This Perfect World

by Suzanne Bugler

  Poor Mrs Hills has no choice but to agree, and it fills me with cold satisfaction to arrive early to collect Thomas on the Friday of that week and see Fiona Littlewood summoned in for a word. I would love, so dearly love, to hang around and see her face when she comes out again, but that would be too crass. I have to content myself with imagining it, and imagine it I do.

  I write a letter to the headmaster too, explaining my distress at my child being bullied so by the son of a governor, and also that a governor should abuse his position in such a way rather than remaining professional, and impartial, always.

  It works like a dream.

  Peter Littlewood is no longer a governor. I know this, because a note comes around asking for nominees for a new one.

  Soon afterwards, a note comes round looking for a new head of the PTA. Fiona Littlewood has resigned, in defence of her husband. The end-of-term celebrations are in chaos. I see Fiona standing, arms folded, in the playground at pickup time, with a look on her face like a pinched squirrel. It is not a look that Tasha would enjoy seeing over lunch.

  Am I a little over-the-top here, in doing this? Maybe.

  Does it make me feel any better? Yes, it does, a little, for a while.

  Now everyone wants to know why Fiona Littlewood has resigned from the PTA, and of course she isn’t going to tell them. So I carefully let it out that I know. It’s amazing, then, how many people suddenly want to talk to me again.

  I don’t tell them, though. I let them sweat. And I watch as they rush about the playground like hens, fevered up with speculation, busy jostling for position.

  Always jostling, jostling.

  And then I run into Tasha; she’s coming out of nursery with Phoebe, just as I’m going in. And in the second before she hides it, I see something like panic crossing her face. Like what does she do now? Ignore me, drag up the whole asylum-seekers thing again, or try to act like nothing’s happened?

  She makes a poor attempt at the last.

  ‘Laura, hi,’ she says, just so much friendlier than she’s been for a long time. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages.’

  ‘Well, no,’ I say, equally friendly back. ‘I’ve been very busy actually.’

  ‘Really?’ Tasha says. ‘What have you been doing?’ And it is so obvious that she thinks I can’t have been doing anything if I haven’t been having lunch and coffee with her.

  ‘I’ve been helping that family, you know, the one with the girl I was at school with. The one who had the mental breakdown. You remember, I told you about her?’ I say this straight, as if I expect her to remember, though it’s quite clear to me that she doesn’t. I mean, why should she remember something as unimportant to her own little world as that?

  ‘Oh,’ she lies. ‘Yes, of course.’ And then she starts searching in her handbag, and out comes my invitation to her party, at last. ‘I’ve been meaning to give you this,’ she says, presenting it to me like a prize. ‘Only I wasn’t sure if you’d want to come.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’ And I stick it in my bag and forget all about it.

  TWENTY-ONE

  They leave in dribs and drabs.

  Most of their stuff is for the bin: old sheets and bits of curtain kept just in case, endless odd mixing bowls and baking trays with literally decades of blackened fat crusted into the corner, school books and worn-out shoes and, would you believe it, Heddy’s old Brownie dress. There’s even an ancient suitcase full of Mr Partridge’s old trousers stuffed under Ian’s bed and forgotten about. I’m there when Mrs Partridge opens the suitcase up and finds them all; I hear her sharp, indrawn breath and the clatter of her teeth as her chin starts to wobble. And I see her face, raw with shock. She takes those trousers out, and she folds them again, smoothing them down with her brittle hands. And I think if it wasn’t for my being there as a misplaced witness, she’d be gathering them up in her arms and burying her face into their smell and crying.

  As I am crying, just having to watch.

  I try not to let her see, but all of this is heartbreaking. Seeing the way Mrs Partridge so carefully sifts through the hoarded-up scraps of her life, I realize that every frayed little bit is precious to her. Everything is a memory to Mrs Partridge. All this junk, all this rubbish . . . it’s her world.

  I want to help her, but what help am I, coming over with my Sainsbury’s boxes and saying you can keep only this much?

  Downstairs Heddy sits on the sofa in that hideous blue sack of a dress that is the only thing that fits her, with her hair looking as though it hasn’t been washed once in the whole week since she came home, and she watches TV. And when the TV is gone, she watches the space where it was.

