Lifesaver

by Voss, Louise

  ‘Why are you crying?’ She sounded harsh, but I could tell she was concerned. ‘Has something happened?’

  I couldn’t talk. I tried to hold my breath, but it burst out of me in jerks. ‘I miss you, Vicky, that’s all, and I’m worried about you. Please, can’t we put this behind us? It’s your life. You have to do what’s best for you. I’m sorry if I interfered.’

  There was a long, long silence. In the background I could hear Pat chuntering away to himself, and the theme tune to the Tweenies.

  ‘I miss you too, Anna. And it’s not that I don’t understand why you feel so strongly about it.’

  ‘Peter was round here last night,’ I said, even more relieved, but feeling as if I was treading softly through a minefield.

  ‘What did he want?’ she asked in a panicked rush.

  ‘He’s worried about you.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. Although I can’t believe he hasn’t guessed. How many weeks are you now?’

  ‘Eight and a half. Maybe nine. So what did you tell him?’

  I swallowed my envy of the casual way she didn’t even know exactly how many weeks gone she was. With all of my pregnancies, I’d counted towards the so-called ‘safe’ twelve weeks, day by day, practically hour by hour. Never achieved it, though, apart from with Holly.

  ‘He thought that the reason you’re so down is because of our row. I told him that it was probably more because you’re so tired and stressed, looking after the kids. I suggested he got you some help. Or helped you a bit more himself.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Thanks. I expect that went down like a lead balloon.’

  ‘You’re welcome. And no, I don’t believe I am your husband’s favourite person…So you’ve decided to keep the baby, then?’ I couldn’t hold the question in any longer.

  Vicky tutted, loudly. ‘I didn’t say that, did I?’

  ‘Sorry. But you’re still pregnant.’

  ‘Yes. Mainly because I don’t get the opportunity to put my make-up on every day, let alone arrange a major surgical procedure without the knowledge of my husband.’

  I bit my lip so hard that it bled. As much as I disliked Peter, he had a right to know, but I couldn’t risk pointing it out to Vicky. Thankfully she decided to change the subject.

  ‘So what have you been up to in the last couple of weeks?’

  Suddenly the enormity of what I’d done began to sink in. It was insane: I, who had spent years regaling Vicky with the minutiae of my life and emotions, right down to the most tedious little details, was now faced with the choice either of having a total change of character, becoming monosyllabic, secretive and unforthcoming—which she would assume was me sulking over her pregnancy; or else having to spin an elaborate web of deceit, dropping imaginary names of cast and crew members, having to elucidate on the finer points of my soap alter-ego’s misadventures, describing my life down in—where the hell was I meant to be filming? Oh yes; Bristol.

  I’d have to come clean and tell her. Ken, bizarrely, would be easier to fool because he neither watched soaps nor was particularly interested in the specifics of my days. He was very much a ‘right here right now’ type of person, and never really thought about anything which didn’t directly involve him. It made him sound selfish, but he wasn’t; just focussed. He couldn’t bear people telling him their dreams, for example; so the notion of him remotely giving a damn about the plot of a cable soap opera - even one starring his wife - was risible.

  But I didn’t feel back on a strong enough footing with Vicky to explain about my deception, and about Max. Not yet, I thought. And I couldn’t tell her the lie either, because if she believed I had a job it would make her even more dissatisfied with her life as a reluctant stay-at-home mother. I had to trust that Peter was fairly unlikely to mention it to her—I very much doubted that I was a topic of idle conversation in their household.

  ‘Not much,’ I said vaguely. ‘The usual. Oh, I got involved in a community mosaic project, which was kind of fun. Got me out of the house, anyway. And—‘ I rushed on, lest she were about to ask for details—‘I’m seeing Lil later today. Things are fine with us now. Haven’t seen a lot of Ken, though, as per usual. We’re…trying to organise a holiday, but it’s proving difficult to get a clear space for it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Vicky. ‘Crystal! Don’t bash the remote, you’ll break it. Crystal!’

  ‘Well, I’ll let you go, then,’ I said uncertainly. ‘Can we meet up soon? Why don’t we organise dinner later this week, just you and me. Get Peter to babysit, and we can have a proper chat over a bottle of - oh no, you can’t drink, can you?’

