Her Read online

  When I’ve found a place to leave the receipt I go upstairs to check on the children, holding my breath as the door catches and drags on the carpet of Cecily’s room; but she’s deeply asleep, surrendered to it as only babies can be (a long-lost memory of switching on the light to put away Sophie’s clean vests and tights). I stand by the cot for a few moments, watching her chest rise and fall while I listen to her breathing. It’s a small but forceful and ancient sound, and it reminds me of what you hear when you press a conch to your ear, a noise that is partly your own heart beating, and partly the sound of the ocean, the pull of the moon. The rhythms beneath the surface, the mysterious rhythms that thread us all together. Love set you going like a fat gold watch. Hate can do that, too.

  She’s so very little. Her tiny fists like seashells.

  Next door, Christopher’s flat on his back, one white foot poking out beyond the duvet. I retrieve the beaker – it’s empty, he must have finished it after I said goodnight – and take it downstairs and wash it up, and then I go back into the sitting room and set a few more marbles rolling, click, click, click, while I wait for Emma and Ben to come home.

  I wasn’t going to mention it, but in the end she’s a little tipsy from the wine and the excitement of being back in the world – drunk with success and relief – so I think: why not. I suppose I’m testing her, sure she’ll fail, banking on it; and yet perhaps part of me (a small foolish part) hopes to be surprised.

  Ben is helping me into my coat, and I flip my hair over the collar and pretend to be snagged by an afterthought, pointing at the framed photograph on the bookshelf: ‘Let me guess: your parents, Emma?’

  How strongly Christopher resembles his grandfather, I say, as she picks up the frame and examines it, as if she hasn’t noticed it for a while.

  ‘Really?’ she says. So I appeal to Ben, who tells me he never knew them; they both died before he and Emma got together.

  ‘Ah, that’s a shame,’ I say, and I find the news takes me aback: those two pleasant-looking people, Andrew and Ginnie, glimpsed briefly through hedges and kitchen windows, or in the distance on the marsh, wearing hats against the sun and whistling for the grandmother’s terrier.

  It wasn’t that Emma told me much about them; she didn’t. But they were there, behind the things she said. Mild, involved, interested. She took them for granted, and that fascinated me as much as anything else. I’m surprised by how the news affects me.

  While we’re saying goodbye, she invites us for supper.

  ‘That would be fun,’ I say, and then I step out into the night. For some reason, as I walk, I find myself thinking about the marble run. Click, click, click.

  Emma

  Now our evenings are a little more structured, now Cecily’s going down pretty heavily at seven, there’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t have some people over for dinner. Who would go with Nina and Charles? I spend a few days agonising over this, and then Ben gets tired of my indecision and says, ‘They’re not upholstery. They’re not curtains, for God’s sake,’ and I’m glad he’s making jokes, I’m glad he’s forgiven me for the shoes, so I invite Fran and Luke, and Patience (an ex-colleague, I haven’t seen her for ages) and her partner Rob. Everyone’s up for it, though I know they’ll all be doing the mental maths: please let this be worth the expense of the babysitter. No pressure, then.

  ‘Do you want to do your beef thing?’ I ask Ben one evening during the commercial break.

  ‘What beef thing?’

  ‘You know, the beef thing. Everyone likes that. I’m pretty sure Fran and Luke haven’t had it.’

  He says OK, he’ll do the beef thing.

  When Christopher is at playgroup and Cecily is napping or chewing toys, I hurriedly go through cookbooks and google recipes. I compile shopping lists, thinking about salads and soups and puddings. I ring the window cleaner. I iron the wedding-list tablecloth and napkins. I buy some Silvo and tear up an old shirt of Ben’s for rags. Eat your heart out Mrs Dalloway, I think, as I polish the candlesticks, rubbing and rubbing as the shine is revealed, as the tarnish transfers to the cloth.

  Last Christmas, as part of our economy drive (the end of the Royal Academy membership and the organic veg-box scheme; the beginning of my obsession with BOGOFs and discount codes and ebay and ‘reduced’ stickers) we told our cleaner Magda that we had to let her go. Though Ben never quite articulated it, I know he expected me to take over on that front – after all, I’m at home all day, aren’t I? With nothing much to do? – but what with one thing and another, things have gone to pot. So now I attempt to be systematic about it, moving furniture and rugs around to reveal drifts of dust, running a cloth along the window sills, taking up the sofa cushions and shoving the Hoover nozzle deep into its recesses, listening to the subsequent rattles and clatters with a mixture of satisfaction and dread.

