Greg smiles and says, ‘How do they treat stupid?’
‘With lots of rest,’ I say.
‘It’s not contagious, is it?’ he asks.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is,’ I say. ‘How was work today?’
‘Same old,’ says Greg. ‘People called, I put them through, yunno, life and death stuff. Something’s going on with Bob, though.’
‘This is news?’
‘Nah,’ says Greg, leaning forward and lowering his voice, ‘I mean he’s weirder than usual. When I told him I was leaving to come see you, he said something about changing company policy. I thought he meant about me taking time off but he started muttering something about employees not being allowed to get sick.’
‘Bloody hell, I need to get out of there.’
‘Is that what this was all about? You didn’t want to come to work? You know they have annual leave for that.’
I lean over to try and swipe Greg but he moves back quickly and I miss. ‘I’m trying to change my life. I need to. I know it might sound stupid but I just wanted to do something impressive.’
Greg gives me a chocolate button. ‘It doesn’t sound stupid. I get it. I mean, that happens to me all the time. I meet someone who kitesurfs or climbs mountains or whatever and I think, I want to be like them. I don’t want to be them because they’re usually smug twats, but I want to have something they have.’
‘Money, usually,’ I say.
‘Wise words.’
I shift so that my body is turned towards him. ‘Do I just need to grow up? You can tell me. Is it too late; should I just be happy with my lot?’
‘No way,’ says Greg, and there’s no trace of his usual joviality. ‘It’s never too late, never.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m feeling really, really old.’
‘You don’t look old,’ says Greg.
‘How old do I look?’ I ask.
‘Not a day over forty,’ says Greg. I reach into the bag of buttons and throw one at his face.
‘I’m starting to think you have a problem with violence,’ says Greg solemnly.
‘I assure you, it’s a Greg-specific problem.’
‘Maybe that’s my thing,’ he says, ‘protecting others from all your seething rage.’
‘You’re doing a very good job,’ I say.
Greg stays for another half an hour. He tells me about his daughter Charlotte’s school play. It’s great watching him talk about his kids; his love for them fills the room. Eventually Precious appears and tells me I have to see the doctor, so Greg says he’ll leave me to it. ‘Don’t run any more marathons,’ he says before he goes. I promise him I won’t.
The doctor says I’m fine but it’s too late to discharge me. They’ll give me fluids and let me rest overnight. I’m not unhappy but I try to look like I am. When he leaves I sit and listen to the sounds around me, families whispering news from home and nurses offering reassurance. What I love about hospitals is how everything is stripped back to the basics. You only receive what you need; you only see the people who truly care. When Moses was born I lost a lot of blood; they made the two of us stay until I was strong enough to be a mother at home. On my second day, I called Alexander, crying.
‘How am I supposed to get better when they’re feeding me this crap?’ He arrived thirty minutes later with a Subway sandwich and a thermos of coffee, the really good kind. He climbed on the narrow bed with me and we shared the food together and watched our baby sleep in his little Perspex cot. Just the three of us and processed meat; it was everything I needed.
I must have drifted off because I am suddenly aware of Leanne standing beside me. ‘Visiting time has just finished. They let me come in as long as I promised to be five minutes,’ she says. Leanne is the type of woman people want to give five minutes. She sits on the edge of the bed and strokes my leg through the hospital blankets. ‘What were you doing?’ she asks.
‘Running a marathon,’ I say. ‘Well, half of one.’
‘I know, but why?’
‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘Why can’t I be a woman who runs half-marathons?’ And then I start to cry. Leanne hands me a tissue from a box on my bedside table and I use it to mop up my face.
‘You can be a woman who runs half-marathons; you can’t wake up and decide to be a woman who runs a half-marathon without proper preparation. You just ran round the park with me for the first time the other week. Are you doing all this to avoid the separation?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘This is nothing to do with Alexander, I almost never think of him. I had already let go of him long before we broke up.’
‘Even if that’s the case,’ says Leanne, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t believe this for a second, ‘maybe you’re not over the idea of him, the fantasy of being in a perfect couple.’
‘Why would I get over that? You’re in the perfect couple. Are you saying I’m not good enough to have that too?’
