‘Isn’t it strange, how different it is here in spring. Like another house,’ she said to Ben on their last night there as they sat inside in the cosy, timber-lined kitchen-diner, looking out over the bay at the rising moon. She shifted in her chair, trying to make room for more pasta, unable to get comfortable as one persistent foot repeatedly jabbed under her ribcage, as if it were trying to escape.
‘Yes,’ said Ben. ‘We came here once for Easter when I was little. It was strange. I’ve never forgotten it. The grass all fresh and green, and the flowers and everything else.’
‘When was that? I didn’t know you’d been here at Easter.’
He eyed her with a twinkling smile. ‘Didn’t you keep a detailed record of our visit in your diary?’
Mads kicked out her foot and he laughed but she said, passionately, ‘Oh, don’t tease me about it. I liked things being orderly. It wasn’t like that.’
Ben took her hand, still smiling, and stroked it. ‘It was, Maddy, and that’s why I love you so much.’
He kissed the hand, then shifted his chair over, and put both his own hands on her huge bump.
‘One’s kicking. There’s a foot right up there.’
‘Hey,’ he said, talking to her stomach. ‘It’s Daddy here. Stop kicking your mother. I can teach you karate when you’re out. We’ll watch Karate Kid. Just chill, for the moment. Be calm. Not like Mummy.’ He looked up at her mischievously.
Ben’s hands were still on her. She pressed them against her mound even more firmly. ‘Ben . . . I’m scared.’
‘I know,’ he said, looking down at the bump. ‘I know you are. It’s huge. It’s twins.’ He rubbed his face; he looked very like Althea, horror mixed with wry amusement. ‘But we’ve got money now. We’re not penniless students eating our baked beans out of tins any more. We can have help. A nanny. Nannies, plural—’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her hair; like a creature in a fairy tale, it seemed to grow thicker, more lustrous with each day of her interminable pregnancy. ‘I said this before. I don’t want nannies. I want to look after them myself. And I’m not stupid, I know it’ll be hard. But I – I didn’t know my mum. I was two. I know she was called Suzanne and she was from Worthing and she was married to my father for six years before she died having the other baby—’ Her lip quivered; lately, she couldn’t stop thinking about her mother. She remembered nothing of her apart from the suggestion of a tiny figure with long hair and firm thin fingers, a smell of lilacs, and she knew nothing apart from a few bland little letters she’d written to Aunt Julia that Mads had inherited (Dear Julia. Thank you for your letter. I am glad to hear all is well in Sydney. All is well here. Ian is well. Your niece is called Madeleine Ann. She is very good. I enclose a photograph. We will be pleased to see you in the summer. Love, Suzanne), a quaint sixties photograph of her parents’ wedding day, her mother decorous and shy in a lace wedding dress, her father impassive behind horn-rimmed spectacles as her mother smiled timidly at the camera. ‘They’re having a mum and a dad who are there, who love them, not people who’ve been paid to love them.’
‘I understand. You know I do.’ Ben nodded. She could hear the nervousness in his voice as he added, ‘I’ll be away, though, you know, this Irish priest thing I’m doing and it’s at Pinewood but it’ll still be—’
‘Of course, we agreed, I know that. I’ll do it myself. And you’ll have breaks between films and you’ll see them. But they’ll be mine and I want them to myself and I want them to be looked after by me.’ She heaved herself up. ‘I’m their mummy.’
‘I know. But—’ Ben took her plate of pasta and started shovelling it into his mouth and she watched him in distaste. ‘Don’t be a control freak, darling. I know you like to understand everything, to know everything and have a list and everything all ready but – God, you know, when I visited Hamish and Sunita they spent thirty minutes getting the baby ready to go out to the park for a walk and then she did this poo that sort of went everywhere, all over her clothes and the pram, and they had to start all over again and that’s all they were doing for the two hours I was there, changing her, feeding her and then cleaning all this shit up off surfaces. I thought Hamish was going to fall over at one point, he was so knackered. And that was two of them. And only one baby.’ He looked pale. ‘It was – it was really intense.’
Mads stared down at him. She was very tired. Ben finished the pasta.
‘Say something,’ he said.
‘You’ve got ragu on your mouth,’ she said eventually and, collecting the plates, she went slowly to the kitchen counter. ‘I might go to bed.’
‘Are you feeling OK?’
‘Actually, I feel a bit sick.’
‘Oh. How long for?’
‘Just now.’ She leaned against the counter. ‘Just now.’
