by Fiona Gibson
I gaze at the screen. Words hover randomly. I delete a comma here, a full stop there. Fiddling. Putting it off. I switch off the PC, turn it on again and make little dotted squares with the cursor, then slope to the kitchen to make a salami sandwich which I eat on the back step, calculating that I have fifty-seven minutes until Rosie returns my son to me.
“We need a travel cot,” says Jonathan, “to take on honeymoon.”
“They have one,” I tell him. “I’ve checked.” It wasn’t the Brodies at Netherall Farm in Kircubrightshire, Scotland. The woman who answered, Mrs. Jackson, had no recollection of a Mr. and Mrs. Brodie and seemed reluctant to let us book in for the week. She admitting eventually that she did do B&B but we’d have to vacate the room from nine-thirty till five every day. She sounded bossy and harassed. I decided not to ask if a games cupboard was included in the facilities.
“I’d rather he slept in his own cot,” Jonathan says. “I don’t want him in some splintered old thing with a damp mattress.” Somehow, this doesn’t sound terribly honeymoonish.
We head for Oxford Street to purchase a travel cot on a gloomy Saturday morning. Or rather, we intend to head for Oxford Street but Jonathan points the car in the wrong direction. The air is heavy and moist. It feels like a storm might be brewing. We drive through an interminable clutter of terraces until we are on the motor-way, then off it again, where there is nothing but fields and lazy cows and the occasional village nestling smugly around a village green.
I am determined not to ask where we’re going. There’s a slight possibility that Jonathan has located a purveyor of discounted baby equipment out here in Marmalade Land, but I doubt it. Jonathan hums to himself, like he’s bought me a present and is bursting for me to open it.
“Is this a mystery trip?” I ask finally.
He gives me a quick, teasing look that says: you’re going to love this. And I’ve guessed, even before he pulls in outside a pub called The Turkey and unbuckles Ben from his car seat. He cradles him in one arm as he hoists the buggy from the boot and shakes it open. “There’s something I want to show you,” he says, doing up Ben’s straps and tying the laces of his pale denim padders.
“You couldn’t commute this far,” I suggest.
Jonathan strolls past immaculate redbrick cottages. “I’ve worked it out,” he says. “It wouldn’t take much more than an hour. I’d enjoy it. I could read on the train, even learn a new language.”
“Why would you want to do that,” I ask, “when you don’t go abroad?”
We pass a church, its stained-glass windows watching us moodily. I’d have to go there on Sundays and I’m not even christened. “It’s somewhere up here,” muses Jonathan, checking a street name. Wisteria Lane. Hello marmalade.
The houses are now widely spaced, their boundaries marked by hefty stone walls. Somewhere a radio murmurs, and there’s birdsong; you don’t notice the absence of birds in a city. I could befriend birds, like that mad pigeon lady: tear bread into beak-size morsels and encourage my feathered friends to foul the village with their doings.
Jonathan stops abruptly at a handsome square house with four matching windows and a glossy red door, like a child’s drawing. He swings in through the gate. Terra-cotta pots snuggle together on the white-painted step. Attached to a wooden stake, there by the birdhouse, is the sign: For Sale. Viewing by appointment only.
“Well,” he says “what do you think?”
I think: it’s perfect. I think: I don’t want it.
“See?” he says. “You’re lost for words. Gorgeous, isn’t it? Better than it looked in the estate agent’s blurb. The photo didn’t do it justice.”
“What estate agent?”
“Canning and Walker. They’ve been calling in details from their regional offices. I didn’t want to raise your hopes—not till the right place came up.” He grips my hand. “Let’s just have a look,” he says gently.
“We can’t just barge in. You have to make an appointment.”
He glances at his watch. “Gary should be here any minute. He’ll show us around. The family is away. He says it’s just what I’m—what we’re—looking for.”
He appears at the gate, the man who knows what other people want. He has a shiny tan and shakes my hand, jangling my arm right up to the shoulder. “Lovely baby,” he says. Ben stares at him bitterly, as if chewing a lime.
I carry him into the wooden-floored hall where neatly-paired wellies, all facing the right direction, sit primly against the wall. The adults’ are green, the children’s silver, patterned with clouds. Three children of differing sizes. A big family. A big family house.
