by Beth Miller
She says, ‘Do you want to come in for a minute, Miffy?’
I knew being here would mean facing Laura. She was once such a significant figure in my life; a symbol of everything that went wrong. Now I know she’s just a person who did some stupid things.
And haven’t we all, as Dad would say if he were here.
Laura
14 FEBRUARY 2003
You know those women who say, ‘Oh, I only take five minutes to get ready’? I always want to say, ‘Yes, darling, I can see that, but what did you do for the other four minutes?’
I take my time. Always have. Hair, make-up, clothes. It’s so important to do it properly. You can tell when it’s been rushed.
Huw says I’m high maintenance. Used to mean it as a compliment. Now it’s: Laura, what have you been doing for the last hour? Now it’s: Laura, you look no different from when you went upstairs. Thanks, honey bun; love you too.
Don’t tell him, but tonight’s session has been a bit of a marathon – nearly two hours. Partly because of my sodding chin and its plucking hair (ha!); and partly because it’s been hard to get the exact blend of foundation to disguise the bruise.
The crowd is roaring on the TV downstairs. You know what? Huw should be pleased. He didn’t want to miss the football, and now he’s had time for the game and the inevitable post-match recriminations. Dopey Paige is down there too, doubtless staring at the telly with her mouth open, drool trickling from her lower lip. The only nineteen-year-old in Wales with no plans for Valentine’s, bless her hefty backside. I know it’s a waste, paying her to babysit while we’re still here. But my chin hairs have started to instantly replace themselves, like a sustainable forest.
‘What’s happening, cariad? Was wondering if you’d died up here.’
Huw’s face looms behind mine in the mirror. Eleven years my senior, but looks fresher than me. His silvery blond hair flops onto his forehead, giving him a boyish air. Slim, clean-shaven, eyes the same bright fall-in-love-with-me blue I fell in love with.
I know I look older than thirty-seven. My hair’s cut in what passes for a sharp bob in North Wales: basically a straggly bob. I used to think my Spanish heritage was a gift: thick black hair and olive skin, like my mother and Frida Kahlo. But these days I’m more of a flabby old peasant-type, whose key resemblance to Frida is the facial hair.
‘Can you see the bruise?’ I ask.
Huw peers at my forehead. ‘No, it’s hidden under a trowel-load of cement.’
Did I mention this bruise? It’s all right, it’s not hurting that much any more. I put on some more smouldering purple eye-shadow. My big brown eyes, once my best feature, have so many lines round them I’ve been considering Botox, even though it’s just not done here in the back arse of beyond. Not done because if you bother with your appearance beyond wearing matching socks, everyone thinks you’re trivial. And literally not done, either, because there aren’t any proper clinics. You’d have to go somewhere metropolitan, like Liverpool. I once mentioned my interest in Botox to Ceri, and she reacted as if I’d told her I was considering having my boobs grafted to my head. Which I will do, if they slide any lower. That’s the bit I don’t like about being pregnant: the way your tits just kind of sit on your stomach, reminding you that the gravity-defying part of your life is over.
‘Come on, cariad, let’s go, if we’re going. You look fine.’ His Welshy sing-song accent used to charm me, but he surely knows by now that I find it irritating.
‘I do not look fine! I look like a fucking dog’s dinner!’
‘Dog’s bollocks, more like. Well, you could maybe try a different colour on your eyes. What with the bruise, people’ll think I took a swing at you.’
‘Daaa-ddy!’ The Ruler of the House is calling, demanding an immediate audience with her most favoured subject. Huw trots off to attend to Evie, and I squeeze into what used to be my reliable going-out dress, before my tummy began to resemble a bowling ball.
Did I mention I’m pregnant? Memory like a sieve. Well, I am. Keep your congratulations low-key. No one but me is particularly happy about it.
I pause outside Evie’s door. ‘I don’t want you to go out, Daddy.’
‘Well, darling,’ Huw says in his talking-to-children voice, ‘it’s important for mums and dads to go out together, isn’t it? To talk, and enjoy each other’s company.’
Doesn’t sound like any evening Huw and I have had for a while. But now I’m ready, I want to go. I’m starving, and Jenny-and-Paul are good cooks. Which almost makes up for them holding hands and droning on about how fucking happy they are.
