A Perfect Life

by Raffaella Barker

  And it is true; every day Nick goes to work in Cambridge at the head office, as sales director of the company, doing a job that is vital in a small British manufacturing business, but which he still believes no one needs him to do. It’s enough to turn anyone to drink. If they haven’t already been turned off it.

  Nick has stopped the car at the front door and the engine cooler buzzes in the silence.

  In the house, music throbs in the kitchen, and Coral, teetering in high-heeled shoes with a cigarette in her mouth, eyes narrowed to the smoke, is breaking ice in the blender.

  ‘Hi,’ says Nick, pointlessly he feels, as there is no way she can hear him.

  Coral turns round from the dresser and moves towards the sink. Her eyes widen seeing him. ‘God! Nick. I didn’t know you were back,’ she says.

  ‘Evidently,’ Nick replies, grinding his teeth to curb anger he has no reason to feel. Coral brushes her hands down her thighs, automatically smoothing her clothes, even though they are not crumpled. She twists her hair into a loose plait and smiles, flashing on and off automatically, calculating the effect on Nick of a strange youth in his kitchen.

  ‘This is Matt. Matt, this is Nick. Nick is my, my –’ Coral laughs angrily. ‘Oh well, you’ve met my mum, this is the other half.’

  Matt doesn’t stand up, though he smiles and nods his head at Nick and carries on rolling his cigarette. Nick wants to make a cup of tea, to sit down at the table and read his post and catch up with the cricket score on the radio. He stands in the doorway for a moment. Coral and Matt ignore him. Coral shovels the crushed ice into two glasses then throws the blender into the sink. There is no suggestion that she might pour a third glass. The music is impenetrable, loud and feverish. Matt says something Nick cannot even hear. Coral runs her fingers through her long hair and laughs. Smarting slightly, and at the same time knowing it is absurd to be hurt by any teenage behaviour, Nick leaves the room. Coral lowers the music to shout after him.

  ‘Oh, by the way, could you tell Mum I won’t be home for supper? We’re going to the cinema.’

  On the sofa in the snug, Nick flicks on the television, and thanks God for the invention of cricket.

  Angel

  The children have gone into a trance of tiredness now that Angel has got them back in the car after a day playing with school friends. Ruby and Foss are bundled on the back seat in an array of play implements which should have been stashed in the boot. Angel is regretting her own feebleness in not insisting on this with every corner, as plastic spades clatter and fall on the floor, or a rush of beach pebbles spills from a bucket down between the seats. Driving with dark glasses on through the lustrous pink and gold evening cornfields, Angel wonders how many conversations and thoughts it is possible for one person to have at one moment and not implode. Radio Two is playing a song from her past, getting lost in rock and roll, drifting away.

  Part of her mind is transported back to a summer when she was seventeen, and had too much time to lie around feeling sorry for herself. It was hot, like today, and every day Angel lay naked on the flat roof of the woodshed at home in the suburbs of Cambridge, soaking up the sun. She breathed in the sticky earth smell of bitumen tar, inhaled one cigarette after another and deliberately closed her mind to revision. Her mind hummed and buzzed through all of that summer, with the rush of nicotine from the stolen cigarettes she sneaked from her father’s pocket.

  Angel turns the car off the main road and slows down for a tractor dragging a trailer piled high with a gold glacier of corn. She shivers involuntarily. The first field is harvested, the path cut to make way for the end of summer; this moment always makes her sad, even though it is still only July.

  Her thoughts return again to the wilful destructiveness in her teenage self that took her tiptoeing into the bedroom where her father lay gasping for breath, only half conscious. His prone state, incapacitated from smoking, drowning in his own lungs from emphysema, enabled her, unnoticed, to slide her hand into the cool silk of the inside pocket of his jacket for his always-present packet of cigarettes. The hot, ironed smell of his shirts, the whiff of lemon aftershave and tobacco curled like smoke through her memory. She could take the cigarettes and no one knew. No one cared what she was doing or wondered where she was. Her father was dying, a process which would take ten years. Her mother Dawn was distant. Fourply, the family business set up by Lionel and his brother Terry, was run by the board. In its heyday the company had flourished, supplying school uniform manufacturers and swimming-costume makers with stretch nylon, but at the time Lionel became ill it slumped, and Angel remembered Terry’s glee when Fourply won a shell-suit contract with a removals firm.

