All That Mullarkey

by Sue Moorcroft

  Rochelle and Angie, having the advantage of not being plastered, hovered at the sitting-room door and giggled uneasily.

  Liza, perhaps becoming aware of an awkward atmosphere, grew rattled in the louder, graceless, cringeworthy way of the drunk. She wavered her bottles onto the low table, giggling unconvincingly and taking all her steps twice. ‘I’ll plonk the plonk on there and leave you to it. You’re not letting the grass grow, eh?’ A lopsided, backwards conga took her to the door and then cannoned her back to clutch Cleo’s arms. She cleared her throat theatrically and began to sing. ‘Out with the old and in with the new! Out with the old and in with the new!’

  ‘Shut up, Liza.’ Cleo’s stomach clenched. She herded her sister to the door, trying to cover her embarrassment and increased heart rate with reproving clucks. ‘Do you have to be permanently pissed? Are you driving, Angie, you’re not over the limit, are you?’ She hid behind an expression of concern although she wasn’t far from wishing the dippy crowd in the nearest ditch. ‘Do you need coffee before you go?’ Appropriately, she sounded like a mother.

  ‘What did she mean?’ snapped Justin.

  She swung back to the sitting room, pausing in the act of closing the door behind her sister. Liza had slapped the lights on as she fell in and his expression was painfully clear. Teeth gritted. Arms folded.

  This wasn’t going to plan. She cleared her throat. ‘I’ve left Gav.’

  ‘And this is how you decided I should find out?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. When you were in America.’

  ‘I’ve been back two weeks.’ Then Justin’s blazing gaze moved from Cleo to the doorway. And back.

  Slowly, Cleo turned. And there, right where she absolutely didn’t want him, stood Gav, in the open doorway, glaring at Justin.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Gav demanded.

  ‘Almost making a big mistake!’ Justin’s voice splintered with rage. Reaching for his jacket, he yanked it on in angry jerks.

  Cleo managed, ‘Wait a min––’

  And suddenly he was roaring, ‘Wait for what? You’re full of shit! You always manage to piss me off, Cleo! When I’m with you I think you’re fantastic, I want you like crazy. Then you always do something to show me how wrong for me you really are. I swore to myself I’d leave you alone as you asked, then you come looking for me and I rush to your side like a spaniel. Despite all my promises to myself, I can’t resist getting you back in the sack. So I push your husband to the back of my mind, tell myself it’s his lookout if he can’t keep you happy, your business if you’re looking outside the marriage. It’s better than nothing.’

  He stamped his feet into his shoes. ‘But it’s not. It doesn’t appear to me that you’re very clear about whether your marriage is over.’ He pushed past her. ‘And I thought blokes were meant to be the bastards.’

  ‘But –’ Cleo protested.

  He span back, making Cleo leap with apprehension. ‘Do me a favour? Next time you think about contacting me – don’t. I can’t think of any circumstance under which I’d want to hear from you.’

  Trembling, she listened to the crash as he threw back the gate, the protest from his car engine as he screeched back into the lane.

  Shaking, she pushed her hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Dear, dear,’ said Gav.

  Part 2

  Cleo Reece

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cleo dashed up Dora’s garden path, out of breath. Today’s Powerful Listening seminar had flown by, the young and enthusiastic group becoming caught up in role playing as energetic as any drama workshop, sweeping her along with their verve. Her heart had thudded when she suddenly noticed that the clock said five thirty.

  She’d rounded up with a rushed, ‘Great workshop, hope you’ll be able to use what we’ve done today!’ as she reached for her bag and snatched her name tag from her lapel. The traffic up Soke Parkway had been diabolical and, at nearly six thirty, she was definitely late.

  ‘Sorry,’ she gasped, as Dora opened the door. ‘Time management failure.’

  Dora grinned. ‘Don’t worry – come in.’ Cleo followed a rear view of stretch jeans far smaller than in the days when Dora had been married to Keith, into the long, two-rooms-knocked-into-one lounge. Here, Sean was frowning at the Daily Express while Meggie read aloud and Eddie clonked a racket from a multicoloured xylophone. Shona, who Dora childminded, danced to Eddie’s tune with froggy little leaps and pushed-out lips.

