Life Begins

by Amanda Brookfield

  ‘So?’ Rose tossed her mop of curls and stepped out into the sun.

  ‘I don’t want to see any of them ever again.’

  ‘But that’s never going to happen, is it?’ She folded her arms, frowning at him. ‘And, anyway, you like George.’

  Defeated by logic, as he so often seemed to be in any debate with Rose, Sam hunched his shoulders and emerged from the doorway. He was keen to be gone anyway, before Mr Croft got back and found the envelope they had left on his desk. It had been Rose’s logic that had led to that, too, and Sam was fast losing faith in it.

  My mum would like you to ask her out again. She is shy and alone and really enjoys your company. Please do not give up on her or mention that I have written this. Yours sincerely, Sam Turner

  Rose had dictated the words, pacing her bedroom and chewing a pencil like an angst-ridden novelist. Glancing at her as he dutifully took it down, his heart thudding with doubt and daring, it had occurred to Sam to worry about his new friend’s unusual predilection for written correspondence. But then, without it, they wouldn’t have become friends, and it seemed impossible to unwish that. On top of which, Rose was brilliant at writing – he knew that from her letters, not to mention the essays that had been read out in class, History, English, anything that required a string of sentences. As if that wasn’t enough, late the previous night, after her dad had turned out their light, she had slithered down the bunk-bed ladder carrying a torch between her teeth and a battered shoebox of papers that turned out to be poems, reams and reams of them, all set down in her tiny neat caterpillar handwriting.

  Certain he was unequal to the task of offering any response that wouldn’t sound inadequate or stupid, Sam had picked up the nearest and scanned it in frantic silence. Whereupon Rose had plucked out several others and begun to read the verses out loud, all of which rhymed and were about people they knew, and so wickedly funny that they had ended up stuffing the duvet into their mouths to muffle their laughter.

  ‘And then there’s this one,’ she had said, pulling another piece of paper from the bottom of the box, ‘which is different.’ Her voice had changed – gone high and tight – so Sam guessed that whatever was coming wasn’t supposed to cause more clutching of the bedclothes. Clicking off the torch, she had reached for his hand, squeezing the fingers really hard, like she was dangling in a precipice and needed him to haul her out. Then she recited the poem, holding up the paper like she was reading, although it was too dark to see and she clearly knew it off by heart. It was about a girl whose mum had got thinner and thinner and then died, full of short, broken sentences that didn’t even try to rhyme.

  Feeling even less up to a response when she had finished, Sam gripped her hand in return, far harder than he had ever squeezed anything in his life, even her elbow during their stupid fight. A few seconds later she had pulled away and scampered back up the ladder. Sam had lain on his back for what felt like hours, feeling awkward and wishing she would speak, until it dawned on him that the snuffling noises coming from overhead meant she had fallen asleep.

  It was a while before he had been able to follow suit. He felt sorry for Rose, obviously, but he also felt sorry for himself, for having a mother whom he was glad was still alive, but whom – since Thursday morning – he also rather hated. The hatred was new and quite exciting in its way. It was like not needing her, like being set free. But then an image of her with George’s dad would shoot into his head and he would feel as hot and sick and powerless as he had tearing across the field towards the beach, pumping his arms to fight the wind as it tried to press him back.

  Rose’s madcap plan had been something to cling to, something in the end that had helped him to sleep.

  ‘What about your dad anyway?’ he snapped, as they turned towards the high street. ‘Have you ever seen him snog someone?’

  Rose stopped walking, put her hands on her hips and stared hard at the chewing-gum blobs on the pavement. Sam held his breath, certain he had overstepped some sort of invisible boundary. But when she lifted her head she was grinning and dismissive. ‘Of course not. After my mum he doesn’t want anybody else.’

