Nobody's Perfect

by Stephanie Butland

  Kate looks at her watch. It’s already after seven – she caught the late afternoon train. It’s going to be a long night. ‘Have we got time for another espresso martini first?’ she asks. She’s going to need the caffeine.

  *

  Kate resisted the full Melissa makeover that was on offer, but agreed to the loan of a pale grey shirt with flowers embroidered across the shoulders; she wears it over the sleeveless black dress she travelled in, rolls up the cuffs, knots it at the waist, and puts her denim jacket over the top. ‘Man,’ Melissa says as she looks at her, ‘you look good.’

  ‘Do I?’ Kate looks at herself in the propped-up mirror in the corner, remembers the day she bought the jacket. She stands a little straighter. She can walk through the world alone, if she has to. She knows that now.

  The party is taking place on the roof terrace that is shared by all of the flats in the building. It gets going shortly after ten. Groups of people stand and sprawl, laugh and talk, looking out over the north London skyline in the warm summer air. Kate might be enjoying herself. Someone’s smoking a joint, but mostly the drug of choice is alcohol – a summery mix of fruit juice, wine and something else (vodka, Kate guesses, or maybe hopes, because she will cope with that better than she would with tequila) passed round in jam jars and replenished from a huge plastic tub. There seem to be friends from university, from work, and from home, as well as neighbours, so no one knows each other very well, and Kate is only as much of an outsider as everyone else. She talks to a trainee tattoo artist, and a French student who lives on the ground floor; when they ask her what she does, she says she’s just finished a degree and she’s working out what to do next. ‘Cool,’ says the tattoo artist, ‘you could do anything!’ And although Kate knows that that’s not true, she feels, standing looking over London with the day fading and a drink in her hand, that actually, there are more possibilities for her than she has let herself believe. It’s not Spencer or nothing. And so what if she leaves it five years before she trains as a physiotherapist, and in the interim looks for a job in a café? She’s only twenty-four, for crying out loud. As Melissa said, on the tube on the way over here, she’s missed her dossing-around years. She could have them now. No one would blame her. No one would care.

  The alcohol is going to Kate’s head and she finds herself laughing at the end of a long story about a lost phone, a taxi, and it-was-in-my-pocket-all-the-time. The sober-ish part of her knows that it’s not that funny, really, but there is something about the way the girl is telling it (not a girl, really, a woman, probably older than Kate) that just amuses her. The others around her are laughing, too, the sound of their voices clear in the night sky, and Kate thinks, this is what my life could have been. And then, I could do parts of it, still. Please myself, a bit. Get a tattoo. And then she is thinking of Spencer; the tangled A and S on his upper arm that he hid the meaning of. The laughter leaves her as suddenly as it came.

  Kate moves away from the bulk of the party, and sits on an upturned plant pot, leaning her spine against the parapet that separates her from the sky. She puts her head back, feeling brick against her skull, and closes her eyes. The world is cooling; midnight must be near, ready to tip her into tomorrow, another day done. And her life will feel empty, again. Kate knows, now, that she can do it all on her own. She’s proved it to herself, on paper at least. If the sum of her life turns out to be keeping Daisy safe and well, and qualifying as a physiotherapist so that she can help other children like Daisy, that is surely enough? And if she ekes out her Netflix viewing so she has something to look forward to at weekends, so what? If Mike and Spencer are the beginning and end of her love life, does it really matter? At least she won’t be one of those women who spends fifty years picking up after a man who stopped noticing her after the first decade. Melissa can say what she likes about more fish, and about not needing a man, not apparently aware that she is contradicting herself. But Melissa isn’t Kate, and Kate isn’t Melissa. Kate doesn’t have whatever it is that Melissa has – resilience, hard-heartedness, time – that lets her hurl herself into one adventure or another without a worry, and pick herself up again as easily. Plus, Melissa can have a one-night stand without arranging a babysitter, can take a job without drowning in logistics.

  She wonders if another drink will help. This is the trouble with being sad: it’s so easy to blame it all on Daisy, when actually, before Spencer, Kate was happy enough. She could text him, right now. Ask him if he is happy. No. No.

  ‘It’s Kate, isn’t it?’ She opens her eyes, is looking into the face of Felix. She remembers his attentive eyes, the hair pushed behind his ears. ‘Mind if I join you? But tell me to piss off if you want to be on your own.’

  ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘No, it’s OK. I might not be very good company. How do you know if you’re just drunk or whether the drinking has showed you the terrible truth about your own existence?’

  He smiles. ‘That’s a bold opener. Which answer means you’re more likely to talk to me?’

  Kate laughs, despite herself. ‘Do you think a bowler hat would suit me?’

  ‘It would. But it might slide off your hair. It’s very smooth.’ He holds out a hand, as though to touch her head, then pauses. Kate angles her head so that he can put his palm on her hair.

  Kate laughs. ‘Fair point. Sit down. I’m going to hurt my neck looking up at you.’

  He has two goes at balancing on a plant pot, but Kate is on the only one that’s feasibly big enough to act as a stool, so he lies on the ground, looking up at her. The flirtatiousness of his smile is almost cartoonish; she’s embarrassed, looks away. And there’s Melissa, at the edge of a group a few feet away, looking at her and smiling. ‘Why not?’ she mouths. ‘I would.’

  So when Kate looks back down at him, she smiles. Her face hurts, a little with it, her heart some more. But she can do it. He reaches up a hand – blunt fingers, clean nails, soft palm – and she slides her own into it.

  *

  Later, in his room, Kate is down to her underwear before she changes her mind. It’s not him, exactly. He’s nice to kiss, hot-mouthed and enthusiastic, and his lips on her neck have made her shiver. But it’s just not what she wants. It’s Spencer or nothing. So, it looks like nothing. Maybe one day it will be different.

  She pulls away. ‘I think I’ve changed my mind,’ she says.

  Felix lies back with a sigh, puts his head onto the pillow. ‘I thought my luck would run out at some point. Got further than I thought I would, if I’m honest.’ He swings his legs off the bed, reaches for his jeans. ‘I’m going to get you a pint of water, and I’m going to sleep on the sofa. Unless you want to go back to Melissa’s now? I could try and sort an Uber.’

  Kate almost pulls him back towards her. So many decent men. Why can’t she fall for one of those? Perhaps she could, if she tried. But she knows it won’t work as long as she has Spencer in her thoughts and heart, under her skin. ‘Thanks,’ she says.

  ‘No worries.’ Felix shambles towards the door. ‘I like people who know their own minds.’

  Is that me, Kate wonders as she drifts off to sleep, do I know my own mind? Given how wretched she feels, she wishes she didn’t.

  *

  ‘I brought you sunglasses,’ Melissa says, when they meet for brunch the next day.

  ‘I have some,’ Kate says. ‘I don’t feel too bad.’ It’s sort of true. Having had an emotional hangover since she said goodbye to Spencer, a physical one feels manageable. Balancing, even.

  ‘Well you’re a better woman than me,’ Melissa says.

  ‘I drank quite a lot of water. Before bed.’

  ‘That’s the bit I’m waiting for.’

  ‘I don’t know what got into me—’ When Melissa raises an eyebrow, Kate laughs. ‘That’s not what I mean. Going back to someone’s place like that. It’s not like me. But nothing happened. Well – nothing much. I changed my mind.’

  Melissa laughs. ‘I was quite surprised that you went for it. But then again, things w
ith Spencer were pretty quick, weren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose they were.’ It didn’t feel like a rush at the time. It just felt natural. But Kate doesn’t bother to say so. Melissa’s opinion won’t alter.

  But then Melissa adds, ‘Though it sounds like you could have had all the time in the world, and it wouldn’t have mattered. You know I’m not saying it was your fault? Just if it had been slower you might not have got so badly hurt.’

  Kate nods – not agreement, but acknowledgement, and an inability to say anything more. Melissa will understand. She looks at the menu.

  ‘I think it’s going to have to be a full English breakfast and a side of fries,’ Melissa says, a few minutes later. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Yup.’ Suddenly Kate is starving. ‘And tea. Much tea.’

  ‘Sorted,’ Melissa says, waving at the waiter.

  ‘Sorted,’ Kate agrees, but it feels as though nothing is. She has to make an effort, though. ‘Let’s talk about something else. There’s more to life than men, you know.’

  Melissa looks offended for a second, and then she laughs. Kate laughs back.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ Melissa says.

  ‘I’m sure.’ She is.

  After brunch Melissa goes with Kate to the train station, and they have a goodbye coffee in the place where they had their hello cocktail. ‘You look better,’ Melissa says.