  ‘I don’t think this is what Lionel built the company for,’ her mother had sighed. ‘Anyway, I’m going upstairs to see him. You’ll find some lunch for yourself later, won’t you?’

  It was late morning. Dawn was in her dressing gown and had just put the telephone down. She went through to the kitchen, opened the fridge and took a glass from the cupboard next to it. As she poured vermouth, then tipped her head back to drink it in a gulp, Angel realised with vague unease that she had seen her mother do this every day for as long as she could remember. And until she left home, she measured time by this small deliberate routine of her mother’s, though she never told a single person. Now, more than twenty years have passed, and Angel still remembers the ache of feeling unwanted that opened like a chasm when she heard her mother telling her father, ‘And we don’t have to worry about getting her up for school for a while. She’s revising and she can get the bus. And then she’ll be gone. She’ll look after herself, Lionel.’

  The present intrudes sharply, a voice in Angel’s ear commanding her attention, bringing a focus.

  ‘Mummy, how much pocket money would it cost for me to buy hair straighteners? Will it be more than twenty-one?’

  Angel is never sure what currency or denomination seven-year-old Ruby works in.

  ‘Um, I think that will be plenty. I reckon about seventeen would be enough.’

  Ruby leans forward from the back seat, much further than she would have been able to if she was wearing her seat belt, and waves a magazine picture. ‘I want to get this one. Can we go to Marshall’s on the way home?’

  ‘It’s shut now. Please will you put your seat belt on? And Foss, you put yours on too, please.’

  Coral, Jem, Ruby, Foss. Girl, boy, girl, boy. Eighteen, sixteen, seven and four. It is so neat it belongs in a nursery rhyme. Angel can never quite get used to adding them all together and finding that she is a mother of four. Sometimes she is convinced that Ruby and Foss, separated from the other two by almost ten years and brought up by her with a different awareness, are her second chance. She is supposed to get it right this time. Even so, it has taken her until now to break the mould and leave her job at Fourply. And of course it isn’t really leaving to take a sabbatical, but maybe it will give her time to work out why her life has become overwhelming. She cranes to look in the rear-view mirror at Foss, but he is invisible behind her seat. He doesn’t often speak, so when he is with Ruby who is never silent, it is easy to forget about him.

  His voice rises from the back. ‘I’ve done my seat belt up already. I want some water.’

  ‘Well, there’s some in that bottle.’

  ‘No, not for drinking, it’s to wash the snails. They’re muddy and hot.’

  ‘Oh. Good. I mean bad.’ Angel has no idea what the right response is.

  ‘What exactly do you mean?’ comes Foss’s voice politely from behind her.

  ‘Err. I don’t know,’ replies Angel, feeling mad.

  Ruby whacks something with her magazine. ‘Oooh, Mummy! He’s got insects too. I really hate woodlice. Why do we have to have them in the car?’

  Foss’s small voice is utterly reasonable. ‘I like them. I found them in the flower bed. Mummy, why is it called a flower bed not a flower table or a flower carpet?’

  ‘I wonder?’ Angel muses. ‘Beds are nicer, I expect
that’s why.’

  Bed. Yes. Bed. Lovely. Feeling slightly demented, and sure her brain is being burnt out by overexposure to children, Angel allows herself to go into a trance, abdicating responsibility for herself as she keys in her replacement Jake’s number on her phone, her heart slamming. It is so absurd; she bites her lip, smiling, thinking about Jake Driver. His copious aftershave, nice green eyes, engaging smile and short-sleeved yellow shirts are superficial guides to Jake. Thank God. Angel scratched the surface almost by mistake at first and found more in his lively voice, his enthusiasm and, most importantly, his toned athletic body. His promotion from first sales rep to head of marketing, even though it is only in Angel’s absence, has caused a rash of irritation through Fourply. Nick, who supported Angel in choosing Jake and worked with him to make the transition smooth, says he is riding it out well.

