Sugar and Spice

by Ruth Hamilton

  I nod. ‘It’s a luxury van, Mrs Bee.’

  ‘Will your fellow mind having a kid with a kid in his mam and dad’s caravan?’

  ‘She’ll be in the house when he’s abroad.’ Surely one of his gaggle of females will entice him away forever in the not-too-distant future? I often dream of the husbandless state and, if I could choose, I would probably opt for widowhood, as it carries a degree of respect. Divorce is nasty. Den is nasty. As for me – well – I can be fluent in nasty if provoked. Since the death of Den’s father, the caravan has been left on the extra acre we managed to extract from the Earl of Derby when purchasing our house. The caravan’s a decent size, and is certainly better than a box room.

  ‘You don’t know her,’ repeats Mrs Bee.

  I cast my mind back to that small crumb of time when I noticed Susan in the clinic. There’s a clear photograph of her – dead eyes, drooping shoulders, absenteeism. I cannot explain this to Mrs Battersby, as she doesn’t begin to understand how life is for people like Susan and me. In fact, Susan’s excuse for being ‘not the full quid’ is far more acceptable than my own. I have everything. I have a husband who works, a four-bedroomed house, a bit of land and two perfect daughters. Perfect? Like normal, it’s a debatable concept.

  ‘We’ll support each other,’ I say. ‘She’ll help in the house – she might even become one of your opers in time.’

  Mrs Bee snorts. ‘Is she Scouse?’

  ‘There’s a Liverpool accent, yes.’

  The diatribe that follows is amusing. Do I want my twins to talk with an accent thicker than treacle? Is she trustworthy? What if her family come round, what if, what if, what if . . .?

  Blood and stomach pills – can my neighbour not hear herself? Her vowels have been treated with a flat iron, she uses ‘nowt’ for nothing, ‘owt’ for anything, ‘summat’ for something. Having gone straight from school desk to factory, Dora Battersby has graduated to ‘posh’ by hanging onto her daughter. Jenny married well, speaks well, and has given Dora a good standard of living. So the old lady forgets her roots and, like so many others, retains the accent and vernacular of her yesterdays. But she is now a cut above the ordinary, because she lives in a detached house on the edge of countryside. I cannot dislike her, since she is a product of environment, as are we all. But sometimes, she can be slightly annoying.

  ‘Let’s agree to differ,’ I suggest.

  ‘And if it doesn’t work out?’ she asks as she walks to the door.

  ‘I deal with it.’

  After feeding, changing and settling the twins, I have my Anna time. For twenty-odd hours a day, I am a mother; for one hour each afternoon, I am me. I am lighter today, because I have found a punctuation mark who will, I hope, help interrupt the tedious paragraphs of the daily grind. ‘She’s a human being, not a semicolon,’ I tell myself aloud.

  We walked down Beech Grove just a couple of hours ago, Susan in shabby jeans, I in a fairly decent dress and coat. She declared herself ‘made up’ with the caravan and wept a few tears of gratitude while I stuck to business, instructing her on the use of gas, the daily emptying of the loo, where to store her pram. She was so excited. ‘But it’s got a proper bedroom and a sink and a cooker,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘My husband’s father owned it,’ I told her. ‘After his wife died, he used it as a sort of granny flat. It meant that he lived almost with us, but the van gave him a degree of independence.’

  She looked at me then with wide, hopeful eyes. ‘Tell me he didn’t die in here.’

  ‘He died in hospital. And he was probably the best man I ever knew, so worry not. If any trace of John remains, he will be here to do good, not harm.’ I could have gone on to say what a pity it was that John’s son had not turned out more like him, but this new and improbable relationship between Susan and me is still in its infancy. ‘If you don’t like it here, we can find somewhere, surely? You don’t have to stay with your parents, especially if your dad is abusive.’

  She blinked again. ‘Why are you doing this for me?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you need somewhere and I need help. We both need help, don’t we?’

  She gazed down at her son. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to love him.’

  ‘Yes.’ I placed an arm across her shoulders. ‘You’re too young for all this, and I’m too old. Adjustment isn’t easy.’

  A sudden moment of recognition arrived in her face. ‘Hey – didn’t you used to teach up at Hesford Junction Primary?’ she asked.

