‘Verity doesn’t drive,’ Ailsa said. ‘And when her mother was alive she didn’t like her going into public places. You’re only just making up for lost time, now, aren’t you?’
‘Buses work,’ I said. ‘I’d need to get two, but I’ve often thought of doing so.’
Max had reached over the fence to pat Maudie. ‘She could come with us,’ he said.
‘Well, I wouldn’t like to . . .’
‘No, you should.’ Ailsa was frowning at Tom. ‘Shouldn’t she? She’s done so much for Max. Yes. You must come!’
Tom seemed to find the suggestion almost amusing. He surveyed my front garden. ‘Of course,’ he said, eventually. ‘You can finish up here later.’
Ailsa persuaded Melissa into the boot and insisted I took the front, while she sat braced in the middle behind. She seemed to be trying hard to make sure we all got on. ‘How jolly this is.’
She made me tell Tom about my life as a student in north London, how one of my great friends was an Oxford professor. Tom had been to Cambridge, she said (though I knew that from the photo in their downstairs loo). ‘Long time ago now,’ he said, ‘though funnily enough I just bumped into an old college friend, he’s a film producer, in Cannes.’ He told a story involving the Croisette and the red carpet, the Vanity Fair party. ‘You ever been to the south of France?’ he asked, and I told him I hadn’t; after a moment’s consideration I added that in fact I didn’t actually have a passport, I’d never been abroad.
‘Never?’ Bea poked her head over my seat. ‘Like never? Not even Italy? Or skiing?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Ailsa pulled Bea back down. ‘You sound like a privileged brat.’
‘I’m not.’
Max’s voice: ‘You are.’
I was aware of a tussle behind me, knees digging through from behind, seatbelts stretching.
Tom changed gear. He was wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt, and as he pushed the stick forward, his bicep bulged, freckles thrown into relief by the pale skin on his underarm. ‘And how’s your work, Verity? You busy? Any interesting wordage?’
I had that morning just started on ‘Rodeo’ and outlined my latest research – how in the previous OED, the earliest understood sense was of rodeo as in competition, but I had found a quotation that pre-dated it, indicating the first meaning was ‘cattle enclosure’. ‘So I shall restructure the entry, which is always thrilling.’
Behind us Max and Bea were still fighting, Ailsa increasingly strained, and if I were to be generous I would say Tom was attempting to put a stop to it, when he called back: ‘Max? Are you listening? Quick spelling test. Let’s see what difference all Verity’s tutoring has made.’
He started shouting out random words. ‘Competition?’; ‘Quotation’; ‘Enclosure.’
I couldn’t tell you if Max was getting them right or not. I found the tension too much; he and I hardly did spellings by then, busy as we were with more creative endeavours. I began finishing the words for him. The car fell silent.
It was hard to park. Tom swore at a dawdling silver van and, once past it, slammed his foot on the accelerator. I’ve been in the car with Fred, one of the gentlest men on earth, when he flipped the bird at an octogenarian, so I do know the road can bring out the Mr Toad in the best of us. Even so. I began to wish I hadn’t come.
It wasn’t a great idea, if you ask me, this pub. The position was lovely, among a sweet row of cottages on the edge of the common, but it didn’t have a garden, which I’d assumed was the point of the excursion. It was sombre inside. I blinked to adjust my eyes, aware, when I finally focused, that the few other customers who were in there were staring. (I was still in my gardening clothes.) Tom found an extra chair – utterly delightful to the people who surrendered it – and we squeezed around the ‘special table’ they’d booked. It was next to the large open fireplace, obviously not roaring that day, and there is always something depressing about an empty grate. The dining room was quiet, and smelt of old chips and mildewed hops. It sounds like I’m griping, and I don’t mean to. Far be it from me to be ungrateful for a free meal. I just mean to convey the sense there was of an occasion missed, of having tried to surf some rather glorious wave to discover it has petered out long before reaching the shore.
