by Kerry Fisher
In the meantime, she’d dug up a blond monster of a man, who introduced himself as ‘Tristram, but everyone calls me Ram’. Clover laughed out loud but got the joke about ‘Is that in or out of bed?’ out of the way. Ram looked like he should have been shouting, ‘About turn’ on a parade ground except that he spent more time flexing his muscles in the mirror than the army would have allowed.
So that was how we came to have our arses in the air, bunny hopping up and down the gym, when Jen1 came strolling in, wearing black Lycra leggings and a green thong leotard which separated her tiny butt cheeks like a Christmas ribbon. She did the whole ‘Hey, Ram, just a quick question about my heart rate, would you mind looking at my food diary, is soya better than milk for losing weight . . .’ before making a big palaver out of pointing to some invisible bits of chub she reckoned were love handles. Personally, I didn’t think someone as bitchy as Jen1 was in danger of getting love handles.
She didn’t spot me at first. ‘Clover! So this is where you’ve been hiding.’
Tristram wasn’t going to allow Clover to stop so she panted out a hello between her legs. ‘Punishment for talking! Star jump squats.’ I laughed, because as a result of Clover’s boot camp regime, we could barely walk up the stairs, let alone do star jumps. No woman who’s had a baby should have to do that. I was concentrating very hard on holding my pelvic floor in but Clover yelled, ‘Oh my God, I’ve wet myself.’ Ram backed away and pointed in the direction of the loos. Jen1 pulled a face and trotted onto the treadmill, her spindly little spaghetti legs going like a baby deer on speed.
When Clover returned, Jen1 tried to ignore her, avoiding her eye in the mirror but Clover kept laughing and saying, ‘A lot to be said for having one child, Jennifer. Those bloody twins have done for me. Maybe I need to get some of those love eggs. They’re supposed to be good for your pelvic floor, aren’t they? Kill two birds with one egg as it were.’ Jen1’s eyes flew open so wide she looked like a child’s drawing. She was obviously a curtains drawn, strictly missionary kind of girl.
We finally got off the subject of incontinence pants before Ram banned us from his gym. Ram came up with yet another method of torture that involved Clover and me pulling on a stretchy band behind our backs. I could feel Jen1 watching us, smirking her face off every time the bands pinged out of our hands while she pedalled away as though she was leading the Tour de France. But Ram believed in teamwork. Every day he made me sprint five hundred metres on the running machine while Clover did the plank, some disgusting Pilates move that made time stand still and your belly muscles rip open. I ran as fast as possible to minimise Clover’s misery. I’d only done fifty-five metres when she started screaming for me to hurry up. By two hundred and fifty, she was swearing and by four hundred metres, it was impossible to make out anything other than her favourite F-word.
When she finally caved in, squirming in agony, Jen1 pranced by and patted her on the back. ‘Good for you. I must tell Lawrence that he won’t recognise you next time he sees you.’
‘That’s the fucking plan,’ Clover said through clenched teeth. I was pretty warm myself but Clover was so purple when we left the gym that I tried to remember what to do when people have heart attacks.
That evening Clover munched her way through a huge pile of alfalfa shoots, lentils and chickpeas. When I came in from my shift at the posh offices where I’d left everything smelling of lavender and furniture wax, I walked into a kitchen smelling of horse manure. I honestly thought that Weirdo had left a turd somewhere in the room, but given that Clover – miraculously – had kept the kitchen spotless, anything out of place was easy to see. I wrinkled my nose. It was hard to believe that one woman could produce such a terrible smell without a dead rat actually decomposing somewhere about her body.
‘Sorry. I think it was better when I ate junk food. The kids are threatening to make me sleep in the pool house.’ Clover didn’t look the slightest bit bothered.
‘I’m going to light some candles.’ It still gave me great pleasure to open up her kitchen drawers and find everything from Sellotape to string and matches neatly arranged.
‘Why? Are you Catholic? Is it a feast day for gym babes?’ Clover flexed her arms like Popeye.
‘I am Catholic, lapsed, obviously. But candles get rid of awful smells.’
Clover picked unenthusiastically at a bowl of pumpkin seeds.
‘God, Maia, you are the font of all knowledge. How will I survive when you leave?’
