And meanwhile, of course, I’d be out with my boys. My Malcolms, my Rollos, my Sebastians – the former in a hat and dark glasses and the second under strict instructions not to open his mouth – parading them up and down in front of his nose until it turned green and fell off. Then maybe, maybe, I’d agree to meet him again. For, hmm, let me see now – coffee. And on the understanding that he had precisely half an hour to present his case because I was a very busy woman. (By this stage I’d naturally have that aforementioned, much discussed, high-powered job at the Chelsea Physic.) In I’d click in my designer mules – I’d be on the management side, rather than the soil-tilling, gum-booted side – and there he’d be, cowering at a corner table again, sweaty-palmed, getting eagerly to his feet, knocking his chair flying in his haste. Oh yes, it could have gone on and on like that. I could have milked it for months, brought him to his knees, given him to understand that only under very exceptional circumstances would he ever get so much as a toe in my door again. Instead of which, with a belly full of Pimms inside me as Dutch courage to take another man to bed, I’d taken Johnny instead. Just like that.
More kindly critics might argue that if getting Johnny home was indeed the endgame, the raison d’être, why shillyshally about? Why play the fish, dangle him at length for no apparent reason, when actually, it was the landing of him that was so important? We weren’t seventeen, after all; this wasn’t an extended flirt, this was serious stuff, this was a marriage.
I suspect there may have been some middle ground, but I didn’t find it. I simply saw the green light, put my foot down and went for it. Marriage, it seemed to me, was rather like one of those great big shiny Jeeps, driven by mothers with expensive highlights and crammed full with children at private schools; the whole family perched up high, roaring around bends, confident, loved, cruising into the future, pushing the odd bicycle into the verge, which to me, felt like the single life. Pedalling hard, alone, feeling every bump, every rut in the road, never quite knowing what was around the next corner. I’d been in the Jeep for ten years and then I’d got on the bicycle and I knew which I preferred, which was harder work, and which was more terrifying. Not seeing round corners frightened the life out of me, but now, the future was simply a scene I could cruise back into. What a relief to let go of those handlebars. Weak? Possibly, but on the other hand, who on earth was I supposed to be brave for? Surely this was about me? About what I wanted?
As I lay there the following morning, feeling I really should pinch myself extremely hard, I took in the surreal scene around me. Johnny was still asleep beside me, his clothes in a familiar heap on the floor, his brown arm flung over me in its habitual fashion, one leg sticking out of bed, his eyelids just beginning to flicker. They opened, and as he saw me, a huge smile spread instantly across his face. It was so instinctive, so very much the moment he’d opened his eyes, so free of any ghastly doubt, any “holy shit, what have I done?” that I beamed back, delighted. And it was at that, highly seminal moment, that the door opened and Claudia appeared in her nightie. She stopped dead in her tracks, her hand frozen on the handle. Her jaw dropped.
“Daddy!”
He turned quickly towards her. She stared in astonishment, her grey eyes huge, first focused on him, then on me.
“It’s Daddy!” She gaped incredulously at me, as if perhaps I didn’t know. I smiled, waiting.
Johnny sat up and stretched out an arm to draw her close. She came, but slowly, looking to me first for reassurance. I nodded, still smiling.
“Daddy, what are you doing here!” she squealed suddenly, leaping forward excitedly, jumping high in the air, and coming crashing down on top of him with her knees bent, catching him neatly in the groin.
“Oooomph…!” he groaned, bringing his knees up in pain. “Aaarrgh! What am I doing? I’m being beaten up by a ten-year-old,” he gasped, “that’s what I’m doing, and on the day of my homecoming too. What sort of a welcome is that?”
“Home…?” Again, wide grey eyes shot across to me.
“Daddy’s coming back, darling.”
“Really?” Her mouth dropped.
“Really,” said Johnny firmly.
There was a silence. She didn’t whoop, and she didn’t shriek, and for a moment there, I was nervous. But then a slow smile spread over her face. She reddened a bit too.
“Well, about time too,” she said hotly, giving him a playful clip round the ear. She folded her arms and pursed her lips, affecting a rolling-pin-wielding, northern harridan style. “Moother and I ‘ave bin worried sick, ‘aven’t we, moother? All this time without a word, you never call, you never write, we’ve been that fussed!”
