Daughters by Elizabeth Buchan Page A

feet. ‘Stay here, both of you. I’m going out to get something decent. This is rat poison.’
    Typical Duncan. She felt the familiar soft helplessness. To be with him was to be enveloped in … not exactly goodness but in the certainty that he would never allow injustice and meanness to get in the way. And if that
was
goodness, it frequently made her laugh and feel better.
    It was all the more perverse, therefore, that more than once in the dark reaches of the night, she had considered leaving him. In the dark, problems had a habit of twisting into quite different shapes. If you rated reason andrationality, which she did, then they suggested that it
was
best to leave someone whose opinions on the important things were so different from her own.
    She hunkered down beside Maudie. ‘Whatever you’re feeling, we’ve probably experienced it too.’
    Twisting the ends of her hair around her fingers, Maudie hooded the blue eyes. ‘I’ve got to tell you something … difficult.’
    The weeping? But until Maudie said something, she had to pretend ignorance of the Harvard plans. ‘Drugs, Maudie? Pregnancy?’
    Maudie sent her look of utter contempt. ‘You sound like Mum.’
    Do I? That was a little smack in the face.
    ‘I always thought I wanted nothing more than to get to Oxford. Now …’ Maudie shifted uneasily. ‘Well …’
    Jasmine peered at her. ‘Yes. You can change your mind, Maudie. You know that? In fact, you should think new and bold. Don’t let tradition box you in.’
    ‘You really mean that?’
    Her knees twinged. ‘I do. It’s important we think differently.’
    ‘OK.’ Pause. ‘I’ve told Mum …’ Maudie drew a resolute breath ‘… I’m going to try for Harvard.’
    ‘An excellent idea.’ Courtesy of Lara, Jasmine had had time to readjust the balance. Truth to tell, she had been surprised that her admiration for Maudie’s ambitions had been tempered with a tiny bit of jealousy.
    ‘You think so?’ Maudie was touchingly pleased. ‘Mum doesn’t. She says she does but she doesn’t.’
    Jasmine opened her mouth to deliver the sisterly lecture about seizing the day, widening the horizons. Too late: Maudie’s screen pinged. She lunged at the keyboard and tapped into it. Jasmine hoicked a foot on to the bench. ‘Don’t mind me.’
    Simultaneously, Maudie’s phone came to life and she flicked it on. ‘Hey …’
    It was Tess, of course, Maudie’s better-than-any-sister friend. They were planning to go out. ‘See you in ten,’ she said.
    ‘Off limits,’ Jasmine reminded her. ‘Sunday evening.’
    ‘And who are you?’ Maudie jumped up. ‘
Who
are you?’
    Jasmine grinned. ‘Just your sister.’
    Later, in her flat – Duncan had gone back to his for an early night – ensconced in her narrow bedroom, Jasmine sat on her bed and contemplated the windowsill. It needed repainting, and there was a suspicious dark spot directly underneath it. Damp?
    Should
she
go away too? Try something new?
Think differently?
    She thought of the pilot whale nosing her calf to the surface and her desperate attempts to convince herself that it lived.
    No, she never could, or would, tell Lara about that image.
    Yet it would not abandon her. In her sleep, she swam through green-blue astringent waters, cradling a baby to her chest. She knew it was dying and her sobs for help cascaded in bubbles to the surface.
    In the morning the alarm woke her. Exhausted, shefocused on the white wall. The room seemed to resemble a prison cell.
    The run-up to Christmas was frantic and Jasmine was in the thick of it.
    Two Mondays running, she flew to Frankfurt for the day to pitch for a bank’s business. ‘A big deal,’ she told Duncan. ‘A lot depends.’
    It had gone well. The team had suggested to the bank’s top people that their institution had been founded on the toil of the men and women who had worked in the forests and forges. This deep-root connection to the earth should not be forgotten. The logo and