‘You’ll have Lawrence back by then, so you won’t need me.’
Clover’s eyes filled. ‘I don’t know about that. Even when he does answer my phone calls, he won’t talk about us, only the children. I’ve no idea what he’s thinking but I know that if I demand answers or back him into a corner, he’ll close down and won’t tell me anything. I’m too scared to ask him if he’ll ever come back.’ She fidgeted. ‘I could murder a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.’
‘Gooseberries,’ I said, obediently.
‘Brilliant!’ said Clover, clapping her hands. I’d made it my mission to teach her about cleaning. She’d made it hers to teach me about wine. She was just looking as though digging deep into the compost heap for the wine cellar key might become a possibility when there was a loud banging on the front door. A bailiff-type thump. I was glad to be in a home where the ownership of the toaster was never in doubt.
Clover looked at her watch. ‘Who the hell’s that at ten o’clock at night?’
‘Maybe it’s Lawrence.’ I prepared to disappear.
‘Nah. He’d let himself in through the back door. He had a thing about the front door. Said he was more comfortable with the tradesman’s entrance.’
Clover obviously worried a lot less about headless axemen than I did and opened the door without asking who it was. There in all his glory stood Colin. He stumbled towards us stinking of booze and looking as though he hadn’t bothered to light the boiler in the three weeks I’d been gone. What was it with these men? Did they need a wife or girlfriend to remind them to shower? By the smell of Colin, the answer was yes.
‘Colin.’ Clover was very clipped.
‘I’ll handle this.’ I wasn’t sure I would but it would be rude not to try.
‘What are you doing here?’ I said. Pity, fear, embarrassment, distaste. They were all shaking around like some multi-coloured cocktail.
‘You gotta come back. You’s my wife. You b’long with me.’
‘I’m not actually your wife. You could never be bothered to marry me. But anyway.’ It wasn’t a time to be splitting hairs.
‘You always was a lippy cow. Where’s me kids? I wanna see the kids.’ He tried to get through the door.
Clover stood in his way. ‘Listen, Colin, I don’t want to be inhospitable but it’s late and you’ve obviously had the odd sherbet or two, so why don’t you get along home and Maia will talk to you in the morning?’
‘Wossit got to do with you? If it weren’t for you, she’d be at home with me.’
Clover wasn’t having any of it. Oddly enough, she reminded me of my mother, who always liked to give people a piece of her mind. Or her ‘brain’ as Mum liked to say. ‘No, Colin. The reason she is here with me, is that you punched her in the face. So I suggest you leave, sober up and buck up your ideas. Then you might stand half a chance of getting her back.’
I could see Colin weighing up the pros and cons of forcing his way in. He had that ‘I’ll pretend I’m listening’ look on his face as he swayed from one foot to the other, one eye closed.
In her bare feet Clover only came halfway up Colin’s chest. But she wasn’t about to back down. She stood, arms folded, square in the doorway – though a lot less square since her gym sessions with Ram-alam-a-ding-dong. Colin didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon. He was trying to talk to me over Clover’s head. In an undertone, she said, ‘Shall I get rid of him?’ I nodded. I couldn’t see the point of having the serious conversations we should have had over the last ten years when Colin could see two of me.
I wasn’t half as brave without Clover. Colin leered towards me. ‘C’mon babe. You’ve had yer fun. Come home with me. It ain’t the same without you.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’m not cut out for livin’ on me own. House feels really empty without the kids. An’ you, of course. Too big for just me. And I ain’t eating properly. I’ve even got meself a job.’ ‘Where?’ That was the point where I should have been really interested in what Colin had to say. Instead, he seemed like a throwback from another era, like someone walking around with an Elvis quiff and thinking he was trendy.
‘The betting shop. But not betting.’ He hiccupped out a laugh. ‘Painting. Doing the front up. All the signs are hanging off so I’m sorting it out. I ain’t been paid yet, but it’ll see us right. Keep them bastard bailiffs away for a bit.’
Which proved to me that Colin had no idea what we owed. I didn’t hold out much hope that the most interesting destination for a bunch of twenties pushed into his hand at the end of the week would be rent arrears rather than the 2.20 p.m. at Kempton races. I was looking for something enthusiastic to say on the grounds that, like it or not, I’d have to share a house with him again soon. Before I came up with anything approaching positive, Colin gabbled on.
