Striking a Balance

by Curtis, Norma

  ‘Larry,’ she said, ‘it’s not the worst idea in the world, but you need to be available if something comes up.’

  He was still gripping her with his cold hand and he pulled her with a jerk to emphasise his words. ‘Meg, James said the best time of his life was when he looked after the girls. I need something to do, I need a job. I can look after Bill — it makes more sense than being here all day with nothing to do except duck and dive to keep out of Ruth’s way. I can take him to the playgroup, the same as Ruth does. There are other parents at the playgroup. I’d have a role.’

  Megan stared at him. Bloody James, she thought, putting ideas into his head.

  Larry looking after Bill? In business terms, let’s face it, if she had to interview Larry for a job as nanny there was no way she would take him. He had no qualifications and no previous experience in the field of childcare. He was not overtly child-friendly. He spoke to all children as though they were deaf. He disregarded mealtimes and when they went out he usually ordered something inappropriate for a three-year-old and finished it off himself.

  She tried to flatten the puckered hem, smoothing it with her finger. At best she would say that somewhere deep inside him there was some innate paternal instinct but the bottom line was that he didn’t really know Bill. He’d never had a chance to. He’d seen more of Bill in the last few days than in the whole of the previous three years. Even then he’d been protected by the buffer of Ruth.

  She freed her left hand from his and rubbed her forehead. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ she said at last.

  ‘Meg, I’m his father.’

  ‘What about Ruth?’ she said.

  Larry shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her we can’t afford to pay her while I’m at home.’

  Megan felt the beginning of panic. ‘But it’s not true,’ she said. It was too sudden for her, far too sudden. Bill loved Ruth. Ruth had been with them since she was seventeen and she was practically one of the family; she didn’t want to lose her. Not until Bill was old enough not to need her, anyway.

  Larry got up from the table. ‘Not yet. But before long it might be.’ He put the breakfast bowls into the sink and began to wash up.

  She saw him hesitate, bring something out of the soapy water and clear the suds from it with his hand.

  It was large knife. For a moment she wondered if he was checking whether it was clean. Then she realised that he was looking at his reflection in it.

  What had he said? I need a role.

  He was seeing himself as a composite of all the role models that the cinema had come up with in recent years; he was living Mrs Doubtfire, Sleepless in Seattle, Jack and Sarah, all rolled into one. For Larry, she thought, looking after Bill was not a job, it was a new part.

  She could understand it, put like that; but it didn’t make her feel any easier about it.

  She could see Bill’s drawing on the table with Thomas squashed up in one corner and a large area of blue in the other. There was one boy Larry knew who could do with seeing more of his parents — oh yeah? Bill was just fine with things as they were.

  Of course, Bill’s welfare came first, and Bill’s happiness was all tied up with theirs. But Larry as nanny?

  There was suction and a gurgle from the sink as the plug was pulled out.

  That was Larry, proving himself on the domestic front.

  It was Bill who spoke next. ‘Can I have some more paper?’

  ‘Can I have some more, please,’ Larry said over his shoulder. Bill smiled benevolently.

  He loved his father.

  ‘Yes you can, Daddy,’ he said.

  Megan ignored the triumphant look on Larry’s face. My son!

  Ruth was staying, she told herself. Larry’d had it. For all their sakes, but mostly Bill’s, she wasn’t going to be talked into this one.

  PART THREE - Three’s a Wedding

  13

  The following weekend, Megan, Larry and Bill were waiting with the other wedding guests in their cocktail dresses and black ties outside the Chelsea register office for Lydia and Charles to reach their slot on the list of early-evening marriages.

  ‘When all the parties to divorce and remarriage are being adult about it, what is wrong with the ex-husband turning up at his ex-wife’s wedding?’ a friend of theirs asked Megan. ‘Well, what?’

  Megan smiled. ‘It’s very civilised,’ she agreed, although it was an adjective she’d never thought of using to describe James. ‘And actually, he’s only been invited to Charles’s, afterwards.’

