Everything and Nothing

by Araminta Hall

  He paused, so Christian decided to speak, even though his mouth felt as if it had been lined with sand. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody right. I’ve always had your number, Christian. I’ve met enough men like you and I thank God I’m not like that. You think you’re special because you make people laugh and you get paid lots of money and you have a beautiful wife and two perfect kids, but it’s not real. It’s not what you are. Deep down you’re a hard-hearted bastard who doesn’t deserve what you’ve got. Sarah will be okay. She’ll cry for a while and her mum will have to sleep in her room with her again, but she’ll be fine. One day she’ll meet someone nice and she’ll get married and have kids and you’ll be nothing more than a bad memory. But if you ever, and I mean ever, try to get in touch with her again I will hunt you down and cut off your dick, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes. I won’t.’

  ‘I hope your wife leaves you and you’re miserable and lonely for the rest of your life.’

  The phone went dead after that but Christian couldn’t bring himself to finish the call from his end. His phone felt like a detonated bomb and he was surprised that there wasn’t mayhem and carnage all around him. No one had ever come close to being that rude to him before and yet he didn’t feel any outrage. He wished that Sarah’s father had kept going, because it was nothing more than he deserved. He felt too big for his skin, as if the realisation that his actions had consequences was trying to force its way out of his body like an alien. He put his phone back into his pocket and walked to his big office where he sat at his important desk and made large decisions. Except today he felt like a fraud. He could taste his own worthlessness like a raw onion in his mouth however many double espressos he drank.

  By the time Agatha got back from taking Betty to school she had calmed down. She had stopped with Hal in the park on the way home and he’d been so happy it had lightened her heart. This was how it would always be, she realised. She’d feel sad, she’d look at him and everything would be okay again, which was as wonderful as you could get in her book. Agatha went through the list of things she had to do while pushing Hal on the swings or waiting for him at the bottom of the slide and the order calmed her mind.

  She wanted to make the biscuits and the cake, to wrap the going-home presents and pass the parcel as well as Hal’s birthday present. She was going to put away most of the toys, only leaving out the easier to assemble and non-breakable ones. The house was gleaming already, so a quick tidy would be all that was needed tomorrow and then she’d just have to ice the cake and the biscuits and make the sandwiches. She’d downloaded a few party games from the Internet as Ruth didn’t seem to have given the entertainment any thought. She would have liked to re-arrange the furniture in the sitting room, but doubted Ruth or Christian would go for that.

  Agatha gave Hal a bag of organic crunchies on the way home as she wasn’t sure when she’d be able to sneak him his lunch. She was worried that Ruth might notice how few bottles he drank now, but if need be she’d say that he hadn’t seemed to be feeling too good lately.

  As they opened the front door Agatha glimpsed Ruth sitting at the kitchen table before she’d realised they were back and she’d known in that minute that Ruth had something else on her mind, something much bigger than Hal’s party and that Agatha would be able to get away with most things today. She wondered briefly what the other thing might be, but found she didn’t care. If she had to put money on it, Agatha would say it had something to do with Christian; she wouldn’t be surprised if he was having an affair, he seemed pleased enough with himself to make this likely. Agatha wondered what sort of low self-esteem it took to end up with a man like Christian, or her own father for that matter. Men who made you feel weak, even when they weren’t trying. In an ideal world Agatha would steer a clear path round the male of the species; she didn’t think she was a lesbian, but she found men disgusting. She had always presumed that she’d need a man at least once in order to get the child she’d never for a second imagined her life without. Now it looked like this wouldn’t be necessary. Good things come to those who wait, she said to herself, as she reached down to wipe the last remaining crumbs away from Hal’s mouth and let him out of his buggy.

  ‘Oh, hi, you two,’ Ruth shouted from the kitchen. Hal walked towards his mother and Agatha followed, noticing that Ruth had re-applied her mask of happiness like stage make-up.

  ‘We went park,’ Hal was saying. ‘Wheeee, slide.’

  Ruth laughed and pulled him onto her lap. ‘Did you, sweetheart? Lucky you.’

