Her Read online

  When she asks how my show went I let her believe that I was puzzled, maybe even a little bit hurt, that she didn’t come.

  She’d love to see my work. She googled me, but drew a blank, nothing came up for Nina Bremner. Ah, but I use Setting, I explain. No, it’s not my maiden name. My first husband’s surname, Sophie’s father. It’s not a lie, the explanation I give her: ‘We were very young, I was just starting out. One of those rash idealistic decisions you come to regret quite quickly.’ But there’s more to it than this, of course. I continue to sign Arnold’s name on the back of my paintings in tribute to him. I will always be grateful that he took me on, extricating me from everything I wanted to leave behind: the shadow of my father’s success, lengthening year by year; my mother’s sense of failure and resentment, rarely articulated but always present, like the sad tired ghosts you sense just round the bend of the stairs in very old houses, or waiting in the far corners of the quietest, darkest rooms.

  ‘That’s one of mine,’ I say as I collect up the plates, indicating – just a little shyly – the landscape over the fireplace. Wanting to test her.

  She rises and walks down the room to look at it.

  As I lift my tumbler and hold it to my mouth, I see the water trembling slightly, a shimmer on the surface, a reverberation. Sip. Swallow. I put down the glass, watching as she pauses in front of the mantelpiece (the papier mâché apple Sophie made in primary school, the wooden bowl filled with worry beads).

  What will she see? Will she say something stupid? I’m almost certain she will.

  But her response is one I hadn’t anticipated. She makes a noise and leans in, examining the brushwork. She’s staring at it so intently, I feel a hot rush of panic. What was I playing at, showing her this? What did I think would happen? In a sort of terror, I draw closer, conjuring up a lie, a rather wild and useless lie, anything to distract her from the truth, which is that I painted this shortly after returning her wallet, and brought it to the house in preparation for this lunch. It’s an old painting, I tell her. I painted it five or six years ago. I summon up the courage to look her in the face. Her eyes are full of tears.

  She’s fine, she says, swiping at her face with fingers, saying she really shouldn’t drink at lunchtime. Again, a moment when I experience the heat of her humiliation, close-up. But she loves the painting, she really does, it took her by surprise. ‘The atmosphere. The sense of the weather. I think it’s wonderful. I wish . . .’

  She trails off, thinking. ‘Where is it?’ she asks. ‘Or is that a stupid question?’

  As I tell her that I like to paint the sea, mudflats and estuaries around East Anglia and the south coast, I’m aware that I’m saying too much. Rabbiting on nervously. Turn the tables. I put on my most cow-like expression, very patient and understanding, and I bend towards her as she bends towards the painting, and I ask if she’s OK. I say I remember that last time we talked, she seemed a little low.

  ‘Oh, that,’ she says. ‘I’m fine! Yes, it’s OK. Knackering, of course. But it’s OK.’

  I think she’s about to say something else, but then we hear the baby crying at the end of the hall, a wail of bewilderment at finding herself abandoned and alone in a strange room, and Emma hurries away from the painting, and from me; and the moment when we both might have spoken the truth is lost. But when they’ve gone home, taking their noise and mess with them, I remember the look on Emma’s face as she looked at the painting of Jassop, and I wonder what it was that she saw there.

  Did she recognise the trees, the sky? Did she know where the path was leading? Again, I remember walking down the track: taking care where I stepped, afraid of twisting my ankle. My shoes moving in and out of that small bobbing shadow, over the cracked uneven earth.

  Emma

  So we fix a date and I’m glad it’s in the distance because this gives me more time to think about it, to look forward to it. Of course, I’m full of doubts; that’s only to be expected. Entirely natural. What will we do if Cecily doesn’t go down like a stone at 7 p.m.? Will Sophie cope if she wakes up? What if Christopher cries and begs me not to go, not to leave him with this girl he doesn’t really know at all?

  I voice these fears to Fran after Monkey Music, and she gives me a pep talk, as I hoped she would.

