Snap

by Belinda Bauer

  Adam spilled Chips from his arms and on to the floor. He steered Catherine gently back to the sofa, then knelt on the rug in front of her, looking up into her face anxiously. ‘Would you like some water? Or tea? I can make tea?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes please, sweetheart. Tea would be lovely.’

  She wanted him to go into the kitchen – go anywhere – so she wouldn’t have to pretend. Wouldn’t have to lie to him.

  But he stayed. ‘Are you sure that’s all?’ he said. ‘I can call the hospital. Get the bag …?’

  Her bag had been packed and beside the front door since her fourth month. Back then she could still wear size 12 jeans, and it had seemed surreal that she would ever need it. But now she looked at it every day, just to make sure it was still there. Sometimes she added things, or changed something for a better something.

  ‘It’s not the baby,’ she reassured him. ‘I just got up too quickly to answer the phone, I think. Went a bit dizzy.’

  She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. ‘I’d love a cup of tea, please, darling.’

  His brown eyes searched her own, and so she closed them and leaned carefully back against the cushions.

  Adam fetched another, and pushed it gently under the small of her back.

  ‘Better?’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He kissed her forehead and then her tummy.

  Catherine blinked back tears of gratitude. Sometimes he made her feel like a princess and a lover and a cherished child, all at the same time.

  And she was lying to him!

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, he looked at her seriously. ‘You would tell me if there was anything wrong, wouldn’t you, Cathy?’

  She nodded automatically. ‘Of course!’

  But she wouldn’t.

  Because if she told him about the phone call, she’d have to tell him about the burglary, and then not only would he be angry about the open window and the Swedish vase – he’d also be hurt and angry that she hadn’t said anything before now.

  Catherine fervently wished that she hadn’t kept anything from Adam, but now that she’d started down this path, she could see no easy way back from her lies.

  She felt as if she were cheating on him.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, like a dart tipped with guilt.

  And for a moment she let him hold her close, even though she wanted to be alone.

  Merry checked her little red-and-blue watch. When it said three thirty, she took the back-door key from the hook and rushed out into the garden with Donald in her arms.

  She shivered with delight as the sun hit her skin, then put Donald down on the lawn and threw herself headlong on to the warm grass, as if diving into a deep green pool.

  She lay flat, cupping her face, with the grass prickling her eyelids and nose as she breathed in the green and the soil and the roots. Then, slowly, she turned on to her side, so that she could listen to the garden.

  There was the whisper of the stalks bending and breaking under her cheek, and the dry rub of her own hair against her ear. But once she was still and her breathing had slowed, she could hear the whole world under her head – the tiny sounds of beetles and bugs and – she fancied – earthworms moving through the soil, and the soil moving through them.

  Apart from Donald, worms were her favourite animals. Jack had made her a worm hotel out of a shoebox, with little doors and windows cut out and shutters drawn on, and filled half full of soil so that Merry could watch the worms without the shield of grass. She would catch them and accommodate them for a few days, then would check them out of the hotel and send them back to their working lives in the garden, and new guests would arrive.

  In a big black notebook she kept a careful felt-tip register of arrivals and departures, and gave them names like Snake and Riggles and Slinky and FootLong. She was pretty sure FootLong was a regular, even though Jack said that was unlikely.

  Merry closed her eyes and stretched out her arms in the grass as if embracing the whole planet. She listened to the worms and the beetles with one ear, while the other filled with the soft chirping of birds and the drone of bumblebees coming and going like country-lane traffic.

  There was a slow, throaty cough, then a snap and a clank.

  A brief silence, then it happened again: prrrrr, snap, clank.

  Merry raised her head and looked at the fence. Somebody next door was trying to start a lawnmower.

  She got up and stood carefully on the brick surround of the cold frame so she could hang there, up to her armpits in fence.

  The new neighbour was there – an old woman in unsuitably pale trousers and a pink flowery blouse.

  ‘Hello.’

