Matt frowned at the sludge of tea leaves in the bottom of his mug, wondering what grim unreadable secrets they might hold.
‘Have you decided where Josh will be going next term?’
It was Ambreen talking, one huge milky breast now fully exposed. The baby had quickly fallen asleep on the job, the bulbous nipple hanging out of its open mouth like a half-eaten cherry.
‘Not yet sorted on that front, no.’ Matt drilled his gaze into hers, careful not to let his eyes flick below her neckline. ‘We’re registered with the obvious places, St Leonard’s and Broadlands, but I’ve yet to visit them myself. The whole business seems rather a minefield.’
‘Oh, it is,’ they all cooed, launching into a string of anecdotes about south London primary schools. Made bold by the distraction, Matt let his glance slip to Ambreen’s, chest, feeling some curious primeval stirrings at the way the baby had once again started chomping on the nipple, so unashamedly greedy and uncaring. Ambreen’s insouciance was attractive too, he mused, crossing his legs in case his erection was more detectable than it felt and giving an earnest nod to a comment he hadn’t heard. His thoughts slipped back to Kath, for whom breast-feeding had been a constant trial, pursued only because of pressure from peers and visiting nurses smugly implying that resorting to formula milk would be tantamount to murder.
Ambreen’s baby had fallen asleep again, leaving a perfect pearl-drop of milk hanging off the tip of the nipple. For one heady moment Matt pictured his own tongue licking it clean, until the image fizzled out in a blush of shame. He was the faker, he thought wretchedly, seeking now to avoid the earnest expressions of the women, realising that he could never be truly integrated among them; that no matter how much he pretended or tried, a female would always trigger some degree of sexual response. Little did they know that he had already assessed how attractive the three of them were, half run through in his mind their potential as sexual partners: Heather with her kind eyes and wide waistline was the least obviously attractive, but had none the less an intensity about her which was appealing; Maria was the primmest and prettiest, with the kind of alert, intelligent expression that Matt had always found attractive; while Ambreen had a sultriness that the other two lacked, something to do with her coffee-cream skin and the languid way she moved.
‘Matt, what do you think – would you like to?’
‘Like to what? Sorry, I lost it there for a moment. I’m afraid I have trouble focusing these days – a lot on my plate and so forth.’
There was a round of exchanged glances and sympathetic murmurs. ‘I was just saying that if you hadn’t yet looked round St Leonard’s we could go together,’ repeated Maria. ‘I’ve only been once and was planning to go back. It’s almost certainly our preferred choice, if Harry gets in, of course, but I’d still be curious to take a peek at Broadlands as well. We could do both in the same morning. Only if you want to,’ she added, the lack of response from Matt making her suddenly uncertain.
‘Absolutely. Yes, please. Much nicer to look with someone – to share opinions and so on. Help me – help Josh and I – come to some sort of decision. Thanks, Maria, I’d like that very much. Though it will have to be a Saturday, I’m afraid, as I go back to work next week.’
The party was broken up by a set-to in the garden. Joshua and Ambreen’s little girl came hurtling into the sitting room in tears, howling conflicting accounts as to what had happened. Ambreen began at once to try to engineer a reconciliation, but Matt, who had caught a glimpse of the girl pulling Josh’s hair, could not bring himself to do likewise. While it was clear that his adversary was suffering from little more than hurt feelings, Josh had a livid purple bruise on his forehead and what looked suspiciously like bite marks on his forearm.
‘I just hate them to go without saying sorry,’ wailed Ambreen, as Matt embarked on his farewells, bearing his still-sobbing son towards the door.
* * *
‘Perhaps next time, when they’ve calmed down,’ he replied, uttering the reassurance through gritted teeth, suddenly seeing Ambreen as not so much sultry as fawning and complacent, thinking that if she fished her breast out again he would stare all he liked and not feel a thing. Turning into his street some ten minutes later, Matt was disheartened to see Kath’s mother leaping out of a lime-green Saab parked outside their front door.
