The Awkward Age

by Francesca Segal

  “But she has been longing for time alone with him. You’ve seen, she’s been so generous with him, she’s made a monumental effort not to disturb him while he was working. Now he’s free he should have understood that. She’s been counting the days. It’s not just party time now that exams are over; these aren’t normal circumstances.” Unable to stop herself she added, “He has responsibilities.”

  James stood up again. For a moment she thought he looked pained, but then he picked up a wrapped dish in each hand and headed back into the kitchen. “They’re not normal circumstances. You’re right, and it’s my fault; I should have drawn his attention to it.”

  “It’s not your fault in any way.”

  “Come on.”

  “Come on what?”

  “Come on, let’s not fight the kids’ fights.”

  She fell silent. He was right, of course, but Gwen’s destructive temper was contagious, and Julia felt an urge to keep pushing. Instead she took his beer from the table and blew a low note across the mouth of the bottle, like a ship’s horn. “Okay,” she said, after a moment, decisive. “I’m sorry. I’ve caught Gwen’s mood. Give me the frankfurters. Will you bring the ketchup back out?”

  43.

  “We need this,” James announced the next morning, battling a knapsack into the boot of the car.

  Nathan mumbled something and James came around to the back window.

  “What?”

  “I said, like a hole in the head.”

  “That hole in your head is called a hangover, my boy. I offered intravenous fluids, you said no, my next best offer is a walk on the beach. You can get two hours’ quality sleep in the car. Righty ho, then,” he added, in an execrable British accent. Nathan closed his eyes.

  A day in Sussex seemed an ambitious plan, but James was insistent. It was the weekend, Saskia was with them, the weather was beautiful, and now was the time to begin a slow piecing back together. He was taking them all to Camber Sands. “This family needs airing,” he’d told Julia early that morning, and with that, at least, she was inclined to agree. But she was fairly sure that Gwen and Nathan had not yet spoken to each other, and Gwen’s reproachful glances over breakfast had been painful to witness. A London day trip might have been more sensible.

  From the passenger seat, Julia turned to smile encouragingly at the children but received no response. Nathan and Gwen, sullen and uncooperative, were looking anywhere but at each other. Saskia shifted and laid her head on Gwen’s shoulder.

  “Sleepy,” she mumbled. “Ro and I sat up talking for ages when we came home.” She leaned across Gwen to address her brother. “What time was it you got in?”

  “Dunno. Three, maybe?”

  “Right, but then he made us sit up with him and make him scrambled eggs and listen to his drunken rambling. You were going on and on about the Egg McMuffin being your personal madeleine.”

  Between them Gwen scowled, and then leaned forward between the seats and turned up the volume of the radio. Finally James climbed into the driver’s seat and announced that they were ready.

  For the first hour they drove in silence. The road glinted in the sunshine and Nathan grudgingly yielded his sunglasses to his father so he could see to drive, and then threw his head back and covered his eyes in the crook of his arm. Saskia hummed intermittently to the radio, and Julia watched her own daughter’s face in the rearview mirror and worried, and worried. She should have told James to take his own kids to the beach, and she and Gwen should have spent the day alone. This was too much for her, with Nathan in a temper and vacant, saccharine Saskia, whom they had not seen for months and who had once again become a semistranger.

  At Maidstone, James swung the car into a service station. “McDonalds. Sas gave me the idea, I absolutely insist. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to compile the most unhealthy combination of items you can think of. Someone get me the fish thing with fries, nuggets, and a chocolate milk shake.” He turned and winked at Nathan. “Next best thing to intravenous fluids.” Julia wondered why he seemed to find his son’s excessive drinking to be amusing rather than reprehensible. Nathan slipped wordlessly from the car.

  But McDonald’s turned out to be an excellent idea. Back on the road with steaming paper bags, the children revived. Gwen spoke, voluntarily, to say that her cheeseburger was “the best.” Nathan, finishing his second Big Mac, observed that fat and salt combined had magical restorative properties, and began to call out musical suggestions to his father. Saskia dipped a chicken nugget in Gwen’s ketchup and nudged her gently with an elbow.