  The old woman looked up, but at the wrong place, so Merry waved a helpful arm and said, ‘Over here.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the woman. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m Merry,’ said Merry.

  ‘Oh,’ said the old woman. ‘Good.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said again. ‘Your name is Merry?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Merry. ‘I told you.’

  ‘Well!’ said the old woman. Then she said nothing for a bit – as if she didn’t know what there was to say about that.

  At last she said, ‘Merry’s a pretty name.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Merry. She’d never thought about it. It was just what she was called – as much part of her as her fingers or toes. They weren’t pretty or ugly, only fingers and toes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she repeated.

  ‘Mrs Reynolds.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Merry. Mrs Reynolds wasn’t a pretty name or an ugly name, so now she was the one who had nothing to say about names.

  Mrs Reynolds pulled the starter on the mower again. It didn’t sound like starting. Merry knew because when Jack started their mower for her, it was fast and loud and made her cover her ears. Mrs Reynolds’ mower sounded wheezy and ill.

  ‘We have a lawnmower that goes,’ she said.

  Mrs Reynolds said nothing, just pulled the cord again. Prrrrrr, snap, clank.

  ‘I mow the lawn,’ Merry added. ‘But my brother has to start the lawnmower for me.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Mrs Reynolds, as if there was something wrong with that.

  ‘Do you live there alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Prrrrrr, snap, clank.

  ‘I live with my brother and sister and my dad. But my dad works away a lot. On an oil rig.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Mrs Reynolds, but she was unscrewing a cap on the mower and peering inside it, and Merry got the feeling she wasn’t really listening.

  ‘Yeah,’ she went on. ‘So mostly it’s just us, alone.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘There’s petrol in it. And oil. I don’t know what’s wrong.’

  Jack would know what was wrong, thought Merry. Jack would fix it in a jiffy. She so wanted to offer up Jack as a lawnmower repairman, but he’d be cross if she did. Jack didn’t like to get involved with the neighbours in case they wanted to get involved back. So Merry didn’t say anything about the lawnmower. She had things she was allowed to say, and wasn’t supposed to deviate.

  ‘I’m home schooled,’ she said.

  ‘Are you now?’ Mrs Reynolds did listen to that. She looked up sharply from the mower at Merry hanging over the fence.

  ‘If your father’s away, who home schools you?’

  ‘My brother and sister,’ said Merry. ‘I’ve read loads of books.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Mrs Reynolds suspiciously. ‘And what’s your favourite subject?’

  ‘Vampires.’

  ‘Vampires?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Merry. ‘I know all about them. They suck your blood, but only if you invite them in.’

  Mrs Reynolds frowned, so she explained, ‘They can’t just come in. That’s against the rules.’

  ‘Well!’ said the old woman firmly. Then she put her hands on her narrow hips and glared at the lawnmower before looking back a
t Merry. ‘How old are your brother and sister?’

  ‘Twenty,’ said Merry. ‘And nineteen.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘That’s very young.’

  ‘Not to me,’ shrugged Merry. Then she said, ‘Do you still have children?’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Well, because you’re so old.’

  ‘I’m sixty-three,’ said Mrs Reynolds stiffly. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Nearly six,’ said Merry. ‘So do you? Still have children?’

  ‘I have a son.’

  ‘Maybe he can mow the lawn for you.’

  Mrs Reynolds gave a sigh and said, ‘Maybe he can,’ and pushed the mower back into the garden shed and locked it with a padlock, then put the key under a pot on the patio.

  ‘Nobody steals stuff around here,’ said Merry.

  ‘You can’t be too sure,’ said Mrs Reynolds. Then she straightened up and said, ‘So. Vampires and what else?’

  ‘Loads,’ said Merry.

  ‘Such as?’ said Mrs Reynolds.

  ‘Ummm … the news,’ said Merry. ‘I know all the news.’

  ‘Really?’

  Something in the word made Merry think that Mrs Reynolds thought she was lying, so she screwed up her nose and racked her brain to think of what she’d read in the papers.