  ‘I feel it.’ And it’s true: it’s as though, this weekend, Kate has remembered that she is a person, herself, apart from Daisy, apart from Spencer, apart from Mike. She’s herself. She’s enough.

  Chapter 25

  Mid-June

  B

  LAKE CALLS WHEN KATE is on the train, and in the three seconds between seeing his name and answering the call, she is already shaking with fright and making lists in her head of things she will ask her mother to bring to the hospital for Daisy.

  But Blake’s first words are, ‘Daisy’s fine.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kate feels as though she exhales her heart, she’s so relieved.

  ‘It’s your mother. Don’t worry – she fell off the trampoline, and we’re waiting for an X-ray. Daisy’s with us at the hospital. I just wanted to let you know that we can’t pick you up from the station.’

  ‘Right. Is Mum OK? Do you want me to come and get Daisy? I could see if Jo could give me a lift.’

  ‘Her ankle’s the size of a turnip, but apart from that she’s OK. She and Daisy played I Spy in the car on the way to A&E. I’ll let you know when we know how long it’s going to take. Could you go and let the dogs out?’

  Kate texts her mother a heart emoji, takes a taxi from the station to the flat, drops her bag, and walks to her mother’s house. She’s standing in the garden watching the dogs wander around when Blake texts to stay they are on their way back; it’s a bad sprain, but there’s no break. Kate loads the dishwasher, boils the kettle, takes two paracetamol and eats a couple of mini chocolate rolls against her lurking hangover, and thinks about how she has never, ever imagined life without her mother.

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ Richenda says when they return half an hour later; but her face is grey and the mascara smudged across her face tells Kate there have been tears.

  Blake settles his wife into a chair and puts her strapped-up foot on a stool. ‘Do not,’ Daisy admonishes the dogs, ‘bump Granny’s foot. Be very careful. Or you will have to live in the garden.’

  Kate makes tea for them all, and listens to the tale – the fall, the sickness that swept through Richenda that made her sure she’d broken something, the relatively quiet waiting room. She has painkillers, instructions to keep weight off her leg as much as possible, and instructions to see her GP in a week. Blake thinks it’s going to be worth having some physio, too, just to be on the safe side. When Kate watches Blake taking care of her mother like this, she is lonely to her bones. She pulls Daisy onto her lap. She bought her a notebook and some pens at the station, and Daisy immediately sets about illustrating the accident. ‘Because you missed it, Mummy.’

  Richenda lies back and closes her eyes. Blake says, ‘I’m going to call the station,’ adding, to Kate, ‘I was supposed to be away on a residential course next week.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Richenda says.

  ‘No, you won’t.’ Blake and Kate react in unison, and Daisy laughs delightedly. Kate adds, ‘We can come and help, Blake. Can’t we, Daisy?’

  ‘You could walk the dogs,’ Richenda says, as though she’s making a great concession. Kate can see that all she wants to do is sleep.

  ‘Or we could move in while Blake’s away,’ Kate says, ‘couldn’t we, Daisy? We could come and look after Granny and take Hope and Beatle for walks.’

  Daisy nods, seriously, and then says, ‘And I could go on the trampoline before school. But I don’t think probably Granny should.’

  *

  Blake leaves on Monday afternoon for a Tuesday morning start; Kate feels odd in her old bedroom at first, with its single bed and the posters that she hadn’t cared enough to take down when she moved out. Daisy, used to sleepovers with Granny, settles in immediately. Kate comes down from putting her to bed and watches University Challenge with her mum; it’s an Oxford college against a Cambridge one. Richenda gets seven questions right, Kate three. Afterwards, Kate remarks that she might have missed Oxford but she doesn’t think she ever would have been on the quiz team; Richenda laughs and then asks, ‘Do you think about it? What it could have been?’

  Kate sighs. ‘Sort of. I know I have a degree now, but there’s a lot I didn’t have.’

  Richenda nods. ‘There are always paths not taken.’

  ‘Yes.’ And there’s the memory of Spencer, always waiting for an opportunity to come to the front of her mind, to make Kate think of what else she might have been doing now. Well, she doesn’t need to think about that this week. Because she would always have been taking care of her mother.