  ‘Actually, I don’t think he’s noticed, which is thick-skinned of him, but good for his morale,’ he said to her last night. Angel has no excuse for ringing, so feeling like a naughty teenager with a crush, she has convinced herself to believe her own internal whisper that she is just checking he is OK and letting him know she is available if he needs her. Oops, no. Not available, but accessible. Yes, that sounds professional. Jake’s answerphone cuts in immediately. Relieved, Angel turns off her phone.

  ‘Mummy, my verruca has grown and Jamie Matthews said I wouldn’t be able to do swimming because it’s infectious like the plague. I think I caught it from someone sneezing on my foot.’

  ‘Mmm. That sounds lovely,’ says Angel, aware that she is expected to respond, but not listening because her mind is miles away wondering if her number will show on Jake’s missed call list, or if she has hung up quickly enough for it not to register.

  Ruby waves her hand in front of Angel’s face. ‘Mummy. I KNOW you aren’t listening. I need you to hear to what I am saying.’

  Reluctantly, Angel yanks herself back again to here and now. Goose pimples rise on her bare arms as she drives up to the house and sees that Nick is home.

  ‘Mummy, come on! Daddy says we can have a bonfire and cook supper on it and he’s lighting it and Foss is crying because a snail just popped in the fire and it’s dead.’

  Ruby’s excitement is like quicksilver, flowing over and around lead-heavy Angel, standing in the kitchen in the dusk’s mauve-shadowed evening half-light, tears dripping, unbidden. She presses her fingers into her eyes and turns, her smile tight.

  ‘Let’s have marshmallows,’ she says, searching for a paper bag in the cupboard under the sink.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ruby likes to be part of everything, so she gets a bag too.

  ‘I’m expelling panic,’ says Angel. ‘Do you remember the book Jem gave me for my birthday? It’s called The Outlaw’s SAS Handbook or something. Anyway, this is one of the things we do.’

  ‘I’m going to expel some too,’ says Ruby.

  ‘Good,’ says Angel. ‘Here goes.’ Breaking off, she blows a huge breath into the bag, so does Ruby. They look at one another and start laughing.

  ‘We could do some more,’ Angel suggests, grinning, ‘or we could bite a knotted handkerchief or emit a series of “Oooms”.’

  ‘Oooms!’ says Ruby, almost bursting with the silliness of this game with her mother. They attempt a couple of limp ‘Oooms’, and collapse giggling and coughing.

  ‘Panic over!’ says Ruby and darts into the larder. In a second she is climbing up the shelves like a monkey, expertly on target for the hidden packets of sweets. She turns and smiles at her mother, and Angel sees her dimple, her busy innocence and is suffused with the delicious adoring love that runs largely unnoticed and unacknowledged through family life.

  Ruby waves the packet. ‘Yes, here they are! You guessed exactly what I came back in the house to get. Yummy, come on, Mum, hurry up!’ Nothing is ever fast enough for Ruby.

  Angel opens the fridge and looks inside, wondering as she does so if the fall-out of Ruby’s speeded-up character, her impulsive problem-solving energy, is Foss’s pensive dawdling, and perhaps even his love of snails.

  ‘OK, do you want sausages too?’ Angel gets out a packet of chipolatas and a bottle of ketchup; finds some buns in the bread bin and half a bar of chocolate. On a tray she piles plates, glasses, ginger ale, a box of straws and a bottle of wine. Ruby dances ahead, a huge yellow-and-green-checked rug swagged around her. Angel grabs a couple of cushions on her way to the garden and another sigh slides through her. Out into the garden for a sunset supper with the children and Nick. Could it be idyllic? It certainly should be, and it looked it from the outside. But no amount of props and flowers, scattered cushions and cheerful activities can swamp the tension that occupies the space between Angel and Nick. Or assuage the guilt Angel feels for being unhappy. Still, she kicks a small purple-faced nylon vampire off the doorstep, walks into the garden, determined to find the best she can in the evening and to enjoy it. Music might be the key. Ruby would play the harmonica, Nick would play guitar and they could probably muster a couple of songs; it would be better than silence. And better than talking to Nick.