  I replied in the affirmative. ‘Teachers are mostly normal when allowed off the lead at three-thirty,’ I told her. ‘But there are rules, Susan.’

  ‘Oh. Bugger.’ At last, she smiled. ‘Go ’head, then,’ she said in her best Liverpool 8 accent. ‘Let’s have it over with.’

  ‘OK. One, while there is food in my chest freezer – it’s in the garage – thou shalt not starve. Two, while there’s baby powder in my house, Stephen shall not starve. Washing machine’s in my kitchen, use when it’s available. Let me deal with my husband. He’s a twit.’

  The laugh she delivered at that point was almost melodic. It deteriorated into hysteria, and I pushed her along the garden and through the side door. The weeping stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, God,’ she exclaimed repeatedly as she walked through the house. ‘Look at that. Is it antique? Is it real? Does the clock work? It’s older than Adam. There’s a lot of books.’

  I placed her on a sofa. ‘Stop being impressed. I feel guilty enough without all that, Susan.’ Sitting on a footstool, I gave her some idea of my life. Not too much. Not yet. ‘I come from poverty. I worked hard, got out, got a boyfriend who almost amused me until he became my husband. All you see around me has been acquired throughout almost twenty years of teaching. Den doesn’t buy furniture – he’s into stocks, shares and trying to get his mitts on krugerrand. I did all this myself. Never expected to have children, so I occupied myself by home-making.’ I sighed heavily. ‘This is all just salad dressing, Susan. But there’s no substance in my marriage. I’m here just for a while. I’m waiting for the next . . . thing.’

  Her brow furrowed. ‘Next thing?’

  I shrugged. ‘Don’t ask.’ I didn’t tell her I’d been tired of Den for years, that the twins and their accompanying problems were wearying. Nor did I bother to inform her that I was always waiting for the next ‘thing’ even though I usually had absolutely no idea of what I was expecting. Except for the twins, of course . . . There was a list somewhere. Items like ‘write a book’ and ‘do something political’ were part of an agenda I would probably never follow. ‘Have a love affair’ had been done and dusted, but that had to stop. Would the presence of Susan have an effect on those illicit and delightful meetings?

  When she calmed down, there was a quiet thoughtfulness about her that pleased me. She is not a typical tearaway, I believe. Yes, she’s made mistakes, but she is sensible, intelligent and very afraid of her family. There is more to this than meets the eye.

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow while they’ve all gone out, but I have to leave a note for Mam,’ she said before she left.

  So, she is coming tomorrow. What have I done? Is Mrs Battersby going to become difficult, will my husband throw a fit, will her family descend on us and burn the house to ashes? Emily is coming to the boil. She is in the dining room, while her smaller and slightly younger sister is upstairs. It has to be like this. For some reason known only to God and, possibly, to the devil, my twins need to be kept apart. Don’t ask. Not yet. I’ll get round to all that shortly.

  By the time I have dealt with my children, Den is home and I am just about to pour soured cream into the stroganoff. Sometimes, he smiles at me and I catch a glimpse of that long-dead boy, the lad who pushed me through the West End of London in a wheelbarrow, he who debated with and thrashed verbally most of his contemporaries at Imperial College. Today, I catch no glimpse of the shivering creature I held during the first and second breakdowns; today, he is happy. There is something wrong with Den, and I don’t know enoug
h about illness to make a judgement, but he appears to be two separate people. He gets as high as a kite on life, then enters a trough so deep that it might have been sculpted by Dante.

  ‘Good day?’ he asks.

  ‘Mixed.’ I allow his kiss to touch my cheek. I can’t go through it again. Another breakdown, and I shall join him in one of the Inferno’s lower circles. ‘There’s a young girl who needs Pa’s caravan. She has a baby and no support. Just on a temporary basis, you understand. Is that OK with you, Den?’

  He stands silently in the middle of the kitchen. My kitchen. He doesn’t do kitchens. ‘Another of your lame ducks?’ he asks. I hear the contempt in his voice, but its undercoat is resignation. He is giving in to his wife because he has that power and is demonstrating his magnanimity. It is not his fault, and I am guilty yet again of the sin of arrogance. I stay one step ahead of him as a matter of necessity, but I should not call him a twit. The man is ill, and I ought to respect him.

