by Judy Astley
‘Or so we can just have rows without feeling guilty about them overhearing us?’ she’d countered wryly.
‘We won’t need to row, will we? Nothing to row about now that we’ve decided we don’t live together any more,’ he’d replied jovially. ‘All that’s in the past. We’ll probably get on really well now.’ How cheerful he’d sounded about it, as if this state of friendly separation, all the twenty years they’d been together, had been exactly what he’d been most looking forward to.
But although she and Joe were in the past, the girls weren’t. You can’t, Nina thought as the traffic crawled over Putney Bridge, you can’t just have ‘a nice clean break’, as Joe had put it, when there were people involved who simply could not be broken from. She’d always thought that was a strange phrase anyway. Even with bones, a clean break meant just as many months of pain and difficulty as an untidy one.
Nina could see Joe arriving from the end of the street while she waited for a parking space to be vacated by a harassed woman loading a toddler into a Renault Espace. Joe was loping along as if he was walking for the fun of it, absorbed in his own thoughts and going nowhere in particular. He had a very loose way of walking, she’d always thought, like a lazily wandering lion. His legs were simply too long for staccato hurrying, so even when he was in a genuine rush he would give an irritating impression of leisurely pace. He was dressed in a smarter version of Henry-comfort, monochrome relaxed chic – white T-shirt (probably new, he bought at least four a month, unable to pass The Gap), loosely crumpled black jacket. His reddish-brown hair was, unlike Henry’s, so expensively cut that it wouldn’t dare think of being indecisive about which way it lay. He’d once said the secret of eternal youth was in a good haircut. And of course he’d got Catherine to bestow her mere twenty-nine years on him. Outside the restaurant Nina saw him stop abruptly as if the sight of its blue and white awning had suddenly reminded him why he was there, in that street at that time. What was he thinking so deeply about? she wondered as she backed her Polo, at last, into the parking space.
Graham sat in the weak sunshine on the steps of the Accident and Emergency department, neatly peeled the foil from the strip of gum and folded it carefully into his mouth. Three folds. Then he folded the silver foil (four folds) and tucked it into the top pocket of his shirt. He looked down and could just see it showing through, a little grubby greyish square outline against the white poly-cotton. He frowned. He didn’t like the look of it but there was nowhere else for it to go. He couldn’t put it in his trouser pocket in case of fluff. Though there wasn’t likely to be fluff, he knew that. Mother always turned the pockets completely inside out before anything went to the cleaners. Clothes went into the washing machine with their pockets pulled right out too so nothing was ever lost, but nothing was ever hidden. Her hankies and stockings were washed inside one pillowcase and his underwear and socks in another one. She never lost socks like some people did. Nina, last time she’d come round to visit, had watched Mother pairing his up for putting away and had joked that her tumble dryer always seemed to eat them. She’d said there must be a secret place in every house where all the biros disappear to, and odd socks. ‘Not in my house there isn’t,’ Mother had said, but she’d been smiling and he knew that was because she enjoyed Nina admitting there were things she couldn’t do quite as well as Mother.
Behind Graham the swing door opened. ‘Wheelchair, cubicle three, straight up to X-ray,’ a crisp voice ordered. There was a flash of white hat, and swish of dark blue skirt and the door banged shut again. ‘No please, no thank you, no manners,’ Graham muttered to himself. If he spoke like that at home, well it just wouldn’t be on, wasn’t something you thought of doing. But here, here it was jump whenever anyone ordered it, sometimes even bloody jump, and you just did it as if you didn’t deserve manners.
