The Other Daughter Read online

  ‘I don’t know what you’re staring at.’ She pulls her cardigan around her to hide her overhanging stomach. The void is never filled by food or drink, no matter how sweet it is, but it does somehow take the edge off. Mildly curious, she opens the sideboard cupboard, which is filled with glasses, and there is also a bottle of fizzy fruit juice.

  ‘Hmm, how long have you been there?’ She picks up the juice and reads the label. There is no sell-by date. After pouring a thimbleful, she first sniffs and then sips. ‘It’s fine, she’ll think it’s wine.’

  She fills a glass and takes it back through, and to her delight Mum drinks it relatively quickly. A mischievous glint in her eye confirms that she thinks it is wine and that she has been ‘naughty’. Dawn takes the glass from the room, refills it and returns it to the round table with a conspiratorial wink.

  ‘See if there’s any frozen sweetcorn, dear. I’m not sure what else there is … Oh, we can have those stuffed potato skins that I got on offer!’

  ‘Your freezer is stuffed, Mum, and the shelves over the microwave are bending under the weight of cans and packets. There’s enough food to feed you for months.

  ‘I fancy the potato skins.’

  ‘I’ll go and start everything off.’

  Once the sweetcorn is waiting in a pan to be heated, and the peas too, and the potato skins are in the oven with the plates, she picks up the house phone and looks in her bag for her diary to find the number she needs.

  ‘Time to call in that favour.’ She dials Janet’s number. It rings once and is picked up. The television blares into life and she holds her hand up to her free ear.

  ‘Hello, it’s Dawn. No – Health-and-Safety-and-everything-else Dawn … Yes, that’s the one … Yes, fine. I’m so glad. No, actually, I have a bit of a favour to ask in return …’

  She can see Mum through the kitchen door, down the hall, as she speaks, noting the curve of the old woman’s spine, rounded by the years, the slight lump at the back of her neck – a touch of osteoporosis – but always a jumper to match her skirt, always jewellery, no matter how cheap, chosen to match the colours of the day. Today she is in reds and browns.

  She explains the situation to Janet, who says she will see what she can do, and not to worry – there are ways of jumping the queue and getting things done, and she’ll send someone round tomorrow. It seems it was a good call – she knows the right person to ask, and Dawn is assured that what Janet promises will actually happen.

  ‘Okay, Mum’ – she turns the television down – ‘there’s a lady coming round tomorrow to help you.’ She crouches in front of her, looking her in the eye to be sure she has made contact.

  ‘I have just jumped the six-month NHS waiting list for you, so don’t mess it up.’ She says this last part as a joke; she can introduce humour now. Knowing that someone else is going to help takes the strain away and she suddenly feels huge relief.

  ‘I don’t really need anyone,’ Mum says, standing with some effort and making her way down the hall to the kitchen. ‘Is there any more of that wine?’ she asks.

  ‘You’ve had two glasses, Mum,’ Dawn teases, delighted that the fruit juice has been drunk. ‘Did you bring your glass?’ Mum looks back the way she came and sighs.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Dawn says. On her way there and again on her way back her phone beeps.

  ‘Damn!’ She does not have to read the text to know it is June, and that she has missed her watercolour evening class.

  ‘Damn,’ she mutters again.

  Sitting down to eat, Mum seems to come to life a little.

  ‘No napkins, dear?’ she asks. ‘These plates are not very warm,’ she adds, ‘and can you get out the hollandaise sauce?’

  Normally these comments would rile Dawn, but today she is glad to see Mum back to normal.

  ‘So, are we clear?’ she says between mouthfuls of potato skin. They are mushy and remind her of baby food. ‘To give yourself a break to get over this fall, we’ve got you in the NHS loop, so let’s keep you there. You know how these things are, once you are on the radar then all sorts of services become available, but drop out and you’ll be back on the six-month waiting list. We need to keep you in the system. We don’t know what the future holds.’

  ‘Can I have a spoon for the hollandaise, please?’