  It’s a fairly superficial transformation, and it only lasts until Christopher gets home and upends his crate of cars – which also contains lolly sticks, crumbs and hard nuggets of Play-Doh – on the rug. I stand over him, my arms crossed, and I don’t say any of the things I want to say. I just say, ‘Time to wash your hands for tea.’

  On the Saturday morning I leave the house quite early, just before nine, and I drive to the supermarket ahead of the rush, cutting down the bright empty aisles with my trolley and my list, scoring things off, efficiently charting my progress. Afterwards, when I’ve stashed the groceries in the boot, I dart through to the high street in search of a florist. It’s a shining blue morning, full of the racket of awnings being pulled down in readiness for the promised sun, the hiss of espresso machines, the chink and clamour as trays of steaming china are removed from industrial dishwashers. I step around a street-sweeper’s broom and the soapy spill left by a window cleaner’s bucket.

  Outside the cafés, the tables are slowly filling up: people reading papers, admiring strangers’ spaniels, commenting on the weather. There’s something so optimistic about being out first thing on an early summer’s day: the air softening and the definite shadows shrinking as the sun soars up and up. I’m poised to cross the road towards the florist when something catches my eye: it’s a shop sign being flipped from ‘closed’ to ‘open’. In the window, a gilded merry-go-round horse is mid-canter, eyes rolling, hooves suspended over an artificial daisy lawn. For a moment, I’m transported: the wheeze and skirl of the calliope; the scent of frying onions and burning sugar; strings of coloured bulbs against a stormy sky. The cheapness of dreams back then.

  The bell chimes as I push the door and step inside.

  It’s one of those lifestyle emporiums, the point where brass neck meets hard currency: old street signs, vintage cash registers lined up on a ‘60s sideboard, a basket of knitted owls, a pharmacist’s cabinet, Parker Knoll chairs upholstered in a natty fabric. Candles poured into china cups picked up from the local hospice shop, now priced at £15. The smell of a reed diffuser (‘Nantucket’, perhaps, or ‘Provence’) and lavender soap.

  A woman with a mug in her hand says good morning, dipping her head to turn on the iPod. Supper jazz, of course.

  Oh, this is ludicrous, I think, wandering around, picking up things – pop-guns, felt-cupcake key rings, funky Italian bottle openers – and pausing in front of the row of polished wooden lasts, the collection of glass jelly moulds. Ridiculous, I think, unable to stop myself picturing two or three of the moulds back at Carmody Street: displayed on a kitchen shelf, perhaps, or on the landing windowsill. I bend forward to flip over a price tag and then drop it, fast.

  Seeing the movement, the shop assistant leans over the counter and says, ‘Can I help you with anything?’ For a moment, I hesitate, half-tempted by my shame, and then I remember what Ben said when he found the receipt for those shoes, and I say, ‘No thanks, I’m just browsing.’

  In the end, because I’m out (and who is he to tell me not to?), I buy a pair of yellow socks with bumblebees on the toes for Cecily, and a pocket-sized kaleidoscope for Christopher.


  ‘That’s £22.98,’ says the woman behind the counter.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, as she hands me my credit card and the paper bag patterned with Edwardian puddings: blancmanges, trifles, syllabubs in fluted dishes.

  When I get home, Christopher is bug-eyed in front of cartoons, Cecily needs a change and Ben is laid out on the sofa reading the Guardian magazine. He glances up and says, ‘Ah, good, you’re back. I’ll jump in the bath.’

  I go into the kitchen and clear a space on the table, between the cereal bowls and the butter, where I can drop the flowers, and then I start to make as much noise as I can, dragging in the bags from the hall, slamming plates into the dishwasher, banging cupboard doors and turning the taps on so that I’m drenched in spray. When the sink is full, I shut off the water and hear the sound of Ben hopping upstairs, and the bathroom door closing, and with that I feel some relief, even if it also feels like a cauterisation of sorts: give it up, there’s no point in hoping he’ll understand how you feel.

  When he comes down an hour later, fresh-shaven, I’m whipping mascarpone into the eggs while singing to Cecily, who is propped up in the highchair, chewing on a wooden spoon. It’s sometimes easier to sing to her than to think of things to say.

