by Adele Geras
‘Rilla? Rilla darling, is that you lighting another cigarette?’
My mother should hang upside down from a beam, Rilla thought. Your average bat is no match for her. She smiled and said, ‘Cigarette? Of course not. Must be something you heard on the line.’
Was that convincing? Rilla was an actress and in normal circumstances would have sworn she could lie to her mother with the best of them. She’d been doing it for years. Just lately though, Leonora had been particularly sharp about tuning in to what her daughter was really feeling. Rilla’s marriage was over. She and Jon had come to that conclusion weeks ago, but now it was going to be public property, and even though they were both determined to have what was known as ‘a civilized divorce’, the fact that Jon was a pop star meant that the whole world seemed to be interested in such gory details as there were.
There weren’t nearly as many as the Sun and the Mirror would have liked, but trust Leonora to be the first to find out that the Fredericks’ split had now made the front pages.
‘Listen to this, Rilla!’ she said. ‘It’s from the Sun, the front page. I thought I should warn you. I knew you wouldn’t be up yet.’
Rilla wondered how the hell her mother had managed to get hold of a copy of the Sun at Willow Court first thing in the morning. One of the gardening lads must have brought it into the house. Surely she can’t have ordered it from the shop in the village?
She said, ‘Okay, go ahead. I’m listening.’ She pulled her silk kimono from Hong Kong (heavenly turquoise embroidered with scarlet and gold dragons, a present from Jon in the days when he still gave her presents) more closely around herself and turned her attention to her mother’s voice:
‘Anyone who knows anything at all about Jon Frederick and his wife, the luscious Rilla Frederick, star of Night Creatures, and seen on our TV screens rather less often these days than she used to be …
‘Is that true, darling?’
‘Yes, Mother, ’fraid so,’ said Rilla, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Do go on.’
‘Where was I? Oh, yes. Right.
… won’t need reminding of the lavish partygiving lifestyle the couple have enjoyed since they tied the knot five years ago. But all good things are about to grind to a sticky end with the news of the couple’s upcoming divorce. Jon, on the eve of his forthcoming European “Feel the Heat” tour says, “We’re still the very best of friends, but can’t cut the mustard marriage-wise any longer. I have to be free to pursue my artistic goals, and Rilla has her own irons in the fire.”
Jon and Rilla are the parents of five-year-old Mark and Jon has made it clear that they will share custody of the child. He adds, “Not only that. Beth, my daughter by my first wife (the late Carol Edmonds), regards Rilla as her mother and has insisted on continuing to live with her. That’s fine by me, because Rilla is a perfect mother, and me, well, I’m a bit of a rover and a rambler. Footloose and fancy-free, that’s my style. And what children need is security.”
Our showbiz reporter adds that Jon’s fancy-free status is under serious attack from gorgeous starlet Chansonne Dubois, who wowed crowds at his last concert with her topless rendition of “Tell Me How to Do It to You, Baby”.
‘What do you think about all that, Rilla?’
‘Actually, I think it’s rather good. Accurate, in any case, which is more than you can say about most of the stuff that appears in the press.’
Leonora’s sigh travelled down the line, and Rilla said quickly, ‘Don’t sigh, Mother. I’ll be fine. I’ve got Mark, and Beth’s with me for most of the time, and we’re all here in my lovely house. I’m okay. I’ll manage.’
‘I’m sure you will, darling, but I worry about you. Why don’t you come down to Willow Court for a bit?’
‘I’ll think about it, Mother, honestly. It’s kind of you to ask us, but it’s the middle of the week and there’s school. And anyway, haven’t you got your hands full with Chloë?’
Leonora laughed. ‘Yes, she is quite a handful, that child. Makes her presence felt, you might say. But I wouldn’t worry about Beth’s school. She’s such an intelligent child. A couple more children here will hardly be noticed, I promise you. Nanny Mouse will be in her element.’
‘It’s getting late, Mother. Markie’ll be waking up in a minute and I must go and get breakfast for Beth and take her to school. I’ll phone you tonight and tell you what I’ve decided. Thanks for ringing. ‘Bye.’
‘Goodbye, darling. Kiss Beth and that sweet baby of yours for me.’
