The tops of my legs, the legs that Fergus used to love kissing, have grown thick and round and my feet, which swelled in size during the last stages of pregnancy, have never returned to their normal size. I tip my head back and squint, looking at the blurred image of the woman opposite me as objectively as possible. I’m not obese, I’m not revolting to look at. I just have the body of a woman who’s gone through something remarkable – but somehow none of that comforts me. Whenever Fergus tries to touch me, all I can think about is the way I must look to him now compared with the way I first looked that night I undressed for him in his Docklands flat. It’s a tragedy that never once in my adult life have I believed that I looked any good, never once. I really wish that I’d appreciated the old me back then instead of always trying to be something I’m not. Now I just want to be something I was.
Knowing me then and wanting me then, how can Fergus possibly still want and desire me now? How can he? Someone who didn’t know me before, someone like Gareth, might see me as soft and curvy, sexy in a different way. But Fergus married a different woman, and that woman seems to have gone for ever. He says he stills loves me and I don’t doubt it, but when he says he still wants me I just can’t believe it.
I look at myself in the mirror and I can’t believe it.
Chapter Thirteen
The Sunday that Fergus had to go into the office was sunny but blustery with swooping gusts of wind whipping the trees back and forth. When he’d gone I took Ella to the local park, more a square of grass, really, with some swings and a slide boxed into one corner, and as we swung back and forth together I thought of my old local park with its ponds and fountains and its birds and baby deer and I thought that not everything in this town is better than home, not everything by a long shot. I whiled away an hour window shopping and staring in estate agents’ windows, trying to guess how much our house might be worth now, and then with Ella fast asleep I went back to Fergus’s dark house, echoing with emptiness, where I watched TV until I fell asleep. Anything to avoid making those party phone calls. The very last thing I felt like doing was partying.
Fergus was in before six, but I couldn’t bring myself to be pleased to see him. I’d watched the clock tick the precious hours away until he’d be back on that train again, hours I knew we should be spending talking, laughing, maybe even making love, and I stayed as far away from him as I could, leaving him alone, tired of trying to make it up to me and angry at my refusal to relent. Now it’s Monday, and neither Mr Crawley nor Gareth is here to avoid, so I relent finally to the inevitable and pick up the phone. I try Camille first but find she’s got a week’s leave, so I phone her place.
‘Hullo?’ A deep American accent greets me after I dial Camille’s number.
‘Alex! Hi! How are you? Back in London, obviously?’ I laugh nervously.
‘Hi, Kitty, really good to speak to you!’ Somehow Alex manages to sound sincere. ‘Yep, I’m here for a whole week, so Camille’s taken some time off work and we plan to just hang out and enjoy our time together. How’s your little one?’
‘Fine,’ I say breezily. ‘Listen, is Camille around? I just want a quick word. I won’t keep her too long, I promise.’ I picture Alex, an improbably handsome airline pilot who looks rather like Denzel Washington and Will Smith rolled into one, and I feel guilty for intruding on their precious time together. From experience I know that a week for them to spend together is a rarity, and here I am about to unload at least two hours of my worries on to Camille. I can’t do it to her, it’s just not fair.
‘Hi honey, what’s up?’ Camille says cheerily.
‘Oh, nothing at all really,’ I lie. ‘Actually, bloody Fergus’s bloody mother has talked me into having a sort of party next weekend. I can’t think why I agreed except it was a serious case of emotional blackmail over my failure to plan a christening, and I was sort of hoping you could come down. It’d really make things easier for me if you were going to be there?’ I ask, trying and failing not to sound too needy.
‘Oh yeah, love to. Is that all?’ Camille says brightly, obviously keen to be off the phone. ‘Of course I’ll be there. Alex goes back to the States on Friday so sure I’ll be there, only I can’t really talk now, Kits. You understand, don’t you?’
I know that if I pushed the point, Camille would shut the bedroom door and sit on the end of the phone talking things over with me for as long as I needed her to, but I don’t even bother to tell her about my part in the musical because I know how much she wants to be off the phone.
