by Georgie Hall
‘We can’t stop,’ Jules apologises when she gets out, hooking my forgotten handbag over my neck and shouting, ‘Just a leg stretch!’ as the girls race into the house with Summer and Ed.
‘Forgive me not getting out!’ Reece waves from the passenger seat, Alto’s Adventure glowing on his phone screen. ‘Just sending some urgent messages!’
Jules starts telling me in an undertone about Dad’s can’t-take-it-with-you speech. ‘He was squiffy, which didn’t help. It was mostly the usual King Lear stuff about coffers, chattels and inheritance tax. Only this time The Tempest was mentioned.’
My pulses jolt.
‘The boat?’ I clarify carefully.
‘Miles thinks that Italian restaurateur, Matteo, might want to buy her. They’re supposed to be meeting up to take her out soon.’
My blood pressure is pumping bars.
‘General opinion seems to be there’s no point keeping her for Paddy to polish at weekends when Mum and Dad hardly ever go out in her any more.’
I want to rage that Paddy does more than polish her, but Joe’s alongside now, hooking an arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t stress, Mum. Letting go of the past can be therapeutic.’
‘That boat means everything to your father. Did you argue?’ I demand.
‘It’s not really my place, Mum.’
I bite my lip hard. He’s right. His grandparents can do what they like with her. I’m just being a materialistic shrew.
Jules pats my shoulder. ‘Thought it best you knew. I’ll round up the girls!’ She heads for the house.
‘You OK, Mum?’
I’m chewing imaginary wasps with the effort of holding back a tirade about The Tempest. It’s not Joe’s problem. Added to which, New Neighbour is still watching us, hip baby swaying, reminding me of the time I carried Joe there, that solidly warm weight of early motherhood. How can it be twenty years ago?
‘Fine! I’m absolutely fine!’ MILES WANTS TO SELL THE BOAT, ARRGHHH. PADDY WILL FREAK.
He gives me a sideways smile. ‘Can you talk to Summer about Kwasi maybe? It’s a big deal for her?’
‘It’s a big crush.’
‘A bit more than that?’
The driveway sways. ‘Please don’t tell me they’re having sex?’
‘I doubt it.’
I close my eyes. Now this.
‘He’s a cool guy, Kwasi,’ Joe is saying. ‘Swears like a drain, but clever and kind. He would never do anything to hurt her, I’m sure of it.’
‘He’s a member of school staff.’
‘Talk to Summer? She thinks she knows it all, but she needs you, Mum. And don’t say anything to Dad. He’ll just be old-fashioned and irrational? Summer has thin skin right now, and Dad’s in a major black mood if yesterday’s FaceTime was anything to go by?’
‘He felt bad that he wouldn’t see you today,’ I remind him, anxious needles in my temples at the thought of how much darker that mood will be soon.
‘At least he was spared Uncle Miles’s singing,’ he grins back. Then from nowhere, he says, ‘Mum, I think he might be depressed.’
And as he goes into the house I straighten in shock because of course it makes sense.
*
Mental health issues run in our family. They do in everyone’s, of course, in the same way that we’re all on Edward’s colourful spectrum, it’s just some of us are in the shade longer than others. When Joe suffered his bad bout of depression as a teenager, cognitive therapy, talking and time helped enormously, and he is now refreshingly open about it. Not so his father.
Paddy had some very dark days in the year after Eddie’s death. He refused any sort of help, or even to acknowledge it was happening, and being shut out completely was almost unbearable at times, as was trying to keep the family ship together.
Those were months fraught with worry, mistrust and rejection; it became like living with a stranger. When the clouds finally lifted, I was too grateful to probe. I do know it wasn’t his first depressive episode. (I only learned about it afterwards, and not from him. It happened in London before we met, in the early nineties, when he was living with the old schoolmate who later became his business partner; he’s the one who let it slip.)
Seeing it first-hand is quite another thing, the sheer impenetrability of a deep depression, of despair’s black rockface.
Meeting Paddy – now or quarter of a century ago – I defy anyone who doesn’t know him to imagine his demons. He’s the man you want in a crisis, the survivalist hero who saves the day with an easy smile. All those years ago, to my twenty-something self, Paddy Hollander was the strongest-minded man I’d ever met, my sanity. He still is.