‘I will. ‘Bye!’
She put the phone down, and there was Beth, standing quietly by the door. She was already dressed for school. At eight years old, she was self-possessed and self-sufficient, but shy. She had plaited her own long, dark hair (not as well as I would have done it, Rilla thought, but brilliantly considering how young she is) and was looking at Rilla now with a smile that lit up her serious, pale face and made her eyes shine. That smile was Jon’s. It was the most attractive thing about him, and he’d gifted it straight to his daughter. Mark had it too, even though he was much more like her. The love she felt for her son seemed to Rilla like an ocean deep inside her, washing over her all the time, filling her with a pleasure that was the best thing she’d known in her whole life, ever.
No one warned you. There were thousands of books and poems written about love and scarcely any of them touched on how you feel for the flesh that is truly your flesh. Almost from the moment of conception, Rilla was aware of someone, a person, to whom she would always be bound. The notion of cells and nerve-endings and growing foetuses never entered her head. Her child was someone she had adored even before he was as big as a fingernail and, what’s more, she had imagined throughout her pregnancy a complete character for him; she visualized him so clearly that when he was born she recognized his face. When the doctor put Mark into her arms for the first time, she saw how paltry, how incomplete, how inadequate all other love was and forever would be. This boy, this creature with enormous eyes and a pink mouth puckered like a small flower, was exactly the person she’d been expecting.
‘Oh, Jon,’ she whispered. ‘Look at him. Just look.’
Every part of her ached with a love so strong that she thought the separate atoms of her body might fly apart at any moment.
As for Beth, she’d been Rilla’s child even before Mark was born, and Mark’s birth hadn’t changed that. She loved Beth just as much as she ever would have loved a daughter of her own and no longer ever thought of herself as a stepmother. Beth was hers, and that was that. Now that she’d given birth, she realized the truth of what her mother and Gwen and countless friends had all told her. The feelings you have for each child are different, because each child is different, but the intensity of the love was just the same. She adored Beth and, strangely, this feeling grew stronger once Mark was born. She was constantly amazed and delighted that she (her body, her heart) could contain so many different strands of love, all at the same time.
‘Hello, chicken!’ said Rilla. ‘I was just coming to get you. How long have you been standing there? Leonora’s been chewing my ear off.’
‘Did she say we could go to Willow Court? Please, please say we can, Rilla! I love going there.’
‘I know you do,’ she said. ‘Yes, I expect we will, tomorrow. I daresay it won’t hurt you to miss a couple of days of school.’ Rilla went upstairs to dress Mark, whom she could hear wandering around in the bathroom. Beth followed her up the stairs, skipping with happiness.
‘I can play with Efe and Alex. We’ve got a den. Did you see our den? It’s in those bushes by the lake. Right next to the bank. Efe said he’s going to try and get a boat for us in the summer, so we can go out on the water.’
Rilla wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about that part of what Leonora had read out to her that said something about her not being on TV as much as she used to be. It was true, too. She’d been trying to fool herself that everything was exactly the same, but it wasn’t. She was getting less and less wor
k. There wasn’t anything now till after Easter, and that was only a voiceover for a toothpaste ad. She tried not to think about how long it had been since she’d had a proper part in a real movie or a TV play, but she knew exactly. There had been nothing since Reasons of the Heart six months ago and that was just a tiny part as the heroine’s best friend. I’ll make more effort soon, she said to herself. Get about more. Talk seriously to Dennis. He’s a sweetie but he really isn’t putting himself out for me as much as an agent should. I’ll take charge of my career, and not leave it all to other people. I’ll go out to movie premieres and first nights. I won’t just sit here with the children, making gingerbread men with Beth after school, or pushing Markie in the swings in the park.
The truth, which Rilla had told no one, was that getting a ‘civilized divorce’ was not as easy as it looked. She’d loved her husband well enough, and they’d had a good enough life together while it lasted for her to feel let-down and miserable and angry with Jon and, worst of all, disgusted with herself. These days, she looked at her face in the mirror and saw nothing but ugliness and the signs of age and unhappiness. She’d cried so much at the beginning, when he’d first broken the news, that now her eyes seemed permanently red and there were shadows under them that on bad days looked like two black eyes. She slathered on the make-up, knowing she was doing no more than putting on a mask that would disguise from everyone else the fact that she wasn’t coping. Not at all.