  As they stood in the fading sun James Wilder’s name seemed to be on everyone’s lips. Strange, that, that the possibility of his coming could cause a stir. But if he were coming he should have been here by now, she thought. Yes, she’d checked, same as they all had; and felt, over and above the relief that there wouldn’t be a scene, a vague disappointment at the thought he might have changed his mind.

  Lydia and Charles were in with the registrar and after a few minutes of their absence there was movement in the direction of the area where the wedding ceremony was to take place.

  As Megan went into the airless room and moved along the rows of chairs, she hit unexpected pockets of perfume from the yellow roses and white lilies which had been tastefully arranged in strategic positions, presumably, she guessed, by Lydia.

  Should have offered to help, she thought as they sidled into their seats. It seemed a sad thing to have to do on one’s own. However, the idea of Lydia arranging her wedding flowers alone did not sit right; she would have roped Charles in at the very least, and probably Charles’s mother. Or more likely still, a florist.

  I feel like this, Megan thought, shuffling down the row, because in a way I’m jealous. I would like to have left a layabout husband — not Larry, of course, but a husband in the abstract — and taken my child and found a rich young man who would have me, and not only have me but marry me. And despite the angst of a broken marriage and a still besotted ex-husband, Lydia was bound to look stunning.

  Finally the three of them reached the end of the row and sat down. ‘Have you got the camera?’ Megan asked Larry, leaning over Bill.

  Larry patted his pocket and didn’t answer. He was looking towards the door, seeming distracted. Bill was wriggling on the seat next to him, trying to see past the people in front, who were still deciding on which seat to sit on. Every now and then he tugged at the brass buttons on his navy blazer and Megan put her hand out to stop him.

  ‘James won’t come,’ she said, smoothing her blue satin dress further towards her knees in the interests of decency. Before they’d started out, Larry had done a double-take and said he could see the shape of her nipples through it. Once he would have said it without the least sign of disapproval.

  ‘He’ll come. He said he’d come and he will.’

  ‘He might come drunk to show how upset he is. It won’t go down well with Lydia but if he doesn’t go too far it might get him the sympathy vote.’

  Larry turned his head sharply towards her. ‘Why do women always think like that? As if everything’s always stage-managed?’

  ‘It usually is, that’s why. A man wouldn’t attend his wife’s wedding to someone else just to throw earth on the coffin of their marriage. If he didn’t love her it would be different, he could come to enjoy himself.’ She knew Larry seemed to think it was some last noble gesture. ‘So unless he’s going to look so unhappy that Lydia can’t go through with it I can’t see the point.’

  ‘Can’t you? It’s called being civilised. It’s what women decided they wanted in a man, remember?’

  Megan laughed but stopped as the room went suddenly quiet. She raised her head and saw James Wilder in the doorway. Wow, he’s here,’ she whispered unnecessarily.

  Even at a glance James looked more like the groom than a guest. They watched him walk his nonchalant walk to the centre of the room — a few yards at most, but far enough for them to see what they were dealing with. He looked li
ke a man who had been liberated. He looked like a man who had lost everything and was exulting in the fact that he had nothing left to lose. He looked, above all, dangerous.

  Larry made to raise his hand in greeting as James stood with his back to the mahogany desk, but James was surveying the gathering with unhurried attention and Megan felt Larry’s hand drop back down again, leaving James unhailed.

  She watched James’s finger and thumb curve round his fourth finger, as though feeling for a ring that should be there, and she felt an unexpected rush of lust. His dinner jacket, black bow tie and white shirt contrasted with his tan and he looked, yes, he looked noble. He’d done it. He’d shaved, and his blond hair was brushed back from his lean face and no one looked less likely to get a sympathy vote than he.

  Megan saw the woman in front of her wriggle discreetly in her seat and she grinned. Good old James, she thought. It was the best poke in the eye ever. As far as looks went, Charles Black could never hope to compete.

