Striking a Balance

by Curtis, Norma

  He lifted a strand of hair that was half shielding her eyes. ‘Mirrors? We’ve got them in the dressing room.’

  ‘Women like to be watched, they’re used to it, but they don’t like watching. Especially themselves. Women are tactile, they like to shut their eyes and feel and be dreamy and close in the dark.’ She knew. Oh yes, she knew.

  ‘Not you, though,’ he said.

  ‘No, not me.’

  Gerry let himself fall back on the pillow. ‘You’re right, though. Zelda would be worried about her cellulite,’ he said. ‘She hammers away at it every morning with one of those Vtiooden mallets that looks like a meat tenderiser.’

  ‘That’s probably what it is,’ Lisa said, and gave a short laugh.

  Gerry rolled over on his front and folded his arms and rested his head on them to watch her. His eyes were steady, almost wary. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, ‘but I love Zelda.’

  Lisa smiled and stared at the ceiling. The reflections of the crystals skidded and danced. They were like fairies. She used to pretend that was what reflections were, once, when she was small, after her brother was born. She used to make wishes to them that he would disappear and that she would have all the love for herself again.

  She could still feel his baby flesh pinched between her fingers, his scream almost drowning out her mother’s yell. ‘I’m loving him,’ she’d said, all of a panic.

  She’d pinched people with the same excuse ever since.

  He reached out to her, sliding his hand down her body. ‘But that’s grown-up stuff.’ He grinned and she could see the wetness of his tongue between his teeth. ‘And this is fun.’

  She’d heard it, she thought as he lowered himself on top of her, called just about everything, all the bad words, all the good words.

  ‘It’s not fun, Gerry,’ she corrected him. ‘It’s business.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he said without a pause.

  She shut her eyes, arched her back, panted, gasped for him almost automatically, hardly having to think about it any more.

  She could see herself in the mirror as objectively as if she was watching a film. A man for business and woman for pleasure, she thought. She was not a participant at all. Staring at her reflection she could see her own cellulite, even; probably every bit as good, as bad, as Zelda’s.

  Gerry’s breath was hot in her ear, penetrative, and she moved her head away. Gerry slowed the pace. ‘Am I going too fast for you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Ridiculous question. The quicker the better. She stared at herself in the mirror, her lipstick all worn off, and she thought of her brother, his little mouth like a leech, sucking his mother’s love away. She shut her eyes. Gerry came to his silent climax and held her tight and in the compressed circle of his arms she began to relax.

  Suddenly his pager bleeped.

  He sat up. ‘Wouldn’t you know it,’ he said, ‘wouldn’t you know it. She had a thirty-six-hour labour last time.’

  ‘Good timing, then,’ she said as he jerked his trousers from the back of the chair. ‘Gerry, you can ring her from here.’

  ‘Where’s the phone?’

  She jerked her thumb.

  ‘I can’t ring without my jocks on. Where are my jocks?’ He was on the floor, feeling under the bed, and she watched him calmly.

  ‘Try down the leg of your trousers.’

  He pulled them on and dialled the number. Zelda’s not the only prude in the family, she thought, watching him.

  ‘Gerry Colgin. My wife’s just — oh, a girl? Yes — yes — yes. I’ll be right there.’ He put the phone down as though the news had come as a tremendous shock. ‘A girl,’ he said, looking at Lisa with shining eyes. ‘And it’s a smashing hospital, it’s like a hotel in there. She’s got her own mini-bar. They’re stitching her up at the moment.’ He hopped around in his trousers, one leg in, one leg out.

  She watched him, and herself, in the mirror. He’d almost forgotten her. He hadn’t even covered her with the duvet, he’d just left her lying there, cooling, chilling, abandoned on the bed while he got dressed. ‘Shirt’s on inside out,’ she said as he pulled on his jacket.

  He checked the front of it and looked at the buttons.

  ‘Joke,’ she said.

  He gave a laugh. He didn’t quite know how to leave.