  ‘God, you lucky lucky thing,’ she says, trying to interest Ruby in a Babybel. It’s a mild day, we’ve filled Tupperware boxes with egg sandwiches and dried apricots and Jammy Dodgers, and we’re chancing a picnic, the first of the year. The recreation ground stretches out ahead of us, the grass marked here and there with the scars and gouges of winter football. At the little Tyrolean cuckoo-clock café, a short queue snakes to the hatch: people wanting salted caramel or lemon curd ice-cream. Above the line of trees the sky is suddenly clear and blue, and for a moment, sitting here on the bench while Cecily sleeps and Christopher and Ruby collect twigs, it all seems within my grasp. Maybe I’m over the worst. Maybe it gets easier now.

  ‘It’s a step in the right direction,’ I say.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time Luke and I went out for dinner,’ sighs Fran. ‘Jesus. Six months?’

  ‘We haven’t been out together since Cecily was born,’ I say. ‘If someone had told me . . .’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  I’m reminded of a day a few weeks after Cecily’s birth: an emergency appointment with the GP. I remember the pain of the mastitis, but I also remember the wild shocked relief of stepping out of the house by myself in the late afternoon, the first time I’d been properly alone since she’d been born. Leaving the children with Ben; making my way, unfettered, through the underpass and along the main road; giving my name to the receptionist and sitting quietly in the waiting room, waiting to be called. I could have waited there forever, watching the fish in the tank, the bubbles popping out of the treasure chest, the water weeds twisting and flexing in the invisible currents.

  Yet the prospect of this night out with Ben is not uncomplicated. As well as the anxieties relating to leaving the children, I’m daunted by the scale of the project: finding something to wear, putting on mascara, making conversation and staying up late.

  So, it’s good it’s some weeks off. I’ll be up for it when the day finally comes.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ I ask Ben one breakfast time. It’s the busiest time of day: everyone in one room, the dishwasher needing emptying, a load of laundry already in, the kettle whistling gouts of steam. I’ve mashed up a banana, and Cecily is tasting it with concentration. Many emotions crowd her face in rapid succession: disgust, cautious optimism, greedy delight, and fury when it’s all gone. On the radio, someone is saying that a bumblebee is only ever forty minutes away from starving to death. I scrape a damp flannel over Cecily’s cheeks and mouth, and, in an attempt to distract her, cut her a crust off the toast I’m buttering for Christopher. ‘Shall we go into town? Anything you fancy at the theatre?’

  ‘Not sure I can face the West End on a Friday night,’ he says, making himself a tea, not bothering to see if I’d like one too.

  It’s not deliberate, I tell myself. He just isn’t thinking. Somehow asking if he could pour me a cup would make it worse, more of an event, so I don’t bother. Christopher wants jam on his toast. I get the jar from the fridge.

  ‘What about the cinema? I quite fancy the cinema . . .’

  ‘Maybe,’ he says doubtfully. I turn my back so he can’t see my expression. He has no idea how much energy I’ve put into arranging this. Finding Sophie, sorting logistics with Nina, nailing down a date and a fee. ‘Who’s this girl again?’ he’s saying. ‘How old did you say she was?’

  Don’t you dare, I think. Don’t you fucking dare.

  ‘God, how many times?’ I say quietly into the open fridge as I replace the milk on the shelf. Then I turn round and say, ‘Nice sixth-former, her mother’s that painter who found Christopher, that time he – you know. You liked Sophie, didn’t you, darling?’

  Christopher’s licking the jam off the toast,
carefully, attentively. He doesn’t respond.

  ‘And Nina’s only up the road if Sophie needs any help. Which she won’t,’ I add.

  Ben presses his lips together, judiciously, as if he has the casting vote. Fuck’s sake, I think. All my doubts about the evening scatter. I’m going out, I’m going out if it bloody kills me. I need something to look forward to, something more than takeaway Indian in front of another boxset.

  I think of people taking my coat, pulling out my chair and pouring wine so cold it frosts the glass. Someone placing a plate in front of me, and then, some time later, unobtrusively removing it. Occasionally I used to go to restaurants where waiters would attend to the table after the main course with fairy-sized silver brushes and dustpans, scrupulously sweeping up the crumbs and spiriting them away, making everything wonderful again. I look at the mess on the floor, the mess on everyone’s hands and faces. Cecily has had enough of her high chair, and is beginning to twist and wail, waving buttery fists in the air.

  Ben backs off, citing his clean shirt, looking at his watch.

