The Marriage Diaries

by Rebecca Campbell

  I think Mom thought she was better than most of the neighbors, which, as the years went by and the estate went from a fifties showpiece to a seventies hellhole, she was. Beth liked to read Thomas Hardy, but she got the novels from the library, and so there weren't many books in the house, apart from a long line of brown encyclopedias that Dad had ordered and Mom was still paying for years after he died. The main reason I am what I am, the way I am, was those encyclopedias. I read them the way other kids read comics. I devoured facts about tin mining and the industrial uses of whale oil and the way you tap a rubber tree. It's why I know nearly everything but understand so little. (That analysis, by the way, was Celeste's contribution to my fund of self-knowledge.)

  So, no, Mum's nothing like Bella. She's a plain, quiet, stoical, brave woman, older than her sixty-five years, who hit me when I was bad and squeezed me when I was good. She made me sandwiches for lunch because I didn't like school food, and she made sure my blazer was spotless and my tie neatly tied. She never had a boyfriend after Dad, or if she did, she hid it from me out of shame.

  It's a strange place to me when I go back, once or twice a year. Some fluke of local economics or geography or politics has meant that it hasn't got any worse, and in fact, it seems, oddly, to have flourished. Everyone else in my mum's street has bought their own house from the council. The result is a riot of misplaced but glorious individuality, with the usual stone cladding supplemented by every kind of architectural device, from crenellations to moats to arrow slits.

  I seriously thought about going back there while the work was done on the apartment—while the work was done on my book. I could take Harry: Mom would be happy. But it would have been cruel. The terrible truth about Harry, the thing that shames me and yet also brings a profound pleasure, is that Harry loves and needs his mother more than he loves and needs me. It's become even clearer since we've been here with Bella and Magnus. I fed him and wrapped him in his diaper and buttoned up his coat, but Celeste was the one who syringed in the love. It was, it is, her soft face he needs against his own, her lips he wanted to kiss, her arms he craves.

  And who could blame him?

  I was pretty stunned when Uma turned up. I'd phoned her with the vague idea of asking her out for a drink, but lost my nerve, and then mentioned the dinner party. I suppose I did ask her, but it was more just a way of treading conversational water. I never thought she'd come. Might almost think it was a deliberate … what? Attempt to embarrass me? Why would she do that? More likely she really was just lonely. Single parent and all that. She looked sensational, in some kind of dress. Interesting stuff happening at the front of it.

  Can't say I'd been enjoying the night much up to her arrival. I over-Pernoded (Pernoed? Pernode? Perned? Pernodiddy-diddy-what-diddy-dooed?) the soup and then tried to compensate with too much chili. Don't think anyone else noticed (one becomes a bit hyper-self-critical on these occasions). Our main conversation up to that point, the point of Uma's arrival, had been the old bit about the best side of any Beatles record, keeping to the conceit that CDs still have sides. Leo has an obsession with the medley on side two of Abbey Road, and I can never work out if he's just being perverse or if it really is the Beatles’ masterpiece. Andrew always agrees with him, and there's nothing interesting or amusing about trying to uphold whichever side of Sgt. Pepper's or Rubber Soul or even the White Album (my choice) you happen to prefer.

  I've a feeling, in fact, that Leo brought the issue up at the dinner party purely because he knew it would be as alien and distasteful to the fashion crowd as discussing the boil on the bum that killed Nathan Rothschild, the richest man in the world, in 1836. The Beatles, for them, are what your parents listen to. Not even crap enough to be camp. Just old and dead. Music to hum in the nursing home.

  I, by the way, introduced the Rothschild boil, an old friend of mine.

  But anyway, the evening was taking a familiar path, not boring but not dizzying either, and then came Uma. She dizzied all right. With the two of us, she had always been good value, but not like this. I saw that she needed an audience: one prepared to participate, to volunteer, like a schmuck at a magic show, but nonetheless an audience for that.