‘Okay, well, have a lovely week! I’ll call you Friday,’ I say, and we say our goodbyes. Putting off the inevitable, I dial Dora’s work number. A slightly tetchy sounding colleague picks up and informs me that if she knew where Dora was, she’d be having words with her herself, and that if I did speak to her could I remind her about her verbal warning? I choke her off in full throw and quickly dial Dora’s flat, glancing at the clock as I wait for it to ring. It’s almost eleven; she must surely be up by now. If she’s not, what does it mean, where could she be? I blink away an unwelcome image of her cold and sprawled across her kitchen floor. I’m just about to hang up when she picks up.
‘Mmm?’ she says, sounding groggy.
‘Dora, it’s me. Did I wake you? Did you forget the weekend’s over? I just spoke to your work, they’re not best pleased.’
There’s a long pause and I can hear extensive rustling going on.
‘All right, Kits, yeah, you did wake me, but never mind. I feel like shit. I’ve got a … a hangover like you wouldn’t believe! Can’t make work today, no chance,’ she says as if the last few months have never happened.
‘Hangover?’ I say, trying to sound casually breezy. ‘Are you drinking again? On a school night?’
Dora belches in my ear.
‘Oh, well, yeah, but only lager. It doesn’t really count, honest, and, well, I don’t know, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be to stay clean, so I figure a little drink and a spliff now and then can’t hurt, can it? It can only help me relax, actually.’
I listen intently to the tone of her voice, trying to pick up on anything that might give me a clue as to what she’s really thinking. When it comes right down to it, I don’t know enough to know if what she’s doing is okay or not. I don’t know if she’s just getting back to the normal life that most of are allowed to enjoy, or if she’s beginning to find her way back into smack again.
‘So, what do NA say about it? It’s normal, is it, to do this?’ I get the feeling that Dora isn’t listening to me and for a moment I wonder if she’s passed out. ‘Dora,’ I say loudly, my voice tinged with panic. ‘Listen to me, are you okay, are you really okay?’
‘Yes! I’m fine!’ Dora laughs. ‘Look, I’m not going back there again. Not ever. I’m fine, I promise. In fact, you know that bloke I was shagging? The really dumb one? Well, he’s next door right now with a stonking morning hard-on just waiting for me to sit on it!’
I laugh with her, but frankly the last thing I need right now is such a vivid picture of her sex life.
‘Well, I’m glad he’s got something going on that will keep you amused. I won’t keep you, I just wanted to tell you that we’re having a sort of party next weekend. Camille’s coming down; will you? I mean, it’s only for the baby, it’s not a real party or anything. Frankly I’d rather wait until she’s one, or at least christened, but it sort of got taken out of my hands. Fergus’s mum will be there and I’m inviting Dad. You can bring thingy, stonking hard-on, if you like.’
There’s a pause during which I’m not exactly sure if Dora is still on the line.
‘Dora?’ I say impatiently.
‘Sorry. Bruce is tempting me. Yep, next weekend. I’ll be there.’ Suddenly the old Dora phases back in. ‘So you’re asking your dad? How do you feel about that?’ she asks bluntly.
I briefly consider if she really wants me to tell her right now, or if she really just wants me to get off the phone but is trying her muddled best to be a
best friend. I decide on the latter.
‘Oh, God knows,’ I say. ‘Look, call me in the week for a proper chat, okay? I really need to talk to you.’ I feel my estrangement, both physical and emotional, from my oldest friend keenly.
‘Okay, love, I’ll call you, I will,’ Dora says. ‘We’ll talk, I promise.’
I hang up the receiver and stare at the phone. I’m not really sure that I should be organising a family party when Fergus and I are in the middle of, well, whatever it is, but I can’t really think of anything else to do and now there’s just one person left to call. My dad.
I count the number of rings as I wait because I know from experience that my dad won’t pick up the phone unless it’s rung at least sixteen times, on the grounds that if someone really wants to talk to him they will wait. On the fourteenth ring I fight hard against the impulse to hang up, and again on the seventeenth and eighteenth ring. On the nineteenth he picks up.