  ‘I don’t usually do this kind of thing,’ he said. ‘If you’d gone to Zelda you probably would have got the job anyway.’

  ‘Or maybe not.’

  ‘No, maybe not. I’ll ring you.’ He hesitated, as though wondering if something else was expected of him.

  She looked at him with her cool green eyes. ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ He sounded half sad, half proud. He pushed his hands into his jacket pockets, hesitated, changed his mind, hurried out and was gone.

  After his excited activity the flat was very still and quiet. Business is business, Lisa said to herself. I pay my debts. She reached down for the duvet and pulled it up over herself, shivering.

  She stared at the reflections, at the fairies on her ceiling. Shouldn’t have wished so hard when young, she thought ruefully; shouldn’t have wished so hard.

  Now they all disappeared, the people in her life.

  The good ones and the bad.

  The Gerrys and the Chrissies.

  Whether she wanted them to or not.

  19

  The good news about Zelda’s baby — named Taylor — was balanced by the bad news, later that week, that BNM had approved the shortlist drawn up by Zelda and Lisa and that Larry wasn’t on it.

  He’d said little about it the previous night, but waking too early on a dull and blustery morning, Meg had turned to him in bed and found him staring at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, putting her warm hand on the matt of hair on his chest.

  ‘I’m old,’ he said.

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘Old and scared.’

  His tone of voice disturbed her and she surreptitiously glanced at the clock. It was ten to seven; nearly time to get up. Thankfully.

  The window was open slightly and the curtains flicked and snapped in the breeze. She used it as an excuse to get out of bed. As she closed it she looked out at the heavy, grey sky. It was like a bad mood over the house.

  It’s just the weather, she thought, hugging her arms.

  ‘My luck’s changed,’ Larry said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Luck’s nothing to do with it,’ she said sharply. ‘You make your own luck.’

  More silence from Larry. Don’t, she imagined him arguing inside his head. Do. Don’t.

  It was cold, for summer, standing there by the window, but she didn’t want to get back into bed and what did that say about her. She’d never gone out with lame ducks; she’d always looked for equals, able to stand on their own two feet. If she’d thought about it at all she’d seen it as a strength. But now she could feel Larry lean slowly but increasingly more heavily, weighing on her and weighing her down and she wanted to step away.

  Selfish.

  She’d like to tell him to pull himself together, to try another dose of the shotgun method, let people know he was still alive, kicking, going for it.

  She glanced at him. He was still looking at the ceiling with his dark, incurious eyes.

  There was a tap on the door.

  They shot each other a look and she grabbed her dressing gown with sudden animation and put it on hurriedly. ‘Come in,’ she said as she fastened the belt.

  Ruth was already dressed. She had her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and she looked purposeful. ‘Can I have a word?’

  Megan looked at the clock, confused. Seven a.m. ‘That clock hasn’t stopped, has it?’ she asked, but of course, clocks didn’t while away the last ten minutes if they’d stopped. ‘Do you want to talk downstairs?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it here if you don’t mind.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ Megan asked.


  ‘I’m handing in my notice,’ Ruth said. She tossed her head and her fair hair settled itself over her shoulder.

  ‘You want to leave?’ Megan asked, shocked.

  ‘It’s not because of Bill,’ Ruth said hurriedly. ‘I love Bill.’

  Oh yeah, were the words that leapt into Megan’s head. Try not to panic, she thought. She wants to leave. ‘Can you tell us why?’

  ‘It’s not working out, is it? Larry’s here all day and you don’t really need me any more. I’ve always had sole charge and it’s difficult with Bill now. He wants to stay with Larry and Larry doesn’t tell him I’m the boss, he just goes along with it. You know…’

  Megan turned to look at Larry. The suspicion that he might have put her up to it hovered, only partly formed, in her mind.

  Somewhere during the conversation, or perhaps when Ruth had first come in, Larry had propped himself up in bed. He had the blue covers pulled high under his chin as though protecting his modesty. His expression was blank. He looked at her suddenly and she looked away, back at Ruth.