  That’s torn it, I thought, regretting the words immediately. I hadn’t meant to sound censorious, and I’d actually been thinking about the fact that she was still breastfeeding, rather than that she was pregnant, although I knew right away that she’d see it as another veiled criticism. Sure enough, I heard the heave of a long-suffering sigh.

  ‘Yes, Anna, actually I can drink if I bloody well feel like it. I have few enough pleasures as it is.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘Listen, I’ll call you if Peter’s got a free night next week, OK?’

  ‘OK. Take care. Let me know if I can do anything to help in the meantime.’

  ‘Bye, Anna.’

  Bet she doesn’t ring me, I thought disconsolately. When I turned back round, I saw next door’s cat, a huge ginger beast with mean eyes, just finish licking out my cereal bowl, and it made me unaccountably furious. ‘Get lost!’ I shouted at it, throwing a little clod of earth at it. It bolted away with a yowl, and I gathered up the bowl and phone and trailed back inside.

  I had said I’d visit Lil, although what I really wanted to do with my day was to go to Gillingsbury. But I thought I’d better wait until the dinner next Saturday night. I couldn’t just lurk around Max’s house, and now the mosaic project was finished, I didn’t have any other excuse to be there.

  Or did I? A surge of energy flooded into me as I realized that, since the previous night’s conversation with Ken, the groundwork for my life away from home four days a week was now laid. And it would only be convincing if I actually was away from home for four days a week. Wow. I’d really done it. I’d been focussing so much on the pain of lying that I hadn’t considered the freedom that the lies represented. I knew I had some money in a savings account, a few thousand pounds that my grandmother left me in her will, that Ken was either not aware of, or had forgotten about. I could rent a place in Gillingsbury! Maybe not the house in Wealton I’d concocted—too expensive, probably—but what about a studio flat there? Do some art courses during the week, or force myself to take up tennis so that I could get good enough to play against Ken, or just do a lot of jogging around country lanes. No responsibilities, other than watching some minor daytime soap and assigning myself a character from it, so that I’d be able to talk about my ‘part’ with authority when called upon to do so. Somehow it seemed a life more purposeful than if I’d done the same thing at home.

  Living in this house, I realized, had not been conducive to moving forwards. How could it have been, when everything was subtly focussed on regret and disappointment? It infused the air, tinging all Ken’s and my conversations and putting pressure on both of us: him, in the bedroom, and in the sheepish turn of his key in the door after yet another sixteen hour working day; me, in trying to fight the emptiness that nothing seemed able to fill.

  It could be my fresh start. It would be like separating from Ken to ‘find myself’, without Ken ever even knowing! What he didn’t know, he couldn’t be hurt by—and in the process, I’d be near Max. I would reinvent myself as a successful, strong, single woman, living the life I wanted, under my own terms. Have a few adventures. Make some new friends; not just Adam, either, maybe some new girlfriends.

  My new resolve made me feel happier, more so than I’d felt for months, and I bounded up the stairs two by two to get
dressed and head out. Maybe there’d be time for a quick coffee with Lil, I thought, before I headed off to Gillingsbury to start registering with estate agents.

  Chapter 21

  I drove down to Gillingsbury, visited every estate agency I could find, and viewed three properties: a flat above a bookies’ (too seedy); a studio in a converted church (too small); and a place actually in Wealton, a first floor flat overlooking the duckpond (a definite possibility). It was a start.

  When I got home again, I hid all the property details under the mattress, and rang Adam, on the spurious pretext that I was checking to see if the group dinner was still happening that Saturday. I’d felt irrationally disappointed that I hadn’t bumped into him or Max as I’d trailed round after Josh the agent in his too-big grey suit and bum fluff. At first, an answerphone message clicked on, and my throat tightened to hear Max’s little voice on the tape: ‘I’m too busy playing to come to the phone. Leave us a message instead’ - but before I could speak, Max was cut off and Adam’s voice interrupted with a brusque ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi. It’s Anna.’

