by Fiona Gibson
“I really want to marry you,” I tell him.
As everyone else saw the film months ago, the cinema’s only a third full. We’ve never seen a film together. I wonder if Jonathan sits through the credits until the lights come on, or bolts the instant it’s over. I have him down for a credits man. Not a hot dog or popcorn or fizzy drink with straw poked through lid man.
There are trailers for films I’ve never heard of, starring actors who must be massively famous considering the weight of importance given to their names. I should know about them, have the intricacies of their private lives stored in my brain. I’m a journalist, after all. But celebrities aren’t my area. I interview ordinary people who do far weirder things than actors do. Failing that, I just make stuff up.
There are commercials. A model with limbs like a gazelle’s, the kind of girl Eliza works with. She’s on a jetty, drinking something made from peaches. It could be me on our honeymoon (although I’ve got bulkier legs), if Jonathan hadn’t been so set on the B&B thing. I offer him my popcorn. He waves it away.
And there’s a bath product ad. A flurry of infants splashing in an inflatable pool. Close-ups of features: wide eyes with wet lashes; a gurgling, toothless mouth. Now a whole baby: waist-high in water, supported by a duck-shaped floating seat. He splashes with a fist, brings a hand to his mouth, sucks a finger. The image freezes.
Little Squirts. Because we care about your baby as much as you do.
The film begins. Kevin Spacey in suburban America. Something awful’s going to happen, we’re told that at the start. A very sexy, very young girl rolls about in potpourri. There’s a narky adolescent, the troublemaker. Somehow, my popcorn tastes both salty and sweet. The piece in my mouth shrinks to a hard kernel but won’t melt away completely. For the second time tonight, I can’t swallow. The kernel remains in my cheek, hard as a gem.
I can’t follow the plot. Kevin Spacey is up to stuff with the potpourri girl but all I can see is a baby supported by a duck-shaped seat. Raspberry bath gel. Kiwi and papaya body and hair wash. Even conditioner. I steal a glance at Jonathan. His eyes are fixed on the screen, his lips pressed firmly together. Kevin Spacey’s wife falls for a rival estate agent. He’s flashier than Garie, with better suits. We leave, with someone babbling behind us: no wonder it won all those Oscars.
Outside it’s drizzling. My dress appears to have shrunk. Its narrow straps dig into my shoulders. I undid the shoes in the cinema but have had to buckle them again. They too have shrunk. Jonathan flags down a black cab. I clamber in beside him, conscious of my knees and gusts of disapproval.
“What did you think?” I ask hopefully.
He stares out of the window. Pavements mill with good moods; for most people the night’s just beginning.
“What do you think I think?” he says.
16
Tantrums
Rosie is stretched out on her belly on the tufted cream rug, as if sunbathing. She has been reading InHouse; it’s lying open at a page about contemporary flower arranging (don’t mix your blooms—just go for one variety, like hyacinths, displaying in a plain, rectangular vase).
Jonathan zooms straight to the bedroom. A dad’s natural response. Checking on baby. Not because he is livid with bride-to-be. Not because anything has happened.
Rosie glances toward the bedroom, following his exit. “Enjoy the film?” she says, gathering herself up. She is wearing faded jeans and a snug-fitting black sweater. Her perfume smells of honey.
“Brilliant,” comes my unconvincing voice.
“What was it again?”
All I can recall is the girl in potpourri. The title escapes me. I can remember an ad, with a baby. A grinning, finger-sucking baby, now sleeping soundly, having been given his evening bottle in the correct manner.
“Oh, weird stuff,” I say. I just want her to go. She gets up, taking several decades to pull on a worn denim jacket. Each arm is fed, in slow motion, into a sleeve. She strokes her streamlined neck as if reassuring herself that it’s not saggy and dumpy like mine.
“Thanks for tonight,” I say, scrabbling in my purse for money. There’s a fistful of scraps: deli receipts, directions to the springwater shoot, plus the number of a photographer Lovely recommended to take Ben’s model card pictures. I must have the shots done within the next fortnight to make the deadline for the Spring/Summer Model Directory.
I have 27p. Jonathan is awash with cash but he hasn’t emerged from the bedroom. Perhaps he’s getting undressed. Is this how his birthday ends, with me creeping in to make amends, and finding him asleep? What about his presents? Rosie smiles and says, “It’s a favor. We had fun. Buy me a coffee sometime.”