  ‘The last ibuk in the world died.’

  ‘What’s an ibuk?’ said Mrs Reynolds.

  ‘A kind of sheep.’

  Mrs Reynolds frowned, then said, ‘You mean an ibex.’

  ‘Yes, an ibex,’ said Merry.

  ‘It’s a kind of goat,’ said Mrs Reynolds.

  ‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ shrugged Merry. ‘Because a tree fell on it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Mrs Reynolds dubiously.

  ‘Yes, and a sumberine sank under the sea in Russia and they couldn’t get them out and they all died.’

  ‘A sumberine,’ said Mrs Reynolds.

  ‘Yeah,’ Merry ploughed on with a defiant eye. ‘And I know all about Shipman. He killed a whole bunch of people, but only the old ones.’

  Mrs Reynolds pursed her lips, and looked about to say one thing, and then seemed to change her mind and said, ‘Should you be hanging off the fence like that?’

  Merry had never thought about it before, but now she looked down at the fence, and at herself, and at her feet balanced on the low brick wall of the cold frame. Everything looked OK to her.

  ‘I think so,’ she nodded.

  Mrs Reynolds put her hands on her hips again. She seemed cross.

  ‘Well, as long as you don’t break it,’ she said, and went inside and shut the back door without saying goodbye.

  Merry didn’t know how she could break the fence. What a stupid thing to say. It was a fence!

  She hung there for a little while longer, staring at the overgrown mess of the neighbouring garden. Then she climbed carefully down so as not to tread on the glass lid of the cold frame. There were tomatoes in there, and lettuce and spring onions. It was her job to water them and she never missed a day because it got hot in there, even when it wasn’t sunny. She knew because Jack had once made her lie down in the cold frame and shut the lid, so she’d know how much the plants needed water.

  Now she opened the lid and took out a sweet little cherry tomato and popped it with her small white teeth.

  She was allowed because salad was good for you.

  She took one in for Joy.

  Friday night, and Catherine’s risotto was a triumph. All she’d done was stand there and stir it while The Archers was on, but Jan went on and on about it as if she’d spit-roasted a unicorn.

  ‘I must get this recipe!’ she said three different times. ‘It’s just delicious.’

  ‘It’s only rice and elbow grease,’ Catherine replied, smiling, the first time. The second time she only smiled; the third she ignored, and Jan didn’t say it again, although she did question the difference between risotto and paella, which they were all hazy about. They took ages to settle on ‘fish’.

  Conversation was awkward. Catherine had enjoyed her job at the estate agency. She’d been good at it, and loved the office banter, but when Jan talked about it now, it just felt meaningless. And the more Jan talked, the thinner her material got, and the more trite it sounded.

  ‘So I said to Mr Bevan, they’re never going to sell it with that pond in the garden! It’s a family house! It’s like a red flag with added koi carp!’

  Jan laughed, but only Catherine made the effort to smile and agree, if only to keep Rhod from speaking.

  Rhod was of average build and height, with small eyes and dull features. He was not an ugly man, but Catherine felt him grow more unattractive as the evening wore on.

  For a start, even though she’d only met him once before, and briefly, he’d come through the door and kissed her cheek – and then rubbed her tummy, as if she were a rabbit’s foot!

  ‘Wonderful news,’ he’d said, seven months late.

  Catherine had forced a smile and dipped away from his hand and tried not to get within an arm’s length of him for the rest of the evening.

  But even at arm’s length, she didn’t like him. He blustered to Adam about cars, claiming expertise that only exposed his ignorance; he told them about some idiot at work they didn’t know and didn’t care about – and then was affronted that they couldn’t muster the interest to share his dislike. He’d never tasted risotto like it, and demanded to know Catherine’s secret ingredient, then tried to turn ‘secret ingredient’ into a running pregnancy joke that he told every time with a wink or a nudge and a notable absence of reactive laughter.

  By eight thirty, he was the Elephant Man, and Catherine couldn’t wait for them to go.