  After a while Gwen said, “I so should have got a milk shake,” and Julia was surprised to see Nathan take his from between his knees and offer it to her. James, who had been lifting his own from the cup holder to hand over his shoulder, glanced briefly at Julia and smiled; Julia gave a tiny shrug and sipped her black coffee in silence. They drove on through Kent and south, to East Sussex.

  They were not the only people drawn to the water. The line for the car park stretched back more than a mile and so Julia, keen to preserve the fragile good tempers, did not object when James said they should go ahead. They took what they could carry and began to make their way along the road toward the shore, Gwen and Nathan lagging behind. Julia found herself walking with Saskia. She did not have the energy for someone else’s daughter. She had been dreading Saskia’s arrival in the house—another personality, more needs, emotional, practical, dietary. Last night, seeing Saskia and Rowan together, she had been riven with envy at their carelessness, their intimacy. Lucky, lighthearted, untraumatized. Katy had been to visit only once, carrying a small white orchid in Marks & Spencer cellophane and looking utterly petrified. Gwen did not seem to answer her phone anymore, except Nathan’s calls.

  Julia’s mind was upon the reconciliation taking place behind them; it took effort to turn her attention to the girl and think of a conversation she might begin. She settled on their location, the weather, the white-streaked purple bells of sea bindweed flourishing along the path. All this, so close to London—they should remember it year-round and come more often—and all the while thinking, Has that little shit apologized? Has he let her speak, will he give her a chance to tell him everything she suffered, and what it means to her? As they mounted the dunes she paused for a moment, craning backward, and spotted Gwen’s red hair, still a way off.

  Saskia began to screw her toe into the fine sand. “It’s been weird to be so far away with all this stuff happening to my family. I’ve been worried about my brother and Gwen and everyone and, I dunno, it’s just easier to be here. Now I know that like, even though this supersad thing happened, it’s all going to be okay.”

  Julia was startled; a moment ago they had been discussing the dune grass, and whether or not the beach would have a changing room. She and Saskia had never before had a conversation with any content.

  “Is that your sense now? It’s going to be okay?”

  Saskia nodded. “Definitely. I just can’t even imagine what she went through, you know? And on top of everything there must have been this guilt that she’d let you guys down by getting pregnant in the first place, and she was agonizing and agonizing and then out of nowhere comes this massive stark reminder that we don’t actually get to decide a lot of the time. Like, we’re not in control at all. You don’t think of someone having a miscarriage at sixteen. My mom says it’s actually no less common than any other time, and it’s just one of those things. But that doesn’t make it any easier when it’s actually happening to you and not to all those other people. I just feel better being here with you guys so I can see them. And yeah, so I think they’ll be okay. A sad thing happened that was no one’s fault, and they love each other. And that’s it.”

  This was the longest speech Julia had ever heard Saskia make and she was struck by the girl’s compassion. Now, something eased within her, remembering she liked James’s daughte
r. Saskia would be kind to Gwen.

  “They love each other,” Saskia said again, watching Gwen and Nathan approach across the car park. She spoke with admiration. Their arms were around one another and Nathan had taken Gwen’s bag so she had nothing to carry. They were talking intently, not smiling, but not arguing. Gwen’s palm was pressed to Nathan’s chest. Julia turned away. Teenage relationships were always roller coasters, but how had the whole family ended up trapped with them on the ride?

