by Adele Parks
Greg loved Covent Garden. He liked having a laugh, meeting people, chatting about the spirituality of amethyst crystals and the like, whilst he earned enough money for his beer, fags and tie-dye throws. He had no desire to have a company expense account, private healthcare or even a Mont Blanc pen. Eliza couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to mix with the type of people who bemoaned the lack of a good cleaner.
Eliza sighed and tried to budge her feeling of dissatisfaction, stale air that she harboured deep in her lungs. The dissatisfaction that had slowly crept up on her, taken hold and now threatened to explode. Blowing everything apart. Blowing them apart.
She tried to remember exactly when she had started looking at Greg and seeing failure, when she started to think his come-to-bed, Autumn-sky-blue eyes were more lazy than licentious. She used to like his devil-may-care attitude. She had adored the fact that he’d scribble lyrics on the bathroom wall – now she wanted him to pay attention to Dulux colour charts. She actually ached with the hope he’d mention golf clubs, pension plans and, more specifically, a wedding. She was bored of being an adolescent.
He was sexy, though.
Breathtakingly sexy. He had loose hips and firm lips. And whilst she objected to the fact that he ate with his fingers, that he still wore Doc Martens and long overcoats from charity shops – as he had done when he was a nineteen-year-old – and that he earned pretty much the same as he did then, she was extremely grateful that his sex drive had remained adolescent.
Extremely grateful, but no longer eternally grateful.
3
‘Are you coming to bed, darling?’ Michael’s smile was designed to try to disguise the fact that he was absolutely shattered and it was only the lines at the corners of his mouth that betrayed him; when he was tired they sort of smudged together like tributaries of a river. Martha was at once sympathetic and irritated. A state only possible to achieve if you have been in a solid, positive, long-term relationship for a number of years. One that was just a teensy bit… the word ‘dull’ flashed into Martha’s mind and then disappeared in an instant. She replaced it with ‘safe’. She did sympathize with the fact that Michael was tired, he worked really hard, as all Captains of Industry had to, doing all sorts of important things for Esso, the exact nature of which she was unsure of. But then it was Friday. And Friday night meant sex. Even after ten years, Friday equalled sex. Surely Michael understood that.
Wanted that.
As if reading her mind, Michael paused at the door and added, ‘We would both benefit from an early night.’ He smiled again and this one was genuine, saucy, inviting. Martha’s body responded: the twinge in her stomach was in answer to the part of her that sympathized with his constant fatigue, and understood his overwhelming ambition. The warmth that she felt between her legs was because another part of her not only respected his drive; she’d married him for it.
The part of her that was irritated that his ever-present fatigue had robbed him of speech for the entire evening – after all, she was tired too, the children had been particularly demanding and uncooperative, yet she had still chattered to him throughout dinner (practically non-stop) – drove her to mutter, ‘I’ll just finish this chapter and then follow you up.’
As soon as Michael left the room Martha regretted being sullen. It wasn’t very grateful and she ought to be more grateful.
On a more or less daily basis Martha was in the habit of ‘counting her blessings’. It was a hangover from her lower-middle-class upbringing. As a child she’d been grateful that she wasn’t an African (no food), a dog (no souls), a geriatric (no bladder control) or one of the Johnsons from down the street (no Raleigh bikes). Nowadays Martha tried to dwell on what she did have (a lot) rather than what she lacked (nothing worth mentioning).
Today, for example, had been a lovely day. It had been very kind of her mother to look after the children. Martha tried not to think of the sweet wrappers she had seen in the bin; instead she concentrated on the fact that her hair was trimmed evenly. And whilst it was irritating that the garage had called to say that the service of the Range Rover had taken longer than they expected and therefore the car wouldn’t be ready until after the weekend, she felt very lucky that they had a Range Rover. A very expensive vehicle that, Martha couldn’t help thinking, ought more properly to belong to someone else. Martha was always conscious that she’d ended up far richer, aged thirty-two, than her parents had been when they retired. She tried very hard to be grateful for her prosperity, although in truth she found it mildly embarrassing; it was just something else to feel guilty about.