I look into the living room, where Dopey Paige is staring – yes, mouth open – at the telly. I pull on my coat, and hover at the bottom of the stairs. Huw takes his time, being extra patient with Evie to get at me.
It’s a fifteen-minute drive to the dinner party – time enough to fit in a good row.
Me: ‘Just don’t embarrass me tonight, that’s all I ask.’
Him: ‘Why should I embarrass you?’
‘Let’s see. Hmm. How about snogging some girl in front of everyone. Yes, I think that qualifies as embarrassing, don’t you?’
‘One fucking kiss!’
‘So there was fucking as well, was there?’
‘Hilarious! You should be a stand-up. One fucking kiss in fifteen years!’
‘What do you want, a long-service medal?’
‘I want you to stop going on about it.’
‘I’ll stop going on about it when you tell me why you did it.’
‘Why does anyone do anything? I was pissed, I suppose.’
‘Yeah, right. Just a coincidence.’
‘Just a coincidence, what?’
‘That it happened when it did.’
‘What, on New Year’s Eve?’
‘Fuck New Year’s Eve! It was two days after I told you I was pregnant.’
‘It was New Year’s Eve! The traditional time for getting pissed and snogging people! It’s practically obligatory!’
‘Just a coincidence, then.’
‘Will you stop saying that?’
‘I’ll stop saying that when you stop snogging other women!’
And so on.
We don’t always argue like this. You’re not seeing us at our best. We’ve had our ups and downs: marrying too young (me); a broken marriage (him); then step-children (me); then Evie, our very own home-grown dictator (both of us). Then the miscarriages (me again). Not to mention both having come from complicated family lives. Though who doesn’t?
Till recently, we had a strong marriage.
Not lately, though. As I’m sure Huw would put it to the girl from New Year’s Eve, or any other totty he has hidden away, we are ‘going through a rough patch’.
We’re so late, Jenny-and-Paul have assumed we aren’t coming and have removed our chairs to make more room. They squeeze us back in, but they’re very much not thrilled.
‘We should have called,’ I say.
‘Never mind, you’re here now,’ Jenny says tightly. ‘There’s some lamb left.’
She’s only gone and decorated the room with red hearts. Spent this morning cutting out crêpe paper, bless her girlish little soul. I wouldn’t exactly say she is a friend, in case you’re wondering. I met her through Ceri, my boss. For a couple of years, Huw and I, Jenny-and-Paul, and Ceri-and-Whoever-She’s-With-This-Time have taken it in turns to host a monthly dinner. I used to fantasise that it would be a sophisticated salon-type thing, but forgot where I was and the sort of people I was dealing with.
Ceri’s all cosied up next to Rees. Since her divorce she’s been through most of the single men in Gwynedd, so I felt obliged to set her up with Rees, the last man standing. I’ve known him since my student days. Despite not being bad-looking, he’s never been married. Soon as he opens his mouth, you know why. ‘Well, hellooo, curvy lady,’ he says, leering at me.
Ceri shoves his arm; Huw pretends not to hear; I say, ‘Yes, Rees, a baby-belly is this season’s
must-have accessory.’
Jenny plonks a sparse helping of dried-up lamb and potatoes in front of me and Huw, and we respond with stratospheric cries of gratitude. Jenny sits back down and pushes her dessert bowl aside. She hasn’t noticed the stain on her blouse. ‘We were worried about you,’ she says. ‘Wondering if something had happened’ – stage whisper – ‘with the baby,’ indicating my stomach with her eyes.
‘Oh, no, everything’s fine.’ I improvise: ‘The sitter was late.’
‘Thought you’d decided to have a romantic Valentine’s night in,’ says Paul.
Rees gives me a creepy wink.
‘Can’t stand Valentine’s,’ says Huw. ‘Commercial shite.’
‘Rees agrees with you,’ Ceri says. ‘Thinks giving flowers is playing into the hands of The Man.’
‘Rip-off, yeah?’ Rees does his Woody Woodpecker laugh. ‘They double the prices on February fourteenth.’
‘I’d be happy getting flowers on the fifteenth,’ says Ceri.
‘White, red or fizzy, Laura?’ Paul says. Thank God, I thought he’d never ask. I’m not drinking but I really need something to get through this.