“You’ll love the kitchen,” Gary enthuses, assuming that this will be my domain; Jonathan will be out checking his cucumbers in the greenhouse.
The kitchen is floored with mottled slate and fitted with gleaming red units. Children’s drawings are Blu-tacked onto cupboards. One depicts “Mummy”—a grinning lady with long black hair and spidery eyelashes. Another is entitled, “Daddy’s new car,” but it looks like a minibus.
And Jonathan is right: it is perfect. Neatly ordered, clean smelling, with just enough clutter to reassure us that a real family lives here. They function well. The Lego is stored in a trunk they picked up at an auction. The mum with the spidery lashes packs the kids’ lunch boxes the night before school; it’s good stuff they eat, fresh vegetables washed in that vast Belfast sink. What does the dad do? He’s a solicitor. Eliza would like him. She wouldn’t be so keen on the oven. I cannot imagine why it requires so many doors.
“Plenty of room to grow into,” says Gary, directing us into the sitting room. “You want that, when you’re starting a family.” Good God: how many am I expected to produce? Am I to be permanently up the duff, patting my robust belly while manning the How Many Smarties in the Jar stall?
“Let me show you upstairs,” Gary says. The adults have the biggest bedroom. Everything’s white, even the floorboards. The embroidered bedspread is whiter than white. If they have sex at all, it’s clean sex. “Peaceful, isn’t it?” says Gary with a tight smile. “And the rooms are so light. Just the place you’d want to wake up on a Sunday morning.”
“How old is it?” asks Jonathan.
“Late nineteenth century. It’s rare to find one of this size. This is a popular village. The primary school’s top of the table for the whole county.”
Ben is on the white floorboards, trying to jam his forefinger into a gap. Jonathan keeps glancing at me, checking my face. “I’ve had a lot of interest,” says Gary, leading the way to the children’s rooms. Each door has a name-plate: Eddie’s room, Sophie’s room, Martha’s room. Children who do well at school and sit at that homely kitchen table, tackling their homework to the cozy murmur of Radio 4. “I’ll let you have a look by yourselves,” Gary says. “Get a feel for the place.”
Jonathan carries Ben to the sitting room and places him on a circular ethnic rug. “So,” he says, expectantly.
“So,” I say back.
“I think we should put in an offer.”
“Let’s think about this.”
“Could you call him in the week? He gave you his card, didn’t he?”
I rummage in my bag where Ben’s bottle has leaked. Gary’s card is sodden but still legible: not Gary but Garie. Creative spelling. I couldn’t buy a toothbrush, let alone a house, from a Garie.
We say we’ll be in touch; Garie takes Ben’s hand and gurgles, “Bye-bye, little fellow.”
Ben bursts into spontaneous tears. The sky has changed color, got a mood on. There’s a thundery growl as rain starts to fall. We leave in a hurry, squeezing past an armchair in the hall; too big for its space, obviously intended for another room. It’s plump and upholstered in burgundy corduroy, the kind you can never get comfortable in. And it’s new. I know this because it still has its plastic wrapper on.
Eliza calls to say she has found the perfect wedding dress. “You’ve only just met him,” I scoff. “He’s too young for such a com
mitment.”
“Not for me and Dale, stupid. For you. It’s this blue, a delicate blue—I can’t quite describe it.”
“Larkspur?” I suggest.
“Like duck egg with gray in it. Nothing special on the hanger. But it’s beautifully cut and won’t emphasize your…you know.”
“How much?” I ask.
“That’s the thing. You can have it for nothing. It’s a sample on loan from a publicist. I can keep her at bay for a few weeks, pretend we’ve lost it. And you’re only wearing it for a day. Maybe just a few hours. She’ll never know.”
Getting married in a dress that’s not mine? It’s not right, although I’m not sure why. It’s only a dress. Only a day. No big thing, Jonathan says, though he’d feel happier if I called the florist to sort out the table decorations.
“And I’ve got one for myself,” Eliza says, more excited now. “It’s plum, bias cut. The only problem is shoes.”
“DMs?” I suggest. “Do they still do those oxblood ones?” She ignores me and barks instructions that I am to go over to her place for a try on. “I’m quite looking forward to this wedding,” she gushes, right out of the duck-egg blue.
