by Beth Morrey
‘She did,’ I agreed.
‘What was she like?’
I turned, surprised at the question. ‘She was … depressed, I suppose. She used to make things. Sewing, mostly. She made this dress. But it was a kind of therapy, I think. When she felt sad, she would make something.’
‘What was she sad about?’
‘Nothing, particularly. And everything.’
Miguel nodded, his eyes back on the milling guests. ‘When I feel that way, I dance. What do you do when you feel that way?’
I thought for a second. ‘I walk.’
‘You’re lucky you can.’ He smiled sideways at me, wickedly, and, like Angela, I saw why he’d pierced Denzil’s heart.
We danced later, he and I, a proper old-fashioned tango, cheered on by our fellow party-goers, who surrounded us, whooping and applauding. Sylvie was there, clapping delightedly, and as we twirled, I saw Angela emerge in the doorway, still with Clark Kent. Her mouth dropped open when she saw me, and then she grinned and leaned against him to watch. I could feel my old bones creaking and protesting as we swerved this way and that, but like Miguel said, I was lucky I could still do this. Denzil, his cigarette holder tucked behind his ear, was looking at Miguel, with the quizzical half-smile of an indulgent father. Badger and Barker sat either side of him, like security guards, daring anyone to approach.
The music finished and everyone cheered. Miguel bowed to me and kissed my hand and I retreated, breathless, to the chaise longue to recover. Angela dashed over, dragging her new beau.
‘You were amazing!’ she declared. ‘I had no idea you could do that!’
‘Leo and I used to dance occasionally,’ I replied, fanning myself with a napkin. ‘It’s one of my many hidden talents.’
‘What are the other ones?’ asked Angela’s companion, smiling.
‘Knowing when to retire gracefully,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘I think I might take myself home. I’m rather tired.’
‘We’ll get you a cab,’ said Angela, turning and beckoning Denzil.
‘No, no, it’s not that far,’ I said weakly, because it was, particularly at that time of night.
‘Nonsense,’ she said, conferring with Denzil, who nodded and started to tap on his mobile. After a second he looked up. ‘It’s on its way.’
Ignoring my protests, they bundled me into my coat, and Denzil escorted me out himself. As we stepped out onto his porch, flanked by the stone dogs, I could see a car pulling up outside the house. Denzil waved to it and turned to me.
‘Nice dancing,’ he said. ‘See? I told you it would get easier.’
I smiled and patted his hand. ‘Thank you. For everything.’
He grinned. ‘I should be thanking you. You provided the entertainment.’
‘I like Miguel.’
‘So do I,’ he replied serenely, stroking one of the stone dog’s heads.
I worried about the expense of a cab on the way home, but when we arrived the driver wouldn’t take my money, saying it was on Mr Joseph’s account. I was so grateful and glad I’d had a nice night out that I tangoed my way up the path to the front door, laughing at Bobby’s capering as I let myself in. I’d left the lights on in the kitchen for her, and now they provided a welcoming glow as I pottered about finding her a late-night treat and making myself a cup of cocoa.
Just before we went to bed, I checked my email, and was delighted to find a message from Alistair. I settled down with my warm drink to read it, anticipating a few Christmas plans, things we might get up to while they were in London. I had already ordered a case of his favourite Doom Bar beer.
‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ the email began. Emily had had a miscarriage. She was ten weeks’ pregnant. A blighted ovum, the doctors said. I thought of the pierced heart in the glass case. I read on, the tears dribbling down my cheeks as Alistair explained that they wouldn’t be coming to London after all, and were going to stay with Emily’s parents until she’d recovered. He talked about maybe coming to visit the following summer. Another six months, at least, without seeing him, or Arthur. I pushed the laptop away, and sat, blinded by tears, as I contemplated Christmas alone.
‘I should have known,’ I sobbed to Bobby. ‘I should have known it would turn out this way.’ She leaned against me and I sank my fingers into her fur, pressing her warm body against my legs and staring at the first drops of rain fluttering against the kitchen window.