‘At last – I’d almost given up. I suppose I should have called, but I was in the area and decided to chance it. Remembered you were taking time off. Joshy, darling, come to Nan.’ She bent down and pressed her grandson into her arms, undeterred by the stiffness of his response. ‘And what’s this, you poor darling? Matthew, what on earth has happened to his face?’
‘A collision with a particularly hard-headed playmate – don’t worry, he’s fine. But this is such a surprise, Gillian, how good of you to drop by,’ he added, determined for Joshua’s sake at least to be as civil as he could.
His mother-in-law, true to her usual defiance of the passing years, was attired in a skirt suit of brilliant raspberry pink, a colour that sat rather questionably with the gingery tint she gave her hair. Her legs, as long as Kath’s and undeniably shapely for a pair that had been kicking around the planet for well over sixty years, were handsomely displayed in stiletto heels and seamed stockings, the dark straight line drawing attention to the daring hemline of the skirt.
‘I’ve been having lunch with an old and very dear friend, and thought it would be mad not to drop by,’ she explained, starting to stroke and rearrange Joshua’s hair. ‘But how are you, Matthew? How are you coping?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ he replied dryly, reaching out a hand to rescue Josh, who was cringing under the fiddling fingers messing with his scalp. ‘Though I’m sure you too must be upset,’ he added, leading the way up the steps to the front door. Even during the least troubled times, maintaining a spirit of generosity towards his wife’s parents had been hard. By Kath’s own, frequent admission, they were snobs of the worst kind.
Having escaped from Hounslow to Ascot thanks to the timely sale of a chain of launderettes, the pair of them had transferred their relentless aspirations to their only child. The way Kath defied them was something Matt had always admired, especially when that defiance had encompassed agreeing to marry him instead of somebody blessed with rather more obvious prospects of success.
‘I can’t believe we’ve still not heard one word from her,’ complained Gillian now, pushing her way into the house after Matt, ‘and after all we’ve done over the years. Really, I could weep. Every chance, every opportunity, and this is the gratitude she shows. The shame of it … God in heaven, that a daughter of mine should abandon her own child.’ As she talked, she flopped down on to the sofa, eased off her shoes with a sigh, and began massaging the balls of her feet.
‘Can I get you anything? Tea or coffee?’
‘Tea would be heaven.’ Seeing Josh hovering in the doorway, she patted the seat on the sofa next to her. ‘Come and sit next to Nan and tell her all about school.’ Josh, eyeing her suspiciously, stayed where he was. With the intermittent state of hostility that had reigned between Kath and her mother throughout his brief life, he had passed very little time in the company of his grandmother. What moments they had spent together had, for Joshua at least, been marked by a baffling seesaw of gushing affection and coldness, coupled with a mysterious concern over both the state of his appearance and the mode by which he addressed her. Not Grandma, not Granny, not Gran, not even Nanny. But Nan. Reprimands over this issue in particular had alerted Joshua at a very tender age to the confusing possibility of Being Wrong. Musing upon this very possibility now, he gingerly approached the sofa.
‘That’s it, come on, Nan doesn’t bite.’
When Matt appeared with the tea the pair of them were sitting side by side, Josh propped stiffly under the crook of his grandmother’s arm, his bottom wedged so far into the back of the sofa that his little legs were aligned with her skinny stockinged thighs. Sneaking a wink at his son, Matt
distributed drinks, followed by biscuits.
‘Do you have a plate, Matthew?’ asked Gillian, easing herself free of her grandson, who was blithely spraying crumbs on to her lap. ‘He’s very subdued, isn’t he?’ she remarked, taking the plate Matt offered her, a pitying frown creasing her face. ‘But then that’s hardly surprising.’
Matt, who had managed in all the various discussions of his circumstances to make no disparaging or thoughtless remarks either about Kath or Josh’s reactions to her absence in the presence of Josh himself, gripped the handle of his mug in a bid to control himself. There was a big chip on the rim of his mother-in-law’s mug, he noticed, drawing deep and unreasonable satisfaction from the observation, particularly when he noticed the raspberry-red lips’ surreptitious efforts to avoid it.
