Made in Heaven

by Adale Geras

  When Zannah and Cal had divorced, Emily wasn’t much more than twenty. When Zannah had suffered her kind-of-breakdown, it was Em who had tried hard to persuade her to go back to him. She couldn’t understand why one ‘lapse’, which was what she called it, should mean the end of a life together. Her face had been screwed up with pain.

  ‘What about Isis, Zannah? She needs a dad. You can’t do this to her,’ Emily had said, and Zannah answered, ‘I’d never stop him seeing his daughter. You know I wouldn’t. But I can’t trust him. I’ll just keep thinking of him with that woman. I won’t be able to relax. Images will come into my mind. You don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I think you ought to forgive him. He’s asked you to, hasn’t he?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Zannah. ‘I just can’t face him any more. He’s not the same Cal.’

  ‘But you still love him, don’t you?’ Emily asked.

  Zannah didn’t answer. She could see that her sister didn’t understand how it might be possible for Cal’s adultery to have killed off most of the love she used to feel. It hadn’t stopped her hurting like hell, but the love … that was something else. It had mutated; changed beyond recognition.

  More recently, just before she met Adrian, she’d begun to wonder if Em might have been right and whether she hadn’t been too hasty. Cal had been in Moscow when he’d slept with a fellow journalist. They’d been together for a couple of weeks. He broke up with her even before they arrived back in London. Zannah had only found out about it by accident, going into his email account to find an address she needed. He hadn’t even had the cunning to hide or delete the woman’s messages and when Zannah had confronted him, he’d told her all about it, vowed it was over and that it would never happen again. Too late. They were divorced a year later. Isis was only three. Zannah was in agony.

  Divorcing Cal, living without him, was like being flayed. For a very long time, Zannah had felt as though she were missing a skin. She struggled at the whole business of being a single mother, too proud to stay in Altrincham with her parents and wanting more than anything to have her life back the way it was when she and Cal were everything to one another. Rage: a kind of blind, almost insane rage took hold of her at the most unexpected times, like when she was coming home from Isis’s nursery in the twilight heavy with the knowledge that in spite of Em’s company, in spite of the support of her family, she was alone. All the friends she and Cal had had in common seemed to melt away. For a while, there would be phone calls from one or another of them, but the invitations they offered seemed to Zannah half-hearted, as though part of them was still loyal to Cal. She didn’t see any reason, on the face of it, why this should happen when a couple split up, but everyone agreed that it did: friends you made as a couple sided with one person or the other when the break occurred. She’d had to admit that Cal had a gift for friendship and many of their shared friends had been his in the first place.

  When Cal came round to see Isis, which he did as often as he could, Zannah used the time to go shopping for food and see to all the things that were difficult to manage with a child in tow. Even more than taking advantage of his presence was the desire not to see him. Not to have to be near him, talk to him. It was hard for her to keep the conversation civilized.

  I wouldn’t have survived without Isis, Zannah thought. She saved me. Having to look after her, having to get her to nursery every day and fed and dressed took Zannah’s mind off her unhappiness. Even on the occasions … and there were plenty of them … when she was irritated with her daughter, when she felt she couldn’t go on any more because everything was just too much and she wanted to run away and never come back … simply leave everything and disappear, even then she’d known that Isis was the one thing anchoring her to real life. To the possibility of something other than pure misery. Because that was what it was without her husband, pure misery, and there were a thousand occasions when she almost, almost picked up the phone to summon Cal and say: I’m sorry. Come back. Let’s be married again. That mood never lasted long. Images would arrive unbidden in Zannah’s head: of Cal repeating with some other woman all he had done with her. Kissing. Caressing. Sharing jokes, meals, baths. She couldn’t go back to him, however lonely she sometimes felt.

  When Isis turned four, Zannah took a job at St Botolph’s. She’d taken her PGCE after studying part time for what seemed like ages and after she started work, everything got better. Not that Em didn’t keep trying to reconcile her with Cal. Zannah was surprised to find how much she enjoyed teaching. Isis came to school with her, and loved the nursery class, which was very convenient, and as the months passed, the pain grew bearable. Then, a year and a half ago, she met Adrian and everything changed, almost overnight.

  Zannah walked up the little staircase that led to the upper part of the flat, where Emily had her bedroom and she had what she called her studio, even though she knew it was a rather grand title for such a tiny room. It might not be big, Zannah thought, but it’s got a huge window and good light. She opened the door and sighed with pleasure as she sat down in the well-upholstered office chair at the table that served as a desk. What Emily called her ‘control freakery’ was evident everywhere. Her schoolwork was neatly filed away in huge portfolios leaning against one wall. The table had piles of papers laid neatly all over it, with proper paperweights on each. Her laptop, with its mouse mat neatly beside it, was pushed to the back. She’d painted the walls herself: a pretty, buttery yellow (not a whisper of lime, and nowhere near orange, just a few shades yellower than cream) which lifted her spirits whenever she came into the room. She would never have been able to explain to anyone what keen pleasure it gave her to find precisely the right colour for something.

