by Hilary Boyd
If Devan keeps going on at me like this, she thought, it’s not going to end well. She didn’t examine what she meant by this, not then, but she felt her stubbornness limbering up, like a substitute on the touchline waiting to run onto the pitch. Throughout her childhood, as her mother had often reminded her, Connie’s stubborn nature had been a thorn in her side.
3
The family were coming for Easter. Connie had been so looking forward to it – they rarely had time to make the trek to Somerset. Ash’s punishing schedule as a television producer and the demands of his extensive family in Manchester usually resulted in Caitlin coming with just Bashir. But she had been worried about how Devan would cope with having a small child in the house for two days, even though he adored his grandson.
She remembered the day they’d met Bash for the first time. It was the morning after the birth, the hospital room boiling hot, Caitlin flushed and puffy, dazed as she carefully handed Devan the baby. Connie would never forget the absolute absorption on her husband’s face, the intense love in his eyes as he tenderly cradled his grandson for the first time, the little bundle so small and frail in his man-sized arms. She had been overwhelmed, realizing that the huge love she felt for Devan, and he for her, had now spawned two further generations of love. Thinking of that moment now, she told herself nothing had really changed. But the unquestioned closeness, the feeling of being part of a loving team, no longer seemed so evident.
The days since the drunken binge had been quiet at home. Connie had not thought at the time that he’d heard what she said, but he did seem to be making more effort, pointedly doing things about the house – like sanding the scarred kitchen table, a job he’d been talking about for months. He couldn’t keep it up for long, though, and she would come home from shopping or coffee with a friend to find him slumped in front of some match or other, one hand clutching his phone, the other cradling a glass of red wine – often fast asleep. He was utterly resistant to going out, even for a walk, and sent Connie on her own to supper with friends. ‘Tell them it’s my back,’ he’d say. And when she’d raise her eyebrows at him, he merely snapped, ‘It’s true.’
But the prospect of seeing his daughter and grandson seemed to spark him up, and Saturday morning saw a version of the old Devan, spruced up and standing straight, even coming with her to the supermarket and offering to make his famous sausage pasta for supper. Connie held her breath, hoping this resurgence would last at least till Sunday night.
As Devan fussed over which brand of penne was best, she leaned on the trolley in the supermarket aisle and remembered with a pang the first time he’d cooked her sausage pasta, about twenty years ago now. She had always been the family cook, but that January weekend she’d slipped on black ice on the pavement outside the house when she’d taken their previous dog, a rescue greyhound called Corky, for a walk just before it got dark.
Devan had examined the painful area, gently manipulating her foot, then held a packet of frozen peas to her ankle and rubbed in pain-relief gel. He’d settled her on the sofa, her foot elevated on a cushion, then handed her a cup of tea. Caitlin, about twelve at the time, was having a sleepover with a friend, so they had the house to themselves. Devan could not have been more solicitous.
He’d stroked her head as she lay there. ‘I’m doing supper. Going to surprise you.’
She’d laughed, looking sceptical. ‘Beans on toast?’
He’d tapped his nose with his finger. ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor.’
Over the next hour or so, Connie had been aware of waves of intense and focused industry emanating from the kitchen. Occasionally, as she dozed or read her book, Devan would pop his head round the sitting-room door, cheeks flushed with his exertions. ‘Where’s the sieve?’ or ‘Have you seen that small knife with the black handle?’
Eventually he summoned her to the table, almost carrying her into the kitchen, where candles lined the centre of the carefully laid table. The smell was mouth-watering. She noticed her River Café cookbook open on the side – which she’d read, but never cooked from, the ingredients mostly high-end Italian and not available locally. He never does things by halves, she’d thought, amused at the rooky cook’s ambition.
Devan had uncorked a bottle of wine, and her tummy rumbled in anticipation at the dish of steaming penne and bowl of tossed green salad he set before her.
