Chapter 9
I’d forgotten Claire was coming. I was cooking when she came to the door on Friday morning—“Smiley Carrot and Lamb Faces” from Bigger Helpings!—Anjelica Knurgle’s latest guide to feeding children. Knurgle, the tormentor of all microwaving mothers, was worshiped among many women in Morton Park for having introduced marinades to the nursery. I was not one of those women, but Rachel was. She’d lent me the book a few weeks previously after witnessing me remove a packet of sausages from the freezer. “Have you seen what’s in these?” she’d said, appalled.
“Lips and arseholes?” I’d countered.
“No, much worse,” and she’d reeled off a list of additives.
“What about fish fingers?” I said.
“Well, okay,” she said. “But take the breadcrumbs off Harry’s. The sulphur dioxide in them turns him into a raving lunatic.”
So there I was, resentfully poking shepherd’s pie by any other name into the compartments of an ice cube tray, when there was Claire, immaculate in velvet-trimmed denim pedal-pushers and a T-shirt the whiteness of which hadn’t been seen in our house since Fergus discovered you could pick up the coals in the real-effect coal gas heater.
She said, standing on the doorstep, head tilted to look up at the roof, “What an angelic house. Sweet.”
I said, “Come in. It’s a bit messy I’m afraid.”
She squeezed past the stroller into the hall, “Adorable.”
We went into the kitchen and she sidled into a chair at the table. The back doors were open and a fresh breeze was toying with the corners of the tablecloth. Fergus had retreated, dog-like, to the garden. Dan was asleep, cat-like, in the hall. A couple of flies were bumping their heads against the skylight in the ceiling. Claire seemed on edge. “God, I’m gasping for a coffee,” she said.
I should have gone to the store. “Is instant all right?” I said.
She made a polite wincing face. “Do you have any real?”
I checked in the tin, though I knew what I would, or rather wouldn’t, find. “Sorry.”
“I’ll have tea,” she said bravely.
I’d meant to buy flowers, spray a bit of perfume on the lightbulbs, tidy up the Duplo, to show her how fragrant my life was, how together. But I hadn’t. There were no clean mugs either so I fished a couple out of the dishwasher to run under the tap. It burped a waft of dried ketchup and stale garlic. I closed it quickly.
She said, “How are things?”
I said, “Fine. Great. Terrific. You?”
She said, “Don’t ask.”
She took a packet of Silk Cut out of her basket and lit up. Her hands shook a bit. There was a clot of lipstick on one of her teeth.
I said, “I love your bag.”
She said again, closing her eyes this time, “Just don’t ask.”
I started to say something else. “How’s your . . .” I began.
“I mean. Christ,” she said. “Just. Do. Not. Ask.”
I smiled. “What?”
She looked around for an ashtray and then, as if forgetting what she was looking for, dropped her cigarette to the floor and rubbed it absentmindedly into the tiles with the toe of her sneaker. “Do you really want to know?”
“Of course. Tell me.”
“It’s a long story.”
People don’t normally mean long when they say this, they mean emotionally intense. But with Claire? Well, let’s just say her love life had always been complicated. I said, “Go on.”
“It’s so nice to see you, Maggie. I’m in such a mess. My love life is just . . . I mean, how do you keep things together? How have you got this far? I’m all over the sodding place.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re amazing. You’ve got everything—job, success, Disney contracts! Looks . . .”
“Yeah, but no kids. No husband. Look at me, Maggie. I’m thirty-six.” She rocked her head from side to side, making a rhythmic clicking sound with her tongue. “Clock ticking—all that.”
“Thirty-six’s nothing,” I said. “Especially these days.”
“Is it? I don’t know. I just would so love to have a baby. You know, I see you and other friends and it’s like being locked out of a club, and if I knew that one day I would have a child I would feel all right about it, but it’s the fear that I might never and I couldn’t bear it . . .”
“Oh Claire.” I felt sorry for her suddenly. I put my arm around her shoulders. “There’s bags of time.”
“Yes. But without even a man on the scene?”
“Claire. I don’t believe there isn’t a man on the scene.”
“Well . . .”
“Go on,” I said slowly. I turned and busied myself with the kettle and the teabags.
“I’m seeing someone at the moment but . . .” She broke off, paused as if to consider something, and then began again.
“There was this other bloke, the bloke I left England to get away from really. We were mad about each other and I really thought he was the one, but . . .”
“But what?” I said, squeezing out the teabag.
“Unavailable. Temporarily off the shelf. Out of stock.” She started talking faster. “It’s no secret as far as I’m concerned. I wasn’t the one creeping around deceiving people. I mean, we had this fantastic time together, great sex and fantastic weekends away—we managed to get to Venice once. It was just heaven—and he gave me lovely presents . . .” She waved her wrist in my direction and I had time to make a quick appreciative “nice watch” face, before she was off again. “He was the love of my life, but it was all just a waste of time. He didn’t have the guts . . .” She was staring into my face beadily as if looking for something there.