  Her first wedding dress had been short, turquoise chiffon: much more cocktail-dressish than bridal. She’d been fantasizing about a proper wedding dress from the time she was Isis’s age, but had considered it more seriously from the moment she’d agreed to marry Adrian. There was time enough to think about it carefully when they’d sorted out the venue, but she was already sure that it wouldn’t be dazzling white. That was too virginal and besides, it made her look washed out. She’d told no one, not even Emily, about what was in the bottom drawer of her filing-cabinet in an unprepossessing orange folder from the school stationery cupboard. Folded among the deliberate camouflage of report forms and printouts of boring documents was a drawing she had made of her perfect dress. From time to time, when she knew she was alone, she took it out to see if it was still as lovely as ever. She had sketched in the lace she wanted. It would have to be lined, possibly with crêpe de Chine. The waist, in true twenties style, was dropped and edged with scalloped lace, scattered with tiny pearls. The same lace bordered the square neck and the sleeves, which fell to just above the elbow. A scalloped edge to the skirt as well, and the length just above the ankle. This wasn’t a style for those with thick legs but Zannah knew she could carry it off. High-heeled, satin strap shoes with a lace-trimmed ‘v’ just below the instep, in the same shade as the lace.

  She’d drawn a back view of the dress too, showing the row of small pearl buttons done up with loops. Perhaps a bandeau with a tiny veil attached for her hair, which of course would be worn swept up, or would a tiara be better? She hadn’t quite decided. There was time for that. She wondered how much she’d have to pay to have it made. She might find an off-the-peg equivalent, but doubted she’d be satisfied with that. I must, she thought, make enquiries about dressmakers. Really beautiful lace was expensive and there was also the bridesmaid’s dress to consider. She was thinking of watermarked taffeta and it would have to be silk. The colours of the synthetic equivalents were nothing like as good. Would she be able to get away with a thousand pounds? The sum made her feel a little dizzy when she thought of it, but even that was probably optimistic. She’d been saving for a long time, putting a little money every month into what she thought of as her dress fund. She’d not even told Em about that. Not showing this drawing to anyone was a
superstition, somehow bound up with the tradition of a groom not seeing his bride’s dress until the wedding day. I’ll show it to Em and Ma soon, she told herself, but meanwhile it can remain hidden for a few weeks longer.

  Zannah glanced up at the enormous corkboard that occupied most of the wall facing the window. She’d found it in a shop in Camden Town and hauled it all the way home on the Underground, scowling at men who looked as though they were on the point of asking if they could help her. Ever since Adrian had asked her to marry him, she’d pinned up everything she thought might come in useful: cuttings from magazines, postcards, swatches of fabric from the shops she pretended she was just passing, news items, and a small collection of old wedding photos.

  ‘What d’you think of my wedding board?’ she’d asked Emily on the day she put it up. They’d been standing at the sink, doing the washing-up.

  ‘Wedding bored. That’s what I am.’

  ‘Ha-ha, very witty.’ Zannah threw a tea-towel at her sister. She wondered whether her desire to have the perfect wedding was a wish for the future: a fervent and almost superstitious hope that if she did things properly, her marriage would be strong and last for ever. She knew this was nonsense, but liked the feeling that this time she was following traditions that went back centuries. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. She’d even made a note to herself so that those items weren’t forgotten.

  Now she sat down at the table, picked up a pencil and began to doodle on the sheet of paper lying in front of her as she remembered her first meeting with Adrian.

  She’d been at a party. Ever since she’d started going out with Cal, she’d gone off parties. The only point of them was to meet a fanciable man, and if you were already hooked up with someone, the crush, the bad wine and the too-loud music were hard to endure after you were about twenty. She’d come to this particular bash because Louise insisted she went with her. Louise had had her eye on the brother of the young woman into whose tall, thin house they were currently being squeezed, along with a crowd of noisy people on the edge of drunkenness. Zannah had had enough and was making for the daunting pile of overcoats near the front door when someone said: ‘Are you about to tunnel your way out?’

  She’d turned and caught sight of Adrian, smiling at her as she flung various items of clothing about, searching for her jacket. He was so handsome that she actually stopped breathing for a second. He was also perfectly dressed, in a linen suit that managed to look fashionably rumpled and not slobbishly creased. His hair was dark and his eyes a pale, luminous blue that reminded her of icebergs. ‘I’ve just decided that parties aren’t my thing.’

  ‘Nor mine. Mind if I escape with you? Adrian Whittaker. Friend of John Larimer’s.’

  That was the name of Louise’s prey. Fleetingly, Zannah wondered if she should plead her case with this Adrian: say something like My friend fancies your friend. She decided against it and said instead, ‘Okay. I’m going home, though.’

  ‘I’ll see you to your door.’

  This struck her as so old-fashioned, so charming, that she burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m not some young girl, you know! I’m a mother. I’ve got a seven-year-old daughter.’

  ‘Are you here with your husband?’

  ‘I’m divorced.’

  ‘In that case, I think I ought to see you home.’

  He took her gently by the arm and steered her out into the street. At her door, he asked for her phone number; asked for permission to call her. When she agreed, he took a notebook from an inside pocket of his jacket with a pen that Zannah recognized as a Mont Blanc even by the light of the street-lamp because she had wanted one for ages.

