All the Hopeful Lovers

by William Nicholson

  I’m a party girl, that’s God’s own truth. I don’t do noble solitude.

  The mail is all Christmas cards. The coming festivities fill her with panic and dread. Let’s not have Christmas this year. A crashing stock market, all those job losses, who’s feeling jolly? Give it a miss for once. Cut to January, and let’s get on with the long slow plod towards spring.

  She turns on the radio and there’s Patti Smith belting out ‘Because the Night’. She moves about the kitchen half-dancing, mouthing the words, enjoying the feel of her body in motion. No one to see. Why not? Then because she’s dancing she has a sudden longing for a cigarette.

  Christ I could murder a fag.

  She gave up almost ten years ago now; hardest thing I ever did, they should hand out medals. But it screws with your complexion. Tom knows all about that. Smoking reduces the blood flow to the skin, dries it out. Plus all that puckering to inhale gives you mouth wrinkles. Mouth wrinkles!

  Chloe smokes. Not much, but you can smell it on her hair. No mouth wrinkles yet but she better watch out.

  Did Jackie remember to turn on the radiator in Chloe’s room?

  Belinda goes up the back stairs to Chloe’s room and sure enough it’s like an ice-box in there. She turns on the radiator and lingers, looking round. The room hasn’t changed much over the years. All those mornings waking Chloe from indignant sleep to get her up in time for school. The daylight throwing a bright beam over the bed where the curtains never did quite meet. The way she slept, as if tossed onto the bed, her limbs all over the place. Her perfect skin.

  Always grumpy in the mornings.

  ‘Are you awake, darling? Promise me you won’t go back to sleep.’

  A grunt if I’m lucky. The cat curled up by her feet. Possum loved Chloe best, slept on her bed every night, until she got too old to make it up the stairs.

  Chloe sitting beside me on the school run prattling away about nothing. God knows how many times I drove down that godawful road. But I miss it now. It was our time together.

  The phone rings, making an echoey chime as the different extensions sound from bedroom, drawing room, kitchen, study. Belinda goes back down the stairs and takes it on the kitchen cordless.

  ‘Hello?’

  It’s Michelle, Tom’s secretary. Tom’s going to be late home. After seven, half past at the latest.

  ‘Oh, honestly!’ exclaims Belinda. ‘He knows Chloe’s coming home today.’

  In Chloe’s honour she’s got some fillet steaks for dinner, and plans to make a clafoutis using their own plums, picked, stoned and frozen in October. You’d never think it to look at her but Chloe eats like a horse. Always scrounging in the fridge, ice cream, soft-bake cookies, her diet is appalling. She can eat an entire tube of Pringles, sitting there tapping away at Facebook, one after another, until they’re all gone. Remarkable, in its way.

  A car pulls into the yard. Belinda looks out of the kitchen window and recognises Lisa’s bright yellow Fiat 500, a car like a toy. Lisa gets out and reaches back into the car for a file. She holds the file hugged in her arms like a baby. Some of Tom’s medical records, presumably, for him to work on at home.

  Belinda lets Lisa in the back door, closing it again quickly against the cold air. She finds she’s pleased to have company, which comes as a surprise. She’s never thought of herself as a lonely person, and even if she was, sad Lisa, single thirty-something Lisa, is hardly the companion she would choose.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ says Lisa, standing by the door, her body sagging as if she lacks even the will to resist gravity. ‘I was going to leave it in the garage. Then I saw you were in.’

  She holds out the file, as if it confers on her a legitimacy that she herself lacks. Clinical photographs processed and filed by Lisa herself, one of the three women Tom calls ‘my crew’. They fuss round him like hens. Nice to be a man.

  ‘How about a cup of tea now you’re here?’ says Belinda.

  ‘That would be lovely,’ says Lisa.

  She puts the file down on the kitchen table. Belinda fills the kettle and switches it on.

  ‘Michelle just called,’ she said. ‘Tom’s coming back late.’

  ‘He works too hard,’ says Lisa.

  ‘His choice. He’d better not be too late. Chloe’s coming home today.’