  And Nathan, when he comes in from school, sits on the floor near his mother and watches her as if he doesn’t know quite what to make of her, now he’s got her back.

  Every now and again Mrs Partridge finds something upstairs that she wants to show Heddy. ‘Oh, look at this!’ she cries. ‘Heddy, it’s that old Christmas tree we had before we got the white one, do you remember?’ Or ‘Look, Heddy, here’s that hot-water bottle cover I knitted you because your feet got cold. Oh, look, Heddy, it’s still got the hot-water bottle in it, and it’s still filled . . .’

  Up and down the stairs Mrs Partridge scurries, bringing Heddy this thing to see, and that thing, and leaving stuff on her lap until Heddy is piled up like a jumble-sale table.

  And Heddy just sits there, and does nothing to help, and says not a word.

  We stack the boxes against the wall in Mrs Partridge’s bedroom, until there is barely room for her to get into her bed. She doesn’t want them in Heddy’s room in case it upsets her, though I don’t see why it would, and Nathan sleeps in the boxroom; no room in there for anything anyway, apart from his bed and the few clothes and toys upon the floor.

  Mrs Partridge’s room is Heddy’s old room – they’ve swapped around. They’ve swapped beds too, so that Mrs Partridge lies alone at night in a single bed squashed up against the wall, while Heddy gets the double in the bigger room, the better to take her weight.

  I wonder how Heddy feels, having to sleep in her parents’ old bed, the bed in which her father lay and coughed and slowly died. And it is the same bed, I’m sure. It has to be. It’s so old that with the covers pulled straight, as they are now, I can see how the mattress sags in the middle. And I see how Mrs Partridge sits herself down on the edge of the bed now, hands absently, lovingly smoothing over the blanket at her sides, as she looks around the near-bare room. How many memories can there be for her here in this one room? She sits with her thin shoulders hunched up slightly, and her head tilted to one side. Her eyes are glassy bright, and I look away and concentrate on stuffing Heddy’s old clothes into bin bags. Clothes that should be going to the recycling, but Mrs Partridge won’t hear of it. Mrs Partridge won’t go throwing away perfectly good clothes, no matter that they don’t fit anyone any more.

  ‘My Heddy was born in this room,’ she says suddenly and her voice wobbles over the words. ‘We would have gone to the hospital, but Mr Partridge was out working and we didn’t have a phone back then, and by the time I’d gone next door to use theirs, and by the time we’d tracked Mr Partridge down and called the ambulance – well, my Heddy was on her way by then.’ She laughs a fragile laugh as she speaks, but she’s sniffing too, and digging around inside her sleeve for a bit of tissue, which she rubs across her eyes with a trembling hand. ‘Dear, dear,’ she says, ‘look at me being all silly.’ And she stands up, shoving that tissue back up her sleeve and patting her hands briskly against her thighs before getting back to the sorting, the folding, the stuffing into boxes of all this musty, dust-covered stuff.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  We find Heddy’s old school reports. I can’t bring myself to look at them for even a second, and stick them in a box before Mrs Partridge sees them. And a photo, of all of us, in our last year of junior school. I know that photo. My parents have a copy of it. I’m there in the front row near the centre,
my blonde hair cut shoulder-length and tucked back behind one ear. Is Heddy in it? I guess she must be, somewhere.

  My throat is so tight I can barely speak. ‘Mrs Partridge, I really am so sorry . . .’

  ‘Sorry, dear?’ Her hands work fast, shaking out and folding, pulling off stray bits of fluff.

  ‘I’m sorry for all the times that I wasn’t nice to Heddy.’ What feeble words I use. ‘When we were children.’

  ‘Your parents have always been very kind to us, Laura, and for that I am very grateful.’

  ‘Yes, but I wasn’t kind. They kept forcing Heddy and me together and I was horrible.’ My heart is pounding. ‘Mrs Partridge, why did you never tell them what I did?’

  Mrs Partridge’s face is very pale, but there are two dark-red dots rising on her cheeks. ‘I’m sure your parents only wanted the best for you, Laura,’ she says. In her hands she holds a single blue woollen glove, from which she carefully unpicks a loose thread, and snaps it off, fast, between her fingers. ‘Just as I wanted the best for my Heddy.’