  My shoulders slacken in relief. He has, in fact, given in to me for years while I’ve brought slower children home for secret lessons in the dining room. ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘And it won’t be for ever – just until we find her a flat or a house to rent. She needs to get back on her feet.’

  He goes to change his clothes while I thank God that this is a good Den day. I would have got my own way eventually, but the process of achieving it would have been tiring. Grating nutmeg into the pan, I wonder anew about my husband’s life. There seems to be no core to him. He depends for support on status, the job, the car, the house. And, of course, the women. His skeleton is near the surface, rather like that of a cuttlefish. He appears to measure himself through the eyes of others, and he is frail.

  I should have moved on years ago, because I cannot delete him completely from my life, since he is the father of Emily and Lottie, and I have little time for women who try to separate children from their father. The twins are not bargaining tools, and I shall aim for a civilized divorce. When I’m ready. Will I ever be ready? I’m ready.

  ‘Smells good.’

  He is behind me and is moving his hands to my breasts. Stay solid, Anna. This is not your biggest problem. Just eat, then lie down and think of Wales. It will make a change from England.

  Emily still requires at least one night feed. Lottie, who sleeps in the bedroom next to ours, manages to last until morning. The baby monitor on my bedside table brings Emily’s strident demands into my left ear at ten minutes past two. She requires her servant and she requires attention now. I collect the necessary items and walk to the other end of the house. I change her, feed her, and try hard not to fall asleep while she is in my arms. How tightly she holds onto my housecoat; when I open my eyes, she is staring hard at me. I can hear the words she doesn’t yet know – ‘You’re mine, just mine.’

  The lavatory flushes, a tap runs, then Den’s tousled head inserts itself into Emily’s room. ‘Still keeping them apart, then, these two little enemies?’ The mockery is noticeable.

  ‘Yes. Emily wakes Lottie.’ I don’t bother to opine that Lottie has no temper, no ill-will, no nastiness.

  ‘Hmm.’ He strokes the stubbly chin. ‘But it will stop soon, won’t it?’

  I nod. The man whose moods swing from elated to flat-as-a-pancake judges me insane, because the arrangements regarding the twins seem to be eccentric. He goes away and I breathe a sigh of relief. I find the situation impossible to explain to myself, but it is real. Emily hates Lottie. It is my belief that the antipathy began in the womb, but no one would ever agree, I am sure.

  Rodney Street. Mr Evans-Wright laughing at me over the tops of his half-moon spectacles. ‘They’re just moving, Mrs Fairbanks. Be grateful.’

  ‘They’re fighting,’ I informed him.

  He shook his head. ‘These are not identical twins. They’re fraternal, so each has its own sac. It’s impossible.’

  How hard I worked at believing that until I found myself in the dentist’s waiting room some weeks later. Stuck there for an hour, I began to digest an article in one of the many scattered magazines. One in eight of us is probably a twin. We commit our first ‘murder’ long before we are born, usually at the embryonic stage. The stronger digs in deep and deprives the weaker of nourishment, so only the fittest survives. My tooth was filled eventually with amalgam, and my mind was filled to bursting by dread.

  I place Emily in her cot and go to sit with Lottie. Both started life in incubators. A nurse told me that most twins fare better in a shared unit, but mine became distressed when placed together, so they had to be separated when they reached the grand age of two days. Emily’s birth weight was almost five pounds, and she overcame her breathing difficulty very quickly. Lottie, who weighed just over three and a half pounds, needed longer. She was born bruised. The damage was declared to be birthmarks that would probably disappear very quickly, and only I knew the truth. The sacs were separate, but they were not made of concrete. Emily had managed to hurt Lottie in spite of their natural separation.

  And I now live with the reality. In the twin pram, I use a sausage-shaped pillow fashioned from a draught-excluder. Without that, Emily would kick the living daylights out of her sister, and I might be blamed for mistreating my child if Nurse Hawkeye or Dr Breast-Is-Best saw the bruises. I close my eyes and pray. Loving Lottie is so easy, but I have to beg God for the strength to love Emily.

