Out of Step

by Maggie Makepeace

  ‘Mmm,’ Nell said, snuggling up.

  ‘Lost your nightie?’ Rob asked, surprised.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, I thought…’

  ‘And I thought this would be nice,’ Nell said, kissing the shoulder nearest to her, and sliding an arm over him to stroke his chest and stomach. His skin felt hot. ‘It’s a great defuser of tensions, I always think.’ She was glad he hadn’t got a hairy chest. She loved its smooth hardness, and the good spicy smell of him. She shuffled herself up on to one elbow and, bending over him, nibbled an ear lobe. He turned towards her abruptly. His expression was not encouraging.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s been a bad day, and I’m totally knackered. Maybe tomorrow, eh?’ Then he turned away, pummelled his pillow irritably, and settled down with a long sigh.

  It seemed to Nell that he was asleep in moments. She envied him this facility of instant shut-down. It always took her much longer, especially when she was all hopeful and receptive … Two tears of frustration slid down her cheeks. Bloody kids, she thought furiously. I hate you both!

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘You mustn’t worry about Rob’s two,’ Sibyl said during a slack period at ARTFULL. ‘Children nearly always come through these things all right. It’s the parents who crack up!’ She caught a stray strand of hair and pushed it back into place, raising an eyebrow as she did so.

  Nell laughed ruefully. ‘You’re not wrong there.’ Thank goodness for Sibyl, she thought. At least I can really open up to her. I never seem to talk to Rob at all these days, and when I try to discuss my problems with Elly, I end up feeling even more incompetent. I don’t want to share things with Anna either – although she’s very keen to do so – because I can’t trust her, but with Sibyl I’m fine.

  ‘It’s the total lack of privacy that I find so hard to bear,’ she confessed.

  ‘How often are you having them these days?’ Sibyl asked.

  ‘Every weekend, and all Rob’s annual holiday allowance. Of course we get weekday evenings on our own, but that’s not exactly quality time.’

  ‘No, I can see that.’

  ‘I just feel I’m under a kind of critical scrutiny all the time. They see everything I’d rather keep to myself: the things I buy on impulse, the food I throw away, the underclothes I wear, the housework I don’t do, my moods, my habits, and worst of all, my interactions with Rob.’

  ‘Mmm?’ Sibyl said, inviting more.

  ‘I mean, we can’t argue or even discuss trivial things when they’re around, because they always have to be included and they’re always on his side, against me. They’re like spies in the camp; I end up feeling as though my life isn’t my own.’ Nell ran her fingers through her fringe. ‘And it’s horrible being permanently in the wrong. Am I paranoid d’you think?’

  ‘No, no,’ Sibyl said comfortingly, ‘of course you aren’t. You’re in a very difficult position.’

  ‘But real mothers don’t feel like this?’

  ‘I think “real” mothers, as you put it, are a lot less assured and confident than you might suppose. But they don’t have a full-time rival to contend with, so they aren’t challenged all the time.’

  ‘I seem to be so unsure of myself lately,’ Nell went on. ‘I never used to feel this insecure, but now I keep agonising about why we’re together. Is it something Rob actively chose, or did he just find himself persuaded into it because of his devotion to the cottage? I really doubt sometimes whether it’s me he wants to be with at all.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he does! Isn’t he at all demonstrative?’

  ‘Very rarely, and never when the children are around. It’s as though he’s embarrassed to show me any affection in front of them.’

  ‘He’s probably trying to prevent them from being jealous,’ Sibyl suggested.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s true, but I would like them to know that I matter a bit to him. I feel taken for granted.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ve worked out how important you are. Children pick these things up very quickly. Do they know about the baby?’

  ‘No … I don’t want Cassie told yet. That’s one bit of privacy I can hang on to.’ Nell sighed. ‘I suppose if I’m honest, I feel trapped. I didn’t plan it to happen like this. I wanted to settle down and get fond of Rob’s children first, before I had any of my own, so that by the time mine came along, I’d feel established and secure. Instead I seem to need constant reassurance. I’m not usually so feeble.’ Nell made a dismissive gesture.