  ‘And what about Bill?’

  Ruth didn’t look at all abashed. ‘He’s got Larry,’ she said, as though it was obvious. ‘You don’t need me.’

  The partly formed suspicion was solidifying rapidly. ‘Is this something you’ve worked out between you?’

  Oops, wrong, indignation from both sides.

  ‘But where are you going to go?’ Megan asked, thinking out loud, really, but this cry of puzzled concern, funnily enough, was the one to hit the mark.

  Ruth’s slender hands came out of her back pockets to rush and comfort and contort against each other. ‘I’ve been offered something else,’ she said after a moment.

  ‘Is it with that woman from The Bill?’

  ‘Oh, what does it matter?’ Ruth said, in sudden annoyance and frustration. ‘It wasn’t working out and you know it.’ Her eyes flashed angrily, but her mouth twisted in disgust. ‘You’re trying to blame everyone else, but really it’s you. You settled it.’ The tears sprang angrily into her eyes. ‘I don’t want to carry on working for someone who eats mouse droppings!’

  *

  ‘You’ll laugh about it one day,’ Larry said at the door before she left for work.

  ‘Don’t put money on it,’ Megan said moodily as she picked Bill up and kissed him on his soft, warm cheek. ‘You,’ she said to him, hugging him tight, ‘you’re the only normal one here.’

  Ruth was vacuuming the hall in an energy surge of indignation. And guilt. Ooah, ooah, roared the vacuum cleaner.

  Megan listened to it for a moment.

  Sod the mouse-dropping business, she felt sick at the thought of Ruth leaving. She imagined more upsets, more complications, the trouble of finding a new nanny they would all have to like and get used to. She’d have to do it soon. Larry would have to be free for interviews.

  Worst of all was the thought of how Bill would cope without his Zoofie. That didn’t bear thinking about.

  She hugged him again and reluctantly handed him over to Larry and looked outside. The clouds were dark, gathering themselves for rain.

  ‘We’ll have the house to ourselves again,’ Larry said quietly, looking at her meaningfully and raising his one and two halves of an eyebrow lasciviously.

  It was like Noah looking out and saying it was nice weather for ducks.

  She gave him a half-hearted smile. Truly an amazing recovery, she thought, for a man gripped with malaise at six-fifty that morning.

  She turned her collar up and hurried to her car.

  She bleeped the door open and sniffed. Larry didn’t have much to worry about after all. Despite everything, it looked as if he was getting lucky again.

  20

  Larry had decided to use the occasion of Bill’s birthday to tell their parents that for the time being he was looking after Bill.

  He and Meg had settled on that.

  Megan was all for finding someone else straight away, but he’d talked her into seeing that it made sense for him to do Ruth’s job. He preferred having the house to himself, just he and Bill, with no one to answer to.

  Megan’s reluctance was understandable — she wasn’t the kind to stay home herself.

  He was, though. There was something noble about a man and his son, womanless, at least during the day. He could see them bonding. Men had to bond. Women, of course, did it at birth, but men had to fit it in when they could.

  As he cleaned the light smear of grime from the green garden chairs he stopped to marvel at the fact that yet again Bill’s birthday was a sunny one. Funny that after four years he could remember them all perfectly, a thread of sunny days going back as far as the day Bill was born.

  He’d gone home in the early hours of that morning and after a few hours’ sleep he’d taken a cab back to the hospital. What a trip that had been; he’d never noticed the city so bright, the sky so blue, his vision so clear. It was not Bill but he who was seeing the world for the first time.

  Larry paused and looked at the dirty cloth in his hand. He rinsed it out in the white bucket, causing newly dead flies to bob and toss in the grey water. He squeezed out the cloth and went over the chairs again. They needed painting; the green gloss was beginning to flake and peel away.

  The cabbie, when he’d told him he’d just had a son, hadn’t charged him. So he’d had a free ride as well.

  He straightened up and rubbed the small of his back, which was beginning to ache. ‘Megan?’ he called towards the house. ‘Do you want the table doing?’

