Close Relations

by Deborah Moggach

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  Louise was cleaning out the rabbit hutch. She glared at Boyd. He sat, his ears flattened, in his sleeping quarters.

  ‘Don’t you growl at me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be doing this either. Where’s Imogen, you may ask? She’s found a new object for her devotion.’ She jabbed at the droppings with her trowel. ‘Females are fickle creatures, aren’t they, Boyd? You know that by now.’

  The phone rang. She straightened up and called ‘Robert!’ but there was no reply. She shut the hutch door and ran into the house.

  It was Jamie, calling from Beaconsfield station. Louise wiped her hands on a tea-towel. She picked up her car keys from the dresser. Today she felt as if she lived in a saucepan. The lid was squashed down on her; she bubbled up, trying to prise it open with the mere force of her frustration. Of course, it didn’t budge. She blamed it on the fog outside, pressing down on her spirit.

  Imogen tipped up the can and drained the lager down her throat. ‘A lot of my friends, their parents have split up. But not their grandparents. I mean, grandparents are supposed to stay the same. That’s the point of them.’ She shivered.

  ‘Here.’ Karl took her hand and rubbed it.

  ‘I mean, Grandad must be . . .’

  ‘Doing it,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Nasty thought, eh?’ he said. ‘Probably give him a hernia.’

  She laughed.

  He looked at her. ‘You look pretty when you laugh.’

  ‘Isn’t my nose blue?’ she asked.

  He nodded, and covered her nose with his hand. ‘Your lips have gone kind of purple too.’

  She covered her mouth. ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Here. I’ll help.’

  He leaned over. His lips brushed hers.

  ‘That better?’ he asked.

  Her voice shook. ‘You’re so warm,’ she said.

  Karl pointed to his chest. ‘Got me own forge in here.’

  She laughed. He tilted her head. Their noses bumped. He kissed her. It was a long, deep kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth. She put her arms around him, inside his jacket, and felt the muscles move in his back.

  ‘He stayed with them!’ Louise stood, with her son, in the kitchen.

  ‘What?’ Robert looked up from the paper.

  ‘Dad and that girl. Jamie stayed the night with them!’

  Robert looked at his son. ‘Is she gorgeous? I don’t trust your mum, she’s biased.’

  ‘She’s really sorted,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Sorted!’ Robert laughed. ‘I can tell you stack shelves for a living.’

  ‘She’s great.’ Jamie opened the fridge. ‘She knew the bloke behind the bar.’

  ‘He slept in the flat!’ Louise hissed. ‘Dad made him breakfast!’

  ‘She’s got this wicked coffee-maker.’ Jamie pulled out a tub of guacamole. ‘One of those espresso things.’

  ‘What would Granny say if she knew?’ asked Louise.

  Robert tipped back his chair. ‘I don’t see what’s wrong.’

  ‘It’s so disloyal,’ said Louise. ‘Whose side is he on?’

  Jamie dipped his finger into the guacamole and licked it. ‘Why do we have to take sides?’

  The door opened. Imogen came in. She glowed from her ride. Louise said to her: ‘Jamie stayed the night with Grandad and that girl.’

  Robert turned the page of his paper. ‘She’s gorgeous, apparently. Really sorted.’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ said Louise.

  ‘– the lucky old tosser.’

  ‘Robert!’

  ‘Getting his leg over at his age.’ Robert turned the next page. ‘Gives hope to us all.’

  Imogen flinched. ‘Dad!’

  ‘And with somebody in a nurse’s uniform. Oh bliss!’

  Monty clambered to his feet and barked. ‘Shut up!’ said Louise. He wagged his tail and sat down again.

  ‘I always had a sneaking liking for the old sod,’ said Robert, ‘when he wasn’t boring me to death. In fact, on many occasions I’ve offered him my moral support when you lot –’ He indicated Louise ‘– were ganging up on him. Poor bugger was outnumbered. But he’s certainly gone up in my estimation now.’ He laughed. ‘Good old Gordon, the Humbert Humbert of the building trade.’

  ‘The what?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Lolita,’ said Jamie.

  ‘April’s no Lolita,’ said Louise. ‘She’s thirty.’

  Robert leered. ‘Still cradle-snatching, in my book.’

