The Move

by Felicity Everett

  Nick would have tried to put a stop to it hours ago if I’d let him. When two a.m. had rolled around and the rave had shown no signs of stopping, I’d had to plead with him not to storm up there. He was furious, hopping round the room with his foot jammed into the wrong leg of his jeans in his haste to get dressed; muttering about the selfishness, the sheer fucking irresponsibility of it. I’d been frightened then, not so much of what the kids might do to Nick, but of what he might do to them.

  I still winced recalling the night a few years back when Ethan had had a party. ‘A few mates,’ he’d said. ‘Over by midnight,’ he’d said. We’d come home at one, to a blue light slicing the terrace and a world-weary copper placating irate neighbours. We’d had to barge our way through dodgy-looking youths to get into our own house. Stopping for a second to usher a green-gilled young woman towards the downstairs toilet, I’d lost sight of Nick and the next thing I’d known there was a full-scale brawl going on in the living room – nothing to do with the gatecrashers as it turned out, everything to do with my husband attempting to eject his youngest son through the (still closed) French windows. The look on Ethan’s face has stayed with me – a mixture of hurt and vindication; as if he had expected no better from his father, but had nevertheless hoped, even as he pushed at the boundaries of Nick’s goodwill, to be proved wrong.

  Tonight, though, the offenders were strangers, we were the aggrieved party and as furious as Nick undoubtedly was at the disturbance, I could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

  ‘It’s not worth it, Nick,’ I cajoled him. ‘They’ll have stopped by the time you get up there.’

  I offered him my noise-reducing headphones and after a last brief rant, he’d climbed back into bed and gone out like a light.

  I, on the other hand, had lain staring at the ceiling, eyeballs itching with tiredness, trying and failing to wrestle my body to sleep through half-remembered meditation techniques. And the moment I started to drift off, or so it seemed, pandemonium broke out again, closer at hand this time. Engines revved, whoops and catcalls rang out; faintly at first, then building to a crescendo as the convoy passed through our hamlet and away. I glanced anxiously at Nick. His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t stir. In the grey dawn light, his face looked improbably handsome, like the death mask of a boy pharaoh – thick, dark brows; long Disney lashes; the arrogant curl of the lip. I leaned in, felt his breath on my cheek, let my lips hover over his, imbibed his scent, his essence; wished I could have him; wished I could be him; got too close. He grunted, smacked his lips, rolled his head the other way and I retreated, lowering my head contritely onto the pillow, hands folded beneath my cheek.

  The next time I woke, the room was bright, but I could barely keep my eyes open. Nick was speaking to me, his face close to mine, his tone urgent.

  ‘… So you’re going to have to drop me or I’ll miss my train. And then you need to ring the garage and get them to come and look at the car. Call me later and I’ll tell you where to find the paperwork. Kaz. Kaz?’

  ‘Wha – why? Where will you be?’ I felt panic rising in my chest. I could smell Givenchy on him. He was dressed for work.

  ‘Look, I know it was a rough night last night, but I’ve got to make the nine twenty-three and I need you to get up now and drop me. I’m sorry, love, but the Range Rover’s got a fucking flat.’

  ‘Uhuh? OK then, just let me…’ I scrambled out of bed and searched around for yesterday’s clothes. ‘Did I know… about this meeting or…?’

  He sighed.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I lied, ‘no, I did, I did. You’ll be back tonight, though, right?’

  ‘I won’t be back if I never bloody get there.’

  I stalled twice at the junction, and at the third attempt, pulled out so fast in front of a speeding Tesco delivery van that Nick had to brace against the dashboard.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m just not used to the… sorry.’

  It seemed as though I’d barely hit thirty, before we had joined a school-run tailback on the outskirts of the town.

  ‘Fuck’s sake…’ muttered Nick under his breath.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got five minutes,’ I reassured him.

  ‘I might be quicker walking…’ He reached for the handle of the passenger door but just then the traffic started moving again.

  We pulled into the station forecourt with two minutes to spare.

  ‘So yeah, the garage,’ he said, leaning in to give me a peremptory kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Where will I…?’