  ‘Looks good,’ Ben says, coming up behind me and putting his arms around my shoulders. I flinch a little at it – someone else pawing at me, wanting something – but I make myself smile, and then I ask him to fetch down the big glass dish for the tiramisu. I won’t say anything about the mess he left for me, I won’t. I’m better than that. And anyway, I don’t have the energy for a row. Sometimes it’s less trouble just to let things go.

  During that Saturday there are many moments when I wish I’d never done this, never had the idea and set it in motion. But at a quarter to eight – once the children are safely in bed and I’ve found a clean top – I go around the house putting tea lights into glass holders, and I feel a queer burst of hope: the house doesn’t look so bad, the food should be fine, we’ve got plenty of booze. Perhaps people will enjoy themselves.

  I stand in the doorway, and the sitting room looks fairly attractive and orderly: the little lamps casting cosy pools of amber light over the polished table and the smooth pelt of the vacuumed carpet, the vases of ranunculus and white roses set out beside the dishes of nuts and olives. Does it look as if we’ve made an effort? Does it look as if we’re trying too hard? I take a match from the box and strike it, and the little flame bobs and dips as I put it to the wicks, creeping up the match, shrivelling and blackening it. ‘Harvest Moon’ shuffles into ‘The Goodbye Look’.

  As I blow out the flame, I sense movement behind me. A small pale face pressed between the banisters. ‘Bed,’ I say, in a cool and steady voice, turning away, moving the flowers an inch to the left. When I glance back a moment later, he has gone.

  In the kitchen, Ben is stationed in front of the fridge, gazing uncertainly into its recesses; I can tell he has forgotten what he was looking for. He shuts the fridge door and together we inspect the table, extended to fill the bay, laid with the jaunty pink-striped tablecloth, and crowded round with an assortment of mismatching chairs and stools culled from bedrooms and bathroom. I adjust the jam jars with posies in them, wondering whether they look stupid. ‘What do you think?’ I ask, hoping he’ll reassure me, but he just says it’s fine, leave it. Before I can stop him, he’s pouring the dressing on the salad and picking up the servers, starting to toss the leaves around in the bowl. ‘Just getting ahead of ourselves,’ he says, giving me a wink.

  By the time we sit down to eat, the salad will be darkly sodden, limp. Too late now.

  ‘You look nice,’ he says, and I remember I’ve forgotten to put on any makeup. I’m upstairs with my little pots and brushes, trying to find a mascara that hasn’t completely dried out, when Fran and Luke arrive, knocking (the parents’ courtesy) rather than ringing the bell. Patience and Rob are just behind them on the step.

  We stand in the hall, exchanging jackets and bottles and bunches of flowers, and then everyone’s pressing through to the sitting room, marvelling at how pretty it’s looking, introducing themselves, while Ben picks up one of the bottles.

  I’m in the kitchen dealing with Fran’s freesias when the Bremners arrive. Of course, I haven’t met Charles before. He’s much older than I was expecting, late fifties, or even early sixties: tall, patrician-looking, in a dark blue shirt and large black-framed spectacles, receding hair swept back in two wings at his temple. I think of him taking a seat on the ugly sofa, making conversation with Rob, who is in marketing strategy, and my courage fails me a little.

  ‘Go through!’ I say, ushering them into the sitting room, conscious that I am glad to have an excuse to abandon them there, and not only because Fran’s freesias have left a wet patch on my top. Ben, who doesn’t know either of them, is so busy gassing away – something about Breaking Bad – that he hasn’t got around to opening the bottle yet. ‘Ben!’ I say, sharply, hating the sound I’m making. ‘Do you need some help with that? Nina and Charles, this is Ben . . .’

  I hear the cork pop as I stir the cream into the soup.

  Over supper, I remember why I haven’t seen Patience much recently. She is missing in action, subsumed by the quicksand of motherhood. As the evening goes on, I have an image of her, stuck in it up to her chin, like a character in a Beckett play. Only her mouth is mobile. ‘Oh, they’re vermin,’ she says. ‘There’s a woman on our street who puts food out for them last thing at night. I’d report her, only I’m not sure who to call.’ She keeps seeing the same fox hanging out by the bins. She thinks it must have mange or something, it’s covered in bald patches. She turns to me. ‘I hope you’re not leaving your back door open? You know they’ve been known to take babies?’

