Over

by Margaret Forster

  *

  It’s extraordinary the way ranting on to myself about security measures, as I did yesterday, can take my mind off things I don’t want to have to think about – pure distraction, works a treat. Don never allows distraction. Sometimes, when he was in head-clutching mode over some problem at work, and couldn’t think how to solve it, I’d tell him to listen to some music, or watch television – it’ll distract you, I’d say, and the answer will come. But he didn’t agree. Nothing must distract him till he’d concentrated his mighty mind and found the solution.

  Today, I seek distraction but I haven’t found it. The dinner for Molly is in two days. I can’t think about anything except how I’m dreading it. I’ve got the bag. I’ve wrapped it. I’ve got the card. I’ve written it. I know what I am going to wear. I’ve made the decision to drive there, because I don’t want to drink and I do want to be independent and able to leave when I like.

  *

  Message from Judith when I got home today. She wonders if I might like to come over early tomorrow, say about three or four, to help her get ready for the party. I could hear her, when I listened to her message, straining to be casual, to avoid being patronising, to make it sound as if she needed help, which everyone knows she does not. I’d be condemned to carrying out orders, that’s all. I won’t accept, of course. I’ll ring and say I’ve got to go and pick up something in the afternoon and can’t make it, sorry to let her down. What a game this is.

  *

  Woke very early, inevitably. I always do, on their birthday. I wake just before the time Molly was born and then I lie there reminiscing in my head. Or I used to. The sentimental, indulgent trip down memory lane has been cancelled. I can’t enjoy it any more. But I tried, this morning, to get some of the innocent pleasure back, and I managed to, a little. Then, as I lay there, the telephone rang, the sound harsh in the stillness of the room. It was only five o’clock. Who would it be? Was it another nuisance call? A wrong number? My heart raced a little, and my hand shook as I lifted the receiver and said hello.

  ‘Hello,’ Don said, very quietly. ‘I knew you’d be awake. I just thought I’d say hello.’ I didn’t reply. ‘I knew you’d be remembering,’ he said, ‘and I am too.’ I still didn’t say anything. Don cleared his throat. ‘Lou, I really am remembering. They were happy days. That day, this day, especially. I remember every single second of it …’ ‘Don,’ I said, ‘please don’t. I’ll see you this evening.’ And I hung up. I got up then, and here I am, trying to make sense of his call. He wanted, I’m sure, to impress me. He wanted to show me that he was close to me whatever I thought. The message was: we have something to share, so let’s share it. Memories. Good, happy memories which can’t be destroyed and continue to bind us together whatever has happened. True. But what Don doesn’t understand is that memories are not like elastic, and they don’t stretch into the future. They pull us back and become dangerous. He can’t trade on memories.

  When the phone rang again I thought it was another call from Don and I almost didn’t answer it. But then I thought that if I didn’t, he would keep on and on. It was Molly. ‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, sounding cheerful but as though she had a cold. I said happy birthday, and you’re awake bright and early and have you got a cold, and there was silence and I realised she was crying. I couldn’t bear her not to be beside me so that I could hug and comfort her. ‘I’m coming straight round, early or not,’ I said. But she stopped me, saying no, she was going to get dressed and run across the park to me. That was what she wanted to do.

  I stood at the window, watching for her so that she wouldn’t need to ring the bell. Still just after six and not much activity yet in the street. A lovely morning, slightly hazy, the leaves of the plane trees at the end of the street shimmering in the faint breeze and behind them the white-blue of the morning sky. Molly would be entering the park. She’d have run through the silent streets between it and Judith’s house, maybe passing a milk float. She was running towards me as fast as she could and I was so grateful, so glad. I’m so lucky, I thought, to have her. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

  *

  It wasn’t quite how I imagined it would be when she did arrive. I thought we’d both be emotional. I’d seen us embracing, clasping each other tightly, maybe crying as we did so. But none of that happened. I saw her turn the corner at the end of the street leading to the park and she looked up and saw me and waved, and I pressed the button to release the front door as she ran into the forecourt of our flats. Then I waited at my own door, expectant and eager, but when she arrived, panting, she ducked past me gasping ‘shower’ and was in the bathroom immediately. It made me uncertain, not knowing quite what to do. So I did the obvious, squeezed oranges to make her juice and put the coffee on. When she emerged, wrapped in my towelling robe, her hair dripping, she sat down at the table without a kiss or cuddle.

