Medbh

She lay on her side. She had been awake for some time and was trying to take in every feature of the as yet unfamiliar bedroom. Through a chink in the yellow curtains sunlight was streaming in and the room looked warm, pleasant and cosy. There was an oil painting of a woman by a modern Chinese artist on the wall, in reds and yellows, and there was a low cupboard that probably housed clothes.

There was an arm around her waist. A hand had cupped her right breast and its middle finger was tentatively doing things to her nipple. She put her hand on his and pressed it. The finger got the message and continued. She tried to press herself harder against him, and to wiggle her bottom to see if she could get any reaction there.

Then the bedroom door burst open and a little girl dashed inside, wearing a flowery dress and an old pullover.

"Mummy," she said, "can we go and play in the wood?"

The woman turned around to look at the owner of the hand, and questioningly raised her eyebrows.

"Of course," the man said. "But don't forget to put on your rubber boots. It's rather wet in places."

"Kim has already gone to collect them," the girl said.

"But you haven't got any," her mother said.

"She will wear Kim's spares," the man said. "Behave and have fun, girls."

"I see," the woman said as the girl ran from the room, leaving the door open. She looked at the man who grinned at her, a little apologetically. Kim and Josie were about the same height, but Kim's shoes were at least one size smaller than Josie's, if not one and a half. Spares, she thought. "Liar," she said with a smile and bent over to the man to kiss him.

Medbh Marsh, who disliked the spelling of her name a little, although the sound was fine with her, was a single mother. When she was twenty-five, she'd been on holiday when the heat of the place and the attraction of one of the local boys, who was really charming and very good-looking, had led her into a short-lived love affair. The boy eventually turned out to be fairly shallow, and they broke off. She never knew an address. They'd used protection alright, but obviously one of the rubbers must have given way, and some time after the holidays she realised she was pregnant. Josie was a beautiful baby, and she had a little of her father's swarthiness.

Medbh was very fond of her. They had been in love, after all, even though it had been short-lived, and Josie was very welcome to her.

The environs were very negative. Medbh was cold-shouldered by the ladies that dropped their offspring at the same infant classes, and, when she got older, at school. Two of them passed the time of day with her, for propriety's sake, but the others could not be bothered. There were only two parents that were different, Janice Bond, who decidedly was no lady, and a tallish man whose name she didn't know. Janice, whose dresses made the ladies either raise their eyebrows or look away, took her son to school accompanied by a bewildering assortment of boyfriends, and rumour had it that she didn't even know who the father was. The tallish man kept himself rather distant. Medbh knew he had a daughter; he was never seen with a woman. No one seemed to know if there was any with the exception of Mrs Mills, Josie's teacher; she knew there wasn't.

What hurt most was the fact that Josie did not get asked to come and play; nor was she present at the birthday parties of her class. And it was with a glad heart that Medbh eventually saw Josie come home with a small, hand written invitation to come to Kim's birthday party, one Saturday in early May.

"Who's Kim?" she'd asked.

"Kim is my friend," Josie had said. It transpired that Kim was the girl she played with in the schoolyard, and that Kim was often dressed a little scruffily, but that they had no end of fun, and Kim was not stuck up at all. Kim was cool. She was a bit of a tomboy, she had auburn hair and freckles, and she lived in the country near the small wood. And they would pick her up from school and bring her back at eight.

Josie went, of course. The two girls had a wonderful time. They went to the wood, picked flowers in the meadow, overate on birthday cake and chips, and Josie returned with too much to tell her mother to be really coherent. They had asked her over for the following weekend, too, she said.

Medbh worked in the local library, and she had been collecting books that she found in charities and car boot sales for a long time. She intended to start her own second-hand bookshop and spent her evenings cataloguing her finds in an excel file on her laptop. When she felt everything was ready she spent two long weekends doing up the shop she'd rented and the Friday after that she opened the place. She sold a good many books that first day. The tallish man came along and bought two books, an old copy of "La flute de jade," Chinese poetry in a French translation, and Origo's "Vagabond Path". She found that he knew about books, and obviously liked them. She had taken French at school, and she had read a couple of the poems. She asked him if he read French, and he said that yes, he did, although he needed a dictionary now and again. He had friendly, grey eyes, she thought. She liked the way he wandered about, and he had nice hands. Another man who bought some books immediately asked her out for a date. She declined the invitation a little brusquely, since she neither knew him nor liked his face and manner.

