‘Gilly,’ Gloria says, tying her dressing-gown cord around her as she lets Ruskin and me in. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Thank God she’s back.
I tell her about Jack first. Ruskin takes his usual spot by the fireplace.
‘What a lying, bleeding scoundrel,’ she says, handing me a second glass of brandy. ‘I’m so sorry, Gilly. It’s my fault. I encouraged you to see him, I was the one that . . .’
I glance at some estate agency brochures on her coffee table. ‘You’re not moving, are you?’ I say, cutting her off.
‘Gilly, I was only getting a valuation, I was curious to see what my house might sell for now.’ She moves from her armchair to sit next to me, sensing my sadness.
‘Gloria, don’t go . . .’
‘Gilly,’ she says, ‘if this is about Jack, he’s not worth it, my darling.’
‘I don’t care about him.’ I start to cry. ‘You’re all I’ve got,’ I say, clinging onto her like a child.
‘That’s not true, you’ve got so many friends.’
‘I miss my mum . . .’ I swallow hard, thinking of Guy. I can’t even begin to tell Gloria about Guy. Soon he’ll be gone. Married and gone. ‘You can’t go,’ I say, unable to let her go.
‘This perky pensioner is not going anywhere,’ she promises, stroking my hair, just as Mum used to do when I was little, until finally my sobbing subsides.
I feel a warm blanket being laid across me, and a glass of water is placed on my bedside table.
‘You’ll never get rid of me, Gilly,’ I hear Gloria whisper as she kisses me goodnight on the cheek. ‘Never.’
40
1990
Nick and I return home, tennis racket bags slung on our shoulders. We’re thirteen now and it’s half term. Mum enrolled us on a week’s tennis course; Nick says it’s to get us out of the house.
Dad is at the table, reading something, a frown on his face. I open the fridge to help myself to some orange juice. Nick reaches for crisps in the cupboard. ‘Where’s Mum?’ he asks. I expect Dad to say she’s upstairs resting. She spends most of her time asleep, or if she’s not asleep she’s smoking.
‘Dad?’ I sit down at the table. ‘What’s wrong?’ I peer over his shoulder and see the letter is in Mum’s handwriting. He shields the piece of paper from me.
‘Dad?’ I say.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmurs, looking up at me with tears in his eyes. I know it’s bad because Dad hardly ever cries. Mum accuses him of having a heart of stone. ‘She’s gone,’ he says.
Dread overcomes me.
‘Gone? Gone where?’ Nick asks.
‘She’s left us.’
When Mum walks out on us, I cry myself to sleep. Dad doesn’t show any emotion, nor does Nick, which makes me feel like the odd one out in the family. When I’m crying in bed Dad attempts to comfort me. He says we have to be strong, learn to live without her.
‘Will she come back?’ I sniffle.
‘I don’t know.’ He takes my hand, rubs it. ‘As you grow older, Gilly, you begin to realize that life doesn’t always work out . . .’ He stops, looks up to my bookshelf, ‘as it does in fairy tales. I’m afraid people let you down. It’s a hard truth, but they do.’ Dad goes on to tell me never to doubt Mum’s love for Nick or me; she didn’t leave because she didn’t care about us any more. No, she left because she couldn’t be our mother.
‘You won’t leave us, will you Dad?’
‘Never.’ He hugs me. ‘You’re stuck with me forever.’
Over the next eighteen months we find our feet and slot into a routine. Nick and I take the bus to school, we return, make ourselves something to eat and do our homework at the kitchen table. Dad returns at six o’clock, opens the drinks cabinet and pours himself a gin. Later he cooks us supper. Mum always used to cook, so we laugh watching him study the recipes with his black-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his big nose. I help chop and wash up. Nick is always on ‘laying the table’ duty. Sometimes we talk about Megan and Mum and how Mum used to love cooking fish pies with her classical music playing in the background. As I’d walk into the room, Megan would say, ‘Hello, Gilly,’ without even hearing my voice. She couldn’t turn because she had no control in her neck, but she knew from the pattern of my footsteps. I remember Mum handing Megan some parsley, which she’d clutch with both podgy hands, pulling at it, rubbing it between her palms.
