Maggie misses being called by Iris during the night. Now that Iris is a bit bigger and more mobile Maggie doesn’t get to hold her as much as when she was tiny, and she relishes the chance to sit with her in the dark, soothing her with her touch and presence. I thought she was joking the first time she said it, but, no, she actually misses being woken in the night.
But she looks tired this morning. Her eyes are smaller and her skin is sallow. And I’m still angry, as I have been for two weeks now, in no mood to be placated by anyone, not even by my partner.
‘But what on earth do you hope to gain?’ Maggie asks.
I’ve told her I have a meeting with a solicitor, which I arranged when I went out on Saturday, and that I will be later home from school than usual. And I told her why.
‘I’m doing it for Iris’s sake and yours,’ I say.
‘How?’ Maggie is still in her dressing gown, and she’s tugging at the ends of the cords in frustration.
‘B-because we might need things for Iris that we can’t afford, or special schooling or something.’ I stumble over the B; the stammer I have successfully managed to rid myself of still creeps back at times when I feel under pressure.
Sometimes it alerts me to the fact that I am under pressure before I’ve even realised it myself.
‘We don’t know that yet.’ Maggie is beginning to look tearful but this just makes me feel more angry, not with her but with Isobel, always with fucking Isobel. ‘And you’re not even stopping to think about Iris, to find out exactly how it’s going to affect her – us. We need to find that out. We have to discover what her future is going to be like – what we need. I keep making phone calls, trying to make appointments, trying to find out more. And rather than helping me you are just pursuing your own separate… vendetta.’
‘That’s not true,’ I say, because that’s how you react, especially to someone telling you a home truth that is not particularly palatable. ‘Aren’t you the least bit angry?’
‘Of course I am.’ Maggie doesn’t raise her voice but her tone is vehement at least. ‘Do you really think I don’t “mind” every bit as much as you do? But a legal battle sounds so draining – and what about the cost?’
‘It’s a “no win, no fee” thing,’ I trump her.
‘Even so.’
‘Even so what?’ I sound childish, even to myself.
‘It’s not going to be a quick and easy process, is it?’ Maggie points out. ‘I don’t want you, or us, to have to waste our energy pursuing something which may get us nowhere, when we need it to deal with Iris.’
‘It could help us with Iris,’ I say.
‘Will it?’ Maggie asks. ‘Do you really think you have a chance of winning this case? Or are you just trying to put the frighteners on Isobel and Eric?’
I say nothing. I’m not sure, not at this point. And Maggie is right: my primary motive is not to get whatever little bit of money we might be able to screw out of them. It is to get back at them.
‘There are other ways,’ Maggie says, looking at me now.
‘What do you mean?’
Iris starts to cry; the deep sleep she’d finally fallen into in the early hours, when Maggie was too tired to get back to sleep, has finally broken. In the past Maggie would have been able to say, ‘Now you’ve woken Iris,’ but no longer.
Our raised voices don’t disturb our daughter any more.
We both know this as we stand, staring at each other across the few feet of kitchen space which suddenly feels like a yawning chasm.
‘I’ll see you later, then.’ Maggie pulls her dressing gown cord tight around her again and goes upstairs to get Iris.
‘I’m doing this for Iris,’ I say to myself, pushing the standoff with my wife to the back of my mind as Hedda ushers me into her über-office.
I’d already guessed what it would look like and I was right: lime-green walls, big oak desk, grey leather chairs. The floor is some sort of black lino, which throws me slightly.
I’d noticed also, while I was sitting outside in the café area of the office, that all the staff wore suits of the same grey cloth.
I’m not sure if blending in with the décor is a good advertisement for a lawyer. It makes them look a bit too style-conscious. Maybe they think they look efficient.
Hedda certainly seems efficient.
‘So, you wish to pursue a claim for damages against a third party for injury caused to your baby daughter by their failure in a duty of care towards her?’ She phrases this like a question, but I feel she is laying out exactly how it could work legally, if we go ahead.