  Agatha felt a violent stab of jealousy and had to turn away to compose herself. Hal chit-chatting so easily with his mother made a rage build in her stomach like a plummeting lift. Stop it, she wanted to shout at him, you’re mine, not hers, you promised me. She could hear Hal giggling and the sound of Ruth kissing him and she knew exactly what feelings and smells Ruth would be getting. It made her sick. It made her want to stab them both. Calm down, Agatha, a voice inside her was saying, he’s only little, he’s just responding to his natural instincts.

  The story of Hal’s birth, how his father had abandoned Agatha and him when he was only weeks old, the struggles and tribulations they’d gone through; it was coming on so nicely that Agatha was starting to feel the switch turning on in her brain. The one where she forgot it was a story and made it become reality. Twenty-four more hours, she told herself as she stood with her back to Hal. Twenty-four hours and then we can become the people we were meant to be.

  There were often cases in the newspapers about children being beaten and abused and even killed by people who were supposed to care for them. Sometimes they made Agatha physically sick in one of the loos she’d scrubbed clean at the Donaldsons’. Sometimes she spent whole nights unable to sleep, imagining the faces of the children as they were tortured again and again. Yet someone would always testify as to how much the child had loved his or her tormentors. How they had held out their arms to them.

  Agatha never dwelt too much on the defectiveness of the carers; parents and their extensions were often simply shit and failed to live up to expectations. This was not a new lesson. What alarmed her instead was the fact that the babies still wanted to appeal to their torturers. They knew these people hurt them and yet they still desperately reached out. It proved to Agatha two important things. Firstly that children need love so badly they’ll take it from anyone and secondly that you can get a child to do anything. Of course she was never going to hurt Hal or get him to do anything bad, but still, it made things clearer.

  ‘So, what have you got planned today?’ Ruth asked as Hal slipped off her lap and made his way to his plastic house.

  ‘I wanted to get ahead with some jobs for the party, like making the biscuits and the cake and stuff and maybe sorting out the toys.’

  ‘You don’t have to make biscuits, Aggie, that’s an awful lot of trouble to go to. And what’s wrong with the toys?’

  Ruth was a slob when all was said and done, lazy and unimaginative. If you didn’t go to trouble for your child’s third birthday then when would you? And of course she thought the toys were fine because she wasn’t the one who’d spend the next month on her hands and knees looking for Betty’s new Brat’s missing boot because some three-year-old hadn’t realised what it was. Come to think of it though, nor would Agatha have to do that, so long as her plan came off. But the thought of leaving everything all mixed up was too much. No, she’d make sure Betty’s stuff was out of the way and then at least the girl would realise she hadn’t disliked her, that wasn’t the reason she hadn’t been able to take her as well. ‘It’s no trouble,’ she answered. ‘I enjoy it.’

  ‘Oh well, if you say so.’ Ruth sounded frustrated. It was odd how these women all started off loving her industriousness and ended up hating her for the exact same thing. She hadn’t been able to believe it when Jane Stephenson had screamed at her for disinfecting the children’s bathroom after she’d been away for the weekend. A weekend she
hadn’t even wanted to go away for, with nowhere to stay except a grotty B&B. Don’t you think I am capable of keeping my own children clean? she’d screamed, so close to Agatha’s face that she’d felt spit fleck her cheeks. We don’t all feel the need to live in a fucking operating theatre and, while we’re at it, can you please stop bloody making my bed. I’ll make my own damned bed if I want to and if I don’t it’ll stay unmade all day. She’d told Agatha to leave two days later, her hands shaking as she passed over an envelope stuffed with money, unable to look Agatha in the eye.

  ‘I’ll keep Hal out of your way, at least,’ Ruth said, following her son into the sitting room.

  Agatha listened to Ruth trying to entice Hal out of his house as she weighed out the sugar and flour and mixed it with the butter and eggs. It was comical how Ruth didn’t know her son at all. Promises and threats didn’t work with Hal, you had to pretend you were doing something super-interesting on the other side of the room and act like you didn’t care whether or not he joined you. It got him in about five minutes. After a while Agatha heard the telly being switched on and the familiar sound of Thomas the Tank Engine starting. She let herself smile.