  Imogen turned on her heel and left the room. Louise followed her daughter into the hall.

  ‘Did you have a good ride?’ she asked.

  ‘It was okay,’ said Imogen, and went upstairs.

  Louise felt rebuffed. Just then Jamie shouted from the kitchen: ‘Bloody rabbit’s out. Who left the hutch open?’

  It was five-thirty that afternoon. Maddy was making up the spare bed in Erin’s study. She fixed her Amnesty poster on the wall so it covered up the gardening diary-planner. She had covered the computer with a Kashmiri shawl. It almost looked like her bedroom.

  She looked round. Allegra stood in the doorway. ‘I won’t tell if you give me a Barbie ballerina.’

  ‘Ally! That’s blackmail.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘I haven’t got any money,’ Maddy said.

  ‘Doesn’t Mummy pay you for gardening?’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘It all goes back into the business.’

  ‘But you do most of the work.’

  ‘Only because your mum’s busy with her book.’ Maddy rolled the Blu-Tack into a ball. ‘Please, Ally. It’s not nice to blackmail me.’

  ‘All right. Not the doll then. Just the ballet dress.’

  Jamie and Imogen sat in the caravan. It seemed colder in here than outside but Jamie wanted to smoke a joint. He sat on the hard little bed and Imogen sat on the seat that turned into a bunk. They pictured their aunties sitting there, long ago, and telling each other secrets.

  ‘Mum and Dad, they don’t know what love is,’ said Imogen. ‘They’re so crude.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Jamie offered her the joint.

  Imogen shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Immy!’

  ‘I love him.’

  Jamie took a drag and exhaled it slowly. ‘This bloke, you don’t know anything about him. Has he got a girlfriend?’

  ‘He used to live with somebody but it’s all over.’

  ‘What did he do? Come on, sis.’

  ‘He kissed me.’

  ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘The normal place.’

  ‘No – I mean, where were you?’

  ‘In Blackthorn Wood.’ She closed her eyes. ‘It was so beautiful. The birds were singing and the sun came out –’

  ‘Did he do anything else?’

  ‘No! It’s not like that. Oh, you wouldn’t understand.’

  He took another drag. ‘Did you feel, like, your best self with him? Even though you haven’t got anything in common?’

  She stared at him. ‘What?’

  Maddy was cooking supper. Her mother leaned over and looked into the pot.

  ‘That looks interesting. What is it?’

  ‘Chick peas and okra,’ said Maddy.

  Allegra looked up from her homework. ‘You know – ladies’ fingers.’

  Maddy stirred the mixture. ‘I used to eat them in Nigeria.’

  ‘They go all slimy when you cook them,’ said Allegra.

  Dorothy asked Allegra: ‘Have you always been a vegetarian?’

  Allegra shook her head. ‘When my daddy takes me out we go to Burger King.’

  ‘Who is your daddy?’

  ‘He’s called Aziz. Mum just used him for his sperm. He takes me roller-skating.’

  ‘I see.’ Dorothy cleared her throat.

  ‘He doesn’t come here much but he sends me faxes.’

  ‘Faxes?’ asked Dorothy.

  ‘You know,’
said Allegra patiently, ‘you phone up a number –’

  ‘I know what faxes are,’ said Dorothy. ‘I mean, that’s how you communicate?’

  ‘I want us to get onto e-mail.’

  Dorothy gazed at Allegra’s dark head, bent over a page of sums. She thought: is this what has been happening to the world, all these years?

  The ground floor of Erin’s house had been knocked through to make one big room. They ate in the dining area at the back. It was painted dark red and smelled faintly of joss-sticks. The walls were hung with tribal fabrics.

  ‘Was it like this when you moved in?’ asked Dorothy.

  Erin shook her head. ‘I knocked down the wall, there. Put in the fireplace.’