Then, about a fortnight before the summer holidays she developed acute appendicitis. She was taken to hospital straight away. The hospital informed Josie's school. The teacher told Josie and Kim immediately said, "Oh, she can stay with us!"

The teacher tried to arrange things for her. She did not think it meet to have Josie stay with a man, so she called a few of the ladies, to no avail. Eventually she decided to try Kim's dad after all, and he immediately agreed to put Josie up for the duration.

Mr Auld collected the girls after school. Mrs Wills was glad to find they obviously knew each other. Josie seemed quite at ease with Mr Auld. She took his hand and asked him if they could go to the hospital, and he replied that yes, of course they would.

Then he asked the teacher for all the information she could give, put the two girls in his old Vauxhall and drove to the hospital.

It took some coaxing before they were willing to accept him as an interested party, but eventually they relented and he was told Miss Marsh was still under sedation, but that she would come round soon. If he could take care of clean clothes and take the washing along? He wanted the key, he told them, and had to sign a paper before the hospital parted with it; they provided him with a list of what they wanted.

"Alright, girls," he said. "We will go to your home first, Josie."

They went there and Josie, who knew where everything was, collected the necessary things for her mother and those she herself would need for her stay at the Aulds', and put them in bags. Kim went with her and her father stayed downstairs. He looked at the bookcase in the living room and tried the piano for a moment. It was obviously played on regularly, and there was a Schubert song on the music stand.

When the girls came down he read out the items on the list; they had found every single one and he said they'd done great. The two of them beamed.

Back at the hospital he told Josie to go in and talk to her mother. After Josie returned he went in with Kim.

"So you're Kim's father," she said with a tired smile.

He told her that they'd arranged to have Josie at his place until she would be able to have her around again. "But that's probably quite soon. She seems quite a reliable young woman," he said.

Medbh tried to say thank you.

"Oh, nonsense," he said with a smile. "It's no more than natural. Besides, Kim loves having Josie around."

He explained he'd keep in contact, and he told her he'd be honoured to arrange things for her when she was discharged from hospital. Medbh nodded. She seemed more than tired and they left.

Ted Auld was a painter. He earned enough to keep him in paint and to have a pleasant life with his daughter. He wrote the odd article on art, sometimes gave master classes in the use of gouaches, he had written two novels, and played the guitar badly, as he would say. But Kim and Josie loved it, and that first evening they built a big fire and sat around it till well past the girls' bedtime, talking, listening and drinking tea.

The next morning was wet and windy. Ted asked Josie if she had any rubber boots at home.

"No," she said. "We never use any."

"Right," Ted said. "Let's go to town and do some shopping, then."

They went and bought food, a pair of rubber boots and a large bunch of flowers. Then they drove to the hospital to find Medbh a little better. She liked the flowers, she said, and told them she would be discharged the next morning. Ted asked her if she would be alright with Josie for a nurse.

"Perhaps it's too much to ask of a six-year-old," he said.

Medbh nodded.

"Maybe I should have someone round to take care of me," she said. "And there will be no one in the shop..."

"If you come with us, Ted can take care of the shop," Kim said.

"Yes, mummy, please!" Josie said.

Medbh felt too weak to protest.

"Wouldn't you mind very much?" she asked Ted.

"No," he said. "That'll be alright."

That afternoon the girls played in the mud and came home looking happy, rosy and rather dirty, to say the least. Mrs Wills would not have approved, Ted thought, but the glow on their faces seemed to him to outshine any clean frock.

He ran the bath and told the girls to get washed. Then they dressed nicely and they went to the hospital again.

Medbh was well enough again to enjoy their visit and to take an interest in what they said. First Josie told her about the house and the grounds around it, and then Ted asked Medbh about his task in the shop.

"Oh," she said, "the books are all priced. Do you know how to run a cash register?"

Ted told her he'd worked in a shop as an adolescent. "What if anyone wants to sell?" he said.

She told him to use his own judgement, and to defer buying in case of doubt.

