Smile

by Deborah Moggach

  I knew that, of course. For the first time in four years, however, I didn’t know where they had gone. Or even how long they would be away. I hadn’t asked him.

  For the first time I gave the house a long, honest look. I saw it for what it was: an imposing, terraced mansion with a pillared porch. There it stood, large and creamy. A family fortress.

  I drove away. I had three appointments that afternoon, meeting prospective buyers at various empty properties.

  Two of them passed without incident. At five o’clock only the last remained. It was not until then that I fished the third key from my bag, and found the piece of paper, where my secretary had noted down the person’s name.

  He was waiting outside in the street.

  ‘It’s you,’ I said stupidly.

  He grinned. ‘It’s me all right. I’m glad it’s you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not Prewitt or Little.’

  ‘No. It’s not them.’

  We stood there by the front gate. Trying to collect my thoughts, I fiddled with the gate-latch. There was a moment’s silence, then he pointed up at the house.

  ‘Which floor’s the flat?’

  ‘The second. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘I just saw the board up, with your name on it. So I phoned.’ He picked at the blisters on the fence. ‘On impulse.’

  I felt hot. I said: ‘Thought you were looking in Barnes.’

  ‘I looked. Everyone’s married.’

  ‘Even the actresses?’

  ‘Even them.’

  We stood there. He popped the blisters in the paint. He wore his tired-looking jacket.

  ‘Didn’t you go to work today?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Went round looking at your boards.’

  I moved towards the door. ‘You won’t like this flat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just being honest.’

  We went upstairs. The flat was a new conversion. It had been flashed up with magnolia paint and woodchip wallpaper.

  ‘Cowboy job,’ I said.

  ‘You are being unromantic today.’

  We stood in the empty room.

  ‘Vacant possession,’ he murmured.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s that all right.’

  He looked at me. Then he said: ‘How are you, Celia?’

  I gazed at the floorboards. ‘All right.’

  ‘How’s things?’

  I looked up at him. ‘Oh, they’re over.’

  ‘Are they?’

  I nodded. There was a silence.

  Later we had a meal. Not at the bistro place; somewhere else. He said: ‘I don’t want that flat.’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s cheap and nasty.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are we both telling the truth now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Afterwards we sat together in my Metro. The car shook as lorries rumbled down the Cromwell Road.

  I said: ‘You feel so warm.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘I’m fully central-heated.’

  CHARMING GARDEN-LEVEL FLAT. That’s what he bought, and it means a basement, of course. It had a COUNTRY-STYLE garden which meant full of nettles but I’ve been seeing to those.

  It is charming, too. I’m not just saying it. I’ve come to know every corner, over the past few weeks. It charms me.

  • Some Day My Prince Will Come •

  I WAS WOKEN up by Tilly prising open my mouth. They’d had the school dentist yesterday, that was why. She was smug because they had found nothing wrong with her.

  ‘Wider,’ she said. Small ruthless fingers pushed back my lips, baring my gums. I was lying in bed and she was sitting on top of me. ‘There’s these bits here … yellowy bits … round the edges of your teeth.’ Her calm eyes gazed into my mouth. ‘It’s called plaque,’ she said. ‘You should brush your teeth gooder.’

  Beside me, Martin grunted. ‘Seen the time?’

  Tilly was now yanking down my lower jaw. ‘Ooh, look at all your silver stuff.’

  ‘Half past six,’ said Martin, and went back to sleep.

  ‘You’ve got lots of holes, didn’t you,’ she said.

  Most of them, I thought, when I was pregnant with you. I lay, mute as a cow, under her gaze. She was only five and already she made me feel inferior. She would say things like: ‘You shouldn’t smoke.’ I hadn’t the heart to reply: I didn’t, till recently.

  Tilly settled down to deeper inspection. I was going to say: go and look at Daddy’s teeth. Then I thought: better not, he had a hard day yesterday, at the office. A long day ahead, too. It’s Saturday, Working on the House Day. Every Saturday and every Sunday … weekends of the whirring Black & Decker, and fogs of dust, and muffled curses from the closed door behind which he toiled … of tripping over the plumbing pipes, and searching for one small sandal in the rubble, and keeping out of Daddy’s way … So much of the time I spent protecting Martin from his children.

