by Judy Astley
‘Hey, Marco doesn’t come under “tough deals”,’ she protested quickly. ‘We still love each other a lot.’
‘Yes but …’
‘Let’s move on, Miles, shall we? I know having a husband who went gay isn’t the ideal, but he and I handle it quite cheerfully, OK? It’s been sorted for years. Not an issue. Shall we order? And then you can tell me why you wanted to buy me lunch. And sorry I’m sounding moody. I don’t mean to. I just keep thinking you’ve got me here for a big telling-off.’ She felt her eyes beginning to fill with unexpected tears. What was that about? She shook her head, telling herself to stop being so feeble.
‘Oh, Viola darling, nothing of the kind.’ He reached across and patted her hand. He looked sweet when he smiled, she thought. Like an endearing polar bear in that floppy cream suit. He was losing his hair, she noticed. Did he mind that or did he rather welcome it? It did give him a bit of gravitas that his rather school-boyish face had always lacked. Her own face shape was more pointy, like Naomi’s, and her hair was dark brown like Kate’s and inclined to be disobediently curly like hers too, especially in damp weather, but you would never mistake round-faced Kate and sandyish Miles as not siblings.
Viola opted for a goat’s cheese, beetroot and pine-nut salad, unable to face the fleshy menu after seeing the paintings. Miles went for calf’s liver, onions and bacon, delighted to find it on the menu. ‘Serena won’t have offal in the house. She says it’s like having a postmortem in her own kitchen.’
‘Really? I never thought of her as particularly squeamish.’ Serena’s paintings were splodgy and a bit strange; nearly all of them were brooding, near-monochrome watercolours depicting stark, leafless trees against threatening skies. You wouldn’t, Viola was sure, guess they were the work of someone too queasy to slice a kidney.
‘Her pictures, they always make me think they could have been done by …’ Viola stopped, realizing that to say ‘a potential murderer’ as she so nearly had wasn’t likely to go down well with her brother when describing his wife of twenty-two years. Viola had been a bridesmaid at their wedding, thirteen and smiling gritted-teeth-style through a mortified sulk at being seen in public in peach satin frills with a huge padded bow at the back. ‘… someone who could cope easily with hunks of bloodied meat,’ she finally said.
Miles laughed as he cut into the liver. ‘I know what you nearly said! A tortured soul.’
That would do. Kinder than killer. ‘Er … yes. Something like that. Is she? Tortured?’
Miles shrugged. ‘Who knows. She doesn’t say a lot these days, not now the twins have left home. She’s forever out, painting or at an antiques fair, playing bridge, doing all her real living off the premises. Sometimes I think she only comes home to sleep and change her clothes. I expect it’s what all marriages come to in the end. You’ve had a luc—’ It was his turn to cut the sentence short.
‘Lucky escape,’ she supplied for him. ‘I don’t think Rhys would see it that way, do you?’ Viola put down her fork, unable to eat any more.
‘No, but hey, I’m sorry, really sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it was coming out, honestly. But you and Rhys weren’t going to make it to the bored years anyway, were you? Oh God, sorry, sorry. That’s even worse!’ He was flustered now. Viola noticed that gravy had splashed on to his white shirt. Good. It was all she could do not to follow it up by hurling the rest of his lunch down his front.
‘No, you’re right,’ she managed to say, calmly. ‘If you’re telling me the upside of him leaving me after only fourteen months for some unknown woman and then dying was that we wouldn’t end up bored rigid in front of the TV for forty more years with nothing left to say, then fine. I’m sure you’re spot-on.’
She reached across for the bottle of wine and poured herself a generous glass, not caring whether Miles thought this was a sign of impending dipsomania or not. She’d have walked out right now, but she quite fancied pudding. And besides, now he’d dug himself into such a huge hole, when the moment came for him to raise the subject of her return to Bell Cottage, he’d owe her at least a mile of leeway. She picked at the last of the beetroot on her plate and listened to the low thrum of male voices behind her, talking, it seemed, about mortgages. Her own was mercifully manageable; she and Marco had bought Bell Cottage when prices were in a dip, and the house had reeked so much of incontinent cats and needed such a lot of cosmetic work that all other potential buyers reeled away in horror, at both the stench and the thought of taking it on.