‘Thank you, Matthew, dear. Just the right amount of milk too.’ She sipped again, imprinting a smudgy pink crescent of a stain on the china. ‘I’ve come, as I said, to see how you are and because – as you can probably imagine – Lionel and I have done a lot of thinking and talking. God, how we have talked.’ She sighed, pressing one palm to her chest. ‘Wondering what more we could have done, where we went wrong. Kath has always been such a …’ She tutted, searching for the right word. ‘… a worry. And now this.’ She sighed again, more deeply. Josh, seeing his chance, slithered off the sofa and disappeared into the kitchen, where Matt heard what sounded suspiciously like the rustling of a fresh packet of biscuits. ‘Which brings me to my point. Lionel and I are both quite clear on it.’
‘Clear on what?’ interrupted Matt impatiently, all efforts to accept the unattractive behaviour of his mother-in-law as being everything he might have predicted making it no less easier to tolerate.
‘That we should take Joshua to live with us.’ Matt opened his mouth but no words came out.
‘We can give him everything. A good solid home, the best schools, the best prospects. I know I’m not in my first flush and that the onus of it all will no doubt fall upon my shoulders because Lionel will, as per usual, spend every waking moment on the golf course and expect me to cope. But I am still full of energy. All my friends remark upon it. And besides which, the way Katherine has behaved, it’s the least we can do. She is, after all, our responsibility,’ she added, shaking her gingery ringlets mournfully.
‘No, Gillian, Kath is not your responsibility. She is her own responsibility. She is thirty-one years old.’
‘That’s a sweet, generous view to take, Matthew, but the fact remains, I know my duty. It’s not exactly how I had planned to spend my twilight years, but rest assured I will do a good – dare I say the best – job.
Obviously you can see him whenever you like, and if Kath returns … well, in that case we shall all have to do our best to forgive and forget.’
Matt, still struggling for the right words, sought temporary refuge in an explosion of disdainful laughter, not at the thought of forgiving his wife, as Gillian assumed, but at the notion of surrendering his son to the chilly polished rooms of the Trumans’ mock-Tudor residence in Ascot.
‘Really, Matthew, we’ve all got to be grown-ups about this. I hardly think —’
‘And I think you should leave now, Gillian.’ He dropped to his knees, picked up her shoes and handed them to her. ‘Touched as I am by your and Lionel’s astounding generosity, I would not dream of accepting.’
Gillian stared at him, her purple-lidded eyes fluttering with doubt, unsure what to make of him at her knees with her shoes, behaving like a gallant prince but sounding suspiciously sarcastic. ‘But you are not coping,’ she burst out at length, taking the shoes and throwing up her arms.
‘Who says?’
‘This place, for a start. Look at it.’
Matt looked. He saw his home and all the props that made it so. ‘What?’
‘It’s a pigsty, that’s what it is,’ she retorted, spitting the words, little specks of white saliva gathering in the corners of her mouth.
‘Pigs are clean,’ murmured Matt, getting to his feet, not wanting to flatter her with an attempt at an intelligent response. ‘Joshua, given the circumstances, is fine.’ He clenched his fists, feeling a protective lump block his throat. ‘I love him. He loves me. We’re going to get through this together.’
‘How very touching,’ she replied icily, sweeping out of the room. ‘Of course, if you ever want to see him —’ Matt began, but the front door slammed before he could finish the sentence. He stood staring at it for a few minutes, trying to summon some guilt for almost certainly having deprived his son of an entire wing of his rightful family. It was a while before he became aware that he was shaking, so badly that he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again it was to see Joshua sitting halfway up the stairs, his face streaked with sticky brown. Open on his lap was a box of chocolate fingers. Clearly bored of simply eating the biscuits, he was pushing them through the banisters and watching with mild interest as they broke on the hard floor below.
‘Joshua – for God’s sake, stop that. Where did you get those?’
Joshua hurled the remaining biscuits, box and all, down the stairs. He then turned and began to slither up towards the landing.
‘Come here. I said, come here.’ Matt took the stairs two at a time, crushing several biscuits underfoot before successfully seizing his son. ‘You made that mess so you’re going to help Daddy clean it up.’
