Half Broken Things

by Morag Joss

  ‘Yes, I’m staying here. I mean, yes. I do live here now. I’m Stephanie. Well, Steph, really. I’m twenty-three and I’ve had… a lot of experience with children.’

  ‘Yes, but what about babies. He’s only four months. Have you done babies?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Steph said, ‘I had sole charge of a newborn.’ She took a mouthful of coffee while she tried to assemble the words for the story she had worked out. ‘I took care of my sister’s baby. She couldn’t. She was depressed after it, the birth. You know, post-natal, she got it really bad? So I did everything, more or less, the lot, all the looking after. She couldn’t do a thing, hardly.’ Then, in case the woman might think she was complaining, ‘I really enjoyed it, I had a knack, everybody said. My sister’s husband, he was away at the time as well, so I had sole charge, I held the fort. Then they moved away.’ She paused. ‘To America. Her husband was American.’

  That should put the question of references on ice for a bit. She began to feel slightly inspired.

  ‘And so now I’m staying here with… with my aunt, I live with my aunt.’

  She had rehearsed on the walk to Sally’s house the phrase ‘my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s mother’, and decided that it sounded too flaky and impermanent and might make her sound like a hanger-on. And she wasn’t wearing a ring; suppose this woman advertising for the childminder was a religious nut or something, who disapproved of people living together? A niece helping her aunt sounded solid and respectable.

  ‘I’m staying with her and helping her with the house, she hasn’t been too well. At Walden Manor.’ Risky to give the name, perhaps, but she had guessed, correctly, precisely the effect it would have.

  Sally raised her eyebrows and made an ‘oooh’ shape with her mouth. ‘Walden Manor? Oh. I know, yes, I think I know where it is. Off the Bath road, that no through road marked private? I’ve never seen the house.’

  ‘You can’t see it from the road. It’s more than half a mile up the drive.’

  Sally sighed. ‘There are lots of beautiful places round here, actually. But I didn’t know Walden was owned by a… Actually,’ she looked mournfully round the kitchen, ‘I don’t really know many people. I haven’t been here that long, we only moved here after I got pregnant. I thought it’d be all playgroups and community stuff and all that. But everybody under seventy’s at work all day, in Bath or Chippenham.’

  Steph made a sympathetic noise. ‘You’ve got a nice house, though,’ she lied bravely.

  ‘Oh yeah, thanks, well, it is nice, or it could be. Haven’t done much to it, been too tired.’ She waved with the hand holding the mug. ‘As you can see.’

  Steph said, bracingly, ‘Anyway, she’s much better now, you know, my aunt, but she likes having me there so I’m staying on, but now there’s less for me to do I thought it’d be nice to find something.’ She smiled competently.

  ‘Your, er… aunt, I mean, it’s not, is she… You don’t seem… has she lived there long, I mean? Has it always been in the family, the house?’

  Steph beamed with sudden understanding and said, with a slight lowering of her voice, ‘In the family? Oh no. Not at all. Look, if I tell you, will you promise not to say, not to anybody? Not to anybody at all, ever?’

  Sally’s eyebrows shot up with interest. ‘Sure. Of course.’

  ‘Because she doesn’t want all sorts knocking on the door, you know?’ Steph paused. ‘Lottery win,’ she said. ‘Five week roll-over. Only she wants it kept quiet, because she’s not that sort of person, she’s just ordinary. She’s not, you know, flashy. I mean she’s always had this thing about a house in the country, so straight off she went and bought this big place and well, I think it’s a bit too much for her, but I can’t say. I mean she can do what she likes at the end of the day.’

  Sally nodded respectfully. ‘I promise I won’t say a word. I didn’t even know the house was up for sale.’

  ‘Oh. Oh no, well, it wasn’t advertised.’

  ‘No, they aren’t always, the big places, it’s all word of mouth.’ She drank some of her coffee. ‘We don’t get much of the big stuff. Though we get farms from time to time, and then of course I don’t get a look in. Farmers have to deal with a man, apparently, can’t cope with a woman handling things. The firm goes along with it, doesn’t matter what I say. The senior partner says,’ she twisted the words sarcastically, ’ “in this outfit, political correctness comes second to complete client confidence.” ‘

  Steph cleared her throat. She was not sure she had understood a single word. ‘Only with my aunt- you won’t spread it around, will you, because she doesn’t want the publicity, she’s a very private person. Not unfriendly or anything, but she likes to get to know people at her own pace, what with everything. You can understand. So you won’t tell anyone, will you? I mean I’m only telling you so you know the score. About me, for the job I mean.’

