by Lissa Evans
‘And cons?’ asked Spencer. ‘Are there any?’
Fran paused, and considered. ‘I’d miss Iris,’ she said. ‘And I’d really miss the garden.’
‘… so nearer the spring I could come over once a week for an hour or two and work on it. You’d just need to do some basic maintenance the rest of the time – you know, pull up any couch grass, pick off caterpillars, nothing very demanding – and we could share the veg. Of course, if you wanted to do more than that, it’d be great.’ Feeling generous and slightly noble, Fran put down her list and glanced across the table. Peter was looking inscrutable, and Sylvie sat with her eyes downcast, hands knotted under the long sleeves of Peter’s favourite pullover. The silence lengthened. The meeting so far had been oddly quiet – no disagreements, no provocative statements – instead Fran had the feeling that all parties were biding their time, manoeuvring quietly for position.
‘So what do you think?’ she prompted.
Peter cleared his throat. ‘I think we should talk through all the possible options before we make a decision.’
‘All right,’ said Fran doubtfully. She glanced at her list again; after number four, the level of seriousness decreased rapidly, something she blamed on the combination of Spencer and alcohol. ‘Before we go on,’ she said, unwilling to relinquish her carefully thought-out plan, ‘is there anything about the idea of you two staying here and me moving out that’s specifically a problem?’
Peter looked at Sylvie, and her head drooped like a flower soused with paraquat. ‘Yes there is,’ he said. ‘Sylvie doesn’t like Dalston.’
‘I don’t think anyone likes Dalston,’ said Fran. ‘I don’t, for a start.’
‘No, I mean she wants to move away.’ Sylvie nodded behind the curtain of hair.
‘Oh. You mean –’ hope flooded through her ‘– on her own?’
‘No, with me. We want to move out of London.’ One of Sylvie’s hands emerged from a sleeve and sought one of Peter’s and he took it as if accepting a gift. ‘I’m applying for a job in Norwich.’
‘Norwich?’ said Fran, stupidly.
‘We want to live somewhere where people care about each other,’ said Sylvie.
‘So, hang on –’ said Fran, trying not to be distracted by this non-sequitur ‘– you want to move out, right out of London, and leave me here?’
‘Yes,’ said Peter.
Fran looked at her list. This was option four, and while the only ‘pro’ Spencer had come up with was physical separation from Sylvie, the number of ‘cons’ was almost into double figures, the handwriting becoming larger and more frantic as each contraindication had occurred to her.
‘But that means I’d have to get two lodgers to cover the mortgage.’
Peter nodded sombrely.
‘But that would be awful, it would be like running a boarding house – one of me and two of them. And you wouldn’t even be near enough to help with any problems. What about the next time a bit of the house falls off? This place takes two of us to maintain.’ The previous weekend she and Peter had spent a whole afternoon taking turns at the top of a wavering ladder, clearing bucketfuls of putrid black gunk from the guttering.
‘I’d be general handyman and landlady. I’d have to do everything.’ The future scrolled away from her – a constant round of interviewing prospective tenants, of reminding them about rent and bills and double-locking the front door, of dull discussions about who pays for bog roll and washing-up liquid (‘but I only eat takeaways’), of clipped conversations about phone and bathroom usage and the idiosyncrasies of the pre-Cambrian thermostat, of justified complaints about lukewarm radiators and disintegrating floorboards and cupboard doors that came away in the hand. ‘Oh God, Peter,’ she said, with desperation, ‘you can’t mean it. There must be another option.’
‘Well, what else do you have on your list?’
Fran hesitated; a truthful reply was impossible. It read:
5. Nobody move out, instead learn to live together in an atmosphere of love and mutual understanding.
6. Hire an arsonist and collect on the insurance.
7. Buy a fake hand and leave it on the hall floor for Sylvie to discover.
8. Smuggle Mr Tibbs to a cattery and start sending ransom notes. (‘If she really loves him then thirty-five grand’s nothing’ – Spencer)
9. Lease the house to a film company specializing in suburban porn.
The last suggestion had been so appealing that they had wasted nearly half an hour thinking up titles (‘Sadie Does it Herself in Six Weekly Parts’, ‘Those Big Boys Next Door’, ‘How Firm Your Courgette’ (subtitled)) before Spencer had fallen asleep between adjacent sentences, and she had tiptoed away.
