by Fiona Gibson
Used to.
I unzip my sponge bag and find the perfume from Sylvie. It’s amber-colored, in cut glass. The bathwater isn’t warm enough. It never is at Eliza’s. The only way to have a proper hot bath is to pour only three inches so the water laps pathetically at your thighs.
I gaze at the tampons. When Mum told me about periods, she kept her back to me and said, “You’ll find STs at the bottom of my wardrobe.” I didn’t know what STs were. They sounded like a disease. “How long do periods last?” I asked.
“Until your forties or fifties. Then the menopause happens and everything shrivels up.” I pictured decades of blood flow with no letup.
I hear Eliza come in, and a flump of shopping bags hitting the floor. “Okay in there?” she calls, angling her head round the door. She spies the open bathroom cabinet. “Help yourself to anything,” she says, returning later with a cup of tea that tastes of sink. She looks at me, at the mum stomach that looks like most of the air’s been let out. “Something wrong?” she asks.
The tampons lean precariously against a conditioner designed to nourish from the inside out. I wonder how it does that, how it gets right to the middle of your hair. “You know, don’t you?” comes her voice.
My body could be having me on. What goes around comes around, the ferry woman said. I’ve been out of my normal routine. It’s just a little scare, like when you saunter out of the deli with your brown paper bag of posh, nutty bread and realize your baby’s still parked by the salami selection.
Eliza pushes her hair back from her face. She can’t look at me. “He needed someone,” she says.
The water’s way too cold now, although there’s a pocket of warmth where the hot tap drips. I climb out and wrap myself in a towel that smells of fungi.
She says, “It only happened once.”
Christophe calls with the fantastic news that he has located a source of free firewood. His father has broken off with the hairdresser, triggering her to tear up the fence he made and attack it with an ax. The wood has been sawn and chopped and piled in the living room of my parents’ house, to dry out. My mother drapes her washing on it. She’s had Christophe clearing the snow and driving to Chatillon for the linseeds Ashley recommended she incorporate into her diet. “There’s enough firewood to last until spring,” he says. “When are you coming back?”
Beth is making miniature cakes, each iced individually with fancy pink swirls. Jana made the sponge part and is now scouring a splat of mixture from the floor. She grunts with the effort. Beth says that’s the trick with au pairs; not to be embarrassed about making them tackle grittier jobs. Jana washes windows, cleans tiling grout and even fixed the ball cock in the cistern. Beth gets to do fun stuff, like playing with food coloring.
“I assume you’re only at Eliza’s as a stop gap,” she says. “It’s not right, is it? You’re Ben’s parents. You belong together. God knows what kind of message you’re sending.”
Ben is strapped into Maud’s high chair, jabbing fingers into an eggcup of icing. As far as I can tell, he’s unaware of any negative messages. His teeth are tinted pink. Maud is not allowed to join in; all that sugar. Think of the enamel. Beth has already had to point out a few basic facts to Jana; like please don’t buy jelly snakes again. You can practically smell the additives.
Beth’s thumb and forefinger are stained cranberry as if she’s been smoking a scarlet cigarette. “You’ll be stronger as a couple after all this,” she says. “Look at it as a learning experience. That’s what me and Matthew did. We’ve had our difficulties.”
Jana looks at her with moon eyes and gravitates to the ironing mountain. Matthew’s jaunty boxer shorts sit on top of the pile, expecting to be pressed. “It’s nothing you can’t solve,” Beth adds tersely. “Did you read that book I sent you? It’s about communication. That’s what we focused on. Talking, expressing needs. We’re even trying for another baby. Seriously now, considering how long it took last time. I’m plotting my fertile days. We’re following a one day on, one day off program so he can—you know—replenish.”
Jana is now slumped over Matthew’s penguin-patterned boxers. “We’re looking into sex,” Beth adds. I feel bilious. Maybe it’s all this pink icing. My teeth feel sticky, like they need to be shot blasted. “Naturally we want another girl, a sister for Maud,” she continues. “Don’t think I could cope with a boy.” She glances at Ben, whose tongue is a cochineal dart. “Sorry,” she says.