  ‘No, no, of course I won’t say anything,’ Sally said, in a way that made Steph wonder if she were interested enough even to remember the story, let alone divulge it. But she roused herself from her thoughts about the senior partner to ask, ‘But that is a point. You- I mean, what do you want a child-minding job for? I mean you can’t need the money, can you?’

  Steph looked her in the eye. ‘My aunt, she’s dead generous, she’s doing a lot for me, but I’ve told her no way am I living off her for everything. So okay, no, in a way I don’t really need it, but I like earning a bit of my own money, you know what I mean?’

  Sally had begun to peel off a splitting fingernail with her teeth, but Steph thought she might still be listening. ‘Like if I earn a bit I can surprise her, you know? Make a little contribution. Get her a bunch of flowers now and then, something like that. It’s the independence.’

  ‘Independence,’ Sally said distantly, dropping her fingernail on the floor. She snorted. She looked directly at Steph. ‘I’m independent. Not all it’s cracked up to be, let me tell you.’

  She was doing it again. What was Steph supposed to say to a remark like that? She gave what she hoped was an interested murmur and hoped Sally was not taking them completely off the point.

  ‘I’m a solicitor,’ Sally said, wanly.

  ‘Oh, right. So, what I mean is, I don’t want you thinking I’d be unreliable, just ’cause I’m not, like, living on the money.’

  ‘Unreliable?’ Sally gave another uneasy smile. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t thinking that. No, I can spot unreliable. I know all about unreliable. I might not even be going back full-time if Charlie’s father wasn’t world class unreliable.’ She turned to tip the last of her coffee down the sink. ‘He was training to qualify too. Was. As a solicitor, I mean.’

  Steph knew that Sally was waiting for her to ask more.

  ‘So… do you mean… he isn’t any more?’

  Sally sighed so dramatically that Steph felt in some way responsible for whatever might be coming next. ‘Oh, no, no,’ she said with slow sarcasm, ‘Oh no, he decided being a solicitor wasn’t enough for him.’ She sighed again. ‘He’s tried lots of things. He was going to be a priest, then he decided no, that would just be trying to live up to his dad. So he gave that up, tried other things, travelled a lot. Oh, he wants to save the world, basically. Law was just the latest thing, the thing he thought he should be doing while he went through his husband and father phase. But he’s given up on that, too, by the look of it.’

  ‘You mean he’s not here?’

  ‘Nope. No, he’s gone to Nepal. I don’t mean he walked out, oh no, my dear husband never does anything he could be blamed for. He only does things he feels he ought to do, never admits it’s what he wants. So then he can’t be criticised, can he, because he’s only doing what his conscience tells him is right.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Don’t get talked into having kids, Stephanie, that’s what I did.’

  ‘Oh. Oh well. No, I won’t.’

  ‘He was the desperate one. Gets me to agree, gets me pregnant, and just when I thought this time he mea
ns it, he’s growing up finally, he gets another fit of conscience about privilege, east and west, all that. So practically the minute Charlie’s born he gives up law and wants us all to go off and live in Nepal and work for some leprosy charity. I said no.’

  ‘But he went?’

  ‘Yep. Now he’s out there working for this bloody charity, principles all intact and all for bloody nothing of course, so I’ve got no option. And oh, not only is he not providing a penny but I’m the one holding us back. He’s still waiting for us to join him, you see, thinks I’ll give in and go. And know what? I won’t. The main thing about it is, and you should listen to this, Stephanie, because it’s amazing how often this happens, the thing is he thinks because I’ve got the baby I shouldn’t mind where I go or what I do. Because I’m a mother now, aren’t I. He thinks I’m selfish, staying in a rich country and being a lawyer when I could be making a contribution. I’m perpetuating global inequality, apparently, going back to conveyancing and wills in Chippenham. Me. Me, selfish.’

  Sally’s voice as she spoke had been getting louder to drown out bad-tempered wailing from another room. Practically shouting now, she said, ‘Well, global bollocks. But it’s amazing the number of other people that think I should have gone. His dad, for instance, he comes out with all the “for better for worse” stuff. Oh shit, he’s awake. Well, you might as well meet him.’

