by Mason, Carol
‘Well, personally, I’m very glad I was a complete ambitionless no-hoper because this ambition business just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.’
She laughs finally.
~ * * * ~
Sunday is Lawrence’s fortieth birthday. We’re all invited to a barbeque at Leigh’s. ‘Oh Christ, do we have to?’ Rob groans. It’s funny how after all these years our husbands have nothing to say to each other.
‘I’ve got this really bad toothache…’ Wendy says, when I ring to make sure she’s coming. I laugh. ‘Oh come on now you’re playing silly beggars. She said she put it in capitals for a joke!’
‘Oh.’ She flattens. ‘You talked to her about it?’
‘Well she never brought it up –’
‘Well of course she wouldn’t. Not when she knows she behaved rotten.’
Shit. ‘Wendy, honey, you know… I think it’s time to put this baby to bed.’
‘I didn’t get the wrong end of the stick Jill,’ she says flatly. ‘She was annoyed. The face doesn’t lie. Even if the blocked capitals do.’
~ * * * ~
Leigh and Lawrence have a lovely home, a four-level Edwardian terrace that they bought for next to nothing, fixed up, and now it’s worth twice as much. The rooms are tiny and unusually-shaped, with uneven floors and high ceilings. And before you can climb the steep, narrow stairs you have to duck your head under a sort of hanging ceiling. Lawrence creatively attached a brass bar across it so that when you get to the bottom stair, you almost have to limbo under it. It’s cute. It has loads of character. But it’s a patient person’s house. As Wendy once remarked, perfect for some rather ‘with it’ dwarf.
Lawrence repetitively slaps the hamburgers.
‘Don’t do that, they’ll disintegrate!” Leigh barks at him. ‘Come grate some Parmesan cheese instead.’
Lawrence slinks away. He takes a bashing so well. I suppose having seven sisters he was sort of born for it. Leigh can never get their names straight. When she’s being particularly vicious she calls ‘em Happy, Sleepy, Dumpy, Dopey… Rob slaps Lawrence’s back as he walks past him. ‘No worries mate. I can’t barbeque either.’
Lawrence sends Rob a look of quiet humour. ‘Marriage is the process of finding out the kind of husband your wife would have preferred.’ Rob laughs. ‘I didn’t make that up. I read it in a book.’
Neil, who’s been leaning against the fence with a beer in his hand, volunteers to take over the barbeque. ‘You good at it?’ Leigh quips over her shoulder as she comes out and puts olive oil on the picnic table.
‘Me? Good? The best,’ Neil says, and Leigh grins at Wendy and me.
Maybe it’s just me, but whenever we get together there’s something a little bit painful in Neil’s attempt to appear at ease. I watch him standing there holding his bottle of Stella, the muscles in his forearms flexing as though even they feel the strain. Maybe it’s being an important detective; he can’t relax. As though Wendy notices it, she walks over to the barbeque, stands right beside him, their arms touching. Being a good foot shorter, she has to look up at him when she talks which appears sweetly idolizing.
‘Here,’ Leigh thrusts the Parmesan at Lawrence. ‘Do half.’ Molly follows her mam, singing and making scissor-movements with Barbie’s legs. Wendy’s lads sit on the patio steps, hunched over in mutual desire to send a signal that being here with their parents is too uncool. ‘Wend, give the lads a beer,’ Leigh tells her.
Wendy looks lovingly at her lads. ‘I think they’re okay.’ Paul, the cheeky one, says, ‘No we’re not. Speak for yourself.’
‘You’re not, son?’ Wendy rubs Paul’s shaved head with its zigzag lines that match the ones in his eyebrows. ‘No, you’re really badly done to, aren’t you? I’m just a really horrible parent, aren’t I?’ She looks up at Neil proudly, but Neil is watching Leigh walk out from the house holding two bottles. Rob is watching her too, noting the denim miniskirt. He’s already told her she looks great, although later he’ll probably tell me she looked like mutton dressed as lamb in that skirt. That’s Rob: master of insincere compliments when he’s got nothing else to say.
‘Here,’ Leigh thrusts the beer at the lads. ‘I can’t have them thinking we’re a bunch of geeks now can I?’
The lads’ faces light up. ‘Right on there Leigh man,’ says Paul.