I do a test which winks predictably blue and see Dr. McKenzie who uses a flat plastic wheel covered in numbers and says I am due at the end of July. Dr. McKenzie has wide, flat cheeks and comforting freckles. I sit on a red hessian chair, not wanting to leave. The room smells of wet plaster. Ben delves into a box of battered plastic toys, forcing his arm through the window of a double-decker bus. “So it’s definite,” I say.
“Of course. You’re nearly fourteen weeks. Haven’t you noticed any symptoms?”
“I’ve been away. I thought maybe my cycle was messed up.” Dr. McKenzie has a stack of patients waiting to show her their mysterious lumps and fungal toenails but not the heart to sling me out. “The nausea should subside,” she adds. “You’ll feel better soon. You’ll glow.”
“That’s great,” I say, rooted to the hessian seat.
Eliza is preparing for a trip. She’s off to Crete where a boat will be hired and decorated with models who’ll pretend to handle the tiller and sails. She’s on the phone a lot, arguing with the photographer. Hector is a rising star with an attitude that spills out of the phone and onto the carpet, like lava.
“I don’t want to take Mimi,” Eliza snaps. “Too blond, kind of cheap. I’m fixed on Jade. She’s not really modeling any more—she’s an artist. We’re lucky to get her.”
Hector’s voice rattles like coins in a tin. All this effort and angst to fill seven pages of a magazine that will be bunged under wonky bed legs. I can’t see the point of it. Maybe Eliza can’t either. She has tired-looking lips and gray fingerprints under her eyes. “He can’t go changing his mind on a whim,” she complains. I suspect she’s relieved for a little drama to talk about. It stops anything else being mentioned.
The evening before her trip, Eliza hides in her room with the door shut. When she does emerge, to fetch the Dead Sea cream from the bathroom, she smiles anxiously like a shoplifter. I find her cross-legged on her bed, examining a model card: Mimi, a light and airy girl, like froth on beer. “Maybe Hector’s right,” she says. “We could fly her out halfway through the week, give her a try. She’s dollyish, but we could make it kind of ironic.”
I curl up on her bed and we flick through model cards together, just like old times, each of us pretending that Jonathan simply doesn’t exist.
I am back at Dr. McKenzie’s but this time for Ben who is wheezing and oozing snot. I wonder if Eliza’s flat has anything to do with it. The space clearing enterprise has gained momentum. Boxes of unwanted items are stacked in my room, blocking the lower two-thirds of the window. Eliza returned from Greece with lightly grilled skin and a fierce determination to put everything to rights. She tackled the scary innards of her bathroom cupboard, flinging dried-up tubes into a bin bag. She tossed me an opaque blue perfume bottle, saying it wasn’t her thing. It turned out to be a display bottle filled with water.
Dr. McKenzie fixes her green eyes on me while I tell her about Ben’s breathing. She says, “I don’t think he’s asthmatic. He’s had a virus, that’s all, and his tubes are clogged with mucus.” I picture wormy colored wires, like those in the fuse box in Vanvey. “Bring him back,” she says, “any time you’re worried. And I hope you’re looking after yourself.”
“Of course I am,” I say, grinning ferociously. “Never felt better.”
I leave the surgery and stop at the chemist where Ben’s cough ricochets off a display cabinet of cruelty-free lipsticks. I leave with a clear syrup and instructions from an elderly lady buying fierce red blusher to set a bowl of hot water in his bedroom. I don’t menti
on that he doesn’t have a bedroom, or that his sleeping quarters are overshadowed by a teetering heap of Confetti magazines.
When I reach Eliza’s I fill the plastic medicine spoon to the halfway mark. Seeing it, Ben’s mouth slams shut. I prize his lips apart with one hand while keeping the spoon steady and clamping the bottle between my knees. Ben tumbles back, booting the spoon, which shoots syrup onto Christophe’s sweater. Ben screams, traumatized by a mother trying to do something horrible to his face. I have dropped the bottle. The syrup makes a sticky pool which shivers on the carpet, not sinking in.