  Sibyl patted her shoulder. ‘You’re not feeble at all. Can’t you discuss this with Rob?’

  ‘Not really. He’s all upset and preoccupied about the divorce settlement and the wrangling about residence and contact, and Cassie isn’t helping.’

  ‘She’s being obstructive?’

  ‘Deliberately, so it seems.’

  ‘So it’s never the right moment?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘But it isn’t all gloom and doom with the children?’

  ‘Oh, by no means,’ Nell smiled. ‘They can be very funny. Rosie went round the house the other day looking for “presents” for us all, and wrapping them up in pretty paper. She obviously chose things very carefully to reflect her view of our proper stations in life. Josh got a plastic dinosaur and Rob got a book.’

  ‘And what did you get?’

  Nell made a face. ‘A bottle of Fairy Liquid!’

  Cassie finished her bottle of duty-free gin regretfully, and felt it was already high time for another ten days in the Algarve. She had enjoyed her holiday enormously – it was real life that was proving so impossible. I need to do something different, she thought. It isn’t working out as things are. If I could just persuade Mic to mind the children every other weekend, then that Nell female wouldn’t be able to get her claws so firmly into them, and I’d still have some peace. Cassie had an uneasy feeling, now that she had met her, that Nell just might be a natural when it came to child care. She would have to make damned sure her authority wasn’t undermined.

  So far, Mic had been resistant to all her pleas. She was already taking Rosie every afternoon (and sometimes Josh too) until five o’clock, which was a big help – Cassie was forced to acknowledge – but it wasn’t enough. She had been brought up by her parents to buy her way out of trouble, and was frustrated not to be able to do just that. The kids need structured activities, distractions, she thought, and I simply can’t be expected to provide that, day in day out. At least I’ve sorted out violin lessons for Josh on Saturday mornings, but if Mic would have them after that… She could take them swimming, or playing in the park, or to the cinema, or to any of the 101 things that come so easily to her. It would solve all my problems.

  ‘Meself and Gav needs our weekends free,’ Mic insisted over the telephone. ‘So’s we can spend time tergevver an’ I can clean the flat, get the washin’ done, buy food an’ that.’

  ‘I’ll pay you double,’ Cassie suggested recklessly.

  ‘No can do.’ Mic was adamant. ‘Not on a regular occurrence, no way.’

  ‘But now and then?’ Cassie persisted.

  ‘Well…’ Mic weakened, ‘maybe, but I’m not promising nothing, mind?’

  ‘You’re an angel, Mic!’ Cassie put the receiver down, smiling, and then picked it up again.

  ‘Hello?’ Nell said, answering the phone.

  ‘I need to speak to Rob.’ It was Cassie using her I’m-so-exhausted-look-what-I-have-to-put-up-with voice. Nell had just got back from an antenatal checkup, and felt tired herself. She was now twenty weeks into her pregnancy and putting on weight.

  ‘I’ll see if I can find him,’ she said, knowing by now not to say, ‘Oh, is that you, Cassie? How are you?’ as one would to any normal person.

  ‘Rob?’ she called up the stairs.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Cassie for you, on the phone.’

  ‘I’ll take it up here.’

  She went back to the telephone to replace the receiver as soon
as she heard his voice, and as she did so, she felt it – a quiver inside her as the baby kicked its legs for the first time. She sat down clutching her stomach, entranced by this long-awaited sign of life. She was still sitting there beaming from ear to ear when Rob came downstairs.

  ‘It kicked!’ she said. ‘I’ve just this minute felt it kick.’ She reached out and put his hand over her bulge and held it there, to see if he too could feel it.

  ‘That’s terrific,’ he said, but he didn’t smile.

  ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘Oh, just Cassie. She says the children get bored visiting us, so they only want to come every other weekend from now on.’ He took his hand away.

  Nell felt a treacherous lurch of relief but strove to conceal it. ‘How can they be bored?’ she asked. ‘We have Lego and drawing and water games and bike rides and walks, and heaven knows what!’