  A horn sounded behind me.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ he said.

  Driving back, the valley felt sluiced through with freshness. A washed-out sky leaked watery sunshine into the brook, which had transformed overnight from a sluggish brown trickle to a gush. Despite the lack of sleep, I felt energised – ecstatic even. The day stretched ahead of me, long as a decade. I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt so free, or, for that matter, so capable. I would sort the flat tyre, spend some time in the studio; marinade the steaks I’d just bought from the organic butcher as a treat for Nick’s return.

  On the way into the hamlet, I met Min and Ray in their Jeep and pulled over to let them pass. Ray wound down the window, so I did likewise.

  ‘Get any sleep?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t worry, they’ll not be back. I spoke to the Old Bill this morning and they’re going to get a Cease and Desist order. That means court if they try it again.’

  I must have looked surprised.

  ‘Oh, I’m all for a bit of fun, don’t get me wrong,’ Ray held up his hand, ‘kids need to let off steam. We used to go up there ourselves back in the day. Bit of wacky baccy and a ghetto blaster…’

  Min raised an ironical eyebrow.

  ‘… But you can’t be having amps and lights and all the rest of it, it’s taking the Mick.’

  I nodded in agreement, then, unable to think of any further small talk, shrugged and smiled and started to wind up my window, until Min signalled me to stop.

  ‘What are you doing Thursday?’ she asked. My mind went blank. What might we be doing, other than what we were always doing these days, clopping around our Wendy house in our too-big shoes, cooking pretend meals on our pretend Aga, fooling no one.

  ‘I’m… pretty sure we’re free.’

  ‘Come and have something to eat. We’ve some other friends coming who we’d like you to meet.’

  I welled up a bit then. Who cried at a casual dinner invitation?

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I said and even through the meniscus of tears I could read Min’s sympathetic smile; appreciate the tact of her businesslike, ‘Good!’

  I noticed Ray glance in his rear-view mirror. Another car needed to pass. He gave me an apologetic wave and drove on.

  Outside the cottage, the Range Rover was sagging lopsided on the gravel like a drunken penitent. I poked the tyre doubtfully with my toe. It was completely flat. A thing that size would cost a fortune to replace. I made straight for the study, not allowing myself even a glance towards my studio on the way up the path. Plenty of time for that once I’d got the important stuff out of the way.

  The paperwork wasn’t where I thought it would be. Nick was usually so methodical. House stuff in the house compartment, work stuff in the work compartment, car stuff… apparently nowhere. I rummaged through the desk, trying to stay focused on the task in hand, resisting the temptation to pry and probe. What, for instance, was this brochure for a hotel and spa in Hertfordshire? Four-poster beds. Nine-course tasting menu. Was it a souvenir? Somewhere he had taken her? Somewhere he might still be planning to? No. It was over. I believed him. Trust. Trust was my watchword now. I closed my eyes, took a breath. I had just put my hand on the car warranty when the phone rang.

  ‘I was literally about to ring them…’

  ‘No need,’ Nick said, ‘it’s sorted.’ His tone was friendly and relaxed. He was in First Class, I could tell, lording it with his laptop
open and a complimentary tea. ‘Turned out I had the details in my phone. He should be with you any time and I’ve paid up-front, so all he’ll need from you’s a signature.’

  ‘I think I can manage that.’ I gave a long, silent exhalation of relief.

  ‘And Kaz…?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sorry I was a twat.’

  I stopped for a moment on my way downstairs to take in the view from the landing window. Last night’s storm seemed to have swept all that was heavy and baleful out of the valley, leaving it clean and fresh and new. Every cloud looked as though it were blown across the sky by a fat-cheeked cherub, every gentle breeze left its shower of apple blossom. I could scarcely believe now, watching a distant car meander along the road into town, that just a few days ago I had stood here in a state of delusional jealousy. To think I had been daft enough to work myself up over some phantom lover whom he’d have had to teleport into our bedroom for the timing to be even remotely plausible. I felt ashamed now, that I’d been that unhinged that recently, especially after all the effort he’d put into my recovery and the commitment he was demonstrating to our marriage now – stepping down from the board at work so he could work part time, selling the house he loved, moving away from all our friends, leaving London, where, despite all his protestations, I knew he’d much prefer to be.