Once we were settled, as if aware things were falling flat and trying to inject energy, Tom was a man of laughs and jokes and large gestures. He ordered wine, and Cokes for the kids, so charming to the waitress – ‘You can dig up a bucket of extra ice? Oh, you are a complete star’ – that she went quite pink. A toddler, running past, tripped just near us and he leapt to his feet – ‘Whoa!’ – to check he was all right and then chatted to the grateful mother for a few minutes about the stresses of the terrible twos. Seated again, and full of himself as a great dad, he pulled Bea onto his knee and told her to recite the poem she’d learnt for class assembly; she did so, coyly, with her hands around his neck. It was about daffodils and rabbits and being kind. He moved on to Max, suggesting he tell me about a touch rugby match he had played the previous day. Max, one leg folded painfully beneath him, did as requested, but stutteringly, looking to his father for prompts.
‘And. Then. You. Scored. A. Try,’ Tom finished for him. ‘The point of that story, Verity, is that they won. You see, it was worth doing. He’s always saying he doesn’t want to play rugby but it’s nice when you win, isn’t it? Isn’t it?’
‘I prefer playing football,’ Max said, with a sudden show of spirit. ‘She knows.’
‘Don’t be silly. Yesterday’s match was great. Fierce. Really lit. Melissa – is that the right use of contemporary parlance?’
Melissa, looking up from her phone, stared blankly.
‘Come on,’ Tom said. ‘This is our chance to bring Verity into the modern world. What have you got for her, Melissa? Bea? Sketchy, savage, extra, epic . . . Verity’s the woman who needs to know.’
I shrugged to dramatise my ignorance, but I’m not unaware of the latest slang. Lexicology is, after all, my thing. Melissa didn’t answer, anyway. She was back on her phone.
‘Verity, would you please remove that electronic device from my daughter? What must you think of us?’
‘I’m not getting involved,’ I said, putting up my hands in surrender.
Ailsa wasn’t either. She was busy not getting involved; that’s what leaps out in my memory – busy making Bea sit down in her own chair, and busy removing unnecessary wine glasses, busy asking about the specials, and requesting a water jug, and then when the food arrived – fish and chips in various guises – busy taking peas off one child’s plate and adding broccoli to another’s, doling out French fries and rationing ketchup and rescuing sleeves from dollops of mayonnaise. Looking back at the dynamics of their marriage, the louder Tom was, the more coiled energy he displayed, the quieter she became. The problem is, I think her passivity irritated him, goaded him into becoming worse.
She had ordered a salad for herself, a chicken Caesar, which she picked at, leaving all the interesting bits, like the croutons, on the side. I’d opted for bubble and squeak with ‘hen’s egg’ (aren’t eggs generally from hens?); it came neatly moulded, with the egg poached on top. When I popped it with the tine of my fork, the yolk seeped into the potato, staining it yellow.
‘It’s nice to be able to thank you for all your hard work with . . .’, Tom extended a finger in Max’s direction. ‘I’ve been hearing positive reports.’
‘He’s making great progress.’
Max continued to study his battered cod.
‘Not sure we’re making such great progress with the house, are we? Or the garden? I hate to bring it up again but you have to admit your property needs some TLC. We’re spending so much money and time on ours, and, well, some people, I’m afraid, might say your side is a bit of an eyesore.’
‘Tom,’ Ailsa said. ‘If we’re not careful she’s going to wish we’d never moved in.’
‘I’d never wish that,’ I said. ‘I love having you next do
or. The chats and the walks, the trips to the cafe.’
‘Trips to the cafe?’ Tom wiggled his shoulders, as if to say, Fancy. ‘Is that a regular thing?’
I took a mouthful of the yellowy potato mix. It tasted bitter, of the vinegar they’d put in the water when cooking the egg.
Ailsa cleared her throat. ‘Not really. Once or twice a week.’
‘ “Not really”?’ Tom turned his head to look directly at her. ‘I wouldn’t call once or twice a week “not really”. So what's that? Ten quid, fifteen quid a week?’ I wasn’t sure if his gripe was semantic or financial, but he seemed to want to humiliate her in front of me. Now I realise I was invisible; my presence irrelevant.