  I was worried about what Celeste was thinking. Of course she'd met Uma on the evening of the ludicrous swans, but I think she was too preoccupied to take much in. Since then I'd been careful to adopt my Face of Utmost Indifference if ever she came up in conversation, so I'm pretty certain Celeste has no inklings. Still, there is always that women's intuition thing to worry about, especially as, with Celeste, it always takes the form of thinking the worst about me.

  Things went from odd to odder when Bella and Magnus returned from wherever they'd been (my money was on grave robbing for her and the bathroom for him). What a glorious thing it is that you can't be embarrassed about your in-laws. The worse they are, the more sympathy you garner. I was relieved to hear, as I'm sure were the others, that things are looking sprightly colonwise for Magnus, and he shook his head sadly at the lack of roughage in our menu for the evening. His parting shot as he retreated to his newts was, “I wouldn't be your lower digestive tracts for all the salamanders in the Mong region of China.”

  And then Bella was among us, like cholera. Bella had two principal animal manifestations, both winged: the bat and the moth. So she could be all manic, leathery flapping and high-pitched squeaking, or she could do her silent, creepy fluttering thing, making you pity her and yet want to crush the life from her before she sprinkled you with her deathly dust. Tonight it was the bat. She flapped and squeaked and then fastened onto Uma to have a good feed. I don't know why, but Uma seemed to warm to her. It wasn't pleasant, and a deep, loony, paranoid side of me was convinced that they'd start exchanging revelations about me, despite the fact that there was nothing, at present, to revelate.

  And then it was over. As I shook Ludo's hand, I realized that I hadn't spoken to him all evening, and I apologized for it. He looked at me as if I were saying something profound that he didn't want to hear, and I felt very Ancient Mariner and let go of him.

  On the way out, Uma asked me if I would be going to the playgroup.

  “Not while we're here.”

  “Shame. So I won't see you. Oscar will be sad.”

  “Oh, I'm sure we'll be able to fit each other in.”

  Then an unexpected thing happened: she blushed. Uma wasn't the kind of girl who blushed. She was the kind of girl who made you blush—that was the whole point of her. And it was around then that I finally decided that I had to go and stay at the apartment. The reason was to finish the book, but the urge came from somewhere else.

  Celeste took it surprisingly well. I thought she'd just give me a straight “no” and then that would be the end of the matter. I hadn't been able to fight against one of her nos in seven years, and I was hardly going to start now. But there it was: an “okay.” I could see that she wasn't happy—see, in fact, that she was sad. And it seemed not simply a sadness born of selfishness but a giving sadness. It made me feel a pang of love. But it didn't change my mind. So her scolding would have kept me there but not her love.

  Does this prove that fear is stronger than love?

  I hope not.

  PRADAPRADAPRADAPRADAGUCCI 19

  They've let me take two weeks off work. Sean was right about my vacation's having built up. They were more surprised than annoyed when I asked them. I obviously have a reputation for working all the time, for being there. When Harry was born, they all expected me to slow down, but that made me try even harder. I wanted to be the first to arrive in the morning, the last to turn off my computer at night. No one would ever say that having a baby had lessened my commitment. It was their idea that I take off three months and ease back in part-time. It was something to do with there being so many women at the head office approaching the baby time: nobody wanted me to set too harsh a precedent. They were even quite generous about the terms.

  But now two weeks of raw, unadulterated Harry. How would I cope?
I've always taken the lead in the evenings—if Harry's still awake, that is—and on weekends. But at least Sean was usually around to do a bit of relief when I needed it. And he was someone to chat to, to talk at—to tell to fetch me the whatever needed fetching. This was going to be different. Me and Harry, alone, two weeks. Except for Magnus and Bella. And Mary, the girl from the town. Who I think may be simple.

  And four days down already, and nobody dead yet!