  He rang her the very next day and asked her to meet him at Green Park station.

  ‘Is four o’clock on Saturday all right? Don’t wear jeans and trainers,’ he said. She liked his voice on the phone. He sounded as if he knew what he wanted and was going to get it, without being at all harsh or loud.

  ‘I never do,’ she answered.

  ‘I somehow knew you didn’t. See you then.’

  He’d taken her to tea at the Ritz. He’d obviously come straight from work and she smiled when she saw his briefcase, dark suit, collar and tie. They made him look like someone to be reckoned with, she thought, someone serious, probably earning serious money – which was only right if he worked on a Saturday. She’d always had a problem with what Cal wore to work. Journalists can wear whatever they like, he used to say, but she thought putting on the first thing he found when he woke up made him look like a student.

  Adrian guided her to a table in a corner of the beautiful room and, with the tiered cakestand between them, and the cups and saucers like a still-life on a tablecloth as white as a ski-slope, she fell in love with him, all in one second, just like that. She bent her head over the Earl Grey. I wish I could tear his clothes off and kiss him all over, she thought and felt herself blush.

  As the tea-things were taken away, Adrian leaned forward and said, ‘Suzannah, I want to see you again. Actually, it’s more than that. I want … well … I want us to be … Never mind. I’m sure it’s too soon to say such things. But please come out to dinner tomorrow. Say you will.’

  Zannah stopped drawing and looked out of the window. She was so high up here that all she could see was the sky. Floating pictures from the cloud gallery: where had she heard it called that? She’d been so restrained. She’d waited a whole week before going to bed with him. They saw one another four times; they spoke for hours on the phone every night, and then, on their fifth date, they’d ended up in Adrian’s flat and spent the night together. A week later he’d taken her to the kind of jeweller’s she’d never have dared to enter by herself to choose the beautiful ruby that was now on her left hand. They were going to be married. There was going to be a wedding and it was going to be the kind of wedding she’d been dreaming about, sometimes rather guiltily, for most of her life. Sometimes she worried about the expense of such an occasion. Emily had got to her with gibes about weddings costing more than most people’s annual incomes, and Zannah knew that her family would be paying for most of it. Adrian, to whom she confided these doubts, kissed her when she’d finished speaking and said, ‘Don’t worry, my darling. There’s plenty of money for everything. We’ll sort it. No point being old-fashioned. I’ll help, promise. My family isn’t going to stand by and let your parents fork out for everything. It’ll be fine.’

  She believed him. One of the best things about Adrian was the fact that he wanted the perfect day as much as she did. That they agreed about what such a day should be like proved that they were made for one another. Her mother, Charlotte and even Em were a little startled by the speed with which she moved from just seeing Adrian to being engaged to him but she reassured them. ‘I love him, Ma,’ she’d told Joss on a visit home just after the announcement. ‘It’s going to be like coming home. Really. And you’ll see. You’ll love him, too. He’s … he’s grown-up. Cal was, well, you know what he’s like. Just a kid in a way. It’s not a rebound thing. Don’t think that. I’ve been divorced for ages. And I’ve never before met anyone who’s so … so right. He’s right for me. He’ll look after me.’

  ‘What about Isis?’ Joss had asked her.

  ‘Adrian adores her,’ she’d answered.

  ‘Does she love him?’

  ‘No, but she likes him well enough. And what she’ll really love is being a bridesmaid.’

  Her mother had smiled the enigmatic smile that meant I’m going to let you get on with your life and not say a word. But surely, now that she’d met Adrian, she’d have to admit how perfect he was. As soon as she’s feeling better, Zannah decided, I’ll ask her what she thinks of him. How could anyone not love him?

  *

  Some people had a gift for picnics. They managed to assemble food in fancy wicker baskets, and it wasn’t just cheese-and-pickle sarnies but devilled chicken legs or perfect little meatballs, ciabatta rolls, dainty salads drizzled with the
kind of oil you had to drizzle, olives straight from the slopes of a Greek mountain and fruit that looked as though each piece had been individually hand-picked. The wine was cold. There were proper knives and forks. Even the wasps that hovered politely near such feasts seemed posher than your average insect. No one in our family, Emily thought, has such a gift. Zannah had no imagination when it came to sandwich fillings and therefore there were no pleasant surprises or exotic combinations to be found when she had prepared the food. Emily was equally useless, getting into a panic and packing too much of one thing and not enough of another and forgetting to put in napkins or something to drink.

  Cal, though, was a dab hand at the Supermarket Picnic. They’d just been through M&S like three whirlwinds, scooping up a combination of innovative sandwiches, small tubs of Mediterranean-type salads, packets of biscuits and crisps (Healthy eating? said Cal. Naaah, you can get that at home any time) and a selection of fruit juices and smoothies in magical flavours like mango and strawberry and banana.

  Now they were on Wimbledon Common hunting for a good place to sit and eat what they’d bought. Isis had run a little ahead and Cal turned to Emily. ‘What did go on yesterday, Em? Zannah was being a bit tight-lipped, or was I imagining it?’