Before I Met You

by Lisa Jewell

  ‘Oh,’ said Betty, her heart starting to race, ‘any particular reason?’

  ‘He says he wants to see the kids. But if you could somehow get him outta here before I get back, I would love you for ever. I’ve got crazy heaps of shit to do and I am not in the mood for seeing his pitiful face. I told him just an hour, so you don’t need to feel bad about kicking him out. But don’t say anything to the kids, OK? Don’t wanna get their hopes up and then have them dashed because Daddy Dearest is comatose in some skanky blond’s bed. Right, kids!’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘Mommy’s going out for a coupla hours. Betty’s here. Be good. Love you!’ She didn’t wait for the children to acknowledge her parting words, just slung a bag over her shoulder, grabbed a bunch of keys and hurtled out of the house.

  Betty took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. Donny was eating a bowl of Cheerios and Mina, the maid (who Amy always referred to as though she were a kindly houseguest, just there for the fun of it, rather than a paid employee), was spooning mashed banana into the baby’s mouth. Acacia, the toddler, was wandering around with an unbuttoned babygro on and a milk bottle hanging from between her teeth. The maid smiled gratefully at Betty when she saw her walk in and passed her the bowl of mashed banana, before going to the kitchen sink to wash her hands.

  ‘Morning, guys!’ said Betty.

  ‘Morning,’ grumbled Donny, who was not, Betty was coming to learn, a morning person.

  ‘Morning, Acacia!’ She smiled at the toddler, who beamed at her, and in doing so lost her grip on the milk bottle, which fell to the floor, squirting milk in pretty much a full circle across the floor.

  ‘Oh-oh,’ sang Betty, pulling off sheets of kitchen roll and mopping it up. ‘Oh-oh.’

  ‘Silly Cashie,’ said Donny, smiling.

  ‘No,’ said Betty. ‘Cashie’s not silly. Cashie’s just smiling. Aren’t you, my lovely? Just smiling at Betty.’ Acacia smiled again. And then weed on the floor.

  ‘Oh!’ said Betty. ‘No nappy. Mummy left you without a nappy!’ She beamed and grabbed some more kitchen roll. ‘Oh, look at that, look at all that wee-wee.’ Acacia wrinkled her nose at Betty and smiled again.

  ‘Naughty Cashie,’ said Donny, banging his spoon against the kitchen table in delight. ‘Naughty, naughty Cashie.’

  Astrid, seeing what her big brother was doing, grabbed her plastic spoon and began copying him, banging her spoon against her bowl of mashed banana, bang bang bang, until the bowl dropped off the table and onto the kitchen floor, turning one hundred and eighty degrees in its descent, depositing gooey banana all over the floor. Seeing her breakfast disappear out of sight, the baby began to cry. Betty took a deep breath. What sort of idiots had three children, she thought to herself. What sort of ridiculous fools would fill up their beautiful house with people intent on spilling stuff and pissing everywhere?

  She breathed in once, twice, three times and then she rose up onto her feet, her hands full of balled up, piss-soaked kitchen roll and smiled her Happy Betty smile. ‘Oh,’ she said, brightly, ‘never mind. Never mind.’ And then she turned to the sink to rinse out a cloth and jumped an inch in the air when she saw Dom standing in the doorway.

  ‘Morning all,’ he said, pulling his hands from his pockets and sauntering in.

  ‘Daddy!’ cried Donny, leaping to his feet and sending a spoonful of Cheerios flying across the table as he did so.

  Dom grabbed Donny and threw him in the air, then held him aloft on his shoulder like a football trophy. Donny smiled triumphantly and squeezed Dom’s head between his hands.

  Betty smiled and said, ‘You’re early.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting round the corner,’ he said, ‘waiting for the Wicked W –’ he stopped himself, ‘waiting for Mummy to go.’

  He looked dishevelled, and even from halfway across the room, Betty could smell stale alcohol emanating from him. ‘Have you slept?’ she asked.

  He smiled sheepishly and shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘we, er ... well, we got the sleeper last night, turned into a bit of a party, not much sleeping, let’s put it that way ...’

  ‘Ah.’ Betty nodded sagely. ‘So, how long have you been waiting round the corner?’