‘Yes.’ I nod.
‘And, just to make sure I have understood what you told me correctly, let me again go through the circumstances which led to the damage to your daughter.’
‘Iris,’ I say. Calling her my daughter makes her sound like a legal party, not my beautiful, sunny baby girl.
‘Iris. What a lovely name.’ She looks up and smiles at me. ‘And your wife’s name?’
‘Maggie. Not a name many people would call their child these days.’
Hedda looks confused. ‘Why not?’
‘Thatcher wasn’t exactly popular,’ I say.
But she has no time for quips. ‘You went with a group of friends on holiday to France at the start of August this year?’
I nod.
‘Your daughter, Iris, was then just nine months old. And she was a healthy baby?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Apart from the odd cold, she’d never been ill and she was very easy.’
‘But during the course of your holiday she was exposed to the measles virus?’
‘Yes. Gabriella got ill towards the end of the fortnight. She’s the daughter of one of our friends, Isobel B-Blake.’
I pause, partly because I have trouble getting her surname out – Bs have always been a problem – but also because it feels strange referring to Isobel by her full name – referring to her as Isobel, even. I’ve always called her Bel, except when I was angry with her.
‘And you believe your daughter picked up the virus herself as a result of direct contact with Gabriella Blake?’
‘Jordan,’ I correct her. ‘Isobel is married to Eric Jordan but she never changed her surname. The children have his name.’
She notes this down.
‘The place we were staying was isolated,’ I tell Hedda. ‘And comfortable. The others went into town quite regularly but Maggie, my partner – we’re not married – she always stayed at the house with Iris.’
‘For the entire duration of the holiday?’
‘Well, she went for walks down by the lake and into the woods but, as I said, the house was very comfortable. It had a pool and places to walk nearby and our hosts looked after us very well. Maggie was… well, she was very tired when we arrived and Iris was in a routine she didn’t want to get her out of. She was happy just to stay put and relax.’
‘Thank you.’ She scribbles away for a while and I fall silent.
‘So what exactly is the position, legally?’ I ask when she’s finished. ‘Can we do anything?’
‘Yes. I think so.’ Hedda has that Scandinavian delivery that gives nothing away. ‘We know that Iris’s deafness was caused by having measles. As long as we can prove that the measles was caused as a direct result of contact with Gabriella Jordan, and that Ms Blake knew that she was contagious at the time but failed to warn you, then there is a case to be answered.’
I nod. ‘And you think we can win?’
‘If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be taking you on.’
‘But, if we don’t, you’ll have taken me on for nothing?’
Part of me is uneasy with the ‘no win, no fee’ element of the deal. It doesn’t seem right for Hedda to put in the hours if she isn’t going to get anything out of it, although we don’t have the means to pay a solicitor, so this is the only way we can proceed.
‘There are no precedents, but I think we have a case,’ Hedda says, and unless I’m mistaken the even level o
f her voice has upped a gear to ‘slightly excited’. I look around the office, taking it all in: the lime-green, the grey, the young Nordic solicitor. I suppose that, for her, working in a colour-co-ordinated office is not enough. She also wants to make her mark, and here is a case which might help her do that.
‘There might be some publicity, Mr Deakin,’ she says, confirming my thoughts. ‘Would you and your partner be happy with that?’
I nod, because nodding seems less untruthful than saying yes. Maggie isn’t happy about my being here in the first place. But maybe if I talk it all through with her she’ll come round.
‘So, tell me how you first met Mr and Mrs Jordan.’ Hedda flips the page of her notebook and sits poised again. ‘I mean Ms Blake and Mr Jordan.’
Isobel, Monday evening
‘Hey, Gabs. You look like Johnny Depp!’ Vincent scuttles out of the living room and bounds upstairs, pausing momentarily to comment on his big sister’s appearance.
I can see what he means – it’s the eyeliner – but I wouldn’t dare say so myself. It must be hard, trying to be a young woman when you have a brother six years younger. I was spared the indignity of siblings pointing out I’d overdone the blue eyeshadow when I was that age.
