‘Ron! Ron! Can you not hear the bell? I’m doing the hoovering! Do I look like I can be running up and down the stairs every two minutes?’
His father’s footsteps, shuffling and apologetic. Thank God.
‘Hey, Dad.’
‘Son.’ His father looked down at the holdall in Andrew’s hand. ‘You’d best come in, then.’
‘Who is it?’ His mother from on high. ‘We don’t buy from people at the door.’
‘It’s Andrew.’ His father’s voice was at its usual volume, barely audible, but his mother’s hearing was the stuff of legend.
From the hallway, Andrew could see his mum’s legs on the landing above, clad in her ‘hoovering trousers’ – navy-blue velour tracksuit bottoms, hems flapping above her pale pink quilted slippers.
‘I’m nearly done with Colin’s room!’ Notify the press, thought Andrew. Let’s all light a candle and sing Allelujah. Colin’s room had barely changed in nearly twenty years. There was a shrine-like feel to it, as if his older brother had died and due reverence must be shown, even though he was alive and well, and living in Canada. Pictures of Colin, his family, his whacking great house on the outskirts of Calgary, even his gas-guzzling 4x4, were displayed in annoying matching modern frames on the mantelpiece. There were only two of Andrew: one on his first day at grammar school in his new grey blazer, the other in his graduation gown at the end of university.
‘No need to rush, Mum!’ Andrew called up the stairs.
‘Shoes!’ came the command from above. Andrew imagined she would demand that single word as her epitaph.
Andrew duly filed his footwear in the under-stairs cupboard. God forbid his shoes should be left out on display for anyone to see and perhaps realise that the occupants of the house were in possession of feet and wore shoes on them. He paused to bestow his customary glare at the keyboard on the back of the cupboard door, which proclaimed ‘Keys’ in Tudor-style lettering, as if otherwise you might not be able to fathom just what those metallic objects hanging from the hooks were. It was the kind of thing that set Andrew’s teeth on edge. He wanted to shout at it, ‘Yes, I can see they’re fucking keys, thank you!’ And if people wanted to hang something else on the hooks – kitchen utensils, cups, Christmas baubles – well, why the hell shouldn’t they?
He instinctively drew himself in as he walked down the hallway to the kitchen at the back. There was something about this house that always made him feel large and ungainly, even though he was boringly average in height and weight. Wherever you turned, tiny tables appeared to jab you in the shins or trip you up. If you gestured while speaking, you would send some much-prized knick-knack hurtling across the room – a miniature crystal cat, a porcelain weeping child (and who wouldn’t want a crying infant to decorate their living room?), a tiddly trinket box. The safest bet was to navigate your way to a seat – trying not to mess up the cushion configuration by leaning back, or slouching, or moving – and stay there, out of trouble. This had been his father’s strategy for decades.
In the kitchen, Andrew filled the kettle and clicked it on.
‘Best let your mother do that, eh?’
‘It’s only putting the kettle on, Dad.’
His father darted a look towards the kitchen doorway, and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets, perhaps to demonstrate that he was in no way complicit in the kettle-filling debacle.
Mrs Tyler bustled in.
‘Well, this is a nice surprise.’ She crossed to the worktop. ‘Oh! Kettle’s on! You’ll be doing me out of a job in a minute!’
‘Sorry, Mum. Just trying to help…’ Andrew dug his hands down into his pockets.
‘’Course you were.’ Mrs Tyler banged her way in and out of cupboards, clanking cups, thunking down the biscuit barrel, clattering teaspoons. ‘Milk, Ron! I’ve only the two hands, you know.’
His father roused himself and retrieved the milk from the fridge, opened a cupboard, then stood there, contemplating the four different milk jugs with something akin to terror. Andrew watched his father but elected to remain at a safe distance. Would the ‘family’ jug be the correct choice, or would he be classed as ‘guest – ordinary’ as his visit was unscheduled. It was a tough call.
As ever, delay of any kind prompted Mrs Tyler to move up a gear to Full Speed Ahead: she steamed past her husband, stretched up on tiptoes and plucked the ‘family only’ stainless-steel jug from the shelf. Removed the bottle of milk from his hand.