  ‘Yes, if it needs it,’ she shouted from somewhere above him. He looked up, narrowing his eyes against the dazzle of the sun on the paintwork. Megan was leaning out of the window. Bill popped his head up next to her to look out of the window too.

  Noticing the water in the bowl, he called down. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘You can do the table if you hurry.’

  Bill disappeared.

  Larry dropped his shielding hand. He was hot. He pulled off his white t-shirt and draped it on the branch of the sycamore tree. He picked up the bucket and took it into the cool house to fetch fresh water and when he came back out, Bill was waiting for him in his blue t-shirt and shorts. He was playing with his birthday badge: ‘4 today’.

  ‘Do you want to take those off to save getting them wet?’ Larry asked, putting the bucket down on the grass.

  Bill shook his head and crouched by the bowl, dabbling his hands in the water. ‘It’s cold,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The table only needs a wipe.’

  ‘How long is it until my party?’

  ‘Not long. An hour.’

  Bill got to his feet, held on to the edge of the bowl and jumped up and down with pleasure for a couple of seconds before the bowl tipped and flooded cold water over his feet. He gasped at Larry and Larry picked him up, holding him away from him as he felt the cold, wet feet dangling against his stomach. ‘Come on, you,’ he said.

  He could do with a beer. For fortification. He wasn’t at all sure how Bill’s two sets of grandparents were going to receive the news of his new job.

  *

  Larry’s parents arrived first.

  ‘Now where’s that birthday boy of mine?’ Larry’s mother asked.

  There was a giggle of excitement from the new Wendy house which had been put in the shade of the tree. ‘Boo!’ Bill popped his head out of the flap that was the door.

  ‘Timing hasn’t improved,’ Megan said.

  The doorbell rang and Larry went to answer it. James was standing in a pair of cut-offs, holding a bottle of champagne, a custom ever since Bill’s birth, when Megan had been the only drunk mother on the maternity ward.

  ‘Hello, James,’ Larry said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine,’ James said quickly. ‘Where’s Bill?’

  ‘Out in the garden.’

  James strolled through the house and out again.

  ‘Little pig, little pig, let me in! Let me in!’ he roared fr
om the garden.

  Larry could hear Bill’s squeals as he took a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and took off the foil and wire and eased the cork out. It popped and smoked a little and he took it back out into the sun.

  Megan’s mother and father had arrived and come round the side of the house. Megan was distributing glasses from a silver tray as evidence that their parents’ wedding presents were being used.

  ‘Everyone got a glass?’ He poured out six glasses and went inside for another bottle.

  The sun was hotter, and the leaves of the pseudo-acacia Robinia flickered bright green in the slight breeze.

  This was the pre-party get-together, to catch up on news and get it out of the way before the children arrived. They were talking about a cousin of his when his father diffidently brought up the question of jobs. ‘Jake said he’d put in a good word for you at his place if you’re at all interested.’

  ‘Oh, Jack — he doesn’t want to work there, do you darling? In a furniture store? Of course he doesn’t.’

  ‘It’s selling, all the same. It’s a job.’

  ‘Haven’t you been able to find him anything?’ his mother-in-law asked Megan.

  Megan looked up at her and didn’t answer at first. She glanced from her mother to Larry, looking into his eyes. He was dazzled by their blueness and looked away. ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ his mother said quickly. ‘There’s no point in rushing into things.’

  Larry took a drink from his glass and smiled. ‘I’ve got a job.’ He waited for the surprise to die down. ‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I’m going to stay at home and look after Bill.’

  In the background Bill was pulling the Wendy house towards the shade of the tree.

  His mother bent forward. ‘Why, darling?’ She received a look from her husband, and sank back into her chair, looking suddenly tired. Larry felt his father’s eyes on him.

  ‘Is it necessary? Is that what you want, David?’

  Larry picked up his glass again and looked at the champagne bubbles chasing upwards in fine strings. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is. It was my decision. I might be out of work for months — this makes sense.’