  She wondered whom exactly he was looking for, standing there with such authority, and she dared to believe it might be her. Suddenly James’s gaze locked with hers. She felt an uncomfortable jolt shoot through her and she looked away, as though she’d been caught out doing something she shouldn’t. Almost immediately she looked up again and straightened in her seat, but his eyes had already left hers, and gone on along the row, searching and silencing with a look.

  Something caused James to smile. His smile always seemed like something he chose to put on rather than a response to an emotion. But there was something about him which made her always want more of him. He made her think of the darker things of life; danger and decay.

  Of course, that was why Lydia had divorced him. Lydia had divorced him on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour.

  Surprising, that, as she’d married him on those grounds too.

  The room around them rustled slightly and settled again into stillness, as though it was generally assumed that James was about to break all tradition and choose the pre-wedding interlude in which to make a scene.

  In the deathly quiet they waited expectantly.

  Finally he said just one word.

  It was a brief word, spoken conversationally, which Megan, to her disappointment, didn’t catch.

  There was a general stir as those who hadn’t heard tried to find out what he’d said from those who’d heard, and during this stir he walked down the centre parting of the chairs and took a seat somewhere behind them.

  ‘What did he say?’ Megan whispered to Larry.

  Bill leaned towards her over Larry’s knee helpfully. ‘Chewits,’ he said.

  Megan looked at Larry. ‘Chewits?’

  ‘I think he said Judas.’ Larry rubbed his jaw and looked at her. ‘I mean,’ he said uncomfortably, his voice so low she could hardly hear it above the growing hubbub, ‘look at us. We were all there when Lydia married him, and now we’re here to watch her marry Charles. Interchangeable spouses.’

  Megan was silent for a moment. ‘It’s called serial monogamy,’ she said.

  Larry shook his head and cupped his hands to her ear. ‘Cereal monogamy’s having All-Bran again,’ he whispered.

  Megan giggled and Larry grinned at her and she felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

  Maybe he did say Chewits, she thought. It wasn’t fair of James to try to make them uncomfortable; they were on his side, after all.

  There was a small commotion in the corridor and Lydia and Charles made their entrance at last, but owing to the puzzle of James’s brief speech it was some moments before they were generally noticed.

  As they all settled down again Megan looked at Lydia’s hair. It was so short and bulbous and yellow that it looked like a cycle helmet. Her dress was clingy and green, cut on the bias, and it swirled out around her knees, leaving just enough fabric for her embarrassed daughters to hide behind. Megan’s allegiance was firmly with James. Karin and Jen, despite their long dark dresses, were startled to see so many people looking at them in the small room. As Lydia and Charles sat at the mahogany desk, their backs to the guests, the girls squeezed themselves with their bare arms.

  The registrar suggested in a monotone that they shouldn’t take these vows lightly. Megan wondered if it was because of the girls that he emphasised the word ‘these’.

  Megan looked at the dazzling yellow roses and the creamy, scented lilies and wondered what the sight of his mortified daughters was doing to James.

  *

  The reception was held at Charles’s flat, now Lydia and Charles’s flat, on the tenth floor of a penthouse overlooking Lord’s cricket ground.

  It was all very civilised, Megan thought, putting her bag on the windowsill.

  The spare room was full of presents and Larry disappeared for a while and came back looking flushed.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘He’s got some hash brownies,’ he said. ‘He’s handing them round now.’

  ‘Before the vol-au-vents? Lydia’ll go nuts.’

  Megan, was caught by the arm by another friend who was knitting anatomically correct dolls and could do hair on men’s bodies with mohair. ‘I do it from life,’ she was saying, and when the waiter, or butler, came around with a tray of champagne Megan took two, telling the knitter that one was for Larry and then absent-mindedly sipping both.

  By the time the speeches began, the brownies had done the rounds and there was a certain amount of heckling. A man appeared with a basket on his head and disappeared into another room.

  Charles stood in front of the cake with a glass in his hand. ‘I want to thank you all for coming to celebrate our marriage,’ he began.