Leanne laughs. ‘James and I are far from perfect – there is no perfect. There’s basically trying as hard as you possibly can every day.’
‘That’s what I don’t think you understand,’ I say, grabbing Leanne’s hand. ‘I am trying, I’m trying so hard. I’m so, so sick of trying.’
Leanne squeezes my hand. ‘I know you are, honey, I know.’
33
HOSPITALS ARE SO easy to get into and so terribly hard to get out of. I need to wait until the doctor discharges me but all the next morning there’s not a doctor to be seen. I don’t mind it except that the longer I stay the more stupid I feel for ending up here, and Precious has been replaced with a stern Irish woman called Anna, who consistently makes me feel like I’m interrupting her Sunday dinner. When I call her to ask yet again when I will be seen, she tells me to be a patient patient. ‘There are sick people here, you know.’
I go to the TV room for a change of scene. There’s no one in there save for an older woman watching Jeremy Kyle. She’s wearing two cardigans and a felt hat.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘All right, you waiting for someone to pick you up?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘are you?’ The woman laughs as if I have said something extremely funny.
‘I’m not getting out for a long time, if at all. I just like to get up every day. Even if I did get out, got no one to pick me up. Got no one.’ She laughs again; I can see the gaps where her teeth should be. I sit in one of the plasticky chairs and message George.
Marthashotbod: Hey, are you there?
Marthashotbod: I really need to talk to you.
Undeterred83: It’s tough today.
Marthashotbod: Please.
Undeterred83: I’ll do my best.
I rest my phone on my lap.
‘Are these people for real?’ asks the woman, I think to me, but her eyes don’t leave the screen. I scroll through my contacts to avoid engaging with her. I pause at Cara’s name. I should message her; she would force me to see the funny side. I know she’d say something about the dangers of cardio but I’m still upset with her – for leaving me, for not believing me or believing in me. ‘Of course ’e’s lyin’,’ the woman says, ‘they’re always lyin’. Men, who’d ’ave ’em?’
I feel relieved when my phone rings.
‘Yeah, what’s up?’ asks George.
‘Nothing really. I just wanted to hear your voice.’
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘It was quite difficult to call you.’
‘Oh right, sorry. What are you up to?’
‘I’m rafting today,’ he says. He sounds happy. I wonder who he is rafting with.
‘I’ve been ill,’ I say. ‘I’m in hospital.’
‘Oh wow, sorry,’ he says. ‘Hang on.’ I hear him moving. ‘What happened?’
‘I kind of collapsed at the half-marathon.’
‘After?’
‘During.’
‘Crap. You OK now, though?’
‘Better for speaking to you.’ George doesn’t say anything and then I hear him talking to someone. It’s muffled, as i
f his hand is over the phone.
‘Sorry, they’re calling me,’ he says.
‘No, it’s OK. I just wanted … I wanted to know if we could get a date in for when you’re back?’
‘Yeah, of course. I don’t have my diary on me at the minute though.’
‘Oh right, I guess you don’t need it on a raft.’
George laughs but it sounds a bit forced. ‘I’ve really gotta go,’ he says.
‘OK, have a great time and let me know how it goes.’ I hold the phone to my ear long after he has gone.
‘Man trouble?’ asks the woman.
I put my phone in my pocket. ‘No, not really,’ I say.
She laughs again – I wonder if she’s on drugs.
‘I ’ad an ’usband once. You know what ’appened?’ I shake my head. ‘I killed ’im.’ I glance at the closed door of the room. The woman waits for me to make eye contact with her before saying, ‘I did, though, I picked, picked, picked until ’e was dead.’ Each time she says the word ‘picked’ she jabs at the air with her forefinger. ‘This is what I know. I don’t know much but I know this: ’ave a man an’ leave ’im be or don’t ’ave one at all.’ She says this with a nod of her head; this is the final word on the subject as far as she is concerned. Times have probably changed since she was a young woman; husbands have changed.