‘Lucky for some. And you pay, I assume? You can give Verity coffee at home. It’s insane to spend money out. It’s all very well saying once, twice a week, but it adds up. And if you’re buying two every time – these days, Christ, that’s almost ten quid.’
I put down my knife and fork. The egg had congealed around the corners of the plate. ‘If Ailsa had a job,’ I said, ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t begrudge her any coffees out she wanted.’
‘Yeah. How’s that going?’ he said, swirling his wine glass. He took a gulp. ‘All these “interviews” and “casual drinks”, they’re not coming to much. I mean Thursday – what time did they keep you till? It was past ten, wasn’t it? Did you get the job?’ He was one of those men, I realised, made meaner by drink.
Ailsa shook her head.
‘No,’ Tom confirmed.
The pub had filled up; there were a couple of noisy tables now, including one – outsourced from a group of adults – made up exclusively of rowdy children. Tom was sitting back in his chair, with his arms crossed. Ailsa was brushing imaginary crumbs into a little pile. I watched her. Did Tom want her to work, or not? She’d told me he was against it, and yet he seemed resentful that she wasn’t trying harder. She was going to keep the job hunt secret, she’d said, and yet it was me she hadn’t told about whatever job it was she’d gone for on Thursday. There seemed to be a lot of contradictions.
A young man with narrow hips and heavy sideburns came up and began to clear our plates. He and I had a little tussle over the spare sachets of tartare sauce (I’d made a little pile to take home and defended it vigorously) after which Ailsa began to help, scooping up dirty napkins and gathering scattered cutlery; there was a brief clash as she tried to pass this to him, and in the handover a knife fell into her lap. The waiter flicked the napkin off his shoulder and was about to dab at her thighs, but he stopped himself. ‘Oops,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Got a bit carried away there.’
‘Close thing,’ she laughed, rubbing at the stain with her fingers.
‘You don’t need a cloth?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Well if you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
It was a simple, awkward moment. The only thing I can think of that’s worth adding is that she continued smiling for a minute or two after he had walked off, and that, rather self-consciously, she rearranged the folds of her top, and gathered her hair to one side of her neck.
‘Chrissake,’ Tom said under his breath. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to achieve. He clearly bats for the other team.’
‘Well . . .’
‘Unless you think your attractions will turn him.’
She got to her feet then, pushing her chair back and crossing the room towards a door in the corner marked ‘Ladies’.
Tom laughed. ‘What’s Mum like?’ he said.
Bea giggled agreeably. Melissa didn’t look up from her phone, but the stillness of her posture suggested she was aware of what was going on, that possibly she found it not lit or extra or epic but sketchy and savage. Max was chewing the neck of his T-shirt.
Tom tousled his hair, then pulled the T-shirt away. ‘Don’t eat that,’ he said, brow furrowed.
I was feeling quietly horrified and maybe Tom noticed. He became suddenly expansive again. ‘If you’re still hungry, we should have pudding. Pudding!’ he said loudly, catching the waiter’s eye. ‘Chocolate cake and ice cream? What do you say? Verity?’
I told him I had had, as my mother would say, an elegant sufficiency.
‘Jolly good.’
The waiter came over then and Tom ordered brownies with salted caramel ice cream for the children and – to me – ‘Coffee?’
Quickly, I shook my head. Fuck no.
Ailsa didn’t come back until the puddings were half eaten. She had rearranged her face and said a few things that sounded pre-prepared about the nice soap dispenser in the lavatory – innocuous and dull, their only purpose to let us know she was all right. Tom asked her if she wanted a pud – ‘It’s not too late’ – and she said she didn’t, or rather she said, ‘I mustn’t.’ But Bea had pushed her plate away, finding it too rich, and Ailsa picked at it continually for the next few minutes. ‘Lovely,’ she murmured. ‘Mustn’t, though.’
Tom paid the bill – huge tip, I noticed.
I was thanking him and telling him how delicious it had all been – when I followed his gaze. Ailsa was still at it, picking away, doing that thing some women do, of eating lots of tiny pieces under the pretence that tiny pieces ‘don’t count’.
‘I thought you said you didn’t need pudding,’ he said.
‘I don’t.’