  ‘It’s quite a job.’ Dorothy, who knew about building, had to admire the woman. She didn’t like Erin; they had nothing in common and she suspected that Erin found her suburban – invisible, really – just someone who happened to be in her house. Female solidarity obviously didn’t extend to senior citizens from Purley who didn’t wear jewels in their nostrils. Erin had offered her no word of sympathy about the break-up of her marriage. Maybe she thought that men were so contemptible that Dorothy was well out of it. Dorothy had no idea what went on in Erin’s mind, she hadn’t met anybody like her before. But she could see how Maddy was drawn to her – there was something inspirational about her, something fiercely independent. Maybe Dorothy could learn to be like that too, one day. One day in the distant future. It seemed impossible to contemplate at the moment. Oh, she had put on a brave front to Gordon but she was terrified. Who wouldn’t be? Where, for example, was she to stay after these couple of nights with Maddy? Back to Prudence? Connie in Harrow? Soon she would run out of friends.

  ‘She built the kitchen too,’ said Maddy, ‘designed it and everything. Would you like some more rice?’

  ‘My dad designs houses but he never gets any work,’ said Allegra. ‘It’s because people in Britain are design-blind.’

  Erin shook her head. ‘He’s too authoritarian.’ She turned to Dorothy. ‘Aziz comes from a high-caste family. He treats his clients like untouchables. That’s why he’s hardly got any.’

  ‘He’s nice!’ said Allegra. ‘Mum doesn’t like him coming here.’

  ‘He has a bad effect on you,’ said Erin. ‘You’re upset for days afterwards.’

  Allegra wrinkled her nose. ‘Only because you’re so horrid to him.’

  ‘He’s very aggressive.’ Erin tossed back her hair. There were crescents of studs in her ears; they winked in the candlelight. ‘It stems from weakness and fear. He’s out of touch with his feelings, that’s why he’s so angry.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s angry because he never sees his daughter,’ said Dorothy. ‘She is his daughter, after all. She hasn’t got another father. However faulty he is.’ Suddenly she was filled with despair – at the faxes, at the world. ‘And I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t think we should be talking about him like this in front of her.’

  There was a silence. Maddy turned to Erin. ‘She’s right.’

  Erin stared at her. ‘What?’

  Maddy leaned over to the little girl. ‘Have you finished? Go and have your bath.’

  Allegra slipped from her chair and left the room.

  Maddy said to Erin: ‘Mum’s right. You always slag him off in front of her.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Erin demanded.

  ‘She shouldn’t hear her father criticised like that.’

  ‘You can talk!’ Erin snorted. ‘You’re always criticising your father.’

  Dorothy interruped: ‘Actually, she’s been surprisingly nice to him recently.’

  ‘Forget mine.’ Maddy stood up and started collecting the plates. ‘It’s not fair, Erin, that Allegra’s always out on Sundays. You do it on purpose. It’s not fair on either of them. You’re the one who’s being authoritarian.’

  Erin glared at her. ‘Maddy, what is all this?’

  ‘She has a right to see him, otherwise she’ll never trust him, she’ll end up in women’s groups slagging him off. And he has a right to see her.’ Maddy scraped the rice back into the bowl. ‘You really can be very bossy, Erin. Who says yours is the best way to bring up a child? Most of the time you’re working or off somewhere giving interviews or shut away in your stu–’ She stopped. ‘My bedroom. In fact, I see more of Allegra than you do nowadays.’ She paused, her face flushed.

  Erin raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you feel better now?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Maddy stood up. ‘I just think Mum has a point, that’s all.’

  Dorothy picked up the plates. ‘Why don’t I take them into the kitchen?’

  ‘It’s all right, I’ll do it,’ said Maddy. ‘I do all the washing-up anyway.’

  She went into the kitchen. Erin got up and followed her. Dorothy sat down again. She gazed at the ruined remains of the meal.

  Erin closed the kitchen door behind her. ‘What was all that about?’ she hissed.

  ‘It’s true.’ Maddy dumped the plates into the sink. ‘I’ve been meaning to say it for weeks.’

  ‘But you only dared to now your mother’s here. You’re such a coward, Maddy. You attack me like that but you haven’t the guts to tell her you’re gay.’

  She swung round and left the room.

  The rise in the divorce rate must do wonders for the sale of sofabeds. Dorothy lay, tucked-up, in Erin’s living room. A draught came through the crack in the window-shutters. She thought: I can’t afford to fall out with my hosts. I’m at their mercy.

  Outside, a dog barked. She was somewhere in Hackney; she didn’t know where. Some kids walked past in the street. One of them chanted: ‘Paul’s Mum picks her bum.’ What were they doing out at this time of night?