I arrive at Beth’s to let Rosie have a look at the Promise interview. I’ve trodden carefully, not wanting to offend her. The result is bland and, frankly, boring. Chase will chuck it back for a rewrite.
I hope, too, that Rosie might have a friend I can interview for the next My Secret. I’d forgotten how quickly a week speeds by: the minute one story’s in, I should be hammering away at the next. Would Garie reveal something from his past if we bought that wretched house in Watton-by-the-Whatever-it-was? That’s how desperate I am. In fact I’d pay someone to take the entire My Secret job off my hands. I’ll be a waitress or a librarian. I’ll take quiet lunch breaks and leave on time with no deadline wheezing in my face.
I’m glad that Beth’s still at her mother’s. She won’t approve that I’ve interviewed her au pair. Beth thinks of Rosie as her property; another nonessential gadget, handy to have in the kitchen. I press the bell. Rosie is probably upstairs in the playroom with that song tape on. I hammer the door. Maybe she’s in the garden. I try the door; it opens stiffly. “Rosie?” I call.
Music plays quietly in the living room. Something jazzy, meandering nowhere in particular. They don’t usually play music in this house. Beth owns three token CDs: Phil Collins, Nina Simone, a love songs compilation with a silhouetted kissing couple on the cover.
“Rosie?” I shout upstairs. “It’s Nina. I’ve brought the feature.”
A cool gust drifts into the hall. The back door is open. I head for the garden, imagining her raking up the rest of those leaves with Maud asleep in the watery sun. But there’s the baby, in the kitchen, lying diagonally across her playpen. She’s snoring throatily. A wooden rattle rests on her open palm. Her broad chest rises and falls slowly. Her nappy bulges, full to capacity. She is wearing a vest, faintly stained, where tomato-based sauce might have splashed.
On the kitchen shelf, below Beth’s cookery books, are Matthew’s trophies: for golf and long-distance running. High achieving husband, good at everything. Happy to pick up the child care reins while his wife tissue-wraps glass animals in the country.
I check that Ben’s still asleep in the hall, then peer through the kitchen window. It’s less sparkling than usual. The garden looks damp and neglected. In the olden days, Beth said, Matthew dug up the turf to create borders and planted perennials. Then he stopped bothering, unless Beth really nagged. He blamed it on Maud. As she grew, so did the weeds. The decking looks bleak. Back in August, Matthew made a cack-handed attempt at mowing the lawn, but gave up after one lap.
Down at the bottom, where the grass grows taller, no lawn mower ventured all year. There’s Rosie, with her back to the house. She is moving up and down, her dress bunched about her waist. At first I can’t make him out, with the grass being so long. Then I see him, flat on his back, his hands clutching her hips, just yards from the place where Beth’s engagement ring came to rest, on a blanket made from 164 crocheted squares.
15
Couple Time
I’m turning the corner of Beth’s street when I realize I no longer have the manila envelope containing Rosie’s My Secret. It’s not in the changing bag, swinging from the buggy handles. It’s not rolled up, stuffed in my jeans pocket. It’s been put somewhere. In Beth’s kitchen, perhaps, beside the new fifties-style blender, perfect for smoothies and shakes so long as you screw the lid on properly, which she omitted to do first time around, splattering the Advanced One with pulverized strawberries.
Now I’m wondering if I even shut Beth’s front door in my hurry to get the heck out. It’ll be swinging idly, inviting burglars, while Matthew and Rosie finish things off in the garden.
I could go back and explain: I came round to bring you the feature—look, here it is, silly me!—but you weren’t in. Music was playing. Maybe you popped out and forgot to turn it off. I won’t mention Maud in the playpen. She was sleeping; I could easily have missed her. I’ll say: I looked everywhere. Nothing. No one. I didn’t see a thing.
They’ll be finished by now. With Rosie on top of him, he won’t be hanging about. He’ll exhibit enthusiasm previously unseen in the garden. They’ll ruffle the grass to erase the flat patch. Two flushed faces will check on Maud—still asleep? Good—and embark on ordinary dad/au pair activities. He might polish his trophies. She’ll prepare Maud’s midafternoon snack. When Beth calls, it’ll be Rosie who picks up the phone. “Everything’s fine,” she’ll say in her nice-girl-from-Kent voice. “Yes, of course she’s missing you. We all are.” And I think of Beth: trapped in the country, wrapping glass bunnies, counting the minutes until she’s back where she belongs.