  ‘Search me.’ He looked unhappy. ‘What can I do?’ he asked. ‘If I entice them to come and see me with nonstop treats and no discipline, they’ll end up as spoilt brats, but if I give them a bit of discipline and try to get them to amuse themselves and use some imagination, I apparently end up with unwilling visitors. I can’t win.’

  It’s ‘We’, Nell thought, not ‘I’, and it’s me that has to supply the discipline more often than not… But she let that go. ‘Well, maybe they’ll discover that weekends with Cassie can be just as boring,’ she suggested.

  ‘I’m not happy,’ Rob said, ‘not happy at all.’

  I was, Nell thought, until a minute or two ago.

  Anna saw Nell lowering her increasingly large bulk into the swimming pool and swam towards her, eager for a chat. ‘I hate August,’ she said. ‘Summer’s jaded, autumn hasn’t begun, and everything’s airless and exhausted and endlessly bloody hot.’

  ‘I like spring best,’ Nell said.

  ‘Yes, you would. Optimists always do.’

  Nell remembered a joke Rob had told her, in what now seemed to her to be another age. ‘Optimist says to pessimist, “Guess what? Optimists live longer than pessimists,”’ she offered. ‘Pessimist replies, “Serves them right!”’

  Anna laughed. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘You have been a bit down in the dumps lately, haven’t you?’

  ‘Not really.’ Nell clearly wasn’t going to admit it.

  ‘Are you and Rob going to get married?’ Anna tried tactlessness to see whether the unexpected approach would break down Nell’s frustrating reticence.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s no need. We’re fine as we are.’

  Anna understood then that Nell had decided to shut her out, and that was that. ‘Probably just as well,’ she said. ‘Apparently seventy per cent of second marriages fail within the first ten years.’

  ‘So what about you and Paul?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll be in the thirty per cent success band. Did I tell you he’s finally negotiated his early retirement?’

  ‘Elly did.’

  ‘Yes, she would. So I suppose you know it’s not as good as he’d hoped, but he’s just so over the moon he doesn’t have to go back to that school in September. He says he didn’t fully appreciate before how much he hated the job!’

  ‘That must be grim,’ Nell said. ‘I’m very lucky. Sibyl’s more my friend than my employer. Let’s swim.’ They swam side by side, doing breaststroke.

  ‘So, will you go on working after the baby?’

  ‘Sibyl says I shouldn’t, and I must say I agree with her, but she says she’ll always have me back if I decide I want to. I’ll probably have to eventually anyway. We need the money.’

  ‘Oh God, don’t talk to me about money!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘All Paul’s money runs down his first family’s drain …’ She stopped, not wishing to antagonise Nell. She was her friend … maybe her only friend. I’m not good at friendship, Anna thought with a pang. That’s why I need a man.

  They reached the far end of the pool and stopped again. ‘Enough of that,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘You know women’s brains are supposed to shrink during pregnancy?’ Nell said with a little shrug.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, well that’s how I feel, pea-brained! And my back hurts, my new maternity bras are getting tight, and I keep needing to go to the loo, but at least in here I’m almost weightless and blissfully cool.’

  ‘And the two little angels?’

  Nell sighed. ‘Don’t ask. I spend ages teaching them basic things, like good manners, then they go home, and by the time they come to us again, they’ve forgotten the lot. It’s disheartening to say the least.’

  ‘Seems to me it’s the ultimate responsibility without power,’ Anna said. ‘I feel for you. Thank the Lord I won’t be saddled with it.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I mentioned our round the world trip on Polypeptide, didn’t I? Well, it’s on. We’re leaving at the end of October.’

  On 3rd September, two days before the children’s school term began, Cassie went round to Mic’s with a light heart, to collect Rosie. Tomorrow she would go and meet the new form teachers at a special start-of-year parents’ day, and from then on both Josh and Rosie would be safely contained at school all morning, to Mic’s later in the afternoon, and only home in the evenings. Her days would be blessedly free once more, and she would be able truly to find herself again. She rang Mic’s bell and stood there smiling.

  ‘Wotcher,’ Mic said, opening the door. She was holding someone else’s baby, and had a toddler clutching the hem of her shorts. ‘Rosie’s just coming.’ She turned her head. ‘Rosie? Yer mum’s ‘ere.’