I’m good at disguises, she thought. Isn’t Rilla marvellous? So brave! So cheerful! She’d overheard people saying so at the parties she was too proud not to go to, though they were torture, most of them, with everyone paired off; passengers on some ghastly ark or other, sailing two by two into the night. Any single men at these affairs were uniformly unattractive to her, and she knew it was her fault rather than theirs.
Nobody knows, she thought, that I am kept afloat by pills. Tranquillizers, which didn’t exactly make her tranquil, but which dulled the pain a little and made it possible to go through the motions of her life. There were the children to consider. You couldn’t crack up if you had someone else to look after. What did Mick Jagger call them? Mother’s little helper. That was exactly what they were. They smoothed over the rough edges of her life well enough for most people, but not, of course, for Beth. She was sharper than everyone else, always looking anxiously at Rilla to make sure she was all right. She’d sit on the chair in Mark’s room while Rilla sang her way through the six songs he had to have sung to him every night, watching carefully. And Beth often asked as they sat down to their supper, after Mark was asleep, ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we, Rilla? Now that Dad’s gone, I mean.’
Rilla tried always to answer with a lift in her voice, saying something like, “Course we will, honeybunch! And your dad’s not gone. Not really. He’ll come and visit us really soon. He’ll always be your dad, you know. He’ll always love you best in the world.’
Beth usually picked up her knife and fork and said nothing, but you could practically see the thoughts in her head: Then why doesn’t Daddy phone me? That person with the funny name. He likes her better than he likes me. He’s always going off to different countries and he never takes me with him. He can’t love me properly.
Now that they were outside the bathroom, Rilla shook her head and tried to focus on what needed to be done. Dress Mark. Right. Take Beth to school. Okay.
‘Come on, sweetiepie,’ she said to her son, who was busy floating a family of four yellow plastic ducks in the basin. ‘You put the plug in all by yourself, didn’t you? That’s clever, but you must put the ducks on the shelf now and brush your teeth and then we have to get dressed. Beth’s going to be late for school if we don’t hurry up.’
Rilla moved the ducks and before Mark had time to object, she wet a flannel and began to wash his face.
‘NO!’ he shouted, and then added with less conviction, ‘I want ducks! I don’t want dressing.’
‘We’re going to Willow Court, Markie,’ Beth said from the door, where she was standing. Rilla smiled at her over Mark’s head. Amazing how she always knew exactly what to say to please and distract him. He grinned and said, ‘Willow Court! Now. Now today? Will I play with Jeffrey and George? Let’s go today.’
Mark spent hours at Willow Court trying to persuade the two old cats to play with him. Sometimes he almost succeeded, and Jeffrey had been known to chase a tinkling ball for a few minutes before retiring to his customary snoozing. George was cleverer at putting himself out of reach of all children by hiding somewhere in the garden, but Mark could spot his black tail from a very long way away if he’d forgotten to camouflage that properly.
‘Tomorrow. If you’re good,’ said Rilla, ‘and stand quite still while I dress you, then we’ll be able to pack everything up ready while Beth’s at school and as soon as we wake up tomorow, we’ll be off. Westward ho!’
‘Westward ho!’ both children shouted. It was what they always said in the car, as they set off for Leonora’s house.
‘Will Efe be there? And Alex?’ Her son’s eyes were bright and Rilla kissed the tip of his nose.
‘Of course. And the baby. Remember Chloë? Efe and Alex’s new baby sister?’
‘Babies don’t play,’ Mark said firmly, dismissing his little cousin with a shrug that reminded Rilla of Jon. ‘Will I see Nanny Mouse?’
‘Oh, yes, Nanny Mouse is longing to see you. She always says so on the phone when I speak to her. She says, when’s my little Markie coming to see me? And you too, Beth. She’s always asking after you, too.’
Rilla pushed Mark’s socks on to his feet, just a little way, so that he could pull them up all by himself, and while he was absorbed in this, Beth asked, ‘Are you just saying that, Rilla? So I won’t be upset? About Nanny Mouse, I mean. Does she really ask about me?’