Jonathan is running a bath. He has the taps on full-blast. I could pretend it wasn’t Ben; don’t all babies look alike, especially when naked? Would Jonathan apologize and mumble, “I thought…just for a moment…how stupid I was…”? But he knows. When you’re fifty percent responsible for a child’s genetic makeup, you are perfectly clear about who’s eyeballing you from a twenty-five-foot screen.
He dries himself in the bathroom. I hear the soft flump of a bath towel hitting the floor. Normally he would slide it between the chrome bars of the heated towel rail. There are footsteps in the bedroom. The bedside light clicks off. I let my black dress drop to the living room floor. I kick off the brazen shoes. They leave pinched imprints on my feet as if I’m still wearing them, but in wrinkled pink. When I’m quite sure he’s asleep, I slip in beside him.
He leaves for work before Ben wakes up. It’s early; not quite seven. And he hasn’t gone to work. He doesn’t work on Saturdays. We go to the market for veg and prepare Ben’s food for the week ahead on Saturdays. I assist by chopping herbs and cleaning the blender blades. I’m getting quite good at it. Heck, if he’s going to react like this—over some insignificant bubble bath ad—I can get along without him. Who makes their own baby food? Beth does. Or rather, Rosie does. No one else has the time or the patience. What will happen when Ben eventually comes into contact with a factory-made dinner? He’ll go berserk, like the kid who’s never encountered anything sweeter than a digestive and chomps gobfuls of birthday cake before the candles have been lit.
I am tempted to test this theory. While Jonathan’s huffing somewhere, I’ll buy baby-food jars and drinks with maximum sugar content and loads of aspartame. See what he thinks about that.
Ben whimpers, pulling himself up on the cot bars. I lift him into bed. He propels himself into the space where Jonathan should be. His lips purse with disappointment. To distract him from Jonathan’s absence—how do babies know it’s Saturday, that Dad should be here?—I change and dress him briskly, singing to show how fine and normal and bloody fantastic everything is.
He’s in his high chair, a new acquisition. Recently, Jonathan mentioned that this might be our last baby purchase; that the flat would soon return to normal. “When he’s old enough to sit in a real chair, we can store this thing out of sight. Until next time,” he added. I didn’t mention that my mother had acquired a baby walker—an enormous plastic doughnut on wheels—at a car boot sale. Jonathan believes that such contraptions do untold damage to a child’s developing limbs.
By midmorning, I’ve discovered that Jonathan’s mobile is switched off and that he hasn’t gone to talk best man business with Matthew. “Have you had a row?” asks Beth, the clink of crockery in the background.
“It’s nothing. He probably said he was doing something. Maybe I didn’t listen.”
“Wedding nerves,” she soothes. “He’ll have gone for a walk. Probably working out his speech.”
But Jonathan doesn’t walk, not for fun. And we’ve decided we don’t want speeches. Jonathan plans to thank our guests and the frosty couple who own the Fox and say a few words about Ben. Billy is still threatening to do something on his accordion. Eliza is delighted to have found appropriate headwear and called to check that I was okay with a tiara; that I won’t feel upstaged by her sparkling headgear. Right now, she c
ould show up with a chandelier on her head.
Jonathan’s birthday presents still lie under the bed. I consider taking Ben swimming but can’t face the rigmarole of the changing village. I could plonk him in the center of a circle of toys and try to rustle up someone for a genuine My Secret, but tap out Eliza’s number instead. As her answerphone clicks on I remember that she’s not due back from Nice until tonight. Eliza’s trips are so commonplace that she rarely bothers to mention them. But she was revved up about this one. Dale was going. She had booked Greg for a shoot; Dale just happened to be his assistant. “I’d have booked Greg anyway,” she insisted.
Lovely calls, apologizing for bothering me on a Saturday. “Something amazing’s come up. Wednesday. Are you free? Zachary Marshall was booked but he’s put his hand on the washing machine door, poor darling. Ninety degree wash. His mother was trying to get the gravy stains out of a dressing gown.”
