Stand by Your Man

by Gil McNeil

  Molly and jack are coming home from hospital today, and half the village is on standby to welcome them back. I’ve been given so many tiny blue cardigans I’ve lost count. Practically every single woman in this village must be a champion knitter, and even Elsie has done him a hat, which is very sweet of her, and at least it’s not pale-blue; although I’m not completely sure lime-green is going to be his favourite colour either.

  Molly’s all ready to go when I arrive to collect them, and is desperate to get home. Jack sleeps all the way in his car seat, which is probably a good thing because I’m driving very slowly so Molly doesn’t get too jiggled about. In fact I’m driving so slowly other cars start flashing at me, and I have to do that daft waving-your-hand-out-of-the-window-in-a-sort-of-circle thing to tell other cars to pass us, and a man in a Jag gets a slightly different sort of hand signal, that only requires the use of one finger, when he pulls alongside us and toots and tries to look threatening. Creep. If he’d woken Jack up I would have taken his number for Mum to include him on her ‘Dangerous Drivers I’ve Spotted Recently’ report for her Neighbourhood Watch Group. Apparently some poor police liaison officer has drawn the short straw and now he has to visit her group, and Mum’s determined he’ll get plenty of good information to take back to the station.

  Molly’s mum Mary is waiting for us when we get in, and the entire house is sparkling. She’s probably even washed the chickens. Mum’s been round to help, and so has Doreen, and it turns out they all share the same views on the right way to clean a kitchen: in other words properly, on your hands and knees, not just squirting a bit of Dettox and wafting a J-cloth about. Mary’s even made shepherd’s pie for lunch, which was Molly’s favourite apparently when she was little.

  ‘I’ve used that vegetarian meat stuff, Quark or whatever it’s called. I don’t know what it’ll taste like, mind, but it looks all right. So whenever you’re hungry just you let me know, pet. It won’t take ten minutes to heat up.’

  There’s a pile of presents on the chair in the living room.

  ‘Thanks, Mum. Who are all these from?’

  ‘Oh well, things from your Aunty Pam, and me and your dad – just a few little bits to start him off properly. Alice, you will stay for lunch, won’t you? There’s plenty.’

  ‘I really should be off. I’ve got work I should be getting on with.’

  ‘Well, what about a cup of tea then, before you go?’

  ‘Oh yes please. And Molly, I meant to say, I’ve got loads more presents at my house. I’ll bring them round later. Your boy is not going to be short of a cardigan, put it that way.’

  ‘It’s so lovely to be home, it really is.’

  She’s started opening some of the presents, and seems to be having a little cry. But it’s one of those hormonal everything’s-perfect-so-why-do-I-keep-crying moments, rather than anything serious, so I decide to pretend I haven’t noticed while Mary makes the tea.

  Jack wakes up and we all fuss over him, which he seems to like, and then I leave them to have lunch and say I’ll see them tomorrow. Mary’s taken over feeding the chickens so I’m looking forward to a quiet evening.

  I’m just finishing the washing up after tea when a mouse runs out from under the fridge and disappears under the cooker. Alfie’s absolutely thrilled, but I think I’m going to be sick. I can hear it scratching at something; at least I think I can. It’s probably three fields away by now. But it might not be. It might be watching me from under the fridge. Oh god, I think I really am going to be sick.

  I briefly wonder about dialling 999, but I’m fairly sure the police would take a pretty dim view of being called out to deal with a mouse. Maybe Mum’s neighbourhood watch one might come round, though. I wonder if she’s got a hotline number or something. Bugger, bugger.

  Alfie’s lying on the floor shouting under the cooker, ‘Come out mousey, come out.’

  It better not bloody come out.

  ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it, Mummy? It can be my pet. I can call him Eddie, like my chicken.’

  Christ. If this latest episode in my perfect bloody life is going to involve using poison or traps or anything I’ll have to keep it secret from Alfie or he’ll be picketing the front door. I can just see him marching round the front garden with a placard, chanting ‘Save Our Mousey’.

  In the end I decide to call Charles, and he tells me about special mousetraps, where the mouse walks in and a little plastic door shuts behind it.

  ‘Oh great. And then what do you do?’

  ‘Take it out into the fields and let it go.’

  ‘Oh, all right. That sounds OK. You don’t have to actually touch it, do you? Only I couldn’t cope with that.’

  ‘No. You just hold the box. I’ve got one if you want to borrow it – we had mice when we first moved in. Well, one, at least. I didn’t tell Lola – I knew she’d insist on having the whole house fumigated. It’s probably just a field mouse.’

  ‘Well, it should be in a bloody field then, not under my fridge.’

  ‘Go and buy some chocolate mousse and I’ll bring the box down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Chocolate mousse. They love it. Gets them every time.’

  Bloody hell. We go to the village shop and buy chocolate trifle, which is the closest they’ve got, and Alfie tells the lady behind the till it’s for our mousey, but luckily she just smiles at him and obviously thinks he’s talking rubbish.