  ‘That’ll be nice. She’s a lovely girl.’

  As she gets out the tea bags and the mugs Belinda feels Lisa’s sad eyes following her every move. She turns to look at her and catches a strange expression on her face: expectant, fearful.

  ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Lisa.

  It crosses Belinda’s mind then that it’s odd of Lisa to drive all the way here in the middle of the afternoon with a medical file. Why not give it to Tom in the office? If he needs to work on it at home he can always bring it back himself. But they spoil him, these women. Tom the dominant male figure in all their lives. A sort of office harem. They probably all get their periods at the same time.

  She makes the mugs of tea in silence, waiting for Lisa to speak. She’s getting this feeling that there’s something Lisa wants to tell her.

  ‘Tom stays late a lot these days,’ Lisa says.

  Her slightly protuberant eyes have a pitiful shine to them. Maybe she’s in love with Tom. Five years of devoted service and her faithful heart is breaking.

  ‘Yes,’ says Belinda. ‘Usually this is a quiet time. The run-up to Christmas.’

  People don’t want surgery before Christmas because they don’t want to be in bandages for the Christmas parties. The busy time starts again in the new year.

  She gives Lisa her mug of tea and Lisa holds it cupped in both hands as if she needs its warmth.

  ‘I shouldn’t be bothering you,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. I’ve got nothing on till it’s time to pick Chloe up from the station.’

  ‘Karen said I shouldn’t come.’

  Karen the office manager. The hen mother.

  ‘But you escaped anyway?’

  ‘Karen’s not in today. It’s Billy’s Christmas play this afternoon. He’s a three king. One of the three kings, I mean. Karen made his costume.’

  She starts to cry.

  ‘Lisa! What is it?’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she says, snuffling. ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘What’s not fair?’

  She blows her nose and dabs at her eyes, turning her face away.

  ‘Sorry. I’m being stupid.’

  Now Belinda’s sure of it. One word from her and Lisa will pour out her unreciprocated love. She feels a flash of irritation. Tom never notices Lisa from one month to the next. Probably can’t even remember her name. Trots in, picks up the file of pictures she’s prepared so perfectly – it’s a highly-skilled job in its way, but everyone needs the human touch, the sense they’re appreciated – and trots out again without a word.

  ‘He can be a selfish bastard, I know,’ she says.

  ‘Do you?’ says Lisa. ‘Do you really?’

  Again that look. She wants something to happen, but she’s afraid to make it happen.

  ‘Well, he’s a man, isn’t he?’ says Belinda.

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s a man all right.’

  Please. Tom must have groped Lisa or something. It’s all a bit sad.

  ‘I suppose you know,’ Lisa says.

  ‘Know what?’

  Now for the first time Belinda feels a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach.

  What do I know?

  ‘Karen said of course you knew and it’s none of our business, but I said, what if she doesn’t? It’s not fair, us knowing and you not, it’s not right.’ The words tumbling out now, evidently they’ve been backing up in her throat, pushing at her mouth. ‘I mean, why should he be able to do as he likes? I don’t care what anyone says, it’s not fair, he shouldn’t do that to you, it’s not right.’

  Now Belinda doesn’t want to know. Maybe she’s been not wanting to know for a long time. B
ut it’s too late. Lisa wants her to know. She wants someone to share the suffering.

  Lisa holds out her mug.

  ‘Do you have any sugar?’ she says.

  Belinda gives her the sugar bowl and a teaspoon. Lisa sweetens her tea and stirs it and sips it, and somehow during this interlude Belinda realises they have moved beyond the point at which she can pretend not to know. She has entered Lisa’s world. It’s not fair. It’s not right.

  ‘Who is it?’ she says.

  ‘One of the office staff. He thinks no one knows.’

  ‘At the hospital?’

  ‘Someone in marketing. I don’t know who she is. I’ve never even seen her. She started in September. Works in the Portakabins.’

  Someone in marketing in a Portakabin. None of it seems real to Belinda. She drinks her tea. She feels numb.

  ‘Was I wrong to tell you?’

