Free Daughters by Elizabeth Buchan Page B

me there to make a point.’
    She wasn’t going to make it easy for him. ‘A point?’
    ‘The wedding point.’
    ‘Oh, the wedding point. Why would I do that? I know your view.’ It ran along the lines: what difference does a piece of paper make?
    ‘I stick by it.’
    ‘Then the engagement party can’t be a high priority. Even for Andrew’s sake.’
    His mouth twitched. ‘Wrong. Affection and friendship have a higher priority than principle.’ Her feelings must have registered, for he reached across and took her hand. ‘Shall we stop?’ She returned the pressure on her fingers, and he frowned. ‘Andrew tells me the whole thing is hell.’
    ‘Does he?’
    ‘He reckons Eve’s only doing it the way she is to please Lara. She wants the big shindig.’
    ‘Then Andrew doesn’t know Eve. Lara has nothing to do with it.’
    ‘I think she has plenty to do with it.’
    Along with the chicken, the sleepy atmosphere had vanished. The protective shield was raised – as it always was at the least hint of criticism of Lara. ‘Lara has been very careful not to let on what she thinks or wants. She’s good like that.’
    ‘For someone so clever –’ He stopped and started again. ‘None of you can see the influence she has on you. It’s extraordinary.’
    Lara’s face, with its anxious, maternal expression, flashed across Jasmine’s mind, stirring up both tenderness and, ifshe was truthful, irritation. ‘What can you see that we don’t?’
    He did not answer directly. ‘
Her
marriage wasn’t much of a salvation. Shouldn’t she be warning you not to make the same mistake?’
    Trust Duncan.
    ‘Your logic’s muddled. It wasn’t marriage that was at fault, but the relationship.’
    ‘She over-mothers you.’ Duncan smiled to take away the sting.
    ‘Despite everything, my stepmother – our mother – held us together. That’s
not
over-mothering.’
    He grew serious. ‘You girls always stick up for her.’
    ‘Not always. We often hate her. She can be as irritating as you.’
    ‘Child-speak for “We love her really.”’
    ‘Lara only wants what we want.’ Jasmine got up, rinsed the plates, stacked them in the little-used dishwasher, then handed out a slice of melon.
    ‘Don’t be cross, Jas.’
    Since she had her back to him she could hide her little smile. ‘I’m not cross.’
    ‘YES, YOU ARE. Cross Jas.’
    They ate the melon in silence. Then she laughed and shoved a tea-towel at him. ‘On your feet.’
    That night, Duncan was both tender and a little rough. ‘Isn’t it enough?’ he whispered into her ear.
    ‘What?’
    ‘This.’
    Still later, he said. ‘I love you, Jasmine.’
    Lara had always pushed them, all three of them. ‘You might meet someone, Jasmine/Evie/Maudie,’ she tended to say, if an invitation was extended to one of them. ‘Knowing people helps.’
    ‘Helps with what?’ Jasmine wanted to know.
    ‘The job, influence, life …’ She made the annoying fluttery gesture with her hands – which was Lara’s way of trying to hoodwink people into thinking she was less acute than she was. A totally unnecessary attempt at camouflage, both Jasmine and Eve agreed. It was as if Lara’s generation was still in shock as to how successful their feminist achievements had been.
    Would Lara be disappointed if she knew how little her maternal pushing and shoving had influenced Eve and herself (Jasmine couldn’t vouch for Maudie)? What might cheer Lara was the reach of her subtler influence. The I-am-watching-over-you kind of love that
I will never give up
on
. It had bathed them all, from head to foot, and sent them out into the world dressed in its garments.
    When she was in the fifth form Jasmine had written an essay entitled ‘The Maternal Instinct in Whales’. It was really about Lara.
With regard to the pilot whale, there is a marked bond between mother and offspring, and this is particularly observable when a calf dies. Researchers have encountered on several occasions a pilot