I won’t tell her. We’re not close enough; it’s not in my job description. But she’ll find out. They’ll be careless. I hurry home, the buggy jerking over pavement cracks as I speed-walk, hoping the manila envelope will split into millions of particles and disperse in Beth’s kitchen, like flour.
Jonathan shows up with simmering cheeks and two jam-packed carrier bags clutched before him like outsized testicles. “What’s all this?” I ask as he unloads mixed leaves, prewashed and bagged in cellophane pillows. A polystyrene tray of twenty-four chicken thighs hits the worktop with a thump.
“This isn’t all of it,” he says, catching his breath. “I’ll get the rest in the morning, start the marinades and light the barbecue around two. The forecast is good for tomorrow—I’ve checked.”
It comes back to me now: the family gathering. My parents and Constance, getting to know each other just in time for our wedding. To give the impression that our families have mingled for decades. “Did you think about that house?” he says, lining up bottled oils ranging from beige to mossy-green.
I can’t think. I’m still picturing Rosie’s dark curls, springing about her shoulders. “We’ve got to make a decision,” Jonathan says. “Garie called me. I told him we loved it. He warned me that three other couples are viewing this week.”
Do we love it? There’s nothing to dislike. You can’t pretend that such a well-tended cottage is actually offensive.
“Of course he says that,” I reason. “Have you ever known an estate agent to tell the truth? He wants to chivvy us along, grab his commission. There might be loads wrong with it—roof, damp, guttering…”
“Did it smell damp to you?” he asks, stuffing empty bags into the carrier bag holder (a white plastic receptacle with holes for easy bag removal, attached to the inside of the hall cupboard. A design classic, Jonathan says).
“Let’s wait until after the wedding,” I suggest.
“It won’t be there after the wedding.”
I picture a space where the house once stood. The welly boot family, bereft at the gate, staring at the vacant rectangle. “I went round to Beth and Matthew’s today,” I blurt out.
He exhales impatiently. “Tried to get Matthew at work. I suppose I shou
ld have some sort of stag night, or at least go out for a beer. But he’d nipped out to the cashpoint and hadn’t come back. No one knew where he was.”
I can’t understand why Jonathan has picked Matthew for best man. He’s not the best man. Billy is. At least he’s interested in the wedding proceedings. He’s suggested having the stag night at the dog track or an Elvis impersonators’ club. At the ceremony he wants to play a little something he’s written. Worryingly, he has bought an accordion.
With the shopping unpacked, Jonathan wipes his brow on his jacket sleeve. Why doesn’t he take it off now he’s home? I lift it from his shoulders. His shirt feels damp, as if blasted by steam. He kisses me tentatively, like I might bite. I hear Ben shuffling on the kitchen floor. Jonathan’s hands are on my back and face and hair. Ben whimpers, fearing perhaps that his parents are about to adjourn to the bedroom and forget he exists. Babies won’t tolerate adults showing affection. They won’t have it, this lip-pressing thing that excludes them. Jonathan leads me into the hall. He kisses me less shyly now, against the cupboard, the one with the carrier bag holder inside.
“Awaa,” comes the cry from the kitchen. Ben’s scared now, thinking: they’re going to do it. Make a baby. A vile brother or sister who’ll lie under the activity arch—my activity arch—and nab the best modeling jobs.
A louder wail. “He’ll be all right,” whispers Jonathan, “just for a minute.” There are grunts as our son propels himself—definitely crawling, not bum shuffling—from the kitchen to the hall. His bottom lip juts out like a shelf.
“I have something to tell you,” I say. There’s an urgent tug at my ankle. Ben uses both hands in a futile attempt to pull up on my leg. “Matthew wasn’t at work,” I say carefully. “He was at home. In the garden. I went round to see—”
“About time. Have you seen the state of their lawn? They go to all that expense—the decking, those huge ceramic pots—and leave it to go rampant.” When he uses that word—rampant—I have to escape to the kitchen and hide my face in the fridge.