‘No!’ The word began as a shout but ended up as a prolonged howl. Pinned in Matt’s arms, the child wrestled furiously. ‘Mummy! I want Mummy!’
Matt relaxed his grip at once. He had been holding him too tightly, he realised, hurting him. Joshua went limp in response, reducing his protests to a whimper. ‘I want her too,’ Matt whispered, sinking down on to the bottom step and tucking Joshua on to his lap. ‘But we’ve got to learn to be good without her, to look after ourselves, not to be naughty … What would Mummy say at such a mess, eh?’ He gestured at the heaps of broken biscuit around them. ‘She’d smack both our bottoms, that’s what.’
Joshua managed a half smile, as if doing his best to cooperate in the business of being cheered up.
‘Okay. We’ll clear up together, shall we?’ said Matt gently. ‘You put the ones that haven’t broken into the box and I’ll do the rest.’
Joshua nodded solemnly before saying, ‘Does Nanny – Nan – miss Mummy too?’
Matt frowned in a show of thought, hoping the tears welling in his eyes would not spill into view. ‘Yes she does, in her own way. You know, Josh, if you ever want to visit them, Nan and Grandpa, you can always …’ But he had already wriggled free of Matt’s lap and was gathering up the least damaged of the biscuits, clutching them so tightly that melted chocolate oozed between his fingers.
12
By Thursday, just four days before he was due to step back into the shoes of his career, Matt’s postcard in Mr Patel’s window had still failed to generate one single response. When he lamented the fact to Mr Patel himself, during the course of one of his many sorties to stock up on supplies, the shopkeeper’s only suggestion was to highlight the advert with a fluorescent yellow pen.
‘There are so many cards,’ he pointed out, gesturing at the jigsaw of adverts, ranging from cottages for rent in the Dordogne to stress-relieving acupuncture. ‘You must make yours stand out more. I’ll do it, if you like.’
‘That’s very kind,’ muttered Matt, seeing only the futility of such a measure and musing that one of the grocer’s many and beautiful daughters, frequently to be seen manning the tills after school and at weekends, their long painted nails clicking inexpertly over the keys, would have been of far greater use. ‘No one in your family looking for a bit of extra work, then?’ he ventured. ‘Bit of childcare after school and evenings, that sort of thing.’ He peered hopefully at the back of the shop, but was rewarded only by a rare glimpse of Mrs Patel, floating down the narrow aisles like a ship in full sail.
* * *
Mr Patel shook his
head regretfully. ‘I would like to help, Mr Webster, but I need my girls in the shop and then they also have very many studies. Rajeet, my son, is not so busy, but he is only fourteen. I am sorry for your troubles. Women, eh?’ He whistled softly, the gleam in his eye doing little justice to Matt’s sense of the scale of his own tragedy. ‘Always a bother, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Matt had agreed wearily, lugging his grocery bags out into the street and wondering how to raise his search for childcare to new, more promising levels. There was a magazine called the Lady, which Louise had mentioned, but a glance had revealed it to be alarmingly high- powered, full of women wanting en suite bathrooms, their own cars and membership of leisure clubs. Trudging under the weight of his shopping, he reverted his thoughts instead to the dubious back-up plan of preying upon the goodwill of his father for a couple of weeks. Joshua was a handful. Four full afternoons and up to four evenings a week was a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a sixty-nine-year-old with an ex-smoker’s wheeze and the inclination to spend half the day asleep. And he hadn’t even mentioned New York yet, Matt reminded himself gloomily, resolving to give the Patel advert one more day, before giving up on it completely.
A night of raking over such issues proved poor preparation for the meeting with Beth Durant the following morning. Try as he might to remind himself that he was negotiating for what could prove a crucial move in his career, that to appear pushy and confident was everything, Matt was unable to shake himself into any true sense of engagement with his surroundings. The night at the Aldwych felt like a distant memory, the flicker of attraction between them nothing short of fantastical. As a married man it had been easy to indulge in such imaginings, he realised, because they were so safely improbable. Cast before her now in the role of discarded husband, he felt not merely incompetent but supremely unattractive.
A Family Man Page 9