When Dad’s in a good mood he allows Nick and me to stay up late to watch television, as long as we don’t tell anyone at school. At the weekends we make ourselves a cooked breakfast with fried bread and poached eggs. That’s my favourite meal.
Mum sends us postcards from different places around the world. She signs the cards with her love, but she doesn’t say when she’s coming home. Nick throws his cards in the bin. I keep mine, slotting them into my schoolbooks.
One evening, when Nick is laying the table for supper, and I am making us all a butterscotch Angel Delight pudding, I get the strangest feeling that Mum is about to come back. I can’t explain it, but sometimes I see things unfolding before me. I know when the wind is about to change. When I tell Nick this he slams the cutlery against the table. ‘She’s more stupid than she thinks if she reckons she can just turn up and be our mum again,’ he says.
‘What are you arguing about now?’ Dad calls.
‘Nothing.’ Nick stares at me with those dark, unforgiving eyes.
Dad turns to me, unconvinced. ‘Come on,’ he urges. ‘If you’re in trouble at school, I need to know. You can talk to me.’
The doorbell rings.
41
I keep my finger on the door buzzer until I hear an, ‘All right! I’m coming!’
Finally Nancy lets me in.
‘Are the children here?’ I ask, storming into the hallway without taking my shoes off.
For the first time, Nancy doesn’t make a point of it either. ‘Look, Gilly,’ she starts, catching me up, her tone as sweet as honey. ‘I’m glad you’re here, we need to talk.’
‘The children?’ I demand.
‘They’re out with friends. They’ve gone to . . .’
‘Right now I don’t care what they’re doing, just as long as they’re not here.’
Nancy follows me into the kitchen adorned with Christmas decorations and twinkling lights that mask their unhappy household. The television is on, advertising the quarterfinals of Stargazer.
‘Coffee? Tea?’ she asks, quickly turning the programme off.
My stare says I want neither, that I’m not here for a cosy chat. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she prompts.
‘No you don’t. You have no idea.’
She touches my shoulder and I pull away. ‘Gilly, it was only a little kiss,’ she whispers. ‘It meant nothing.’
‘Oh! Well, that’s all right then. Silly old me for getting upset!’
‘Keep your voice down.’ Nancy shuts the door. ‘Nicholas will be home any minute.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I didn’t mean to, it just happened.’
‘Things don’t just happen.’ I sit down. ‘Why did you do it? I don’t understand.’
‘Gilly, he’s a player . . .’
‘That’s not the point . . .’
‘He wasn’t right for you, he’s not the settling-down type at all.’
‘Oh right, so now I should be thanking you?’
‘Well, yes.’ Nancy tucks a strand of hair behind an ear. She looks proud that she’s managed to turn the argument upside down. ‘He wasn’t right for you,’ she affirms.
‘It’s not about whether Jack is right or wrong for me, it’s about being loyal. What about Nick?’
‘Don’t you dare mention it to him – he doesn’t need to know.’
‘Really? I think he needs to know you’re unhappy because I know he is,’ I say.
‘Gilly don’t, please don’t . . .’
‘Did you know Jack has a child?’
‘What?’
�
�He has a little girl.’
Nancy opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
‘And he lives at home with his mum,’ I continue.
Nancy swallows hard.
‘Looks like he fooled us all, didn’t he?’
‘Gilly, please don’t tell Nicholas,’ she begs now.
‘Why did you do it, Nancy?’
‘I don’t know. I was bored . . .’
‘Bored?’
‘I liked his attention . . .’
‘I heard you that night, talking to Jack. You laughed at me.’
‘I didn’t, I . . .’
‘Do you have any idea how it felt?’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘If you had to throw yourself at some man, why Jack?’ I protest.
‘I didn’t throw myself at him! It was the other way round! I’m sorry, Gilly, I know I shouldn’t have kissed him . . . but . . . but I’m lonely!’
