by Sue Nicholls
‘How was your sex life?’
Paul narrows his eyes. ‘Is that relevant?’
‘Sexual frustration can certainly influence mood.’
‘Maybe it can but it was fine. No problem. Well… ‘
Max cocks an eyebrow.
‘We didn’t have it as much after Kitty, but I suppose that’s normal. Life gets in the way doesn’t it? And if I was persuasive, I could always bring her round.’
‘Do you think she went off you?’
‘I never considered it. I just thought she was tired. She got pretty off about everything. You know, hung up?’
‘Hung up?’
Paul looks at the fire as if it might hold the words he seeks. ‘Tense. Her sense of humour went.’ The two of them had spent their first year laughing at nothing, but as years passed, the jokes came only from him, and her response would be a narrowing of the lips or a brief glance at the ceiling as she flew round the kitchen or wielded a duster in the living room. ‘We stopped having fun.’
Max sits with his chin propped. He looks interested, less neutral. ‘Why do you think she got that way?’
Paul is not in the habit of analysing life. ‘I don’t bloody know Max. Busy. Demanding job. Big house and garden. New baby.’
‘But you took the pressure off, right?’
Did he? Should he have? ‘I know nothing about housework and cooking. Fee always did it, and she didn’t ask for help.’
‘But she was tired.’
Paul’s voice rises. ‘She might have been tired, but she never asked for help. Am I supposed to be psychic?’
Max is silent. Then, in his usual way, changing the subject, ‘The other two women, Millie and Twitch, are they middle class too?’
‘Shit yes. What do they call it?' He adopts a far back accent. Received Pronunciation, designer clothes, organic food, fine wines, table manners. I bet their mealtimes are spent sipping glasses of Tesco Finest Shiraz and telling the kids to sit up straight and not talk with their mouths full. Poor little buggers!’
‘I expect they have plenty in common then?’
‘S’pose so. I think Twitch stays at home and looks after the kids. She probably paints with them and that sort of thing - she’s arty-farty. Fee will be the earner, and Millie, I’m not sure about her. I think from what Kitty says that she wants to open a restaurant.’
Max looks impressed. ‘What’s she like, this Millie?’
‘Bit of a shrimp, dark curly hair, pretty in an Italian way.’
‘And they all live together.’
Paul smiles a secretive smile. ‘Yep. They don’t always manage to be terribly civilised.’ Paul uses a Fee-type accent. ‘Kitty told me there was a big row the other day.’
‘And that makes you feel…?’
Paul shrugs his shoulders, ‘I dunno.’ He does know. He feels triumphant. Relieved that he is not the only person to irritate Fee. He stares back at the fire and Max waits, but Paul decides not to speak.
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Yesterday. She came to have a go at me over the house. My lifestyle doesn’t meet with her approval.’
As usual Max is in no hurry to interrupt.
‘She threatened to stop Kitty seeing me. Cow.’ There is a pop from the grate and a small glare of flame leaps towards the chimney. ‘She says if I don’t clean up, she won’t let Kitty come round. She’s my daughter. I have rights.’
Max shifts his eyes to meet Paul’s. ‘Tell me about your house.’
When Paul left this morning, the bed was unmade and the bathroom even scummier than when Fee had called. The kitchen is moderately less oily as the wheel has gone, but the floor is probably grimy; he has not looked at it. ‘It’s a mess. I’m not a housekeeper.’
‘Do you want to stay in that house?’
‘Well moving’s such a hassle. I’m not bothered about the house.’ Paul thinks of the rows of tools on pegboards in his garage, and the vice on the bench, the shelves, neatly organised with jam jars of nuts and bolts and boxes of parts. ‘All I need is a workshop with a flat above.’ He flicks Max a brief grin.
‘And what does Kitty want?’ Max leans forwards in the chair and rests his forearms on his knees, letting his hands dangle between.
‘Are you trying to trick me?’ Paul’s chin juts at Max and he glares through half closed lids.
Max shakes his head. ‘Not at all. Just trying to make you see it from the point of view of all parties. It seems to me, and I may be wrong, but from what you’ve told me Fee’s not prone to knee-jerk reactions so she must feel quite strongly about this. What do you think Kitty’s reaction will be to the mess?’