Rilla put both hands on Beth’s shoulders.
‘Of course she does! What do you take me for, Beth, honestly. It’s about time you got it into your head that they’re all mad about you down there. Everyone. Leonora, Gwen, James. They all love you to pieces. They’re dying to see you. All of them.’
‘What about Efe?’ Beth said.
Rilla grinned. ‘You love him best of all, don’t you?’ she said. ‘He’s the real reason you like going to Willow Court, isn’t he?’
‘He thinks up good games,’ said Beth, trying hard to sound grown-up and nonchalant. ‘He’s fun, that’s all.’
Beth’s blushing, Rilla noticed with some amusement, and looking everywhere but at me. It’ll do us all good to get to the country for a bit. Forget our troubles. Have some fun. Be cosseted by Nanny Mouse. Heavenly bliss!
*
The adults sat in the drawing room having tea while Efe, Alex and Beth played outside, with Mark trying his best to join in, getting left behind sometimes, but struggling to keep up with the others. Chloë was sleeping in a carrycot at Gwen’s feet.
‘There you are, Gwen,’ said James. ‘She’s good as gold, my little princess.’ He smiled at Rilla. ‘Gwen always tells me Chloë’s a difficult baby. Not a bit like either of the boys. I don’t find her a problem at all, I must say.’
‘All very well for you, darling,’ Gwen said. ‘You don’t ever have to deal with her yourself.’
‘And neither do you, really, do you?’ said James. ‘You’d be lost without Nanny Mouse. Admit it!’
‘I know, I know,’ said Gwen. ‘You’re right, but still. I do more for Chloë than anyone else except Nanny Mouse. There’s always quite enough work for both of us, I promise you. And of course we have to keep an eye on Efe and Alex and Mark and Beth as well.’
Damn, Rilla thought. Damn and blast. Is Gwen really going to suck me into childcare? I only came here to have a bit of a rest from that. The last thing I need is droves of children rioting around, needing attention. She knew this was a selfish thought, but couldn’t help it. She felt sorry for herself much of the time nowadays, aware of misery as an almost physical thing, sucking her down, muffling any s
mall moments of happiness in a kind of grey blanket.
At least the kids seemed happy enough at the moment, running up and down the slopes of the terrace. There was Efe, directing operations. His voice was the one that you heard, always. He was tall for his age, with something in the set of his mouth that Rilla couldn’t help thinking of as trouble for anyone who crossed him, but even at eight years old, he was very handsome. Rilla preferred Alex’s gentle, rather long face. Two years younger than Efe, he was an almost silent child with a sharp nose, floppy hair that fell on to a high forehead, and grey eyes that took in everything and seemed to understand much more than he could express. Markie, bless him, chased after the bigger boys, screaming with laughter, but Beth was now sitting on the terrace, just looking at the others; grave, pretty, with her best blue hair ribbon on in honour of Efe who wouldn’t notice it, or if he did, wouldn’t think of saying how pretty it was. I’m a bloody fool, Rilla said to herself. No eight-year-old boy would dream of complimenting a girl on her hair ribbon. The pills are making me stupid. Someone was crying. Rilla woke up suddenly and for a moment couldn’t think what it was, that unending wail that set every nerve on edge. She sat up in bed and tried hard to sort out what was real from things she might have been dreaming. That was the trouble with sleeping pills. You fell into darkness the minute you got into bed, but if you woke for any reason, it was like struggling up from the bottom of a pond with weeds and scum filling your mouth and nose so that you could hardly draw breath. And once you were awake, falling asleep again sometimes didn’t happen for a long time and there was nothing to be done but smoke, or go wandering down to the fridge to see if there was anything there that might cheer you up, even for a moment.
The wailing was, of course, a baby crying. At first, because of the strange disorientation that went on every time she opened her eyes these days, Rilla thought, it’s Mark. I must get up and feed him. Change him. Then she remembered that the baby wasn’t Mark but Chloë, who was notorious for making nights an absolute misery for everyone. Rilla sank back on her pillows. Nanny Mouse would be taking care of it. There was no need to get out of bed at all.
