by Amanda Coe
‘I’m entitled to my beliefs,’ she said primly. It was something she’d seen on TV, or heard; she thought it would work better than saying she wasn’t hurting anyone.
‘You are not fucking entitled, you stupid little bitch!’
She may as well have doused Patrick in petrol and put a match to him.
‘Patrick—’
‘Entitled, Christ! Where did that come from, a fucking Christmas cracker? Jesus. You’re entitled to have a brain in your little head, that’s the only entitlement you have, love, and that’s an obligation as well—and don’t tell me what you believe because you and the lumpen majority don’t have beliefs, you have fucking badges, little badges you sport instead of troubling yourself with any act of moral imagination—“Ban the Bomb”—that’ll do, pin that one on, job done!’
A tough-faced waitress stopped to pick up the napkin that Patrick had dropped on the carpet and place it back on his plate. He didn’t recognise the warning.
‘Those aren’t beliefs, love, they’re fucking mottos. “Burn your bra”—ooh, how clever! You know, a bit of alliteration doesn’t make something the sodding truth—’
Her mother put her hand on his. ‘Enough.’
It was more than she usually had to do. Mum gave the waitress a settling look—I’ll deal with it.
‘If you don’t start using this’—Patrick jabbed a finger over the table at her head; Louise flinched back—‘you’ll never be anything but a third-rate provincial little slapper, if you ever manage to find some gormless bastard desperate enough to give you a seeing to in the first place—’
Mum was standing, wrangling her coat across her shoulders, bending to pull her purse from her handbag. She nodded at the waitress. ‘We’d like to pay.’ She started to pull out five-pound notes that looked fresh from the bank. Her purse was swollen with them, the clasp strained.
Louise also stood. Suddenly, Patrick was alone. He stirred himself to catch up with them. As soon as he flailed an arm behind him, Mum was there to help him eel it into his raincoat, the maroon one he’d always worn. She didn’t want him to strain his bad back. Louise saw Patrick look at Mum, but her concentration on his coat gave nothing away. She smoothed it over his shoulders, dusting away a little dandruff. He faltered.
‘None of my business anyway,’ he concluded. ‘Thank God. No spawn of mine . . . You do what you like—good luck to you!’
With a terminating shovel of his arms, this sign-off finally acknowledged the audience gawping from the tables around them and put the blame on Louise. They manoeuvred to look.
‘Need a slash.’
As Patrick stalked out, Louise fingered her jaw. She was memorising the carpet, the interlocking edges of its baronial crests in soiled autumn shades. Gradually, she felt the attention of the room leave her. She dared a glance at Mum, who, intent on a nonexistent horizon, was vaguely teasing her fingers through the ends of her hair.
‘Why do you put up with him?’
It was worse than anything she’d said about meditation, but perhaps she hadn’t said it out loud. Mum gazed, unhearing. Louise didn’t repeat herself.
In the car, Mum and Patrick discussed the building work that had started on the outskirts of Chapeltown. Patrick thought it was pointless, because all the Common Market incentives in the world wouldn’t attract thinking human beings to a shithole like this. Mum directed a few comments into the back, about how much Louise would love Cornwall. Louise allowed herself to drift away, down at the bottom with her mental bubbles. She just wanted it to be over, and soon enough it was. Mum and Patrick had had their cup of tea with Auntie B when they arrived to pick her up, so she ran by herself from the idling car into the house. Mum, already shifting into gear, bipped the horn in a final salute as Louise opened the front door with her Yale key. She was shouting something that Louise didn’t catch properly at first.
‘Christmas!’
Back in her bedroom, Louise squeezed the unready spot until it bled. She didn’t care about bloody Christmas. Weighing Mum’s refusal to meet Patrick’s eye as she dealt with his coat, she knew Mum had been as angry as Patrick, but whether it was at Patrick for his outburst or Louise for provoking it, she couldn’t tell. She shifted the weight of this apprehension, trying to clear the ocean floor, back up to the surface where it could pop and disappear, but it kept getting stuck, somewhere near her stomach. Maybe it had been her fault. Mum and Patrick, Patrick and Mum. Cornwall. Nigel. Eventually, inevitably, she fell asleep.