‘How are the kids? I’ve missed them, you know. And you.’ He stepped towards me to give me a hug. When I backed away, he got all aggressive. ‘Too good for me now, are you? You better not stop me seeing the kids.’
‘I’m not stopping you seeing them. You haven’t tried to arrange anything.’
Colin looked at his feet. Shifting his eyes off something level seemed to unbalance him and he ended up doing a little crab walk. ‘I thought you’d be home after a few days. S’pose they’ve forgotten all about me, now they’re living in this big old pile.’
‘Bronte is learning to ride which she’s always wanted to do. And Harley loves having a dog. But they miss you. Especially Bronte.’
His face softened. I might have felt a tiny bit of pity for him if he hadn’t started jabbing his finger in my face. He shouted, ‘This is all your fault. You with your fancy ideas. You thinking you’re better than everyone else, not even telling me you was taking the kids out of Stirling Hall. I am their father, you know. I’ve got me rights.’
Colin loved a good ‘right’. Shame he hadn’t thought that his rights included responsibilities, like putting food on the table and paying the electricity.
I stepped back from him. ‘I thought you’d be pleased I was moving the kids back to Morlands. You’ve won. I was wrong. I thought I could manage, but I can’t.’ I stopped. I hadn’t sent the letter yet, or mentioned it to anyone, not even Clover. ‘How did you know anyway?’
‘You told Sandy, didn’t you? Felt like a right plonker hearing it from her.’
Sandy. Bloody cow. She obviously couldn’t wait to stick her nose into that one. I could imagine her calling to Colin over the hedge. ‘‘Ere, Col, sorry to hear your kids have to leave Stirling Hall. Still, you was never for it in the first place, was you?’ And her dancing a little jig when she realised he didn’t even know. She hadn’t texted me to find out where I was. Then again, I hadn’t told her I was leaving. I was just as bad, though I wanted to believe that I’d be a bit more generous-spirited if things turned up trumps for her.
Colin lunged forward to grab my arm. ‘Come on, you’re coming home with me.’
I pushed him off. ‘I’m not coming back tonight. The kids are in bed.’
‘I’ll wake them up myself in a minute. Go and fetch them.’
‘No. I don’t want them to see you like this, anyway.’
‘Oooh, their old dad too rough for them now, is he?’ He grabbed me again and for someone who would struggle to walk in a straight line, he was hanging on well.
‘Get off. Off!’ I fought against him as he pulled me out of the house.
‘No. You are going to get it into your thick head that I am the man of the house and you will do as I say. All this bloody liberal crap that your friend, Flowerpot or whatever her name is, is filling your head with. You are coming home with me. Get the children. Now.’
He was beginning to twist my arm well beyond comfortable, when a shot, a bloody gunshot, echoed round the garden. Colin dived to the ground. I leapt back over the threshold and slammed the door. Another shot rang out. Then I heard Clover’s voice shouting down from upstairs.
‘Bugger off. Just fuck off. Next time I’ll shoot you in the goolies.’
I peered through the hall window. From upstairs I could hear Clover yelling every single swear word that finished with ‘off’. Colin was flicking the ‘V’s, shaking his fist and holding his own on slinging the insults. But those little drunken feet were flying over the gravel, until soon, I couldn’t see him at all.
Clover came down the stairs, rifle under her arm, thumbs tucked in her pockets, walking like John Wayne and talking in a Texan drawl. ‘I’ll be darned. That there rifle came in handy after all, dirty rotten scoundrel.’ And other miscellaneous movie lines which should have wound me up. I wanted to be cross. I really did. But relief that we weren’t the target of professional raiders and the memory of Colin’s feet skidding off down the drive tapped into my ‘shouldn’t be laughing’ gene and off I went, trying to disapprove but snorting and giggling instead. I was just thankful that the solid old walls of Clover’s house meant that the kids had slept through the whole commotion. I wasn’t in the mood for any ‘Clover wasn’t really trying to blow your Daddy’s brains out’ conversations tonight.
Clover was as high as a kite. ‘I’ve always wanted to do that. Lawrence keeps it in the garage to shoot the squirrels – they keep getting in the roof and chewing through the wires. I was never going to hit him, you know. I aimed at the chestnut tree by the gates.’