He rose slowly to his feet, took the gum from his mouth, rolled it between his clean plump fingers into a perfect ball and wrapped it in the silver foil. This time it could go into his pocket because it was on its way to the bin, but he’d be careful not to forget and leave it there for Mother to find. Chewing gum, she always said, was a disgusting habit and tied your guts in knots. If it did, Graham thought as he went back into the bustling A & E with its smells of terror, blood and disinfectant, why didn’t they see more cases in here? There should be ambulances full of kids clutching their stomachs, faces grey with pain and eyes wild. They should be squashed together on the shabby wipe-clean benches, groaning and pleading to be untangled inside as if they’d swallowed knitting with the needles still attached. He shook his head slowly as if settling his thoughts and made his way to cubicle three. There sat a plump old lady, with a badly cut and bruised leg, sausage curled sparse hair ashy grey just like Mother’s. She wore a big pink knitted cardigan, patterned with holes and ribbons like a vast baby’s jacket and clutched an old-fashioned string shopping bag bulging with onions. Graham smiled at her. He liked old people, most of them had manners. ‘Hello then love, been in the wars?’ he asked, gently unbraking the chair and mentally promising her a smooth ride to X-ray.
‘I like the outfit, that colour’s exactly your eyes,’ Joe commented admiringly as he and Nina arranged themselves at their table.
‘Thanks,’ Nina replied simply, smiling at him. She accepted a menu from the waiter and looked around. She felt strangely as if her real self was over by the window, watching the scene. She observed herself being self-controlled, not clumsily lobbing back the compliment with an ‘Oh this old thing?’ type of remark, or getting defensive and lying that it was in a sale, less than half-price. Those were things she might have said during the married time. She knew better now. And of course now it was none of his business. Other things were none of his business too, like the answer to the question she always imagined hanging unspoken from him to her: ‘Have you met anyone?’ If he asked she’d have to give him the quiet triumph of hearing her say no. She’d say she wasn’t looking and he wouldn’t believe her. He’d never believe someone wasn’t looking for sex. That he should perhaps have not been, during their marriage, had been more than a small problem.
‘Drink? Spritzer as usual?’ Joe asked.
‘Thanks, yes I’d love one, but just one. I brought the car.’
‘You always do. I can’t think why. You’ve still got the minicab account if you want it. I sometimes wonder if you bring it to make sure you keep utterly sober,’ he teased. ‘That Polo is your minder.’
‘You know I hate drinking at lunchtime. If I do, it means the day’s over, for me. I might as well just go straight to bed.’
He grinned, looking wolfish. ‘Hmm, now that I do remember.’ Then he quickly rearranged his face to more suitable post-separation seriousness and ordered drinks. Nina felt awkward, and then cross. How could her ex-husband even begin to imagine she’d find suggestive remarks amusing? Perhaps he had some warped idea that she’d be grateful; that a discarded wife could do with the charity of the odd thrown-out sexy comment. Or perhaps he meant nothing at all, she reminded herself. Joe had never been a great one for deep thought before he spoke – it was part of the general flippancy that went with the advertising business. And from him, a composer of jingles that stayed annoyingly in the head, words weren’t even required for work. He’d always been the first to claim it just didn’t matter what rubbish he talked as long as the tune fitted.
‘This is such a pretty place,’ she said, resorting to commonplace observation, looking around and admiring the strong Mediterranean colours, solid bold blues, acid-free yellow. ‘It’s got the kind of freshness that makes you feel you can hardly wait for summer to come.’
‘It was always your favourite time, wasn’t it?’ Joe said, leaning back in his chair and grinning at her over the top of the menu.
‘It still is,’ she replied rather crisply. ‘I haven’t suddenly taken to wallowing in gloomy winter just because you’re not around, you know.’
Joe held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘OK, OK! Sorry, I didn’t m
ean anything sinister. Anyway I’m glad you like it here, I thought you would. What do you fancy to eat?’
Nina studied the menu and chose quickly, allowing herself time to think about the when and who with aspects of Joe having visited the restaurant before. Horrendously, the part of her that was still somehow disconnected heard her say, and tried uselessly to stop her saying, ‘Have you been here with Catherine?’ Joe was concentrating hard on the menu.
‘Huh? Oh yeah. And some people from Channel 4. It was Catherine’s idea actually, bringing you here. She just mentioned on the way home that you’d probably like it.’ He sounded casual enough but she noticed he didn’t actually risk looking up and meeting her gaze.