“What stopped him?” I said. An image flashed into my mind of Claire Masterson at school, on the tennis court with her long legs flashing, in the dinner line passing out snippets of her glamorous weekends, in the school disco with the boys from the boys’ school spinning round her in Spirograph circles. And here in the kitchen, with her caramel hair and her velvet trim. Why would anyone not leave his wife for her?
“He said he’d miss his child,” she said.
I had been looking back at her in sympathy. But at this I looked out into the garden. Fergus had managed to get into the shed where there was a hose-winding contraption that fascinated him. There was also a lawnmower with open blades and recently sharpened shears and damp boxes of weed killer trailing their sweet-smelling lethal powders onto the floor.
“Honestly,” she was saying. “It just wasn’t fair on me.” She pulled her hair together and tied it in a casual knot. “It completely battered my self-esteem and I had to get out, which is why I moved to New York . . .”
I got up and went into the garden to extricate Fergus from the den of knife and poison. He didn’t want to come so I brought him out under my arm like a piece of rolled-up carpet. His back half flapped uselessly. His front half hollered. If he hollers, let him go. Do fish holler, I thought? When I had calmed him down with the help of a trowel and an empty polystyrene plant tray, I went back into the kitchen.
She carried on talking as if nothing had happened. “And it was in New York,” she said, “that I met Marcus. He’s based in London—I mean he’s English—but he was there on business and I was in The Plaza to interview Lou Reed and he was there with clients and we started talking in the lobby. And one thing led to another and . . . business trip led to business trip. He’s also married—did I mention that? But he stopped sleeping with his wife months ago. Anyway, I thought he was really keen and that it was only the distance which was keeping us apart, but now that I’m back, he’s behaving all oddly and I don’t know what to think, or where I stand. And being back’s confused me too, I keep thinking about the other guy but he won’t answer my calls and . . . I’m just fed up with it all. Anyway, I’ve given Marcus an ultimatum. He’s got until next week to make up his mind: the wife or the mistress. His choice. And this time I’m not going to be fobbed off. I’m worth more
than that.”
I put her mug of tea down on the table. “How do you know they’ve stopped sleeping together?” I said.
After that I thought she’d never go. She wanted to talk about it. She really, really wanted to talk about it. She wanted my angle (the wife’s angle), which would have been flattering if it hadn’t made me feel so uneasy. It was hard to keep track too. I kept getting the two men confused until finally I had to say, “Look, I think it’s number one you need to sort out in your mind, the love of your life. It sounds to me as if Marcus, number two, is a rebound thing.”
“Do you think so?” she said. “You’re so wise. Yes. I don’t know. It’s so difficult, so heartbreaking.”
What with one thing (Married Man Number One) and another (Married Man Number Two), she was still sitting at the table smoking when Pete arrived. I could see his shape, his height, his shoulders, through the glass in the door. Bugger, I thought. “Oh,” I said to Claire, as if it was all totally normal. “It’s your downstairs neighbor. He’s come to do my garden.”
“Really?” she said, intrigued.
“It’s a long story.”
She followed me to the door. “Pete?” she said, coming up behind me as I got there. “Why hello!” she said over my shoulder, as I opened it. “Sweetie,” pushing past me. “Fancy meeting you here!”
“Hi, Claire,” he said, surprised. “Hello, Maggie,” he said to me. And then Claire had kissed him and thrown an arm around his shoulder and was taking his bag of garden tools off him, making a big lopsided show of how heavy they were and propelling him into the house as if she owned the place. “Goodness,” she said, “now I get to see you at work. Muscles and everything. Maggie, are you going to get Pete a cup of tea?”
“Of course,” I said. “Milk and sugar?”
“No sugar,” he said, winking at Claire. “I’m sweet enough already.”
“Don’t you think Maggie’s house is lovely?” said Claire as I busied myself about the kettle. She’d undone her hair and was twirling it round the ends of her fingers.
“Great,” he said. “Probably worth a bit too.”
I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Maybe,” I said. “The property prices round here . . .”
Claire was poking him in the side. “Got to get on the property ladder, Pete.” She was slipping off her shoes. God it was infuriating: she always became someone else when men were around.
“Oh, I’m not one for owning property,” Pete said. “I don’t like the responsibility. I prefer not to be pinned down.”
Claire gave him a nudge with her bare foot. “Well maybe sometimes,” he said. They both laughed.
“Right,” I said crisply.
They looked at me.
Claire said, “Good thing I’m here, what with Maggie’s husband’s being away. Wouldn’t trust you on your own with anyone.”
“Away is he?” said Pete to me.
“He’s always away,” I said lightly. How did she know he was away? I must have told her on the phone.
“I hope he knows what he’s missing.” Pete was giving me a funny look.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I don’t know if I’d always be away if I had this house.”
“He’ll be back later.”
“With a big bunch of flowers and big present from wherever he’s been I should think.”
“I should think,” I said. “Not.” He grinned at me.
Claire was stretching her arms above her head so that her breasts were straining against her T-shirt. She’d crossed her legs and was twirling one foot in the air, so that the fabric of her jeans was pulled tight across her thighs.
“Right,” she said crisply.
“Right,” said Pete standing up. “All play and no work . . .”