  I said happy birthday again, and went to her side and kissed her forehead, and she returned my kiss with one of her own, but it was lightly given, almost an absent-minded gesture. Then she said, ‘Mum, I’ve come to beg a favour. I’ve been awake nearly all night, thinking.’ I said she could have any favour she liked, she knew that she only had to ask. ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘I want you to be friends with Dad today. It’s all I want for my birthday. I don’t care about presents. I just want you two to be friends again.’ I went round to the other side of the table and sat down. My face felt hot, so I suppose I was flushed. I felt reprimanded somehow, as though I was being told off for some bad behaviour. ‘We are friends,’ I said. ‘We’ve never been anything else.’ ‘It doesn’t look like it,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t looked like it since he came back. You hardly seem able to bear being in the same room as him. You change when he’s there, you go all distant and cold. You were nicer to him when he was mad.’ ‘Was I?’ I said. ‘That was kind of me, then.’ I was being sarcastic but she took me seriously. ‘You are kind,’ Molly said. ‘That’s what’s so weird. I don’t get it, why suddenly you pretend you’re not. Don’t you love him any more? Don’t you even like him? What is it? Is it all because of Miranda? If she knew … That was what made me tearful this morning. Oh, Miranda, I was thinking, if you knew what happened afterwards, the fall-out, the wreckage. How has it happened, Mum? It’s nearly as awful as Miranda dying. No, no, don’t shake your head, don’t hide your face, that’s what it feels like to me. I can’t bear it. I bore Miranda’s death but I can’t bear this thing between you and Dad. It shouldn’t be like this. Nothing can make Miranda alive, nothing can be done about it, but something can be done about you and Dad. It’s stupid and unbearable, this situation. He loves you. He always has. And you won’t let him.’

  She’d hardly drawn breath. As she talked, rapidly, her voice rising all the time, her distress, evident at first, turned into anger. With me! She was angry with me. I was being wilful, it seemed, childish, and I must be scolded and made to apologise, then everything would be all right. I said nothing for a long time. She shifted on her chair, drank the orange juice, banged the glass as she put it back down. It was a good idea for me to keep silent. I felt it slowly giving me an advantage. She began to look uncomfortable, and I risked reaching across the table and squeezing her hand. ‘Molly,’ I said at last, ‘I can’t explain what I don’t understand myself, can I? I just feel … I’ve felt … I’m not the same, that’s all. Something’s gone, between me and your father. I can’t seem to get it back. It’s no good blaming me. And I don’t blame him. But it doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. You’ve got us both, even if not under the same roof. And I’ll be fine with Don so long as he accepts that I can’t go back to how we were. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ She nodded. ‘It’s what he wants, I know, and it’s what I thought I wanted for so long afterwards, just for us to be as we were. But I don’t want that any more. I want what I have instead, the life I’ve made.’ ‘But it is no sort of life!’ Molly burst out. ‘You know it isn’t – this flat – everything – you’re just pretending.’ ‘No,’ I said.
‘I’m not. But I can be friends with Don, if he’ll settle for that. Good friends. Now he’s better, he’ll make a new life, you’ll see.’

  She didn’t see, and of course saying that last bit was fatuous, and I regretted it. She got back into her running clothes, sweaty though they were, and prepared to go back to Judith’s. ‘Don’t look so unhappy on your birthday,’ I said. ‘Please give me a smile, a little one, even if you think I’m a brute.’ She said she didn’t think that. What she thought was that the madness, which had affected Don for so long, had now passed over to me. ‘You’re mad now,’ she said. ‘You know you love him, you know you want to be with him.’ I shook my head. ‘I’ll see you this evening,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be very, very kind. To everyone. All right?’

  Then, we did hug, but it was more of a consolation hug than anything else. I hated to see her so defeated, all the spirit and energy gone out of her. I wondered how long she’d practised saying what she’d said, and what she’d hoped the outcome would be. Certainly not this.