‘Did you know Kate’s working on the family tree?’ Miles said eventually. ‘She wants to go back at least three centuries. She says it keeps her from going mad.’
‘Why would she be going mad?’
Miles made a face and went a bit pink. ‘Um … er,’ he pulled at his tie knot nervously, ‘nothing particular. Women’s stuff, I expect. Age? Don’t you all go funny around her time of life? Serena’s showing signs.’
She felt rather sorry for him. Serena and her angular paintings, her bridge cruises, and possibly the menopause. On their last anniversary, Miles had given her a tiny framed piece of something or other, like parchment, a little certificate that said ‘Serena and Miles, in love since 1988’, and she’d immediately shoved it in a cupboard. Viola couldn’t blame her for that – there were sweet gestures and there were ones that were nausea-inducing – but at least he’d tried. If she was heading into menopause madness, poor old Miles was going to be able to do nothing right.
‘Now, about Mum,’ he suddenly said, turning businesslike just as the waiter handed out the pudding menus.
‘She’s fine, thanks. On great form,’ Viola replied, contemplating profiteroles or lemon tart. ‘We’ve talked all through our moving out of the flat and she totally thinks it’s the right thing for us to do and the right time, no worries.’
‘But you don’t want to go back to your house, surely? Wouldn’t you rather stay where there’s someone to look after you now and then? I mean, you are a bit prone to whatever trouble’s going.’
Viola was puzzled; surely the objection from Kate and Miles had been about Naomi needing care, not her? ‘I’m all grown up, Miles, I can cope – I thought you were worried about Mum?’
‘Well, yes, yes. That’s the big issue, isn’t it?’
‘Not for her. She’s told me to go and get on with life. But – you’re right about the house being a bit much for her. She hardly uses half of it. She could sell it for an absolute mint and be really comfy and safe somewhere else.’
‘No, really, she can’t sell the house – think of the upheaval. She just needs more people in it. You see …’ He leaned forward, looking earnest. For an awful moment Viola thought he was going to take her hand. ‘Kate and I had this idea after Mum was so adamant that she wouldn’t sell. We thought if you sold your place, and stayed where you are, you could invest in doing it up a bit. Then after the work was done, Mum could move into the flat where it’s nice and safe and all on one level, and you and Rachel could have the rest of the house.’
Viola considered this for a moment. It didn’t actually seem too unreasonable, in theory.
‘And then when she, er … passes on …’ Miles half whispered. ‘Then obviously you’d sell up and it would be divided between the three of us, as per her will.’
‘Have you seen her will?’ Viola asked. ‘Because she said to tell you she was leaving everything to Battersea Dogs.’
‘Ha! Just her joke – typical!’ He chuckled.
‘Or maybe not,’ she teased him, enjoying the hint of doubt crossing his face.
‘So – let me get this right,’ she said slowly, doing calculations in her head. ‘You and Kate have got it worked out that I could live in the house for, ooh, maybe another twenty-plus years, given Mum’s current perky good health? I keep the place going, right? Renovate it with the proceeds from Bell Cottage? Pay the bills, do the maintenance, invest everything I’ve got in it, have no option to move anywhere else, ever, even after Rachel’s grown up and moved on a
nd even if I met someone or just fancied maybe, oh I don’t know, living in Spain for a bit.’
‘Spain? Do you like Spain?’ Miles frowned.
‘Oh, Miles, it was just a what if!’ She continued, determined not to lose momentum, ‘And then at the end, when Mum’s, you know, gone, that is after I’ve also been – possibly, and we all hope it would never come to this – full-time nurse and carer as well, I’m to be turfed out with a third of what it’s worth so you and Kate can divvy up your share?’ Said it, she thought, pleased even through her anger that she’d managed to get out into the open exactly what she meant, for once.
‘Um … well, I’m sure we could come to some arrangement regarding what you’ve invested. A pro rata sort of thing. But don’t you see, we’re only looking out for you. Kate and I are concerned that you could do with protecting from yourself, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I see, Miles. It’s OK, I’ve got the gist. I’m so glad you invited me for this lunch and made it so clear that I don’t actually count at all as a full-functioning grownup. Now, for pudding I quite fancy the Death by Chocolate. Is that allowed, do you think, or are you going to tell me that I really shouldn’t in case I make myself sick?’