I remember my father’s mother talking about her husband as if he wasn’t in the room. ‘Tell Grandad his tea will get cold,’ she would say, and I would walk over to him and repeat it, worried that my mother’s whisperings that she would ‘lose her marbles’ had come to pass. This wasn’t the case, though; she had every last one of her marbles until the bitter end and each and every one rolled around in a small pool of bitter resentment. I don’t want that; I don’t want to leave my man be or have him leave me be. I want to exist together; I want us entwined irreversibly even when it’s boring, even when it’s hard – especially when it’s hard.
Anna the nurse bursts into the room. ‘You’re here!’ she scolds. ‘You’re at me all morning and as soon as the doctor appears you’re nowhere to be found.’ I stand up to go with her. Before I leave I look back to the woman, who’s engrossed in her show again. To be honest, she looks perfectly content.
34
RETURNING TO MUM and Dad’s from hospital is like arriving home after a holiday, both a relief and a disappointment. Mum tells me she has made me some soup but all I want to do is get out of my tracksuit, burn it and have a long shower. When I get to my room my stuff isn’t there. It’s as if I have been the victim of an extremely orderly robbery.
‘Mum!’ I shout, and she appears behind me.
‘I’ve moved you to the extension, so you won’t be disturbed by Moses,’ she says. A small bead of pain forms at my temple.
‘I want to be disturbed by Moses,’ I say carefully, ‘because he’s my son. Where is he?’
‘Alexander came and got him; I wanted the time to get you settled.’
I sink down to the floor and lean back against the wall. ‘How hard is it to call me and ask? How hard is it to treat me like an adult?’
Mum goes over and sits on what used to be my bed and says, ‘I do want to treat you like an adult but you don’t always act like one.’
‘How am I supposed to do anything?’ I whisper. ‘How am I supposed to do anything if the one person who’s meant to be behind me every step of the way isn’t there at all?’
‘What are you talking about?’ asks Mum. She sounds impatient. Whenever I have a conversation with her I get the sense that she’s eager to get off and do something more interesting. Even as a small child I felt this. I think this is why people often comment on how quickly I speak; I was always aware that I had to get out as much as I could before I was dismissed.
‘Could you not ask me what I need rather than patronizing me and stealing my son?’
‘I’m not trying to steal him. I did not see myself raising a child at this stage in life but you need to get yourself together.’
‘I’m getting a divorce, Mum,’ I spit at her. ‘It’s one of the most stressful life events you can experience; I’m doing pretty well. I’m working, I’m looking into new opportunities, I’m seeing someone …’
Mum looks up at the ceiling, where I assume she believes God is hiding. ‘You can’t be seeing someone already. This is how you get a reputation.’
‘Mum, it’s not 1803, and Alexander is already shacked up with someone!’
‘It’s different for men,’ says Mum unapologetically.
‘Why can’t you just want me to be happy?’ I say. I look towards her but not directly at her, and in my peripheral vision I can see Mum fold her arms.
‘Because happiness is a cop-out. Any idiot can be happy.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Apparently not.’
‘Do you know how hard your grandmother worked? On weekends, I used to go with her. I’d watch her iron piles and piles of white people’s clothes. She never let me help; she always told me to read my books. When I met your dad and he earned enough to keep us both, I thought I had won but …’ I wait. The moment feels so heavy. I understand that what is said next could change things for us for ever. ‘I know you can do better than this,’ Mum says finally. She waves her hand in my direction on the last word.
My emotional scale teeters between anger and acceptance. On one hand I’m so sick of her constant criticism; on the other I am sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom, a failed half-marathon runner and almost divorcée.
Mum says, ‘I know I didn’t raise you like this.’ And the scale tips. My rage propels me from the floor and I am quickly standing looking down on her. She tries to hide it but I can see she’s shocked; I might give her some lip now and then but I’ve never stood up to her in a real or metaphorical sense.
‘This is precisely how you raised me. What? You think your gold star parenting gave me all the tools I need to excel but I, stubborn little wretch that I am, was just determined to be a fat fuck-up?’ Mum opens her mouth to respond but I continue, ‘Newsflash: that’s not the case. In fact, I’m starting to think living with you might be a big part of the problem.’ I turn and walk away and formulate my plan as I do so.