‘Go on through to the lounge. Ron, be a love and take the tray. I’ll bring the biscuits.’
Andrew led the way, stumbling only once on the fringed corner of a lozenge-shaped rug, neatly side-stepping a floorstand bearing a ceramic duo of fairies apparently sharing a mischievous secret – Shall we get the fuck out of here when she’s not looking? Andrew smiled at the thought and carefully positioned himself in one corner of the sofa.
There were lemon puffs, jam sandwich creams, and – an unexpected interloper – dark chocolate biscuits with stem ginger in them.
‘Ooh, these are posh, Mum. Expecting royalty?’ God, he’d barely been here ten minutes and already he was starting to sound like his parents.
Mrs Tyler’s head quivered and she gave a loud sniff. Andrew, unsure of the source of the outrage, threw a covert glance at his father.
‘They’re from her with the apple tree,’ Ron said, not one for long speeches.
‘Well, that’s nice of her…’ Andrew could feel himself walking into quicksand but had no idea how best to retreat.
Mrs Tyler’s head trembled again as if he had said, ‘It’s nice to crap on the carpet,’ and she nodded at her husband to continue.
‘Will I show Andrew in the morning in the light? Would that be best? See it for himself, like?’
Blimey – three sentences in a row. Practically a record for his father.
‘In the morning?’ Mrs Tyler’s head swivelled round like a Dalek. ‘What’s going on? Andrew?’
‘Well… I wondered if maybe I…’ Andrew hung his head. ‘Vicki. She…’ He looked down at his feet in their grey socks, tipped with yellow at the toe end. Vicki had given him these socks. He didn’t even like them, so why did staring at them now make him feel as if he might cry? He shook his head and stared into his teacup.
‘You can stop here with us,’ his father said, unusually decisive. ‘Can’t he?’
‘’Course. It’s your home too, Andrew.’
One good thing about his parents: at least they wouldn’t want to sit round in a circle and talk about his feelings. Have a cup of tea, have a biscuit, do some hoovering: there was no problem in the world that could not be bypassed by Mrs Tyler’s strategy for life.
She set her cup and saucer down with a clink. ‘We’d best go up and check your room, Andrew.’
Andrew perched on the single bed. God, it was going to be a snug fit, this bed. He swivelled round and swung his legs up to stretch out. If he let his arm flop out to the side, as if in sleep, it went right off the bed. Still, it wouldn’t be for long, would it? He let that thought roll around his head for a minute. What if Vicki didn’t beg him to come back? What if she really were done with him, with them, and he was now alone?
His mother marched back in with a new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, a guest flannel, and a clean pair of his father’s pyjamas: the old-fashioned sort, striped, with buttons down the front.
‘Oh, no, thanks, Mum. It’s OK.’ At home, with Vicki, he usually wore just a T-shirt and mismatched PJ bottoms in bed.
‘Do you have pyjamas with you?’ She held them out, averting her gaze as if they were possibly something sexual or dirty, or both.
He looked round at his holdall, realising he’d left most of his clothes in the black bin bags still in the car and he’d no idea what was in each bag.
‘Erm… well…’ He took them from her. ‘Thanks, then.’
‘You’ll just have to make the best of it,’ Mrs Tyler said, apparently addressing the curtains.
‘Yes, Mum.
I know.’
‘At the end of the day, you have to put it all behind you and move on,’ she instructed the wardrobe.
‘Yes, Mum. You’re right.’
‘Make a fresh start,’ she told the rug as she bent to comb out the errant fringe with her fingers. ‘There’s plenty more fish in the sea.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Andrew looked down, making a conscious effort not to keep a tally of his mother’s clichés; that way lay madness. ‘I’m really tired…’
‘Good night then, Andrew, love.’
‘’Night, Mum.’ He bent to kiss her cheek. She was a kind soul really. ‘Thanks for everything.’
‘You’re more than welcome. Sleep tight.’