  Chapter 3

  The first email of the day tells Dawn that she must organise the notices for the man who is living with all the dogs and rabbits, to give him warning that he must reduce the number of animals in and around the house or action will be taken. It would take her but a moment to print them out, put them in an envelope and post them. But if she were to go there again today, maybe she would get lucky and gain access and see if she can get a count on how many dogs there are. She yawns, and it crosses her mind to take her coffee break early and merge her lunch with her outing to Little Lotherton, and basically spend the whole day out of the office, maybe write up her report in the half hour before home time. If she goes to the canteen for her coffee break now, Hilary will not be busy at this hour and she can explain how she came to miss quiz night on Monday, see if Hilary can remember any of the questions. She presses Print on her computer and collects the sheets from the printer by the door, and she is almost surprised to find herself stepping into the lift and down to her car. Hilary and the canteen can wait. She needs to get outside, get out of town, become lost in the rolling countryside on the way to Cyril’s house.

  She was hoping the drive to Little Lotherton would be a mindlessly blank experience, with her maybe even finding a takeaway coffee before leaving the last remnants of civilisation. That way, it might be possible to make the process of waking up fully nothing more than a slow, gentle struggle. The sleeping pill that she took last night at around two in the morning as a last desperate bid to sleep is still in her system. Consequently she is struggling to surface at all. It is not the first time this has happened, and every time she naturally questions whether it would just be better not to have slept at all.

  These thoughts kick her mind awake into a sluggish but feverish state of worry. The drive to Little Lotherton becomes a stew of churning over the same concerns about her mum that kept her awake the night before.

  ‘The woman is nearly eighty,’ she reasons with herself. ‘But the truth is you don’t know if it was the fall. What she’s experiencing is probably only temporary.’ She glances in the rear-view mirror. But then, what if it isn’t temporary? What if this is the start of a slow decline? She cannot rule that out. Then what happens? Her mind keeps returning to the fact that she will be greatly inconvenienced – she has already missed quiz night with Hilary and her old friend June, and her watercolour class with the latter, the only two nights she ever goes out, the only two social events she has. This thinking immediately brings a wave of self-condemnation.

  ‘How selfish can you get!’ she tells herself. ‘Where is your compassion? This is your mother you are resenting!’ Mentally she takes control, but her gut is suddenly churning with anger.

  Her bag slips off her shoulder as she gets out of the car at Little Lotherton, and her phone jumps out of her hand and under the passenger seat.

  ‘Keep calm, keep a clear head, everything is fine,’ she tries to convince herself. ‘Just please God, don’t let Mum be grouchy with the woman from the NHS.’

  She wills her message across the cloud-filled sky to Mum as she retrieves her phone. Struggling to free her arm, which is still looped through the seatbelt, she tells herself again to be calm. Her navy-blue cardigan, which sags a little at the pockets, flaps open with a gust of wind and the seatbelt will not behave, so, leaving the door partly open and the seat belt hanging out, she straightens up and turns around to look over to the house. If she can hand over the paper this could be a quick visit, and there might be time for a pub lunch before heading back to the office.

  A foreign woman is standing at the front door, looking like she has just knocked and is awaiting an answer.

  ‘He in?’ Dawn asks.

  ‘I am sorry. To whom are you referring?’ The woman clearly enunciates her words; English is clearly not her first language. She has a pretty face and her clothes are a riot of rich colours. With delicate fingers she carefully loops her scarf over her head. Dawn checks her printed notes for the man’s name. On one of the sheets from the file, someone has written in the margin in pencil Nickname – Septic Cyril. Is that what people call him, or is this how he likes to be referred to? Surely not. She wouldn’t like to be called ‘Septic’ – but then, each to their own. Besides, her brain is still foggy from lack of quality slumber and undigested sleeping pills and she cannot think straight.

  ‘Him. Septic Cyril.’ Dawn points at the wardrobe and hopes the name causes no offence. ‘I’m from Health and Safety.’ She knows this title is not exactly accurate but she also knows that it carries weight in these sorts of circumstances and it might just bring the whole issue to its conclusion more quickly.