Once, after a particularly lucrative book deal, Leo took me on a trip to the Seychelles. It seemed to me to be a fairy tale place and I couldn’t quite believe it was real as we flew over the islands by seaplane. We stayed in a tiny resort, our little island hut constantly stroked by turquoise waves, and while Leo read his research notes I sat burying my toes in the molten sand and looking out to sea. I found the coral fascinating – from above, it just looked like a dark shadow, dull as ditchwater, but dip your head underneath and it transformed into a vivid and glorious other-world, tiny electric-hued fish darting about while the sea skeletons danced around them. One day we donned snorkels and had a swim, but I found the intensity of it all too overwhelming; when I glanced towards the reef and caught a glimpse of the depths beyond, I became disoriented and Leo had to drag me to the surface, and hold on to me as I gasped with the awe of it.
On the last day, we were sitting on the beach again, ankle deep in the ocean froth, and I was admiring the way the sea made my skin look luminescent, when suddenly the undersea breeze lifted, the sand shifted and there was the round outline of a creature, a stingray, subtly shuffling its way along the shoreline. That frightful flap of fish wings unnerved me and I backed up the beach drawing my feet up to my knees and thinking about the way the sea life by the coral pirouetted and spiked, a pretty dance of death, always waiting for the predator to pounce. I was transfixed by that tail, missing me by millimetres as it slithered slowly past. Leo didn’t even see it. Afterwards I realized it was always with me, that threat. Always waiting for the axe to fall. Waiting for the sting in my own tale.
Chapter 29
‘Will you fasten me?’
The light was fading in our bedroom as Leo and I got dressed, shifting past each other irritably as we buttoned up. He was wearing a tie, which he never liked doing, harrumphing as he adjusted it in the mirror, while I pulled tights over my raddled legs and tried not to let my recently-painted fingernails snag. The coq au vin was bubbling in the Aga downstairs and it would go dry if we spent much longer primping, but Alistair insisted we had to be smart. I turned and presented my back to my husband in my grey chiffon. He smoothed his hair and attended to me, distractedly. He would rather have been in his study with Disraeli, but we had no choice in the matter. This was the Girlfriend Dinner, and everything had to be right, despite my reservations and Leo’s lack of interest.
She was younger than Alistair. At least ten years. Ali didn’t say so, of course, but from certain details he let drop, I was able to ascertain she was in her early thirties and did something called Experimental Archaeology, which sounded supremely silly to me, probably involved dressing up and role-playing famous battles. He’d never bothered introducing us to anyone in this way before, and I was simultaneously flattered and daunted by what that meant. When we spoke on the phone the previous week he said they’d drive down from Birmingham and stay the night, which threw me into a whirlwind of preparation, making the spare room ready, ordering a chicken from the butchers and buying myself a new outfit. Leo hadn’t commented on it yet. He’d straightened himself up and was looking extremely distinguished, golden-silver hair brushed back from his forehead, very much the eminent Professor. Perhaps he intended to intimidate this Emily woman for his own amusement – which would be just fine by me.
‘Let’s bloody well get on with it, then.’
Downstairs, I put the final touches to the dining table, adjusting the damask cloth and neatening up the special occasion cutlery. The dresser drawer it lived in had stuck, and I had a bruise on my hip from wrenching at it. I
checked the coq au vin and potato gratin, both sizzling nicely, and then called to Leo in the living room to pour us a drink. When he handed me my gin and tonic, I grimaced at its weakness.
‘That dress new, is it? All for the golden boy?’ Even then, Leo teased me for my favouritism, although our ‘children’ were nearly fifty and forty-five respectively. But I wanted to look elegant for Alistair and his please-let-it-not-be-fiancée. I wanted her to like me, and then meet someone her own age and forget the old lady she fondly imagined might be her mother-in-law. I don’t know why but I knew she wasn’t The One. I must be charming and slightly forbidding, and I expected this would come fairly easily.