Oh, the cool of post-thunderstorm air. While the atmosphere in the restaurant had been dry and stuffy and blunted every sound beyond the windows, outside a small, fierce storm had been and gone, leaving the streets with that wet-dog smell that they get after heavy rain on dust. Viola waited for the bus by the station, gratefully breathing in the soft damp air and wondering what had happened to the concept of a queue, as people milled around under the bus shelter in any old order. You could, she thought, tell the ones who really knew better, because they pretended to be looking at the route map on the pole and then casually forgetting to move away from the spot they fancied. Kate had once said it was getting like the French in ski-lift queues – everybody just pushing ahead and never mind who got there first.
Viola had never tried skiing, but Rachel had been on a school trip when she was thirteen. She’d fallen over badly on the nursery slopes, cut her head and been kept off the piste for two lonely days with suspected concussion. ‘That’s just the sort of thing that would have happened to you, Vee,’ Kate had laughed when she’d seen Rachel with stitches in her forehead. ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ Viola hadn’t seen any trace of a funny side to this and it had left her with a new worry – was Rachel going to be like her? A bit of a disaster area in the luck department? She hoped not – and she was doing her very best to let Rachel out and about freely without fussing over her, though sometimes, when she was with her on the street, it was hard not still to take her hand when they crossed the road, just in case.
‘Mum!’ Rachel and her friend Emmy now pounced on Viola as she waited. The lunch must have taken longer than she’d thought: it had run into school home time. All that time, all that food and nothing sorted. She could just see Miles ganging up with Kate, telling her that it would be all right, he’d get Viola on her own and make her see sense. Their sense.
‘Can Em come home with us, Mum? Please? What’s for supper and have we got any crisps and biscuits and that?’ Rachel was post-school ravenous, jumpy and likely to get moody if she didn’t eat soon.
‘Supper … um … I hadn’t really thought. What do you fancy? And yes, of course, Emmy’s always welcome.’
‘You went out for lunch with Miles today, didn’t you? You’ve been eating lots of top stuff and having wine while we had boring beans and chips in the school canteen. So, like, jealous!’
‘OK, you choose then – and if you decide on something fairly quick and easy involving pasta, that would help.’ Viola felt tired from the lunch and she was looking forward to a peaceful evening, feet up on the sofa and some unchallenging TV.
The bus arrived and they fought their way on board through those clustered round the stop but disinclined either to get on the bus or to make way for those who wanted to. Rachel and Emmy got seats at the front – Viola was further back. She watched Rachel, trying to see her as a stranger would. She was taller than Emmy, thinner, all legs, as if she’d bolted, growth-wise, like a lettuce planted where it got too much sun. Emmy was more compact. Rachel had longer hair, blonde unruly stuff, parted just over her left ear and piled across her head in a wind-blown mess of haphazard backcombing. It was supposed to look, according to Rachel, like bed hair. Not actual just-woken-up morning hair, but just been shagged by your top rock musician or movie star of choice hair. Viola was as sure as any mother could be that Rachel didn’t yet know this look from personal experience. She certainly hoped not – Rachel wouldn’t even be fifteen for another few weeks.
Viola wondered how long Emmy would stay this afternoon – there wasn’t much room in the flat for separate socializing, and although Rachel had the bigger of the two small bedrooms, it wasn’t the most comfortable teen hang-out. Most of her clothes were hooked on to the back of the door, and the ones she was trimming up for Gemma’s stall had ended up draped across Naomi’s old piano in the sitting room. Her school books were piled on the floor and ended up scattered half under her bed.
Viola breathed in the warm damp bus air and longed and longed suddenly to have their own home back. They could spread out, be properly themselves again. Rachel would have plenty of space for her schoolwork, be able to have friends over who could actually stay the night instead of needing to be collected. They could play music as loud as they liked, talk freely without wondering if their every teen confidence could be overheard. Miles really couldn’t have his own way with his bizarre plans. For one thing, by the time she’d sold Bell Cottage, reorganized her mother’s house and got everything sorted to the rest of the family’s satisfaction, Rachel would be working on her plans to whizz off to university. The least she could do for her, while they still lived together, was to take her back to the home that was completely theirs.