  And did wanting the best for Heddy mean accepting the kindness of my parents, in the hope that it was real? Kindness is never kindness if it comes at such a price.

  Why could we not just have kept well away?

  For a week, Ian chugs back and forth along the motorway in his van to take away the wardrobe, the boxes, the TV and the various carpets all rolled up like sausages, until the last day, when he makes several trips one after another, until there is nothing left but the sofa with Heddy sitting on it and the kettle and two cups. It is a Thursday; the schools have broken up now, and I am here with my children, to say goodbye. They’re out the front, playing on a mattress that’s been left for the council. And Ian and Mrs Partridge are outside too, trying to work out if they can squeeze the sofa into the van now or if Ian will have to come back for it, and there’s just me and Heddy left inside.

  The house smells strange now that there is so little in it. I mean stranger than usual, like it’s been flossed out like a set of dirty teeth. And the stains behind the furniture are so stark now they’re revealed, like yellow nakedness. Fluff clings along the skirting boards and it seems that you can hear the noise from right down the end of the street, now that the carpets have gone.

  Heddy sits there, and I wish I knew what she was thinking.

  I sit down beside her on the brown Dralon sofa and I say something stupid like Isn’t it nice to hear the children having fun? I feel so thin and insignificant next to the bulk that is Heddy, and I feel that anything I have to say will be thin and insignificant too. But I have to say something.

  ‘Heddy, I hope you’ll be happy now,’ I say, but even that has the edge of a threat in it. So I try again. ‘I really do wish you and your mum and Nathan every happiness. I really hope it works out well for you all.’ I sound so wooden. How can I ever find the words to say what I really mean?

  Heddy sits there, looking at her hands in her lap. Her lower lip is sticking out slightly, and there is just the faintest rise of colour in her cheek. I know that Heddy hates being looked at, and here I am, sitting gawping at her, searching for absolution. And of course I’ve seen her at her worst. I’ve come along like a voyeur at a freak show and seen her felled by drugs and misery, lolling in the prison of her own body, unable even to wipe the dribble off her own chin.

  My God, how she must hate me being here.

  Outside a car has pulled up. I hear the metal clunk of the door as it is closed, followed by Mrs Partridge’s high-pitched Oh, hello, and then a new voice, a man’s. The estate agent has arrived and they’ll all be coming inside in a moment to talk to me, because it’s me that will be dealing with things when the Partridges have gone.

  Suddenly, Heddy speaks. ‘I always hated living here,’ she says. ‘It just makes me think of my dad all the time.’ Her voice is low, quiet. She’s still staring at her hands and I can only just hear her. ‘And now you’re here, and that makes me think of your dad. Your dad loved you whatever you did. My dad went and died.’

  I don’t know what to say. Of all the things I thought she might home in on, it certainly wasn’t this.

  She turns her head to face me, but she can’t quite look me in the eye; instead she looks just past me, and it’s to the corner of the room, where old Mr Partridge used to sit in his chair. ‘However horrible you were, your dad still loved you. That time you fainted in the street and your wrist was bleeding . . . your dad picked you up and he carried you in here in his arms. I wished I had a dad to carry me.’

  As she speaks I see a thin tear slide its way down the side of her nose. I see this and I feel as if my heart is going to burst in my chest.

  ‘Oh, Heddy . . .’ Without even thinking I reach out to touch her arm, but she almost flinches, and looks down again, at her hands. And another tear plops onto her dress and streaks its way down her chest. ‘Heddy, I’m so sorry . . .’

  I can hear the boys laughing out the front, and Arianne shrieking My turn, my turn! and Ian Partridge slamming the van doors shut, and Mrs Partridge saying Are we done, then? And then they’re making their way up the path, Mrs Partridge, the estate agent and Ian.

  ‘For everything, Heddy. I am just so sorry.’

  My heart is hammering. I feel like the inside of my face is burning, I am trying so hard not to cry. I put my hand on her arm again and this time she lets me. But then the front door opens and swings back against the wall with a bang, now that there’s no carpet for it to stick on, and Mrs Partridge says Ooh, steady there, and the estate agent laughs his estate agent’s laugh, and the moment is gone.