  Luckily the weather is beautiful. All day we play in the garden. Magnus has a toolshed and has built a sandpit. I sit in a deck chair and watch Harry take out rakes, spades, bamboo canes, spare blades for the mower, the mower. Sometimes he drags them around for a while, and sometimes he arranges them in geometric patterns on the lawn, claiming mysteriously to have “made a man.”

  “Where's Daddy?” he asked on Monday morning.

  “Daddy told you. He's gone to work.”

  “Don't be silly, Mommy. You go work, and Daddy play Harry. Only Daddy can make DVD go.”

  “I can do DVDs, too.”

  “Watch Little Mermaid?”

  “No, I'm reading my book, and you're playing in the garden.”

  I hadn't quite realized how much Harry cries. I find that my heart isn't rent by his crying, because it seems that he cries mainly from rage at having been denied something that probably isn't good for him. Sean's trouble (useful, though, if you're me and you want something) is that he always gives in under pressure. He's well aware of the fault. He says it's a bit like the English system of government in the pre-democratic period: tyranny tempered by rioting. The problem is, it has taught Harry the valuable lesson that if only he makes enough fuss, he'll always get his Smarties.

  Time, while I'm in charge, for some tough love.

  Yesterday I invited some friends round with their children. Minna brought her two boys, Matty and Michael, one four years old, the other not quite two. The elder is shy and frightened of life, but the younger one charges around like a pinball, bouncing off furniture and people and trees with sickening crunches that don't seem to bother him. And Nester came with Justin, almost the same age as Harry, and as close as he comes to having a friend. We sat and drank wine in the garden and watched the children play. Harry's just reached the age at which other children have become interesting— potential sources of pleasure rather than merely things that stop his getting all the attention. So there was some talking, some giving, some pulling. Harry hardly fought at all with the other kids. There was an altercation over a Buzz Lightyear, but that fizzled out, and there were more than enough tools to go round in the sandpit. All reasonably fascinating as an observer and completely engaging as a mother. We were wearing summer dresses and Gucci sandals. By two o'clock, it was too hot in the sun, and we moved our deck chairs under the big ash tree, which has stood there since before the house was built (or so Dad keeps telling me, and came specially to tell us all again, but I didn't mind because he brought out a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé). It was a perfect day.

  “So what's it like being a mother?” said Minna naughtily. She's always given the impression of being a devoted mother while sneakily working in PR, for a mortal enemy of Milo's. She is from the Portuguese Catholic part of India and looks like Gina Lollobrigida.

  “From what I can make out, it's a pretty easy job.”

  “You have got quite a lot of help, though,” said Nester. So they were ganging up on me. Nester is North London Jewish. I'd known her all my life. When we were teenagers, I used to go to a Jewish youth club with her. I quite liked being the blondest Jew in London: it seemed like the best of all worlds.

  “Same as Sean, but that never stopped him moaning.”

  “I think you're a bit hard on him,” said Minna. She was always quite nice to Sean, in the way that people sometimes develop an affection for hedgehogs and leave out bread soaked in milk for them. He, in turn, worshipped her as the only girl in our group who didn't quake at the thought of sitting next to him in a restaurant.

  “Oh, he likes to feel the smack of firm government. But things, well, they've been better between us lately.”

  “Really?” said Nester. “I thought with him sleeping at the apartment that, well, things were more or less over between you. I had a friend I was thinking about setting you up with, but you'd have to convert, probably. Justin, leave that alone!”

  “That was thoughtful of you. What's he like? No, don't tell me. The apartment thing is weird. He says it's to do with finishing this book of his about Harry. I think it might just be that he needs his own space. I've been practicing seeing things from his point of view, and it must be a bit trying, living with Bella and Magnus. I'm used to them, but, well, he isn't.”

  “So there's nothing more … serious?” said Minna.

  “Serious? No. I'm not sure what you would count as serious.”

  “On either side?” said Nester. I was definitely getting the ganged-up-on feeling.

  “If you mean, is he having an affair, and that's why he's gone, then, no, of course not.”

  They both laughed.