  ‘About an hour,’ he shrugged, ‘maybe longer. My mate owns the pub round the corner. He let me hang out there.’

  She nodded again.

  He looked at her wide-eyed with innocence. ‘He’s been mainlining me strong coffee.’

  She gave him a look that said she didn’t care, she wasn’t his wife, she wasn’t his mother, it was up to him how he lived his life.

  In response he threw her a puppy-dog look and said, ‘Any eggs in the fridge?’

  ‘No idea,’ she said, ‘I’ve been here only two minutes and I’ve spent the full extent of that two minutes clearing stuff up off the floor. Why don’t you have a look?’

  He lowered Donny to the floor and shuffled towards the fridge. Betty dropped to her knees and mopped up the mashed banana, then the milky Cheerios.

  ‘So,’ she said, standing up, ‘how did it go? The secret location?’

  ‘Waste of time,’ he said. ‘Total waste of time. Gav didn’t show. Tommy spent the whole time on the phone to his missus. And me and Bryce just played poker and drank Schnapps.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yeah.’ Dom pulled a sliced loaf out of the bread bin and took out two pieces of bread. ‘Exactly.’

  He dropped the bread into a big shiny toaster like the ones they have in Italian cafés and started noisily pulling drawers open and shut. ‘Frying pan?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Betty said. ‘Didn’t you used to live here?’

  ‘Live here? Yes. Cook here? Not very often. A-ha,’ he said victoriously, ‘found it!’ He pulled open the door of the big pink Smeg fridge and stared into it. ‘So,’ he said, ‘lovely Betty. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  He reached into the fridge and brought out a box of eggs. He peered at it and said; ‘Use by the fifteenth of June. What date is it today?’

  ‘It’s the sixteenth,’ she said.

  ‘What do you reckon? Can I eat these?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ she said, wiping mush from the baby’s mouth.

  ‘Coolio,’ he said, juggling two eggs in the air and just about catching them again. ‘Don, wanna crack an egg?’

  ‘Yeah!’ said Donny, immediately grabbing his step and pulling it over to the hob. ‘Can I crack both of them?’

  ‘Course you can, mate, course you can. Betty? Want an egg?’

  ‘No thank you’ she said primly.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Betty watched Dom bouncing around the kitchen, hyper as a child, spilling things, treating Donovan as if he were a toy, unable to work out how to light the gas, burning the toast, leaving crumbs in the butter, splattering the hob with hot oil, and she felt suddenly intensely annoyed. It was like every time she saw him he was acting out a different role. She thought of the guy she’d spent the night with three days ago, the calm, thoughtful guy who’d cooked her a roast chicken as if it was the simplest thing in the world, who’d seduced her so smoothly and convincingly. Then she thought of the drunk idiot in the Groucho, the one who’d squeezed her bum and called her ‘the nanny’ to impress his stupid friend. She thought of the time she’d seen him screaming down the phone at someone, hard and aggressive, through his back window, and then she thought again of the blurred photos on the front page of the Mirror a few weeks ago. It occurred to her, suddenly and overpoweringly, that she had absolutely no idea who he was. Right now he was acting out the role of the crazy dad, the fun guy who showed up unexpectedly and created havoc. And she didn’t like it, not one bit.

  Finally he sat down at the kitchen table with a plate of toast and eggs. He grabbed a bottle of ketchup and showily, ostentatiously, covered the whole lot in red sauce, like he was trying to prove he was a real regular guy, the salt of the earth. ‘There,’ he said, rubbing his hands together an
d smiling, ‘look at that. Lovely stuff.’

  Betty pulled Astrid out of her baby seat and put her on her hip.

  ‘So,’ said Dom, ‘what are we going to do today?’

  The question was directed at everyone in the room.

  ‘Football! Football!’ shouted Donovan.

  ‘Excellent idea.’

  ‘Erm, listen, Dom,’ Betty began. ‘Amy said she’ll be back at twelve and that she didn’t really ... that it would be good if ...’

  ‘Yeah. I get it. I’ll be gone by then. Don’t you worry.’

  ‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘maybe it would be better to keep the kids here. You know? Keep them at home. It’s only a couple of hours.’ She fiddled with the hem of Astrid’s dress while she spoke.

  Dom stared at her blankly for a moment and then he said, ‘What? You think I’m going to steal him?’

  Betty grimaced. ‘No, of course not. Just you might get carried away, you know, forget the time. And Amy wants to get the kids straight in the car when she gets back. I think she’ll be really cross if Donny’s not here.’

  Dom laughed a false, hollow laugh and said, ‘I am capable of telling the time, Betty. I’m not a complete moron.’

  ‘I never said you were.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but you implied it.’

  ‘No, it’s just, you know, you haven’t slept, you’ve been drinking ...’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Dom slammed his hands down on the table and Betty instinctively put an admonishing finger to her lips. Dom raised his eyebrows at her and then folded his arms across his chest. ‘What is this?’ he barked. ‘I’ve got two effing wives now. Jesus.’

  Betty glanced at the children to make sure they weren’t too perturbed by this exchange and the ripe language but they seemed unfazed, and it occurred to Betty, sadly, that they were probably used to it.

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said in as mild a voice as she could manage. ‘It’s Amy. I work for Amy. I have to follow her rules.’

  ‘You do not work for Amy,’ said Dom, darkly, ‘you work for me. Who do you think pays your wages?’

  ‘Amy...?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, really, you think so? And tell me, when was the last time Mighty sold a million records, eh? When was the last time Mighty sold out a stadium tour? You think Amy Metz paid for this place?’ He gestured around the room. ‘You think Amy Metz is paying to get her hair dyed, as we speak? You think she pays for anything?’

  Betty shrugged and stroked the baby’s hair. ‘I never really thought about it.’

  ‘Well, there you go.’ He pushed his half-eaten plate of food away childishly. ‘Think about it for just one moment, and you’ll see that I pay your wages and therefore you work for me.’

  Betty gulped. She could feel tears rising up through her body and she swallowed them down painfully.

  Dom sighed dramatically and put a hand on Donny’s head. ‘But,’ he began, ‘if Mummy says you can’t go out and play football with Daddy then I suppose we’ll just have to do what Mummy says.’

  ‘No!’ screamed Donovan. ‘No! I want to play football!’

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ said Dom, casting a meaningful glance in Betty’s direction. ‘The women don’t want us to, and us poor blokes have to do what the women say. Otherwise we get our willies chopped off.’

  Donovan stopped crying for a minute and stared at Dom, aghast. ‘Really?’

  ‘No,’ said Betty, ‘of course not. But Mummy wants you in the car when she gets back and so football will have to wait for another day.’

  ‘No!’ he screamed again. ‘No! Now! Football now!’

  Dom kissed Donny on his head and gave Betty another dark look. ‘I think I’d better leave,’ he said.

  Betty grimaced at him. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you just play football in the garden?’ She looked through the sliding glass doors to the sixty-foot lawn with half-size football goal beyond.

  ‘No!’ shouted Donny. ‘I want to play in the park. With Daddy.’

  Dom simply raised an eyebrow at Betty and got to his feet. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said to Donny. ‘Fun’s over. I’ll see you soon, yeah.’ He kissed him on the mouth. ‘And you, girls, love you all.’ He kissed Acacia and then he leaned in towards Betty to kiss the baby, and she reeled at the smell of his vaporous breath, the stale cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes and a blob of egg yolk in the corner of his mouth drying to a crust.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, a few things to sort out, you know. Gotta find Gav. Gotta get a kip. I’ll see you soon, yeah?’

  She nodded mutely, while Donovan sobbed quietly behind her.

  She watched Dom unpeel Donovan from his leg at the front door and squeeze it closed behind him, almost trapping his son’s fingers as he did so.

  Betty turned back to the kitchen. The room was in chaos: cracked eggshells littered the work surface, the oily frying pan was still on the hob, there were crumbs of burned toast everywhere, and Acacia, still without a nappy, had at some point, without anyone even noticing, done a poo on the floor.

  Donovan ran back into the kitchen, his face puce with fury, tears coursing down his cheeks and screamed at Betty, ‘Why didn’t you let Daddy take me to the park? I hate you!’ before stamping up the stairs and slamming his bedroom door behind him.