Peter was waiting for her answer. ‘None of them is very practical,’ she muttered, slightly ashamed, crumpling the piece of paper so that it would be unreadable from the other side of the table.
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘I don’t know. With you applying for a job in the sticks, I suppose.’
‘I’ve only just seen it advertised,’ said Peter. ‘Nothing’s definite yet.’
But looking at his hand grasping Sylvie’s, at the welded unit they formed together, Fran saw that the discussion was over and that all roads would henceforth lead either to Norwich or to some other provincial Utopia. Peter looked as implacable as when he’d forbidden her to borrow, or even touch, his new cassette player fourteen years ago and now, as then, her sole remaining option was to rage impotently.
‘Of course it’s definite,’ she said. ‘You’ve made up your mind, I can see you have. You decided this ages ago and didn’t tell me. What was the point of even having this talk? You might as well have left me a note on the table and buggered off. “Dear Fran, please look after the white elephant, all it needs is twenty-four-hour care and a constant supply of money.” ’
‘Sylvie and I have been discussing it for a while,’ said Peter, calmly, ‘but we had other decisions to make first.’
‘Oh yeah, like what?’ She felt poised for the next rally, tongue at the ready.
‘Well…’ He drew Sylvie’s hand closer to his chest. ‘Do you want me to say, Sylvie?’ She raised her head and smiled at him shyly.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said.
‘Or would you rather wait?’
‘No, perhaps we should say.’
‘All right then. If you don’t mind.’
‘No, I don’t mind.’
‘What?’ asked Fran, hoarse with frustration.
‘Well…’ They exchanged complicit looks. ‘Sylvie – Sylvie and I – are going to have a baby.’
Fran blinked at them.
‘We thought you might have guessed,’ said Peter. ‘Sylvie’s been getting terrible morning sickness.’
‘And migraines,’ said Sylvie, smiling wanly. Peter lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles.
‘But I thought –’ began Fran, and then stopped. They looked at her, Sylvie a little anxious, Peter shiny with bliss. ‘Congratulations,’ she said, almost too late.
‘Are you pleased?’ asked Sylvie.
‘Yes. Yes, of course I am.’
‘It means you’ll be an auntie.’
‘Yes, I suppose I will.’ She couldn’t believe her own obtuseness. How many more signs would Sylvie have needed to display? A half-knitted matinee jacket? A foetal scan sellotaped to her forehead?
‘We didn’t want to say anything until Sylvie was at least twelve weeks pregnant.’
‘It was a surprise to us, too,’ said Sylvie, eyes modestly lowered.
‘You’re the first person we’ve told.’
‘Oh. Well, thanks. That’s brilliant. Fantastic news.’ Her mouth seemed to be doing the right thing while her brain was still lying on the canvas, being fanned by the seconds.
‘When’s it due?’
‘August,’ said Peter.
‘Our little Leo,’ said Sylvie.
‘What, you’ve already picked a name?’
‘No, I meant the birth sign.’
Fran realized with a jolt that there would be no getting rid of Sylvie now – she might be leaving the house, but she was entering the family, and every Christmas, every wedding, every funeral would be studded with exchanges exactly like the last. She felt worn down by the burden of future feyness.
‘Or it might just be over the cusp into Virgo,’ added Sylvie.
‘Even better,’ said Fran. As discreetly as she could, she eased the shameful list from the table and shoved it into her pocket. The house discussion was now clearly moribund; two against one had suddenly turned into three against one with the baby hitting well above its weight.
‘We should crack open a bottle,’ she said, heavily, getting to her feet. ‘I think there’s some white in the fridge.’
‘What about the meeting?’ asked Peter, dragging his eyes from Sylvie. ‘We ought to carry on with the meeting.’
‘Why? What’s the point?’ The words came out more sharply than she intended, and the happy look faded from Peter’s face. She struggled to make amends. ‘I mean, let’s just leave it for today. Let’s pick it up another time.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘Yeah I’m sure.’ She managed a glum smile. ‘Let’s celebrate.’