‘Eight-eight-oh-nine-nine-four-seven-oh?’ he says as if he’s asking a question he doesn’t know the answer to.
‘Daddy, it’s me,’ I tell him as brightly as I’m able.
‘Kitty! Well, my.’ There’s a long pause. ‘Well. It’s so nice to hear from you.’ I just know that even now he’s dabbing at his eyes with a hanky. ‘And how is everything? How’s that little girl?’
A peculiar mixture of guilt and anger wells in my chest. I feel terrible for not seeing him for so long, and furious that our relationship is so fragile.
‘She’s wonderful. She wants to see her grandpa?’ I say questioningly, taking a deep breath. ‘Listen, Dad, we’re having a bit of a get-together next weekend, a few friends and family. You can come if you want to?’
I know that he would never countenance going on public transport on his own, so as an afterthought I say, ‘Fergus could pick you up and you could stay over and he could take you back the next day.’ There, I’ve done everything I can. When he turns me down now it won’t be because I haven’t really, really tried, it’ll be because he’s too much of a coward to come and I won’t have to feel bad about it.
‘Oh no, dear …’ he begins.
‘Right, well, never mind,’ I say quickly, hiding my relief and disappointment, but my dad jumps in before I can say any more.
‘No, I mean yes. I’d like to come, but don’t worry about Fergus coming to get me, I’ll come on the train.’
I stand stock-still in disbelief.
‘But Dad, you haven’t been on a train on your own in … I can’t remember when. Are you sure you’ll be okay?’ Maybe he’s on some new kind of pill. Ecstasy, maybe.
‘Yes, Kitty, I’m fairly sure I’ll be fine. I’ve been going to a club, a sort of bereavement group.’ Mum died twenty-three years ago! I want to scream at him, but I bite my lip until it hurts. ‘And I’ve met someone there who lost someone violently, like we did. She’s opened my eyes a bit, made me see how much I was missing out on. What with all these pills, how much I’ve let you down, and myself. She said maybe that was why you never really bothered with me. Anyway, I’ve spoken to the doctor and he agrees with me – I’ve started to cut down my dose …’
The stark reality of his words hits me in the chest.
‘Dad! That’s not true, it’s just I …’ The sentence hangs in the air. I can’t find a way to finish it.
‘Look, not to worry. The main thing is I’m fairly sure I can make it to you on the train. It must be your mum, getting you to phone. I’ve been wanting to talk something over with you but was finding it hard to get up the courage to call you. But it’s all arranged. Must be your mum.’
I hold on to the receiver silently. When I should be feeling joyous and happy at his attempts to change his life, I find that his words fill me with a futile sense of dread.
‘And maybe Fergus’ll meet me at the station?’ My dad fills the silence and I snap out of my reverie.
‘Yes, yes, sure,’ I say, and then on impulse, ‘why don’t you bring your friend?’ I really have to see this woman, I have to see in person anyone who in the space of a few short weeks has got my dad out of his flat and even contemplating coming off the pills. And maybe if she’s there he won’t want to do this talking to me thing.
‘Well, that’d be lovely. I’ll ask her. I’ll find out some times and call you back, okay?’
‘Okay, Dad, bye then,’ I say quietly.
‘Bye then, love,’ he says cheerfully.
I sit and stare at the phone for a while.
‘What do you think, Mum? Do you think he means it?’ I say out loud. Mum never answers and leaves me to ponder the question on my own.
With all of my phone calls made and all of them different from the way I imagined them to be, I go back to the bedroom and sit on the bed. In the last few days I’ve begun to realise that I’m not the person I thought I was any more, and I don’t know yet just exactly who it is I’m supposed to be.
Last night, after Fergus and I went to bed without exchanging more than two words, I tried to remember Mum and Dad arguing, or if they had had a long period of spring frostiness like Fergus and I have begun to experience. I can’t ever remember them raising their voices to each other. That doesn’t mean they didn’t talk in angry whispers behind closed doors, or that maybe, like Fergus and I going to bed last night, they sometimes didn’t talk at all.