  Lydia was standing slightly behind him, her green dress clinging to her slim body in the way only a great designer, or static, could achieve. Her cycling helmet of hair was flawless. Her eyes met Megan’s and she gave her a swift, warm smile, which Megan was too late to return.

  As Charles’s speech continued, Lydia began to look slightly bored. She checked her watch.

  Megan was getting bored, too. She looked round for Larry and James, who had disappeared once more. She was glad Larry was doing his duty so diligently. She could see Bill still tugging at his brass buttons, but the bridesmaids, Karin and Jen, were feeding him crisps, so he was all right.

  The next moment, she spotted Larry. He was sitting down, his chair pulled closely to James’s. Between them was a worn garden ornament.

  She glanced at Charles, who was still going strong, and eased her way through the group of people to Larry. As she approached, she recognised the ornament as being one of James’s malformed Venuses.

  ‘But they haven’t got a garden,’ she said, her words drowned out by cheers, possibly of relief, as Charles’s speech came to an end.

  James ignored her, and stood up. ‘I’ve got a present for you, Lydia,’ he announced, and with a heave, lifted up the concrete statue.

  The small group that stood between them parted.

  Lydia stared.

  ‘Remember when we made them? Remember how we felt?’ James’s strong voice hushed the general conversation.

  ‘Yes,’ Lydia said, smoothing her hair. She bit her lip. ‘Young and stupid.’

  ‘We’re ready to cut the cake, darling,’ Charles called to her cheerfully, waving the knife and working on the assumption that if you pretended not to notice anything was wrong, then it wasn’t.

  Lydia ignored him and kept her eyes on James. ‘Behave yourself, James, and take that lump of concrete out of here,’ she said. Her voice was low and deliberate.

  James was beginning to show the strain of holding, as Lydia put it, a lump of concrete. Perspiration was breaking out on his upper lip and the veins in his temples were standing out like pieces of discarded string. It was obvious he couldn’t last much longer. ‘It’s a reminder of the good times, Lydia,’ he said, gritting his teeth.

  ‘There weren’t any good times, that was the problem.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Get him out o
f here, Charles! If he’s going to crack up, let him do it in his own place.’

  ‘Mummy!’ one of the girls said, shocked.

  The statue began to wobble violently in James’s arms as though her words had taken the last of his strength away.

  Charles made his way to Lydia’s side, looking anxious and wondering what was expected of him.

  Megan could see the statue begin to topple.

  She wasn’t the only one aware of the danger — there was a light, brief squeal from somewhere behind her. ‘Larry —’she shouted quickly, and Larry suddenly sprang forwards and put his shoulder under the bottom of the statue, steadying it, taking the weight. More hands came forward to help and together they all lowered it onto the carpet.

  ‘Out!’ Charles shouted, coming to the conclusion that words spoke louder than actions.

  Larry and James staggered towards the door with the Venus, got it out into the corridor and leaned on the wall, panting. After a moment, Larry pressed the button for the lift.

  Megan, hovering in the doorway, looked over her shoulder towards Lydia. She wanted to say something, to tell her she’d missed her, to apologise, and to say she’d had no part in the Venus affair — but Lydia had turned away, presumably to cut the cake.

  She went quickly back inside for Bill. Karin and Jen gave him some grapes to eat in the taxi, and kissed him goodbye.

  ‘What are you going to do with Dad?’ Karin asked Megan softly.

  ‘Give him a ride home, I suppose. If it’s left to them, they’ll probably go for a curry afterwards.’

  Karin nodded, and gave a sad, half-smile. ‘He’s not that bad, you know. He can’t help being who he is.’

  ‘I know. Most of the time, you admire him for it. Not many people remain themselves against the odds.’ Megan kissed them on their freckled cheeks and went back out with Bill.

  James had the lift door wedged open with his foot. The sweat was shimmering on his lean face.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Megan asked him, squeezing up to the statue in the small lift.