  ‘No.’ What else can she say? Once you know, you know for ever. Lisa wants her to cry, but she can’t cry.

  Lisa says, ‘Don’t say anything to Karen, will you? She says it’s none of our business.’

  ‘No. I won’t say anything to Karen.’

  Alone again in the kitchen Belinda sits at the table looking out of the window at the bare branches of the willow by the pond. The bark is patched with yellow lichen, to make up for the lost leaves.

  High piles of clouds are moving slowly across the sky, but you never see them move, you’d swear they were fixed, static, like the curve of the Downs on the horizon. Then your attention shifts and when you look again the clouds have changed their shape.

  She feels cold. She pretended to be cold once, many years ago. Come over here, Tom. Sit by me and keep me warm. And we laughed, didn’t we, Tom?

  Don’t think about that.

  The sound of cars whining past on the Ditchling road. The hum of the freezer.

  Almost three hours before it’s time to go to the station to meet Chloe. Things to do, but they can wait. Everything can wait.

  Life on hold.

  4

  On the train to London to meet her sister Diana, Laura Broad allows herself the luxury of idle thought. Somehow at home there’s always something waiting to be done. This short hour of the train journey she can give to herself.

  Except she doesn’t think of herself, she thinks of her children. Both Jack and Carrie are unhappy, and she doesn’t know why. You think when your children get big that caring for them will be easier, but instead it gets much harder. When they’re little and in distress they come crying to you, they tell you about their bad dreams and their broken friendships. It’s easy then to take them in your arms and love them, giving them with kisses and caresses the comfort they need. What is a mother if she can’t comfort her children? The impulse is so primitive, so overwhelming. But neither Jack nor Carrie seek her comfort now. When she tries to find out what’s making them unhappy they get angry with her and ask to be left alone. So she leaves them alone. But that doesn’t lessen the ache in her.

  I’d rather be unhappy myself.

  Not some self-dramatizing pose: simply the truth. If she could save her children from unhappiness by taking their pain onto herself she would gladly do it. When you’re hurt yourself you can do things to mitigate the pain. When your children are hurt, all you can do is suffer.

  Laura thinks then of Diana’s children, who’ve grown up to be such self-possessed young Londoners. Isla, now twenty-two, making money as a model, without of course taking it seriously as a career. Max at Oxford, but already interning at one of the big international banks, Credit Suisse, is it? Jack and Carrie so clumsy and provincial by comparison. Lonely, surly, struggling to find their place in the world. But so gallant, both of them. So precious and so beautiful.

  Live your own lives, my darlings. I won’t burden you with the need to be happy for my sake. But when the clouds lift, I’ll be here waiting for you.

  Diana is already in the Hayward lobby, impatiently glancing from the exhibition programme in her hands to the people drifting in and out of the gallery. Laura sees her before she is seen: her older sister, her lifelong companion, the person with the power to annoy her most in the world. You’d think when you both pass the age of fifty some kind of truce could be declared, some plateau of maturity achieved. But as soon as she sets eyes on Diana Laura is six years old again, and Diana is nine, and Diana holds all the cards.

  ‘Where have you been, Laura? I’ve been here for ever.’

  Laura compliments Diana on her coat, clearly a new acquisition: purple wool, fitted to the waist, then flared. It looks chic on Diana’s bird-like frame. But her face has grown thinner. Laura can feel her unhappiness like a shiver in the air.

  ‘Prada,’ Diana says. ‘Bicester Village, forty per cent off.’ She offers no comment on Laura’s own appearance. ‘Come along, then. Let’s do the rooms.’

  She nods to a passing couple, murmuring to Laura, ‘You must know him, he owns the Wolseley.’ Laura knows nobody. Diana is in her element as metropolitan guide to her country sister. Presumably this is why Laura has been summoned to meet her in an art gallery. Diana appreciates the avant-garde much more in the company of one who is, artistically speaking, bringing up the rear.