For the first few years after Mum had gone, Dad and I didn’t argue, not once. So many people had told me I had to be ‘a very good girl for Daddy’ that I’d taken it totally to heart. I never played up, not with him. They’d offered us a new place then, a house in Essex, but Dad hadn’t wanted to go, he’d wanted as much as possible about our lives to stay the same. Although nothing ever could.
I’d walked to school with the kids from two doors down, with my own key on a multi-coloured shoelace round my neck, and when I got in I’d do that day’s tasks against a background of cartoons, Grange Hill and then Nationwide till my dad came home, and it was like that day after day, week after week. And then, I remembered, when I was eight Dad got us a colour TV for Christmas, as a surprise. They were expensive then, and he must have been saving for months in secret, he must have been thinking for weeks about how excited and delighted I’d be to finally get a TV like the neighbours. Christmas morning I got out of bed as usual, and as usual we prepared our cereal, and as it was a holiday and because we always gave presents after lunch, we went to switch the TV on straight away, to watch the Christmas service. Dad sat smiling at me and nodding at the TV, raising his eyebrows in anticipation until eventually I asked him, ‘What? Do you want your present now?’
His face had fallen and he’d shaken his head. ‘It’s in colour, it’s a colour TV!’ he’d sighed and slumped back in his chair. ‘I thought you’d be so pleased!’
I’d frowned at him and then looked back at the screen, seeing the unadjusted orange-tinted colours for the first time.
‘Oh, Daddy, it’s great! It’s better than Gary Anderton’s.’ I’d gone to him and climbed in his lap. ‘It’s because I always imagine the programme in colour, Daddy, that’s why. I just thought I was imagining it,’ I’d said to him. ‘It’s great not having to imagine it any more.’ And I’d put my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. It was too late; I’d disappointed him and the rest of the day was spent in silence. That was the nearest we came to arguing, perhaps because he became gradually more withdrawn and silent, less of a father and more of a flatmate. It wasn’t until I hit my thirteenth birthday that we really started to argue, and then it was all one-sided. Suddenly angry and scared, I started shouting at him, screaming at him, over every little thing until eventually he didn’t even bother to respond, because by that time he was gone.
Gareth hefts his kitbag on to the kitchen counter and looks at me.
‘Where’s Ella, then? Never tell me she’s in bed already and its not even seven?’ I smile wanly and pull myself up on to a chair.
‘She’s been asleep since five,’ I tell him with a sigh. ‘This
means she’ll be up by ten and then up all night. I thought babies were supposed to just fall into a routine. I mean, I’m trying, but it never seems to happen …’ I sigh again and look at the clock. Fergus had told me he wouldn’t be leaving work until gone nine. Mr Crawley had been round for a cup of tea, but he’d left an hour ago and I had sat idly listening to the radio, watching Gareth build my gazebo, not able to muster the energy to actually go and talk to him, feeling that I was so out of practice that I might actually have forgotten how to.
‘Working late today?’ I say at last as he washes his hands and face in the sink. He flicks his hair off his damp face and wipes the water away with his fingers.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t charge you extra.’ He looks at me and reflexively I brush my hair off my face and straighten my back a little. ‘Are you okay?’ he says with a smile. ‘You seem a little down?’
I wonder what he sees when he looks at me now, what he thinks. I wonder if he really cares, or if it’s his famous empathy, aimed at a woman who might be vulnerable, may be open to suggestion. And then I decide that I don’t care. I’m not as naive or as hopeful as Clare, and right now I don’t care why he is listening to me, just that he is.
‘No. No, I’m okay really,’ I say before contradicting myself. ‘I mean, I’m fed up with being alone. I know that I have Ella, and that you and Mr Crawley are usually around, but it’s not the same as having a proper adult companion even so, and I feel alone. I don’t think married people should feel that way, should they?’ I glance at the clock. At least three more hours until Fergus gets in. I’ve been here before not so long ago, and not so long ago I decided definitively that I shouldn’t go here again. But I also decided then to make the most of my life with Fergus, to put energy and effort into ‘us’ – except that Fergus is never here and that seems to be impossible.
After Ever After Page 21
