Sam scooped Scarlett from her cot and whisked us to St Margaret’s where they tilted me up on an iron-hard bed and kept me in for a week under observation.
When I got home, Jennie moved in.
‘You’re a fool. You must rest,’ she ordered, ‘and come to terms with the fact that you are as vulnerable as everyone else. You can’t carry on with your terrible habits. You have to stop going riding with Emma. You can’t meet Jayne for those raucous reunions. You’ve got to cut down on the booze and the fags.’
‘Oh piss off, Jennie.’
‘You must think of the baby now, not yourself.’
‘Bollocks. And, I suppose, if it was a question of saving mother or baby, you would happily give up your life?’
‘Yes, actually. Yes, I would.’
She never failed to amaze me.
Next, dear God, I caught her telling my old friend Stevie that I was too ill for visitors.
‘Who was that on the phone?’ I asked her. I was pretty annoyed that she’d answered it. It was my house, dammit, I could still walk and talk.
‘No-one important.’
Christ! ‘Jennie, tell me who it was!’
‘It was Stevie.’ She gave me a sideways glance.
I’d have liked a chat. ‘What did she want?’
‘She wanted to come over for lunch.’
‘Oh?’ I was pleased. I was bored. ‘What time?’ The question hung in the air.
‘I told her she couldn’t.’
‘You what?’ I turned savage. Being stuck indoors, resting, was driving me nuts. ‘You had no bloody right, you’ve got a goddamn nerve…’ I went to the phone and dialled Stevie’s number.
‘You don’t understand.’ Jennie crumpled, wringing the dishcloth between her hands. ‘I can’t bear it! Why do you want to be with these people? I’m never enough. You pretend to be friends, but you just feel sorry…’
‘Stop it, Jennie! Now!’ I was livid. ‘Why can’t you think of me for a change?’
‘I just can’t stand it,’ she cried. ‘Not one more minute. It goes on and on and it just won’t stop and I just dunno what to do…’
I put the phone down quietly. ‘Look, Jennie, I do try to understand how unhappy you are, but I can’t change my life to suit you. You make me feel guilty, responsible for you, and that’s not fair, that’s too much. You talk about friendship but this isn’t…’
She wasn’t listening. She was irrational. ‘You twist every single thing I say, when I only want what’s best for you.’ She backed away. ‘Go on, call Stevie. Call her! And no doubt you can have a laugh about that dumb woman at number one… Here… here’s a bottle of wine, crack it open with your precious Stevie and fall about the room together.’ Like a mad woman, she ransacked the kitchen drawer for the corkscrew. She thrust the wine into my face, then picked up Poppy and rushed from the house, leaving the door wide open behind her and that damn jug kettle boiling furiously.
‘I can’t solve all your problems for you,’ I called out after her, but she didn’t hear.
I smoked two fags in a row. I wondered if I should follow her over.
The next thing I heard was Graham’s car pulling into next door’s drive.
I was worried. ‘Everything OK?’ I called. Feeling like a louse, a nosy neighbour.
‘No!’ he shouted dementedly, dashing towards his door with his keys in his hand. ‘Jennie’s just been on the phone. My God, she’s started bleeding.’
There was Jennie, washed out and subdued, rocking like a knitting granny but clutching her stomach with anguished hands.
The washing machine beside her was whirring, its soapy window frothing pink.
Bloody hell, had I brought this on with my temper? I couldn’t do enough to help. ‘Hang on, sweetheart, hang on, we’ll soon have you in hospital. Don’t give a thought to anything here. I’ll take Poppy, I’ll look after Graham…’
‘Let’s just get her out to the car.’ And then Graham asked, as if suddenly struck by it, ‘Why didn’t she call you first?’
I knew very well why she hadn’t called me. ‘What about an ambulance?’
‘No, the car will be faster.’ He handled Jennie so gently, with so much love. He supported her completely and she leaned on him as together they swayed down the drive and he lifted her into the car. I was struck by how tiny Jennie looked, all bone and sinew with such narrow, childlike shoulders, and wondered how much of this was my fault.
After the car drove off I took Poppy home, called Tina – my neighbour on the other side – to come and watch the babies while I headed straight back to number one to clear up the mess. Blood spreads in such a sinister way, like oil burning in Kuwait, black and red – both such dangerous colours.
Their bed was in total disarray. I’d never seen it so messy before, as if someone had had nightmares in it. The duvet was pulled back to reveal a rumpled underblanket, but of the sheet and of Jennie’s clothing there was no sign.
Jesus Christ. She couldn’t possibly have stopped in the middle of all that mayhem to clear up after herself, like a bitch when it’s given birth?