  The show is called BREAK OUT, and features installations by three artists. The first installation is a complete recreated prison cell, built out of real concrete blocks with real iron doors and real bars in the window. The front wall has been ripped open, leaving a big jagged hole. Through this hole can be seen a realistic corpse hanging by a twist of sheet from the window bars. It’s called Break Out.

  Diana casts a rapid eye over the scene.

  ‘Interesting,’ she says.

  Laura stares at the artwork and feels her usual sense of bewilderment. How does one judge something like this? It’s disturbing to look at, which is presumably part of the point. The hole in the wall should have offered the prisoner a way out, but instead he has hanged himself. Is that interesting?

  But already Diana is moving on.

  The second room contains a sculpture in plastic of a life-size pregnant woman. Through the translucent skin of her distended belly can be seen a grotesque foetus, an armoured creature with long clawed fingers. The claws pierce the plastic skin, causing a dribble of water to come seeping out. The work is called Break Water.

  ‘Interesting,’ says Diana.

  Laura hates it. It’s ugly and frightening.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she says.

  ‘Male violence,’ explains Diana curtly. ‘Maternal complicity.’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ says Laura.

  ‘It’s meant to be.’

  What can you say to that?

  They move on briskly to the third artist. To Laura’s relief there is no horror here. A wooden table raised on a plinth has been laid with blue-striped china, a milk bottle, and all the other elements of what seems to be a 1960s breakfast. A box of Kellogg’s Cornflakes stands beside a rack of toast and a jar of Robinson’s Golden Shred. The work is called Break Fast.

  ‘Interesting,’ says Diana.

  ‘But it’s just a breakfast table,’ says Laura.

  ‘Nostalgic. Iconic.’

  As before, she shows no desire to linger. This has always been Diana’s way in art galleries. Register, categorize, move on. She views art like a general inspecting troops: the essence of the response is contained in the act of being present. Her sharp mind moves rapidly, she’s easily bored. But she does not tire.

  ‘Time for a cup of tea. There’s a café outside.’

  As they head for the café Diana chides Laura for her naive responses.

  ‘Really, Laura, you must expose yourself to the modern world a bit more. You never would have come if I hadn’t made you, would you?’

  ‘No,’ says Laura. ‘I don’t get it. Why does it have to be so nasty?’

  ‘What do you want art to be? Hay-wains and views of the Grand Canal?’

  As they cross the lobby they’re accosted by a young woman wi
th a microphone. She smiles at Laura as if she knows her.

  ‘Could you spare a minute?’

  Laura becomes aware that behind the young woman hovers a man with a large video camera on his shoulder. The young woman is slim, intelligent-looking, forceful in a quiet way.

  ‘We’re making a film about Joe Nola,’ she says. ‘What did you make of his work?’

  ‘Which one was Joe Nola?’ says Laura.

  ‘The breakfast table.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Laura can think of nothing to say. She can feel Diana fretting beside her. ‘I don’t think I understood it.’

  ‘Laura, honestly,’ says Diana. The camera moves to her. She addresses the lens directly. ‘It made me aware of all we’ve lost,’ she says fluently. ‘The innocence of childhood. The structured family. Shared mealtimes.’

  The young woman has not moved the microphone away from Laura.

  ‘Don’t do that, Jim,’ she murmurs.

  The camera returns.

  ‘So you didn’t understand it,’ she says. ‘But what did it make you feel?’

  ‘Golly,’ says Laura. ‘Nothing, really. I mean, how is that art? It’s just a breakfast table. Can anything be art?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Look, this isn’t my thing, really. I only came because my sister insisted. I’ve never understood modern art. Ask Diana. She understands it.’

  The young woman is undeterred.

  ‘Actually, Joe Nola is interested in reaching people just like you,’ she says. ‘His work isn’t a puzzle to be decrypted. It’s simply a process of pointing. He’s saying, Look at something ordinary, and see it as something extraordinary. So your response is always the right response. There is no wrong response.’

  ‘Right,’ says Laura.

  ‘So all you have to do is say what thoughts went through your mind when you looked at it.’

  What thoughts did go through my mind? Feelings of inadequacy. Embarrassment.