  When she spotted Cleo, her face split into a huge, sunny grin and she broke into an inexpert, one-year-old’s run, most of her energy bouncing her upwards rather than sending her along. Both small hands reached, curling and uncurling, as she squealed, ‘Mummee!’

  Cleo dropped to her knees to let Shona run into her arms, clasping the hot little body to her in a fierce burst of love. ‘Hiya, baby! Home time then, here’s your coat. Quick kiss now for Auntie Dora, wave to Sean, bye-bye. Let’s go find the car …’ For all Dora’s understanding, Cleo always felt horribly guilty when she arrived late to find Dora’s cooking smells at the mouth-watering stage – and Dora’s family famished and waiting politely for Cleo to get her daughter out of the way so that they could eat. Dora did feed Shona sometimes, if Cleo’s work schedule really dictated it; but Cleo was intent on cooking for her own child whenever possible and seeing that they sat down to eat together at the end of each day.

  Shona, strapped into her chunky red car seat, looked cocooned and cosy in the headlight-lit winter evening. ‘Mummee!’ she shouted twice.

  Cleo answered, ‘Yes, baby?’ but the conversation went no further, like so many of Shona’s conversations. Her current favourite gambit was to point at someone – often, mortifyingly, some complete stranger – and explode ‘HA!’ at the top of her healthy lungs.

  ‘Mummee, HA! Mum! HA!’ she shouted now, lips pursed in concentration.

  Cleo grinned into the rear-view mirror. ‘And ha to you, too. Have you had a good day?’

  ‘HA!’

  As long as Shona was occupied with ‘HA!’ at least she wasn’t crying for supper. Cleo’s nippy little TT was a thing of the past, now that she needed more space in the back, so she ran around in a Civic. Eight minutes was the record journey time from Dora and Sean’s tall old-fashioned terraced house in Bettsbrough to Ladies Lane, without necks being risked, and it was often a fraught journey.

  In fact the whole single-parent thing was fraught. Cleo seemed to spend a fair amount of her time agonising over it. Did Shona see enough of her? Was the village the best place for them to live? If Dora was to continue to be Shona’s childminder – and there was nobody to whom Cleo would rather entrust her precious daughter – Shona would have to attend playgroup in Bettsbrough when the time came, because Dora couldn’t be ping-ponging between Bettsbrough and the playgroup in Middledip village hall. So how would Shona make friends in the village? Rhianne’s moving away with Ian’s latest promotion meant that Shona didn’t even have a friend in the third child, Emily, that Rhianne and Ian had produced. Cleo didn’t want to think about what would happen when Shona started school.

  She swung the car into the drive and fished Shona out of her car seat. The instant they stepped through the front door, Shona began to shriek with hunger; the smell of dinner cooking was a harsh reminder of how growlingly empty she was, judging by the way she pawed her round little tummy.

  During the final ten-second wait before Cleo could share out the contents of the slow cooker, Shona began to throw herself back and forth in Cleo’s arms until their heads banged painfully together, making Cleo wince and Shona scream louder.

  ‘Your head’s like concrete,’ Cleo grumbled. ‘Only a minute now. Arms up, coat off.’ Shona continued to fling herself around in a sheer unadulterated agony of hunger. In the seven months since Cleo’s maternity leave had ended, always these coming-home minutes were the hellish ones.

  Cleo posted her protesting daughter expertly into the high chair and clicked the straps. ‘Thank
goodness for slow cookers.’ On week nights they always ate stews and casseroles that could be prepared in the morning and left to cook all day in the slow cooking pot.

  Taking down a big plate from the cupboard, she ladled chicken casserole across the chill surface.

  ‘Nearly done, nearly done.’ She grimaced at her daughter’s red and angry face, the real tears, the runny nose. ‘I know what Shona wants.’

  Shona geared her fuss down to listen.

  ‘Juice! Nice, cold juice.’ Shona resumed her wailing but reached a clenching hand towards the fridge. Cleo passed over a two-handled, lidded beaker with just an inch of apple juice and water. Something else prepared ahead, in a morning that began at five thirty or six to stretch the day so that it would accommodate everything.