‘Hope it’s OK,’ he said anxiously, as she prepared to take the first bite. ‘I couldn’t get proper Italian spicy sausages, so these are just normal ones and I added more chilli.’ He watched her closely, seeming to hold his breath as she lifted her fork to her mouth.
The pasta was gorgeous, rich and robust but … She gasped. Her mouth was suddenly on fire, her eyes spouting water, her head feeling as if it were about to explode. She spluttered and grabbed for her glass, gulping the wine as if it were water. But it did no good, only made her choke.
She could see Devan’s stare – clearly offended – through the blur of her tears.
‘Hot … hot …’ She tried to speak, fanning her open mouth. And as she saw him lifting his own fork to his lips, she held out her hand. ‘Don’t.’
But Devan kept going, thrusting in a huge mouthful of pasta, his scornful expression implying she was being pathetic. She watched as he chewed for a moment. Then his face, too, contorted and he dropped his fork with a clatter. She could almost see steam coming out of his ears.
A second later they were laughing – huge gasps of mirth that had them clutching their napkins to their burning mouths, tears of laughter and pain running down their bright red, sweating faces.
‘Didn’t you check it?’ she managed to ask, when she could finally get her breath.
Devan wiped his eyes, his face crumpling with laughter again. ‘I thought it tasted a bit insipid, so I threw in three of those dried chillies from that old plastic bag in the herb drawer.’
‘Oh, my God, you’re kidding! Those are the ones I got from that roadside stall in Turkey last year, remember? They’re absolutely lethal.’
Once they’d calmed down and their mouths were smarting but no longer on fire, Devan suggested, ‘Beans on toast?’ which set them off again.
Despite the chilli assault and her sore ankle, they’d ended up making love that night. She remembered it because, without their daughter in the next room, she had relaxed and allowed herself to cry out, uninhibited, as he eventually, after a delicious hour or so, brought her to orgasm. He was a good lover. Was.
She felt a tingling wave of longing pass through her body now, at the memory. But Devan was asking her something about bay leaves and she forced herself back to the present.
Bash was a beautiful child, and not just because his doting grandmother said so. Ash, his Indian father, had given him huge dark eyes, luscious lashes straight as a die, and a head of shiny dark hair. His mother had given him her wide, full mouth and cheeky grin, his grandfather the dimple in his chin. He was sturdy and even-tempered, liking to potter around getting on with things on his own. But if you turned your back, his telescopic arms would grab anything you assumed was out of reach, and it would be gone, hoarded in some secret place, perhaps never to see the light of day again. This had been the fate of Caitlin’s passport on a recent trip to France, resulting in a tedious and very expensive visit to the British Embassy, and Ash’s mobile, lost for two days inside a Playmobile recycling truck they’d given Bash for his second birthday.
They had just finished a roast chicken lunch – with Connie’s famously crunchy roast potatoes – on Easter Sunday and were lounging around the sitting room. Bash was playing with a pile of ivory mahjong tiles from Connie’s parents’ time in Singapore after the war, as the adults discussed the timing of Caitlin and Ash’s journey back to Shoreditch.
‘I’ll give him supper and get him into his jammies before we go,’ Caitlin said, ‘so we can just transfer him when we get home.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘It sometimes works.’ She was sitting next to her father, and now she nudged him in
the ribs. ‘Stroll before we go, Dad?’
Connie saw Devan hesitate. He’d looked tired today and a bit twitchy, she thought, at being dragged from his solitary routines by the unaccustomed activity in the house. But the weekend had been a success. She was pleased that he’d made an effort for them all.
‘You go,’ he said to Caitlin. ‘My back …’
‘Poor Dad.’ She stroked his arm. ‘What are you doing about that?’
‘Oh, you know, stretches and stuff … I’ve got a sheet of exercises as long as your arm from the physio.’
Caitlin cast Connie a glance, with a questioning arched eyebrow. ‘And are you doing them?’