  Betty brought the baby close to her face and kissed her scalp tenderly. ‘Naughty Daddy,’ she whispered softly in her ear. ‘What a naughty, naughty Daddy.’

  And then she put the baby down, pushed up her sleeves, and set about hosing down the kitchen.

  47

  1920

  FOR HER WEDDING Arlette wore black. Minu was her maid of honour and Gideon’s brother Toby was the best man. They married at Chelsea Town Hall during a torrential downpour that marked the end of the mellow early days of autumn, and arrived for a sombre lunch at a Chelsea café like a band of drowned rats. Arlette and Gideon were toasted with tumblers of warm whisky and they ate gristly lamp chops with cold mashed potatoes, which Arlette promptly threw up in the gutter when they left the restaurant an hour later.

  Gideon offered to carry Arlette over the threshold of his cottage but she told him not to be a fool and stamped into the house crossly, drank another tumbler of Scotch and went straight to bed.

  When she awoke the following morning, she experienced, as she had every morning since the awful night of her twenty-second birthday, a brief moment of forgetfulness, of feeling how she used to feel, of being the Arlette who had a stellar career in ladies’ fashion, who lived in cosy Bloomsbury lodgings with her best friend, who loved a man called Godfrey Pickle and would one day have his babies.

  And then, as her eyes slowly opened, so too would her memory. And then her stomach would convulse and a sob would rise up through her, and she’d have to clutch herself to stop herself screaming out loud at the horror of it all.

  Her doctor had offered her the services of a ‘good woman’ in Russell Square, but Arlette had shaken her head forcefully.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no. I could not do that. It is a baby. It needs me.’

  He had nodded once and said, ‘And I feel sure you will provide well for it. You seem to be a fine and very mature young woman.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed primly. ‘I am.’

  She could hear Gideon, now, rattling around in the kitchen. She stared at the wall, blindly, brushing away a single tear from her nose. A moment later there was a soft knock at the door.

  ‘Come,’ she said.

  Gideon stood in the doorway, dressed and clean, holding a tray.

  ‘I have brought you ginger tea,’ he said. ‘I have been told it is very soothing for morning sickness. And some unbuttered toast. Will you be going to work today?’

  Arlette nodded and sat up in her bed. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I shall work until I feel I am no longer able to do so.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, laying the tray on her bed-stand. ‘And how did you sleep?’

  ‘I slept wel
l, thank you,’ she replied.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said, standing slightly awkwardly above her bed with his hands in his jacket pockets.

  They were silent for a moment, until Gideon cleared his throat and said, ‘Well, I shall leave you to get ready. I have lit a fire downstairs so there is plenty of hot water. If you need me for anything, I shall be upstairs in my studio.’

  ‘Thank you, I’m sure I shall be fine.’

  Gideon smiled tightly and turned to leave. But halfway to the door he stopped and turned back. ‘Your name,’ he began nervously, ‘will you be Mrs Worsley?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I will be Mrs De La Mare. I should not wish to replace my father’s surname with any man’s name, least of all yours.’

  Gideon looked injured, but then rallied and said, ‘But the baby ...?’

  ‘The baby shall have your name.’

  He smiled then and left the room, closing the door quietly behind himself.

  48

  1995

  JOHN BRIGHTLY WAS not on his stand when Betty got back to Berwick Street at twelve thirty. A man was holding an Ultravox picture disc in his hand and looking anxiously up and down the street. He looked at Betty as she stopped to take out her front door key and said, ‘Excuse me, do you work here?’

  She smiled. ‘No,’ she said, ‘sorry.’

  ‘Oh.’ The man looked disappointed. ‘Right. It’s just, I’ve been stood here for about ten minutes now, wanting to buy this single, but there’s no one here.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s strange. I know the guy who runs this stand and he never leaves it unattended.’

  ‘Right,’ said the man, distractedly. ‘It says five pounds on the label. Can I just give you the money? And you can give it to him when he comes back?’

  Betty stifled a smile. The man seemed oddly anxious to buy an Ultravox picture disc. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted to do with it. ‘Er, yeah, sure,’ she said.