  *

  Half an hour to go, and I’m all ready. Who knows how this party will turn out? I don’t know whether I’ll be sitting here writing happily about it, or so depressed I won’t be able to write at all. But if the purpose of these sessions, writing to myself, is to clear my head, and to try to get things in proportion, then I want to reassure myself that I am going to Judith’s determined to try to give Molly what she wants. I will be friendly to Don. I will be as near to my old self as I can get. I will do nothing to mar the evening.

  But I’m not sure that the way I am dressed is quite like the old self Molly wants, not that she meant anything as trivial as clothes. It matters, somehow, that I should look as attractive as possible, simply for my own self-esteem. That’s why I called Lynne into service. I lied. I told her that I was going to a dinner for a colleague who was retiring and that it was to be held in a posh hotel. I said I wanted to look my best and that I had nothing in my wardrobe remotely suitable. Lynne was delighted to help, of course. ‘You never have made the best of your looks, Lou,’ she said. God knows what she thinks my looks are. I’m not sophisticated or stylish or smart, but I think I’m always what my mother called ‘nicely dressed’. I don’t follow fashion, but I’m not old-fashioned. Don always said I looked lovely, though it’s true that he said this whatever I was wearing.

  It turned out that what Lynne meant was that though I have what she calls ‘a rounded figure’ I don’t emphasise the roundness. Well, I don’t like things that cling. And she said that because I’m only 5 foot 4 I shouldn’t wear mid-calf skirts – ‘draggy on you’ – which I tend to. So, I’ve ended up sitting here wearing trousers and a tight-fitting top and a short, loose jacket thing. Not me at all. The trousers and jacket are white, the top a sort of bronze colour. It’s quite low, the top, and sleeveless, but I won’t be taking the jacket off. I quite like the jacket. The material feels like satin but it isn’t. I don’t suppose any of this outfit will wash, but it doesn’t matter. I probably won’t wear it again. There’s a lot of neck showing, and a bit of cleavage, though not as much as Lynne advised. I’ve shortened the thin straps of the top so that the neckline is higher. And I’m wearing a necklace Miranda gave me, the last present before she … Her last present to me.

  Maybe I should change. There’s still time. I can wear the blue dress I’ve always liked. It’s only cotton, and far from party wear, but it suits me, I think, and I feel comfortable in it. If I turn up looking like this, then everyone will remark on it and read significance into the obvious transformation – why has it been made, what am I trying to say? And more than that, I’m not convinced that this is making the most of myself as Lynne alleges. I probably look like mutton dressed as lamb. That would be sad. At least I haven’t been foolish enough to change my hair or my make-up, though Lynne was all for it. There’s nothing wrong with my hair. No grey in it yet, it’s still dark and curly and thick, and I don’t have to do anything with it except brush it. I like my hair, and I like my skin, and I don’t intend to do anything with that either.

  I’m not going to go and do anything as silly and vain as stand and look at myself for ages in a full-length mirror in order to decide whether to stay as I am or not. I’ve already looked in a mirror. I know I look good. ‘Good?’ I look different, very groomed, dressed up, maybe too dressed up for a family dinner. Miranda, always interested in clothes, would have loved how I look, but will Molly?

  *

  Phone call there, just as I was deciding to get into the blue dress, from Finn. Can I pick him up? He has been on a job and his moped has broken down and he doesn’t want to ask Dad or Molly or Judith (why not?). I haven’t time to change now. So, as so often, the decision has been made for me, in an entirely random way.

  *

  One in the morning. I’ve been home half an hour. I should sleep, then write.

  Why struggle to be chronological? But it is easier, starting at the beginning and working through until now. Isn’t that what all this is about? Looking for hope in orderliness.

  I drove to the house where Finn had been working. He was standing looking anxious on the kerb and had the passenger seat open almost before I had pulled up. He was filthy, of course. ‘Thanks,’ he said. I was driving, so naturally I wasn’t looking at his face, but I could feel his surprise, I knew he was still looking at me. ‘Why are you all dressed up?’ he said. ‘It’s a party, Finn,’ I said, ‘remember?’ ‘Yeah, but … I mean … not that sort of party. It’s just a family dinner.’ I didn’t reply. He sounded resentful, irritated, as though I had no right to be ‘dressed up’, as he put it. ‘Very nice, anyway,’ he said, eventually, and then, ‘Dad will …’ and he stopped. I didn’t ask him what he meant. ‘What are you giving Molly?’ I asked quickly. He groaned, said nothing much, he hadn’t much money, so he’d bought her an illustrated book about birds in Africa which he’d got at a car boot sale, and he’d made a card. I laughed, and he laughed too and said yeah, it was a real sticky-glue-and-glitter job.