  Mrs Partridge boils the kettle and makes tea in the two remaining cups, and gives one to me and one to the estate agent, like we are guests of honour. And she has bought Mr Kipling cakes, two packets, which she opens and puts on the arm of the sofa, and which the children somehow sniff out and come running in from the garden to scoff.

  Despite the fact that we have everything written down, she is starting to panic and fuss now, and she uses the plastic cake packet as an ashtray and stubs her cigarette out right through it, into the arm of the sofa.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she clucks, and starts licking her thumb and pressing it on the burn.

  ‘Mrs Partridge,’ I say, ‘please don’t worry. Everything will be fine. I’ll come in twice a week for the mail and to check the boiler, and if there’s any problem Mr Jarvis can call me.’

  ‘I’m sure there won’t be any problems,’ Mr Jarvis says and he drinks his tea as fast as he politely can, and leaves. He already has a buyer lined up. Some young couple, with not much money, but plenty of enthusiasm – and boy, will they need a lot of that!

  And then it is time for me to go, too.

  I thank God for the children, then, for their noise and their chaos and their general distraction, because it feels so weird now that this moment has finally come. Any second now I’ll be crying. I tell myself it’s just the relief that they’ll be gone and out of my life at last, but it isn’t that, it isn’t that at all.

  I think it’s quite the opposite.

  ‘Goodbye, Heddy,’ I say, but she doesn’t look up again and really, what did I expect? Forgiveness? How could Heddy Partridge ever forgive me?

  Then Mrs Partridge is bustling me out of the door with her endless thank-yous and last-minute instructions for the boiler and the postman, with Ian crowding out the hallway behind us. Outside, the sunlight spears into my eyes and I am blinded for a second. Mrs Partridge grabs me suddenly with her bony fingers digging into my arms, and pulls me against her tiny body in a hug, and it’s all I can do not to cry like a child.

  ‘Mrs Partridge, I am so sorry,’ I whisper again, into the nicotine and sweat-scented nylon of her housecoat.

  And she replies, ‘I believe you are, Laura. I believe you are.’

  And then Ian snatches me away from her and he hugs me, too. Eventually I stumble into my car, blinking back tears, and in the back the children wind down the windows and they’re yelling By
e, Nathan, and Nathan and Mrs Partridge and Ian are calling Bye back and standing there and waving at us, as I start up the engine and drive away.

  ‘I liked that car best,’ Thomas chants in the back.

  ‘I liked those pink cakes,’ chants Arianne.

  ‘I liked the yellow cakes,’ chants Thomas.

  ‘I liked that mattress,’ chants Arianne. ‘Mummy, mummy, can we put a mattress in the garden to play on?’

  And Thomas says, ‘Mummy, when can we go and visit Nathan again?’

  We’re not even out of Forbury and I have to pull over. I feel as if I can’t breathe properly. I tell myself it’s just the relief that it’s all over. I stop the car at the bus stop before Forbury High Street and try to steady my head.

  ‘Why are we stopping, Mummy?’ Arianne asks. And, ‘Mummy, why are you crying?’

  I just sit there for a second with my eyes shut, trying to get a grip.

  ‘Are you sad because Nathan’s moving?’ Arianne asks.

  And Thomas says, ‘Don’t worry, Mummy, we can go and see him in his new house.’

  As if we ever would.

  I feel Thomas’s little hand tugging at the back of my hair as he reaches forward to stroke me, and my head is just a boiling mass of tears, but then a bus comes up behind me blasting its horn and I have to pull myself together and move on.

  TWENTY-TWO

  All the next day I wander about my house, aimlessly, moving from room to room. The place is a mess because I’ve spent so much time at the Partridges’ lately; there’s dirty washing spilling out of the basket on the landing, and no food at all in the fridge. And yet I cannot get on with anything.

  I feed my children honey sandwiches and sit by as they run in and out of the house still in their pyjamas, trailing mud across the floor and dragging all the pillows and duvets off their beds and into the garden to make a camp. Our duvet ends up out there too, and the new cushions off the sofa, which cost ninety pounds each from Osbourne’s.