by Beth Morrey
Leo’s study. The door was already ajar. How dare she barge into my house and take stock like this? But as I opened my mouth to berate her she turned and her face was so transfixed with wonder it brought me up short.
‘Oh, Millicent,’ she breathed. ‘This is fabulous.’ She was stroking Leo’s John Milton reverently. ‘It’s a treasure trove. Look!’
‘It’s my husband’s,’ I said, taking it off her and putting it back on the shelf.
‘Some collector,’ she observed, unabashed, wandering over to his still-dusty Dickens collection. ‘Is this him?’ she stopped by his desk to pick up a photo of us, taken shortly after we were married.
‘Yes.’
‘Very attractive,’ she noted, then looked at me appraisingly. ‘Both of you.’ She picked up another photo. ‘Your children? The son, who’s in Australia. What about the girl?’
‘Melanie. She lives in Cambridge.’ I resisted the urge to snatch the frame back.
‘Do you see her often?’ She’d already moved along to the historical section.
‘Not really. She’s very busy. She teaches at the University.’ Once again, Melanie, backing away in my kitchen. ‘What you did … it wasn’t wrong … You shouldn’t blame yourself …’
‘Who’s Leonard Carmichael?’ She pointed at the shelf, stacked with his books, his name again and again on the spines.
‘My husband,’ I said, my voice shaking only slightly. ‘He wrote historical biographies. Mostly political ones.’
She stood on her thin ice and looked at me without saying anything, then the kettle started to whistle and I rushed off to deal with it. When I brought the tea into the living room she was already there, rocking on her heels and gazing around with her mouth open.
‘Have you had a car boot sale or something?’ She gestured around the room.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well … It’s a bit bare, isn’t it?’
Apart from the throw and lamp I’d reclaimed the other night, there was very little in the living room other than a sofa, a stool serving as a coffee table, and the television on a stand. No rugs, no pictures on the walls, no knick-knacks of any kind. I loathed clutter. When the children were little I felt as though I were drowning in it, and gradually banished the lot, finding that the less stuff I had surrounding me, the calmer things felt. Leo didn’t care one way or the other – as long as he had his books he was happy.
‘There’s rather a lot up in the attic.’ Angela’s eyes gleamed at the thought of untold treasure, but we certainly weren’t opening that can of worms. So she drank her tea and moaned about a deadline. Then she said she’d do a feature on ‘the houses that time forgot’ and use mine as an example, as if I would consider such a vulgar thing. But as she left, running a finger along the banister and casting one last look up at the grubby chandelier above the landing, she suddenly squeezed my arm like a conspirator.
‘Listen, give me your number. It’s my day off on Friday and I’m taking Otis to the park. You should come. He’d like to see you. He hasn’t got a grandma, or at least, not one in this country.’
It was nonsense of course. Otis had barely noticed me. But my face flamed with gratification as I tapped my number into her phone.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘If the weather’s nice.’ I shut the door behind her, allowing myself a rare moment of triumph. At last, I would have something to email Alistair about.
Chapter 7
Angela wanted a babysitter. Of course she did.
On Thursday night I was sleepless with anticipation, checking the weather forecast online all day to make sure it wasn’t going to rain, planning my outfit – trousers, in case I needed to do any bending in the playground – and wondering if I should bring a picnic for Otis in case he got hungry. But I didn’t know his mother’s views on snacks, so instead I put one of Arthur’s little cars ready in my coat pocket, just in case.
When Mel was younger she became interested in amateur dramatics, and used to try out for roles in school plays. She would get hopelessly overwrought about them beforehand, storming around the house saying she couldn’t remember her lines, didn’t understand the text, hadn’t had time to prepare. I had no patience with such dramas, but Leo would indulge them, bearing her off to his study to go through her monologues. Now, tangled up in my blankets, it felt like I was about to mess up an audition.