  I’m standing in the sitting room with Cecily on my hip, trying to find the overdue picture books, when he leaves the house. ‘Look, there’s Daddy,’ I say, going over to the window, lifting her up so she can see as he steps onto the street. ‘Wave at Daddy!’ Ben doesn’t look up. We watch as he pauses by the post box, reaching into his jacket pocket, pulling out two white cords, fitting them into his ears, then walking on, nicely sealed in.

  The waste of it amazes me. Imagine having so much of it that you’d choose to shut some of it out.

  Sophie babysitting. It’s on the kitchen calendar, but we don’t speak of it again. Ben has robbed the prospect of some of its appeal. As the date approaches and I still haven’t decided how to make use of the evening, I catch myself wondering if it’s worth all the hassle. I can’t find a film I want to see. We’ll be knackered anyway. Perhaps I should cancel.

  I send Nina a text, half-hoping she’ll do it for me: S still OK for Friday?

  Absolutely! She’ll be with you 6.30.

  I remind Ben on the Friday morning. ‘I could meet you somewhere,’ I suggest.

  ‘I’ll come back and pick you up, we might as well drive,’ he says. A duty date, then. Just the one glass for him.

  I decide I’m bloody well going to enjoy myself, if it kills me.

  When Christopher is at playgroup and Cecily has gone down for a nap, I pick up the phone, and it’s a pitiful business: the people who answer heave little sighs, communicating their disappointment in me: such a shame to leave something like this to the last minute, to spoil my own evening by not thinking ahead. I’m offered a few tables here and there at 6 or 10; alas, there’s nothing else available. ‘Thank you so much,’ I say, and put the phone down, imagining a young woman in black crêpe pursing her lips and closing the ledger with a sorrowful snap. Then I dial another number.

  I get six or seven knockbacks, and it’s beginning to take its toll. I’m on the point of calling The Headless Woman down the hill to see if they can fit us in at the bar (maybe Ben’ll be in the mood for black-pudding scotch eggs or mackerel with beetroot) when I think, Oh, just one more throw for luck, and then I’ll give up. So for the hell of it – because, really, we can’t afford it – I call Marcy’s, trying to keep the apology out of my voice as I tell the girl what I want. A table for two, at a decent time, in your restaurant.

  ‘Oh, but you’re in luck, I just had a cancellation,’ says the girl, sounding pleased for me.

  Maybe it’s meant to be.

  After that, Friday runs smoothly, finding its own structure: I pick up Christopher, make lunch, haul everyone round the supermarket, pop out to the park. Fran’s there; she asks us over for tea. By half past six, we’re back home, Cecily’s in the bath, chewing on a rubber duck, and Christopher is sitting on the bathmat, plucking off his socks, his forehead furrowed with the effort. His Schleich horses are lined up on the floor beside him, ears pricked through thick tumbling manes, daintily lifting their hooves: Arthur, Chocolate Cake, Broken Whitey.

  I hear the sound of Ben coming home, the key in the lock and the door slamming, his coat sliding – with a percussive jangle of change and keys – from its peg onto the floor. Then he’s coming up the stairs, two at a time, a happy sort of noise.

  ‘Daddy!’ shouts Christopher, one sock off, and Ben comes in, rubbing his hands, saying: Thank God it’s the weekend, well done for nabbing Marcy’s, of course we can’t really afford it, but oh well what the hell, it’s not as if we do this very often.

  The doorbell rings just as I’m lifting Cecily out into her orange towel, while he’s lowering Christopher in, calling him Monkey Boy. ‘That’ll be Sophie,’ I say, topping up with the hot tap and reaching for a nappy. ‘Would you let her in?’

  As I pull Cecily’s sleep suit on and fasten the poppers, I hear the door opening, a grumble of traffic from the street drowning out the greeting, the door shutting, and then in the quiet I hear a woman laugh. It isn’t Sophie.

  ‘Will you be OK in here?’ I say to Christopher, spinning the tap off, but he’s not listening, he’s marching his horses over the elephant flannel, the soap boulder, the glacier of his knee. I get to my feet and put Cecily on my hip, and then I go to the top of the stairs. I look down, and I see the two of them, their dark heads shining in the light, standing together in front of the mirror. She lifts her face and laughs again, and then catches sight of me. ‘Hello Emma,’ she calls. ‘Hello Cecily.’