  Charlie squirmed in a nest of covers on the padded floor of a playpen in the dining room. A carrycot stood on the table in the middle of the room. Sally pulled him out kicking. ‘He settles better in the playpen,’ she said wearily. ‘Dunno why. Doesn’t like the cot.’

  Steph looked round. A smell of salt and pepper and old meat still rose from the dark green carpet, but in all other respects Charlie had taken over. Both the mantelpiece and a high, polished sideboard that was too large for the room were littered with baby paraphernalia. A baby changing mat, nappies and a heap of unironed baby clothes filled one end of the table. Dozens of baby books and plastic toys covered the sideboard and the four upright chairs, and a bank of soft toy animals formed a colony against the wall on one side of the cold, green-tiled fireplace. Steph caught sight of a teddy identical to one that had been in Miranda’s nursery, and felt something kick suddenly in her throat. She opened her mouth, but did not speak and managed not to gasp, and then the moment had gone, supplanted by a sense of safety. Because absolutely nothing else in this chaotic house- not Charlie’s bewildering mother with her aloof but embarrassing way of telling her too much, certainly not the streaked and bawling face of Charlie himself- sounded even the thinnest chord of memory, painful or otherwise. Steph simply did not recognise it, this bulging, crammed and messy place that so many things had been spilled into, as if the house were a repository for the thoughts, ideas, plans, all the stuff in Sally’s head. It was a place where myriad fragments and layers that made up her life had substantiated somehow into wave after wave of bits of beached rubbish, which Sally then used, abandoned, dropped, broke, lost or cherished, without explanation, apology or, it seemed, particular concern. Charlie was perhaps just another item in her collection. The very idea that one person’s life could so casually produce such rich and overwhelming disorder was unknown to Steph.

  Sally had Charlie on the changing mat and had wrestled him out of his wet nappy. The sight of him insulated Steph further from any link with Miranda. Charlie had a standard pouting, apelike baby face, quite unlike Miranda’s ladylike and slightly worried one. And he never stopped moving. His flailing limbs creased into their own peculiar folds and bends like a badly stuffed toy, while Miranda had now and then waved her spindly arms and legs without conviction, and they had been what Jean called finely made. Steph darted forward and handed Sally a baby wipe from the carton, and deftly took the sodden clump from Sally. ‘Bin under the sink,’ Sally said flatly. When Steph came back Sally was walking round the room jiggling the angry bundle on one shoulder. For the first time since she had arrived Steph saw on Sally’s face not only impatience and distaste, but complete exhaustion.

  ‘I’m supposed to be going in for a meeting this afternoon. They keep doing it, I’m not due back till next week but oh, will I pop in to discuss this or that. I said okay but I’d have to bring him with me and they said oh really, well, with a bit of luck he’ll be asleep.’ She shifted him onto the other shoulder and blew gently in his ear, to no effect. ‘He probably would go back to sleep if I gave him his bottle now but he fights it and takes ages over it, so if I do that I’ll be incredibly late and that won’t go down very well.’

  ‘Tell you what, you go,’ Steph said, ‘why don’t you go to your meeting, and leave him with me? I’ll see to the bottle and everything. Just to help you out.’

  ‘What? Oh, no, I don’t think, I mean I’d like you to take the job, I mean for a trial period, but you’ve only just… I mean you, we- we don’t really know each other, do we?’

  Steph smiled and nodded understandingly. ‘Oh, you’re quite right. I know, you haven’t got my references or anything- but look, I’d love to do the job, and you could do with a hand now, couldn’t you? Look, he’s got a wet patch on his bum, he needs a dry suit. Shall I take him a minute while you get a clean one, only I don’t know where you keep them.’ She held up her arms and Sally, a little taken aback, allowed Charlie to be taken from her. She rummaged in the pile of clothes while Steph rocked Charlie from side to side. In a lower voice, she said, ‘Tell you what, Sally, suppose I come with you, then I could look after him in the car or take him for a walk or something while you’re at the meeting. If you’re not sure about leaving him here with me, I quite understand.’ Charlie’s yells seemed to subside as she spoke. ‘Don’t I, Charlie?’ she said softly in his ear. ‘You don’t want to be left all alone with a stranger, do you? Do you, little Charlie?’ Charlie grew quiet. Steph smiled beatifically. ‘Hello, poppet. I’m Steph, all right? Aren’t you a lovely little man, aren’t you a good baby?’ she told him softly, rocking him with gentle confidence.