The next morning, gritty-eyed and irritable, I slumped at my kitchen table drinking strong tea for the caffeine and catching up with the news. Today’s death was Harper Lee. Ten years older than me. Would I last another ten years? I was fit, in good health, compos mentis. But as everyone else dropped off, it felt more and more like I was outstaying my welcome. Sometimes the loneliness was overpowering. Not just the immediate loneliness of living in a huge house on my own, loved ones far away, but a more abstract, galactic isolation, like a leaking boat bobbing in open water, no anchor or land in sight. I might sink, or just float further and further out, and I wasn’t sure which was worse.
I was just wondering whether to telephone Angela and say I wasn’t well enough to go out when there was a resounding knock on the door. As I walked into the hall I could hear Angela outside: ‘Jesus, Otis, you’ll break it down at this rate.’ They were both on the doorstep, Otis dressed as the Incredible Hulk, with a witch’s hat perched incongruously above his mask. Unable to see his face, I felt a stirring of delight. It might have been Arthur under there.
‘Hello, Hulk,’ I said, twitching his hat.
A voice mumbled out from the mask, ‘I’m Bruce Banner.’
‘Hello, Bruce.’ I led them both into the kitchen, wondering if there were biscuits in the bread bin.
‘Sorry we’ve door-stepped you,’ said Angela, hustling him in. The mark on her cheek had faded to a mottled blue. ‘He was up at five-thirty and I’ve been going insane. Ooooh, Otis, say thank you!’ she added, as I handed him a slightly stale digestive.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No thanks, I’ll get my fix in the park.’
I put on my coat, checking the pockets for the car, and we set off together in the winter sunshine. Otis shambled along kicking leaves and occasionally hoiking up his costume as his mother launched into a rant about the government. I noticed Otis’s Hulk feet were trailing, picking up debris. We should roll them up for him in the playground. As Angela’s voice reached a higher pitch, I pretended Otis was Arthur, though they were quite different, really. My grandson had a rather forceful personality whereas Otis seemed more pensive. But they both had the droll, quintessential charm of little boys.
‘Anyway, it’ll be fine,’ concluded Angela, having got whatever it was off her chest. By then we’d arrived at the arboreal avenue that led up to the café, the few leaves that still clung to the branches bristling as the gentlest of castanets. The air was crisp and there was a pleasing freshness to the day, as if everything were newly minted.
Angela nodded towards the lakes. ‘I heard a rumour that the fish all died. The shock was too much for them.’
‘The electric shock?’
‘No, the shock of being in a different pond.’
She went off to get her coffee while I stood with the little one watching the park’s resident goats stump around their enclosure. After a minute or two of silence he said, ‘Goats have rectangles in their eyes.’
I looked over at the impassive mask, two dark circles regarding me solemnly from within.
‘Do they? I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes.’ He pulled me towards the fence. ‘Look!’ As the darker goat passed us and snuffled its nose against the wire, he pointed at one rolling eye. Bending and peering, I saw that the pupil was rectangular-shaped, like a horizontal slit. It looked rather alarming.
‘How extraordinary,’ I said, squeezing his hand. ‘Why is that, do you think?’
‘That mean,’ – he had such a quaint way of speaking – ‘that mean he gets hunted. The hunted animals have square eyes. The ones who hunt them a
re round.’
‘Our eyes are round,’ I noted.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That mean we are the hunters.’ He scampered off towards Angela, who was approaching with a steaming paper cup, puffing away on a cigarette.
‘You go on ahead, I’ve got to get this smoked before I can go in. Fucking shirty mums,’ she grunted.
At this time of day the playground was sparsely populated, just a few mothers chatting as their children scuttled around. Otis immediately climbed onto the trampoline, tripping over his Hulk feet and sending the witch’s hat askew. By the time Angela rejoined us I was holding the costume and Otis was jumping in his normal clothes, holding Arthur’s car.
Angela stood next to me, shivering in her leather jacket. ‘God, this is awful, isn’t it? Half the time I’m panicking he’s going to break something or get snatched by a paedophile, and the other half I’m going out of my mind with boredom. I could do with a drink, they should put a bar here or something.’