Mrs Tyler made a final tour of the room, tweaking the bedspread, plumping up the mathematically aligned cushions, and looking round for any rogue piece of fluff or speck of dust that might have dared to enter the room in ignorance of her zero-tolerance policy.
Andrew got himself ready for bed, slipped under the covers, and lay there, looking at the green numbers on the bedside clock: it was 9.42.
He awoke to the irresistible smell of frying breakfast.
At the kitchen table, Andrew asked his dad about the apple tree and the mysterious invasion of the posh ginger biscuits. Mrs Tyler, having eaten her own, more modest, plateful at impressive speed, was up and burrowing in the broom cupboard – her favourite part of the house – in quest of Brasso so she could assault the fittings on the front door.
‘We’ll pop out to the garden when you’re done,’ his father said without elaborating further.
‘I’ve washed my hands of the whole sorry business. Your dad’s promised to sort it out, Andrew. He’ll show you, won’t you, Dad?’
Out in the back garden, Ron nodded towards the far end where a mature, magnificent apple tree grew just on the other side of the fence.
‘That’s the devil tree then.’
Now in early October, it was still well endowed with huge, shiny green apples, like something from a child’s picture book.
Andrew laughed.
‘Go on, fill me in. Why does Herself want it put down, then?’
‘Stealing our light, son.’ His father shrugged, resigned to the tree’s inevitable fate. ‘And blocking her view onto the allotments.’
‘Dad, you’re never going to let her have her way on this, surely? I mean, it’s a wonderful tree.’
‘You can’t argue with your mother. Might as well hope to hold back the tide.’
Andrew sighed. ‘And what part do the biscuits play in all this?’
His father explained that, after repeated promptings from his wife, he had gone round to the other house, whose garden backed onto their own at an angle, and spoken to the owner, or rather attempted to.
‘And?’
‘So I says my piece about the tree and about how Herself wants it out, and the woman says, quite posh you know, “Ohhhhhh, noooooo, I couldn’t possibly. It would be a sin against Nature,” she says. And I’m stood there on the front step feeling like a right pillock and she picks up this packet of biscuits from her hall table, puts it in my hands, and says to tell my wife she’s sorry.’
Andrew laughed.
‘God – and what did Mum say?’
‘I’ll leave you to imagine.’
‘So now what?’
His father stuck his hands deep in his pockets.
‘We’ll have to do something otherwise She’ll be over the fence of a night-time and at it with the breadknife.’
Andrew offered to go round to see the owner again. Perhaps he could persuade her to have the tree thinned a little to let in more light instead?
‘Would you, son? You’re better at all that clever talking. I’m no good with this kind of thing.’
One street away, Andrew rang the doorbell of the house with the apple tree. He stood there, hoping it would indeed be the little, posh lady his father had described and not a large and aggressive man who might say, ‘It’s our tree, what the fuck’s it got to do with you, you tosser?’ He retreated a step. With any luck, they would be out and he could say he’d tried. He waited a minute, then rang the bell again, very lightly this time. No answer. He started to turn away, then sighed and patted his pockets, looking for a pen. Andrew scribbled his name and mobile number and a brief, very polite note on the back of an old envelope, and poked it through the letterbox, thinking, God, this place could do with his mother on a cleaning jag for an hour or two. The windows were dusty, the front hedge towering and ungainly, the brass door fittings neglected and dull.
As he reached the corner, he noticed a very attractive woman laden with shopping bags coming towards him. For a moment, he thought she looked familiar but he couldn’t place her. He smiled and gave a small nod, thinking how embarrassing it would be if he ignored her and then she turned out to know him. She returned the smile but walked on without speaking. He was sure he had seen her somewhere before. Perhaps one of Dave’s innumerable exes? Or maybe on telly? He’d done that before, said hello to someone, thinking he knew them, only to click a minute later that it was a newsreader or an actor. He turned right round to have another look as she walked away from him. Hard to tell from the back – tall, slim figure, hair tucked into a woolly hat, extraordinary long green scarf trailing right the way down behind her almost to the ground. At that moment, she turned suddenly as if she knew he was watching her. Andrew jerked round to face front… and walked straight into a cherry tree.