  The beach was crowded, utterly unlike her last visit when she and James had come alone and walked for miles along wide empty stretches of blond sand, met only by the odd dog walker and a few determined enthusiasts flying kites in the stiff winter wind. Today the heat had drawn hundreds of families, gathered in untidy sprawls behind candy-striped windbreaks, and in sinking plastic chairs. There were not enough umbrellas—tender English flesh was laid out everywhere like the aftermath of a massacre, gently roasting in the unaccustomed heat. Julia and Saskia unrolled towels, and Julia had read a chapter of her novel by the time Gwen and Nathan approached, fingers interlaced. Intermittently, Julia’s eye was drawn to the baby at the center of a large family group nearby. Naked but for a watermelon-pink sunhat, she was banging a tube of sunscreen onto the towel beneath her, pausing only when her mother spooned mashed banana into her mouth. Watching recalled to Julia the passionate, consuming Stockholm syndrome; the beautiful tyranny of early motherhood. She wondered how Gwen felt to see the slideshow exhibition of new parenthood enacted beside them throughout the afternoon—the endless soothing, changing, feeding—but Gwen showed no signs of having noticed.

  44.

  “It’s just so nice to meet you.” Joan’s loose nest of blonde curls bounced as she nodded. Over the crook of her arm was a pink paper bag, from which white creamy shredded paper overflowed. In her other hand was a bunch of tall sunflowers, which she pressed shyly into Julia’s hands.

  “Thank you so much, they’re beautiful. Come in,” said Julia, brightly and irrelevantly, since they were already in. For Philip she had resolved to make this new woman feel welcome, but could not shake the fear that she had entered accidentally into an illicit affair. “If she tells you to call her ‘Granny,’” Iris had told Gwen, “I’m calling the lawyers.” Iris had visited only that morning and her presence still hung in the air, like woodsmoke. Julia wondered if Philip could smell Chanel No. 5 and lingering, imperious disdain. But Philip, holding a coat and a small, mint-green ostrich-leather handbag with a long gold chain, had barely taken his eyes from Joan. His hair had been swept up and forward, in a rather stylish cut. He was, Julia realized, startled, wearing jeans.

  Footsteps thundered above them and Nathan appeared, striding into the hall with a hand already extended to shake Philip’s, as if about to welcome him into a glass-walled corner office for an interview. Gwen padded down after him, drawing with her a scent of nail polish and acetone. The fingernails of one hand were painted green, with white polka dots; Nathan, too, Julia noticed, had a single green thumbnail. Julia made introductions, and they made their way to the kitchen, where James was making a pot of tea and unwrapping a banana bread from the market. He wiped his hands and came forward to greet them.

  “How is it to be free, at long last?” Philip asked Nathan. He was still holding Joan’s light mackintosh, which he smoothed every now and again, a patient, attentive valet. Julia took it from him and hung it over a chair, along with the handbag. Joan fussed and protested and said she mustn’t worry, but then began to move kitchen chairs around so that Philip might have one with arms.

  “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” Nathan told him. Gwen came to sit beside him and from the pocket of his jeans he produced her bottles of nail polish, one green, one white, and set them before her. “Delivered. You remain unsmudged. I never intend to do any exams again. I’m not going to medical school, I’ve told my father already. I’m going to become a crab fisherman in Thailand.”

  “When my boys were doing A levels it was a nightmare,” said Joan, accepting the mug of tea that James handed her before sliding it immediately toward Philip. “But then it’s all over before it’s begun, and suddenly that’s it, before you know it. And all these doctors in the family, you’ll sail through.” She looked from James to Philip, and back to Nathan. “Isn’t it a funny thing, all these obstetricians in the family? Both your parents and Phil.”

  Iris would die, thought Julia, turning away to hide her smile. She would spontaneously combust. Philip Alden. Phil.

  “On a good day Obs and Gynae is the best job in the world,” James told her. “On a bad day I wish I was a plumber.”

  “Will you deliver babies, like your parents?”

  “No,” said Nathan, rather too firmly. “I’m going to do oncology.”

  “Oh, isn’t that wonderful, we need young men like you.” Joan pressed a hand to her heart. “My Steve had lung. And your Daniel had liver, Phil said.” She turned to Julia, who nodded, though her eyes flew to Gwen, who did not take kindly to discussions of her father’s cancer, certainly not to such abbreviated, familiar references to it. But Gwen was at the sink rinsing strawberries and either hadn’t heard or hadn’t minded.