He laughed, catching her wrists as she made to beat him up with her rolling pin and then they rolled about on the bed, wrestling and fighting amid shrieks of giggles.
I watched them for a moment, tussling away beside me. Just like old times. Extraordinary, like he’d never been away. How could that be then? Because he had been away. I blinked, shook my head in wonder, then grabbed my dressing gown, rolled neatly out of bed and slipped into it. I smiled down as they rolled about, Johnny pinning Claudes to the bed now, telling her that “if she gave ‘im any more lip e’d come down from mill or oop from pit and give ‘er a right good thrashin’,” and Claudia shrieking that if he did that she’d “put on clogs and shawl and get a job oop big house as servin’ wench!”
I tied my silk dressing gown around me and gazed out of the window. A hazy mist was hovering over a dewy lawn, full of the promise of sun. The caravan was still in situ on the other side of the river (despite Mac’s assertions that they’d be gone soon, predictably, they were still here), and I saw the door open and Lance appear. As I watched him yawn, stretch, gaze up at the blue sky then make his way over the bridge and up the dewy lawn, I realised, in a sudden rush, the enormity of what I’d done. Realised what a huge leap of faith I’d taken. I also realised, with something approaching panic, that having taken that leap, it simply had to work. Shrieks of glee rang out behind me. It had to. If not for me, then for Claudia. We couldn’t do this to her only for Johnny to disappear again, could we? But of course that wasn’t going to happen, was it? I thought hastily. He was back for good now and we were a family again. As I watched Lance potter off round to his workbench in the garage, I leant forward and rested my forehead on the glass. Was it really that simple? Did we just erase the last few months and start again? Carry on from where we left off without even skipping a beat? I gave myself a little inward shake. Why, yes of course we did, why not? As I turned, I saw Johnny’s eyes on me as he tussled with Claudia. They seemed anxious.
I straightened up. “Right, you lot!” I said with a bright smile. “Scrambled eggs and bacon in the kitchen in ten minutes, and the last one down washes up the scrambled egg pan!”
I swept out joyfully and clattered downstairs. Well, if they were looking to me for guidance, that was fine. I could do that, I could be the leader. In fact, it would make an extremely pleasant change.
It was a beautiful morning. I threw open the back door and humming happily, gathered some eggs from the fridge. Yes, breakfast in our new kitchen, cooked on my shiny blue Aga, with the sun streaming in on the pale yellow walls, hung now with blue and white plates, casting shadows on the smooth, mellow wooden floor, and all of us here, together, back where we belonged.
As I fried the bacon at the stove, simultaneously laying the table with orange juice, toast, cereal, quickly flicking on the radio as I went past, Johnny and Claudia came bounding in. They flopped happily down at the table, still chattering away, and occasionally, Johnny would catch my eye as in, “Isn’t it great? She’s delighted!” And I’d respond with a smile which agreed.
Meanwhile, the laughter and the jokes continued apace. But it seemed to me, as I listened, my hand pausing for a moment as I went to break an egg in the pan, that somehow, he was hiding behind Claudia. Something, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, was wrong. His larking was extravagant, and OK, it alw
ays had been, but somehow…No. I cracked the egg. No, you’re wrong, Olivia. It’s just that he’s bound to be slightly nervous. Why d’you think you flicked that radio on so quickly if not for some background hum, and aren’t you secretly glad that Claudia’s here and not round at Lucy’s? And after all, I thought, reaching for the milk and sloshing it in, why shouldn’t he be in glorious, over-the-top high spirits on this supremely, glorious, heady day?
That day, and the next few, proceeded in much the same, pattern. I seemed to vacillate between strange extremes of emotions. I’d notice every nuance, every flicker of Johnny’s eye, every intonation in his voice, but as the days progressed, my reactions to these nuances became more pronounced. One moment I’d be almost incandescent with happiness, hugging him to bits, showering him with kisses, and the next, tears of doubt and rage would spring and I’d be stomping round the house in fury, practically spitting in his coffee as I handed it to him. Johnny indulged these moods, knowing, I’m sure, that they were entirely natural and that it was better for me to get it all out rather than bottle it up. He did his best to ride the waves. He also indulged my rather erratic desire for information, as one minute I decided I wanted to know absolutely everything about Nina, and the next, nothing. Sometimes, the minute Claudia had gone out to play, I’d seize his wrist, drag him to the kitchen table, sit him down, and with frenzied, burning eyes demand, “Where? How? How exactly did it happen – how did you meet her? I want to know precisely – tell me again!”