Nina felt her skin chilling. How wonderfully clever of Catherine, who’d only met her briefly and twice to know just what she, Nina, would like. She also felt the envy elves gather inside her and present a little scene to her unwilling brain. It was of Joe, arm round pin-thin Catherine (colt-legs, plainly elegant clothes but peculiarly prissy jewellery), a wet night, yelling goodbye to friends under the blue and white awning, bundling each other into a taxi and dashing home eagerly to . . . to fuck.
‘I think I’ll start with the salmon crêpe,’ she said brightly. ‘What about you?’ There was a tomato tart on the list; she crossed her fingers under the table and silently bet herself that he’d choose that. He always chose something with tomatoes, if only so he could complain about the indigestible qualities of the skin. She’d accused him of ‘enjoying’ the delicate health of a swooning Victorian, the day he’d sat shivering by a radiator in his ski jacket, claiming his fifth bout of flu that winter and berating her for lack of sympathy.
‘Well if they’ve peeled them . . .’ he muttered, patting his stomach. Nina giggled delightedly and he looked up. ‘Oh I know, ever predictable,’ he agreed. ‘The tomato and olive tart. Then the lamb. Now, tell me about the girls. What are they up to?’
‘Well, seeing as you only had them last weekend, you can probably tell me more about them than I can tell you,’ Nina said. ‘Not much has happened, really. Lucy modelled a dreadful polyester selection in a fashion show in the Morley Centre on Monday afternoon. Apart from that, not a lot. Emily’s working quite hard. At least she’s in her room a lot, which I’m supposed to assume is the same thing.’
Joe frowned. ‘Did Luce take time out of school? You know I think she shouldn’t. She’s coming up for eleven, changing schools soon, it’s not an easy time for her.’
Nina sighed. They’d been having this one out for the last couple of years. Their differing opinions over Lucy’s highly successful career as a child-model had been one of the first serious fissures in their marriage. He said she was just a pushy stage mother, forcing her daughter to fulfil her own lost ambitions, whereas she claimed it gave Lucy confidence and a useful nest-egg for later. ‘She only missed the last hour or so, and it was only games.’ Nina bit her lip, which made him grin knowingly, identifying her guilt. ‘I told them she’d got a tap exam,’ she confessed.
‘Good God, and they thought that was OK, where mincing down a catwalk with a bunch of underage crumpet wouldn’t be?’ He shook his head.
‘Well yes they did, actually,’ Nina admitted. ‘It’s that trigger-word “exam”, isn’t it? Even with dancing the school likes to think the kids are notching up points for the old CV. They’d probably give her an afternoon off even if she was going off to do a test in shoe-lacing, so long as there was a certificate to show.’ She wanted to tell him that the afternoon had actually been a disaster, that Lucy had fallen off the catwalk and put her foot through a silk lace wedding veil. She could tell it in a way that would have had him choking with laughter – but only if it was someone else’s daughter, and only then if they were safely well over the legal marrying age. But she knew he’d only be furious that his daughter had been parading about in public dressed as a child bride. She’d felt horribly uneasy about it herself; it was somehow far sleazier than swimwear and underwear, which she’d agreed with Joe Lucy was not allowed to model. ‘Just a cute novelty finale for the kiddies’ fashion show,’ the organizer had gushed. She’d check the schedule more carefully next time, if there was one – child modelling was a fickle business. However beautiful and confident Lucy was, there was always the choice of another who could be relied on not to fall off the stage.
Joe laughed, ‘Pity there aren’t A-levels in plane-spotting. Your brother would qualify for Cambridge. How is he, by the way? Still with your mum?’
Nina shrugged and smiled. ‘I don’t know why you even ask. He’ll be there for ever, you know as well as I do. So long as she’s willing to do his cooking and cleaning and washing and ironing, neither of them sees any reason to change things.’
‘But suppose he met someone . . .’
‘He won’t,’ Nina interrupted, laughing. ‘He’s comfortable. He and Mother are two of a kind. Just like small children they want every day to be the same, no surprises, no challenges. They haven’t even got round to semi-skimmed milk yet. They’ve still got a phone with a dial.’
‘Not a bit like you,’ Joe said.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she told him. ‘Now I’m on my own I’m beginning to feel there’s a satisfying security in knowing what’s coming. And what’s not.’ She glanced up at him, wishing as she said it that she wasn’t going to say I think I’ve had as many surprises as I can cope with for a while.