‘Well don’t eat it then,’ he said.
A deep flush spread across Ailsa’s cheeks. It looked as if she had been slapped. She opened her hand, and the crumbs fell back onto the plate.
The children were subdued in the car, which I’ve learnt is a sign: like birds falling quiet before a thunderstorm. I looked out of my window. Tom threw a few idle comments in my direction. How would I be spending the rest of this fine day after my fine repast? ‘Sorting out the front, obvs, and then maybe finding your way to attacking the back?’
I felt trapped, furious that he was making me feel in his debt, when I was the one who was owed money. I would have raised it, if I hadn’t worried it would get Ailsa into trouble. ‘Not all of us are as obsessed with tidiness as you are,’ I said eventually. ‘Some of us find all that a bit bland. I’ve never been into a house as neat as yours. Was Kent the same?’
He didn’t answer and an atmosphere entered the car, as if something was holding its breath.
Tom took a call the moment he was out on the street and he strode ahead of the rest of us, speaking apparently into thin air – though actually into a small speaker clamped to the top of his T-shirt. ‘Pay or play,’ he proclaimed. He raised his hand above his shoulder, and without turning around, pressed the fob he was holding to clonk-lock the car. ‘As long as the money’s deposited in escrow.’
Ailsa was doing up her shoelaces, so I couldn’t see her face. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘I really appreciated it – though I’m not sure any of us were at our best today.’
‘Ailsa.’
She straightened, shrugging apologetically. ‘I irritate him at the moment,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot going on, and he’s not good at dealing with pressure.’
She didn’t meet my eye. I realised she was actually embarrassed; that, for all sorts of complicated reasons, she cared what I thought of him. So, despite myself, I took a few seconds to consider my answer. I didn’t mention alcohol.
‘It’s very common, particularly among men,’ I said. ‘There was this thing on the radio last week about anger, how anger works to energise some people when they’re stressed; their cortisol levels drop when they’ve lashed out and then they find it easier to focus on the task in hand. In those cases, anger actually serves an important purpose.’
She gave a brief nod. ‘It’s nice of you to give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s what I love about you – you’re brutally honest, but also generous.’
‘Though he was being an arse,’ I couldn’t resist adding.
She lifted her finger and tapped the air, smiling despite herself. I had cheered her. ‘True that.�
�
We walked together in silence along the pavement to join the main road.
‘Sometimes I’m not sure I should stay married,’ she said.
There was a gap in the traffic, and she gripped my elbow to steer me across. Tom and the kids had already gone in, and we stood for a moment, between our two houses. She was still holding my arm, but she was looking over her shoulder down the street towards the common. ‘Listen,’ she said, eventually. ‘I fancy a walk. If anyone asks, could you say I was with you?’
‘I’d love a walk,’ I said.
‘I just fancy being on my own?’ Her sentences were going up at the end. ‘Do you mind?’
I spoke too quickly. ‘Of course not.’
She dropped my arm and turned her head away again.
‘See you later,’ I said. And then because she was still standing there, gazing into the distance, I decided to hug her. I’m not a big hugger, but I’d noticed that she always threw her arms around people if she bumped into them when we were together, and I wanted to make a gesture, to show my allegiance. I took a step towards her, extended my arms and held her awkwardly, feeling how delicate her shoulders were, beneath her layers. It was only for a second, and I only pressed lightly, but when I moved away I was sure I caught on her face a wince of pain.
Chapter Eight
Pale grey scarf
Recalcitrant, adjective. Esp. of a person or animal. Obstinately disobedient; uncooperative, refractory; objecting to constraint or restriction.
Ailsa’s meeting – or ‘consultation’ – with the QC took place today. She took a mirror from the bathroom and rested it on the window ledge in the front room to put on her make-up. It was quite a performance: the contortions, her eyelids lifted and stretched as she applied a shadow and a liner. Maybe her hand was shaking too much – the strain of concealing emotion – but when she’d finished, the proportions seemed wrong; the powder settled in her pores; the blusher looked painted on.
Finders, Keepers: The mesmerising new thriller from the author of LIE WITH ME Page 8