  Tilly got bored and padded off in her nightie, sucking her thumb. From the back she suddenly looked terribly young. Outside I heard a thud: she had knocked down a roll of wallpaper.

  ‘Hey!’ Martin’s head reared up. Where his tools were concerned his reaction was so sharp. I swear he could hear a chisel shifting in its box three rooms away. Funny how he could sleep through all the children’s noises – the cries to be potted, the thud as they rolled over and fell out of bed.

  However, this seemed a churlish waking thought, with a weekend ahead. I ticked myself off, running through the litany to make myself a more loving wife: Remember, Martin’s slaving away just for us. Wasn’t it me who wanted this house, such a lovely one right near the common, and we could never have afforded a done-up one in a street like this. And I bet he would rather spend the weekends playing football and watching the telly and drinking cans of lager … He would probably even prefer to spend them striding over the common with Tilly on his shoulders, like fathers did in Building Society advertisements. He had never done that. He said: there’s so much to do.

  Did your character change when you had children? Mine did. Trouble is, it’s crept up on me so gradually and by now I simply can’t remember what I was like before … What we were like. What did Martin and I do, those three years of long, child-free weekends in our flat? What does one do? Did we actually sit and talk, and read books unmolested, and wander off to the cinema on impulse, go anywhere on impulse, go to pubs … And dawdle in shops unembarrassed by clumsy infants and cold, shopgirl stares, and make love in the afternoons? That bit I do remember … I remember that.

  Anyway, that Saturday I got up, and fed the children, and peeled off their Plasticine from Martin’s hammer before he saw it … Really, compared to the rest of the week, weekends were such a strain … And pulled a nail out of Tilly’s plimsoll. She made such a fuss that I tried to shut her up by telling her the story about Androcles and the Lion, but I couldn’t remember what had happened. Didn’t Kirk Douglas play Androcles? By this time Tilly was wearing her schoolmistressy look. And Adam had just fallen down and was shrieking so loudly that Martin could hear him over the electric sander.

  After lunch Martin went out. He had all these errands to do on Saturdays, like getting his hair cut and the car repaired, and things mended that I had forgotten to do during the week or that I had been too busy to fetch – he can’t understand that I’m busy, when there’s nothing to show for it. No floors re-laid, nothing like that. And he has to go to all those proper little shops with old men in overalls who take hours; he refuses to go to the big help-yourself places because he says they’re soulless.

  It’s taking ages, our house. It’s like one of those fairy stories where Mrs Hen won’t give an egg until she’s been given some straw, and Mr Horse won’t give any straw until he’s been given some sugar. You can’t plumb in the bath until the skirting’s fixed, and you can’t fix the skirting until the dry rot’s been done … I told this to Martin and he gazed at me and then he said: ‘Th
at reminds me. Forgot the Nitromors.’

  It was two thirty and raining outside. Do you ever have those moments of dulled panic: what on earth can one possibly do with the children until bedtime? The afternoon stretched ahead; Adam was staggering around, scattering wood shavings. Then I looked in the local paper and saw that Snow White was on.

  So I wrote a note to Martin and heaved out the double buggy and spent 23½ minutes searching for their gumboots and gloves … I actually went to college once, would you believe, and I can still add up … 12½ minutes to find my bag, and the teddy that Adam has to suck.

  I pushed the children along the street – at least, Adam sat in the buggy (he’s just three) and Tilly walked beside me because she only sits in the buggy when she’s sure not to meet any of her friends.

  ‘Does Snow White wear a beautiful pink dress?’ she asked. ‘With frillies?’ She’s obsessed with pink.

  ‘Can’t remember,’ I said. ‘I was your age when I saw it. I loved it more than any film I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Snow White gets deaded,’ said Adam.