And he’d light a cigarette and patiently explain, yet again, that the day we’d been to look around Claudia’s new school, a year or so ago, on the open day, Nina had been there too. As a new teacher, available to meet new parents.
“You picked her up at an open day!” I screeched, fumbling for a cigarette.
“No, I just talked to her, but for quite a while because you were off touring the school. You wanted to see the new science block again, remember? The headmaster took you, and while you were gone, we chatted, that’s all.”
My mind scuttled back. Was that right? Had I gone off? Maybe I had.
“And then?” I demanded. “How the hell did you progress from there? Listen, Miss Harrison, we seem to have a few minutes, fancy a quick one behind the bike sheds while my wife’s examining the Bunsen burners?”
“No,” he said levelly, ignoring my sarcasm, “it happened quite by chance, actually. A couple of months later the gears were playing up on the Lagonda, so I took it into the Classic Car garage in Finchley – you know, the one Dad used to go to, and the one I still use. Well, it was quite extraordinary, because there she was, just coming out of the front door to the flat next door. She recognised me and smiled, and at first I couldn’t think who the hell she was, but then I remembered I’d met her at the school. We got chatting and it turned out that her father owns the garage, which is extraordinary really because I’ve known Bob Harrison for years, and – well, I suppose we laughed about the coincidence, said what a small world it was, talked for a bit.” He shrugged. “It just went from there.”
“How?” I yelled. “How did it ‘just go from there’!”
He sighed, frowned and picked at an eggy stain on the kitchen table. “I suppose…I asked her if she fancied a drink.”
“What – just like that? Oh golly, Nina, what a coincidence, your Dad mends my cars, fancy a lager and lime?”
“Well, it was a hot day, the pub was opposite…I don’t know. It seemed natural at the time, somehow.”
“Natural?” I sneered. “But you’re married, Johnny. A married man.”
“I know.”
I dragged hard and deep on my cigarette, eyes a trifle wild. “And then?”
“Well,” he shifted uncomfortably, “then I suppose we arranged to meet again, only this time it was for dinner, and then – ”
“Stop, Stop!” I cried, clapping my hands over my ears. “Stop this minute! I don’t want to hear another word!”
And so it went on, with me oscillating wildly between a greed to be informed and a revulsion at the details, between hate and happiness, and in the midst of all this, many bouts of desperate, frenzied lovemaking. Oh yes, there was a definite desperation about it, as if sex was the filling in the sandwich, something which would glue us together, and which we had to have, as much as possible, at any conceivable opportunity, to stop us falling apart. In some ways I was more worried about me than I was about Johnny. He seemed so sure, so strong, so ready to go along with anything I wanted, and I began to wonder if it was me who was the neurotic here, me who was having the mid-life crisis.
I seemed to veer from an insatiable desire to run down the street shouting, “He’s back! My husband’s back!” to not wanting to answer the telephone in case it was Someone Who Should Know. My mother, for instance, or Angie, maybe Molly, or Imogen. Of course we did tell these people, we told them all in time, but gradually, letting it leak out over a period of days. Looking back, their reactions fell neatly into two camps: modified rapture from my mother, Molly and Hugh, and unmitigated delight from Angie and Imogen.
My mother’s subdued reaction – “Well, darling, I’m pleased for you, of course I’m pleased, it’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” – together with a promise, when pressed, to come over soon with Howard, was, in light of her new incarnation as a born-again romantic, a no-longer-passed-over, shat-upon woman, I suppose somewhat predictable. But Molly surprised me.
“And you’ve taken him back?” she demanded from her hospital bed, newly delivered of a nine-pound baby girl named Flora, after the cottage garden she was very nearly born into, and who, her mother declared, was even more stunning than Helen of Troy, fed beautifully, didn’t crack her nipples, and had yet to be sick all over her.
