moon when they picked me. But now –’ her tears welled up afresh – ‘I’ve got RSI!’
‘Oh good God!’ Susannah whispered, her stomach taking a turn. This was her worst nightmare realised: that a child of hers should contract some deadly disease. How on earth would she cope? She found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, not knowing how she had got there, or what to say. ‘But what is it, this RSI?’ she managed eventually. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.’
‘Where have you been all your life?’ Paul said suddenly from the door. ‘It’s what typists and chicken factory workers get these days –’ He went over to Katy and hugged her for the second time that evening. ‘Isn’t it, my precious love?’
Katy nodded and allowed herself to be comforted by her father’s long, strong arms. He was like a cuddly bear in his thick woolly sweater and she sighed with a surge of relief.
‘Repetitive Strain Injury,’ Paul went on over his daughter’s head, for Susannah’s benefit. ‘I was watching a programme about it the other night. If you perform the same movement with your hands over and over again …’
But Susannah was nodding dumbly; she now recalled hearing about it. You got pains in the hands and arms after a while. Some people got it really badly and were crippled for the rest of their lives: they couldn’t even lift their arms to do their own hair. And they would never be able to work again.
‘A lot of doctors,’ Paul was saying, ‘don’t even believe it exists, let alone trouble themselves to try and sort out a cure. I believe I read about a case in the paper recently where someone successfully sued for compensation. I’ll look into the possibilities tomorrow.’
Katy cast him a look of gratitude: at least he wasn’t taking the attitude that she was swinging the lead, like some people did. ‘I can’t do anything much with them,’ she said holding out her hands. ‘And they hurt like flaming hell. Do you think I could have a hot water bottle, Mum? Oh, and I’ll need you to unpack my case …’
‘Of course Mum’ll make you a hot water bottle, won’t you dear?’ Paul was still clinging to his daughter as though she had been away for ten years instead of only a matter of months. He let her go at last and followed Susannah downstairs.
‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’ he said, rubbing his hands together as they went into the kitchen. ‘Fancy getting our Katy back! Now you won’t be bored any more.’
Susannah turned and stared at him for a moment, before going over to the sink. She began to run water on to the sad remains of lasagne she found there and went to wipe spills from the microwave.
‘How long is this RSI business going to last?’ she asked, Paul trailing her round the kitchen. She stopped to throw a startled look at the ceiling as loud thumping came down through the beams: Katy had managed to plug in the ghetto blaster.
‘No idea,’ he replied. ‘I expect she’s hungry, don’t you? What have you got to give her?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She suddenly felt extraordinarily tired.
‘Well, I must say you seem really pleased to see your own daughter. Couldn’t you make more of an effort? She needs your support, poor kid, not the cold shoulder you’ve been giving her.’
‘Oh, I haven’t! Have I? I didn’t mean to. It’s just that … look, there’s some ham for your sandwiches tomorrow …’
‘Give it to her, I don’t mind. I don’t begrudge my daughter anything in her time of dire need, even if some would. Not when the whole world must seem to have turned against her the minute she’s set foot in it. Poor kid.’ He watched Susannah take bread from the bread bin. ‘I don’t understand what’s the matter with you, Sue. You’re her mother, for heaven’s sake.’
‘She’s a young woman now, Paul, not a child. Do you realise I’d had two babies by the time I was her age?’
That seemed to throw him a little. ‘God,’ he muttered, ‘were we crazy?’
‘Just normal for those times. You got married, scraped as much of a home together as you could for a year or so, and then got down to filling it. Just think if we’d waited until I was older, we’d still have little ones hanging around.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, still thoughtful. ‘I don’t mind our young Justin, of course, but little ones at our age …’
‘Well, that’s the way it would be if I had been your career-type,’ she pointed out. ‘Career women are putting off having babies until it’s practically too late to bear them. Over forty they are, in some cases. Here, the hot water bottle’s ready.’
‘Hmm,’ he said again.
It lay between them on the work top – a dingy flop-eared apology for a rabbit that Susannah had taken from the bottom of the medicine cupboard. It bore a label forbidding anyone to throw it away, on pain of death.
Paul finally picked it up and held it out to her. ‘I think it would look better if you took it up. Don’t you?’
Jan was in celebratory mood. She had opened a bottle of Côtes de Bergerac, prepared a crisply roasted duck, and made the farmhouse kitchen as cosy as possible – given the difficult circumstances – with candles and a huge fire: Now all that was needed was for Frank to loosen up a little after his journey, and they could have a memorable evening. But, having demolished the food and drunk two-thirds of the wine, Frank was still withdrawn and barely communicative.
She observed him across the table with the detachment that even a short separation can bring. Something was definitely wrong. Of course he was no spring chicken – nor was she – but the trip back from England seemed to have drained him far more than it ought to have done.
She reached out to the block of mature English Cheddar that now sat between them and cut herself another piece from its corner. ‘Absolutely delicious,’ she pronounced, popping crumbs of it into her mouth. With her cheeks sucked in and her eyes half-closed, she looked to be in seventh heaven.
‘Mmm,’ Frank said absently, toying with a crust of bread. It would have been more than his life was worth to have failed in the minor duties he had been given for the trip, and he congratulated himself on having at least managed to remember the block of cheese, the jar of ploughman’s pickle, the slab of fruit and nut chocolate, the eighty tea bags, and the three tubes of Jan’s favourite moisturising cream from Boots.
‘Have another piece,’ Jan urged, so that she, too, could help herself again without appearing greedy. ‘And,’ she ventured to add, ‘tell me when you think the money will be sorted out.’
So far they hadn’t talked much about the funeral or its implications; Frank had stripped off for a shower the minute he got in and she had been busy with the meal. But still Frank wouldn’t be drawn.
‘I suppose,’ Jan pressed on, ‘it’ll take ages, won’t it, having to sell Bert’s grotty old house before we can do anything else? Or did you get the solicitor to agree to hurry it all along? Couldn’t it be sold by auction, perhaps? Or –’
Frank swallowed down more of the wine while his wife prattled away, hardly aware of its subtle flavour; tonight he desired only numbness. Eventually, realising that even another bottle wouldn’t be sufficient to achieve that, he raised his travel-tired eyes to hers