Right on time, unusually for Alistair, we heard the door knock and Leo went to answer it while I arranged myself casually on the sofa, then immediately got up to go and lean against the fireplace. Then back to the sofa, legs crossed, drink in hand, supremely relaxed and welcoming, but not effusive. Should we play some music? Something discreet and sophisticated – Mahler, maybe. Perhaps the 8th Symphony. But then Alistair came into the room with Emily and in that moment everything changed because I could see immediately that here was a woman he loved more than me. I’d lost, before the game even started. Berating myself – snap out of it, Jocasta – I moved forward to greet them.
She was young, and of course beautiful, in an understated way, blonde hair drawn back in a severe ponytail, thick-fringed blue eyes hidden behind serious glasses. What a handsome couple they made, framed in the doorway together, his hand on her elbow, ushering her forward. She came to me, the matriarch, first, her hand held out. There was no ring on the other one, thank God. I shook it briefly and indicated our cabinet in the corner.
‘Hello, my dear. Would you like a drink? Was it a good journey down?’
‘I’d love one, thanks. Yes, gin and tonic would be great. Traffic was terrible!’
Australian. She was Australian. I could see Leo flinching at the inflections as he picked ice out of the bucket, and remembered his shock and dismay when Melanie introduced Octavia as her girlfriend all those years ago. Now it was my turn. I tried to think of the girl I imagined for Ali, the equivalent of Leo’s Caius scholar, but the truth is there never was anyone, even in my head, who measured up. I was always going to disapprove, but the sight of this bronzed Amazon disguising her magnificence with scraped-back hair and spectacles was even more galling than I feared. As my son strode towards me, the image of his father, I smiled, trying not to let my adoration show.
‘Ma,’ Ali kissed me on the cheek and I resisted the urge to clutch his collar. ‘You look great.’
‘She hit Upper Street hard this week,’ quipped Leo, and I glared at him as he handed me my second drink.
We stood for a moment in the inevitable awkward silence, and then Leo said something about Michael Vaughan and New Zealand, and he and Ali were off. The cricket pitch was their only common ground. So I was left with this Emily, who looked annoyingly comfortable, sipping her preprandial and gazing round our living room.
‘So, Ali tells me you work at the University.’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. I was seconded there for a term, but now I work on a farm near Kinver Edge.’
‘A farm?’ It was hard to keep the dismay out of my voice. Alistair’s girlfriend, the farmer.
She laughed. ‘Yes, we run it along Iron Age principles. So we can learn more about the agricultural and domestic economy of the era. It’s really fun.’
‘It must be … fascinating.’ I had visions of her in sheepskin, wielding a scythe.
‘I love it. I like getting my hands dirty.’ She turned to the men, who were still talking sport. ‘You only won because you had a Saffie on your team.’ They both chuckled appreciatively, and Ali’s pride was palpable.
I smiled brightly through gritted teeth. ‘Shall we go through?’
The coq au vin was too dry, the gratin too salty, but at least the wine was plentiful. Alistair and Emily did that thing of finishing each other’s sentences, starting to say the same thing and then breaking off to grin at each other. They were both eating with just a fork so they could hold hands under the table. It was unbearable. My conversation became more and more monosyllabic with every ‘No, you say it!’ and I knew it was the wrong way to be – I should be winning her over and finding subtler ways to disentangle them, but the way he was looking at her was intolerable, Leo never looked at me that way, and she wore the adoration nonchalantly, like a woman who expected to be worshipped. Of course that reeled Leo right in; soon he was quizzing her about hill forts and blushing when she said she’d read his latest book.
I served clafoutis, home-made, because it was Ali’s favourite, but he didn’t even mention it, just munched heedlessly, cueing her up to tell their ‘do you remember whens’, as Leo roared with laughter and poured her more wine. She was every woman I’d ever resented, a whole hemisphere of bitterness and insecurity directed towards those too-white teeth glinting in the candlelight, that long neck thrown back, their fingers constantly entwined.
Abruptly getting to my feet, I collected their bowls and took them to the kitchen to recover my composure. Cleaning the dishes, ferociously wielding the washing up brush like a weapon, I jumped as I felt hands on my shoulders. Ali, come for the ‘so, what do you think?’ talk.
‘So, what do you think?’ he whispered, picking up a tea towel as if he was going to help.