He came over, and she rested her head on his chest. ‘I can’t hug you,’ he said, kissing her hair. ‘But I can hold you like this.’ He wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
‘I – I don’t know if we’ve done the right thing,’ she said, in a very quiet voice.
‘That’s normal.’
Her blood felt like ice, as so often these days. Normal. He was running his hands through her hair, the way he had when they were children, the way he had the first time they met again, and she felt better immediately, the soft, sensual tickling sensation calming her. Normal. She blinked away the memories that flashed in front of her now with increasing regularity and potency . . . the sight of him, that night, the way he knelt down and wept silently, pressing his palms into his eyes like a child.
‘Julia,’ she had heard him say, softly, brokenly. The catch in his voice as she helped him to his feet again and held him, and kissed his cheek and sort of missed so half kissed his lips, for a moment too long, so that they broke apart and stared at each other, in recognition of something they had never before understood . . .
The moment of pause, inside the beach hut, as the sea washed the shore outside and he put his hands on her hips and pushed her gently against the wall . . . those old veined hands of his, that she suddenly realised she didn’t know at all, on her breasts where she was used to Ben’s missing fingers . . . the glazed, terrified look on his face as he plunged into her . . .
And then it was too late and she was enjoying it, and that was the worst part of all. It wasn’t a mistake – it was what she had always wanted, since she was aware of studying her own feelings carefully, tacking it against information about female desire gleaned from seamy library books, Victoria Holts and Shirley Conrans. She liked information, and she knew that she desired Tony, that he wanted this, that he was barely himself, a shell of what he had been. That this might help him. She knew that she wanted him, in a way that was unlike her need for Ben, her love for her husband. That was the greatest shame of all.
A fortnight later, her scientific knowledge gave out on her and instinct kicked in. After they had returned to London, and she had gone out jogging in Regent’s Park, and had had to sit down on a bench very suddenly, she understood instantly then that she was pregnant. She was never alone with Tony after that, never spoke to him about it, but she knew he knew too. It was obvious, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it obvious to Ben, to Althea?
Apparently not. They were deliriously happy and happiness, as Mads already knew, obscured many truths. But it had happened, and she had got what she wanted. This is what she told herself, every day, every hour.
Now she pulled herself gently away from her husband. ‘I’ll get ready for bed. Can you pack up the kitchen? I think we should leave in lots of time tomorrow. I’ll need to stop and pee every hour at this rate.’
‘Of course, and then we’ll get back home and the house will be finished and ready for us and all you have to do now is enjoy it. Have some people over. Do a bit of shopping. Relax.’
‘People?’
‘Well. Friends. Family.’
‘My family’s all dead. I don’t have any friends in London, I’m hopeless at shopping and I b
loody hate being told to relax,’ she said, ticking them off her fingers. He closed his eyes penitently.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘Darling Ben, you’re trying to be kind. I love you—’ She put her hands to her burning cheeks. ‘Sometimes – oh, sometimes I wish with all my heart it was just you and me in our little bedsit in Clifton again, all snug and cosy and no money except for my job and your lovely sofa you filched from home. Don’t you?’ She gazed at him.
Ben said slowly, ‘Look. Perhaps I could get Mumma and Daddy to come over and pay you a visit once a week? They’re not busy since Daddy’s disaster with Hamlet. In fact, they’re twiddling their thumbs slightly till Mummy goes off to America to reprise Glass Menagerie.’
‘No,’ said Mads. ‘Not your parents. Not at the moment.’
He put his head on one side. ‘Maddy – I’m leaving you for two weeks. I hate the idea you’re on your own . . .’
‘Cord?’
He rolled his lips towards his teeth in a grimace. ‘Haven’t heard back from her. I’ve tried. It’s like she’s vanished.’
Mads arranged things on the counter. ‘Me too. Do you think . . .’ A thought, unbidden, pushed its way into her mind and she pushed it away, with vigour – she was having to become increasingly good at this, the forcible ejection of thoughts that threatened to overwhelm her, these days. ‘She can’t mind. I don’t know . . . I don’t understand it,’ she finished, her tone high so as to eliminate the catch in her throat.
Laughter, that’s what she missed most about Cord, and the Bosky holidays. They’d laugh and laugh, Cord with a proper gurgling giggle that entirely overtook her. About the funny faces Althea made to herself in the mirror when she thought no one was looking, or the way Tony tried to charm Mrs Gage to her total indifference, or the small boy on the beach peeing unseen into a bucket of seawater that his oblivious brother later threw over their parents. Or Cord’s ABBA routines, her poems she’d make up about communism, or the time she got a rash from spraying on too much Charlie Girl perfume . . .