‘Paul!’ Jenny cries, miming an enormous stomach. ‘She’s pregnant!’
‘I can have half a glass.’
Jenny shakes her head at Paul, and he pours me some water.
‘Better safe than sorry, right?’ Jenny’s one of those fascist Americans, the sort that tells complete strangers to stop smoking or eating brie if they happen to be pregnant. Ceri makes a sympathetic face at me. I make one back; she needs it more than I do. She’s the one dating Rees.
‘Nice decorations, Jenny,’ I say.
Ceri gives me a tiny smirk.
‘Are you all right?’ Jenny mouths across the table at me, touching her head. This time it’s about my forehead. I suppose the mark’s started to show through the foundation, damn it.
‘Fine.’ Nothing a glass of wine wouldn’t help. Cow. ‘Slipped.’
‘Oh, walked into a door, yeah?’ Rees laughs, moronically.
‘No,’ I say, just as Huw blurts, ‘She was literally banging her head against the wardrobe.’ He’s already drunk a few while watching the football. ‘So pissed off about nothing fitting. Said to her, “Well, cariad, if you will insist on getting up the duff …”’
People laugh nervously.
‘Huw! Just ignore him.’ I smile. I’ll kill you later, you bastard. ‘I slipped and banged it on the edge of the sink. Centre of gravity’s shot to shit, you know.’
All right, so I did hit my head against the wardrobe. You’re thinking I’m a psycho, but I’m not. It wasn’t about nothing fitting. Huw knows that. It was about everything. Valentine’s Day. He never even buys a card. Him snogging that girl. Him not wanting the baby. And, yes, about feeling fat as well. I really want this baby – you’ve no idea how much – but it doesn’t mean I’m totally cool about my weight. I’m not one of those wanky hippy chicks who don’t care what they look like. Anyway. That’s a pretty long list of upsetting things. Some venting is normal, isn’t it?
Jenny, sitting next to me, turns and breathes Rioja into my face. ‘Changing the subject slightly, we were trying to work out the gap between Evie and the new baby.’
‘Well, Evie’s eleven.’
‘Twelve by the time the baby comes,’ says Ceri, grinning at Jenny. The look they give each other makes me realise our arrival has interrupted a delightfully bitchy conversation about us.
‘You are brave,’ says Jenny, holding out her glass for Paul to refill. ‘It’s like having two only children, really.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ I say, watching the lovely red wine glug into the glass. ‘I can concentrate on the new baby, and Evie will help.’
‘But such a big gap will be very challenging. They’re in two completely different places,’ says Evil Jenny.
‘Ours are the opposite extreme,’ says Paul. ‘Only eighteen months apart.’
‘They play together so well, don’t they, Paulie? We were lucky, though. Not everyone can have babies when they want to, can they? Paulie only has to look at me, and bam!’
Rees says, ‘Good on yer, mate!’
Ceri discreetly makes a puking face that only I see.
Jenny now completely oversteps the mark, not that she hasn’t already. Leaning her head to one side to indicate deep understanding, she drops into a counsellor-type voice. ‘I know you’ve had some fertility problems, haven’t you?’
‘Who’d like coffee?’ says Paul.
I catch Huw’s eye, willing him to rescue me, and the bastard just looks right through me before draining his glass. I hate Huw, but I hate Evil Jenny more.
I picture Jenny in a documentary called Women Who Live A Lie. She’s being interviewed by a thin, blonde, faux-sympathetic journalist. Jenny is wearing her horrible stained flowery blouse.
Faux-sympathetic Interviewer: Why did you pretend you were happy?
Jenny (weeping): I wanted everyone to envy me. I’m so ashamed. Everyone thought Paul was such a stud. No one knew he was gay and went out every night as a male escort. (Sobs louder.)
F-s Int: And the children …
Jenny (wiping her eyes, suddenly looking evil): Mail order from Thailand. Little brats. Wish I could send them back like I’d send back this hideous M&S blouse, if only I hadn’t spilled tiramisu down it.
Ceri says, ‘Just because you have them close together doesn’t mean they’ll be friends. Look at my step-kids. Two years apart, fight all the time.’
‘So do Huw’s boys,’ I say gratefully. Now, finally, he looks at me, and raises his glass in a sardonic toast. I toast him back with Jenny’s wine glass and take a long, deep, lovely drink before she says, ‘Erm, I think that’s mine.’