I swallowed and managed, ‘She seems nice,’ aching with love and longing because I’d always given him the approval he craved, and then, at the most important time, I couldn’t give it my all, or even an approximation. But luckily, or unluckily, he was oblivious, blinded by his own infatuation. My tepid endorsement was perceived as fervent, and he started sharing all the things that were great about her; the way she was so committed to her work, coming back covered in chalk, how she went out running on the heathland at dawn, that she spoke Spanish, why she loved spiders, because she thought they were cute compared to the ones back home.
Then he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, just like Leo. ‘Of course, one day she’ll want to go back.’
I was barely listening, so focused on looking like I was listening, but this pierced through. ‘Go back where?’
He flung the towel on the counter and looked forlorn. ‘Australia.’ And that one word opened up a light shaft as I began to understand what he was saying. This relationship had a shelf life. It would be fun while it lasted, but the end would come. And I would need to be there to pick up the pieces. The weight lifted, I felt like I could soar around the room and hug this spider-loving, Spanish-speaking, dawn-running girl who’d bewitched my son, but would break the spell eventually.
‘Ah,’ I said, picking up the tea towel and beginning to dry the plates so he couldn’t see the elation on my face. ‘Well, I suppose it is her homeland. And she must have family there.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d understand. You get it. I knew you would.’ He came up behind me, squeezing my shoulders again, and together we made the coffee and took it into the dining room.
Later on, when they’d gone to the spare room, and Leo and I were back in our bedroom unbuttoning again, me massaging my aching feet and him peering at his increasingly bushy eyebrows in the mirror, he caught my eye in it and raised them.
‘So?’
I shrugged. ‘She’s nice enough. Bit of a hippy.’
He grinned. ‘You’re taking it very well, I must say.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The whole Australia thing.’ He hung his tie over a chair and started turning down the covers.
I arranged my face in a sympathetic expression. ‘It’ll be hard for Ali, of course. But he’ll meet other girls. And he can’t ask her to give up all that for him. It’s the other side of the world.’
Leo paused in the act of plumping pillows and looked at me quizzically.
‘Missy.’
I slipped my rings off and started applying hand cream. ‘What?’
<
br /> He stared at me soberly for a second and then shook his head. ‘Nothing. Let’s see how it plays out.’
‘Of course.’ I got into bed beside him and he reached to turn the light out. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Mrs Carmichael.’
In the darkness, listening to his even breathing, I wondered what he had been going to say.
Chapter 30
I wanted to stay indoors licking my wounds, but Bobby wouldn’t let me. I may have been contemplating a lonely and miserable Christmas, wondering if I’d ever see my son and grandson again, but my dog wanted to know when she was going to be able to evacuate her bowels, so out we went, on a grey, drizzly day when the wet cold seemed to creep into my bones, still aching from dancing the night before. I couldn’t bear to be bright and post-party cheery, comparing inebriation notes and joshing about Miguel’s snake hips, so kept my head down against the rain and didn’t see anyone until Bobby had crouched for her last wee and I was hooking her on the lead again to trudge home.
‘Well, if it isn’t Shimmy Carmichael.’ Sylvie, with Decca and Nancy prancing around her in their Barbour jackets. I tried to smile but it came out as a grimace. I couldn’t bear Sylvie’s sympathy; she knew how much I’d been looking forward to Ali and Arthur coming home.
‘I was hoping I’d bump into you,’ continued Sylvie, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone. ‘You were asking about turkey versus goose for Christmas dinner? I have a suggestion.’
My face still fixed in a twisted smile, I moved forwards, feigning interest, all the while working out how to extricate myself. It seemed a lifetime ago that I’d asked for her advice. When I thought I’d have guests. When I didn’t know I would be alone. If only I could go back to that time and forget last night’s email.
‘You were telling me about those Christmases in Yorkshire,’ said Sylvie, scrolling furiously. ‘And I thought: what about a really good chicken? You’re right, turkey is dry – all that brining and primping to make it palatable. I’ve found an organic farm not far from Hebden Bridge, near where your aunt lived. What could be better than a couple of nice plump Yorkshire hens?’