  I paused, testing him, waiting for his own pause: the furrowed brow that could be sensed through a phone line. But he didn’t fail me, he jumped right in without hesitation, and it gave me a wriggling sensation of pleasure in my belly:

  ‘Anna! How are you? Lovely to hear from you.’ It was in his voice, that certain tone that you only heard when someone fancied you; a smiling warmth that screamed I REALLY LIKE YOU. I realized, with something approaching horror, that the same tone was in my own voice. I also realized that it had been a long time since Ken had spoken to me like that.

  ‘Great. I’m fine. Thanks. How’s Max?’

  ‘Oh, full of beans. Back to school this week.’

  Then, something happened: we started talking. From a tiny acorn of small talk I suddenly felt as if I were standing beneath the great leafy branches of an oak tree of real conversation. In twenty minutes we’d encompassed Max; the vagaries of infant school library book selection; Mitch’s unenviable personal habits; the mosaic panels; the state of art education in the country as a whole; the state of the British theatre; my “new job” on the cable soap and Adam’s impressed congratulations. Each new branch growing seamlessly from the trunk of the call.

  Without noticing, I’d taken the phone through to the living room and was lying sprawled out on the sofa, my leg hooked over the back of it, utterly at ease. I heard the unfamiliar sound of myself laughing, and imagined in my nostrils the sweet earthy smell of Adam’s hug from the other night. Uh-oh, I thought. I’m in trouble here. I could have talked to him all day. Part of me started to worry that I was keeping him from something more important, while another part of me started to worry about how much I wanted another of those hugs.

  ‘Right. Well, I suppose I’d better let you go. I was just ringing about—‘

  ‘Anna, I know I’ll see you at the weekend, but we might not have much of a chance to chat at the dinner, so I wondered - would you like to go out for a Chinese, just the two of us, some other night? Next week, maybe?’

  ‘Yes please,’ I gabbled instantly, as if I was playing Snap and had to speak really fast or else I’d lose my stack of farmyard animals. I was blushing, and forced myself to uncurl my toes inside my shoes.

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I said more slowly. I’d have to tell him that I only wanted to be friends, but that was fine. I was very out of practice at reading the signs—perhaps this was all Adam wanted too.

  Then I remembered our hug again, and the way he’d looked at me, and thought, yeah, right, pigs might fly, right off the back of the Snap cards…

  What I actually meant to say was: ‘it was kind of you to ask, and I’ve really enjoyed our chat, but I’m involved with someone.’ ‘When and where, then?’ I found myself saying instead.

  ‘How about the Chinese in Crane Street. A Taste Of the Orient, it’s called. I could book us a table for next Monday, at eight o’clock?’

  ‘Great. Well, I’ll see you on Saturday anyway, but I’ll look forward to Monday too. Thanks for the chat.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he replied formally, but still with the smile in his voice. ‘Thank you.’

  And I was grateful for the chat, I realized. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d enjoyed talking to anyone as much. About real subjects, too, not just about what was going on in Coronation Street, or what Ken was doing at work I hung up feeling more cheerful than I’d felt in ages, and wondered if I’d be able to get an appointment to have my hair trimmed and blow-dried before the big night.

  Just as I was lifting the receiver to call my hairdresser, the phone rang again. It was Josh, the baby-faced estate agent.

  ‘I wondered if you’d made any decisions yet,’ he mewed. ‘Only there’s another party very interested in the flat in Wealton you liked so much.’

  I didn’t believe him for a moment; he sounded so piteously needy and unconvincing. But I thought again of the flat, its bright windows overlooking the village green; the duckpond reflecting the quiet blue expanse of open sky.

  ‘Why not?’ I said, as much to myself as to him. ‘It’s available right away, isn’t it? I’ll call in first thing tomorrow to sign the contract and sort out the deposit.’

  Chapter 22

  The mosaic project dinner in Gillingsbury that Saturday night was a first for me, on many levels. My first social engagement as Anna Valentine; tenant of a small chintzy one bedroom flat next to Wealton’s absurdly picturesque duck pond. My first few days away from home; my putative first week on my new job. It had all been much easier than I could have anticipated, too. The trials of my current existence which I’d so bitterly bemoaned—the row with Vicky, Ken’s work-related travelling, my inability to find an acting job—all transformed themselves from negatives to positives, turning themselves inside out and giving me a surprisingly glorious feeling of liberation. I’d really done it! And it was going to be fine. If Ken ever found out, I decided I could explain it away as a deep desire for change in my life, which I hadn’t wanted to undertake at the expense of any inconvenience or worry to him. Heaven knows he worried about me enough as it was.