Leigh’s studying gaze moves between the two lads, who look almost identical, and so much like their dad. I wonder, reading her expression, if she’s thinking of her own twin. If she’s thinking that somewhere out there is another woman who looks just like her, maybe even thinks just like her, only this woman wants nothing to do with her.
Ben looks up and grins with triumph at his mam.
‘There you go,’ Wendy says, deadpan. ‘My lads now think my best friend is cooler than their mam. It’ll never do.’ Her hands lock around one of Neil’s forearms.
Leigh takes her eyes off the lads and looks sad for the briefest of moments. Then she turns and sees Lawrence grating Parmesan for England. ‘That’s enough!’ she grabs the bar off him.
‘What else would you like me to do?’ he says as she chortles at him.
‘Book yourself in for a lobotomy,’ she mutters, her eyes smiling at me and Wendy. And then she tells him, ‘You could top our glasses up. But first go see if Rob and Neil want another beer.’
‘Great idea.’ Lawrence pops a kiss on her, then gets right onto that.
How does she act so normal? I watch her sail around her kitchen assembling food. She’s got it down to an art. It’s almost pathological. From time to time she catches me watching her, sends me that secretive, defiant, this-is-all-bearable-because-of-HIM smile. Call me old-fashioned but it seems hypocritical putting on a big ‘do’ for your husband while you’re rogering somebody else’s. I said to her the other day, ‘You’re not really going to have a big knees-up for his birthday are you?’ She looked at me like I was quite mad. ‘Why not? He’s not dead, is he?’
I go back to watching Rob now, without him knowing I’m doing it. A sudden thought hits me about him. Yes he’s lovely, and yes if I met him for the first time today, I’d be attracted to him.
I think.
I’m actually not sure.
I get the urge to relieve Lawrence of a bottle of beer and take it outside and plant a desperate kiss on my husband for that unkind thought I just had. So I do. ‘Thanks, treasure,’ he says, as I give him the new drink, and he chinks the bottle to my wine glass. Then with a wink, ‘For the kiss too.’
‘So what did you buy him then Leigh?’ Wendy comes back into the kitchen looking curvy in white Capri’s, white runners, and a black cap-sleeved T-shirt that shows off the lovely worked-out V of her bicep. ‘I mean, other than the underwear.’
Leigh looks momentarily confused. Then she grins, sends me a close-call smile. ‘Oh! Botox.’
‘Botox!’ Wendy nearly chokes. ‘But he hasn’t got wrinkles!’
Leigh tuts. ‘It’s not for his face, is it. It’s for his feet. You can use it to stop sweating. Didn’t you know?’
‘No!’ we both chorus, and she gives us a look that says we have to get with the times.
Lawrence comes into the kitchen, smiling benignly, and Leigh says, ‘Shush! I’m giving him his gift later.’
‘Later?’ Lawrence glances from his wife to us. ‘What do I get later?’ By his face, it’s obvious what he’s hoping for.
‘The burgers are about ready. I take it we want them well done. No salmonella,’ Neil cocks his boyish face and platinum hair around the door, and smiles at his wife. The sleeves of his gunmetal grey shirt are rolled up and his stainless steel watch beams from a suntanned arm. He looks almost funny doing something domestic. His out-of-placeness makes him look effortlessly fanciable.
‘I love samon-ella!’ Molly chirps, going over and hugging her mam’s backside.
‘No sweat pea. You love salmon. That’s a bit different.’ She grins at Neil.
‘I may have to go in for a little
procedure,’ Wendy says, as she watches Neil go back outside.
Leigh stops stirring risotto and we both look at her. ‘On your tooth?’ she asks her.
Wendy glances at me, half-smiles. ‘No. Not on the tooth. Actually the tooth’s fine now.’ She tops up her wine glass. ‘It’s nothing really. I had my smear and they’ve found abnormal cells.’
My heart sinks. ‘Abnormal?’ I say as Leigh fires, ‘You’ve not got cancer!’ Her sledgehammer tact!
‘No, I don’t think it’s cancer. But I have to have this procedure, something called a colposcopy. It’s a type of microscope that gives them a better look at the cells.’ Her gaze shifts out of the window, to where Neil is tending to the burgers.