To see him depressed is like seeing him bleeding out and knowing there’s nothing I can do to stem the flow.
I’ve been so obsessed with my own hormone-depleted anxieties lately, I haven’t stopped to consider how he’s doing, how he’s coping with a wife who can’t sleep or feel desire or sit still or stay cool, with a career that’s stalled again, with our children flying the nest.
He can’t fall down the hole again. He just can’t.
*
Jules has re-emerged from the house, knees buckling, with her chin steadying two boxes of books Summer’s donated to her cousins. She sends Joe in to grab a bin bag of outgrown clothes. ‘Tell the girls to come out too! We have to go!’
When we transfer the boxes to Jules’s car boot, I spot a collection of familiar things from the cottage already in there: two oil paintings, the antique bronze stag we used to call Bambi, the Wedgewood fish platter and our maternal grandmother’s Georgian silverware. I make no comment. Given how generous Mum and Dad have been to me over the years, it would be churlish to kick up a fuss about the way Jules treats each visit like a bric-a-brac rummage, happy to encourage Dad’s premature estate dispersal.
‘They won’t really sell The Tempest, will they?’ I ask.
‘Miles was pretty persuasive.’
‘But Mum and Dad know how much she means to Paddy.’ If Paddy is depressed, this is the last thing he needs. Almost as awful, I can clearly hear myself saying to Miles earlier: That bloody narrowboat! Sometimes I wish I’d never set eyes on her. And him saying I feel your pain.
Is this my fault?
Jules lifts the family eyebrow. ‘Miles has a stake in The Tempest, don’t forget.’
I say nothing, feeling stupid because although I remember some sort of trust being drawn up when Mum and Dad bought her, I was too relieved to take much notice of the legal side.
I’m trying not to panic. ‘Why can’t he just leave things as they are?’
‘Possibly my fault.’ Jules pulls an apologetic face. ‘This divorce of his will be bloody costly, so I suggested he turn as many assets as possible liquid, then the cash can disappear to reduce a settlement claim.’
‘You advised him to do this?’
‘I didn’t know The Tempest is in an absolute trust until today.’
‘I have no idea what that means.’
‘It means that he can sell her to recoup his share. You signed the papers, Elz. Did you actually read them?’
My idiocy has bells on, roller skates and a megaphone. Paddy will be devastated, and it’s all my fault.
‘Why not buy her back?’ she asks with the glibness of somebody for whom this would be no more financially challenging than an M&S food shop. My sister has never been told the full story of why Mum and Dad bought The Tempest; I’m not sure how much Miles knows either.
*
Ruth Hollander blamed her husband’s narrowboat for his heart attack, insisting Paddy must take Lady Love away from Shropshire straight after the funeral to do with as he wanted as long as she remained out of her sight.
I don’t think he let himself grieve until that long, solitary trip navigating the canals between his childhood home and Leamington, then he found he couldn’t stop. For months, he’d drive to the mooring and just sit in her, listening to music, whole days passing. He couldn’t talk about how h
e was feeling at all. His work started suffering, orders massively overdue for custom-made kitchens, the finish sloppy. It was heartbreaking.
Paddy still blames himself for the business going under, but there was more to it than that. The recession had a huge effect, then his silent partner wanted his investment back. I took every job I could, but it wasn’t enough. We missed four mortgage payments. Five and we were out.
That’s when Mum and Dad stepped in. The money they paid for the narrowboat bought us much-needed time to get back on our feet again. To this day, Paddy thinks they came up with the idea themselves. I made them promise to play it like that, to say that they had always wanted a canal barge and they were emphatic that Paddy must do nothing different after the transfer of ownership, that she was his in all but name.
Then they changed her name. The Tempest. (A joke entirely on me, their Miranda who married for love. You may deny me, but I’ll be your servant, Whether you will or no. Held to ransom.)
Now a storm is well and truly brewing.
