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‘Love no flood can quench no torrents drown’
Song of Songs
 If they had said she was in love she would have pooh-poohed the idea. She might have felt love for her parents, but with the death of her baby sister they had been too occupied with their own grief to notice they were neglecting her. By the time they did, it was too late. By then Claire was helplessly, hopelessly enamoured with the McArdle family.
Claire was a solitary child given to reading a lot and playing imaginary games by herself in the wilderness that passed for a garden behind their house. Her mother was a teacher and believed it was never too early to become acquainted with books. Claire’s first memory was sitting in her bath turning the vinyl pages of Puss in Boots. She remembered the water slopping the shiny plastic cat and crooning sadly because he had gotten his fur ‘all wet.’
Christopher, who was two years younger than Claire, never opened a book. He was ‘games’ mad, spent all his time hopping, throwing or kicking a ball, which pleased their father who was also sport crazy and spent his weekends glued to the television watching Grandstand and Match of the Day. Claire didn’t feel much, if any, affinity with Christopher.
When Claire was ten, another baby had been born; a little girl with hair a shade blonder than Claire’s and grey eyes fringed with sooty lashes. She and Christopher had doted on Bella, bonded together this one and only time out of mutual adoration. ‘Make an angel face,’ Claire would coax and the little darling would show her pearly teeth in a smile. ‘Now a devil face,’ scowling and wrinkling her button nose obediently. Claire was besotted with this tiny sibling, willing the school bell to ring so that she could run home, eager for the reality of her.
The baby was her mother’s joy and delight and her death from meningitis when she was two cast Annette into a deep depression. She lost her optimistic view of life, her sweetness of expression. At thirty-eight years of age she became weepy and withdrawn, lying in bed with her face to the wall, refusing to take an interest in anything. When she got up at last and resumed her normal routine she performed her tasks like an automaton, without flair, the spirit gone out of her. Claire’s father, Jim, tried to cheer her but could not break through the barrier Annette had erected about her. There was a marked difference in their relationship. He became hesitant, almost apologetic, as if it was somehow his fault. Her mother no longer laughed at his clowning and he had lost his faith in his ability to make her laugh.
(Later chapter)
Claire began to see Dr McArdle as a slightly romantic figure, physically a cross between Sheena and Terry, yet inexplicably grim and brooding, with granite-hewn features and jetting eyebrows. She was reading Jane Eyre at the time and had unconsciously cast him in the role of Mr Rochester.
It was a shock to find how closely he resembled a romantic hero.
Eddie McArdle was broad-shouldered and powerfully muscled, with curly grey-black hair and a beautiful sad smile, which seemed to suggest that no matter what dreadful secrets you told him he would not be surprised or shocked.
He arrived home from Germany one morning, not long after Jane had set off to collect him at the airport having somehow got her lines of communication crossed. As a result, they passed each other at some point on the road. The children were playing in the garage when he suddenly appeared in their midst. Claire was lying on her back - they were enacting a childbirth scene - and Sheena was instructing her to "breathe deeply" and "bear down, my dear" while Terry pressed the stethoscope against the cushion Claire had shoved under her dress. The twins were noisily encouraging her to moan and scream and when they saw their father, they didn't stop but, pleased to have an audience, exaggerated their antics.
‘Good God, is this what you get up to?' he asked, genuinely appalled.
Claire struggled up, feeling mortified to be caught in such a position. She saw herself as he must see her: an almost grown girl, legs sprawled, playing childish games. Her face reddened as she pulled the cushion from under her dress and quickly hid it behind her. Whichever way she sat up she must have pulled her scar. She gave an involuntary cry and held her stomach.
'Labour pains reoccurring, no doubt.' Dr McArdle sounded sarcastic.
Tears in her eyes, Claire stared down at the ground. Her tummy really hurt. She must have opened the wound.
'It's my tummy... I think I've pulled my appendix scar.'
He stared at her for a moment. 'Come into the house,' he said, more gently.
Still clasping the cushion, Claire followed him into Jane’s surgery, where he motioned for her to lie down on the couch. She put the cushion on the floor and eased herself up on to the couch. She felt a little shy, lying there, staring at the walls. There was the sound of water running as Dr McArdle washed his hands.
He came over and sat on the edge. 'Let me see.' His hands were gentle as he pulled up her dress and peeled back her pants. Claire stared fixedly at a spot on the wall behind his right ear. She wondered desperately which knickers she had put on that morning. Annette was very lax these days about taking her shopping, or indeed, doing anything that required effort. With school holidays she had practically abandoned all pretence at housekeeping.
'Nothing too catastrophic,' he murmured, blotting a globule of fresh blood. 'You'll survive.'
She made to sit up but he gently pushed her back on the couch.
'Hold on. A swab of Betadene and you'll be right.’ He stood up and crossed the room.
She looked down at herself, her stomach bared, her faded cotton pants pulled down, revealing pale skin. Oh no, there was a hole in them. She flushed, wishing she could cover herself. Sheena wore flowered sets of lingerie. She wished desperately to have had underwear like Sheena's. She looked away miserably. He was back.
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