Games People Play

by Voss, Louise

  I was just wondering how to prevent Gordana marching into Rachel’s room to find the plasters I’d been unable to locate, when I remembered that I probably had a couple in the side pocket of my handbag, which was in the coat cupboard. As I went to investigate, the front door opened and Ivan came in.

  ‘Hi,’ I called, my head buried in the coat cupboard.

  I backed out, with the scent of lavender and mothballs in my nostrils, and turned to face him. I was expecting the hangdog, bitter expression which – despite his slight increase in optimism of late – still dragged down his jowls and furrowed his brow, but instead I barely recognized him. Dour, grumpy Ivan Anderson was smiling; in fact, beaming broadly. I marvelled at how much younger he looked – like the Ivan I’d fallen in love with, all those years ago, over a Velvet Underground LP and some strong Kansas pot.

  ‘You look cheerful,’ I said, tearing the plaster wrapper open with my teeth and winding it around my bleeding thumb. ‘Christmas spirit finally got through to you?’

  ‘You,’ he said, pointing a finger at me, and even though he was still smiling, my instinct was to think: Oh no, now what have I done?

  ‘What?’ I said, slightly nervously. But his smile was so infectious that I couldn’t help joining in.

  ‘You have no idea what a huge favour you’ve done me.’

  ‘Really? How come?’ I closed the coat cupboard door so that Jackson didn’t go in and eat all the shoes.

  ‘Well, you know you told me to mention that time stamp thing to my solicitor? I did, as soon as you heard about it. I thought for sure he’d already be aware of it, but he wasn’t! He got on to it straight away, badgering the police to let him know what the time stamp said. In conjunction with the date of the credit card transaction, that’ll be much greater proof that I couldn’t have done it – the credit card alone isn’t enough, in case I did it from another computer – and they’ve already established that the transaction was done when I was out of the country. I was away at a tournament in Russia, with about a thousand alibis… So, assuming the time stamp is the same as the transaction – which it’s bound to be – then I’ll be in the clear! They still haven’t finished sorting through the evidence, and they said that a specific analysis of the time clock can’t be done at the same time as the file interrogation. That’s why the hearing’s been adjourned again. But I had a meeting with the solicitor yesterday, and he’s convinced it’s going to make all the difference to my case.’

  On impulse, he picked me up around the waist and swung me around the hallway. It was the first real physical contact I’d had with him since we were married. I laughed with him, flinging my arms round his neck and letting him spin me as Jackson barked at our feet, confused and delighted at the commotion.

  ‘Ivan, is that you? What is going on out here, for goodness’ sake?’ Gordana came out into the hall in her Marigolds, potato peeler in hand, with a headscarf covering her remaining patchy strands of hair. She looked bemused – as well she might – at the unfamiliar sight of her son showing any spontaneous affection, particularly towards his once-reviled ex.

  ‘Please mind that vase with your feet, Susie!’

  Ivan hastily put me down and hugged her instead.‘Hello, Mama, how are you today?’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ she asked suspiciously, patting her scarf to check that it was in place.

  ‘No, I haven’t. Aren’t I allowed to be cheerful for once?’ he said, a hint of the old defensiveness in his voice.

  ‘Of course you are allowed, my darling, we are just not used to it, that is all,’ she said, kissing his cheek. ‘What has made you so jolly?’

  He opened his mouth to tell her, when Rachel and Karl appeared in the hall behind her, dressed, but dishevelled and pink-cheeked. If I’d been in any doubt as to what they were up to in there, I wasn’t any more. Good for you, Rach, I thought.

  ‘Hi, Dad, happy Christmas,’ said Rachel guardedly. ‘Have you won the lottery or something?’

  Gordana looked hard at her and Karl. ‘I thought you two kids were out visiting somebody,’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, we were, Gordana, we just got back a while ago,’ Rachel replied disingenuously.

  Karl rubbed his big hands together. ‘Shall I make a cup of tea for us all?’ he asked, as at home in Gordana’s house as he was everywhere else. ‘Then we can hear what Ivan’s exciting news is.’