  Charles arrives with Ezra and Mabel, who are mad keen to see the mouse, and we fill the plastic box with trifle, which the children think is a shocking waste of good pudding, and then we sit in the living room and have a drink and a biscuit and try to take their minds off anything to do with rodents. But when Charles goes back into the kitchen to make some more tea the bloody thing’s already gone into the box, and is now scratching about, covered in chocolate.

  Alfie lies down next to the box and has a little chat.

  ‘Please can we keep him?’

  Luckily Charles is ready with all the answers.

  ‘He’s a field mouse, Alfie. He needs to be free. Keeping him indoors would be very cruel.’

  And more importantly it would completely freak me out. ‘He needs to be out playing with his friends.’

  Oh great. They have friends. I’ll end up like the Pied Piper, and I’ll have to bulk-buy chocolate trifles.

  ‘What if it’s a norphan?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A norphan, with no mummy and no friends.’

  ‘It won’t be. I promise.’

  We eventually convince them all that we should take it out into the fields and release it. I’d quite like to drive it somewhere a few miles away, but I don’t want to risk it escaping in the car, so we walk down the lane, looking like nutters, with the children singing ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ and ‘Three Blind Mice’ at the top of their voices. It’s almost dark as we climb over the gate and crouch down at the edge of the field.

  ‘OK, mousey, off you go.’

  We lift the door up, but the bloody thing won’t move, and only peeps nervously out of the box. It looks rather sticky, and a bit pissed off, to be honest. It’s tiny, and a very dark brown colour – but that might be the trifle – with a rather sweet little tail, not one of those horrible sick-making long things. Maybe it’s a vole.

  ‘Charles, do you think it might be a vole?’

  ‘I think voles are bigger. Why?’

  ‘Well, if I tell Mum we had a vole under the fridge she might not freak out so much.’

  ‘Fair enough. A vole it is then. A chocoholic vole.’

  It finally plucks up courage and darts off, straight across the field towards the woods. But as we walk towards the house I’m sure I can see it running along the edge of the field. The bastard thing’s probably racing us back home to see if there’s any trifle left.

  As we get in Charles says he’d better get the children home. Ezra’s still sulking because he wanted to keep the mouse in his bedroom.

  ‘Thanks, Cha
rles, really. For lending us the box and everything.’

  ‘My pleasure. Just don’t call me if it’s spiders. I hate spiders.’

  ‘Oh I don’t mind them. At least you don’t have to buy them trifle.’

  There are no more scratching noises, but as I’m getting into bed I’m sure I can hear something. The flaming thing’s probably come back. After totally freaking myself out for about ten minutes I put the duvet over my head so I can’t hear the noise, and decide that it’s time to get serious. No more trifle. I’ll call the council tomorrow and get the poison man round. I know it’s cruel. But I don’t care. Even if they are voles, they’re bloody noisy ones. And they’re not living in my ceiling. Or under my fridge.

  Molly’s finding it rather hard-going with her mum and Doreen. They’ve developed a sort of dual fussing routine, involving lots of cups of tea and suggestions that Molly might like a nice little nap.

  Her mum’s just dropped her off with Jack while she goes to the supermarket.

  ‘They’re both being so sweet, and I’m really grateful, honestly, but they keep washing everything, and every ten minutes there’s another bloody snack.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Mum’s gone into a complete frenzy since I told her about the mouse. She’s been on a bleach fest ever since.’

  ‘Did the council turn up?’

  ‘Yup. He’s put loads of trays up in the attic, and he’s coming back next week. Your mum will be going home soon, though, won’t she?’

  ‘Next week, after I’ve been to the hospital. As long as they say I’m fine. Dad’s coming down at the weekend to collect her. She must be really tired, you know. She gets up every time he cries, even in the middle of the night. Actually, I’m really going to miss that.’

  ‘I bet you will. And how’s Dan?’

  Dan’s taken to calling in at teatime, and he picked Lily up from school yesterday.

  ‘He seems fine, but Lily got stroppy when he left last night. He said he had to go to work, but she didn’t like it. That’s the first time she’s really minded. He was quite upset. But we had a long talk yesterday, and he finally said how unhappy he was. He’s never admitted that before.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good sign. I mean if you’re really talking about things now.’

  ‘I know, but it’s bloody hard. It’d be much easier just to blame it all on him, but that’s not completely fair. I’ve been shutting him out, for quite a while in a way, sort of taking him for granted. I was so busy with everything else, I just never noticed how unhappy he was.’

  She looks close to tears.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to turn into one of those women who say it was their fault when some bastard hits them. No, he made a mistake. A big mistake. And it’s going to take us a long time to get over it. I hate the idea of him with her, I really do. But in a way that sort of helps. It’s made me realise how much I love him. Otherwise I don’t think I’d care, would I?’

  ‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t.’

  ‘And I don’t want us to split up, not really. If I could rewind and wipe out all that stuff I would. But I can’t.’

  I don’t think she can quite bear to say Lola’s name.

  ‘And then there’s Lily, and Jack, and I want to do the right thing by them. But if it’s not right then I think we’re all better off out of it. I mean I think staying together for the sake of the children is just bollocks – it doesn’t help anybody. I mean poor old Doreen tried that, and look how happy she is. But he is a really great dad. And that counts for something, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes. It counts for an awful lot.’