Devan gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t you start. Your mother’s on at me day and night.’ His tone was unfairly resentful, Connie thought, given she hadn’t mentioned the exercises in weeks.
‘Well, it’s important, Dad.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, I do know.’ He got to his feet, perhaps to prove that he could, without too much trouble. ‘You lot had better get off for that walk, if you’re going.’
For a moment he stood there, looking lost. Then he frowned. ‘By the way, has anyone seen my pen?’ He was talking about his Mont Blanc biro, sleek and black, which Connie had given him for his sixtieth as a designated crossword pen. ‘It’s always on the table, there.’ He pointed to the one at the end of the sofa where he usually sat.
Everyone looked around vaguely, and shook their heads.
‘It probably rolled off,’ Ash said, obligingly kneeling down and laying his head on the wood floor to peer under the sofa, pulling out a square of yellow Lego and – embarrassingly – an old crisp, plus a used tissue from the dusty space. But no pen.
Connie considered Ash Mistry the perfect son-in-law. Her daughter, who was a script editor, had met him at a BBC script conference. Ash, despite his high-octane job, was the calm one of the two, the most practical, Caitlin more volatile and given to bouts of anxiety that meant she spent too much time catastrophizing – mostly about ill health and accidents happening to those she loved. Ash grounded her, and Connie loved him for it.
‘Maybe you took it upstairs,’ she suggested to her husband.
But Devan was eyeing Bash, who looked up from his mahjong tiles, obviously sensing the atmosphere. ‘Bash, sweetheart, did you see Grandpa’s pen?’ Devan went over to the little boy and sat on the nearest armchair, leaning forward to bring his face close to his grandson’s. ‘Did you move my black pen somewhere?’
Bash shook his head solemnly.
‘I won’t be cross if you did,’ Devan went on, although he already sounded stern to Connie. When his grandson didn’t respond, just stared, wide-eyed, he added, ‘Maybe you were drawing with it.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Bash said, blinking his long lashes anxiously and glancing at his mother.
‘Did you hide it in one of your trucks then … just for fun? Did you?’
His tone was sharp now and Bash’s chin began to wobble, his eyes filling with tears as he backed away from his grandfather.
‘Stop it, Dad,’ Caitlin butted in. ‘You’re upsetting him. He doesn’t know where your pen is.’
Devan frowned at his daughter. ‘I was just asking. He’s got form, Caitlin. Remember the passport?’
‘I know, and I’ll check around. But don’t badger him.’
There was an uncomfortable tension as Caitlin swiftly bent to pick up her son and carry him out of the room. Ash hurried after them with an apologetic grin.
‘I wasn’t badgering him,’ Devan said grumpily. ‘Was I?’ He looked at Connie, suddenly bewildered.
‘A bit. You could see he was getting upset.’
He sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
Connie went over and put her arms round him. For a moment they embraced in silence. She felt his body almost limp against hers, as if the life had gone out of him. Pulling back, she looked into his face and saw tears in his eyes.
‘I don’t know … I just can’t seem to get anything right these days.’
She wanted to say that was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. She wanted to reiterate that he should get help, but she knew it would be pointless. She had a strong urge to shake him and make him wake up to what was going on, but she knew that was cruel and would be completely unhelpful. So she just hugged him again, until she heard her daughter talking to Ash in the hall.
Connie pushed Bash in the buggy as they made their way down the high street in the direction of the sub-post office and the Wells road, where they would turn right and come back into the village on a loop. It was a cool, breezy day, the spring sun briefly warm on their faces as it emerged from behind the scudding clouds. Ash strolled ahead, hands in his jacket pockets, seemingly deep in thought.
‘Dad’s in a right old state,’ Caitlin said.
‘Oh … I thought he’d been OK over the weekend.’
‘Really, Mum?’ Caitlin glanced at her, eyes wide.
‘Well, yes. Until the pen incident … and he didn’t mean to get at Bash.’