When visiting time was over they drove back home.

Ted, who had prepared some food while the girls were in the wood, shoved the dish into the oven and went upstairs to see to the spare room.

During dinner Josie, who was uncharacteristically quiet, suddenly asked, "Do you like my mum?"

Ted smiled at her. "I like what I've seen of her," he said, and left it at that.

Josie seemed to be happy with his answer and started to talk to Kim again. My, Ted thought, how these girls can talk. And then he considered Josie's question. Did he now? Medbh wasn't your conventional beauty. She had pronounced cheekbones, a wide mouth and her teeth were not quite regular. But she had a very attractive grin. He'd not really noticed her figure. He didn't usually look at woman like that - sometimes you couldn't but notice things, though. Janice Bond really was a looker. He remembered how she'd once made a pass at him; she'd good-naturedly acknowledged his refusal to be lured into her web. Medbh wasn't the kind of woman to make passes at people, he thought. She seemed to be out on her own somehow - it never occurred to him that it might be because she was a single mother as he was not given to making judgements on anybody; and to him it didn't seem at all strange, let alone disreputable. When he had first seen her at ease, on her bookshop's opening day, she'd been transformed, he thought - animated, emitting a kind of energy and enthusiasm that he highly appreciated. He had enjoyed talking to her, he shared her taste in books and she certainly had a face he would like to paint. Apart from that - he didn't really know her; she kept herself to herself, like he did. He didn't realise that in her case it was necessity, not choice.

Oh well, he thought. Perhaps I will get to know her a little better now.

To Josie's regret it rained that evening, so there was no campfire to be had. But they sat together at the kitchen table and played games and talked.

The next day saw continuous rain, a leaden sky and a blusterous wind. The children stayed indoors and Medbh enjoyed their company in Ted's comfortable, untidy living room. She spent her time looking around; the untidiness was basically a matter of piles of things Ted had not got round to putting away: books, records and CDs, a pile of letters... she browsed his books and saw a lot she'd love to read or look at.

Ted had gone to the bookshop that morning. He held the fort with enthusiasm. There were some interesting clients, and then there was a man who came in to sell a dozen early eighteenth century chapbooks. "I'd like to sell these," he said. "I will want fifty pounds for them."

Ted went through them while the man went through the thriller section. He searched Medbh's database and found she had sold a similar book for three hundred pounds, four months ago. They were in excellent condition so he didn't hesitate to buy them. The man identified himself; he was from the other end of the country, and wanted cash straight away.

Ted entered the purchase in the books and then sat down with the laptop to add them to Medbh's database.

When he'd closed the shop he went home and brought the chapbooks along. He found the three girls in the kitchen. They had cooked together; Medbh had given instructions and the girls had done the work. The smell made Ted's mouth water.

"Look," he said, and handed his parcel to Medbh.

She inspected the contents with a blush on her cheeks. "Oh," she said. "That's wonderful. Did you have to pay much?"

"Fifty pounds," Ted said. "It seemed reasonable to me."

"Brilliant," Medbh said. "Oh, I'll want to read them first."

Medbh stayed over the weekend. She explored the house, with the exception of the studio, which she only saw from the doorstep, and Ted's bedroom. She loved the conservatory; it was well kept and well proportioned. It was quite empty, though. Kim told her that her dad had no time for plants; he was still thinking about some use for it, she said. She loved the garden, too. It was large, with a view of the town across the valley, and it consisted mainly of a vast lawn. The weather, unfortunately, did not invite any long stay outdoors.

She learnt from Ted that Kim's mother had died in childbirth, and that Kim had nearly perished in the process. He told her he had been quite devastated, but making sure that Kim would grow up to be a balanced, pleasant person had kept him from giving in to his grief. He'd accepted it a long time ago.

"I think you're doing great," Medbh said. "Josie loves going here."

The compliment made Ted blush.

In return Medbh explained how she'd come to be a single mum, and how she felt slighted by the ladies' treatment of her daughter.

Ted shook his head. "People..." he said, which as Medbh later found out was about the strongest term of disapproval he would use for anyone.