Other blessings? Mathew’s face when Martha returned home from the hairdresser’s. Martha had been delighted when he’d rushed into the hall and flung his little body at her legs. He’d clung on to her skirt and kissed the nylon of her tights; his urgent, inexpert kisses had touched her heart. And it was even a good thing that he’d shouted, ‘Yuk, Mummy, your legs are tickerly’, reminding her that she needed a leg wax. She must make an appointment, it wasn’t like her to let herself go.
‘Mathew doesn’t normally greet me with such enthusiasm,’ Martha had commented to her mother. She hoped it didn’t sound as though she were accusing her mother of treating Mathew badly – that certainly wasn’t what she intended.
‘Darling, he doesn’t normally have the opportunity to miss you, you never leave him for long enough,’ Mrs Evergreen had replied matter-of-factly.
Martha didn’t understand how it could be the case but she’d felt mildly chastised. Surely her mother appreciated Martha’s devotion to her children and surely she was proud of it. After all, it was exactly as Mrs Evergreen had acted with Martha and Eliza.
Why was it that all her blessings seemed to be tinged with… oh, nagging feelings of… Martha left the thought unformed in her mind. She stood up and poured herself half a glass more of white wine. Martha didn’t drink much. She never touched spirits (too potent) or red wine (stained her teeth). One and a half glasses of white wine, every third day, was usually Martha’s limit; anything more would be totally irresponsible with children in the house. Today she was allowing herself an extra half glass. It was Friday, after all.
Another blessing, both children were in bed and asleep. Generally speaking – and this was yet another blessing – the children were becoming easier day by day. Today had been nothing more than a small aberration, she was sure of it. Martha was prepared to admit after her glass and a half of Chardonnay (to herself, and if they’d been there, to her mother and to a couple of her NCT friends) that the theory of having children close together, so as to get the nappy bit over with all at once, was in practice harder than she’d anticipated. Still, Maisie’s colic had finally cleared up and she had slept through from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. four nights in a row; after ten months of waking every three hours this was undoubtedly a godsend.
Sometimes Martha’s head, neck, back, eyeballs and even teeth ached with exhaustion. Yet it wasn’t so much the lack of sleep that Martha found hard to take – after all, that was a given if you had a baby – it was the screaming. Martha felt ill knowing Maisie was in pain and that she couldn’t do anything about it. Martha had spent night after night watching her daughter’s tiny body go into spasms, her knees jerk up to her chest. The wailing tore at Martha and left her feeling miserable and inadequate. There was nothing more torturous than a crying child. Martha never understood how Michael was able to sleep through the pitiful wailing. Martha often sent generous cheques to appeals on behalf of children who needed urgent operations, false limbs or simply water and shelter. Martha wanted to hold each and every one of them and shush their crying. How did their mothers face each morning?
And that was why it was silly to get into such a state about something as insignificant as potty-training. And, like she’d told Michael he would, Mathew had finally grasped the concept of pooing in the loo (as opposed to in his bed, the kitchen cupboards, the reception room or – most memorably – Michael’s shoe). It had been a long ha
ul. Mathew had been well on the way to being potty-trained at twenty months when Maisie was born, but then suddenly seemed to lose the knack. Martha had tried but failed to ignore the comments from her numerous child-behaviour-expert friends and relatives who felt compelled to constantly comment that the step back in bathroom etiquette was a deliberate act of defiance/anger/terrorism, brought on by sibling jealousy/insecurity/feelings of loneliness.
No kidding.
Remarks like this sent a frisson of tension running up and down Martha’s spine. She wanted to point out that she’d had a Caesarean (two, actually), not a lobotomy. She said nothing. She sometimes wondered where she stored her suppressed irritation.
Because it must be adding up.
Martha had read the books and dutifully carved out exclusive ‘special time’ for her and Mathew, with the hope of eradicating the excrement terrorism. They went to the zoo, they made paper boats and floated them on the pond, they fed the ducks and they played in the park. They did this even though it cost a fortune in childcare for Maisie, they did this even when Martha could barely walk with tiredness because she’d been up four times in the night.