“Well – yes. I have.”
“No questions asked?”
“Of course, Molly, many.”
“Good. Well, I just hope he’s got some answers.” A pause. “Sorry, Liwy, I’m delighted for you, of course I’m delighted. God, ignore me, I’m just hormone soup at the moment. This morning I was in floods of tears because I was convinced Flora was going to grow up to be a lesbian. One of the nurses missed her pink wrist tag and called her a great big bruiser of a boy, and I could suddenly see her in dungarees, with a number-one haircut and a lover called Brenda. I cried for half an hour. Added to which I feel like my undercarriage has been sown up by some malicious, sharp-eyed seamstress from the WI, while at the back I’ve got a bag fully of jelly beans swinging jauntily out of my bottom. Just ignore me, I’m a mess. Hugh’s here and he’s thrilled for you, aren’t you, Hugh?” She held the phone out to Hugh for confirmation.
“Ami?”
There was some muffled confusion as her hand clamped over the mouthpiece, a fair amount of hissing, then – “Thrilled!” came back a chipper male voice. “But tell her I thought she was doing pretty well under her own steam, too.”
Angie cried on the phone, so relieved was she, and promised to come round soon, wondering also if Claudia would like to come and stay a while and give us some space? I turned, the receiver at my ear, to ask Johnny and we both instinctively shook our heads and said – no! Then we stared, anxiously at each other. Why didn’t we want space? Why didn’t we want to be alone? Because we wanted to be a unit, a family, I decided firmly.
Imogen, though, surprised me most. I left a message on her answer machine at work – she was out at Sotheby’s – and that evening she appeared on my doorstep, loaded with flowers, hugging us through her tears and her orchids, hugely overcome and emotional.
“Oh God, guys,” she gasped, “this is so much what I’d hoped for! It’s just the answer to everyone’s prayers! I just can’t believe it – I’m so, so happy for you!”
“Imo,” I said, touched as she hugged me tight, “you’re so sweet to come.”
She sat in the garden with us a while, shared a bottle of wine with us, but when she left, I closed the front door thoughtfully and went, biting my thumbnail, back to Johnny on the terrace. He
was hidden now, behind the Telegraph.
“I can’t believe she came all that way just to give us some flowers,” I said in astonishment. “And she’s so busy. She’s got a private view to organise tonight.”
Johnny didn’t answer, immersed as he was in his broadsheet, and suddenly I felt a bit guilty. I adored Imo, always had done, but always from a slightly respectful distance, always from afar, and yet here she was, on my doorstep the moment she’d heard, brimming over with tears for me. I had no idea she’d felt my loss so keenly.
Claudia was skippy and happy most of the time, but cautious too, I noticed. Johnny would pull her on to his lap, maybe after Sunday lunch, and she’d laugh, fool about with him a bit, but be quick to slip away, too. If he noticed, he didn’t say.
Once, when she and I were picking strawberries together in the vegetable patch, she suddenly paused, face down in the fragrant, star-shaped leaves. Crouched on her haunches, she said abruptly, “Is Daddy back for good, then?”
I straightened up. “Yes, of course, darling. This is for ever. We’re a family again!”
She didn’t reply.
I frowned. “Claudes?”
“It’s just…well, Granny says, ‘Never say never, and you can’t say forever’.”
“Oh, Granny and her little homilies!” I said, exasperated. “When did she say that?”
She shrugged. “The other day.”
“You saw her?”
“No, I rang her.”
“Oh!” Again, panic. She rang her? Why couldn’t she talk to me? “But – but you wanted Daddy to come back, surely?”
“Of course. I’m just asking, that’s all. I can ask, can’t I?” She straightened up and stared defiantly at me in her blue shorts and ancient Mickey Mouse T-shirt, her cheeks glowing. Yes, of course she could ask, I thought slowly as she threw down her basket, brushed past me and stomped off. Why not? Children have every right to assume their parents will be together for ever, so if one disappears, then comes back to the fold, surely they have every right to question that reappearance, too?
Olivia’s Luck (2000) Page 34