That Monday the Marshes went back home. Ted found the house seemed strangely empty and cold. He told himself he missed the bustle that had come with the Marshes; to forget about it he started to paint furiously. He embarked on a couple of heads; when he'd finished, he asked Kim's opinion, as usual. Somehow she could tell exactly whether what he'd completed was worthwhile or not. She looked at the heads with interest. Two of them were not up to standard, she said. The last one held her interest for a long time.

"Did you try to paint Josie's mum?" she asked. Ted looked at his own work again and realised that the head he'd painted was very much like Medbh.

"No," he said. "At least - I didn't realise."

"I like it alright," Kim said, "but you can do better."

"Yes," Ted said and subjected his work to a critical inspection. "I could ask her to sit and do a portrait in oils."

The ladies, who had so far tacitly accepted Ted, decided he must be below par, too, since he made himself cheap talking to and, even worse, smiling at that woman. But then, what could one expect of an artist?

Medbh noticed at once, but she liked talking to Ted too much to say so; Ted, as usual, didn't notice anything. He just wasn't too interested in other people's opinions of him, and the ladies held no appeal to him at all.

To his own surprise he found it difficult to go and ask Medbh to sit for him, and he put it off. He'd popped into the bookshop once or twice and bought one of the chapbooks that contained a couple of nice woodcuts. He thought he'd like to invite Medbh over for a meal again, but he wasn't too confident about his cooking skills.

Little girls were much easier to deal with, he thought. When the situation allowed he'd treat them on a strictly grown-up basis, and they appreciated his sincerity.

When the holidays came round Kim asked him if she could ask Josie to come along. Ted thought it was a brilliant idea. He quite enjoyed the girls' antics and it would make the holidays a much livelier experience for everyone concerned.

"That's a splendid idea," he said. "I will have to talk to Medbh about it, though."

Medbh had only a few weeks off in summer, and she wanted to see to her shop. After a successful couple of months she badly needed to rearrange things. She wanted to buy some new bookcases, and her database had become a little untrustworthy. She wanted to bring it back to perfection and so Kim's idea was greeted with great enthusiasm by mother and daughter alike.

Ted had planned to go camping in the Yorkshire Dales. He knew a small campsite that consisted of just one little field with a brook that was partially dry in summer running round its edge, and a steep slope on the other side. You had to walk a little distance to the farm to find a primitive shower and toilet; there were no further amenities. Just what they wanted, he thought. The girls could play to their hearts' content and he could do some drawing in the self-sufficient landscape the Dales meant to him. He packed two tents, one for himself and one for the girls.

They left their address with Medbh and went up for a good ten days, with the weekend halfway. The girls loved it, and Ted happily divided his time between domestic tasks, playing with the girls and gathering ideas for painting.

On Thursday Medbh texted if it was alright if she came along for the weekend. She had seen enough of the shop for the time being and she felt lonely without Josie, she said. She didn't add that she'd enjoyed her stay the Aulds' very much, and that she wanted to get to know them a good deal better.

Ted immediately called her to say she was more than welcome and to arrange to pick her up half way. He told the girls and had to put his hands over his ears to save his eardrums.

The next afternoon they got into the car and drove to their meeting point. Medbh was already there, looking flushed, with a weekend bag holding her clothes and a carrier bag with food.

They talked all the way back - or rather, Kim and Josie did - and at the campsite they rearranged the tents, family by family.

In the evening, after a lovely example of Medbh's cooking, they built a campfire. To their delight there were no other campers, so they had the place to themselves. First Ted played the guitar for some time and then he got out a sketchbook and started to draw. He particularly wanted to get Medbh's face right.

Then he told Medbh about the head he'd done and asked her to sit for him. She raised her eyebrows and told him she'd think about it.

They did a lot of talking that long weekend. The girls went to bed at nine, and Medbh had brought a few bottles of wine, which they enjoyed together, staring into the flames. Now and then Ted looked at her face. He realised that he did not only like what he saw of her, but that he liked her voice, what she said, the way her mind ran on those things that he considered of importance... She clearly could teach him a thing or two about music, and she was well read and cultured. He couldn't miss her figure, now, either; she'd spent some time playing in the brook with the girls in an appealing two-piece bathing suit and she looked very attractive indeed, he thought. She didn't seem to bother about the scar left by her operation at all.