‘My God,’ Leigh and I say in unison. All that fuss she made of this silly SABOTAGE business, when she knew she had far bigger things to worry about!
‘It’s most likely nothing. Lots of women have abnormal smears don’t they?’ she snaps her attention back to us. But beneath the bravado there is something vague and unconvincing about her.
‘Well, how do you feel?’ I hope she doesn’t think I’m prying.
She shrugs. ‘Fine. But I’ve been having a bit of breakthrough bleeding. That’s why I went for a check up.’ Her mam died in her forties from some sort of female thing, I forget exactly what. My heart flutters with dread.
‘Don’t you have regular smears?’ Leigh asks, agog.
She shakes her head. ‘I hate people messing on down there.’
‘But you always said you went!’
‘That’s because you two do, so I lied.’
Leigh looks at me. I sink into the chair at the kitchen table. ‘Does Neil know?’
She shakes her head again. ‘I’m not saying anything until I’ve seen the specialist. What’s the point in worrying him?’
‘Because he’s your husband, Wendy,’ I tell her. And she looks at me, as though to say precisely.
We eat at the picnic table under a loganberry tree. Leigh and Lawrence’s back garden is full of climbing wisteria and hidden paths and birdbaths, thanks to Lawrence’s eye for design. Wendy’s news has put me off my food, and Leigh doesn’t eat much either, although I suspect for different reasons. I happen to look over and catch her off in space with a wistful look on her face, and I think Jesus can’t you think about anything but yourself just for two minutes? The conversation inevitably comes round to the murder at the university that Neil was interviewed on the North East News about. I watch Wendy watching him as he talks, how her eyes comb over him, in that interested way you might study a person you don’t know very well. ‘Well as far as I see it, Neil, there seems to be two truths,’ I hear her saying. ‘What the police are saying, and the media are reporting.’ I still can’t believe she’s never told him about her health. Rob would be the first person I’d tell if there were anything wrong with me. ‘I think you’ve had too much wine,’ I catch his response, which comes off so harsh, like a put-down, and wish I hadn’t missed what they’re talking about, because now you could cut the atmosphere around the table with a knife.
It’s a very lovely meal. After it, Leigh materializes from the kitchen, carrying a two-tiered iced cake, a bewitched smile on her face. ‘Ta-da!’ she and Molly sing. ‘Happy Fortieth Lawrence!’ Leigh pipes. And Molly bursts into a soprano chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to You!’
~ * * * ~
It’s here. This weekend. July 22th. Our tenth wedding anniversary. Rob will get me a card. And on it he’ll write the original, thoughtful sentiment: Happy Anniversary, Love Rob. Two years running he’s given me the exact same card: a watercolour of a vase of flowers. (Could have come from the Sympathy section). I’m certain he must have just dug it out of my drawer and stuck it in a new envelope. When they don’t make much effort you start matching their behaviour, thinking things like: If he came in with a big bouquet of red roses, I’d come down to breakfast in a garter and suspender belt. But it never happens. And it’s far easier to blame Rob for not taking the initiative than to actually take it myself. Sometimes it all just feels like a synonym for trying too hard. My nagging must have penetrated though, because for my birthday he got me the dog. I’m certain it was to ensure I’d never ask him for anything again. But this year is different. I’m giving it my all. Ten years deserves nothing less. Rob deserves nothing less. I keep thinking of him kissing my little picture.
I have it all planned. I’m going to pick him up after work, whisk him away to Bamburgh for two nights at the Coach and Horses Lodge where we spent our honeymoon. I’ve even booked the same room. I’ve splurged on an expensive bottle of champagne, a new dress for when we go out for dinner, and a sexy nurse’s outfit because he once said that he wished I’d buy one. I was trying it on in The Pervy Store, and the fire alarm went off in the mall. There was me, running outside in fishnets and white vinyl mini-skirt with a scant red-cross nipple-revealer for a top. Got some very strange looks off people, and the firemen had a field day. Anyway, I’ll probably feel a real wally in it but I’m giving it a go. I’m trying my hardest not to think the words Last Ditch Attempt.