  ‘She doesn’t!’ I cried. ‘She’s only asleep.’

  ‘Deaded in a box. Seen the picture.’

  ‘She isn’t! She’s just sleeping. And do you know how she wakes?’

  ‘Got worms in her.’

  ‘Shut up. She wakes up when the Prince comes along,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He kisses her.’

  When did Martin last kiss me? Properly. Or when, indeed, did I last kiss him?

  The Prince just touches her forehead, or is it her lips? Just a peck, really. Just like when Martin comes home from the office.

  No, not like that at all.

  ‘Mummy! I said what happens after that?’ Tilly’s addressing-the-retarded voice. ‘Does she get a baby? Does she get married?’

  ‘Oh yes, they marry all right. He takes her off to his castle in the sunset, on the back of his big white horse.’

  We arrived at the cinema; a peeling brick cliff, its neon lights glaring over the grey street. How could such buildings house such impossible dreams?

  Inside I saw him. I saw him straight away; the place was half-empty. But I would have spotted him, I bet, in a crowd of a thousand. He was flung back in his seat, in that abandoned way he had, with his hair sticking up like it always had. He had never taken care of himself. The lights were still up; if I’d dared I’d have looked longer.

  I had sat next to him in fifty cinema seats … Him beside me, flung back in that restless, tense way, never settled … his arm lying along the back of the seat. But now his arms were flung each side of his children.

  ‘Let’s go here!’ Tilly demanded.

  I pulled her away.

  ‘Mummy! We can see over the edge!’

  ‘Come on. This way.’

  ‘Don’t be silly! There’s all these seats.’

  ‘Silly bum-bum,’ said Adam.

  I dragged the buggy further away.

  ‘Wanna sit here,’ cried Adam.

  ‘Ssh!’

  I sat them down at last, pulling off their anoraks and trying to shove the buggy under the seat. The cinema darkened.

  ‘Gimme the popcorn!’ said Adam.

  I rummaged in my carrier-bag. While I did it, I stole another look. A red point glowed … She hadn’t stopped him smoking, then.

  ‘You said half!’ Tilly hissed.

  ‘Have a handful each.’

  ‘S’not fair! He’s –’

  ‘Ssh! It’s starting.’

  Snow White was washing the steps, scrubbing and singing, the birds cheeping. I thought: forgot the Daz, and now I’ve missed the shops.

  ‘When’s the Prince coming?’ hissed Tilly, her mouth full of popcorn.

  ‘Hang on,’ I replied. ‘Don’t be impatient.’

  ‘Will he come on his horse?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He’d had a motorbike, an old Triumph. I’d sat behind him, gripping him with my arms, my face pressed against the leather. Ah, the ache, that his skin was hidden … The physical pain, that I couldn’t get my hands on him. I wanted him all the time. Where did we go? Transport cafés at four in the morning. The glare of the light, the suddenness of all those strangers, after we had been alone for so long … He’d take off his gloves and hold my hand; I stroked his hard fingernails, one by one, and then the wider nail of his thumb.

  Afterwards, driving oh too fast – he had a death wish all right – driving just for the heck of it … Then back to my digs, lying naked on the twisted sheets, the sun glowing through the curtains and the children down in the street whooping on their way to school – they seemed a hundred miles away … And me missing my lectures.

  I wish you had met him. You’d probably think he was wildly unsuitable, far too neurotic. My parents did. They were terrified that I would marry him. And I didn’t, did I?

  I wonder if you’d have thought him beautiful. I wondered if he still was. It was too dark to see. All I’d heard was that he had married a social worker and had two children. She was called Joyce. I’d pictured somebody with a political conscience and thick ankles, who would care for him and see that he ate. Well, that’s how I liked to picture her. Today she must be staying home, making flans for the freezer. Did he write her poetry, like he had written for me? Did anybody, once they got married? Joyce … With a name like that, she must be overweight.

  ‘Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?’

  The Dark Queen was up on the screen, with her bitter, beautiful face. The light flared on her.

  A hand gripped mine. ‘She’s horrid!’ said Tilly.