But it had been worth it. Mathew was now fully potty-trained.
Martha’s blessings included her family. She adored her mum and dad who quietly rumbled through their retirement without making much demand on her time, but were always visibly grateful if she did descend on them for an afternoon with the two children and two dozen bags. Her parents had moved down to a London suburb when they retired as both their daughters and their grandchildren were settled in the capital. They’d hoped to help Martha with the childcare. Secretly they were a little disappointed by her fierce independence and insistence on doing everything on her own. They felt redundant as parents and grandparents, and it didn’t take Einstein to work out that Martha could do with some help now and again. Mr and Mrs Evergreen feared it would be quite some time before Eliza ever wanted children.
Blessings, blessings. Other than needing spectacles and one of them having a gammy toe, her parents (touch wood) were the picture of health. And they were so normal. Martha always felt so sorry for her friends who had alcoholic, neurotic or clingy parents. Hers were so pleasant, so non-intrusive; they were no bother at all. Martha beamed to herself.
And Eliza, her sister, was also a joy. Admittedly, she was unreliable as a conversationalist at dinner parties (she was often deliberately shocking), she was not great at timekeeping, or saving, or choosing men, and she had never done anything quietly in her life; still the very thought of Eliza made Martha smile. What were kid sisters for if not to show you glimpses of the wrong side of the tracks? Martha had always believed that Eliza was predestined to be more glamorous than Martha (therefore more trouble). After all, Martha was called Martha (think mumsy, think nineteenth-century respectable, think good hostess in the Bible), and Eliza was called Eliza, which was a more spirited, passionate, interesting name to live up to. It was Mr and Mrs Evergreen’s fault that the girls had turned out as they had. Martha often wondered how different her life would have been if she’d been named Eliza.
Then there was Michael, of course. Michael was so much a part of Martha that it was almost easy to overlook the fact that he was a huge blessing. The most fundamental blessing, in fact. Without Michael there would be no Mathew or Maisie. And without Michael’s enormous salary there would have been no chance of Martha giving up her work in the Civil Service to bring up the children. They had both agreed that the very best thing for the babies was her undivided attention, that she was the very best person to bring them up. And she barely missed the Civil Service at all.
Barely.
Perhaps she missed the chat with the girls in the morning about the previous night’s TV, and the last Friday of the month when they used to have lunches at Pizza Express, which had always been a giggle. She sometimes missed buying suits from Jigsaw and shoes from L. K. Bennett and being able to say she ‘needed them for the office’. She hardly missed the harmless flirting with the blokes from accounts. She certainly did not miss the 45-minute commute twice a day, the tedious meetings, the endless power struggles, or putting money in collections for new babies/twenty-first birthdays/wedding pressies of people she’d never even talked to.
Martha had met Michael ten years ago, not long after she’d graduated and moved down to London to start her first job. They’d met in a pub through a friend of a friend of a friend, the way you do when you’re young and up for meeting people. Martha noticed Michael the moment she walked into the pub because he was wearing dark green jeans and a charcoal-grey, tight polo-neck jumper. All the other men in the pub were wearing chinos and pale blue shirts. Michael wasn’t particularly tall and Martha liked that; he seemed less intimidating. And he had a good body; broad shoulders, the cutest, neatest bum. His best features were his very dark hair (which was almost blue it was so black) and his shiny, smiley, deep-brown eyes. Michael did not have the gift of the gab, he was not the type of man to talk women into bed; his individual charm was that he listened them into the same place.
Michael was the first man ever to listen to Martha properly. Genuinely listen. He didn’t ask questions about her that would inevitably bounce back to a funny story of his own. He didn’t spin endless tales about his sexual exploits, in an attempt to make her jealous. Nor did he recount daredevil Action Man exploits, in an attempt to impress her. He didn’t interrupt her when she was speaking, nor did his eyes glaze over. If pushed, he would modestly relate a funny anecdote, shyly admit to his ambition to travel the world, and, more honestly, admit to his ambition to be chairman of Esso. Michael told Martha that she had the most beautiful smile in the world, which encouraged her to use it with a new and greater frequency.