  Ruth was dozing in front of the fifth Thomas episode when the doorbell rang. She’d said Hal could watch three and she felt pathetic. She knew Agatha would be listening and she hated her for it. Hated the fact that she couldn’t control her son or interest him or even get up the energy to move from where she was sitting. Christian called her mobile twice but she didn’t answer because she had no idea what to say to him. The initial raging anger she’d felt had been usurped by a desperate sadness which she knew made her vulnerable. They had made such a mess of it all and for what? She believed him that nothing had happened with Sarah in the physical sense, but she also thought he would never properly understand how much he had betrayed her simply by meeting the girl. And she was so young and damaged, nearly a different generation to them. If Christian had been five years older, people would have called him a dirty old man. And if she was married to a dirty old man, what did that make her?

  ‘Come on, Hal,’ she said now, standing up and turning off the telly. ‘That’s Granny and Granddad.’

  Ruth could see her parents’ outlines through the stained glass on the front door and for a second she couldn’t bear to open it, was worried that she would break down and not give them what they needed. But there wasn’t much of an option. If you didn’t do things like open the door to your own parents when they’d travelled three hours to get to you and knew you were standing just inches away, then you were probably insane, you’d probably crossed some line. A line which Ruth worried she might have already reached but wasn’t ready to admit to.

  Her parents looked brown, which reminded Ruth that they’d only been back from Portugal for two weeks. They smiled at her and she smiled back because that’s how life went on. Her dad reached for Hal. ‘Come here, young man,’ he said, ‘look how you’ve grown.’ Hal wriggled out of Ruth’s arms and ran off screaming. Ruth shrugged, ‘Sorry, he’s at that age.’ She caught the look in her moth-er’s eye and wondered if what she’d said was ever a reason for anything.

  ‘You look well, Mum,’ Ruth said, to try something different.

  ‘Portugal was wonderful, so sunny. We just sat by the pool every day.’

  ‘That’s the beauty of going back to the same place every year,’ said her father. ‘You can do nothing without feeling like you should be seeing some bloody church or something.’

  Ruth tried to imagine a time when she could lie by a pool and do nothing, even for an hour, let alone a whole holiday. Ruth and Christian always fought on holiday because the kids were under their feet begging to be allowed their thirtieth swim of the day or refusing to eat the local food or staying up till ten every night and then having a meltdown in a restaurant. She often came back from holidays more tired than when she went. She was starting to recognise this exhaustion as the story of her life. Time for a new chapter, as a Viva article might say.

  ‘So, where’s the birthday boy then?’ her father was saying. ‘We’ve come all this way and he’s hiding in the kitchen.’

  Ruth knew what they were going to see before they reached the kitchen, but still the sight of Hal wrapped around Aggie’s legs made her catch her breath.

  ‘Come on, Tiger,’ said Ruth’s dad. ‘Come and give your old granddad a hug.’

  ‘No,’ screamed Hal. ‘Aggie, want Aggie.’

  Ruth watched Aggie pick him up and smooth his hair. ‘Sorry, he’s not so good with strangers.’

  ‘Strangers? I’d hardly call his grandparents strangers, would you?’ answered her dad.

  ‘Mum, Dad, this is Aggie, our very own super-nanny. Aggie, this is my mum and dad, George and Eleanor.’ She would have to think about all of this later.

  Ruth’s mother stepped forward and held out her hand. ‘Agatha, I’ve heard so much about you.’ Aggie looked embarrassed. ‘Are you baking? It smells wonderful.’

  ‘Yes, biscuits for Hal’s party.’

  Ruth’s mother raised her eyebrow. Ruth took this to mean she should be doing the baking. ‘How wonderful of you. And I believe you’ve given up your room for us.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’s fine.’

  ‘Well, it’s very kind of you.’