TEN
‘HAVE YOU GOT everything? Are you sure? You’ve got an awful lot of stuff to carry. How will you manage it on the tube?’ Outside the school, Viola fussed and flapped as she helped Rachel unload her overnight bag, school books, and the bin bag full of the now beautifully renovated cardigans, from the back of the Polo.
‘I’m on it. I can deal with it all, no problemo.’ Rachel somehow found a way to heap the whole cumbersome lot around her body, making it look as effortless as only a lithe teenager could. Viola had a sudden horrible vision of some of the bags tumbling on to the tube line at Ladbroke Grove, of Rachel thoughtlessly reaching down, trying to retrieve her scattered belongings just as a Circle Line train roared along. Stop it now, she told herself. All would be well.
‘Have you got your Oyster card? And don’t go leaving anything on the train, will you …’ I must stop this, Viola thought. Rachel is quite capable. She won’t accidentally shed possessions along the way like her mother does, or absent-mindedly take the wrong DLR train and end up getting off at Mudchute, curious to see if there actually was one.
‘Oh, Mum!’ Rachel laughed. ‘You should hear yourself! You’re in full-on mother-hen mode. Cluck-cluckety-cluck! It’s not like I haven’t stayed over at Dad’s before.’
She was, Viola thought, in an unusually good mood for a school morning. Normally if she gave her a lift at that time of the day, Rachel, still dopily sleep-bound, could barely manage to dredge a word out of herself, let alone actually giggle and joke. Communication was reduced to a basic growl-and-scowl combination if you made the mistake of questioning whether she’d remembered all her books, whether it was a violin day, or dared to ask if she would be staying on late or going to a friend’s place after school finished. At best there’d be a grunt by way of acknowledging a well-meant ‘have a nice day’.
Today she was quite bouncy. Viola didn’t expect this to be a permanent state of affairs but did put it down, mostly, to Rachel’s delight that they would soon be returning to Bell Cottage. She’d already been talking about arranging her room with her bed against the far wall so she
’d get a view out over the garden when she woke up, and, with the help of Emmy, she’d decided on the paint colour – a soft silvery grey. To Viola it looked a bit too grey, a shade that could feel cold on a gloomy morning. It was maybe more the choice of Emmy (whose wardrobe full of black and purple, lace and velvet headgear would have been the envy of any Victorian undertaker’s mute), but Rachel insisted she was absolutely, like, to’ally sure it would look brilliant and she’d run it past her dad just to check – seeing as he was the designated Arty One. And anyway, it was her room. She was allowed to pick whatever she liked best.
‘Give my love to Marco and James, oh and Gemma when you give her the cardigans. And don’t …’ Viola hesitated, stopping herself just in time from saying ‘and don’t do anything silly’. That sounded too like Naomi. Not just Naomi when Viola was a teenager, but Naomi now: Naomi in full kimono-on-the-doorstep mode. Not bearable when you’re thirty-five, but at fourteen you had to hear these things – that was the deal. She modified it a bit, tried to be usefully specific. ‘When you’re going down to the market tomorrow, hang on to your bag tight and keep it zipped up and be careful who you get talking to.’
‘It’s fine, Mum! I’ve been down Portobello millions of times. And anyway, I expect Dad will come too, no worries. He likes to go to Garcias for posh ham and chorizo and stuff like that. He says we can have lunch at that little place with the roof garden.’
‘He lets you have a lot of freedom. I sometimes think he forgets how young you are,’ Viola said, worrying in spite of Rachel’s reassurance. ‘Just take care, OK?’
‘Yup.’ Rachel gave her mother a big, generous hug, which Viola found almost tearfully touching, considering that although Rachel’s year group were forever hugging each other, preening each other’s hair like fond monkeys and often holding hands, the idea of being caught showing public affection to a mother would be pretty much unthinkable.
‘See you on Sunday then,’ Viola managed to say, feeling pathetic. Ye gods, Rachel was only going to stay with her dad. She’d done it often enough before. Also, Viola was, for once, actually going out, doing grown-up socializing, among strangers, just like she used to. Like real people, with real lives. She felt quite nervous, thinking about it.