Paul tries to imagine his house through the eyes of his daughter. Kitty is not one for holding back. Paul can almost hear her stunned voice quavering in disapproval. ‘She’d tell me off. She’s her bloody mother’s daughter.’
‘She’s yours too. You’ve told me before how you’ve influenced her.’
‘Mm, yeah, but the house has always been clean and tidy.’ He pauses, thinking. He has let it get that way on purpose - to spite the obsessively neat Fee, but he had not thought that it might alienate Kitty. He pouts. ‘I bloody hate cleaning!’
‘There are firms that do it.’
‘I s’pose.’
Max veers in a new direction. ‘So, they’ve had a row. What was that about?’
‘Oh, something about mess. There’s three of them in that small house now, with all the kids most of the time. I think Fee tripped over some shoes or something. I don’t think she would have yelled or anything, that’s not her way. She probably just made someone feel guilty - that would be more like it. Millie wouldn’t have kept her mouth shut if she got annoyed. She’s a fire ball when she gets going, well, so Kitty tells me.’
Max’s eyes stray to the clock. ‘What’s Twitch like? You haven’t mentioned her much.’
‘Not sure. Quiet, sexy actually…’ Paul stares at Max. ‘Are you getting off on the idea of having three women at the same time?’
Max pulls himself up in the chair and shakes his head, his fringe flapping from side to side. For a moment he looks guilty, then he grins. ‘Ha. Good try Mr Thomas.’ He looks at the clock again. ‘Time’s up. See you in a week?’
As Paul leaves the office, shrugging on his leather motor cycling jacket, Max is writing intently, one elbow on his knee supporting his forehead, his fringe flopping between his splayed fingers. Paul wonders what he is writing: ‘Miserable bastard? Complete bore? Poor man has been seriously damaged by his selfish ex-wife?’
Chapter 19
‘I hate to pull this on you, but we have to do the childhood thing in more detail.’
‘Childhood? Do me a favour Max. What the hell good is it going to do, finding out whether I pulled the legs off spiders or got bullied at school?’
‘Did you?’
‘No, to the spiders. The worst thing that happened to me when I was small, was my mum and dad dying when I was six. A rail crash. They were coming home from a weekend in South End. I was staying with mum’s parents, Nan and Grandad. I never left after that. It was hard at the time, but I don’t dwell on it. No point. I’m just a working-class boy from a working-class home. No complications, no hang ups.’
‘Not even about the middle-classes?’
‘I’m not hung up about the middle-classes, but I don’t want to be a member.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it’s a club, isn’t it? You have to send your kids to the best school, recycle your rubbish, clean the car on a Sunday wearing a lamb’s wool sweater, keep the lawn nice, and,’ Paul searches for a way to explain his antipathy, ‘you have to own things: detached house, latest telly, four by four for the wife.’
‘But you used to have all those things. Didn’t you say you were pleased when Fee’s father bought you that house?’
‘Well,’ he hesitates, ‘I was wrong.’ He had thought it was just a house, but it was not, it was a way of life. He screws his face up and shakes his head.
'Look, I’m happy when I’m tinkering with my motorbike or having a pint. Not sitting round at bloody dinner parties making small talk with a load of tossers.’ His head shakes at each word and Max scribbles a note or two. ‘So, were you ill at ease with Fee’s friends?’
Paul slumps in the chair. ‘I embarrassed her,’ he mutters.
The counsellor looks quizzical.
‘Not sure if I did it on purpose,' he hesitates. ‘I wanted to shock them. I dunno why.' He pauses again. 'They made me feel stupid. I felt like saying fuck, cunt, and shit - wipe the smug looks of their faces.’
‘Is that how your Grandparents would have felt in your shoes?’
‘My Nan and Grandad wouldn’t say ‘Boo’ to a pantomime goose. They thought those types were better than them. When I was nine there was a kid at school, James Whittaker. His dad was a doctor. I was quite small for my age; a late developer and he was built like brick shit-house.’ Paul glowers. ‘He had this la-de-dah accent, and he used to nick my crisps every play time. He didn’t want them. He'd throw them on the playground and stamp on them then run away with his mates, laughing.