‘Yes, we’ve had a minor fertility problem,’ I say. ‘Couple of miscarriages, nothing unusual.’
‘Did anyone say they wanted coffee?’ says Paul, louder than before.
‘Well, darling,’ says Huw, and I think, no, don’t say it, don’t tell them there were five miscarriages, don’t tell them we’d agreed not to try again, don’t tell them I changed my mind without consulting you. If you say any of that in front of these horrible people, I will walk out of here and I will walk out on you and never come back.
‘Well, darling,’ he says, ‘at the very least, it was a happy accident, wasn’t it?’
He smiles, and Paul relaxes, and Ceri asks if they have decaf, and I unclench my arse because now I don’t have to cause a scene. The rest of the evening passes off boringly with a long anecdote from Rees about the personnel department at Welsh Water, during which he twice flicks out his tongue at me in a manner which some fool – not Ceri, I hope – has told him is sexy.
I drive us home. We’re both under-fed, and Huw’s over-wined.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘that was a predictably shitty evening.’
‘Yes, it was.’ I’m glad we can agree on something.
‘I hate those people. Let’s never do this again.’
‘We’re sort of committed to this monthly dinner thing. And Ceri likes us there for moral support. Jenny-and-Paul’s loved-up scene intimidates her.’
‘Well, now she’s got the fascinating Rees.’
‘She won’t be able to stand him for long.’
‘No, boyo, then it’ll be a sad day down the Llandudno Junction branch of Welsh Water, yeah?’ Huw takes off Rees’s voice perfectly.
The house is quiet. Evie’s asleep and Paige is still in front of the telly. She looks as if she hasn’t moved at all, but the chocolate digestives have disappeared from the plate in the kitchen. I pay her and she gets up slowly.
‘Come on, Paige,’ says Huw, ‘I’ll drop you off.’
‘I’ll take her; you’re way over the limit.’
‘Worried I’ll embarrass her outside the Halls of Residence?’
‘Huw, you’re only embarrassing yourself. Why don’t you get some coffee? I’m terribly sorry, Paige, he’s had too much to dr
ink.’
Paige, wakened briefly by this outburst, clambers into the car and gazes at me with spaced-out eyes. ‘Dr Ellis isn’t normally like that in lectures.’
‘Yes, well I should hope not. He doesn’t drink at work. I don’t think.’
‘Do you know if you’re having a boy or girl?’
‘Not yet. Evie wants me to have a girl.’
Big lie. Evie doesn’t want me to have anything. I lapse into silence, thinking how separate Huw, Evie and I are right now. We were such a strong unit when Evie was little.
As she levers herself out of the car, Dopey Paige says, ‘Oh, there was a phone call for you. Your mother, I think. She said can you call back no matter how late?’ She wanders off in her vague studenty way. I go through my bag for the mobile phone before remembering I ran out of credit yesterday.
Back home, Huw’s sprawled on the sofa watching telly, a glass in his hand.
‘Oh, good idea, more alcohol.’
‘Piss off.’
I ring Mama, but when she picks up the phone I can’t hear her. I say, ‘Hello, hello?’ like an old-fashioned telephonist until finally I realise she’s crying.
‘Can’t hear you properly, Mama. Shit! I’ll come down straight away. Tomorrow. Try to get some sleep. No, well some rest, then.’
I hang up, and Huw looks at me questioningly.
‘Michael’s been rushed to hospital. Heart attack.’
‘God, I’m sorry, cariad.’
My make-up has been gently melting all evening, and in the living-room mirror I look like a worried clown. Huw puts his arms round me. I move my head so I can’t smell the alcohol on his breath. I used to find this smell a turn-on but now it just makes me nauseous. The pregnancy-enhanced sense of smell, I suppose.
‘Poor Olivia, how is she? She must be in a right state.’
‘I could barely make out a word. Poor Michael, too. He’s not all that old. Sixty-five. God, though. Mama will completely fall apart if he, you know.’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that.’ He strokes my back and says, ‘Would you mind terribly if I didn’t come with you tomorrow?’
I walk to the mirror, start rubbing at the mascara under my eyes. ‘Luckily, half-term starts on Monday, so I can get Evie out of your hair, too.’