  ‘Okay. Right.’ Humbled into silence, Sam trailed his fingers along the top of a low stone wall and scuffed the heels of his trainers among the soggy patches of fallen blossom skirting the street trees. Up ahead there was now no sign of Theresa. Sam lifted his head higher, glad of this and that he was walking with Rose. He checked the clock on his phone. They had another twenty minutes until they were due to meet her dad – for lunch in the café that had towering plates of pastries in its windows. The uncle was coming back that afternoon to build a barbecue, he said, right on the still blackened spot where they had burnt the boxes. Sam could not remember when he had ever had such a great time. He wasn’t missing his parents at all; his mum for obvious reasons and his dad because a phone call to say happy Easter had turned into a long spiel about a concert that his and Cindy’s choir were doing and how much it would mean to them both if he was there, even though it wasn’t his kind of music, and they’d go out for a special meal afterwards blah-blah.

  Sam slowed his pace so that Rose would catch up. She was dawdling annoyingly, whistling a complicated tune that seemed to be taking up all her energy and attention. Tweet, tweety-tweet. It was an awful sound. And she looked like a chipmunk, Sam decided, shuffling nearer when she came alongside and observing, rather to his amazement, that she wasn’t as tall as she used to be and that if he bounced on his trainers he could almost bring his eye-level up to hers.

  ‘Hold my hand, then,’ she said, between whistles, not turning her head.

  Sam did as he was commanded, not like the night before but with the loosest of interlocking fingers, so it would be easy to pull away should the need arise.

  I am lying on the floor, staring up at the dusty curves of the central stem supporting our dining-table. Although he closed the front door quietly, I can feel the physical reverberations of Martin’s departure. Shifting on to my right side, I pick at a scab of dried food on a table leg. It leaves an unsightly white scar when it comes away, making me wish I had left it alone.

  It is the eve of our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Out of sight overhead lies the detritus of the dinner party I organised in celebration: half eaten bread crusts, smears of chocolate mousse, grains of rice, crumbs of Stilton, grape pips; for a bad cook I did a good job. Four courses, four couples, lively conversation about schools and interest rates and where to holiday in France – a show of such normality that at certain moments I almost caught myself believing in it.

  Exchanging farewells on the doorstep, with Theresa and Henry and the rest of them, masks of graciousness in place as we received their compliments – on the food, the enjoyment, the achievement of the anniversary – it occurred to me that maybe pretending was the key, that if Martin and I could only feign happiness for long enough, it would eventually become real. But then, having closed the door on the last of them, the reality was back with us in an instant, concussing in its violence, like walking into a wall.

  ‘So you still want me to go?’

  He was standing at the foot of the stairs, squinting under the glare of the hall light, looking – with his blond hair flopping across his forehead – so like the creature who had pointed his index finger at my heart in the college rehearsal room two decades before that for a moment I almost lost my nerve. For strength I reached out and tugged open the hall drawer, groping for the hand-delivered envelope, which I had spotted on the doormat half an hour before the arrival of our guests. An extraordinary calm had descended then, powering my insistence both that we continue with the grisly charade of the dinner party and that he leave the house – and our marriage – immediately afterwards. It was hard to muster the same calm a second time, with the exhaustion of the evening’s performance washing through me and the sight of him, so beautiful and wronged, at the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s over, Martin.’

  ‘So you believe some stupid malicious note over t
he word of your husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He spun on his heel, placed one foot on the bottom stair, then stopped. ‘Look,’ he snarled, only half turning his face towards me, ‘there has been someone, but only as a friend – okay? Just a friend, Charlotte, someone to talk to, for Christ’s sake, but nothing has happened, okay?Nothing.’

  Pressure producing a confession – after so many years of denial – I experienced a moment of pure elation. What a lot of wasted time, I thought next, all those years of questing for the truth, probing through each bad patch like some delicate-fingered archaeologist, when all along a simple sledgehammer of an ultimatum would have done the trick. ‘This “friend” of yours, what is she called?’

  ‘That’s irrelevant.’

  ‘Not to me.’ I shuffled my feet further apart, steadying myself. ‘And not to you either, I assume, since some helpful soul has felt duty-bound to alert me to her existence.’