‘Mum! He looks dreadful,’ her daughter said, clearly shocked at Connie’s blindness. ‘Sort of defeated, don’t you think? And unnecessarily snippy all the time.’
She sighed. ‘Maybe I’m just used to it.’
‘Can’t you talk to that new doctor Dad was carping on about?’
Connie snorted. ‘And get us both killed?’
They turned the corner, Ash now a long way ahead.
‘So what are you going to do?’
She shrugged, mildly irritated that her daughter thought she could wave a magic wand and make Devan happy again. ‘I’ve suggested a million things he might enjoy. Things that keep him in the medical loop, where he can use his substantial know-how. All of which he’s aware of himself, of course. But I irritate him enough as it is, just by asking him, for instance, to take Riley for a walk or have the occasional shower.’
They walked on in silence. Connie greeted someone she knew, who was raking old leaves from the flowerbed near his fence as they passed. Riley barked at their snuffling old pug, which gave a half-hearted woof in response.
‘He’ll be OK, once he’s adjusted,’ Connie said finally.
‘And his back?’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not as bad as he makes out. He’s using it as an excuse not to do anything at the moment. But, of course, the less he does, the worse it’ll get.’
Caitlin put her arm round Connie’s shoulders as they walked. She was taller than her mother, with shiny dark auburn – almost plum – hair and her father’s deep-set blue eyes in an intelligent, open face. ‘Very tough on you, all this,’ she said, giving her a squeeze.
‘We’ll get through it,’ Connie replied. ‘We always do.’
But she realized, despite her confident words, that there hadn’t been anything very significant to ‘get through’ till now. Their marriage simply hadn’t been tested. We’ve been lucky, she thought, looking back on decades during which they had shared their life on a mostly even keel. She felt a pang of self-pity. She spent so much time trying to work around Devan’s moods, these days, but it was wearing her down. And she didn’t even have her mum to confide in any more.
Connie thought back wistfully to the night they had met. She had been just twenty-four and had gone to Glastonbury with her American friend, Gaby. It was the first time the festival had been called ‘Glastonbury’ and the first year of the new Pyramid stage, which looked huge and impressive but was actually shed-work standard: metal sheeting and telegraph poles. Gaby was a dedicated Hawkwind fan and although Connie was a bit vague about space rock – her preference being Motown – she went along because she loved music, loved dancing, loved meeting new people.
But Gaby had surreptitiously taken one of the many unidentified substances circulating in the summer darkness and had suddenly begun to sweat and puke, becoming quickly disoriented. Connie, realizing that something was very wrong, managed to stagger for what seemed like miles through the swaying, intoxicated c
rowds, the cold, churned-up mud squelching between her toes, clutching her limp friend against her shoulder, until she reached the medical tent on the outer edges of the field, where she almost threw Gaby into the volunteer doctor’s arms.
Devan and the nurse – who seemed to be the one in charge and way more experienced than the trainee doctor – took over, while Connie stared anxiously on, although Gaby was already coming round by the time they reached the tent.
To tell the truth, Connie was quickly distracted from her friend’s drama as she basked in the beam of Devan McCabe’s extraordinary, reassuring smile. It was as if she herself had been drugged, aware that she couldn’t help gazing back into those blue eyes. He’d looked so funny, so conservative and self-conscious in his tidy jeans and blue shirt, compared to the drunken, barefoot, T-shirt-and-shorts mob outside the tent. She wanted to hug him.
This is only a passing phase, she told herself now. But she was conscious of a new wariness when she was around her husband, these days. He was pushing her away and she was worried about losing the strength – and inclination – to push back.
Another tour beckoned in a week, which Connie decided would do her the world of good. She couldn’t keep worrying about what Devan was up to while she was gone. She had to focus on her job, enjoy her time away. Maybe by looking after herself, she’d feel stronger and better able to sympathize with Devan when she was at home.