  I stood back to let them all troop back into the kitchen, Rachel swinging on her crutches with the ease of a chimp swinging through trees. I was about to follow, when a pang of loneliness overtook me, and I slunk upstairs into my room instead.

  Downstairs I could hear the excited chatter of voices, but the air in my big, grand guest room was as still and empty as the atmosphere I’d been trying to escape at Corinna’s. Perhaps it wasn’t the house at all; perhaps it was me? Maybe I was constantly trying to escape something which was inherently impossible to run away from, because it was in me. Was this why I went back to Kansas in the first place, after the divorce; and then why I left again when I found out about Billy and Eva…?

  But how could I ever escape it, if I didn’t even know what it was?

  It looked as if Ivan was going to be all right, despite all the chaos around him. Maybe it was because he never ran away, he just squared his shoulders and let it all rain down on him. But then again, although he made out that he was so independent, underneath it, he was as needy as an infant. It was true that he didn’t run when the going got tough, but what he needed to learn was not to push away the people who, in spite of it all, loved him. Gordana was on the mend, which was clearly a load off his mind too, although he never spoke about it.

  I went and stood by the window, looking out over the frozen, bleak garden, wanting to feel as happy for Rachel and Karl, and Ivan, as I kept telling myself I was. Instead, a sense of isolation clutched at my chest, twisting at me like the bare barbed-wire branches of the rose bushes outside. In spite of my resolution to enjoy this Christmas, I couldn’t help thinking that there was something deeply sad about the deadness of a much-loved garden in the middle of winter, too far from spring even for snowdrops or crocuses – and at that, it all started to crash down on me.

  Apart from Rachel, this wasn’t even my family any more. Gordana had Ted, Ivan had Gordana, and Rachel had the lovely Karl. I didn’t even have a job, let alone a partner. I’d been too preoccupied with worrying about Rachel’s injury to bother pursuing the life coaching qualifications about which I’d felt so enthusiastic a mere two months ago. I had given up the real-estate job. There was nothing I even wanted to do – but I had to do something. I had to support myself from now on. I couldn’t continue sponging off Gordana or Corinna, eking out my meagre savings, which had already dwindled to almost nothing. Panic, and something strangely like rage, began to swell inside me, mingling with the self-pity.

  Nobody needed me here. For a brief time, I’d been a mother to Rach, when she needed me; I’d been a friend to Ivan, when he had none; and I’d – hopefully – been a support to Gordana. But now everybody seemed to be sorting out their lives. I felt like a dandelion clock, blowing aimlessly about, shedding filaments in different places but not knowing where I’d end up, nor where I wanted to be.

  A flash of red caught my eye, on the driveway, by the big wrought-iron gates. Someone wearing a Santa Claus hat was walking hesitantly up the drive: a small figure with a large rucksack on his back, which looked from this distance like a hump. It was too far away to hear the gravel crunch, or to make out any of the person’s features, but he looked familiar and absolutely out of place at the same time. It was like seeing a fur-clad Eskimo sunbathing on a tropical beach. I pressed my face against the window to try and see more clearly. The figure came closer. I stared incredulously, snapping out of my self-pity. Jackson was barking downstairs, trying to alert the others to the intruder, but presumably they were still celebrating Ivan’s news.

  I ran down the stairs, flung open the front door, and ran down th
e drive in my socks. Gravel pricked the soles of my feet, but amongst all the other, more powerful emotions, I felt no pain from it. The figure stopped, hefted the big rucksack off his back and dumped it on the drive, opening his arms to me. The stones didn’t hurt, but what was physically painful was seeing those familiar, stubbly, red-eyed features, with the dimples punctuating that tentative, sheepish smile.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Suze,’ he said. ‘Jeez, it’s hard to get around in this country on a public holiday. I thought I’d never get here. I haven’t missed dinner, have I?’

  I put my hands on my hips. The self-pity had dissipated, but the anger most certainly had not. ‘If you think I’m going to rush right into your arms and forgive you just because you managed by some miracle to get yourself organized enough to get a passport and plane ticket – without even checking first that I’d be here, or that you can foist yourself on Gordana and Ted at a time like this – well, then you are very much mistaken, you cheating, lying, useless HIPPIE!’ I shouted, in my best impression of a fishwife.