She gives him a look and hovers in the hallway.
She’s ready to go to orchestra. She plays the French horn in the youth philharmonia. She has a musical gene that I don’t; Eric’s mother used to sing and play the piano so I imagine it comes from his side. He still plays guitar a bit, the way men do.
A few weeks ago, I came in and found them all jamming together. Harvey was on the piano, Eric strumming, Vinnie singing and Gabs playing the odd riff on her French horn. ‘I feel like an outsider in my own family!’ I joked, but kind-hearted Vincent clearly felt I needed to be included.
‘Mum, you could play…’ He paused, stumped by what I might be able to contribute to this musical ensemble. Then he had a brainwave. ‘The shaky egg!’ Everyone laughed, and a few days later a track came up on the CD player in the car, on which a shaky egg was being played. ‘Mum! You can play along,’ Vinnie urged me. So, as Eric drove, I began shaking my imaginary shaky egg in time to the music, or so I thought.
‘You’re not even shaking it in time,’ Gabriella said.
‘No, you’re not,’ Harvey agreed, laughing. ‘You’re supposed to shake it on the beat.’
I shrugged; clearly my musical ability was so poor that I could not even keep time with an imaginary shaky egg.
‘You should have lessons,’ Harvey said, and Gabs laughed.
It was funny then, but now it seems all wrong again. Why do I, a woman with very little musicality, have three such musical children? Why does Maggie, a supremely gifted professional trumpet player, have one who can’t hear at all?
Today has been fraught and I was glad of it. I helped out in Vinnie’s classroom this morning. ‘Are you coming to help with the slow readers?’ he asked me first thing, pleased that I’d be at school and never the least bit hesitant to label himself a slow reader. If anything, he’s proud of it. ‘I’m a slow reader,’ he said, smiling happily, to the supply teacher, when she asked why some of the class had a different reading book.
I thought he was dyslexic when he started school and couldn’t read, but apparently not. He takes everything in and he writes well; he just seems to find reading difficult, partly because he gets hung up on the way the words look. ‘Hippopotamus is just amazing,’ he will say, screwing his eyes up ‘so that the Ps pop!’. He gets so drawn into the pleasing aspects of the way the letters look that he forgets to plough on with the sense.
Sometimes Vinnie leaves notes on my pillow. When he was younger they were mostly grateful jottings. I love you; That was nice cake, Mum; Today was a pink-ish day.
They started when Ben sent him a pack of Post-its for a present.
We’d been to lunch with them a few days earlier. This was before Iris was born but after Ben had met Maggie. He wanted us to meet her too.
Somehow Ben got on to the subject of things which had been invented by accident. Crisps – that was what started it. They gave the kids some before lunch.
‘Did you know crisps were invented by accident?’ Ben asked. ‘A chef in America got so cross when someone complained that his chips weren’t cooked enough, he got more potatoes, chopped them up really thin and deep-fried them to death. Then gave them to the customer.’
‘What did he say?’ Vinnie loves Ben’s stories.
‘He loved them, just like you do!’
How they moved to Post-it notes, I don’t remember, but Vinnie was taken with the tale of the scientist trying to invent really strong glue and inventing really useless glue instead.
‘It was only useless to hold something that really needed holding together, though,’ Ben explained. ‘Then he realised that, if you wanted to be able to stick something just a bit and then unstick it again quite easily, it was actually very useful glue. Very useful indeed, in fact, for sticking little bits of paper on to things and being able to unstick them again later!’
The pack of yellow oblong Post-its arrived a few days later and Vinnie began writing me notes.
Lately they’ve become more critical. Last week I found one, stuck to the switch of my bedside lamp. My packed lunch was not very nice today. Did you forget I like orange cheese best?
This afternoon he stuck one to my teacup. Why is everyone being grumpy today? You are too, Mum. Be nicer!
