that fell to her shoulders. Both she and Jessica, and myself, were the same 'type'; Scandinavian in colouring, fair-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed; lanky and fine-boned with delicate joints. I was a little frecklier than the both of them and didn't tan so well in the sun, but for all that, my secret pleasure was to imagine they were my mother and sister. I felt a fierce, private joy when strangers mistook us for just that.
Jessica and her mother had a tempestuous relationship. Both were quick anger and they constantly pitted their wills against one another. There were often raised voices, slammed doors, short storms of tears. "You're driving me mad!" I heard Mrs. McGaskill shout one day and Jessica retorted, "I'm not - I'm not even trying." But lying underneath all these histrionics, like a solid slab of bedrock, was a deep love, obvious to all. Perhaps it was because Jessica was an only child.
I wasn't aware of any rift between her mother and father, not really. I was too young. But even then, I could see how dismissive Mrs. McGaskill was of her husband, how easily he seemed to fade into the background when Jessica and her mother were there. When he wasn’t directly before me, I had trouble remembering what he looked like. I had my own father, hard and forbidding as he was; I wasn't looking for another.
It was Angus who suggested Jessica come to our house for a change. For once, he was waiting for me at the school gates when classes finished and a tsunami of children streamed out. I was listening to Jessica tell me a new joke about a gorilla and a hamster and laughing so hard that at first I didn't recognise the tall figure leaning against the bonnet of the car and talking to Mrs. McGaskill.
"What's wrong?"
"It's my dad," I said. Suddenly I was excited and embarrassed at the same time. Jessica caught sight of her mother standing next to Angus and grabbed my hand, dragging me forward as she called to her mother.
"Hello, you two," she said as we ran up, flushed and breathless. "Maudie, I've just been talking to your daddy."
I felt suddenly shy of them both.
"Hello, Maudie," said Angus, holding out his large hand. I took it uncertainly; I wasn’t used to him touching me. "And you must be Jessica."
"That's right," said Jessica, bold as you like. "Is it okay if Maudie comes to my house for tea?"
The two adults exchanged amused glances.
"Well now," said Angus. "We thought you might like to come to our house for tea, for a change. How about that?"
I felt an enormous burst of excitement but I said nothing, watching Jessica's face for a clue to her feelings.
She grinned broadly. "Yes, yes, yes!"
Mrs. McGaskill laughed. "Well, that's easily settled. Jessica, I'll drop some clothes off for you later tonight and you can stay the night. How about that?"
We clambered into the back of the Land Rover. I felt a momentary qualm as Jessica perched on the uncovered metal of the wheel arches; it looked so dirty and uncomfortable in the back, the floor smudged with mud and wisps of straw. But Jessica seemed oblivious to it all, almost bouncing with excitement as we pulled away from the school.
The Land Rover crunched over the gravel of the drive as we neared Caernaven. I looked out of the window. It was odd, but it was almost as though I were seeing with Jessica's eyes. We rolled to a halt and Jessica fell silent, her almost ceaseless chatter falling away in a sigh. I watched her eyes widen as she looked out of the window.
We walked through into the hallway. Jessica seemed diminished by the house: her usual effervescence gone flat and quiet. I took hold of her hand and pulled her after me, running her through the hallway and the dining room and the other corridor and finally into the kitchen, where Mrs. Green was preparing our evening meal.
"Hello, Maudie," she said, her hands busy with a vegetable peeler.
I introduced Jessica to Mrs. Green and asked whether we could have something to eat.
"You'll have to wait for dinner, love. Why don't you take Jessica out and show her the garden?"
I pulled Jessica down the kitchen corridor, past the cellar door and onto the side terrace. Heat shimmered up from the flagstones beneath our feet and the air was sweet with the scent of herbs. I picked a leaf from the lemon balm and held it under Jessica's nose.
"Smell."
"Mmmm," said Jessica, sniffing. Then she drew her head back.
"Was that your gran?" she said.
Something in me recoiled. Mrs. Green, my grandmother?
"No, silly," I said, trying to laugh. "She's the housekeeper."
"The housekeeper? Are you rich, then?"
"No," I said and then wondered whether that was true. "Come and see my hiding place," I said, pulling at her arm.
I normally ate my supper at the kitchen table, with Mrs. Green bringing me my food. On the rare occasions that Angus was home at dinner time, only then would I make my way to the cold and cavernous dining room to sit on his right hand side and eat with him. Very occasionally, if family friends or relatives came to stay, I would also be summoned to the dinner table to sit quietly and listen to the adults talk. As the clock ticked around to six o'clock, Jessica and I scampered across the lawn and the terrace and piled into the kitchen.
Mrs. Green was heaving a casserole dish from the oven. "Not here, children, not here. Come on, out the way."
We jumped back against the table as she whisked the steaming dish past us.
"Aren't we eating here then?" I asked, confused.
"No, you're dining with your father tonight. Come on, look lively! I bet you haven't even washed your hands."
The dining room table was set with three places. I gestured to Jessica to sit opposite me, on the other side of Angus’s chair. He wasn’t in the room but somehow, the chair seemed already filled with his presence. We sat down, subdued.
“Are we allowed to talk?” whispered Jessica.
I could hear the faint knock of her sandal against the chair leg. I pushed at my knife and fork, straightening them against the dark, polished wood of the table. Reflected in the surface, faintly grey and ghostlike, was my worried face.
Angus came into the room, rubbing his hands before him. “Faring well, girls? Hungry, are you?”
I nodded. Jessica said nothing, but simply stared down at her plate.
It was a quiet meal. Angus tried to talk to us, peppering the echoing silence with questions; about school, about Girl Guides, about animals and plants and space travel and families. I was too young to realise he was trying to put our guest at her ease and too young to realise that his efforts were in vain. I just knew that Jessica was quiet, that she muttered her answers and pushed her food about on the plate. After a while, I began to feel my own throat close up in sympathy, and stopped eating too.
After the chocolate pudding and cream (left almost untouched by both of us), we were released. Once we were out of the dining room, Jessica broke into a run. I was so surprised that for a moment I did nothing; I just stood and watched her bright blonde hair jump and flip in the wake of her movement. She ran into the garden and out of my sight.
“What’s the matter?” I said, when I finally caught up. She had stopped by the fountain, her hands on the stone wall.
She turned a red and tear-stained face to me. “Shut up, Maudie,” she said fiercely. “I want my mummy. I want to go home!”
“Why?”
She burst into tears. “I just do! I want my mummy!”
I can’t remember exactly what happened after that. I think Jessica spoke to her mother on the phone and somehow Mrs. McGaskill soothed her down. She probably told her daughter she’d be over shortly with Jessica’s clothes and she would see her then, and if Jessica still wanted to come home, then of course she could. I’m guessing, obviously, but it’s the sort of thing she would have said; practical, sensible, loving. Everything a mother should be. Everything I’d never had.