  The medics have awarded me a title, at least, a mooring marked ‘post-natal depression’ alongside which I am supposed to drop anchor and wait for the pills to work. The months and years stretch before me, all invisible, all inevitable, all there to be feared. My daughters will grow. I shall need a buggy, and the handle I push will have to be positioned so that the girls face me, as I shall need to protect Lottie closely. There is always the chance that she will fight back, and that could make things even worse.

  They will walk and play and fall, and I shall not always be there to supervise closely enough. They will go to school and, unless I warn the teachers, Emily will batter her sister at playtime. ‘Please, God, make me wrong,’ I beg. They will grow out of this, surely? Emily will settle and become quieter, while Lottie will learn to guard herself. I have heard that teachers and nurses make the poorest mothers. Help me, God.

  Our Maureen arrives at noon. She is plump, jolly and rather squashed in an ancient Mini containing ‘our Susan’s clobber’. ‘Maureen,’ she breathes before dropping half a dozen supermarket bags at my feet. ‘Our Susan’s on her way. Only she’s had to wait for our Marie to go out. I couldn’t have fitted her in my car, anyway, and her pram’s not a folder.’

  I open my mouth to reply, but Maureen has rushed back to her rusting vehicle. This time, she returns with three cardboard boxes and a broken nail. ‘Bugger,’ she says as she chews at the latter item. ‘Gone right in me quick, that has.’

  Her third visit is accompanied by a sack of children’s toys. ‘I have to go,’ she mutters. ‘No tax, no insurance and no bloody tread on me tyres.’

  As the Mini screams away in a cloud of smoke, Susan dashes round the corner with her pram. ‘That was our Maureen,’ she explains breathlessly. ‘Sorry about the mess – she’s in a hurry.’

  ‘So I gather. No tax, no insurance, no tread and no fingernail.’

  ‘Oh, heck,’ moans Susan. ‘And she’s a bridesmaid on Saturday.’

  ‘Who is she?’ I ask.

  ‘Our Maureen. I think she’s me cousin, but you can never be sure with my family.’

  ‘And our Marie?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. That’s me mam.’

  I shake my head and guide her into the living room. This young woman’s possessions are in a couple of boxes and a few small plastic bags. Stephen remains outside in his pram. ‘How big is your family?’ I ask.

  Susan shrugs and advises me that she lost count some years ago. Her mother comes from a family of about ten, but there could be more here and there depending on her grandad’s behaviour at any given time. Her dad has three brothers, one a drug addict,
one in jail and the third competing with her dad for Drinker of the Decade. Her own generation is not easy to track, as some are unmarried parents, others twice married, and a few have stepchildren. ‘There’s all half-brothers and half-sisters,’ she complains. ‘I can’t keep up with it at all. Can I leave the big pram in your garage? I’ll be using the folding one more, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course. My husband uses the carport.’

  She grins. ‘Oh, I do feel better,’ she tells me. ‘I’m moving house. My own little cottage with a dining room and a kitchen and a bedroom. There’s even a telly. I can watch Corrie without our Ian keep switching over to the football and our Gary wanting the motor racing.’

  It is becoming clear that I have taken in a member of a dynasty. Still, our Maureen, who, I have gleaned, lives ‘somewhere near Sefton Park, but she keeps moving’, seemed keen to get our Susan out of the family home. With any luck, Susan won’t be missed unless they call a register every morning – even then, they might think she’d got buried under the sheer weight of competing personalities.

  We drink coffee, and I find myself hoping that Mrs Bee won’t pop in. I don’t want poor Susan to spend her first morning being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition.

  Hope fades when the side door clatters against the wall. Should I pad that area? Better not. The crashes let me know when my wonderful, opinionated neighbour is granting me an audience. She’s in. After helping herself to coffee thinned from the contents of a hot water jug, she sits opposite my non-paying guest. ‘You’re here, then,’ she says. ‘Do I know you?’ Oh, God. Here we go.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Susan is dunking a ginger biscuit. In twenty-four hours, she has gained the ability to look someone in the eyes. The someone Susan watches is a noisy drinker. Mrs Bee hoovers the coffee into her mouth. I sometimes wonder whether she might own the ability to drink when placed three feet away from her cup.

  I perform the necessary niceties, taking care to address Mrs Bee first. ‘Mrs Battersby, this is Susan Hughes. Susan, meet one of my next-door neighbours.’