  Martin sighed, clenching his teeth. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s been like, all these years, your suspicions, never trusting, on and on and–’

  ‘The name of your friend, Martin. What’s this one called?’

  ‘She is indeed a friend, a true friend, and she’s called Cindy.’

  ‘Cindy! How perfect. And will you be going to Cindy’s now, or is she, too, inconveniently shackled to a spouse?’

  ‘Charlotte –’

  ‘Is she married?’

  ‘No, she’s not. And I wouldn’t dream of calling her now, I’ll go to a hotel.’

  Wavering again, I gripped the insides of my shoes with all ten toes while Martin continued up the stairs and along the landing. I remained in my rigid pose, blinking up the empty stairs, listening to the sounds of drawers and cupboards being opened and shut and, finally, the closing clicks of the suitcase. It was at the soft tread of his feet on the upper stairs that I had retreated to the dining room. I didn’t want to think about his farewell to Sam, or the kindness in the quietness of the footsteps, a father with enough love not to want to wake the child from whom he is being separated.

  The candles, mere wicks slumped in lakes of wax, go out. Chilled, I curl up, hugging my arms and knees to my chest. It is easier to think in the dark. I slip my thumb into my mouth and suck gently. I mustn’t be too hard on myself. I have had to be brave and need time now to recover. What I most dreaded has happened. I have lost Martin. Somewhere inside I always knew I would.

  But how much better to be alone than lonely! Not for me the fate of my mother – a lifetime of self protective ignorance, the blind eye turned. It has taken time but the boil has been lanced at last. The recovery can begin. The well-wisher indeed wished me well. I fall asleep on the carpet to the tune of such comforts. I can’t feel glad yet, but I will. I know I will.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cutting through the narrow alley in the middle of the cul-de-sac, turning left, then second right past the garage, Charlotte soon found herself at the children’s playground her mother had described, with the forested slope as its backdrop and a lush field to one side. With Jasper tugging at the lead the entire way, she could probably have managed without the instructions. The little dog was pulling even harder now, its eyes popping from near-strangulation and eagerness to continue on a route it clearly knew and loved. In the field there were several horses and a foal, twig-legged and tuftycoated. When Jasper barked it hopped in alarm, then hurriedly nuzzled under its mother’s belly for a feed.

  As instructed, Charlotte waited until the forest path before unclipping the lead. Jasper scuttled happily up the slope for a few yards, then slowed as the gradient took its toll. Charlotte, who had been worried the treasured creature might disappear among the trees, felt almost sorry for it, so old and silly, so ultimately helpless. The trees were tall and mostly branchless till their upper reaches. Spread beneath them, rippling over roots and round the base of brambles, shimmering in the dappled evening light, were oceans of bluebells. The air was cool and still, traced with scents of wild garlic and pine. Here and there clusters of midges hung in sunbeams, as clearly savouring the day’s premature burst of summer heat as the mums she had passed in shorts and T-shirts wheeling charges in sunhats out of the playground.

  When a bench appeared on the side of the path Jasper flopped in front of it, looking at Charlotte and panting hard.

  ‘So you stop here, do you? Fine,’ she muttered, stepping over him to sit down. The path was still an empty corridor in both directions, steep-sided, speckled with light and so undeniably beautiful that Charlotte felt a surge of guilt for never having set foot in the place before. The playground had once been a petrol station, she remembered. On the rare occasions she had driven past or made use of it, the possibility of appreciating – let alone exploring – the surrounding land had never occurred to her. How many other things in the world had passed her by? Charlotte wondered idly. She pulled out her mobile phone to have another go at getting hold of Jason, but then decided it wouldn’t feel right to break the hush of the forest. She had left a message already and it was Easter Sunday, she reminded herself, hardly an appropriate time to pester anybody, even about something important.

  Instead Charlotte let her thoughts wend their way back, with an effort at ghoulish humour now, to her dire confrontation with the sisters in the supermarket: Cindy’s blotchy-faced sincerity, her charging after them through the automatic doors – it had been like something out of a farce: one had to laugh or go mad. For Cindy’s claims were insane, surely. Pregnant with Martin’s child, hormones rampaging, the sad woman was probably just seeing what she needed to see, caught in the blinding glare of love as Charlotte herself had been, twenty years before; a rabbit in headlights, poised for crushing.