I told my Nan, but she did fuck all. You didn’t argue with a doctor.’
‘Did you see Fee as a member of the Middle-Class Club when you met her?’
Paul had watched Fee going past his window for ages before managing to catch her eye. He had played the fool, done a stupid dance close to the window, pulled faces and made her laugh. After that she had looked in and waved every time she passed. One day he had been at the door, waiting for her to come past and they had had a conversation. He could not remember what it was about, but as for her accent, had he noticed it? He decides that he had but it had not mattered, she had laughed at his antics, talked to him as an equal. He had assumed that she would be like him with a posher voice. ‘Naah, she was good fun in those days. We went out with my mates mainly, and she was one of the crowd. Everyone was envious of me having such a classy bird.’
He broods over the laughs they used to have. Fee began taking life seriously the day her job became more responsible. ‘She got all upwardly mobile when she got promoted.’
‘So, you’re better off without her then, if she wanted different things from you and,’ Max flips back through his notes, ‘you didn’t have much sex and you couldn’t go to the pub any longer?’
Paul feels wrong-footed. He has to agree that Fee and he are now different, so why is he upset that she left? He does not want to accept Max’s analysis; he wants to blame Fee for not being the person he thought she would be. An uncomfortable thought bounces into his head, perhaps she had been surprised too, that he was not as she expected.
Max is watching him.
But Kitty. His baby. ‘She stole my kid and left before I could even think.’
‘Would you like to take Kitty back?’
‘Of cour...’ He hesitates. That would be a lot of work. ‘I just want things the way they were.’
‘And is that a possibility.’
‘Not a fucking chance!’
‘So?’
‘No, I couldn’t manage her full time.’ He slumps his chin onto his chest.
‘How are you getting on with the house?’
Paul frowns. ‘The house?’
‘Yes. You were putting it on the market.’
After their last session Paul went home alone and railed in the messy rooms, at Fee and Max. He paced the floor in the lounge stepping over the food cartons, then sat down and looked at his surroundings as if for the first time. Half an hour later he was thumbing through the Yellow Pages for cleaning companies.
‘It’s clean as a whistle. Fee’s happy and Kitty has been over. Fee even let her stay overnight.’
‘Are you pleased?’
Paul shrugs and looks away.
‘Is it on the market?’
‘Next week, I think. I’m looking at rental properties. Not a great prospect but I suppose it’s got to be done.’
‘Anyway,’ Max clears his throat, ‘We were going to discuss your childhood.’
Paul submits to questioning about his grandfather, a maintenance man at a local hospital, and his grandmother, a sales assistant in the corner shop. He describes their home, a semi-detached house on a council estate, and their pride in him when he passed the eleven plus and got to the grammar school. ‘I don’t think they expected me to do it,’ he spreads his palms. ‘People like us didn’t do exams, let alone further education. I think my Nan and Grandad are clever, but they're a different generation. They both came from huge families where everything they wore was a hand-me-down, and they had to go out to work as soon as they could, to help bring in money for the family. My Nan once told me that when she was 14 her teacher had tried to persuade her parents to let her stay on at school, but her dad said it couldn’t be managed. I think Nan regretted that, but she never complained.’
‘Is it possible that you think Fee is, not better than you, but more confident, that her expectations are higher?’
So many difficult questions. Paul’s knee jiggles like a hammer drill, but deep inside there spreads a small pool of understanding. He went to clever kids’ school, and to college, but he always felt an imposter. He had slunk through school waiting for someone to stop him and say, ‘Hey, you. Who said you could come here?’ He pushes the thoughts away. It will take a better person than Max to change his feelings. He returns to his well-rehearsed mantra: Fee left him. Fee took Kitty away. Fee made him look inferior. It is Fee’s fault.
Chapter 20
The bathroom door is locked at six in the morning! Fee always gets up now; everyone knows she has priority in the shower. The door flies open and Josh flies out. ‘Sorry,’ he sings. ‘Needed a poo.’
After her shower, and wrapped in a robe, Fee returns to the bedroom, squeezing between her bed and Kitty’s to reach the wardrobe. She pauses to watch her daughter, deep in sleep, eyelashes splayed across soft cheeks, mouth lolling.