  *

  Richenda is an easy patient; Daisy runs around in the garden, and plays on the trampoline, and they eat meals from the freezer. Kate fetches and carries for her mother, answers the door, pops to the shop for groceries and the chemist for Daisy’s new prescription. She has an excuse to hurry home after school drop-off, though Wendy stops her one day with a cake she’s made for Richenda, and Kate watches Spencer comes out into the playground as they’re talking; he seems to physically recoil when he sees Kate, and retreats into the classroom. Kate’s heart shakes in her chest all the way back to her mother’s.

  On Wednesday, the physiotherapist, Zhu, arrives, and takes Richenda through some exercises and movements to strengthen her muscles. Kate watches, fascinated; she asks for the reasons behind the number of repetitions: which muscles are being worked, how they support each other, bones, body.

  ‘Kate’s thinking about a career in physio.’ Richenda lies back in her chair at the end of the session, grey-faced with tiredness.

  ‘I thought as much! People aren’t usually this interested.’ Zhu smiles at Kate, encouragement in her eyes.

  ‘I was. Things have changed,’ Kate says.

  ‘The thing is, though, things always change. If I’d waited until I had time to do this, I’d still be picking up after my ex. There’s never a perfect time.’ Zhu shrugs and starts making notes on an iPad.

  ‘You see?’ Richenda asks.

  ‘I know,’ Kate says.

  After Zhu has gone, leaving her card and an invitation for Kate to get in touch and shadow her for a day if she wants to, Richenda says, ‘I didn’t put her up to saying that. Honestly.’

  Kate laughs. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you to throw yourself off a trampoline and orchestrate this whole thing to get her and me in the same room.’

  ‘I don’t need to. You’ll be fine, Kate. You’ll find a way.’

  And suddenly, Kate feels as though she doesn’t even have the emotional power to stand up. ‘When?’ she says. ‘When will I be fine?’

  Richenda reaches out a hand, and Kate goes to her, sits
carefully next to her. ‘How about now? Think how sorted you are compared to when Daisy was born. Compared to a year ago, even. You haven’t seen how far you’ve come.’

  ‘It’s only really because of you, though, isn’t it? Your help. Your money. The way you’ve always been there for us.’

  It’s as though Richenda hasn’t heard. ‘If you don’t want to study any more for a while, that’s fine. You don’t have to decide anything for now. But don’t ever think that you can’t get qualified. It might be work and it might be hard going, but you can do it.’

  ‘I’d need so much help,’ Kate says.

  ‘Well, yes. But look at me. We all need help.’

  ‘Not—’ Kate almost says, not the kind of help that Daisy needs, but she closes her mouth because she doesn’t need to say that to her mother. And Richenda is right. She can do it. She never would have believed her nineteen-year-old self could have got this far. All she needs to do is begin. Daisy’s birth forced one beginning on her; now she has to choose another.

  ‘Why don’t you arrange to spend some time with Zhu? We can figure something out with Daisy. And next year, won’t she be able to do after school clubs? And why don’t we have a look through all of your information about courses?’ Richenda indicates her foot, propped on the sofa, slightly swollen toes peeping from the end of the aircast. ‘I haven’t got anything else to do.’

  Kate has that feeling again, as though she is running very rapidly downhill, and her feet are going faster than she thought they would, and her urge is to put on the brakes: to say, it’s not possible, it’s too complicated, what if Daisy gets ill? But she knows the answers. It is possible; it is complicated, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try. And if Daisy gets ill, Kate will keep on being the best mother she can. She goes to get her laptop and her diary, takes a breath, and sits down next to her mother. And she begins the next part of her life.

  Chapter 26

  Mid-July

  T

  HE NEW KATE, WHO IS, if not happy, at least able to sleep at night, decided not to volunteer to help at the school fete. She didn’t want to be pulled into meetings and complicated planning; she didn’t want to be in the school building more than she had to be, either. She trusts herself around Spencer now, feels as though things are, if not easy, at least bearable; since the wedding there has been quiet sadness in her, and whatever healing started with her weekend with Melissa has continued. There is so much more to her, she reminds herself every day, than whether she is half of a couple. And there is more to her than Daisy, too. That’s allowed. That’s OK. More and more, Kate is realising that her life is not, actually, a test that the universe has set her, and simultaneously rigged for her to fail. She isn’t Sisyphus. She’s just a woman doing her best. She won’t be perfect, but she’ll try.