  The plate of food had stopped steaming; Cleo scraped it swiftly into Shona’s bowl, blue plastic with a circular sucker on the bottom, perched on a chair and began to spoon-feed gravy, crooning, comforting, as her daughter gradually calmed. By the time the gravy had been spooned into her mouth, the edge was off Shona’s furious appetite and she was willing to dig pudgy fingers into the slices of potato and carrot, pick out her favourite cubes of chicken and root delicately for peas. She even began to smile her three-toothed smile.

  And there was peace.

  Cleo ladled out her own portion of casserole and sat down companionably in a kitchen chair. It was an odd echo of when she and Gav had wound down over the exchange of the day’s news at the meal table.

  ‘So how was your day at the office?’ she asked Shona, grinning into the sparky brown-gold eyes.

  Shona shouted, ‘HA!’ and pointed at the fridge.

  ‘You can have yoghurt afterwards.’

  Shona nodded exaggeratedly and turned back to the carrots. ‘Mmm-mmm-mmm’.

  This evening was much like every evening. After the casserole, Shona got her yoghurt. They had a spoon each and Cleo ended up with yoghurt in her hair. Shona suggested, ‘Gink?’ and Cleo gave her another mug of juice. Then Shona got down and played, banging toys on the fireguard or posting the dog figure down the chimney of the Fisher Price house, while Cleo cleared up. Then they shared a bath, splashing with Shona’s water toys and singing.

  A fragrant Shona was bundled into pyjamas to sit in the armchair with Cleo and a book. One last drink of warm milk and she was ready for carrying through the stair gate and up to her pine cot in the corner of Cleo’s room.

  ‘’Night.’ Cleo paused at the door after setting the cot mobile playing ‘It’s a Small World’, half relieved, half reluctant to see her daughter settle, wondering where the last few hours had gone.

  ‘Yite,’ Shona responded, still chewing the lid of her empty mug.

  But thank the lucky stars, thank the patron saint of Mummees, Shona was a brilliant sleeper. It took only three minutes before the fans of her eyelashes were resting on her soft cheeks. It was only then that Cleo had time for herself, a leisurely dessert, a read of the daily paper and the day’s post.

  Pulling back the fireguard she opened the stove, added two logs, and sat cross-legged on the floor, so that the kind offers of credit cards or laser eye surgery could be chucked straight into the flames. She glanced at the electricity bill, read a notice from her bank about how her savings account – a slender thing these days – was changing, and then turned over and over an envelope addressed in Gav’s writing.

  ‘Now what does he want?’ She shut the stove and hooked the fireguard into place. Carrying the envelope with her she made, as a treat, a cafetière of coffee, Costa Rican. She had no concerns about strong coffee making her wakeful; she generally had to force herself to stay awake until eleven, then fell into bed and slept like a Shona for six and a half hours before she needed to drag herself up to do it all again.

  Saturday and Sunday mornings were just bliss; then she didn’t rouse until seven when Shona’s cheerful squeals of ‘Mummee!’ and ‘HA!’ would scrape open her eyes.

  Mooching back to the sitting room with her coffee cup, she nestled into the armchair, selected a TV drama for company and slit the envelope. Poor Gav. After Pauline, and the sad end of their marriage, Gav had given in his resignation at Clyde, Rhode & Owen – hurled it in, he said – and gone to live just north of Doncaster, near his dad.

  ‘I need to get away,’ he’d explained, earnestly, as if she’d been begging him to stay; whereas, in fact, she hadn’t even wanted to look at him and the sad looseness of his body language. ‘Dad could do with company. I don’t think I can hack it at CR&O, I’ve been cleared of woman beating but they all know I’m an unfaithful bastard.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think you’re alone,’ she’d reassured him, unthinkingly.

  He’d glared. ‘Hardly, eh, Swelly Belly?’ And then, sarcastically, ‘Is Justin likely to be around for the birth?’ He knew that Cleo and Justin were absolutely not in contact, but seemed to enjoy reminding her of the fact.

  ‘No,’ she answered calmly, patting her stomach. ‘It’s just me and the baby.’

  Cleo and Shona. Shona and Cleo. A package. At the birth, at that final heave with the midwife coaxing, ‘You’re doing beautifully, well done,’ and Liza marvelling, ‘Oh. My. God!’ Cleo had yelled out, just once, on a peak of pain, ‘Justin!’