Part Three
Now
SPRING AGAIN
MIA’S CALL was put through to Nigel at work. There had been a merciful hiatus in communication from what he and Sophie had taken to calling ‘Down There’, so his assistant was still, at his irritable request, establishing exactly who Mia was when Nigel himself realised and jumped on to the line, dismissing Diane and saying it was fine, he’d take the call.
He put aside the M & S duck wrap he was halfway through eating, while noting Mia’s consideration in ringing him at lunchtime.
‘Mia, what can I do for you?’
Nigel maintained a briskly professional tone. She was just about young enough to be his daughter, had his sexual history been altogether different.
‘Are you around tomorrow? I’m coming to London. There’s something I need to talk to you about.’
Nigel failed in his attempt to find this unexciting. He suggested lunch at a café near, but not incriminatingly close to, his office, as though he was doing something to be ashamed of. He hoped she would be wearing the boots.
He believed the expression to be that the gods laugh when men make plans, because he certainly wasn’t the one laughing when, well into the first-coffee-and-emails stage of the next morning, Nigel got the call from Sophie, full of ambient noise and panic, to say that she’d totally forgotten, hadn’t she, Albie’s bloody nursery was shut because of a bloody training day, and it bloody would be—yes sweetheart, just talking to Daddy—wouldn’t it be the day she’d got theatre tickets for her and her mother, didn’t he remember, she’d said at breakfast—Mum’s birthday present, the matinee, they’d had a whole conversation about her and Nigel travelling back together (of course he remembered now, poor her)—so she was sorry, honey, she couldn’t see any way round it because she’d rung round absolutely everyone, Jill was down with a stomach thing and she couldn’t get hold of Tig—she’d just have to bring Albie into town with her and drop him at Nigel’s office for a couple of hours, surely that was all right, wasn’t it, couldn’t the girls look after him if Nigel had to see clients? He was so sweet, they’d probably enjoy it, it would only be for a couple of hours, it was the thing at the Donmar, there wasn’t even an interval, she’d checked.
So it was that Sophie arrived at the office just as Diane was doing the sandwich round Nigel had opted out of, hectic with makeup and jollying along a sceptical Albie and his accompanying Albie-sized bag of possible amusements. Diane and the office girls swooped. Nigel noted the reticence of Tamara Browning, their most recent graduate recruit, who had not only reassured him and the other partners interviewing her of her single status, but declared an unsolicited dislike of children. The firmness with which she closed her blond-wood office door against the cooings of welcome suggested this hadn’t been said for effect, which augured well for the firm’s investment.
Nigel had tried to warn Mia about the change of plan, but her phone seemed to have been switched off.
‘I was in a quiet coach.’
She unwound lengths of scarf from her slender neck as he settled Albie next to him, facing Mia in the booth seats they’d managed to claim. Nigel pinioned Albie into the wall side so that he couldn’t toddle out and create mayhem in the heaving, cramped space. Nigel had chosen the café at the recommendation of one of the younger partners, keen to avoid the more formal restaurants where he lunched clients and was likely to run into someone he knew. Looking around at the effortfully utilitarian décor, he wondered if he had got the right establishme
nt. The clientele seemed very young, with odd bits of their hair shaved off and extensive beards on the men, and they were all dressed like extras from a period drama set in the American Depression. There was only one other man apart from himself in what he considered normal clothes.
The waitress recited the menu, which was unavailable in print, and involved lots of barbecued meat. Dirty food, the partner had called it—in itself an enticement. Sophie had fed Albie his lunch on the train, so he was interested in the chips Nigel ordered for him mainly as a medium for self-expression. Messy play, they called it at nursery. Mia showed about as much interest in the little boy as Tamara Browning had, which Nigel didn’t hold against her. He made a half-joke about her liking children but not being able to manage a whole one.
‘Excuse me?’