  The gaps in the conversation grew wider and wider, Jan’s attempts to close them grew increasingly desperate, and Adam made no contribution apart from ‘Pass the salt.’ Now and then he glanced through the door towards the television, and once spent so long in the bathroom that she just knew he was reading in there …

  Catherine tried at first, but just couldn’t be bothered to keep the frothy conversational balls in the air while a far darker truth bubbled within her.

  If she opened her mouth, she’d say it. It would all come pouring out.

  I don’t care about any of this! A man broke into our house! He threatened to kill me!

  It almost made her smile to think of how quickly the veneer of dinner-party politeness would crack.

  ‘More wine?’ said Adam and she shot him a look that said no – then realized Jan had spotted it too.

  Catherine reddened.

  ‘Are you OK, Cath?’ said Jan, putting her head on one side sympathetically.

  Catherine understood the subtext.

  Why are you being such a miserable bitch? If you didn’t want us here, why invite us?

  ‘Sorry, Jan,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this so much, but I’m just exhausted. The baby, you know?’

  Nobody could argue with a baby.

  ‘Of course,’ Jan smiled. ‘And all that stirring.’

  All that lying, she meant.

  They left straight after coffee, and Catherine hugged Jan at the door because she did feel bad – although not bad enough to beg them to stay.

  When Adam had closed the door behind them, Catherine fell into his arms with a groan of relief.

  ‘Thank God!’

  He patted her back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said against his chest. ‘I just wasn’t up for it. Poor Jan. I’ll call her tomorrow and apologize. Right now I just want to get into a hot bath and fall asleep.’

  He patted her back again but said nothing. Catherine looked up at him. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said.

  She drew back from him a little. ‘What’s up?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘That Rhod’s an arse, isn’t he?’

  ‘Total arse,’ she agreed, and laid her cheek against his chest again. ‘Even I could tell he doesn’t know a th
ing about cars!’

  ‘And the way he touched your tummy.’

  ‘I know,’ said Catherine. ‘It’s really inappropriate.’

  ‘I don’t like him,’ said Adam.

  ‘I don’t either,’ she said. ‘But Jan never makes it past year two of a relationship, so his time’s almost up.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I hope we never see him again.’

  Catherine smiled and detached herself from Adam and started up the stairs.

  Before she’d taken three steps, there was a knock on the door.

  It was Rhod. He had a flat.

  Ugh.

  Rhod came back in to call the RAC, while Catherine went outside to sympathize with Jan and look at the tyre.

  In the warm summer darkness, she and Jan stood shoulder to shoulder beside the Toyota.

  ‘What a pain,’ said Catherine.

  ‘Rhod only just put new tyres on it,’ said Jan. ‘I’ll tell him to take it back and give them hell.’

  They both looked to see whether Rhod was on his way back to them.

  He wasn’t.

  Silence.

  Catherine was loath to invite them back into the house to extend the evening, when that hot bath had seemed so close.

  ‘You and Rhod seem happy.’

  ‘So far, so good,’ Jan nodded, and crossed her fingers. ‘He was nervous tonight, I could tell. He doesn’t know a bloody thing about cars!’

  They both laughed.

  ‘But he treats me so well,’ said Jan. ‘It’s a nice change.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Do you know what he does yet?’

  ‘Not a clue!’ said Jan.

  Catherine laughed again, and was pleased that they were sharing this moment when she’d been such a poor host all night.

  ‘I’ll send you that risotto recipe.’

  ‘Oh please do. It really was amazing. It’s so hard to get Rhod to eat anything that isn’t fried in batter.’

  Finally Catherine could stall no longer.

  ‘Why don’t you come back inside and wait?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Jan.

  ‘Of course.’

  As they walked back up the short driveway, Jan said, ‘Oh no! Did you get a ticket?’ She reached across the bonnet of the pea-green Volvo and took a slip of paper from under the wiper. She unfolded it under the orange streetlamp and frowned.