Nick enters the room. We didn’t even hear him come in. ‘Kissed who?’ he asks.
‘Nick, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to find out, not like this,’ I say.
‘You kissed Jack?’ he asks Nancy in shock.
She clutches his hand, guides him to the table. They sit down and he doesn’t shake her hand away. How can he let her touch him? ‘Darling, we all got a bit the worse for wear, it meant nothing,’ she promises.
Nick shakes his head numbly.
Is that it? Is Nancy forgiven?
I cannot hang around listening to this. I’m off. However, just as I’m reaching the front door something inside me explodes and I find myself back in the kitchen facing them. ‘Nick, I was so nervous about you finding out because I didn’t want you of all people to get hurt, but come on!’
‘Gilly,’ Nancy says, ‘that’s enough. We’re all upset, you’re emotional and . . .’
‘Fuck off!’ I scream.
She steps away from me, startled.
‘Nick!’ I confront him. ‘Are you not a tiny bit angry that your wife has kissed another man? And what about me? He was my boyfriend!’
I feel a hand against my back. Nancy is pushing me out of the kitchen.
‘You are married to a dreadful cow! She doesn’t care who she hurts to get her own way,’ I yell as I’m being propelled out of the kitchen.
‘That’s not true! How dare you!’ she shouts back.
I swing round. ‘Believe me, I’ve wanted to say a lot worse for a long time. There isn’t a single nice bone in your body, Nancy Cooper! You’re cruel and selfish and Nick deserves better than you . . .’
‘Get out!’ She turns to Nick. ‘I will not have her under my roof insulting me. You are never to . . .’
‘Stop it!’ Nick finally shouts at Nancy. ‘How dare you speak to Gilly like that, after what you’ve done?’
Nancy turns from the door and bolts upstairs.
‘I’m trapped,’ Nick says quietly in the kitchen, when I ask him why he stays in a loveless marriage.
‘No you’re not,’ I reply.
‘Gilly, I have my girls,’ he says. ‘I can’t walk out. I can’t lose them.’
‘But it’s OK that they grow up with you two shouting at one another, both of you unhappy? They’re only little now, but the longer this goes on . . . Children aren’t stupid – we of all people know that.’
‘Gilly, I have thought about leaving, but the alternative . . .’
‘We have a choice in life.’
‘Yeah, Mum chose to leave us. I don’t want to make a bad choice.’
‘It wasn’t all bad, we got by.’
‘It was terrible!’ he says, tears in his eyes now. ‘Gilly, you know it was.’
‘It wasn’t,’ I say weakly. ‘We were happy before Megan, before she . . .’
‘I know, but afterwards? It was awful the way we had to creep around Dad, we couldn’t talk about it. I never forgave Mum for doing it to us. I can’t even think about leaving them. I have to protect them.’
‘I know, but you’re not happy,’ I say again.
‘I can’t just get up and walk out on my children!’ he says, raising his voice.
I understand. ‘But it’s not the same,’ I say gently. ‘I just feel the longer you stay with Nancy, the more I’m losing you.’
‘You’re not losing me. You could never lose me.’ We clutch hands.
‘I’m not asking you to choose between Nancy and me,’ I continue, ‘and I know the girls need you, but . . .’
‘Gilly,’ Nick cautions me, hearing the front door open.
The children run into the kitchen, both clutching a bag of crisps. ‘Hi, Auntie Gilly!’ Matilda says. ‘Are you staying for tea?’
I shake my head and briefly kiss them goodbye.
‘Daddy? What’s wrong with Auntie Gilly?’ Hannah asks perceptively, as she watches me leave.
‘Nothing, poppet,’ I hear him say, ‘everything’s fine.’
42
1990
Dad opens the front door and the colour in his face vanishes.
‘Beth?’ My father stands back.
Mum forces her way inside. ‘Can I come in? Let me explain,’ she says.
Nick catches her eye, runs upstairs to his bedroom, shuts his door and turns on his music loudly. I stare at Mum in shock. She reaches out to touch me, but I shudder and move away, sticking close to Dad’s side. He takes my hand.