My stuff has been put away neatly in the loft conversion. I repack it into the bags that Alexander sent it to me in and then haul each bag downstairs, one by one. I allow every load to bounce heavily on all the steps of the two flights to the entrance hall. When I’m finished I’m sweating but I feel good; perhaps these are those endorphins that they talk about. I walk into the living room, where my mother and father are sitting in silence. Mum turns away as she sees me enter the room so I leave her to it. My father looks at me, his face full of apprehension.
‘Dad,’ I say. ‘Can I get a lift?’
35
LEANNE REACTS TO me, my cat and all my bags showing up at her door with an admirable level of calm. Most friends say that you can always call on them. They clutch your hand and murmur, ‘If there’s anything you need.’ But they say this safe in the knowledge that you will never, ever actually call on them. Leanne isn’t this person. If Leanne says she’ll be there for you, she’ll be there, early, with muffins. She puts me in her guest bedroom, which is always ready for guests. It’s quite small and it’s only after I bring up my belongings that I remember that I will need to fit Moses and all his toddler paraphernalia in here too. I sit on the bed and look at the contents of my life in holdalls. I have so very little and it still has nowhere to belong. Moving to Leanne’s is like unwrapping another layer of pain; I actually feel a dull ache in my belly. The little nicotine-like hits I had been getting from George’s increasingly sporadic messages are no longer enough.
Leanne comes in with extra blankets and joins me on the bed. ‘Wanna tell me what’s going on?’
I pull one of the blankets over my legs. ‘I just reached the end of my rope with Mum.’ I don’t have to say anything else. As a teenager I would spend many a weekend hiding from my mother at Leanne
’s family home. I loved her mother Tanya so much – a wiry redhead who, contrary to the stereotype, was always quiet and measured. She rarely offered more than the blandest of small talk. After which she would make us chip sandwiches and huge mugs of tea and sit in the kitchen as we lay sprawled in front of her television, watching soaps for hours. Leanne always swore that her mother’s passivity came with its own disadvantages but I just think she was trying to make me feel better.
‘So, shall we talk about boys?’ asks Leanne. I smile. Leanne and I have clocked up hours and hours lying on her bed discussing boys over the years; usually boys who didn’t know we existed.
‘I feel like he’s pulling away,’ I say.
‘I didn’t know you were talking,’ says Leanne.
‘Not talking talking, but we message every day.’
‘About Moses?’ We both look at each other in confusion. ‘We’re talking about Alexander, right?’ Leanne asks.
‘No! Of course not. George.’
‘Oh,’ says Leanne. ‘Nathan George.’
‘Shut up,’ I say. I show her our conversations on my phone. This is something we used to do years ago, analyse the syntax and frequency of his messages in order to ascertain just how quickly a guy was falling in love.
Leanne reads in silence. When she’s had her fill she says, ‘He sounds nice.’
‘Don’t get too excited,’ I say, snatching my phone back from her.
‘I’m worried it’s too soon.’ George’s profile says he’s online but I decide to wait to see if he sends me a message first.
‘Weren’t you the one telling me to ask the universe to hook me up and setting me up on hideous dates?’
‘I still want that for you – not the hideous dates, but finding the right guy,’ says Leanne. ‘Anyway, what do I know?’
‘Exactly,’ I say, ‘what do you know with your amazing marriage and your beautiful house and your adorable kids?’
Leanne purses her lips and then says, ‘Yes, but you know I’d give it all up for your eyebrows.’ I scoot across the bed and rest my head on her shoulder. I’m shocked at how good it feels to have her body against mine. I wonder how long it would take to get used to not being held – a month? A year? A decade? Sometimes I see this old woman in the Co-op. As I queue up behind her, I watch her fumble for exact change in a small coin purse and I hear the cashier humour her as she offers embarrassingly unnecessary commentary. I want to stop her before she leaves the store and ask, ‘When was the last time you were touched – I mean, really touched?’ When Leanne says things like ‘it’s too soon’, she says this from the position of someone who knows she will be touched in a few hours and again tomorrow and most probably every day after that. When I think about George I know that it’s very much not soon enough.
The Reinvention of Martha Ross Page 22