Outside on the landing, Twitch and Millie are rousing the other children for school.
‘Kitty, time to wake up Poppet.’ Fee shakes the child by her shoulder, and Kitty moans and stirs.
‘Come on, rise and shine, everyone’s getting dressed.’
‘I don’t want to go to school.’ Kitty’s forehead corrugates and she slits her eyes apart to peer at Fee over her covers. ‘I feel sick.’
Fee puts a hand on Kitty’s head. ‘You’re fine. No temperature, and you haven’t been sick.’ She tilts her head to one side and looks kindly at Kitty. ‘You need to go to school with the others.’
‘I do feel sick Mummy. Really.’
Fee gives inward groan. This has been happening too much lately. She hardens her tone. ‘Kitty. You have to go.’ She sits on Kitty’s bed and strokes hair from the little girl’s eyes, feeling the warmth of the small body against her hip. Her voice softens. ‘You like school, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Kitty snuggles up to Fee, ‘But everything’s different now. Going to school with Aunty Twitch is funny.’
Josh’s raised voice vibrates through the closed bedroom door. ‘I didn’t get it out, Olivia did. Make her put it away.’
Then Millie’s quieter, firmer one, ‘I’m asking you to help, Josh. Everyone needs to do things to keep this little house tidy, and you’re nearer to that coat than Olivia is. Please pick it up and I promise you that Olivia will put away something of yours one day.’
Fee rises from the bed and pitches Kitty a brisk smile. ‘You see? We’re all finding it a bit strange. It’ll get easier. I guarantee.’
Footsteps thump and doors slam on the landing, as Fee says, ‘Come on Poppet. Get up now. You’ll be fine.’
Kitty yawns and climbs to the floor. Fee struggles to dress in the tiny space then puts a hand on the doorknob. ‘I’ll see you downstairs, Poppet. Don’t be late or I won’t get my goodbye kiss.’
The cramped hall is a mess of school bags and coats. In the kitchen Twitch pours milk onto bowls of cereal, while Sam, Olivia an
d Josh sit at the small table, leaving little room for anyone else. Fee pokes her head in through the door. ‘Any tea in the pot?’
‘I’ll bring it through in a tick.’ Twitch looks distracted.
Fee glances at her watch. It is ten to eight. She usually leaves the house at 8am to avoid the traffic and to prepare before the rest of her team arrive.
‘OK. Thanks.’ She hesitates, ‘I’ll get breakfast at work.’ She crosses to the other room and joins Millie, sitting in the lounge browsing the local paper.
Twitch leans out of the kitchen and bellows up the stairs to the other two children to hurry or their cornflakes will be soggy.
Millie folds the newspaper, exposing snapshots and columns on the property page.
‘Moving out already?’
Millie smiles. ‘No, I’ve found some commercial premises to let, on the High Street, up by the church. I think I’ll go and have a look.’
Fee looks distractedly at her watch. ‘Great Idea.’ She stands up and at the same time, Twitch arrives in the doorway with the tea.
‘Sorry, I haven’t got time now.’ Fee squeezes past her and picks her way to her coat.
‘Well, you could have a sip…’ Twitch looks put out.
‘Sorry. Must go.’
As Fee pulls the door closed, she can hear Twitch complaining to Millie, and as she reverses her car from the drive, she realises that Kitty has missed her kiss.
***
Millie lays her newspaper on the arm of the chair and pounds upstairs. ‘Kitty. Lucas. Breakfast time. What are you doing up here?’
The landing is silent. Cautiously she pushes Fee’s door open. Kitty is sitting on the edge of the bed, her little body sagging over her knees and both hands over her face. Millie rushes to wrap the child in her arms, dropping her head onto the soft hair. Kitty’s delicate shoulders shake and Millie croons, half of her mind wondering what Lucas is up to.
Kitty grows calmer and Twitch’s impatient voice rises from below. ‘Kitty. Lucas. Will you hurry up?’
Millie, still cuddling Kitty, shouts back, ‘Twitch, Kitty and I’ll be there in a minute. Do you think you could check on Lucas?’