Mum looks better. Her eyes are no longer bloodshot; she’s put on weight, her face is less gaunt, she’s not dressed in a blue dressing gown and she doesn’t smell of smoke.
‘I don’t expect you to have me back,’ she starts.
Dad nods, careful what he says in front of me.
‘I know I have no right to walk back into your lives, I let you down . . .’
‘You let your children down,’ Dad says sharply.
‘Will! You have to understand.’
‘Oh, I understand,’ he vouches, his words fuelled by anger. ‘You left us when the going got tough, you couldn’t cope.’
‘But . . . I need Gilly and Nick to understand.’ Mum looks at me desperately. Dad then remembers I’m by his side. He releases my hand, tells me to go to my room. He needs to talk to my mother alone.
I walk upstairs, thinking I must be imagining this scene in my head. Mum can’t be back, but when I glance over my shoulder there she is, standing in the doorway. Unlike Nick, I don’t slam my bedroom door. Instead, I tiptoe out onto the landing and creep down the stairs. I listen to every word thrashed between them from behind the kitchen door.
‘You could have got help,’ Dad says reproachfully. ‘We would have supported you.’
‘You wouldn’t talk to me about it! You acted as if nothing had happened.’
‘Forget about me. What about Gilly and Nick? They were only thirteen,’ he impresses upon her. ‘You had two children who needed you.’
‘Well I’m back now,’ she says, her voice shaking, ‘and I want to be in their lives.’
‘You can’t just walk away and then come back when you feel like it. Eighteen months you’ve been gone, without any clue as to when you were coming back.’
‘I know, but . . .’
‘You can’t undo the past, Beth.’
‘I can make up for it. I’m here now. I’m better.’
‘I can’t forgive and forget, I just can’t.’
‘Will, I had a breakdown.’
‘I know,’ Dad says with some understanding, ‘but . . .’
‘I was grieving. She was my little girl, my baby,’ Mum can’t help saying, taking more claim in the grief stakes.
‘We were all grieving. This didn’t just happen to you.’
Later that evening Dad talks gently to Nick and me. He hands us a piece of paper with Mum’s temporary address and telephone number on it. He makes sure we understand that he has no wish for us not to see her. She’s our mother. He will find her a new home, and this is where we have a choice. We can either live with him or with our mother, and he will supp
ort whichever road we choose.
Before I go to bed I knock on Nick’s door. He’s wearing his black and red leather boxing gloves that Dad gave him last Christmas and he’s punishing his punchbag, sweat glistening on his forehead. ‘Can I have a go?’ I ask.
He stops, breathless, takes off the gloves and hands them to me, but it’s too late. I’ve already hit it. Again and again, and it’s Nicholas now standing back in shock.
I wake up the following morning, my heart sore and my knuckles bruised and red.
43
‘Oh, Gilly,’ says Tanya, the receptionist at the gym, beckoning me to the desk. She’s noticed I’ve been to the gym every day this week and we’ve struck up a warm friendship as she’s swiped my membership card into her machine. ‘There’s a new course starting up at the weekends,’ she informs me.
‘Oh right? What is it?’ I ask.
‘Hi, Gilly,’ he says. I turn round and there is Ed, standing by my side in his tracksuit. ‘Can we talk?’
Tanya watches with interest, before asking if we can step aside to let a member get past.
Ed and I go upstairs to the small café. I recognize his familiar aftershave, and notice that his hair needs a cut. He never used to let it grow too long. When he hands me my glass of orange juice, he appears as nervous as I am.
‘Congratulations,’ I say. ‘I hear you got married.’
‘I handled it badly, didn’t I?’
I nod.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he says.
He stirs a neat spoonful of sugar into his black coffee. ‘And I’m sorry, so sorry. The thing is, Gilly . . .’
I wait.
‘I had to stop it. I loved you,’ he says quietly, aware of people listening, and I know what he is going to say next because I know the truth now too. ‘But I don’t think we were in love any more,’ he finishes.
Monday to Friday Man Page 22