I thought it was perfectly pleasant to watch the children playing and enjoy the fresh air, but Angela was already furiously jabbing at her phone. She would periodically dash out of the playground to greet people she knew, though she seemed more interested in their dogs. Frankly, she didn’t watch Otis as well as she should have, but I suppose that was the point of inviting me. An extra pair of hunter eyes.
Every time she returned there was a new tirade. The park wardens were jobsworths, the cyclists went too fast, the joggers were wankers and whoever poisoned the pond and the fish deserved to drink their own toxic water. She held forth on a number of subjects, another cigarette perched between two fingers, despite the disapproving looks, as Otis ditched the climbing frames in favour of chasing pigeons and digging rice cakes out of his mother’s bag. I hadn’t warmed to Angela particularly, but true to her profession she was something of a raconteur, and I began to enjoy the stream of invective, storing tidbits of gossip for Alistair. A famous news correspondent had had his morning jog interrupted by a Cockapoo and had started a furious row with its owner: ‘like he thinks his pissy little run is as important as Syria.’ A Red Setter had got into the playground and his subsequent rampage had parents up in arms: ‘they should shut the fucking gates then, shouldn’t they?’ A Retriever had run off with an old lady’s wig: ‘She was livid but it wasn’t the bloody dog’s fault, was it? It was his tosspot of an owner; too busy chatting up some tart with a Chihuahua.’
She paused for breath. ‘Otis, not over there!’ she bellowed. ‘Tramps piss there and stuff.’ She turned back to me. ‘Listen, talking of dogs … I need to ask you about my friend. The one you saw the other day. She’s in a bit of a mess and I’ve got this idea …’
‘Angela, darling, why aren’t you wearing a proper coat?’ We turned to see Sylvie ambling towards us, eyes crinkling at the corners as she picked her way through scurrying children.
‘I feel quite the adventurer in here, with no little people. Millicent! No – Missy! How lovely. I came to invite you all to lunch. I’ve just bought some Le Creuset and want to show it off.’
‘All right,’ said Angela. ‘We’d better go now though. You left the gate open and Decca and Nancy have got in.’
‘Heavens.’ Sylvie swivelled round and saw her dogs frantically digging in the sandpit, showering nearby children, who shrieked with laughter and flung sand in each other’s faces as their mothers bore down on us, fingers wagging.
‘Oh, hell.’ Angela grabbed a passing Otis by his sweater and pushed him towards the gates. ‘Let’s get out of here before one of them takes a shit on the seesaw.’
Lunch at Sylvie’s; my crazy-old-lady fantasy made flesh … I wondered how to say no, but it seemed they just assumed I would be coming, so I picked up Arthur’s discarded car and followed, feeling rather light-headed.
‘Why did Sylvie call you Missy?’ asked Angela, as Sylvie secured her dogs and, scattering apologies, we left the playground.
‘Just a silly nickname,’ I hedged, still embarrassed about it.
‘It suits you,’ she said, and I couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or not.
Sylvie lived in an elegant Georgian house west of the park, with a glossy wrought iron gate and an exquisite little parterre in the front garden. She led us up the flagged path, and turning back as she unlocked the front door, winked at me.
‘My abode,’ she said, and pushed it open.
We were immediately greeted by the smell of cinnamon, and a very grand black and white cat who weaved around our legs as we entered. The walls were papered in the same William Morris design that adorned my old college halls and I felt a sense of nostalgia as we made our way through to her kitchen and wandered amongst the artful clutter of crockery, copper pans and poinsettia, the room as homely and twinkling as Sylvie herself. Thinking of my own bare and antiquated space, I decided she must never see it.
We had the most delightful lunch, perched (in my case, rather precariously) on bar stools around the peninsula. Home-made hummus and plump olives, a quiche warm from the oven, tangy blue cheese, flatbreads dipped in a broad bean and feta concoction that was salty and moreish, all displayed on matching teal blue crockery. I’d never seen food as something to be fussed over, but there was something about Sylvie’s unaffected pleasure in it all that was infectious, encouraging me to relish every mouthful. Otis lay on the sofa in the sitting room, draped in cat and dogs, hummus around his mouth as he watched CBeebies. Angela was reading Country Living, occasionally stabbing a page to complain about the size of people’s houses, as Sylvie bustled about, arranging her smart new pots and dishes.