  Since then a frenzy of housework had done marvels for her state of mind – the exercise, the display of daughterly virtue. If she could have awarded herself a medal, she would have. Keeping busy meant she didn’t have to talk to her mother too much either, which was another plus.

  Charlotte rested one foot gently on the dog and closed her eyes. The forest wasn’t quiet: dense with rustles and creaks and whispers, it breathed noise. It was a question of listening hard enough, she mused, and in the right way, letting one’s senses get in tune with a dimension beneath the obvious. These happy meditations were interrupted by the bleep of her phone, which proved to be a text, not from Jason – to her regret – but Martin: ‘Concert date May 28th venue not quite sorted but really want Sam to be there hope J recovering ok’.

  Charlotte chuckled darkly. Clearly Cindy hadn’t mentioned their little run-in yet, which was good, possibly even generous, but here was the true Martin, the one she knew: self-centred, dishonourable, making demands, paying only the merest lip-service to any needs other than his own. He had added severely to her stress levels on Thursday by being too busy to help out with Sam and now all he really cared about was the date for his and Cindy’s insufferable concert. And why should she be responsible for getting Sam there anyway? It was his gig so he could organize transport for Sam. Charlotte dangled the lead in front of the dog’s nose to get him moving and set off up the path. Cindy, as she had reminded herself many times, was welcome.

  She found such a long route through the forest that by the time they got back to the playground the sun was sinking and the dog dawdling so badly that Charlotte picked him up and tucked him, protesting, under her arm. She kept him there, ignoring looks of doggy bemusement and attempts to lick her neck, until they were almost back at the house, rejoicing all the while that, thanks to the collapse of her house plans, the bluff about getting a canine companion for Sam had never been called.

  ‘Only me,’ she exclaimed, having let herself in with thes keys Jean insisted she take with her, even for a two-minute stroll to the postbox. Only me,’ she repeated, more softly, checking the kitchen and then the sitting room where the TV had been left on and the mug of tea she had made sat, grey and untouched, on the footstool. Gingerly, she pushed open the door to the downstairs loo,
but that, too, was empty, and still looking dingy in spite of the hours she had spent scrubbing at the ridges of lime-scale round the taps and the dreary avocado wall tiles. A bag containing fresh bread and milk was where she had left it in the hall, thanks to a flurry of other requirements upon her return from the corner shop – tea, finding the TV console and a particular cushion, and taking the dog for his usual lengthy weekend walk.

  It wasn’t until Charlotte was halfway up the stairs that it occurred to her to feel worried. The house was deathly quiet. Her mother couldn’t have gone out, surely. Unless the sun had drawn her… Charlotte pressed her face to the porthole window on the landing, surveying what she could of the back garden – the potting shed, the rustic chair, lichen-covered, these days, and too fragile to sit on, three large molehills, an empty plastic bag, blown in from somewhere. What was left of the sun had collapsed to a fiery smudge of red, illuminating silhouettes rather than shedding light. Charlotte hurried on up the stairs, checking the bathroom before finally reaching the bedroom. The door was ajar and squeaked as she pushed it open. Jean was lying on her bedcovers with her eyes closed and her head tipped back awkwardly over the crest of her pillow. The Paisley dress, worn solidly since the hospital, was hitched halfway up her thighs, showing the lavish extent of the purple-black bruise on her left leg and an expanse of petticoat.

  Charlotte was transfixed, momentarily, by the petticoat: an obsolete, pointless garment to most people, these days, and yet she could remember, with sudden shocking lucidity, a tiny version of herself watching a stocking being pulled up under a similar hem of pretty lace, watching in awe and happy acceptance of the impossible, longed-for ambition of ever becoming such a creature herself, so elegant, so perfectly beautiful, so grown-up.