  I went downstairs and tuned the radio to the music channel that Ethan had got me into. Then I started unpacking the shopping. I’d cheated on the salad, buying a washed and ready-to-serve one, which I could just dump straight in a bowl. Nick wouldn’t know the difference and I might even have time to throw a pot before he got back. I made the marinade myself, but I forgot to secure the lid on the blender and it pebble-dashed the work surface with Worcestershire sauce and parsley. I didn’t really mind, though. Everything seemed different today. Auspicious. The way the sun bounced off the rows of white brick tiles and the cow parsley nodded amenably in the field beyond. I’d been projecting so much onto this place, I realized, when actually it was a blank canvas. I could choose how I led my life here, just as I’d choose how to shape my clay.

  I leaned over the sink to wipe a smear of marinade off the window, and noticed, once again, a lone figure on the hill. I stopped and squinted, suppressing a faint pang of anxiety. Then I saw he had a dog with him and I relaxed.

  I peeled the muslin off the clay. It looked tired and dry and lifeless and another day I might have lacked the will to take it on, but today I was its equal. Whacking it hard with the heel of my hand I emitted, in spite of myself, a cathartic grunt of joy. Before long I was thrusting and turning, turning and thrusting, the clay reviving in my hands. It was coming now – that sheen and glow that meant it was ready to throw. I felt excitement swing up from the pit of my belly.

  The throwing of a pot is always an adventure, its precise shape, size and finish in some mysterious way beyond the potter’s complete control, however skilled she is. I loved this about it and I’d struggled hard enough in learning my craft to consider the making of a serviceable vessel a minor triumph in its own right. As I’d become more skilful, though, the pot had become a means to an end, rather than an end in itself – a three-dimensional canvas on which to experiment with sgraffito, wax resist and inlay techniques.

  It was this experimentation with form and decoration, rather than any conscious desire to innovate or shock, which had brought me a degree of success, and even, dare I say it, notoriety. The pots had become my journals – three-dimensional scrapbooks on which I had doodled away, not realising until they stood hardening off on the shelf, how much I had inadvertently revealed of myself, their nursery pastel colours at odds with what my dealer insisted on calling their ‘subversive’ subject matter.

  My dealer! That had been a turn-up. I still had to pinch myself. I’d given Jude a sneak preview one night after dinner when we’d had a few drinks and she’d nagged and nagged me until I’d let a friend of hers take a look. A friend, it turned out, who just happened to co-own an art gallery off Cork Street. An exhibition had been scheduled – eighteen months hence, because, darling, there was admin to be done, catalogues to be written, insurance to arrange… How we had giggled, Jude and I, at the purple prose they had put in that catalogue.

  KAREN MULVANEY – REDEFINING

  SPACE. CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS

  AND THE CONCEPT OF ‘SHE’

  THIS STARTLING DEBUT FROM ONE OF

  BRITAIN’S MOST EXCITING CERAMICISTS

  EXPLORES THE INTERFACE BETWEEN ART

  AND CRAFT, FEMINISM AND FUCKING…

  I had laughed, but secretly I’d been thrilled. I had followed my heart; made work from a place I didn’t even understand, never really thinking of an audience, and yet I had found one. Had been about to find one, anyway…

  I had no desire to revisit those themes now – couldn’t have if I’d wanted to. That person was gone; shattered along with the pots themselves. The only thing my new work would have in common with the old was that it should not be utilitarian. The form of the pot – its integrity as a vessel, the way it handled would be crucial, but only as part of a bigger picture. For a while now, I’d been thinking about a series of pots inspired by the landscape here – by its gentle undulations and mysterious random carbuncles; ancient burial mounds, some of them, or so I’d been told. I wanted to create a sort of installation – an artwork, where the meaning came not only from each individual pot, but also from its relationship to its neighbour. I envisaged an army of pots, as uniform in size and shape as the vagaries of throwing would allow, the small variations between them becoming the warp and weft of the bigger design, so that the whole took on the contours of a landscape. It was a huge undertaking, and open-ended. Who knew when I should consider it finished, or what I would do with it when it was? But it excited me. What could be more appropriate for a woman with a newly empty nest than to fill her empty days creating a landscape of empty vessels?