Mia’s face was dead of amusement; she simply hadn’t understood. Nigel shrugged a ‘never mind’ and tried to corral Albie’s gargantuan chips into their side of the table surface. The waitress brought the adults their pulled-pork sandwiches, her miniature biceps bulging against the weight of the mounded platters. He had done the ordering, at Mia’s suggestion; he saw her flinch as her portion was placed in front of her.
‘So, Mia, what can uncle Nigel do for you?’
Mia considered her meat, glistening with rendered fat.
‘Don’t tell me—it’s Louise.’ He hadn’t heard anything from Louise in weeks, since she had told him Holly would soon be discharged from hospital. About bloody time. The girl had even spent Christmas in there, with Louise trekking up to share the festivities; what a day that must have been. He wondered if Mia had spent the holiday with her family.
‘No, actually, it isn’t Louise.’ Mia took a sip of sparkling water. He’d ordered a Diet Coke, which he was keeping well clear of Albie’s busy elbows.
‘Then it must be Patrick.’
‘In a way.’ Mia smoothed her hair. Nigel noticed her nails: very short and clean, subtly manicured.
‘He’s asked me to marry him.’
The pork dried in his mouth. Of course, it was what he had been expecting. Why did it matter?
‘I see.’
And then, in the afterwash of his disappointment, came a different swell. The house. Mia’s eyes flicked away, as though in prescient distaste.
‘I thought it was a good idea to talk to you about it, in case it’s a problem.’
‘Are you asking my permission?’
Mia put down her fork. Resmoothed her hair.
‘I know there’s still stuff to sort out about—your mum, and her will. And obviously it’s all a bit soon.’
‘Drawin’?’ asked Albie.
‘In a minute,’ Nigel promised.
Mia looked at him properly. ‘I mean, I’d wait, but Patrick says he’s not getting any younger.’
This punched a laugh out of him. ‘A whirlwind romance.’
‘Is it a problem?’
Albie was pulling at his cuff. Nigel winkled down into the backpack jammed by his legs for the notebook and pens Sophie had provided.
‘I don’t understand what you’re asking me, Mia. You’ll have to be more direct.’
Clearing a chip-free space, he settled Albie to work. Mia forked apart sticky strands of meat without lifting any to her mouth.
‘I’m not sure exactly what’s supposed to be happening with the house . . . and if Patrick getting married again—if that affects anything.’
Nigel savoured a heady moment of withheld knowledge. Why should he tell her? Now that the legalities had all been disentangled, with no small thanks to him, Patrick would be getting a letter. Let her find out everything she needed to know from her husband-to-be. By agreeing to marry the old bastard, Mia had forfeited the right to any favours from him.
The forceful scribble of Albie’s pen squealed intolerably against the paper. Nigel caught hold of his arm. ‘Not so hard, darling.’ And then, to Mia, blandly, ‘Has Patrick spoken to his solicitor lately? I would imagine he has all the hard facts.’
Mia’s mouth tucked. She wasn’t expecting to be thwarted.
‘Do you think I’m mad, marrying Patrick?’
It wasn’t a question he’d expected. Looking up, he saw something he’d never encountered in Mia’s face before: vulnerability. She was so young. So perfectly fucking young.
‘That’s none of my business.’
‘I mean—’ She stopped, put down her fork. ‘I’m not replacing your mother. I know how he felt about her.’
Nigel took a mouthful of coleslaw. It was vegetables, of a kind.
‘I presume you haven’t mentioned it to Louise. Getting married.’
Mia nudged her plate, apparently embarrassed. Her mouth made a smile. ‘No, not yet.’
‘Very wise. I’d let her get Holly home, if I were you.’
Mia nodded. His prospective mother-in-law. The gods must be wetting themselves by now. Nigel pushed away his own plate. He could feel the grease sitting at the top of his gut.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I wish you every happiness.’
Paddy–
You need to put the dish in the oven at least 25 minutes to heat through, gas 3. No longer than 40 or it will burn, don’t forget. Carrots on stove you just boil five minutes there’s salt already in the pan. Worcester sauce on table, yogurt in the fridge for afters. I’ll be back to make supper.
S x
Ps. They didn’t have the razors you asked for, but these are Wilkinsons too. If no good I will change at Boots.