  They had an uncomfortable lunch round the kitchen table with Hal refusing to sit down. In the end Aggie took his plate into the plastic house and said she’d sit with him there. When they came back the plate was clear but Aggie shook her head at Ruth, ‘Sorry, no luck again. I finished it as it seemed a shame to let it go to waste.’

  ‘Is he still not eating?’ asked Ruth’s mother.

  Ruth didn’t feel strong enough for this today. ‘No, no progress. We went to see a nutritionist but it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Why, what did he say?’

  ‘The same as the GP. To start him on anything, like chocolate biscuits, sweets, anything and then move forward.’

  ‘Sounds damned sensible to me,’ said her father, pushing away his plate.

  ‘No, but it’s not.’ Ruth tried to control the whine in her voice which made her sound fourteen again. ‘Everyone knows that children have very specific taste buds. If they get used to something it takes them ages to get away from it. He could become addicted to sweet things and then I’d never get him to eat anything good.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ said her mother. ‘Children grow out of everything in the end. You don’t see many sixteen-year-olds sucking bottles or only eating chocolate biscuits or cuddling their favourite teddy or sitting on their mummy’s laps.’

  Ruth’s smile was tight. ‘Maybe.’ Or maybe her mother hadn’t had to deal with a problem like this. Maybe her mother didn’t know what she was talking about. She changed the subject. ‘How do you two fancy taking Hal to the park? We could walk on and get Betty from school.’

  ‘Great,’ said her mother.

  ‘What about Hal’s sleep?’ asked Aggie.

  ‘I’m sure he could do without it,’ answered Ruth.

  ‘But it’s his party tomorrow, we don’t want him to be overtired.’

  Ruth stood up. She felt that in a minute she was going to lose it, whatever it was; she supposed it must be worth hanging on to. ‘Don’t worry, Aggie. If he’s overtired I’ll deal with it.’ No one answered her this time.

  Christian couldn’t concentrate at work. His mind kept drifting and he was unsure of everything he did. Soon his thoughts became too large and made him question every aspect of his life. He realised that Ruth had been saying all of this to him for a few years now. All those times she’d asked him if he thought they’d got it wrong and he’d been bemused by what she meant. Now he understood and saw her patience. It must have been like trying to communicate with someone from an Amazonian tribe. He couldn’t believe she’d stuck around for as long as she had.

  He tried calling her at ten-thirty but she didn’t pick up. He tried again an hour later and when sh
e still didn’t answer he left a garbled message. ‘I’m sorry, Ruth. Not for the Sarah thing, although obviously I am sorry for that as well. But for not being there all this time. For not understanding what you’ve been saying and what you needed. Maybe you’ve been right. I don’t know. Maybe we have got it wrong. Please call me when you get this, I want to hear your voice, I feel strange.’

  And he did feel strange. Unsure of himself and cast adrift. His head felt too big for his body and his brain seemed to have lost the power to control his actions. If he’d been sure of his welcome he’d have gone home sick. Instead he called Toby, who surprised him by answering.

  ‘I’ve just got off the plane from Ibiza. I was about to give you a buzz about tomorrow. What time are we expected?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think three. Who’s we?’

  ‘Oh shit, I meant to ask. Is it okay if I bring Gabriella along? She’s this girl I met in Ibiza. She’s great.’

  Christian envisaged the teenage model he would no doubt turn up with and for the first time in his life didn’t wish himself into another being. ‘Yeah, whatever. Listen, have you got a minute, I need to ask you something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been a dick.’

  ‘That’s not a question.’

  ‘I’ve been seeing a bit of Sarah. Not like that. Nothing happened, but she got the wrong end of the stick and went to see Ruth and told her I was leaving.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Yesterday. Fuck, it feels like about a week ago.’

  ‘How did Ruth take it?’

  ‘As you’d expect.’

  ‘You’re an arse, man.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you think it’s saveable?’

  ‘I don’t know. It has to be. I don’t know what I’d do without her.’ Christian surprised himself by hearing a catch in his voice. He hadn’t cried in years. Not since last time.

  ‘Look, I’m not going to lecture you because it sounds like you’re giving yourself a hard enough time, but shit, what were you thinking?’