*
‘Miles won’t go through with it,’ Jules reassures me in her dispassionate legal voice accustomed to breaking it to rich wives that they’re losing the second home in France. ‘He probably just wants a jolly day out on the boat with a handsome Italian.’
‘You know the real reason behind all this, don’t you?’ I fume. ‘He wants to have a go at Paddy.’
‘Because he’s dropped him as a friend?’
‘He has not!’ I hiss. ‘It was Miles who ghosted him. It’s typical of him to discard old allies and ride roughshod over the things that matter most to them. He’s been like it since childhood. I should know. Jaime Sommer lost both legs because of him.’
‘Good God! Who’s Jamie? Was this recently?’
‘Miles can’t be allowed to sell a piece of family history down the river, Jules!’
‘Please don’t get upset,’ she shushes me. ‘I appreciate it’s tricky timing with your marriage in such a bad place—’
‘IT’S NOT!’ I shrill, then hiss, ‘What is it with you all thinking that? Mum said it too.’
‘You’re going through menopause, Elz. Every marriage feels like hell on earth. Plus, I was in the larder with you and Miles earlier, don’t forget.’
And now I want to cry because she’s right; Paddy’s not the only one lamenting our marriage right now.
‘An American study recently found that two-thirds of all divorces initiated by women are by those in their menopause years,’ Jules tells me wisely. ‘We finally want to break free from domesticity, drudgery, breeding and being taken for bloody granted. Meanwhile all our middle-aged husbands want – and expect – is regular food and sex. Without these on a plate, some become greedy wankers.’ She glances over her shoulder at Reece in the car, tapping on his phone screen. ‘I’m worried for you, Elz. It’s lack of communication that tests marriages most through menopause and forgive me, but Paddy makes semaphore look wordy.’
‘We have talked about what’s happening to me.’ (Me shouting mostly. Quite often in tears. Especially during the Dog Fight.)
‘Some men can’t handle it. I see it with older divorcing clients all too often: the resentment, the demonising, the self-justified infidelities.’ She glares over her shoulder again. ‘After his wife’s pregnancies and early motherhood, her menopause is the point in a marriage her husband is most likely to seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere.’
I feel like I’m about to throw up. ‘You don’t think Paddy could be having an affair, do you?’
‘Gosh no! Not Paddy.’
‘Because if he is, if he risked everything we have to shoot his load into another woman, if he did that to his children, to me, I’d kill him with my bare hands!’ For a moment everything tunnels and spins in a vortex of mania, and then it clears.
Jules puts a supportive hand on my arm. ‘Statistically women are more likely to commit murder or kill themselves during menopause than at any other time in life.’
Without warning I’m enclosed in a sisterly hug that smells of Jo Malone London Orange Blossom and willpower. ‘I’m always here if you need me, Elz.’
I’m in shock. It’s the first time Jules has spontaneously hugged me since Bucks Fizz won the Eurovision. ‘We’ll get through this, kid,’ she whispers. We’re both uncomfortably hot and thick-waisted, and I’m wearing a crossover handbag with large fashion studs so it’s a bit like being trapped in an iron maiden, but it nevertheless feels good. She releases her grip and pats me down vigorously, like an airport check. ‘That feels better, yes?’
‘Thanks.’ I nod, stunned.
‘We must go.’ She looks at her watch and shouts, ‘GIRLS!’
They’ve been trying on Summer’s unwanted clothes: Ottilie is in a crop top that says Sorry Not Sorry!, Vervain in baggy camo combats looks like she’s been radicalised by Sporty Spice, and Joe’s gender-bending in ridiculously tight rainbow trousers that look very Mick Jagger. Even Ed’s posing long-sufferingly with a pom-pom-fringed cowboy hat.
‘What would you give to have that again?’ Jules sighs. ‘That spontaneity?’ Dewy-eyed, she heads to the car.
Joe offers me a farewell bear hug. I hug him back tighter than ever because I’ll miss my wise sage unbearably. Ed’s already disappeared back inside, cowboy hat left on the door knocker. Summer’s also racing to the house, mobile aloft, talking to someone on a video call.
‘She wants to catch the first England match in the Women’s World Cup,’ Joe tells me. ‘You are invited to join her for the second half.’