  So we arrived at Judith’s house smiling, but then when it came to getting out of my car and revealing myself in my new outfit, I felt awkward and embarrassed. I saw Finn looking me up and down, and I couldn’t interpret his expression. ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Don’t,’ I said. He had a key, so at least I didn’t have to wait for Judith to open the door, and I didn’t have to endure an exaggerated reaction while I stood on the doorstep. We went in. There was a wonderful smell coming from the kitchen. Then Finn raced off up the stairs to shower and change and at that moment Don came out of the sitting-room and into the hall. It’s hard to say who was more taken aback. Don was wearing a suit, a new suit. It was a light grey, immaculate, and he had a startlingly white shirt on and a tie patterned in grey, white and orange. We stood and looked at each other, transfixed. Who knows what we would have said or done if Judith had not come out of the kitchen, all hot and bothered, wiping her hands on her apron, and crying, ‘Well! Look at you two! Ooh, you look lovely, both of you!’

  It was like meeting a stranger. I felt for a crazy few minutes like asking his name, and what he did for a living, and did he have a family. But neither of us, in fact, said a word to each other as Judith, who luckily never stopped chattering on, urged us into the sitting-room. I prayed for Finn to be quick and come rushing in, but he was ages, and when Judith said she had to get back to see to her soufflé we were left together. ‘You look … well, I can’t think how to describe how you look,’ Don said, ‘apart from beautiful.’ ‘So do you,’ I said. ‘New suit, obviously. Suits you, sir.’ He seemed relieved to laugh. ‘Doesn’t feel right, though,’ he said. ‘It isn’t me, it never was, I’m not really a suit man.’ Now, isn’t that what you say to someone who doesn’t know you? I think so. Getting Don into suits was always difficult and I dreaded the occasions when even he thought it necessary. He had to wear a suit for work only at the beginning of his career, and it was fuss, fuss every day – ironic, because he is one of those men who look best in a form
al suit.

  Judith had pointed us towards a jug of Pimm’s she’d made, and Don poured us each a glass. ‘Where’s the birthday girl?’ I asked. He said she was still getting ready. I went out on to the terrace – it was still sunny – and began wandering round the garden, dead-heading roses as I passed. Don followed me. I reminded myself that I was determined to be friendly and so, when we came to Judith’s arbour, I said should we sit and wait for the children here? We sat side by side, drinking our Pimm’s. It was quite strong, lots of gin in it, and I was glad, even though I’d planned not to drink. I needed that slight blurring of the senses alcohol always gave me. Neither of us spoke. We looked towards the house, and waited.

  They came out together, Finn with his arm round Molly’s shoulder, and stood on the terrace. He looked so tall beside her, and protective. It brought immediate tears to my eyes, but I fiercely ordered them not to fall. Don and I got up at the same time and went towards our children, holding our glasses aloft as though we were toasting them, and Don did say, when we reached them, ‘Cheers!’ I saw at once that Molly’s eyes were red and heavy, though she was smiling, or trying to. We hugged each other, but gently, me hugging Molly first and then Finn, and then Don did the same. We all told each other we looked amazing, lovely, cool, though it was Don and I who had made the most effort, obviously. Finn did have clean jeans on, and a proper shirt instead of a T-shirt, but he hadn’t exactly tried to dress up. And Molly – well, Molly looked strange.

  She wasn’t wearing trousers. I searched my memory and couldn’t remember when I had last seen her in a skirt or dress – years ago, I’m sure. Miranda wore skirts as often as she wore trousers, but Molly from her teenage years onwards only wore trousers. Getting her into a skirt was like getting Don into a suit. But now she was wearing a skirt, very short and brightly coloured, and a thin white cotton top, which was tucked in at the waist with a beaded belt. Her arms and legs were bare. Her legs were very white because even in Africa she wore trousers. She looked sweet, younger than her years, but uncomfortable. None of us made any remarks or teased her about her skirt.