‘How do you two know each other?’ I asked, picking up an olive.
‘I kidnapped her dog,’ mumbled Angela, through a mouthful of bread.
Sylvie chortled. ‘It’s true. Four years ago. She stole Nancy from the park. I sent out a search party and found a dog walker who’d spotted her with a mad-looking Irish woman and a screaming baby. Then someone else pointed the way to Angie’s garret. Found them both on the sofa eating Hobnobs and watching Bargain Hunt.’
‘It was a mistake,’ protested Angela. ‘I thought she was a stray.’ She reached down and fondled one of the dogs – I assumed it was Nancy, though still couldn’t tell the difference. ‘I was a bit mad, I’d just had Otis. Thought a dog would complete the family.’
As shadows lengthened on the walls, candles were lit, and – really too early – a bottle of red wine opened. I declined, but was pressured into a small glass. After that, to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra, Angela became more raucous, knocking back her drink and fulminating again. Sylvie asked me lots of questions about myself, which was nice of her though I wouldn’t bore her with any details. I did tell her a bit about Arthur and noticed her eyes flick towards Otis on the sofa.
Drifting off as I sipped my wine and admired the leaping flames in the fireplace, I found myself thinking of families and oikos, an important concept in ancient Greece. It’s not an easy idea to describe as it can mean different things. A house or dwelling, but also the inhabitants. Home and hearth. The hearth part always interested me as I thought of oikos as a kind of rock – the rock upon which a family was built. But how big a family did one need to achieve it? I didn’t perceive anything lacking in Sylvie, whereas my loneliness, my emptiness, was a balloon that bellied and dragged me away. But when the house had been full of my husband and children, I didn’t notice, didn’t appreciate my oikos. Or maybe I had never had it at all. Perhaps the threads of my life were always loose, always out of my control, just waiting to slip out of reach.
‘Millicent. Missy,’ barked Angela, rousing me. ‘What are you thinking about? You were a million miles away.’
Only half a mile down the road, actually. The bottle was nearly empty and suddenly I felt I shouldn’t be around for the second. I had somewhere I needed to be.
‘I must be going,’ Gripping the marble table top, I gingerly slipped off the stool. ‘Thank you so much, it’s been lovely.’
‘
I’ll come round next week,’ said Angela, picking up a corkscrew. ‘I want to talk to you about my idea. And maybe you could take Otis to the park again?’ She fixed her round eyes on me innocently.
Like I said, she wanted a babysitter. But when it came to that kind of thing, I was easy prey. I went through to the living room and mussed Otis’s hair as he sleepily watched a Peter Rabbit cartoon.
Sylvie led me back down the hallway, switching on lamps as she went.
‘You have a lovely house,’ I said, picking up my purse.
‘Thank you, sweetie,’ responded Sylvie, helping me with my coat. ‘Angie says yours is gorgeous too. Lovely to have a big house round here.’
Not if there was no one in it. ‘You should come round,’ I found myself saying. ‘I wish it looked more like this.’
‘Darling, I’m a designer – I live for that sort of thing.’ She kissed me on the cheek and I could feel tears starting, so I ducked my head and walked quickly out the door, humming Sinatra to distract myself.
Out in the dusk, I hit rush hour; commuters, heads down like mine, braced against the chill, gunning for hearth and home. I walked slowly towards my destination, torn between hope and melancholy. I’d had a lovely day, but the warmth and cheer only served to highlight the dismal prospect of my lonely walk to an even lonelier place, trying to hold on to the threads of a previous life.
After my bleak pilgrimage to take flowers to the empty space that was once Leo, I headed home, trying to cheer myself up. Maybe Sylvie would come round. Maybe I would take Otis to the park. I let myself in and switched on the lights, wincing a little at the glare. Going through to the kitchen, I put the kettle on, opened my laptop, my state-of-the-art laptop given to me by my son the archaeologist, and logged into my email.
‘Darling Ali,’ I began.
Chapter 8