‘How’s old Henry? Still cadging our lawnmower?’ Joe asked. ‘He always fancied you. I expect that’s why he never liked me.’
‘Our lawnmower?’
‘OK, yours.’
‘Actually Joe, Henry didn’t like you because you were a lousy cheating womanizer and you made me cry. He doesn’t like to see his neighbours weeping over the weeding.’
‘Just like I said, he fancied you.’ He grinned comfortably.
‘Not so much of the past tense.’ Nina glowered at him.
Joe, thankfully, was distracted by the arrival of food. ‘Too much to hope that this puff pastry is made with butter,’ he was murmuring as he inspected the tomatoes for lurking skin.
‘Well mine looks wonderful. I don’t care what it’s made of, I’m just glad I didn’t have to do it,’ Nina said, suddenly feeling frantically hungry. ‘How’ve you been anyway? Still love’s young dream with Catherine?’
Joe frowned and put his fork down.
‘Tomato skin?’ she queried.
‘Babies,’ he said, looking thoughtful. ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t mention this. I promised Catherine. She wants it just between us.’
Nina felt tense. ‘Better not mention it then,’ she advised, her hunger evaporating and being replaced by reluctant but craven curiosity. There was still the main course to go, so they’d better stick to talking about their own children if she was to do justice to the menu. But she was only human: if he now refused to elaborate and changed the subject to holiday plans she’d never forgive him.
‘Sorry,’ he said, picking up his fork again. ‘No it’s nothing, really. It’s just Catherine . . .’
‘Look, Joe, I’m sorry, but you really can’t expect me to want to come out and discuss your new home life. There are people you can pay for that. Or there’s blokes in the pub.’ Now he’d tell her.
‘No. No you’re right.’ He sipped his wine, then finished the glass with one determined glug and gestured to the waiter. ‘She makes me nervous, that’s all. She mentions babies sometimes. Quite often, actually. I mean, God, we’ve only been together a few months.’
That was something, Nina conceded privately; at least Catherine wasn’t the cause of their marriage ending. If Other Women had been part of the reason, at least it hadn’t been one particular Other Woman. In fact the saintly Catherine, super-accountant, super-body, super bloody everything, wouldn’t slip from her pedestal of perfection to be an ordinary adulterous marriage-wrecker. Nothing would ever be her fault. There was nothing of the mistress about Catherine, from what Nina could gather, unless it was m
istress of her own fate. And now possibly of Joe’s.
‘So what’s she been doing – dragging you into Mothercare when you’d rather go to Conran?’ she gave in and asked. He was clearly going to tell her what was going on, she just wished he’d hurry up. He shrugged, as if it was enough to have dropped the hints and he could now leave her wondering. Slowly and irritatingly he ate the last of his pastry.
‘You shouldn’t be too surprised, you know; she’s probably thinking she’s getting to that age, that body-clock age. Though, God knows, she isn’t anywhere near it. She’s probably just hearing a louder tick than she used to.’ Nina smiled and added with the pleasing glow of callousness, ‘Get her a kitten.’
Joe fidgeted with the tablecloth. ‘I’ve done babies.’ He leaned forward, looking at her intently and saying in barely more than a whisper, ‘I’ve done babies, that’s the thing I did with you. Babies were us.’
Chapter Three
‘He made it sound like a shop,’ Nina was telling Sally. ‘“Babies were us.” As soon as he said it I pictured the “r” the wrong way round and lots of multicoloured jolly lettering.’
Sally giggled, her ample thighs wobbling dangerously on the delicate little gold-painted chair. She couldn’t be comfortable, she overhung by a good fleshy bit. Her feet, in elegant black suede slippers which rivalled the chair for fragility, were planted solidly apart for balance. Nina wondered if she should tactfully suggest she sat somewhere else. The purple velvet chaise-lounge, still on sale or return after eight months, would be ideal. The pair of pretty chairs were part of their gallery’s stock, and like many of the items were quite definitely more about ornament than function.