  She blinks slowly and wishes she was back in bed. The whole problem of a few too many dogs and rabbits suddenly seems so tiring and trivial compared to Mum’s situation at home. How much help can she get on the National Health Service? The whole NHS is massively under-resourced – what if they cannot cover the hours she is at work? What if every hour she is not at work she has to be there to care for Mum?

  ‘It can’t go on.’ Dawn did not intend to say this out loud, and she hides her embarrassment by looking down at her notes. ‘Him and his animals, people complaining,’ she adds, hoping that she doesn’t sound too unreasonable. The wind changes, lifting the woman’s scarf from her forehead, and the stench blows over them both.

  ‘God, how can you stand so close? Can you not smell him? Mind you, p’raps it smells much the same where you come from.’ She does not mean to be rude – it just comes out. She seems to have lost control over her own mouth. It is the sort of thing Mum might say, but for Dawn herself to utter such a thing shocks her.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ The woman is rightly indignant.

  What had she meant anyway, Dawn wonders? What little piece of indoctrinated racism had pushed her to say such a thing? Perhaps the drains are open in India or Pakistan, or wherever this woman once lived, but even so it is petty-minded to think that because of that she would be used to such a smell. This is thinking in Mum’s terms.

  ‘I’m not racist!’ Mum would blurt out, ‘but you know what they’re like!’

  Dawn can feel her cheeks burning. Perhaps she should apologise, but this might just make it worse, and anyway her thoughts are back again with Mum. She looks at her phone to see if there are any messages or missed calls, then drops it into her bag.

  ‘So, is he in or not?’

  If he isn’t, she will pass by Mum’s before returning to the office, check it’s all going well. The wind changes direction again.

  ‘Oh my God, the stink!’ She pulls the sleeve of her cardigan over the end of her hand and holds it against her nose, waiting for the woman to answer. When she doesn’t Dawn tries again to explain herself.

  ‘Look, I don’t know who you are but I’m Dawn Todman, from Health and Safety. I’ve an order here as we’ve been given to understand that he has a lot of rabbits.’ She checks her paperwork to confirm that this is not the first time this Septic Cyril has been challenged about his pets. ‘Again,’ she adds. ‘And if he has they’ve got to go, again, and we need to limit the number of dogs.’ She says all this with her sleeve still over her nose and she holds out a bunch of papers to the woman.

  ‘He is out,’ the woman says, maintaining eye contact with a steady gaze.

  ‘Oh.’ This throws Dawn, but then, through the remnants of last night’s fog-inducing sleeping pills, she realises that this means she could come out again tomorrow to deliver the papers, which gives her another opportunity to check on Mum in the middle of the day! This could work in her favour.

  Her cardigan flaps around her as she heads back to the car. However, it is no surprise to her that, at the last moment, with a sudden desire not to abuse her position and wheedle another day out of the office, she pushes the bundle of papers at the woman on Cyril’s doorstep.

  ‘Give him these. Have him read them. He’ll have to get rid of all them poor animals,’ she says.

  ‘No,’ the woman in the scarf says. There is neither strength nor aggression in the word. Her tone is quite flat.

  ‘What? Did you not understand me?’ Dawn is puzzled, and a little taken aback by this response.

  ‘I understood and I said no,’ the woman says, still calm. This riles Dawn; the last thing she needs is someone making her life more difficult than it already is.

  ‘Listen, luv, I have authority here. I’m from Health and Safety.’ She knows this is a lie, she has no authority, but the urge to leave and see Mum is growing stronger. She just needs to wrap this up and use the time to make a quick check on how it’s all going with the woman from the NHS. Maybe she could phone, but Mum will say whatever she thinks Dawn wants to hear.

  The woman outside Cyril’s house is staring at her with wide eyes.

  ‘He needs to get rid of them animals and these papers make it so he has to. You don’t want to live next to that stink. Do you?’

  Dawn sighs out her words; it all feels like the situation needs greater effort than she has the energy for.