  ‘Nina!’ I say, and my first instinct is disappointment and a lack of surprise that this thing I’ve made happen has, in the end, come to nothing: Sophie has flu or has broken her leg, poor her, never mind, of course it doesn’t matter, how sweet of you to come round to tell us in person, you shouldn’t have bothered.

  Nina’s taking off her coat and Ben’s reaching out for it, then bending down to pick up his own, and then he’s hanging the two of them side by side, next to Christopher’s green anorak. While he’s doing this, he’s saying, ‘Really? Are you sure?’ and then he turns to me, hands open – helpless, accepting – and says, ‘Sophie’s not feeling very well, but Nina has very kindly offered to step into the breach.’

  She pulls off her boots and comes up the stairs towards me, wrinkling her nose at Cecily, who lunges forward, drawn to the glittering black beads on her necklace. ‘You need a night out,’ she says, holding out her arms. Obediently, I find myself handing her Cecily, who is usually so clingy, so reluctant to go to strangers. But perhaps she remembers Nina. Perhaps her scent – that strange complicated scent, the perfume I’m not sure I entirely like – is familiar. ‘I saw the look on your face when we talked about it at lunch,’ Nina’s saying. ‘It’s important. You need a night off, every so often.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say. Cecily has her hands on the black beads, faceted to catch the light. She grips them in her fists, rattles them. Nina edges her neck away, tucks the necklace into her jersey. ‘Oh, you darling,’ she says to Cecily, pressing past me, heading to the bathroom. ‘Now, where is your delicious brother?’

  I was planning to give Cecily the bottle myself, but Nina insists. She’ll do it. Look, here it is, all ready. They’ll be fine. She has it all sorted out: I can put Cecily down for the night just before we leave, while she and Christopher have a story. Or two. What’s your favourite bedtime story, Christopher? Goodnight Moon? Good choice! Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere. Go ahead, she says to me, standing there in the doorway, my baby in her arms. Hop in the shower! Have a quick G&T! Seriously. It’s your night off.

  I tell her the only other crucial piece of information that comes to mind – please don’t let Christopher, just out of nappies, have anything else to drink; as long as he has a wee after the story, he’ll stay dry overnight – and retreat, with Ben, to our bedroom. We shut the door and laugh quietly, both a little humiliated, but elated too, already demob-happy. ‘Isn’t it sweet of her?’ I say, pulling off my jumper, hoiking the w
rap dress off its hanger, looking for tights. ‘Do you think we should have refused?’

  ‘I’m sure she has better things to do on a Friday night,’ says Ben. ‘She looks the type. Still: gift horse, mouth.’ While he’s ringing a taxi – I don’t comment, but this already feels like fun – he inspects himself in the mirror, pulls a jacket out of the wardrobe.

  It all goes to plan. When we leave twenty minutes later, Cecily is silent in her dark room, the blackout blind pulled down to the radiator, door shut. In the pool of light cast by Christopher’s yellow-shaded lamp, Nina is curled up on the bottom of his bed, admiring his horses. I go in, picking through the channels of toys, and kiss him, and back away onto the landing, not looking at the brown stain on the corner of his ceiling, which I’m aware has grown a little larger since I last inspected it. ‘This one looks a fine fellow,’ Nina says, smiling at us over his bent head. ‘Have you thought about entering him for the Grand National?’ Busily arranging them on his duvet, basking in her attention, he barely notices our departure.

  Thank you so much, I signal from the doorway. We’ll be back some time around eleven, I imagine.

  It’s nothing, she mouths back, waving a hand, encouraging us to go. You look great! Have fun!

  The minicab’s there, waiting for us, the radio cranking out elderly power ballads, people with big hair and raspy voices singing about true love, cheating hearts and the one who got away. It all sounds fine to me. London is lit up for us tonight, the street lamps like golden balls floating down the hill, the cheap gritty sparkle of north London, with its kebab shops and Irish pubs, giving way to the immaculate terraces of Regent’s Park: the shimmering windows of the Danish church, the flesh-coloured stucco villas with their staff entrances and floodlit porticoes set back behind arrow-head railings. Every so often, the quick blue wink of a primed security system: on, off, on.