I try to sound sympathetic as if I know Zachary and care about his blistered paw. Ben raps his high chair table with a rubber spoon, exhibiting a newfound disapproval of Mother on the Telephone. “It’s swollen up and bandaged,” Lovely continues. “I biked over the Little Squirts and supermarket clips and they want Ben to take his place.”
I point a loaded spoon at Ben’s mouth, which jams shut: his mother is still on the phone and that isn’t right. “It’s not that Ben’s second choice,” Lovely adds quickly. “I didn’t put you up for the job because I’m worried about overusing him. But if you’re available—”
“I’m available,” I say, scribbling time and location in the small lined notebook I keep behind the formula milk in the cupboard. “What’s the job?” It’s almost an afterthought.
“The opening titles of a new breakfast show. His face will be superimposed on a boiled egg.”
“I hope they don’t bash him,” I say, “with a teaspoon.” Splinters of laughter tinkle down the phone. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be tastefully done.”
By lunchtime the flat has shrunk to a dingy box that’s difficult to breathe in. How long does a Jonathan bad mood last? I’m not practiced at this. I try his mobile again, then Constance, but her face looms in my mind, assessing my wife-to-be credentials, pleased that we’ve had some kind of upset. I bang down the phone. Ben eyes me, crossly. “Isn’t this fun?” I tell him. “Shall we play with your bricks? How about we have a roll on the rug?”
His eyes sidle to the front door.
I know what to do. I’ll get ready for Jonathan, make things nice. I’ll be wifely. Make dinner in advance. Jonathan’s cookbooks are neatly lined up in the cupboard in ascending order of height. I select Easy Suppers for Friends. Supper once meant cornflakes or maybe toast and jam before bed; not a proper meal. Here, each chapter is headed with a single word: Cheese. Potatoes. Vegetables. Even the simplest recipes appear to require ingredients I’d have to import from another continent or at least obtain by mail order.
I remember something I ate with Eliza on holiday in Corfu. Chicken in alcoholic sauce, with fruit bits. Maybe rum was involved. And oranges. We have rum: Havana Club, moved into Jonathan’s flat with my ratty paperbacks, somehow surviving his clear out of my possessions. We have chicken, too, in the freezer, left over from the barbecue. Jonathan overestimated our parents’ appetites. I set them to defrost. Ben cranes up from his high chair, intrigued by the whirring of the microwave.
Maybe I should cut up these chicken bits, like Jonathan does. Allow the flavors to permeate. Gripping the breadknife, I saw a thigh. The flesh clings together, connected by fatty strings. I slice harder, gripping the thigh, and the knife slips, gouging a trough between my thumb and forefinger.
I wash blood off the chicken and try to yank it apart, but the effort squeezes more blood from the gash. There’s a bandage in the medical box, but nothing to secure it with. Ben, who has so far regarded my cookery demonstration with rapt interest, bellows to be liberated from the high chair.
I lift him out with blood trickling along my forearm, inking his vest. He’s crying, his face contorted. It’s loud enough to make a passing stranger glance at our flat with pity, and hurry on. Finally his sobs subside into hiccups. Scissors: that’s what chefs use. Still cradling Ben in one arm, I find some in the medical box. Jonathan used them to neaten Ben’s fringe. I was worried he’d make him look too prim for the supermarket shoot.
The bandage is secured with self-adhesive hedgehogs from a sticker book Beth gave to Ben. I thought he was too young for stickers but Beth said no, they’d help him develop fine motor skills. Maud can already remove a sticker from its backing. The chicken is snipped into misshapen strips, and doused with rum. I plonk Ben back in his high chair so he can watch my slick knife action as I chop a banana and an orange. As I open the oven door and slide in the dish, he waves delightedly. Yes: his mother can cook. This is the way things should be. If she’d grow a little less fond of the telephone, life would be pretty damn perfect.
My hand aches now, blood starbursting onto the bandage. Every half hour, I check the chicken dish. Nothing appears to be happening. I call Jonathan. When he spots me committing the phone crime again, Ben lurches for the hem of my jeans. Jonathan’s voice mail clicks in. Ben roars, sabotaging any hope of leaving a message.
Later, the chicken appears to have heated through, although it still looks lank and uncooked. I wonder if the rum and fruit should have thickened and turned a more appetizing color. Banana slices float on top. I find candles under the sink and green glass holders to set them in. But I don’t light them yet—can’t have them flickering to nothing before he comes home.