I lean against an empty cardboard box, wondering what Eliza plans to put in it. The box is open, waiting for decisions to be made. That’s the thing with old stuff. What to throw out, what to keep hanging around in case you need it one day. That’s the hard bit.
22
Emerging Independence
Garie Bartholomew has been transferred to the London office. A small sadness hangs about him, like his pet has died. He is on the phone, saying, “Sorry, but they’ll laugh at that offer. They’ve had a lot of interest. You’re talking the best state secondary in the borough.”
He looks at me, rubbing a sunburnt nose. His eyes are ringed with skiing goggle ovals. “Mrs.—”he says, digging for a name.
“Nina,” I say. “You showed me—us—around a place in—”
“Cedar Cottage, right? Gone weeks ago I’m afraid. But we have plenty more, and if you hang on a tick—” He opens a drawer, flicking papers. His suit shines as if it has been lightly oiled. “Here,” he says, handing me details of a modern house pretending to be old with Greek pillars straddling a white-and-gold front door. “Newly built,” he says. “I know you and your—you were looking for a period property, right? Well, you’d never know this was new. It’s faced in real stone—see how solid it looks?”
“It’s solid,” I agree.
“And you’re not dealing with someone else’s botched DIY. You’re not talking a complete renovation job. What I’ll do is, I’ll give you Tanya’s number. She’ll set up a viewing.”
“Thanks, but I’m looking for somewhere around here.” He peels a sliver of skin from his nose. “Do you have any places to rent?” I ask. “Two bedrooms or even just one?”
Garie says there’s nothing, at least nothing that we’d consider taking.
“I’ll look at anything,” I say, “anything you have.”
Christophe calls to report that the roof is entirely leak-free and as soon as the weather improves he’ll dig out the bank at the back of the house. That should sort out the damp problem. My parents have headed south, sick of the cold, and left Christophe with a long list of tasks. “Thanks,” I say, “for the roof.”
“So it’s ready for you,” he says.
The flat is on the middle floor of a maisonette block that skirts a market selling fruit, veg and cheap household goods in plastic baskets. Garie unlocks the door but seems reluctant to come in. He strokes his trousers and examines the palms of his hands. Every room is the color of artificial limb, except the bathroom, which is custard. “It’s not ready to be let,” explains Garie from the open front door. “The owner had to leave in a hurry. Some kind of emotional problem.” The kitchen is long and skinny with cracked orange units and the smell of old gravy. “He wants it decorated before he puts a tenant in,” Garie adds.
“So when will it be available?”
“April?” he shrugs. “Leave me your number. I’ll let you know when it’s in better shape.”
At one end of the living room a door opens onto a balcony. An antique microwave is parked out there with a lame pigeon staggering upon it. “Could you open this door?” I ask.
Garie sighs and checks his watch. I step out and stare at a jumble of neglected roof terraces. When I come back in, I catch him looking at my belly. There’s a suggestion of a shape there, impatient flutters inside. “I need a place right away,” I explain. “I’ll take it just the way it is.”
He looks up from my stomach. “Of course,” he blusters, “your partner will want to see it.”
“There’s no partner.”
He looks irritated as if I’ve wasted enough of his time already. He could be showing nice couples serious houses with playrooms and utility rooms and purpose-built annexes for the au pair. “But I thought you wanted somewhere more rural,” he says. His eyes light on the cheap red watch I bought from the market stall.
“No,” I say, “I never wanted that kind of place.”
Ben’s wheeze dies away, leaving a souped-up baby exploring new territory with a speedy crawl and an obsessional love of the balcony. Jonathan calls, a little friendlier, to offer me Constance’s old bed. “It’s solid,” he says, “properly made, though you’d need a new mattress. I’ll hire a van and bring it over.” I tell him it won’t fit up the stairs, then buy a new one, self assembly, its slats designed to be lashed together with some kind of cord. The mattress is propped against the bedroom wall. The men delivering it had to feed it around the corners of the stairwell, ripping its plastic covering.