  So it was with some trepidation that I centred my freshly wedged ball of clay on the wheel and curved my palms around it. Trance-like, I moved my foot on the treadle, watched the clay start to spin, containing it in my hands, exerting only enough influence on it as to reveal the pot within. The sun slanted through the window, dust motes shimmered at the edge of my vision. Magic happened.

  And then a car horn blared in the lane and my pot spun itself into an ellipse and collapsed.

  I swore, first at the noise, and then at myself for forgetting about the breakdown man. I ran down the garden, dangling my wet grey hands in front of me like a zombie.

  ‘Coming! I’m coming,’ I called.

  ‘I was just about to give up on you,’ he said, grumpily. ‘I went up the ’ouse, but I couldn’t get no answer. Can’t leave without a signature or I don’t get paid.’

  He nodded at the replacement tyre. I could smell the aroma of new rubber from where I was standing.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, putting my scribble where he indicated.

  ‘We’ll try and look after this one,’ I said, despising myself for wanting to placate him. ‘My husband tends to get a bit Top Gear behind the wheel of that thing.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the way he’s driving it, love,’ said the man, grimly. ‘Someone’s ’ad a go at that.’

  8

  I talked myself down over a mug of tea. It could have been an accident. The breakdown man was an arse – the type, I could tell, who enjoyed putting the wind up women. The way he’d said the words ‘vandalised’ and ‘slashed’ – rolled them around his tongue – had been creepy and I’d been glad when he’d driven away in his stupid truck with its ‘Honk if You’re Horny’ sticker.

  If it wasn’t an accident, it was last night’s partygoers. That much was obvious. I’d heard them come whooshing out of the woods like flotsam when the rain came. You didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that a bunch of bored yokels, high as kites on who-knew-what, might want to stick it to the Man on their way home. But if it was them, they’d not have stop
ped at ours. They’d have done a job lot.

  I left my tea half drunk, washed the clay off my hands, and headed out to the lane. The only other cars I could see were Cath’s unassuming Kangoo van – hardly a red-rag to a class-warrior – and Jean and Gordon’s Honda marooned on the hard standing in front of Prospect Cottage. I was squinting at it, weighing up whether it was the car or the house itself that was lopsided, when the front door opened a crack.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I jumped guiltily, seeing the pale face peering out, ‘I didn’t mean to bother you…’

  Jean stepped outside. She was wearing an old-fashioned nylon housecoat over her day clothes and her hair stood out around her head like a dandelion clock. I approached her with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘It’s Karen from two doors along. You came to our housewarming…?’

  ‘I know, dear,’ she said, but I wondered if she did. She seemed vague and disoriented, quite different from the beady-eyed seer she had seemed that night.

  ‘I expect they kept you up all night too?’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ she looked confused.

  ‘Did you not hear that mob in the woods?’

  ‘Mob?’ she repeated, pulling the door to behind her now, with a nervous backward glance.

  ‘It went on till nearly four,’ I told her, ‘and then this morning, surprise, surprise, we’ve got a flat tyre. Bit of a coincidence… Well, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions, I suppose, but that’s what the garage man said when he came to fit a new one. Vandalism, he said.’

  ‘Vandalism,’ she repeated in a whisper and I wasn’t sure whether she was awestruck or simply trying to recall the meaning of the word.

  ‘Well, that’s one possibility, but I didn’t mean to worry you – just thought I’d check whether it was only our car and it looks like it was, so that’s great. Great for you, I mean. Not so great for us, but you know, not the end of the world…’

  ‘Jean?’ Gordon’s voice was like the crack of a bullet and Jean flinched as if she’d been hit. She stepped back into the porch and with an apologetic shrug, made to close the door.