I praised the Lord for the key in the bottom of the compost heap.
24
The next day was Bronte’s class assembly. All parents were invited so I finished my shift at the gym early and made it back to Clover’s in time to join in all the fun of the breakfast bunfight, against a backdrop of Einstein’s swearing, Weirdo’s barking and the odd rabbit or guinea pig hopping about the room. Since our massive clean-up, Clover had clamped down on outdoor pets coming in the house, but the kids had made a sport out of smuggling them in. I could hear the shower running upstairs, which explained how a huge white rabbit called Blizzard had managed to slip under Clover’s radar to scoff up a hearty breakfast directly from the children’s bowls. Clover’s fitness fad had led to a Sugar Puffs and Coco Pops ban in favour of organic cereals with happy-clappy names like Tiger Tastic and Monkey Mayhem but which were actually gluten-free, nut-free, taste-free lumps of hippo poo wearing honey as a disguise. The real enemy in the camp though was not the hippo poo, but the amaranth, a cereal which, according to Clover, was bursting with potassium, calcium and goodness knows what, but turned into the texture of a fresh cowpat when milk was added – and tasted worse. Orion was trying to spoon lumps of the stuff into Bronte’s bowl without her noticing. He’d point to the parrot and say, ‘I think Einstein is about to crap.’ She’d turn to look and Orion would dollop in a spoonful of amaranth. I knew there’d be trouble as Bronte’s sense of humour was about as noticeable as Colin’s work ethic. Sure enough, after a few ‘Look at Blizzard, he’s eating a spider’ comments, Bronte started shoving Orion and shouting at him.
‘I hate you. You could make a dot-to-dot on your spots.’
‘You could park a car in your big mouth. No one asked you to come and live here. Why don’t you go back to your own house?’ Orion said.
I put my hand on Bronte’s shoulder. ‘Come on, now. Orion was just having a bit of fun. Why don’t I chop you up a banana? We need to get going because we don’t want to be late for your assembly, do we?’
Bronte shrugged me off. ‘I’m sick of living here. I want to go home. I want to be with Dad
, not stupid Clover and her stupid children.’ I was glad that Clover wasn’t there to catch the full force of Bronte’s ungratefulness.
‘Bronte. They are not stupid and they have been very generous letting us stay here. Come on, let’s finish breakfast.’ ‘I hate them. I really hate them. Where’s Dad? I want to see Dad. Doesn’t he love us any more? Why doesn’t he come to see us?’ She shoved her bowl so hard it knocked into Orion’s and sent them both crashing onto the floor. I didn’t feel that it was the right time to tell her that Colin had turned up and Clover had practically peppered his arse with shotgun pellets.
Orion did what ten-year-old boys do. He started laughing and pulling faces. Harley was trying not to join in but I could see the appeal as Bronte grew more and more purple, finally screaming at Orion. ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at. Your dad has left you. He hardly ever phones you. He doesn’t love you any more and I don’t blame him.’
‘You bloody liar. He hasn’t left us. He’s away working. America and now Scandinavia, I think.’ Orion’s face clouded with uncertainty.
I nodded until my neck hurt. ‘Yes, your mum said northern Scandinavia, a really remote part, without any telephone masts.’ I needed to shut up before I started naming Swedish tennis players and pop groups, talking about herring factories, snow sports, any random rubbish to back up my lie.
I grabbed hold of Bronte and prised her away from the table. She resisted me at first, but as soon as we got into the hallway, she started to cry, big chunky sobs, right from the heart. ‘Where is Dad? I thought you said we were just staying here for a bit while you helped Clover clean. Have you left him?’
‘No, I haven’t left him.’
‘But you’re going to, aren’t you?’ Her eyes were demanding the truth from me. Half an hour before her starring role in assembly as a dung beetle wasn’t the moment.
‘I am not leaving your dad. Of course I’m not. He was very unkind to me when he hit me. Now I hope he’s learnt his lesson. As soon as I’ve finished cleaning the house with Clover, we’ll be going home.’ I almost wished that I was lying, but I couldn’t keep behaving like an ostrich and chucking another bucket of sand over my head.