Jonathan told me to take anything I need from our household account, but instead I arranged a loan, bluffing that payments for my freelance work would soon be rolling in. I have also purchased a flat pack table with fold-out leaves, a portable TV, and a shelving unit for the stereo which I don’t have yet. The pink living room carpet is strewn with paper diagrams. To escape, I head out for bananas but instead find Felt Lady, transporting her son in a backpack. She marches across the road to the fruit stall, stopping a car with her outstretched arm.
“So sorry to hear about you and Jonathan,” she begins, snatching a plum from the stall.
“How’s the felt?” I ask quickly.
“I’ve moved on from felt. Still doing paper. And I’m making a bottle tree. Dig them up at tips and saw off their bottoms and feed them onto the branches of trees.” The fruit stall man moves a handwritten notice to a more prominent position. It says Please Don’t Squeeze. “Can I count you in on the POOP protest?” barks Felt Lady.
“What will it involve?”
“Me, Beth and the others are meeting at six every Sunday morning. You’ll need chalk. We’re splitting into groups. Ringing every piece of dog crap we find. We’ll write This Is Disgusting next to each deposit. We’ll shame them, that’s the idea.”
“I don’t think—” I begin.
“Come on. We need as many bodies as possible. Are you living round here?”
I point at the maisonette block which borders the market square like a staple.
“God,” she says.
Six pregnant women arrange unwieldy legs on beanbags in Jennifer’s living room. She’s an antenatal teacher and is burning lavender candles to create an aura of relaxation. There are four men, all pretending to be comfortable. A woman with a vast meringue of a bump says she’s having twins. “My sister has twins,” says Jennifer. “Teenagers now. They’re actresses. There’s a big demand for twins, you know. Directors like them because if one’s tired or having an off day, they can bring the other one in. They’re very marketable, twins.”
The woman laughs and says, “I don’t think that’s our sort of thing.” A glum-looking man hovers behind her like a cape.
She sits next to me during herbal tea break and asks, “Can’t your partner come to classes?”
“We’re not together,” I say.
She clutches her belly and says sorry, anyway, hadn’t we better get back to the living room for the pain relief talk? “It’s fine,” I call after her. “I’ve done this before.”
Later, I notice that she has assumed a position as far as possible from me and, when I catch her eye, she twiddles her wedding ring as if embarrassed for having a husband.
I’m not the only woman without a man. The other has gappy teeth and a proud, watermelon bump. She assumes an all-fours position with her head dipping close to the floor and when she looks up she says, “Hi, Nina.”
“Rosie,” is all I can say.
Christophe reporting that some of the tiles have blown off the roof. Water pouring into the little bedroom. Bed soaked. No hope of drying it out. Disappointment seeps from the answerphone.
Beth’s quivering voice saying would I believe it? She specified a nonsmoker. But she smelt something. You can detect it a mile off, can’t you, when you’ve never had a cigarette in your life? And the top drawer of the chest? Meant for underwear? Stuffed with Jana’s fag butts. No wonder she bought all those mouthwashes and mints. Maud has been passive smoking since November. God knows what it’s done to her respiratory system. The agency is sending a Swiss girl called Beatrice who enjoys outdoor pursuits.
I buy emulsion paint in enormous tins and soon each room is a stark white box, except the bathroom where the custard shows through. Ben wakes up and squints. The white walls make the pink living room carpet appear instantly tawdry, so I scoop up Ben and rap at the downstairs flat’s front door.
She is younger than I am and smells of sweet peas. Her hair is pulled back carelessly from her face. “I’ve just moved in upstairs,” I explain, “and I will get a Hoover, only I haven’t got round to—”
“Of course,” she says, “I’ll bring it up.” Her name is Helen and she child-minds a clutter of infants of various shapes and sizes. Charlie, a boy of around five, tails her into my flat. He seems to belong to her. He’s pretending to help carry the Hoover, but is banging the button that winds the flex back in.
“So are you…on your own?” she asks.
“Well, I’ve got Ben.”
“And you’re—”
“Yes, due at the end of July.”
She smiles kindly. Charlie gazes at my stomach as if it might open up and reveal a twirling figure, like a musical box.