I smiled at the last line, but felt sad that he’d picked up on the atmosphere in the house. Gabs was still quietly fuming.
‘Did you do anything today?’ she said, pointedly, when she came back from school.
‘I’ve been helping in Vinnie’s class.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ she retorted.
I knew that, but I changed the subject while she made herself toast. ‘How was school today?’
‘Fine.’ She was non-committal as she spread Marmite on two slices of granary before picking up her plate. ‘I’m going to my room.’ Now she is down again and about to go out.
‘Are you off to orchestra?’ I ask. ‘Have you got enough money for the bus? I’ll pick you up after.’
‘Yes,’ she says, still hovering and doing the thing she does when there is something she wants to say – saying something completely unrelated first. ‘Mr Coles has grown a moustache,’ she says.
‘Ughhh,’ I replied.
‘He looks like a Seventies porn star. Alfie told him.’
I wonder how Alfie knows what a Seventies porn star looks like. ‘What did he say?’
Mr Coles is the school music teacher. He also conducts the city orchestra. He’s one of those teachers they regard as less of a teacher, more of a friend, and the sorts of conversations they have with him seem to stray into dangerous territory.
‘He said – ’ Gabby swishes her hair in imitation of the teacher’s longish locks ‘ – Alfie, if I’d ever seen a Seventies porn film I am sure the star would look like me!’
I laugh, even though I don’t really feel like laughing. I’m just glad that Gabs is talking to me and being friendly again.
But of course it’s leading up to something. I just fail to spot the signs, as I usually do, if she needs money or wants to do something she knows I won’t be entirely happy about. ‘You look nice today. Can I go to an all-night party, Mum?’ ‘I’m changing my sheets. Shall I do the boys’ beds too? Could I have £20 for new shoes?’
But today, just now, I regard what she’s saying as a peace offering to me.
It isn’t. It’s simply stalling.
‘I’d like to go and see Ben and Maggie,’ she says, her tone now confrontational and no longer friendly.
‘I don’t know, Gabs.’
I’ve been thinking of nothing else, but I haven’t got any closer to working out what to do. Should I call Ben? Email him? Try to arrange to go and see them myself?
Maybe Gabriella thinks she can breeze in, all full of fifteen-year-old
charm, and everything will be OK but it won’t be. I know Ben too well. I can imagine how he feels towards me, and I don’t imagine it’s warm.
‘Why not?’ Gabriella asks.
‘You know why not.’
‘So are we just not going to speak to them any more? We need to say something, Mum. You have to do something. You can’t just not do anything.’
I know. I just don’t know what to do.
‘You’re going to be late for orchestra,’ I say.
I’ve said the wrong thing. Gabby is fuming again, picking up her instrument case and crashing it into just about everything she can on her way to the front door. She slams it so hard that a photograph hanging on the wall in the hall drops to the ground and the glass breaks.
‘What happened?’ Harvey is standing at the top of the stairs, lured from his room by the crashing and the smash of the glass. ‘Mum, are you OK?’ he asks, touchingly.
‘Yes, the photo just fell off the wall when Gabs closed the door.’
‘Stroppy cow.’ Harvey grins and I smile despite myself, glad of his temporary allegiance. ‘I said hello to her at lunch today, ’cos she was sitting by herself looking all moody, and she told me to eff off.’
‘Did you have an argument?’ I ask.
Harvey and Gabriella usually get on well enough, though, being the middle child, Harvey chops and changes his allegiances. Sometimes he and Gabs seem closer on account of being at the same school together; at other times he and Vincent will be boys together. Often he seems closer to Eric than to either of his siblings or to me.
‘Shall I help you, Mum?’ he offers.
‘No, stay there,’ I say to him as he comes halfway down the stairs. ‘You’ve got bare feet. I need to get rid of the glass. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
‘Well, you’ve got bare hands,’ he points out as I pick up a piece of shattered frame. ‘You might get hurt.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ I say, and think that any hurt the broken glass may do will only be skin-deep.
Living With It Page 6