  Sally straightened up and looked hard at Steph for several moments. ‘I suppose you have got references, haven’t you? Good ones?’

  ‘Oh yes, only not with me. I was just in the shop, you see. I was just out for a walk. I wasn’t expecting to see the perfect job there on a card in the window. But I just came straight along ’cause I didn’t want to miss the chance. I was scared I’d be too late and somebody else would get it.’

  Sally said, ‘And how many years’ experience did you say you’d got?’

  ‘Oh, it was ten months with my sister’s,’ Steph said, ‘and loads of other little jobs childminding, babysitting and that. Babies and up to age five. But you need to see it all in writing, that’s okay. I understand. If you don’t feel comfortable.’

  Sally looked at her watch and studied Steph’s face again. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I’ve decided. I can always tell, I’m good at reading people. And if you’re going to do the job I’ll have to leave him anyway, won’t I? I can tell I can trust you, Steph. I can feel it. And it’s very, very good of you to offer.’

  Steph smiled up at Sally. ‘He’s a lovely baby,’ she breathed. ‘Now are you sure? Because I mean I could come with you, in the car.’

  But the whole idea was suddenly cumbersome and silly. Sally shook her head. ‘No- decision’s made. As long as you’re sure…’

  ‘Go on, you go. We’ll be fine. I’ll give him his bottle.’

  For the first time Sally gave a genuine smile. ‘Really? Oh God, you wouldn’t, would you? It’s all made up, just needs microwaving. I’ll be back in about an hour and a half,’ she said, with sudden energy, ‘if that’s not too late for you? I mean, you are taking the job? I didn’t expect… oh, brilliant!’

  ‘You go,’ Steph said serenely. ‘And you and I, young man, we’re going to get on just fine, aren’t we, while Mummy’s at her meeting?’

  ‘He’ll fight it. He hates the bottle, I’m warning you, you have to insist. It’s in the fridge. Twelve seconds on six,
’ Sally said, on her way through the door. ‘And you mustn’t… do you know how a…’

  ‘And leave it for about another minute and give it a good shake, and test it on the back of my hand. I know,’ Steph said, more to Charlie than to Sally. ‘Don’t I, Charlie? I know.’

  When the front door had closed behind Sally, Steph waited for a moment with the feeding bottle in her hand, then unscrewed the top and tipped the plastic-smelling formula milk down the sink. In the sitting room she removed a cat basket with a pair of sunglasses in it and a tilting stack of magazines from the sofa. Then she settled back with her feet up and placed Charlie on her stomach. Opening up her shirt, she lay back and gazed up at the cracked ceiling. Tears ran down her face as he gorged. She could feel the fingertips of his greedy little hand closing and unclosing over the skin of her breast, while his gums pulled milk from her bursting nipple almost faster than he could swallow it.

  * * *

  Michael listened to make sure that the house was quiet. Then he pulled a tartan rug from one of the library sofas, brought it into the utility room and spread it out on the floor. He thought that he would be safe from interruption here, even if Jean should wake up.

  They had not had lunch until after half-past three. Neither of them had commented on Steph’s absence. They had chosen to assume that she must be resting and therefore did not remark on it- in this way they disallowed the possibility that there might be any significance in her failure to appear. Because as long as a thing remained unsaid, it could be deemed to be not happening. It would remain untrue, for as long as they did not draw attention to it, that dozens of little hairline cracks in their arrangements were about to open into fissures. They were afraid to refer even to how late it was to be eating lunch, lest it make them take a mere irregularity in mealtimes seriously. Since Miranda’s death everyone had been rising late and, in between daytime naps and lie-downs, scratching effortfully at things, in search of some sort of purpose in anything. To mention a lapse in the punctuality of lunch might be to suggest that they were failing to find it, or even that they might be falling apart. What did it matter, anyway, what time they had lunch? It was only time after all, told by a clock somewhere, and these days, except to notice that there seemed to be too much of it, they were hardly aware of it. Time did not seem to have any need of them nor they for it. Lunch itself, a sparse soup that had been getting weirder as well as sparser by the day, had not been worth waiting for anyway. This was its fourth manifestation, and since flavour had quite deserted the original stock, which had been made with the last cube, today Jean had added a shake of angostura bitters and a small tin of macaroni. Defeated by the effort of pretending it was edible, she had left hers unfinished and agreed to lie down for the rest of the afternoon.