LOUISE HAD ENDURED the different shape of every day since Holly had been hit by that car, the way a good morning could turn into a bad afternoon, an infinite night you were terrified to get to the end of in case she wasn’t still with you by morning. With the signposts of washings and feedings and sleepings removed and replaced by the unpredictable incursion of tests and consultations, time lengthened, never your own, however much of it you were required to fill between the arbitrary, anxious periods of attention from layers of doctors. Even though faces and shift patterns became familiar, the passage of the long hours remained unique to each day. But in the past week, with the physios dropping in to see Holly, and Jamie finally coming down to visit, the days had suddenly turned back into days, grey and uniform. Driving out of the hospital car park, it was a surprise to see the blossom heavy on the trees. Weeks and weeks of now had suddenly become then.
Jamie met her outside the hospital that morning. He’d taken an overnight coach and walked from the station in the rain. Without a coat, being Jamie. His light blue hoodie was soaked to navy on the head and shoulders, and he looked pale. He stank of fags when she hugged him, although Louise didn’t say anything about that; he knew her feelings on the subject. It should have been enough of a warning seeing the patients out in the bay where he was waiting for her, some in wheelchairs, others steadying themselves against the poles of their drips, all determined to smoke on to the last.
‘Handsome Harry,’ she said, giving him another squeeze. It was hard not to cry. Jamie asked her what she was like and patted her on the back so that he could step away. She could have sworn he’d grown.
Louise led him up to the children’s ward. He was surprised at that; she thought she’d told him, with Holly only being thirteen. As he followed her directions to rub his hands with Sanigel from the dispenser at the door, she saw Jamie clock the little boy walk past with no hair or eyebrows. Liam.
‘There’s always someone worse off than you,’ she whispered.
‘Stuff reeks,’ Jamie complained, holding his disinfected hands away from himself.
She’d warned him about Holly still being on medication for the pain, and how it could make her slow, but she was awake when they got to her, watching TV. It made Louise’s eyes fill to see the smile Holly gave her brother as he loped to her bed, even though she squawked, ‘Mind me leg!’ when he dropped to cover her with a clumsy hug. She hadn’t shown that much life for months. Jamie pulled up the chair by the bed and had a good look around, then back at Ho
lly, riding the awkwardness, taking in the pinned casts that stopped her moving.
‘Doesn’t she look great?’ said Louise. This made the two of them burst out laughing, for some reason. It was the way they were together, always had been. The laughter hurt her heart, with the strange pleasure of pressing on an old bruise.
‘I knew you’d do her good,’ she said, giving up trying to understand what was so funny. Anything set the two of them off, she knew.
Jamie nodded up at the telly on its ceiling bracket.
‘Nice,’ he said. Holly pointed to the bedside table and said, in just the same way, ‘Nicer.’ Their voices were solemn, which was part of the joke, but they were trying not to laugh. On the wall behind Holly’s head was a framed print of a seaside scene: the striped backs of two deckchairs and a flag-topped sandcastle in pale, ice-cream colours.
‘That’s nice,’ Louise offered. A look pinballed between Jamie and Holly, exploding both back into laughter.
‘Don’t,’ Holly begged, tears on her cheeks, ‘I’ve got to wee. Tell him, Mum.’
‘It’s not my fault!’ said Jamie, delighted. But this was no laughing matter, now that the catheter was out, as Louise told him.
With him there, at least they didn’t need to get hold of a nurse to struggle Holly into the wheelchair that waited by the bed. Holly didn’t want Jamie to push it, though, as Louise suggested; she was indignant at the thought of her brother taking her to the toilet. When Louise got her into the cubicle she left her on her own, waiting for her resentful call of ‘Finished’. Since the accident, Holly was more volatile about her privacy than she’d ever been. During the weeks at the hospital, Louise had learned that even the pleasure she took in brushing Holly’s hair or smoothing a clean sleep T-shirt made her writhe and protest, as if intimate contact with her was a poisonous irritant. Now she restrained herself to basic help, although it was a daily battle of self-discipline. She could have crushed her with love, eaten her up with hugs and kisses, the way you wanted to eat babies.