  “No,” said Minna, “nobody would dream of having an affair with Sean. I mean, why would you? Oh, I don't mean to say that he isn't lovely, and perfectly good-looking, but, well, he's not the sort, is he?”

  “No, I don't think he is.”

  “But you, Celeste,” cut in Nester, “are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Having an affair.”

  That came as a shock. “What makes you say that?”

  “Stab in the dark.”

  “Come on, Nester, have you heard something?”

  “No. Maybe. A friend told me she saw you in the park a week or so ago. With some chap. All looked very intense, she said.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Joley You don't really know her, but she knows who you are through parties and things. She described the person, and it didn't sound like Sean.”

  What should I do? My principle was always, when lying, to stick as close as possible to the truth, weaving in and out where necessary.

  “There was nothing intense about it. It was a friend of Sean's. I'd been feeding the ducks, and he wandered by. He looks sort of intense all the time, but that's just him.”

  “Feeding the ducks!” shouted Nester. “I've known you twenty years, and I've never known you to feed a duck.”

  “The ducks were a metaphor. I was there having my lunch.”

  “It was the afternoon. Late afternoon.”

  “It was a late lunch. You know what my hours are like. Oh God, look, this is all gone again. I'll ask Magnus to bring another bottle. I love being a full-time mum.”

  The brittle, silly talk, the drink, the seeming not to look at Harry, was all an act. I thought I had to be something like the old Celeste in front of Nester and Minna. What I really wanted to do was to get down in the sandpit with my baby. I wanted him to be scrabbling all over me, covering me in his toddler smells and his toddler juices. I was glad when they left. I don't think they were really suspicious about Ludo. It was more just something to talk about, a way to fill the spaces in between sips.

  I could see that being a middle-class mom was a pleasant way to spend your life. Money is the key. Money buys you help. Help takes away the pain. What you're left with is the fun, or rather the room in which fun might happen. Sean's problem is the help. Because of who he is, the idea of paying people to do things burns him like acid. So, yes, help helps, but I wouldn't want to be my friend Nester. She left her job in a law firm and became a mother of leisure, secure behind two nannies, a team of cleaners, a husband at Salomon Brothers, and a big Jewish family, desperate to take the kids for an afternoon, for an evening, for a night. It didn't leave much for her to do, and the less she did, the less she was. We used to talk about lots of things. Well, I suppose it was boys as often as not, but politics and books as well. Now, apart from moaning about her nannies or the cleaning lady, she didn't have very much left to give.

  Minna had things wo
rked out a little better. She went in to work when she felt like it (or so it appeared) and did just enough to keep her on her toes conversationally and in touch with how people are.

  After the girls went home, I took Harry into the kitchen and sat with him on my knee as I read the hopelessly complicated recipes in my Cooking for Babies and Toddlers.

  “When's Daddy coming back?”

  “He'll come and see you tomorrow.”

  He cried a little about that.

  “Shush now. What do you want to eat?”

  “Cake.” The tears slowed at the thought of it.

  “We haven't got any cake.” The tears burst forth again. “What else would you like?”

  “Milk.”

  “It's not milk time yet. How about broccoli in a Gorgonzola and mascarpone sauce?”

  Mysteriously that didn't seem to do the trick.

  SEANJOURNALNINETEEN.DOC

  GOOD OLD LEIBNIZ

  What is it with kids and food? I mean, the way they hate it. You'd have thought that natural selection would have favored children who ate all the things that we want them to eat: the good things, the green things, the things with vitamins and minerals in them. After all, you don't see a baby sparrow spitting out the compacted little ball of grubs and caterpillars thrust into its beak by the mother and pulling a face of rage and betrayal, hurling a no no no naaaaaaawhnnaaaaaahhhh at the suffering parent. Or a gamboling infant hyena turning away from the regurgitated antelope testicle with that haughty I-shun-all-things-of-the-palate look that my little boy, Harry, has perfected.