  ‘So you give them to him, right?’ Dawn pushes the papers at the woman again, but without conviction. She is nearing the point where she no longer cares.

  ‘You are police?’ the woman asks.

  ‘No, I work for the government. Health,’ Dawn replies, speaking very slowly, and a bit too loud. ‘And. Safety. Do you understand?’ She wonders how good the woman’s English really is; perhaps she does not understand.

  ‘I do not believe you have authority over me, so I give no one papers,’ the woman says.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Dawn says, but she is thinking about how she will present her feedback if she has not contacted the owner or seen the dogs. It looks like her afternoon will be spent in the office struggling to justify the time she has spent in Little Lotherton and the little she has achieved. Ms Moss will read it over and then there will follow a lecture about what she should and shouldn’t have done to serve the papers. Perhaps she should have just posted them. She raises and drops her arms, the papers flapping against her knees as her hands come to rest. Maybe she can post them now.

  ‘Is there a letterbox in that thing?’ She looks over at the wardrobe porch.

  The woman steps to one side so that Dawn can see that there is no place to leave her paperwork.

  ‘Anyway, if he’s out then what’re you doing standing there?’ Dawn says. Maybe if she just pushes a bit she can get this woman to be helpful. She rests the hand and her papers on her hip, and tries to tame her hair with the other hand, fighting the wind that whips the loose strands across her face. She should have washed it this morning; it feels lank. Every time it gets to this stage she puts off shampooing in her indecision about whether to dye it blonde again or go natural. Consequently, three quarters of its length is blonde and the roots are a natural mousy grey.

  She waits for an answer, but when the woman doesn’t reply she suddenly feels exhausted by life and returns to the car. Today she does not have the energy. She will come again tomorrow.

  She backs her car hesitantly down the cobbled street, narrowly missing a vehicle parked at the bottom. As she turns onto the main street towards Greater Lotherton, her phone rings and she pulls over to answer.

  ‘Hello? Yes, this is Dawn Todman … What? I don’t understand. Why? … Oh no – but why? … But she didn’t ask you to come – I did! … No, sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice.’ Dawn looks out of the window, over the top of the drystone wall and across the moors. A bird hovers high in the air, looking at something invisible on the ground. The cloud-filled sky has turned a beautiful dark blue-grey and the colours of the bracken, in their autumn hues, range from an intense chocolate-brown to a pale straw. With the phone between her shoulder and ear, she rearranges the papers on the passenger seat.

  ‘No, I understand. Did she have any lunch, a drink, anything? … No, okay, right. No I’m sure you did the best you could. I’m so sorry she was rude to you.’

  She disconnects the call and throws the phone towards her bag in the footwell.

  ‘Stupid woman!’ she curses. The hovering bird swoops to the ground and is lost from sight.

  The first drop of rain hits the windscreen as she starts to drive towards Mum’s house. Really, she should call in to work to ask if she can go and resolve the problem, but she doesn’t want the supervisor knowing everything about her private life. Mum is her own business, and besides, no one will be the wiser if she just makes a detour on the way back to the office.

  ‘Mum?’ she calls out sharply as she pushes in through the back door. ‘Mum?’ she repeats, dropping her car keys and bag on the kitchen table.

  She peels her coat off as she makes her way through to the television room.

  ‘Mum!’ Mum is dozing but Dawn has every intention of waking her with a start.

  ‘Hmm, what? What is it?’ Mum’s head rolls as she lifts her chin from her chest. Her eyes are wide, scared, the irises pale with age. She does not seem to be focusing properly but Dawn is too angry to care.

  ‘Mum, why did you send the NHS woman away?’ Dawn demands, hands on her hips.

  ‘That cardigan doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Mum! The NHS lady?’

  ‘Oh, she was fussing, so I sent her home.’

  ‘I called in a big favour to jump you to the front of the waiting list! Six months long, it is. Now what are we going to do? I can try calling again but I think once you are off you are off. Why, Mum? Seriously – why?’