  ‘She’s jealous,’ I whispered.

  ‘I hate her.’

  ‘Ssh.’

  Where did he live? It must be around here. On the other hand, on a wet Saturday afternoon he might have crossed London to see Snow White.

  I would follow him home. I’d find out where he lived and press my nose against the window and gaze into his life, his lamplit family life all unknown to me, where I was not needed …

  ‘Ugh!’ The hand squeezed. ‘She’s turning into a witch!’

  ‘Look at her horrid nose!’

  ‘Isn’t she ugly.’

  ‘I don’t like her!’

  Tilly said in her posh voice: ‘It’s because she’s got ugly thoughts.’

  She took away her hand and sat there primly. She was wearing her kilt that she’d chosen herself, and her awful orange plastic necklace, and her I’VE SEEN WINDSOR SAFARI PARK badge.

  Snow White was in the forest now; it was blacker than Windsor Park and the trees were swaying and moaning, warning her of danger. I thought that Tilly would be frightened here but she didn’t show it. I had a sudden desire to grip my growing, wayward girl, so cool and so young. I wanted to grip her and protect her from what lay ahead. But she disliked shows of emotion.

  Snow White had arrived at the dwarfs’ cottage and, little housewife that she was, she was clearing up, dusting, polishing, a song on her lips (well, she had about twenty squirrels and rabbits to help). I looked round. He was getting up.

  I felt panic. But he was only carrying out one of his children, down the aisle. They must be going to the lavatory. He passed quite close, gripping the child. He was wearing a pale pullover and he held the child so tenderly. Ten years later and he looked just the same, no fatter. I thought how easily that child could have been ours. It could have been us sitting there, and no Tilly. No Adam. Or a different Tilly …

  ‘Mummy, you’re hurting!’

  I had been squeezing her hand, so I took mine away. But then she groped for it – both of them did – because the witch was knocking on the door of the cottage.

  I feared for his remaining child, left alone. But I stopped myself. It wasn’t my child to worry about. Besides, there he was, his hair haloed by the screen, bowed so he wouldn’t block the view of this terrifying, powerful film.

  Snow White let in the witch. As she took the apple, t
he audience sat absolutely still. All those children – not a sweetpaper rustled. Nothing.

  When she bit the apple, Tilly hid her face. My cool, superior Tilly. I pressed my hand against her eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I whispered.

  ‘I want to go.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said desperately. ‘I told you – the Prince will come.’

  He came, of course, as you knew he would. He rode up on his muscular white horse. Tilly took away her hand; she sat there, calm as ever. She knew it would turn out all right.

  The Prince knelt down to kiss Snow White. And then she was in his arms and he was lifting her on to the back of his horse. Not a motorbike – a stallion with a thick curved neck, and the sun cast long shadows between the trees as they rode off, and ahead lay the castle, radiant.

  Businesslike, Tilly was rummaging in the bottom of the popcorn bag. I sat limp; I felt her busy concentration. She knew the Prince would come, she believed it. Every girl must believe it, because wouldn’t life be insupportable if they didn’t?

  ‘Come on.’ She was standing up.

  Every girl … Every boy too. All those young, believing children.

  ‘Where’s your hanky?’ I muttered.

  She had this hideous little diamanté handbag that Aunt Nelly had given her; she carried it everywhere. I took the hanky and blew my nose. The lights came on.

  ‘Don’t be soppy,’ she said. ‘It’s only a story.’

  I saw him ahead of us in the foyer. He had sunk down in front of his child and was zipping up its anorak. He was speaking but I couldn’t hear the words.

  Outside it was dark, and still raining: a soft November drizzle. I saw him quite clearly standing at the bus stop on the other side of the road. His children looked younger than mine.

  I wanted to follow him. I couldn’t face meeting him but I wanted to see where he lived. I wanted to set him into a house and give him a locality. I would be able to dream about him better then. All these years he had just been the same set of memories, stale and repeated; his present life was a vacuum. I hungered even for the name of his street.