  Roses and the raspberry canes she was inspired to plant among them, thinking the thorns would keep the birds away, scratch at Angel’s legs as she passes along a narrow path and through on to the lawn. The peonies have died now, and recent rain has left their heads like filthy tissue paper flung by careless children. Angel wants to put down the tray and pull off the dead heads, but changes her mind as she is about to do it. It is not the right moment for gardening. The trouble is, in the summer there is no right time for anything, and with no working week, and the children beginning their school holiday, structure vanishes. Life plumes away in July and August with no timetables for children’s swimming lessons or work. Everything normal stops and everyone disappears. Jem says it is because of exams and people passing their driving tests, but that is just the typical view of a solipsistic teenager. The only chance of holding on to a shred of real life is to get into the garden and observe the change there as summer reaches its zenith and then begins to falter.

  Deadheading flowers is the best way Angel can mark time. But not now. Now she must stop procrastinating and go and find Nick and the children for supper. Talking to herself, chastising and chivvying herself along like a mother hen, Angel seeks in her mind for more distraction to bring to the evening. Where is Coral? An eighteen-year-old daughter is a useful decoy and Coral can always be counted on to fill most silences, as long as Nick doesn’t start digging at her.

  There is Nick, crouched over the fire, Foss leaning on his back. The angle of his head, the peach-pink evening light and the crack of the bonfire shoot together like an arrow into Angel’s heart and she remembers a moment long ago when she knew she had fallen in love with Nick. It could be yesterday it is so clear; but actually it was winter, and the peach-pink light was not the sunset, but was cast by a lamp wearing a pink silk camisole, flung off in Angel’s student bedroom. Nick was standing smoking by the open fire, the only heating in the room. The fire cracked and Nick turned to look at her. Angel was in the bed and she looked back at him in silence and in that moment a lingering knot of fear or doubt gave way between them and some unspoken but mutual willingness unfurled in its place. Or so Angel felt, and she loved Nick for showing her that.

  Nick and Foss are still at the bonfire. Angel approaches, every inch of her purposeful and cheery.

  ‘Hi there. Any sign of Coral? I thought she might like to have supper with us.’

  Nick doesn’t get up or look at his wife, who is leaning over the table to put the tray down. He chucks another small log on to the fire.

  ‘Coral’s gone out on the tiles with a youth. I think his name was Matt. I’d never seen him before, but he seemed nice enough.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Angel’s heart sinks. No Coral. And she would be angry that Nick has seen the new love interest so early on.

  ‘They were going to the cinema and Coral was dressed to draw blood from the bloke.’ Nick shak
es his head. ‘You should talk to her about what she wears, Angel. She’s going to get into all sorts of trouble, you know.’

  Angel’s spine contracts, her shoulders slump, she does not want to have this conversation.

  ‘The fire looks good,’ she says. ‘I’ve got some sausages, and ginger beer.’ It is easier to talk about nothing. It is always easier to talk about nothing now, and she wishes it were not the case. She wishes she could walk up to her husband, put a hand on his shoulder and kiss him hello. On the mouth. That is what anyone who values their marriage would do, anyone who wants to keep their life safe. That is what someone who can see trouble coming would do to avert it. Angel thinks about it. Nick pokes the fire with a green stick. His hair flops over the collar of his shirt at the back, but at his temples it is receding. Stubble across his chin of salt-and-pepper grey, brown and black, and his strongly arched eyebrows give him a piratical look. A little frayed around the edges, and certainly in need of a haircut, but he is still attractive. Angel knows this, though she cannot for the life of her feel it. The thought of kissing Nick when he hasn’t shaved is about as appealing as eating sawdust.

  ‘I watched a bit of Jem’s match this afternoon.’ Nick still doesn’t get up, nor does he look at her; he speaks into the fire. Irritation rises like vomit in her throat.

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘Yes. He got a few runs. You didn’t tell me it was the end of term next week.’

  ‘Oh. Didn’t I? Well, it is.’ How can she, a grown-up woman, a sophisticated person, bring herself this low? Feeling despicable, Angel wants to make it worse. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve remembered about the Fathers and Sons Cricket match, have you?’ Bingo.

  Nick stands up, hands on hips, and looks at her, his expression a mixture of unease and anger. ‘I’m going to New York on Friday, you know that.’

  ‘Well, YOU know that the school has this match on the last day of term every year.’ Is there any need to sound so venomous? No, there is never such a need. It achieves nothing except pain.