  She refers to Audrey and Alfred as if they’re famous wits and sages, the key players in her social landscape. Often they are produced as trump cards, hijacking conversations, taking us off in unexpected directions, towards the things she really feels impassioned about: Ofsted reports, a column in the Guardian’s family section, the celebrated rudeness of the local butcher. ‘Audrey was only just telling me,’ she’ll say, laughing hilariously at the memory, or, ‘Last week I said to Alfred . . .’

  ‘Alfred?’ Fran asks, at the second mention.

  ‘Oh, our seven-year-old,’ Patience explains, pinking slightly. Does she assume everyone knows? Or perhaps she wishes she hadn’t been called on this particular point.

  As we clear the soup and bring out the beef, I can hear Charles is making quite an effort with her, asking questions, listening to the answers, and finally being asked one himself. ‘No, Nina and I don’t have children together, but we both have daughters from our first marriages,’ he says. ‘My Jessica is in her thirties, but Sophie, Nina’s daughter, lives with us. She’s seventeen.’

  ‘Ah, the babysitter,’ says Fran, half-remembering the story.

  Patience helps herself to salad, which is every bit as limp as I’d known it would be. ‘Goodness, a teenager,’ she says, with an ornithologist’s curiosity about a rarely seen species. ‘What’s that like? Hard work?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Charles says easily. ‘OK, there’s the usual stuff. Picking her up from parties at 2 a.m. The lost phones. The falling in and out with friends . . .’

  ‘Teenage girls, they’re worse than the Borgias,’ says Nina, shrugging.

  ‘And I must confess,’ says Charles, ‘that I make a very bad driving instructor. I think she must have mounted every kerb in north London.’

  ‘Charles has always been very good with Sophie,’ says Nina, lifting her glass, not putting it to her lips. The candlelight winks though the wine. She’s wearing the black necklace, a large green cocktail ring, one of her narrow dark dresses, a little cardigan slung over her shoulders. If I wore that, I’d look hopelessly dowdy. Part of it must be expensive tailoring, of course, but that’s not the whole story.

  ‘Well, there’s one key rule,’ Charles say
s. ‘I learned it from Jess. It’ll all be fine, as long as you don’t ask too many questions. Isn’t that so, darling?’

  Nina smiles. ‘She’s a good girl,’ she says. ‘As seventeen-year-old girls go. She could be a lot worse.’

  Having ascertained where Sophie is at school, Patience (concerned eyes) says she heard from a neighbour that some sixth-formers were recently expelled for drugs.

  ‘That’s true,’ says Nina. ‘The school came down on it like a tonne of bricks. And somehow, they always find out. Zero tolerance, I’m glad to say.’

  A moment of silence. I glance around the table. We are all thinking about this: thinking, of course, of our own children, tucked up in darkened rooms decorated with spaceships and fairy castles, faithful constellations of glow-stars fading on the ceiling; sleepers watched over by tender vigilant squadrons of bears and monkeys. We are contemplating the effort involved in keeping these children safe and healthy and happy. Sensing how little we understand what’s coming next; sensing, if only in the vaguest, most theoretical of ways, our approaching powerlessness.

  Patience will not linger here, of course. She embarks on another monologue about Audrey’s secondary transfer, the choices they have made for her. Listening to Patience, I remember how her febrile nervous energy – her bloody-mindedness, her tenacity, her twitchy inability to let things go – was once usefully deployed in making hard-hitting current-affairs documentaries. Is this where it has all gone? On securing the services of the famous Mr Cowper, a gnome-like maths tutor who ‘only takes the brightest’ and charges £55 per hour? On driving Audrey to cello practice, to swim team and street dance? How can Audrey survive a mother like this, a mother with so much to prove?

  I met Audrey once, as she and Patience came out of the stationers. A flat-faced child in orange earmuffs, who surreptitiously picked her nose while I joggled the buggy and discussed the weather with her mother. I didn’t warm to her then, but now I feel a wave of sympathy. You’ll take it with you forever, I think. Your mother needs you to be exceptional. She has staked everything on your exceptionality. But perhaps I’m being unfair. Perhaps Patience will settle, when it comes down to it, for less than this.