Whilst she was smiling at him, drinking her third vodka-orange (because in those days Martha didn’t have children and so she could drink three vodka-oranges if she felt like it) Martha noted that Michael had a large chin and nose, which she thought made him look distinguished and masterful. By the end of the evening Martha had decided that Michael was exactly the type of man she ought to marry. Moreover, he was the man she wanted to marry. Even their names matched. She decided then and there that their children ought to have names beginning with ‘M’ too. Michael wasn’t the type of man that women fell in love or lust with at first meeting, so it surprised them both when Martha fastened on to him so rapidly and tightly. Martha had had two boyfriends before Michael (one throughout the sixth form and one throughout the second and third years at university. She’d had a bash at being wild during the first year but it hadn’t been a particularly fruitful experience, she wasn’t a natural). Since graduation she’d slept with two other men. Again, she found it didn’t suit her: she was a serial monogamist at heart, a heart she wore on her sleeve.
Martha and Michael were married within eighteen months.
And Martha had been right; Michael was such a good husband.
He was kind and gentle and trustworthy and very, very hard-working. He was stable, neither a womanizer nor a football fanatic. And she still fancied him, even after ten years. Maybe not in that knickers-dropping, heart-stopping, can’t-get-enough-of-you way that she had in her early twenties but, still, he knew which buttons to press.
Every Friday night.
Martha and Michael had plenty of money and plenty of friends and they had the children’s names down at some very good schools. And all of these things were undoubtedly blessings.
Martha decided that she didn’t want to finish the chapter after all, and went upstairs to the bathroom. She opened the right-hand drawer under the basin and pulled out a cotton-wool ball. Carefully she poured on lotion and then with long, deliberate strokes she cleansed her nose, chin, forehead and then cheeks. She gently removed her make-up – mascara and blusher. This, plus clear lipgloss, was the only make-up Martha ever wore, except at the occasional evening function. If Michael asked her especially, then she could sometimes be spotted sporting eyeshadow as well. She preferr
ed it if everything on her face stayed its original colour. She dropped the used ball into the bin, and repeated the process with toner. Next, she carefully applied her moisturizer in firm, upward, gravity-defying sweeps. Then she checked that the bathroom door was bolted and began to undress. Martha always liked to take a shower before she went to bed and she didn’t like Michael walking in on her. She could never understand couples who apparently felt comfortable enough to go to the loo in front of each other. Why would anyone want to do such a thing? Martha tried to imagine who they were – popstars, probably, or method actors.
Martha carefully towelled herself dry and then slipped into a pair of Egyptian-cotton pyjamas and matching slippers. She checked her reflection. Not bad for thirty-two. Should she undo the top button? How many? One? Two?
Finally Martha walked into the bedroom.
‘Hey Mickey,’ she mumbled with only the faintest hint of self-consciousness in her voice. But even before Martha slipped between the sheets she identified the slow, familiar movement of Michael’s chest rising and falling, clearly indicating that he was well and truly ensconced in the Land of Nod.
4
Eliza sipped her double espresso. It tasted bitter, black. Or maybe that was just her mood on this particular Wednesday morning.
‘What’s up? You usually love the coffee here.’ Greg’s honeyed tones oozed concern. Eliza dismissed the concern as over-the-top and felt irritated with him for the hundredth time that day. She’d prefer it if he were the type of man who failed to notice that she hadn’t touched her coffee but paid his bills by direct debit, and there were loads of that sort of man around. All her friends had married one. Michael, her brother-in-law, was a perfect example. How come she’d missed her chance of one?
I don’t like espresso, she thought. It reminds me too much of being a student. I should be drinking Earl Grey and eating passion-fruit gateau in a proper tea shop. That’s what women of my age do. That’s what Martha would do. I should not be sitting in a smoky café that doesn’t even have the decency to be part of a chain but is run and owned by real Italians.