She felt very tired. I miss her. Oh, what a bloody mess it all is.
‘I should call your parents. I just want to be alone, that’s all. They’ve been so kind, I owe them so much, but sometimes . . . sometimes they . . .’ Tears filled her eyes at the idea of distance from them, this family she’d loved so much. I’ve fucked it up. Properly, truly. Every one of them, I loved them so much and I have absolutely ruined everything. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say.’
‘You do really love us all, don’t you?’ he said, staring at her. ‘The only one who does. No, I won’t tell you. It doesn’t matter, in the end.’
‘Tell me what?’
Ben stood under the light; it gave him a golden halo around his head. ‘The reason I ran away. The reason I lost the fingers.’ He held up his hand: light from the bulb above shone on it dramatically. ‘I’ve never really told you why.’
She swallowed. ‘Tell me. Tell me why?’
He was silent. Then he reached over and pulled the curtains across the window, and the view of the bay vanished. ‘No, I won’t tell you. It doesn’t matter in the end.’
‘Ben—’
‘I can’t see how it makes a difference.’ He kissed her again. ‘And I wish I didn’t know, and he doesn’t know, and so perhaps it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. He . . .’ He coughed, clearing his throat. ‘He’s my father, after all.’
Mads pressed down on the kicking foot that jabbed up into her once again. ‘Yes,’ she said, as images danced through her aching, throbbing head. ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he.’
Birth Notices
To Benedick and Madeleine Wilde at UCH on 15 April 1991, twin girls, 4lbs 7oz and 5lbs, EMILY SUZANNE and IRIS JULIA. Granddaughters to Sir and Lady Anthony Wilde, nieces to Miss Cordelia Wilde.
Christening to take place on 29 May 1991 at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, WC2.
Chapter Thirty
29 July 1992
It happened today.
Iris walked for the first time – three steps. (That’s not what happened.) Very unstable, like she’s drunk. Emily watches her from the corner of the kitchen, bemused. Tony and Althea were here, doting grandparents that they are. Althea clapped, she took pictures. She loves the girls, it’s strange quite how much. Tony stared at Emily, watching her sister walking across the lino, and I knew he’d seen it. Seen what I can see. Iris’s legs are crooked. The doctor says, with a note of irritation in his voice he doesn’t try to hide any more, that it’s simply the way babies walk but I wonder if there’s something wrong with her – with both of them . . . More worries. I have these worries, Book. Emily watches her, & doesn’t move – the doctor says that is normal too – and Althea scoops her up & covers her with kisses, cooing at her and whispering secrets in her ear. Emily has curls around her head, fine and damp after she’s woken up. Her cheeks are like cool, plump, soft pillows. Two more weeks till Ben’s shoot is over. I had three hours’ sleep last night. And that was a good night. Do you know what lack of sleep is like, Book? Let me try & write it down. For weeks you just feel terrible, and then the mind games start, because you’re still as tired as ever but your body is used to it. So you feel human some days & then you will start shouting at one of them when they cry, shouting in their faces so they stare at you in surprise, or you suddenly stab the table with the kitchen scissors when you can’t open the damn milk. Or when the van driver almost knocks you over as you’re waving your in-laws off, then yes, you will press yourself against the windscreen hammering with your fists & you will scream at him, scream till he drives off, you swearing at him in the road. The neighbours think I’m crazy. It’s true, I am. They had such high hopes for us at the start: Tony Wilde’s son & daughter-in-law & their delightful twin daughters. Instead they’ve got me. I look like a drug addict or a homeless person, in baggy worn jog bottoms with holes in them, and my hair has tangles in it I can’t begin to brush out so I don’t bother any more. I have bruises under my eyes: I can see them, but I can’t stop pressing my fingers into my eye sockets, when I start to see things I don’t want to, again. Like Tony’s face. Like Iris, walking. Like Ben, as he said bye. Like Emily’s sweet head nestling into my chest. I’ve got eight pages left. Book, my Book, what will I do with you when I’ve finished writing in you? I’ll do something. My father always used to tell me I looked like a scarecrow. ‘My little scarecrow’. He hit me once bc he said I was so dirty. I had been playing Flowers & Stones with Ben and Cord most of the day, in and out of the flowers by the house, then Dizzyman by the shore as the tide came in and went out. I fell in a couple of times. We were almost sick with laughter (Ben actually was sick, back at the house after lunch) and we were soaking and covered in sand, and then we’d gone to look at the rabbits in the field where the grey mare lived behind the lane. I can’t remember her