  Maddy, wearing a long T-shirt and socks, came in to say goodnight.

  ‘I’m certainly putting my foot in it nowadays,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Used to be your dad’s speciality, didn’t it? Putting his foot in it.’ Beneath the duvet Dorothy shivered; she shoved her fingers into her armpits to warm them up. ‘Oh, I do miss him.’

  ‘I know.’ Maddy – gruff, embarrassed – leaned down and rubbed her mother’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to – you know – take his side or anything. The other day. I don’t want to take anybody’s side.’

  Dorothy cleared her throat. ‘Don’t let it put you off . . . what’s happened to your dad and me. Marriage is – well, wonderful really. And you’ll find the right man.’

  Maddy reached towards the lamp. ‘Shall I switch this off?’

  Dorothy nodded.

  ‘Night night,’ they both said, at the same time.

  ‘So this little boy says, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’ Robert pulled on his cigar. Their guest, a neighbour called Derek, nodded encouragingly through the smoke. Robert took a sip of brandy. ‘So he pulls down his trousers and she says, Oh, is that all?’

  It was half past twelve. Louise thought: he’s bored rigid by Derek; why does he invite him to dinner?

  ‘She says, My Daddy’s got two of those.’

  ‘Two?’ Derek guffawed.

  Robert nodded. ‘She says, A little one like that, which he pees with, and a big one the au pair brushes her teeth with.’

  They roared with laughter. Louise stood up. ‘I’m off. Night, Derek.’

  ‘Terrific nosh, as per usual.’ Derek looked at his watch. ‘God, work tomorrow. Better toddle.’

  Robert leaned over and refilled his glass. ‘Come on, have a nightcap.’

  Louise glanced at her husband, and left the room.

  Alone at last, Prudence and Stephen had made love. They slept. When they shifted their position, moist animal smells were exhaled from the sheets. Outside, in the one-way street, a lone car passed.

  Suddenly, Stephen sat up.

  ‘What is it?’ Prudence asked.

  ‘I keep thinking the house has caught fire.’

&nb
sp; She sat up and sniffed. ‘Can’t smell anything.’

  ‘Not here. At home.’

  She paused. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I keep thinking something’s happened to the boys and I can’t get to them.’

  ‘They’re fine.’ Her voice was sharper than she had intended. ‘Go to sleep.’

  Maddy lay in Erin’s study. She couldn’t sleep. She gazed at the shrouded bulk of the Apple Mac.

  The door opened. Allegra crept in, and climbed into bed with her. ‘Don’t quarrel with Mum,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t leave us.’

  ‘I won’t . . . It’s all right.’

  She hugged the little girl. The fax bleeped.

  ‘It’s Dad!’ Allegra pulled away and got out of the bed.

  ‘Not at one o’clock.’

  The machine started to hum. Maddy switched on the light. They watched the paper slide out.

  Allegra pulled it off. The fax was addressed to Erin. She gave it to Maddy.

  ‘It’s from her agent in New York,’ said Maddy. ‘They’ve sold the paperback rights.’

  ‘How exciting.’

  ‘Don’t be sarky.’

  ‘When her book comes out she’s going to get even worse.’ Allegra climbed back into bed.

  ‘Only a month to go.’

  Allegra sighed. ‘Just wish it was from Dad.’

  The front door slammed. Robert came upstairs.

  Louise lay there. The moonlight slanted through the window, silvering her pile of magazines. She said: ‘Why do you stay downstairs nowadays until you know I’m asleep?’

  ‘You’re not asleep, are you?’

  He went into the bathroom and closed the door. She lay there, alone in the big brass bed.

  The moonlight shone through the window; it shone onto Imogen’s brow as she lay asleep. Outside, somewhere near the church, an owl hooted. Down below, the gravestones slanted towards each other as if they were whispering. Below them lives had been stopped at forty years; at fourteen. In the vases daffodils had withered into little screws of paper. Their lives had been the shortest of all.

  Imogen lay sleeping. She had already reached sixteen; she had got this far. Nothing had hurt her yet, not truly hurt her. She lay, her fist pressed against her mouth, sucking her knuckle. She had slept like that since she was a baby.

  Three

  ‘WHAT ARE WE going to do about Mum?’