  ‘So I was thinking maybe the grown-up thing to do is to forgive and forget.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But I don’t feel very grown-up.’

  She says this in a very small voice.

  ‘I know, sweetheart, but maybe you could have a trial few days or something?’

  ‘No, I’ve thought about that, but we’d both be watching all the time for the slightest thing. It would make us too nervous. I think we need to have a fresh start, and really give it a go, for a month or two, not keep picking away at it. I think I’m going to ask him to move back in for a few months, and see if we can get past it. And if we can’t, then at least I’ll know.’

  ‘You’re an amazing woman, you know that, Molly.’

  She smiles.

  ‘So should I tell him then?’

  ‘Yes. Ring him up. Ring him now, if you like.’

  And she does, while I go and rake up leaves.

  She comes out into the garden and says he sounded very relieved.

  ‘And then he went all quiet.’

  She looks close to tears again.

  ‘You really love him, Moll, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I think I’ve finally realised that I do. Despite everything. I do.’

  Molly’s mum’s finally gone home, and Dan’s moved back, and even though it’s all very fragile they seem to be coping. Molly says it’s a bit like walking on eggshells, but Lily’s much more settled. I don’t envy her – it must be hard work having to tiptoe round things all the time.

  I’m still on my nightly mouse alert, but at least Alfie’s decided that mice are boring, and he’s back to wanting a pet rabbit. Some helpful person from the RSPCA brought one into school last week, so he thinks he’s an expert now. I might get him one for Christmas, as long as I can get him to promise not to dig rabbit holes all over the lawn again.

  I can’t really believe I’m thinking about Christmas already, but Mum keeps going on about making lists, which is starting to make me panic. She rang up yesterday morning at half-past seven to ask me if I thought she should get a present for Stella this year, and if so what did I think about a travel iron, because she’d seen a nice one in Debenhams. Sometimes I just don’t know how Dad copes.

  I’m round at Molly’s for my daily cuddle with Jack when Charles arrives, looking all pink and flustered.

  ‘Oh good, you’re both here. I called at your house, Alice, but you weren’t there. It’s fantastic news. We won a silver medal, in the competition. A silver medal. Isn’t that great?’

  Apparently Mrs Pomeroy is euphoric, and says the competition people want to come down and take pictures for a magazine article, and she thinks we might even get on the telly. It’s really exciting, and even though I know it’s all down to the plants, and the fact that Molly went into labour in the middle of the judges’ visit, I can’t help feeling a tiny bit pleased that my design didn’t actually make any of them laugh out loud.

  ‘I must go, I want to make sure someone’s told Elsie. But it’s fantastic, isn’t it? I’m so proud of everybody. Especially you, Alice. Well done.’

  And he gives both me and Molly a kiss, and goes even more pink, and then rushes off to tell Elsie.

  ‘God, isn’t he nice, going round to tell Elsie. I’ve been thinking about having a tea party or something, to say thank you to everyone for all the things they made for Jack, and show him off. But now it can be a double celebration. What do you think?’

  ‘Great, if you’re sure it won’t be too much work.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got an ulterior motive, to be honest. I want everyone to know Dan and I are back together. I mean nobody’s said anything, but they all know he wasn’t around, and they must have put two and two together.’

  ‘And made six probably.’

  ‘Yes, so I thought if they see us together it would kind of clear the air. The only problem is Charles.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I want to ask him, of course, but I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable. You know how he is, he won’t want to say no, but I think he might want to avoid being in the same room as Dan. What do you think? I thought I might ring up and ask him how he’d feel about it, but then I realised that might not be very tactful.’

  ‘So you’d like me to have a go?’

  ‘Well, yes, but only if you don’t mind. I really want him to come, bu
t I don’t want him to feel he has to.’

  ‘All right. I’ll try to sound him out next time I talk to him.’

  I decide to go up to the garden just before lunch, in the hope that he’ll be there. It’s still looking lovely. Mr Channing has planted new things in the beds where the strawberries and tomatoes were, including some purple cabbage that looks great. The bay tree in the middle of one of the herb beds looks much bigger now, and all sorts of new shapes are emerging now the autumn has arrived.

  Charles is tidying up the paths, and I clear the rills of leaves and then we stop for a coffee.

  ‘How’s Molly doing? She looked much better this morning.’

  ‘Yes, she is. And Dan’s moved back – did you know?’

  ‘Has he? Oh good, I’m so glad.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Oh yes. I don’t really blame him, you know. Lola can be pretty determined. I mean I don’t think I’ll ever count him as a close friend, but I’m pleased for Molly, I really am.’

  ‘Well, that’s very grown-up of you.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know. I mean it would be different if we were the perfect couple before it happened. If I’d been madly in love I’d have wanted to kill him.’

  ‘Well, if you’re really sure. She’s having a little tea party, to sort of show the baby off, and say thank you to everyone, and she wants you to come. But only if you won’t mind, with Dan and everything.’

  He smiles.

  ‘Oh. No, I think I could cope with that, and it would stop people gossiping. Mrs Bishop keeps asking me about Lola.’