‘Ace in the hole,’ said Spencer, when she phoned him later that evening. ‘They were playing with a concealed card. Totally unfair.’
‘Yeah, the bastards.’ Out of a sense of mild melancholy, she was sitting in the dark, watching the rain slant across the lit square of Iris’s kitchen window. On the table in front of her sat Mr Tibbs, his eyes disconcertingly fixed on hers, the pupils huge and depthless.
‘And are they happy about it?’
‘Very.’
‘And are you?’
‘Give me a while. For me it’s not a baby, it’s a lifetime in Dalston.’ Mr Tibbs seemed to be leaning towards her and she shifted the chair so that she was turned away from him.
‘So when are they off?’
‘It depends whether he gets the Norwich job. But they’re going on holiday next month, so at least I’ll get the house to myself for a couple of weeks. I bloody can’t wait, honestly Spence, I’m going to run up and downstairs in the nude, and flush the toilet every –’ A sudden wet roughness enclosed her ear and she jerked her head away. ‘Get off.’
‘What?’ asked Spencer.
‘It’s the cat, he was trying to – stop it.’
‘What’s it doing?’
‘Trying to lick my earlobe – he’s got a thing about earlobes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I smear Whiskas on them.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, do I? Maybe he finds them attractive. Duncan always did.’ Mr Tibbs was moving towards her again, neck outstretched and a vaguely lustful look on his face, the tip of his tongue just visible. Repulsed, she gave him a light shove and his back legs slid off the edge of the table, rapidly followed by the rest of him. He hit the floor with a thud and the light snapped on to reveal Sylvie standing in the doorway, hot-water bottle in hand.
‘Tibbsy,’ she said piteously.
‘He’s OK,’ said Fran. ‘He just fell off the table.’
‘You pushed him. I saw you.’ She knelt and the cat crept towards her with a death-rattle mew.
‘You’d better apologize,’ said Spencer, in Fran’s ear.
‘He was sucking my earlobe,’ said Fran.
‘He can’t help it. The vet thinks he was weaned too early.’
‘So he thinks my ear’s a nipple?’
‘Apologize,’ said Spencer.
‘He’s only a little cat and you hurt him.’
‘I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry.’
‘Well done,’ said Spencer. ‘Phone me back.’ She had hung up the receiver before she realized that Sylvie was crying, blotting her tears into Mr Tibbs’s orange fur.
‘I’m sorry, Sylvie,’ she said again. ‘But he is a cat and they land on their feet. It’s not like shoving a baby off a table.’ It wasn’t, she realized immediately, a happy analogy. ‘Not that I meant to shove him off,’ she added.
‘You said you’d look after him,’ said Sylvie in a small voice. She wiped her face with the back of one hand.
‘Did I? When did I?’
‘When we go on holiday.’
‘Oh then. Well of course I’ll look after him.’ She tried to hide her exasperation. ‘I’m not going to hurt him, Sylvie. I work with animals, I know about them, he’ll be fine. I’ll boil bits of chicken and everything.’
‘But looking after him doesn’t just mean feeding,’ said Sylvie, sententiously. She was stroking the cat with long, even gestures. ‘He needs to feel loved as well. Don’t you, Tibbsy? I couldn’t leave him if I thought he might be unhappy, I’d have to cancel the holiday.’ Tense with ecstasy, Tibbsy thrust out his hindquarters and waggled his rectum in Fran’s direction.
‘Honestly,’ said Fran, ‘I’ll be lovely to him.’
‘Really?’ Sylvie gazed up at her.
‘Really.’ And then, because she still looked doubtful, ‘I absolutely promise.’
Sylvie nodded slowly and then got to her feet, brushing a few stray hairs from her fingers. ‘I wish we got on better, Fran,’ she said. ‘I wish we could be friends, but I know you think I’m silly and oversensitive about things.’
Fran stood paralysed, nailed by the truth.