  It’s a good sign, Cassie thought, that Rosie isn’t over-eager to come home. It shows I’ve found the right place for her, and that she’s happy here. ‘All right for next weekend then?’ she said lightly. It wasn’t really a question. ‘I’m off to London to see some old friends I worked with a few years ago. In television, you know.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Next… weekend …’ Cassie said patiently, as if to a halfwit.

  ‘Come off it,’ Mic objected. ‘What you on abaht? I done two weekends out of the kindness of me ‘eart, an’ that’s enough fer anyone.’

  ‘But you can’t let me down now!’ Cassie objected. ‘I’ve made arrangements!’

  ‘Well, stuff…’ Mic shifted the baby to her other hip and ruffled the toddler’s hair. ‘Sorry, Cassie, I told you I wasn’t doin’ it regular, and I ain’t.’

  ‘But, Mic, I absolutely rely on you. You know that.’ She put on a pleading look that should have melted the stoniest heart.

  Rosie came to the door at that moment, carrying a brown pill bottle and eating something from it.

  ‘What’s that?’ Cassie was in a panic at once.

  ‘I’m a nurth,’ Rosie said proudly, ‘and I’m making all the babith better.’

  ‘But how did you get the top off?’ Cassie almost shouted. ‘It’s child-proof!’

  ‘Mic thowed me,’ Rosie said sulkily. Cassie whirled round on her.

  ‘Keep yer ‘air on,’ Mic said. ‘It’s only sweets. It’s just a game, right?’

  ‘Ohhhh … of all the irresponsible, stupid, brain-dead things to do …’ Words almost failed her.

  ‘Look,’ Mic said confidentially, ignoring the outburst. ‘I knows just what you oughter do.’

  ‘What?’ Cassie felt hope despite her rage.

  ‘You wants ter put your money where your mouf is, right? So go back to bloody London and effing well get yourself a job in sodding telly … if you’ve got the bottle for it, that is!’

  Nell decided to go to the school parents’ day with Rob. It was time to come out, both about her status as Rob’s partner, and about her pregnancy. She put on her best maternity smock and some make-up and summoned up some of her old determination.

  When they arrived, they found both children rushing about with their friends, and Cassie deep in discussion with a bored-looking Headmistress.
Nell noticed that the Mad Cow was wearing a necklace of green beads. Surely not? she thought, frowning, but later on when she and Rob went over to talk to her, Nell saw that they were indeed made of malachite.

  ‘… I’m taking Josh to a psychiatrist,’ Cassie was informing Rob. ‘I’m worried about his nervous tic and I’m convinced he’s got ADD.’

  ‘ADD?’

  ‘Attention Deficit Disorder, surely even you must know about that?’

  ‘Well, why don’t you try giving him some more attention?’

  ‘Are you trying to be thick, or does it just come naturally? It’s nothing to do with giving him attention – it’s that he can’t pay attention for the normal length of time. He needs professional help. I was just telling Mrs Whatsit…’ She looked around for the Head, but she was now some distance away talking animatedly to someone else. ‘Oh, and I’ve arranged music lessons for him on Saturday mornings,’ Cassie said, ‘so he won’t be able to go to the cottage until just before lunch.’ Then she noticed Nell in detail for the first time, and her eyes widened. Nell smiled at her with a slight lift to one eyebrow.

  ‘Good God!’ Cassie exclaimed. ‘Some people don’t waste much time! I do hope you aren’t thinking of giving up work? There’s little enough money in this so-called extended family as it is.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ Nell said, steely.

  ‘Oh, and while we’re on the subject of work,’ Cassie said offhandedly to Rob, ‘I’ve decided it’s nonsense to expect to get any worthwhile employment down here in the sticks, so in the New Year the children and I are moving house.’

  ‘Where to?’ Rob caught her arm.

  ‘Why, London, of course. Where else?’ She shook him off.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ They glared at each other.

  ‘I’m not prepared to discuss it here,’ Cassie said, closing her eyes very deliberately, head back, and then opening them again languidly. ‘All right?’