The woman laughed – he could hear her from thirty paces away – and, mortified, he scurried on without turning round again.
7
Cecilia
It was not that Cecilia was lonely, or that she minded living alone, but in the morning, when she was woken by the light, in those drowsy moments, the memory of him bringing her a cup of coffee was dreamy and delicious. She lay there for a while, savouring the flurried twitterings of the birds battling at the bird-feeders, the faint rumble of the trains, and, most of all, the weight of the covers on top of her. She slept beneath an eclectic millefeuille of layers: a brushed cotton sheet, topped with a much-loved ‘get-better’ blanket composed of multi-coloured knitted squares, her grandmother’s ancient feather eiderdown, and an embroidered bedspread lugged back from Marrakech many years ago, swirled in shameless pinks and reds with glimpses of gold and lapis lazuli. The top layer consisted of spread-eagled books, half-read sections of the newspaper, Cecilia’s long, hand-knitted, green cardigan, and a changing assortment of disparate items: scarves, clean washing, free-range scraps of fabric, a tangle of tights en route to the laundry basket, and, more often than not, a crumb-crusted plate.
Cecilia slunk out of bed sideways so as not to disturb the layers and tugged on the long cardigan over her nightdress. The girls had bought her a dressing gown, of course – more than one over the years – but there was something so dispiritingly homely and resigned about a dressing gown that, even now at sixty-six, Cecilia couldn’t bring herself to become the kind of woman she pictured would wear one, and so the cardigan still reigned supreme. She pulled on a skirt over the bottom of her nightie, and poked her feet into a pair of pointed leather slippers from Istanbul. Madeleine, her younger daughter, referred to them as ‘your conjuror shoes’, while Olivia, the elder, merely glanced downwards at them, then gave that funny, Olivia-ish half-smile that seemed to Cecilia like a mixture of affection and amused acceptance of her mother, though why Cecilia’s choice of footwear… or clothes… or food… or anything should bother anyone else remained one of life’s great mysteries.
‘Morning, Puss.’ The cat leaped up onto the counter-top and stroked its face against her hand.
Cecilia opened a tin of food for the cat and spooned some out into its dish before setting down a bowl of fresh water.
‘There you go, Pusskin.’
She filled the kettle and rummaged in the bread bin. She really ought to go for a quick walk or a swim, but there wasn’t much time as the girls were coming for brunch. No d
oubt Olivia would arrive laden with ‘proper’ food, but Cecilia needed something to keep body and soul together for now. She made some brutally strong coffee in a red enamel pot and drizzled honey onto a stale scone she had unearthed among the unloved ends of bread.
It was already cold for October. The radiators were sluggish in the mornings, probably in need of flushing or sluicing or bleeding, or whatever it was that was of little interest to her. Cecilia shuffled through to the hall and plucked her long winter coat – a tweedy, over-large relic of some long-forgotten ex – from the hallstand and put it on.
She opened the French windows onto the garden and looked down at the patio. Just think how lovely it would be to have a little sunken pool with a fountain out here. Lined with mosaic, though it would be awkward to work on if sunken – she’d have to lie full-length on her front. Could look incredible, though. Maybe something wild and strange – the Kraken, one eye open, watching you from the depths?
The scone was too stale, even for her, so she crumbled up the rest of it and scattered it onto the patio stones for the birds. Then she pottered down to the far end of the garden with her coffee, and sat on the battered old bench by the apple tree to watch a robin.
After a while, the doorbell rang, but Olivia had a key so she could let herself in. On a Sunday morning, if it was anyone else, it could hardly be important anyway. Cecilia ignored it and looked at the robin as if it might hold all the answers.
But in fact Olivia arrived a minute or two later, giving her usual light ding-ding on the bell before using her key, and calling out hello just as the old grandfather clock was chiming the half-hour. Olivia was punctual as always, definitely not a trait inherited from her mother. Cecilia called out and came back into the house. Her daughter leaned down to hug her, unwound herself from her long green scarf, then strode through to the kitchen with her bulging shopping bags.
Growing Up for Beginners Page 5