But I swear as I was shopping for the dress I was looking for something I could wear if I go back and see Andrey. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was mid-aisle then did a sudden shift-of-mission, and made right over to Wheels and Doll Baby—Clothes to Snare an Affair, (my version of its tagline). And I found just the top. It gave me cleavage on my cleavage and a thoroughly whittled waist. I got it to the till when I was hit with The Great Big Guilt Attack. The assistant was holding out her hand and could not pass the thing over. I stood there, mouth open, frozen, clutching my solar plexis. Her eyes looked deep into mine, as though she knew. ‘You’re not going back,’ I thought she said. ‘You’re right. Honest. I promise. Never again,’ I said. Then she looked at me funny and said ‘Eh?’ And I looked at her funny and said ‘Eh? What does Eh mean?’ She snatched the top off me. ‘I said do you want me to put it back?’
Before I whisk Rob off for the weekend though, I pay my mam and dad my regular visit. When I walk in their door, I’ve obviously just missed some big eruption because I can feel the desolate wake of it in the air. My dad is stooping to pick up bits of broken teapot. A harrowed, pathetic little face looks up at me, eyes sunken in head. ‘I don’t know what I said to upset her. She was fine one minute, then she started saying how I’d taken her pension money, I was stealing off her.’ He wipes the back of his hand across his brow that has broken out in a fine sweat. ‘I said don’t be daft. Why would I steal off my own wife? But she said I had some other woman. I tried to tell her not to be ridiculous. But she wouldn’t see it…’
I know this is the hard part for him; he knows he can’t reason with her because she is past that, yet the stupidity of some of her claims makes him feel he has to try. ‘I told her I wasn’t listening to this, I was off to make a cuppa tea, but she followed me in here, took the teapot off me, dropped it.’ He mimics dropping something from up high. ‘You should have seen the temper on her face.’ He shakes his head, disbelievingly, sadly. ‘She loved this teapot. Had it for years. Remember how she kept gluing the handle back on?’
‘I loved that teapot, Dad. It seems like it’s been in this family longer than I have.’ My dad puts his head in his hands and I hear a tiny whimper come out of him.
‘Oh, Dad!’ I go to cuddle him, but he flaps me off.
‘Stop that. You’re making me sweat.’ He wipes at his eyes. Together we pick up bits of broken brown ceramic, like chunks of a kid’s smashed up chocolate Easter Egg.
‘It’s only stuff, Dad. Just stuff. It should have been binned years ago.’ I’m just saying this to make him feel better, but we all know I’d never have thrown it in the bin. If there were one thing I could have taken from this house when the time comes for everything to go, it would have been that teapot. My dad stares intensely at the ground, fresh tears poised on his bottom lid. ‘I know, love. I know.’ But he doesn’t know. None of us knows anything anymore. We sit down at th
e small Formica kitchen table.
‘Dad…’ Now is as good a time as any to bring this up, I suppose. “I’ve been looking into care homes that’ll take her for a weekend. Just like a little holiday –’
‘Holiday?’ His sad eyes bore into mine. ‘You want to put her in a nut home? Would you go in a nut home for a holiday?’
‘But Dad, it would just to be –’
‘Oh Dad!’ he mimics my voice. ‘Rob and me aren’t going to Spain this summer, we think we’ll go in a nut house instead!’
‘Dad!’
‘Holiday!’ he practically spits the word at me. He gets up, throws a hand in the direction of the front door. ‘There’s the door. Walk though it. Don’t come back. You’re no daughter of mine.’
‘Okay. I’ve got the point. Now you’re being ridiculous!’ I get to my feet. ‘All it would be is for the weekend. To give you some time off. Nobody’s suggesting—’
‘- I don’t need time off. I’m not in the army. I didn’t marry her to abandon her in her hour of need.’ He sinks down into the chair again. I stand there and watch him hold his head in his big, upturned hands, his elbows up by his shoulders, bony fingers clutching either side of his skull. ‘Once they get their hands on her she’ll never come home. I’ll never see her again.’ His voice is staggered with anxiety.
I keep standing there looking at him and I don’t know what to say. Because part of me knows he’s right. We stay like this in silence for moments then he looks up at me. ‘I’m telling you one thing and it’s final, she’s not going anywhere!’ He’s annoyed now. ‘I’ll tell you another thing if you like. If she goes, I go. So think about that.’