‘Why not the first half?’
‘Ed’s running you a bath. Something about an Act of Kindness? He thinks you’re stressed. And that you smell,’ he deadpans, then grins.
‘God, but he’s good; you all are. I’ll try to talk to Summer about Kwasi,’ I promise, ‘and I’ll look after your dad too,’ I add, eager to absolve myself of the death threats, compassion crashing around in their wake at the thought of Paddy being sad with life.
‘Yeah, pass on my love to the grumpy old man.’ He grins, which I think’s a bit unsympathetic in the circumstances. ‘And please watch Uncle Miles’s back, yeah?’
I feel my smile get stickier.
‘Seriously, Mum.’ Joe makes a love heart with his hands then presses them together in namaste. ‘Attention-seeking is a classic signaller for low self-esteem. He’s masking it, but it’s there.’
As he lopes off, I realise my mistake.
It’s not Paddy that Joe thinks might be depressed. It’s his uncle, the all-singing, all-dancing, barge-thieving marriage-lamenter, Miles Finch.
13
Tea Time
Iused to think I could intuitively read people, that I possessed a unique actor’s insight into the psyche which enriched my ‘nothing is wasted’ emotional range and made me a good listener. I was wrong; I’m no better than anyone else at seeing past the surface on which we project our own imaginations. Hence, I see my brother as perpetually playful and scampish, instead of the complicated character he is. And I see Jules as shiny and invincible, not fissured with cracks through which she screams when she cooks or runs from on her garage treadmill. Equally, I attribute all sorts of complicated and conflicting maelstroms of emotion to Paddy beneath that taciturn exterior, but perhaps, like my sister says, a husband’s main desires are as simple as food and sex?
As for my children, I have to continually remind myself that I thought I had all the answers when I was their age too, but now I’ve gained the wisdom to know that I don’t, it’s best not to ask anyone under twenty too many direct questions – especially when talking about relationships (or ‘ships’ as Summer calls them).
*
The bath was a stroke of genius. I am soothed, my head cleared of emotional rubble thanks to the podcast Ed set up for me; Mighty Marvel Geeks is perhaps more his bag than mine, but helpfully distracting.
I find Summer’s lined up the spare lemon drizzle cake to share when I join her to watch England vs Scotland
and I guzzle two slices as I plan my mentalist mother moves to broach the subject of Kwasi Owusu.
The trouble is, Summer’s on her phone non-stop. Every time I try to say anything – ‘that was a good move’, ‘more cake?’, ‘do you want to talk?’ – she ignores me, so I up my game by planting subconscious references to art and photography. ‘I wonder if anyone’s done a digital art installation about football for their A level?’ She snorts with laughter at one of the comments on her feed and likes it.
‘I thought you wanted to watch this together?’ I grumble.
‘I am watching. And commenting.’ She glances up at the big screen. ‘You missed a sick first half. They’re playing safe now.’
I’m not a football watcher normally. There’s a hundred other more useful things I could be doing on a sunny evening and I long to be walking Arty by the river so that I can think through how to broach the boat fiasco with Paddy later.
‘Go England!’ I cheer as our plucky girls rebuff Scotland’s valiant attempts to turn the tide. Then ‘Go Scotland!’ because Granny Finch was born there.
‘You are so on the fence?’ Summer takes a selfie of us together in which she looks gorgeous and I have three chins and redeye.
Briefly in possession of her attention, I pass on a subliminal hint: ‘I think it’s best to keep an open mind, don’t you? I prefer to see both sides in football, as I do in love.’
She adds lion filters on the photo of us, labelling it Go Lionesses! before firing it into the ether to gather hearts. ‘I didn’t know you were such a girl footie fan, Mum?’
It’s certainly a different experience to watching men’s international matches with Paddy – the only football I usually ever see. The game on screen today is much less aggressive, the camaraderie magnificent, the Essex facelifts equally so. But I’m much more of a tennis fan. I like my sport like I like my sex as the old joke goes: one on one with no dribbling.
As a competitive Finch I know I should embrace team sports. I love camaraderie and cooperation, but I don’t like rules. Or balls. Or communal showers.