  ‘A passport, a plane ticket and a cab all the way from the airport,’ he added, sounding offended. ‘It cost me a fortune!’

  I punched him in the stomach, almost knocking him off his feet. He gasped for air and bent double.

  Then I hugged him tightly. The sheer relief of his familiar contours and his engine-oil plane-scented Billy smell made me feel as if I’d been winded too.

  ‘B.I.L.Y., Billy,’ I whispered into his ear.

  ‘B.I.L.Y., Susie, baby,’ he whispered back, when he’d recovered his breath enough to speak.

  ‘This doesn’t mean I’m taking you back,’ I said firmly.

  ‘No. Sure. I understand,’ he wheezed, coughing weakly over my shoulder. ‘Any chance of a beer and a bed for the night though? Even us useless hippies need to sleep …’

  Chapter 52

  Gordana

  It’s a good thing we have enough chairs for everyone to sit at the dining table. I do wish that Billy could have telephoned to let us know he was coming, but Susie says that it’s a miracle he even manage to find his way here on his own, all the way from the Yellow Brick Road, the little Munchkin. She is being quite rude about him when he’s not listening. But then she keeps staring at him, like she cannot believe it. So I don’t know if she is pleased to see him or not. Fortunately Ted bought a turkey that was bigger than Jackson, so we had enough food. I notice that Billy did not eat his parsnips.

  Jackson of course thought the turkey was just for him, and was most upset when we all had some. Even now all that is left of it is just bones and bits and pieces of unpleasantness on the spiky silver platter, and Jackson has had a big bowlful of turkey meat, he still wants more. Ted shut the carcass in the larder, and Jackson went to sit patiently outside the door.

  Every now and again he whined and scraped. Finally he put his head down on crossed paws, and now he is having a little sleep while he waits for the turkey to come outside again.

  The rest of us are leaning backwards in our chairs, full up to the top, drinking coffee and cracking nuts. When Rachel was little we used to have to cut this part short because she was so desperate to open her presents. Now we have some more time to digest our dinner, and do what Ted calls the Christmas Wishes bit. He started this tradition a long time ago, where we all say what we want most to have happened by next Christmas. They must be personal wishes, for ourselves. For years, all Ivan ever said was ‘to win Wimbledon’. Then, for years, all Rachel said was ‘to win Wimbledon’.

  I wonder what they will say this year? I am a little worried that Jackson will get his wish before any of us get ours. It is more likely that the remains of the turkey will open the larder door, walk across the kitchen floor and climb into Jackson’s bowl than that any of our wishes will come true. But I must not be so negative. I will not be able to do what I have to do if I am negative like this.

  ‘Christmas Wishes time!’ I chink my teaspoon against my port glass. ‘Who will go first?’

  There is a pause. Karl and Billy look around with confusion, everyone else with hesitation.

  Susie stands up. She is fiddling with a tiny pack of cards which came out of her cracker; turning it round and round in her hands. Nobody except the fairies could play a game of cards with those tiddly things.

  ‘OK, I’ll go first,’ she says. ‘My wish…and I’ve been thinking about this all through dinner…is to stop running away from myself. To be settled. To have decided who I am, what I want to do, and where I am going to live.’ She glances at Billy. ‘And who I am going to live with.’

  We clap, and she sits down. Billy pats her on the knee and she glares at him. Then smiles at him. ‘Your turn, Billy,’ she says.

  Billy clears his throat and scratches his head. He has a big mop of curly hair, which I feel tempted to ask Manuel to mow, next time he comes to do the grass. Everyone else is dressed up for Christmas, but Billy is wearing sandy-coloured canvas trousers with many pockets, big boots, a once-navy sweatshirt with a rip at the neck, and a bracelet with brown beads on a leather lace.

  ‘I guess it’s pretty obvious what I want,’ he says, not taking his eyes off Susie, who looks cross again. ‘I want my Susie back. I was a fool, and I don’t blame her for being mad at me, but…Suze …I dumped Eva. I realized right after you left for Italy that I didn’t really love her; I was just fooled into thinking I did; it dragged on way too long and I—’

  Susie held up a hand, like traffic cop, although her voice was soft. ‘Later, Billy. Not now, OK?’