  “What a mensch.” Joan looked around for affirmation and found it in Gwen, who was looking at Nathan with an irritating pride. Nathan himself looked down modestly at his hands. He rubbed a finger over his green-painted thumbnail and it smeared. Gwen giggled and dispatched him upstairs for polish remover and cotton balls.

  “Where will he study next year?” Joan took Philip’s hand across the table and squeezed it. “Josh, that’s my eldest, was at Guys and St. Thomas’s and he made some lovely friends, though they did work him very hard. I must say, I know it’s not what matters but it’s nice for the parents that all the medicine’s best in London, isn’t it. He did six months of cleft palates in Guatemala, but mostly he was just down in Lambeth and even that feels far away when it’s your eldest and you’re used to having them upstairs. Aaron went to Birmingham. Has he decided?”

  “He’s got a place at Oxford,” James told her, while at the same time Gwen said, “He might stay in London.”

  “My goodness, isn’t that something?” Joan blinked and nodded several times and looked rather uncertainly from Gwen to James.

  James said nothing but stood and moved to the head of the table where he began to slice the banana cake rather formally, as if carving a side of roast beef. Gwen began to run her finger round and round the edge of her empty plate. There was no longer any reason for Nathan to stay in London; Gwen’s convenient misfortune had liberated him. He would go to New College, Oxford, and Gwen, with one more year of school to go, would pine.

  James distributed slices of cake and then left for the hospital, apologizing to Joan, who apologized in return for having taken him away from his patients for even this long. After he’d gone Joan gave Philip a small querying glance, received a nod, and then turned to Gwen. She was still holding a paper bag on her lap and this she handed over, hurriedly.

  “I hope it’s alright, but this is just a very little something, I had a pattern and I just thought, something cozy. Good for snuggling on the sofa.”

  The gift turned out to be a white knitted blanket with a perfect rainbow cabled into its center. “It’s gorgeous,” Gwen breathed. “This is amazing, I can’t believe you can do this! Thank you so much.” She hugged Joan, who flushed, looking pleased.

  “Oh, it’s only practice it needs. I can teach you if you’d like; you’d pick up cable in no time. Phil told me that you liked rainbows, so.”

  “I do, and I love knitting, I just haven’t had that much practice. I do mostly polymer clay, and a tiny bit of oils. But knitting’s cool ’cause you can do it while you do other stuff, like watching TV or whatever. I’ve been sitting at home a lot for the last few weeks; I could have knitted myself, like, a whole house.”

  Joan’s expression softened. “You know
, when I first married I had baby fever, and I thought it would be easy-peasy. I got pregnant straightaway and at eight weeks I had a mis.” Julia froze, horrified. Gwen was looking down at the folded blanket on the table, unmoving, and it was impossible to see her face. “The hardest time of my life, till then. And back then no one talked about it, we were just meant to get on with it, pull your socks up, try for another, make it right that way. I don’t know why anyone thinks that’s the answer; it isn’t. Or isn’t for everyone. I didn’t want to try again so we didn’t, not for two more years. I was scared that maybe my body couldn’t do it and it would all happen the same way. And I was very sad for a time. So sad. But then I started to get better and then all those years later when I lost my Steve all I could think was, ‘We had those precious years together first, just the two of us, just to be married.’ And I’ve got my boys, and that time we had, back then I wouldn’t have chosen it for all the world I was so desperate to have a family, but they were beautiful years. We got to know each other. We grew up. I can’t wish it differently.” She ran her fingers idly over each colored arc of the rainbow, in turn. “I like rainbows, too, you know. They’re hopeful. My first Schnauzer dam was called Rainbow because she had these lovely stripy markings, not really what you’d want in a pure Schnauzer, very odd; that’s why I got her in the end; the breeder said no one would take a funny-looking scrap like that so she was left on the shelf, but in the Poodle crosses it just came out beautifully. And what a temperament. Twelve, she lived to. She was my precious girl, she saved me, after Steve. She saved me.”