‘My granny always used to say that I had one skin too few so I feel everything more, and I know I can often sense things that other people can’t, and that makes me different.’ She smiled gently, her eyes still shining from the tears. ‘And I know it’s hard for some people to tolerate differences.’
‘Now hang on just a cotton-picking minute…’ Fran wanted to say, but managed – by dint of massive self-control – not to. Instead she nodded dumbly.
Sylvie started to unbutton the cover of her hot-water bottle. ‘Sometimes I even wish I could have that thick layer between me and the world that other people have. But then I feel I’d miss so much. It would be like watching a rainbow wearing dark glasses.’ She shook her head sadly and fiddled with the screw top of the bottle. ‘You couldn’t do this for me, could you Fran? It’s a little bit stiff.’
Fran unscrewed the plug and handed it back.
‘Thanks.’ She reached forward and took one of Fran’s hands. ‘I’d love to start again, you know, and try and really be friends. I’m sure we could. I do admire you, you know, Fran. You’re so…’
‘Practical,’ thought Fran.
‘Practical,’ said Sylvie.
16
Identical Interest
It’s not just their ‘good looks’ that identical twins Robin and Tom Unwin (18) share, it’s also their ‘good books’. The keen readers spent last Saturday petitioning outside Dalston Public Library against the reducing of library opening hours. ‘We grew up surrounded by book’s and the local library is very important to us’ says Tom. His brother agrees. ‘The library is an important local resource and it would be a crying shame if it had to close like so many other local libraries.’ The twins who are both final year students at Broder8ck Gale Sixth Form College collected nearly 400 signatures including that of their mother Irish (39), to whom the boys credit for their love of literature. ‘I’m very proud of the both of them,’ she said.
The photo took up about a third of the front page of the Dalston Advertiser, was slightly out of focus, gigantically foreshortened and showed Robin and Tom clutching stacks of books and framed in the neo-classical entrance to the library. Tom was standing directly in front of a bust of Shakespeare, and the wreath of laurel appeared to be resting on his own head. The books had been plucked at random from the shelves and the only visible title was Silas Marner, a volume which Robin had dismissed as ‘total crap’ after failing to get past page twenty for GCSE.
Alison, whose submitted report – concise and racy – had been completely ignored in favour of the
confabulations that accompanied the photo, had been straightforwardly delighted by the feature. Iris had mixed feelings.
‘But it’s on the front page,’ Alison had pointed out. ‘A feature about library cuts on the front page.’
It had certainly caused a stir at the surgery; Ayesha had spotted it first, and been unflatteringly astounded by the twins’ appearance. ‘But they’re totally nothing like you,’ as she’d put it, several times. She had made photocopies and pinned them on both the staffroom and waiting-room noticeboards, the latter with a thick accompanying arrow pointing to Iris’s name (the h crossed out), and the words ‘OUR PRACTICE MANAGER!!!’ written in the margin.
‘I don’t think she ever really believed in the twins until she saw the photo,’ Iris confided to Spencer one lunchtime, as they ate their sandwiches in a corner of the staffroom. ‘She thought it was a little fantasy of mine.’
‘Something to fill in those empty hours when you’re not at work?’
‘That’s right. She looks at me differently now – as if I’ve suddenly become fully visible. It’s quite disconcerting.’
‘Have any of the patients said anything?’
‘Oh yes, everybody says I must be very proud.’
‘Of the both of them?’
‘Of the both of them,’ she agreed, gravely.
‘And aren’t you?’
She hesitated, grappling with unworthy emotions. ‘I am,’ she said eventually, ‘but it seems so unfair. Alison and I worked so hard for those signatures. And the last book Tom read voluntarily was Teddy Bear Coalman.’
Her irritation was compounded a fortnight later when the boys received a letter informing them that they had each been nominated for a Dalston Young Citizens award, consisting of a certificate and £50 cash.
‘I hope you’ll spend it on books,’ she said rather crossly, and was rewarded with loud laughter.
‘You’re jealous, Mum.’
‘No I’m not. I just think you’re operating under false pretences.’
‘We’re not,’ said Tom, all injured innocence. ‘We think the library should stay open, don’t we Robin?’
‘Yeah. Just as long as we don’t have to go there.’