  He bites his lip and nods. I feel sorry for him. I hope those two kids work it out. He obviously really does love her. I suppose it depends whether or not she will forgive him, and if they can fix whatever the problem was what make him run off with this Eva person in the first place.

  I pass round the bowl of nuts. Susie takes out two big whole walnuts, which she holds in the palm of her hand for a moment like she’s weighing them up, and then she cracks them, viciously, with the nutcrackers.

  Billy looks very nervous.

  ‘Ivan, darling, you next,’ I say quickly, giving him a nudge to stand up. I never know what to expect with Ivan. It would not be a surprise to me if he refuse altogether to join in.

  But he takes a deep big breath, and then a big swallow of port. ‘I want Mama to have got the final all-clear,’ he says.

  ‘No, that is not allowed as your wish,’ I cry indignantly. ‘It must be something for you!’

  ‘That is for me. It’s for all of us.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Something about your life.’

  He sighs. ‘OK. Well, you know the obvious wish – and, thanks to Susie, it looks like I might have got it: for this whole nightmare to be over, soon.’

  We all think this is it, but he opens his mouth and speaks again, with a curious shyness. ‘There’s another one, though…a wish, I mean.’

  Something strange is happening to his face. For a second I am worried; it is going a funny dark red colour, and his cheeks are blotchy, but then I realize: Good grief, my boy is blushing! This is not a thing which happens very often. He does not look comfortable; as if the blush hurt his skin.

  ‘What else, Ivan?’ I ask, with much interest.

  He clears his throat, and by now we are all sitting up and leaning forwards to hear, even Billy.

  ‘Um, well, I think probably most of you know that I was seeing someone, before and…well, anyway: there’s been someone in my life on and off for quite a few years now. Natasha.’

  Susie and Rachel give one another meaningful looks across the table. Billy examines his fingernails, and Ted pretends that this is the first time he has heard of this, although of course I tell him all about it ages ago, when Ivan first mention it.

  ‘I may at times have been less than complimentary about her, and not very positive about our relationship, for fairly obvious reasons, but what I wanted to tell you is that I saw her this morning. She came back to England a few days ago; and she wants to give things
a real go with me, at last.’

  He is trying to look serious but a little smile wobbles at the corners of his mouth. Rachel looks shocked, and raises her eyebrows at Susie.

  ‘Ivan, that’s great,’ said Susie, ‘but I thought you said she was only after free coaching?’

  My goodness, she is brave to just come out with it. I would not want to – what is the expression? – ‘wreck his buzzing’ like that. But I am desperate to hear what he says. I don’t want any silly little tennis player breaking his heart; not now, not ever.

  Ivan does not even look cross; instead, a little embarrassed.

  ‘Yes, well, I may have mentioned to you that at one point I worried that was the case. I was angry, because she’d rejected me. But she says she was just scared of all the changes she’d have to make to be with me – and that she wants to make them. She wants to move over here and be with me, properly. She even knows about the charges, and she’s going to support me – she’s offered to make a statement giving me another alibi! So, my wish is that this time next year, we’re still together, and settled. I can’t wait for you all to meet her. You’ll love her.’

  We all look at each other again. Rachel in particular looks very doubtful. But anyway we clap and raise our glasses, and Ivan sits down again, with the biggest smile I have seen on his face since Ted gave him BMX bicycle for his twelfth birthday.

  ‘Karl’s turn,’ Rachel says, leaning into him and stroking the side of his head. ‘Go for it, gorgeous.’

  Karl stands up and gives a little cough-cough-cough. He looks as if he is about to make a speech to five hundred people from a big stage, perhaps like he has just won the Oscar statue.

  ‘First, I would like to thank Gordana and Ted for inviting me into their home like this. It is most kind, and I have very much enjoyed staying here.’

  Then I think he will thank his agent, the public, his mother …He is not shy, this Karl. But also not arrogant the way that Mark was. I nod graciously, like the Queen. We have missed her speech this year, again. But then we always do. After we open the second bottle of wine, everyone always forget.