“Anyway, we’re not married,” I added, to no one in particular.
It became quite clear, shortly after this, that there was no getting rid of Claire. Now that Pete had turned up, she was in for the duration. That was another thing I’d forgotten about her: her ability to cling to somebody else’s interesting situation like a gymnast swinging round the parallel bars. I remember bumping into her in Morton High Street one Saturday when we were young, her on her own, me with a boy called Nigel I was dating. Nigel was pushing his bike, separated from me by the crossbar (the bike was our chaperone: most weeks, it would be 5:00 p.m. before he’d brave my side and we’d kiss). Claire came up and giggled into Nigel’s ear and made him give her rides on the bike, and our afternoon fizzled out after she’d gone. I thought she must really fancy him, but on Monday at school she laughed with the others and said, “Zits, zits. My kingdom for such zits!” Poor Nigel. If only I’d had all those free samples of Zap-it then.
“How well do you know Pete?” I asked at one point.
“Oh, we’re great friends,” she said. “I just love him. Don’t you think he’s gorgeous? I think he’s one of the most fantastically gorgeous people I’ve ever met. Very uncomplicated,” she added.
“Nice body too,” I said.
At teatime, I went out and said, “Can I get you anything?”
And he said, “What are you suggesting?”
And I said, “A sandwich or something?”
And he laughed and said, “Never turn down a free feed.” And pretty soon after he’d eaten a pile of bread and cheese minus lettuce (“I’m not one for veggies”), he said he’d better be going, and did I want him to come again to tackle the bindweed?
I glanced back at the house, “Yes, yes, I do want you to come again to tackle the bindweed.”
“I’ll drop by when I’m passing,” he said as he went out through the kitchen. To Claire, he said, “Seeya.”
And she said, in a singsong, “Darling, I’ll be waiting.”
And then he left. Halfway out the door, he said, “Don’t mind Claire will you? She’s quite a one,” and then he tousled Fergus’s mop of hair and said, “great kid,” which made me shiver with delight, and then he was off across the road with a cheery wave. When I went out the back, the garden looked as tidy as if it had had a haircut, though there was a pile of plastic dinosaurs on the steps which he must have found scattered in the beds.
Jake got back from Amsterdam shortly after 6:00 p.m. He gave me a bear hug at the door and twirled the children around until they almost brought up their carrot and lamb smiley faces. And he said to Fergus, “Guess what I’ve got you!” and made him rummage around in his leather-sandwich suit-bag, until he’d found the miniature KLM 747.
“Anything in there for me?” I said.
“Oh. I was going to get you some perfume in Duty Free but I couldn’t remember whether it was Diorella or Diorissima you liked.”
“Ma Griffe,” I said.
He didn’t smile. He was too busy trying to look into the kitchen. “Who’s here?” he mouthed.
I said loudly, “Come and see Claire! She’s spent the day here. She’s waited all this time to say hello.”
Claire was standing in the doorway. “Hello,” she said.
It was quite rude of Jake not to look up at that point. “Hello,” he said, rebuckling his suit bag. He straightened up. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she said. “You?”
“Fine.”
It was rather awkward for a moment. Maybe Jake was tired because of the journey; maybe finding someone in the house when he got home was the last thing he needed.
I said, “So who wants a drink?”
Jake said, “Sorry I haven’t rung you. I’ve been away.”
“Forget it,” said Claire, looking around for her bag. “Actually, I’d better be going.”
“Don’t feel you have to rush off,” I said. Jake didn’t say anything. She paused for a moment, burrowed about in her bag as if searching for something. I nudged Jake.
“Yes, do stay for a drink,” he said, stilted.
“No, no. I must be going. I’ve been here hours. Maggie must be longing to get rid of me.”
I said, l
ying, “No. Of course not.”
Claire wavered. God, either go or stay, I thought. Preferably go.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Fergus was jumping up and down trying to get Jake’s attention. He had Milly’s Teletubby in his hand, the one she’d lent him after the wasp incident, and was trying to wave it in front of his eyes. He stood on Claire’s toe on one of the downbeats.
“No definitely. I’m off,” she said, wincing. Suddenly she seemed galvanized. “Fantastic day, Maggie. Just the most gorgeous children. What on earth is that?”
“Tinky-Winky,” said Fergus, waving the doll.
She shook her head bewildered. “Anyway, I’ve had a heavenly time. Good thing I was here to keep Pete away. He’s a bit of a devil with the women is Pete.”
“Pete?” said Jake.
“I’ll explain later,” I said quickly.
Claire darted us both a look. She kissed me and then she went to kiss Jake. She went for his cheek at the same time as he made a small movement away from her so that her mouth hit his. She laughed uncomfortably. Jake didn’t do anything.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Fergus was pounding Jake’s knees with his fists, desperate to be picked up. I was holding Dan but he was stretching out his arms to clasp Jake too, pushing away from me like someone casting off in a boat.
“Look, you two,” Claire said, as something occurred to her, “are you free on Tuesday? Come to supper. I’ve got some friends coming over. I’d love it if you came.”
Having It and Eating It Page 11