  I had ‘moved in’ on the Thursday, a day after Ken flew to Singapore. He knew he could reach me on the mobile, so he hadn’t even asked for my new address, although I’d told him that I’d found digs on the outskirts of Bristol. Easy. The flat was furnished, thankfully inoffensively, so I didn’t need to take much, and I didn’t take anything which Ken would have missed; just some old crockery and cutlery, spare bedlinen, towels, toiletries, and a suitcase of my clothes.

  The only thing which marred my enjoyment of the process was not having anybody with whom to share it—Lil had been the obvious candidate, since Vicky was clearly unavailable, but, although I’d seen her (Lil) the day I first looked at flats, and wanted to tell her the truth then, I had instead trotted out my cable soap story. In the end I’d decided that it was better if absolutely nobody knew. It was the only way I could be sure that the secret remained under my control, and besides, I had an uncomfortable feeling that she wouldn’t have condoned such a deep level of subterfuge.

  By Saturday morning, I felt really at home. I drove the two miles into Gillingsbury and went to the market, where I was entranced by bargains such as ten large waxy oranges for a pound, a bunch of astonishingly fragrant pink roses for four pounds, and a whole slew of cleaning materials for less than a fiver. I made conversation with at least six Gillingsbury residents, all wearing - despite the warm early-September morning - anoraks of varying decrepitude and sludgy nylon colours, and who all said ‘Oooh, Wealton? It’s lovely out there,’ or ‘An actress? Have you been on the telly?’

  Finally I treated myself to a cut and blow-dry in the local hairdresser’s, since my regular London hairdresser hadn’t been able to fit me in at such short notice. The stylist, Denise, somehow managed to give me a bit of a beehive, but it was nothing that putting my hair up in a ponytail for the rest
of the afternoon hadn’t remedied.

  Then I drove home again, arranged the oranges in a fruit bowl, the roses in a vase in the window, and made myself a large avocado and tomato sandwich from the still-warm bread I’d purchased. I felt very pleased with myself. So pleased, in fact, that I kept laughing out loud at the sheer outrageousness of what I was doing. My downstairs neighbour met me as I was coming in chuckling to myself, and clearly thought I was somewhat deranged. She was an elderly lady called Dora, with a tiny head perched on a large ungainly frame, and she walked with her neck stretched forwards all the time which, in combination with her permanent smile, made her remind me of the Bear in the Big Blue House, a benign grizzly character off one of Pat’s favourite TV shows.

  Still, I later realised, she had been in no position to say anything about anti-social behaviour. Her two huge dogs barked and howled like the hounds of the Baskervilles every morning until she took them out—it was probably why my rent had been so reasonable. It shattered the calm of the village green for ten minutes a day and scared the ducks rigid, but I found that I didn’t really mind. Ten minutes wasn’t the end of the world, and I wasn’t there all the time anyway.

  By Saturday afternoon, I’d had a call on my mobile from Ken, who promised to send me a postcard from the Raffles Hotel if he got the chance to go there, and grunted that he had no idea whether Singapore was nice or not since he’d spent the entire time in a conference room. Oh, apart from one afternoon on the golf course. He had asked how rehearsals were going, and seemed perfectly satisfied when I replied that it was all fine, the digs were great, my landlady was called Dora and had two large smelly dogs which barked a lot; the cast were lovely except one frosty old battle-axe called…alerie (I fished the name out of nowhere)… who thought she had the lead role even though she only had a bit part as my character’s senile grandmother.

  Whilst Ken and I had been talking, I ripped the cellophane off a packet of index cards I’d bought in the Gillingsbury WHSmiths, and wrote on the top one: DORA-BIG DOGS—LANDLADY; and on the one underneath: VALERIE—FROSTY-BATTLE-AXE - THINKS SHE’S THE DOG’S BOLLOCKS, PLAYS MY GRANDMA. I loved index cards. Sometimes I wished my whole life could have been mapped out by terse commands on index cards; they just seemed so authoritative. The modern equivalent of injunctions carved on stone tablets…or perhaps not. But I did find them so reassuring.