  The echoes of his name had died in the bright, hot delivery room and everyone had tactfully pretended to be deaf.

  Then Cleo and Liza were laughing and crying together at the feebly waving bundle that blinked as she was placed in her mother’s arms.

  ‘You’re a mum!’ Liza had accused, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. ‘Cleo, she’s so … amazing. Isn’t she amazing? Isn’t the whole thing amazing?’ Then Liza dashed out because she’d been dying to pee for hours – and probably wanted a crafty fag as well, because she only pretended to have given up.

  The midwives went quietly about, clearing up the yucky stuff.

  The baby blinked, dark hair plastered above a puzzled forehead. Fists of unimagined delicacy trembled and clutched at nothings.

  And Cleo suddenly realised where the saying had come from: ‘left holding the baby’.

  Her back was tucked up with a dragging ache. She was so thirsty after the endless sucking on the gas-and-air that she thought her throat would zip up and dry out. She held on to her daughter tightly, scared her arms would go nerveless and let the baby plummet to the floor. A nerve at the base of her neck ticked. And she longed, for a frantic, frightened moment, for a man beside her to relieve her tired arms.

  But there was no man.

  No man beside her, no man on his way, no man waiting outside for news. Cleo’s arms found strength.

  When Shona was five days old, Cleo rang Rockley Image and asked for Justin, receiving the slightly evasive response, ‘I’ll put you through to the studio.’

  The voice at the studio sounded surprised. ‘Sorry,’ it said, ‘Justin doesn’t work here, now.’

  The magnitude of the task of formulating a reply defeated Cleo and she replaced the phone silently.

  So it had definitely been just Cleo and Shona.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, quickly she ripped open the letter, trying not to wonder whether Gav was pleased that once upon a time Cleo had had two men but now she had none.

  Dear Cleo,

  She skimmed the ‘hope you’re OK’ and Gav and George were.

  I’m going to be back in your neighbourhood for a couple of days. Could we get together for a chat? I’ve something particular I’d like to discuss. I don’t know where I’ll stay, Keith is doing the love-nest thing with his latest woman – God knows how he gets them (which made two of them) but I don’t want to be a hairy gooseberry.

  Believe it or not, I’m being headhunted by a firm I used to deal with when I worked at CR&O and I’ve got a couple of days of interviews. They haven’t offered to pay my hotel bill so I suppose I’ll have to find somewhere reasonable. Unless I could crash on your couch? I’d be no trouble, honest!

  Cleo glanced over at t
he sofa, a two-seater with runged wooden arms. Gav would be dead comfy on that! She pulled the phone towards her, yawning.

  She opened with, ‘My couch is only a two-seater. You’d hang over at each end.’

  Gav laughed, sounding drowsy as if he’d been snoozing in front of the telly, which he probably had. ‘OK. Well … OK, no sweat. I’ll find a hotel.’ He sounded flat and disappointed.

  She let him sigh over this setback before saying thoughtfully, ‘I have got an air bed, of course. And a sleeping bag. If you don’t mind dossing on the sitting-room floor?’

  ‘Brilliant!’ It pleased him, she could tell by the sudden lightness in his voice. She hoped she was doing the right thing. But it might be nice to have another adult to talk to, someone she didn’t have to go through the fag of getting to know.

  Sometimes, although she had her work and Liza – however much anyone had Liza – Cleo was very alone. The only contact she had with her parents was in the form of disapproving, monthly, duty phone calls.

  In fact she’d suffered one only the evening before. Her mother had trotted out one of her favourite digs, ‘Gavin must’ve been mortified about that baby. No one could blame him for leaving.’

  Cleo snorted. ‘I won’t bother repeating the chronology of what led up to me leaving Gav, Mum. You’ve heard it all before and you obviously choose not to listen.’

  There were never any of the traditional grannie questions about Shona’s teeth or vocabulary, there was never a home-knit cardigan sent or a voucher for a new toy. Cleo’s parents had only once undertaken the hour-long journey to see their grandchild, when she was a fortnight old; a censorious duty – so far as Cleo, half dead with shocked fatigue, had been able to tell.