Trio - [58]

‘It’ll grow back,’ Marjorie said.

‘I’m not growing it, I like it.’

‘Look in the mirror,’ he said, ‘you look ridiculous.’

Nina flinched. Marjorie felt her own pulse speed up as Robert’s voice rose. ‘Do you deliberately set out to hurt your mother and I? Do you get some perverted sense of satisfaction from causing upset? Eh? Are they going to let you go to school like that? You’ll have to wear a scarf or something.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ her face was set, nostrils flaring.

‘Oh, yes, I can, young lady. I’m your father and until you’re…’

‘You’re not my real father.’

‘Nina!’ Marjorie felt as if a bomb had burst in her chest. ‘Nina, stop.’

‘He’s not, and you’re not my real mother and I wish you’d never adopted me.’ She ran from the room banging the door shut behind her.

She could see Stephen’s mouth working hard to contain his emotion. It was so hard on him. He was so settled, so grounded.

‘It’s all right, love.’ She touched his hand. He shook his head.

‘I’ve no appetite.’ Robert pushed his plate away.

Please, she thought, looking at him. His eyes were lined now, the sandy hair sparse on top. Please don’t go. She didn’t say anything. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

He pushed his chair back. ‘I’ll pop up to the club.’

The blessed golf club.

‘See if anyone’s up for a game. Stephen?’

Stephen shook his head.

What about me? she thought. She ran her hands through her blonde hair, pressing her fingers on her scalp. He walks away and leaves me with the mess. He’s always shouting about how Nina has upset me but he never does a thing, not a damn thing, to make me feel better. Couldn’t he just for once stay, give me a hug or just sit and hold my hand? Talk about it. Instead of running away.

‘I’ll be back in time for Mass.’

Marjorie could still feel the burning in her chest. You’re not my real mother. She blinked to clear her eyes, hoping Stephen wouldn’t notice. She wanted to ask Robert to stay but she couldn’t, because then she would see that look in his eyes like a trapped animal and he’d pace about the house, his temper simmering, reproaching her, and she would feel she had made unreasonable demands. So she said nothing.

After he had gone she sat until Stephen had finished eating and then she cleared the table and began washing the pots.

She felt the misery settle on the house, soaking into the floors and the walls, seeping round the rooms like gas.

She listened for sounds from upstairs, for a movement that might mean Nina was coming down. Because this time Marjorie was not going to be the one bearing the olive branch. She wanted an apology. Nina’s words had cut her to the bone. I’m the only mother she’s got, real or not, she told herself. She had made allowances for her and given her the benefit of the doubt until she was fed up to the back teeth with it. She pressed her lips together and took a sharp breath. She rinsed the sink. Dried her hands on the tea towel. She looked with resentment at the pile of ironing: white shirts for Robert and Stephen, Nina’s uniform, bed-linen, tablecloths, her own skirts and blouses. With a sigh she went to fetch the iron.

Megan

She always did the monthly accounts sitting at the table in the front room. She could watch the street from there, see the world go by in-between filling in the columns and sorting the subtotals out. She had two months to do tonight and she wouldn’t put it off any longer. But she was distracted. There had been a programme on the telly last night about adopted people tracing their parents. She wouldn’t have had it on if anyone else had been in but Brendan had gone down the local, Francine was at her mates, Aidan God knows where and Chris tucked up in bed, so she was on her own. Brendan wouldn’t have liked it.

‘We have to put it behind us, Megan,’ he’d said just before their wedding. ‘It doesn’t do any good this dragging it all out, look at the state of you.’

He was right. She upset them both when she started on about it all. It didn’t help really.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘OK.’

So they didn’t talk about it anymore. When Francine came along they acted like she was the very first. They thought of Frances at first but Megan liked the French ending, made it a bit different. ‘Besides, people might think Frances is a boy, you can only tell when its written down.’ She was a real peach. A little doll with creamy skin and golden freckles and red curls like Shirley Temple. She won the May Queen when she was six and when she took her First Holy Communion she really was the best one there. Like an angel from an old oil painting. She turned out nice-natured too, no backbiting or whining. They got plenty of that from Aidan and Chris. Aidan was hell on legs, intent on a showdown with anything that drew breath, and Chris could whine for England, but she loved them all. Francine though, thank God she was the eldest. Lulled them into a false sense of parenthood, she did. Slept well, ate well, barely cried. She was out there now, hanging round the gate with her mates. Twelve years old and at high school.