name, Book, & I’d been crouching on the sandy, dirty field trying to coax one towards me but they’re very shy, rabbits. They really won’t come near you not even if you have chocolate, which we thought they’d like (Cord said they did). When I got home, I was filthy, smelling of seaweed and rabbit poo & probably sick but I was happy, really, really happy for once, tired in the way you only can be if you’ve been laughing all day. Crying has the same effect. My father liked everything just so. Always has. He was drunk when I came in. And he hit me. He said I was a little slag for hanging around with them all day, that Ben Wilde would try and do to me what his father had done to Aunt Jules and that’s why she’d had to leave school early and never got her school cert. He wouldn’t stop talking. He said that’s why she’d moved to Oz for all those years & was now fat and bitter & sad and never came to the Bosky any more. He hit me so hard I fell against the corner of the table and he said I wasn’t his problem. He was sick of having to worry about me. The next day he was sorry. He actually gave me a kiss on the head at breakfast. “That’s a bit of a lump. Listen, I am sorry I walloped you, but it’s for your own
good I hope. I just want to warn you. You really must understand what they’re like, that lot.” Oh, Daddy, what would you have done if you’d seen me, all those years later, doing the same as Aunt Jules did with Tony Wilde, then? That’s what she did, wasn’t it? Making the same mistakes she did, only that’s the thing, it wasn’t a mistake, it can’t have been because look at what I have now. It is the culmination of everything. It has to be. Perhaps they’re not his. Perhaps they’re Ben’s. I never asked Tony about it. I know Tony, I know he wouldn’t have treated someone badly. That’s the thing about him, that years later even when I was in the middle of it with him, when he was on top of me, putting it in me, staring at me helplessly and rather sweaty – ‘Are you sure, darling?’ he said, the faintest stirrings of doubt blooming in his eyes & I nodded and gave him a little sigh to let him know how much I liked it. Because I did like it, even though he was slower, and rather older and purpler than in my life-long fantasy, I still believed he wasn’t doing it to play a trick, to tick me off a list. But because he needed it. I don’t know if he knew it was me, and not Aunt Jules. Poor Tony. I think he is trapped somewhere in time as a 14 yr old.
I can’t remember how it happened, except that I love Tony, I always have and he was so desperately sad, and I wanted him then. I have started to wonder if the reason Ben couldn’t get me pregnant was because I didn’t want his baby. Because my body somehow wouldn’t seek out the right sperm to make his baby & it’s my fault. Because I am BAD, & sent to tear them apart, to take revenge on them for what happened to Jules years ago – is that it? Giving me twins, laughing at our joint fecundity . . . Men take their pleasure, & the consequence is mild guilt. Women take pleasure, and they are punished for the rest of their lives. I took Ben’s name when we married, and I wish more than anything I had not. So those doctors, with medical statistics and helpful leaflets, they were all wrong. I needed one night, the right time of the month, one roll of the dice: and well, didn’t it work? I didn’t get my baby, I got two, 2 2 2! I have a family, my two girls, my babies, and they’re mine – and his. I’m sure they’re his. Sometimes I look at my little plump Emily, with her thick curling hair and her nose like a button and her funny dark eyes that flash and sparkle, & a small Tony Wilde stares back, and I wonder why no one else has noticed it. Why Althea or Ben or Cord don’t say anything. She is so like Tony it’s funny really, mercurial, charming, somewhere not quite with you all the time. Iris looks like me. I look at her sharp, watchful face and her darting little eyes and her solemn expression and how she won’t impress anyone just for the sake of it by cooing or gurgling and I could shout for joy. She picks things up precisely between one white slim finger & one white slim thumb. She is like him too, determined and quixotic & charming, both of them are charming of course, I understood them both perfectly the moment I saw them – also I knew the moment I saw them that what I’d done to get them here was wholly wrong & awful. A sin – I don’t believe in God, or anything like that, but I believe in sin. I have sinned. Tony did too but oh, I’m the one who made it happen, & I am living with it now. I’ve never given Tony or Ben reason to suspect, we have never repeated what happened that night. But I saw how he looked at Emily. He saw it. I’ve got them. I’ve got what I wanted. Now I simply have to live with what I’ve done, for the rest of my life. Try to forget all the broken pieces of things I stepped over on the way to get here. I have to simply get on with living, and the truth.
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