I set two places at the table, checking wineglasses for smears. Ben greets his tea with morose acceptance. Even in the bath, he displays none of his usual enthusiasm. He places flat hands on the water’s surface to see if they float.
I turn down the oven. Will a low heat cause bacteria to multiply at a terrifying rate? I don’t want Jonathan poisoned on top of all this. I switch off the oven, figuring that when he shows up, I can blast my creation on the hob.
Ben lies across my knees, on the big bed, sucking his evening bottle. When it’s finally dark I curl around him and drift, lulled by the steadiness of his breath.
I’m used to Eliza’s grotty flat but I’ve never realized how potentially dangerous it is. It’s Ben’s first visit. I’ve brought my vulnerable son to a hazardous environment. Dotted red lines appear round the following dangers: a serrated knife lying across a breadboard on the sofa, evidence of a hurriedly prepared breakfast. A sturdy tripod, leaning against the fridge. The kettle, perched on a stool and on the verge of boiling point, which Eliza reaches by straddling an open suitcase heaped with bikini-type clothing. She greeted me and my bandaged hand with a hug that smelt of coconut.
She makes tea. The downstairs kids are practicing screaming in the hall. Ben investigates the flex of a chrome standard lamp. There are unguarded sockets everywhere, capable of shooting billions of volts through my son’s fragile body. Eliza is wearing a scrap of black silk, possibly a robe, and the remains of tawny lipstick applied at least twelve hours earlier. “What do you think?” she asks, sipping fierce brown tea.
“His mother’s, maybe. But he wouldn’t. He doesn’t tell her stuff.”
She blows into her mug. “There must be someone he’d go to. Doesn’t he have any friends?”
I shrug. “There’s Matthew and Beth, but I’ve tried them. Maybe Billy, his old schoolmate.”
“That’s where he’ll be. With someone who really knows him.”
I can imagine Billy’s response: “Oh, mate. What’s it matter? Think how much cash the kid’ll rake in. It’s a laugh. Where’s your sense of humor?” And he’d try to cheer up Jonathan with his latest alcohol-related incident, like the time he fell asleep while having a fag and was disturbed from his slumber by an ill-tempered firefighter, smashing down his front door.
No, he won’t be at Billy’s.
Eliza makes a feeble attempt to tidy a rumple of dresses on hange
rs which have been slung across an armchair. The electric fire glows sickly orange. Ben crawls behind the sofa, emerging with a brush, matted with hair, and licks it.
“He’ll turn up,” Eliza says. “Disappearing like this—it’s an overreaction. An attention-seeking device.”
“I should have told him at the start.”
She pulls the robe thing around herself. “That’s what he’s mad about. Deceit. Not the actual modeling.”
“Can I stay?” I ask suddenly.
Her eyes are on Ben, now gazing lovingly at the bars of the fire. During a long-ago sexual encounter, a lover of Eliza’s had yelped on the floor as though in ecstasy. Eliza had felt chuffed at his enthusiasm, until she discovered he’d jammed a toe between the bars of this fire. “It wouldn’t be for long,” I add. “He’ll come back. He just needs to cool down.”
Eliza’s cat sneaks into the living room, making for a saucer in the hall. I’m not a cat lover; can’t stand that claws-out dance they perform on your lap. It’s behavior you wouldn’t tolerate from a fellow human, let alone an animal with fish-breath. Enthralled, Ben follows the cat with a supercharged crawl.
Eliza’s bedroom door opens. Dale steps out in gray striped pants; an overabundance of beige male flesh. “Hey!” he says. “I thought we had company.” And he checks Ben’s rear end, hoisted high and reeking even higher.
The cat stiffens. “I’ll get dressed,” says Eliza. “Make yourself a cuppa.” And she heads for the bedroom with Dale, pants cling-filmed to his buttocks.
I feed Ben on the roof where there are no sockets or bubbling kettles; just a sheer drop to the pavement. He has mashed banana. How handy the banana is: neatly packaged, easily squashable. I wonder if babies really appreciate the fresh herbs that go into their meals. What do they get in the womb? A constant trickle of unidentifiable stuff, via a tube made of skin. Then they’re born and it’s papaya this, mango that. Talk about overegging the pudding.