And then I remembered the washing machine.
I made coffee and sat at Jennie’s table, smoking and mindlessly watching the machine going through its cycle, the water getting pinker and pinker. How the bloody hell had she managed, in the face of all this, to clean up after herself and turn on the washing machine?
Everything in Jennie’s kitchen was carefully in its place, save for one drawer which was slightly open. I went to the drawer beside the cooker where Jennie kept her herbs and spices, neatly arranged in their pots of course, unlike mine in screwed-up paper bags. It was Jennie’s habit to empty everything into her matching containers: even her cornflakes and her spaghetti; even her milk went into plastic bottles with cows and daisies chasing round the sides.
Only the flavourings and colourings were allowed to stay in their little glass bottles.
I took out the cochineal and lifted it to the window.
I ran my finger round the lid.
Nothing.
But I should have known.
It was also a habit of Jennie’s to wipe round rims before screwing on lids.
I paused at the sink to inspect her cloth but it hung hygienically, whiter than white, over her gleaming taps, and beneath it her blue washing-up bowl, not congealed with old fat and gravy, sat upside down, clean as a dinner plate.
What the hell was the matter with me? Why was I so suspicious? Good God, if this was revenge, what did that turn Jennie into? What I was thinking could not be true and I felt ashamed of myself. Here I was, prying and poking through my friend’s kitchen when I ought to feel flooded with sympathy over the fear she might lose her child.
Smiling at the sight of her airing cupboard, I remade Jennie’s bed in a way that I never made mine. If these responses portrayed psychological states, then I was the mad one, not her. I concentrated on hospital corners and stayed to fiddle with the end result until not a crease, not a dent in the pillow, remained. A photo of Jennie and Graham on their wedding day sat in a silver frame beside the lamp on Jennie’s bedside table and I pondered on the wisdom of that, to come to bed and be reminded of that stark, unnatural day full of tight, unnatural smiles; the promises made, as old as the ark.
It was Graham I felt sorry for now.
They might not suit each other in bed but Graham and Jennie were friends. He must have been on the receiving end of Jennie’s recent emotional turmoil.
Dear God, what had I done? And was this my fault as well?
If only we could have stopped it there.
SEVEN
Jennie
IF ONLY WE COULD have stopped it there.
To appreciate how desperate we feel living here at the moment, it’s important to have a rough idea of the layout of Mulberry Close. Most people say it’s a frying-pan shape but I see it as a mirror with a handle, like the one the wicked queen used to consult in Snow White.
Mirror, mirror
on the wall
Who is the fairest of us all?
And in the Close, Martha would win. Sadly, for me, there would be no contest.
The handle of the mirror is a box-hedged road, and when this road meets the green with the mulberry tree in the middle it swings round in an oval. Around this oval sit our six lodges, ranch style, the most prestigious on the estate, most of the others being semi-detached and completely cut off from us higher mortals.
Yes, ours was an exclusive zone.
A ten-minute walk down the road there’s a small shopping centre, horribly utilitarian – a Mace, a laundrette, a post office-cum-deli. The fish and chip shop at the end of the block means the place is always strewn with paper and thick with flies.
At night this is a no-go area. The predatory young congregate here and it’s sad to see their lethargy, their low expectations when, after leaving the swirly-carpeted pub with its revolving stools, its chips with everything and its squirty plastic sauces, they are reduced to sitting on benches, bedecked with nose-rings and tattoos, shouting and making trouble, with nothing to energize them but extra-strong cans of lager.
The girls sit cross and solemn beside them, tough little arms dangling out of tight T-shirts.
People have warned us that investing money in a house attached to such an estate shows a serious lack of judgement. But, as Graham insists, wherever you live you’re fifteen minutes from trouble these days; even far-flung country villages attract teams of thieves from the cities.
Our lodges were built fully fitted with alarms and safety windows.
But even though the location is dodgy, most people admire the houses themselves. Their wood fronts shine, as if polished, under two triangular roofs, one rising above the other for a splendid 3-D effect. The small gardens in front are open plan – which does attract passing dogs – but the backs are fenced and large enough for a reasonable game of badminton.
So when Martha described Piglets Patch, the cottage she first had her eye on, I understood immediately why the Close and her didn’t quite fit.
‘But the children will thank you one day,’ I said. ‘They’d hate to be dumped in the middle of nowhere; streams and puppies and picnics. Adventures. Fiction. A fantasy. Mulberry Close is more realistic.’
And I wondered what Martha would say if she saw the place where I was brought up: Stella’s Walthamstow basement, dug out between advertisement hoardings. I had told her some of my past, but not all.
But Sam was the snob, not Martha, and he, so happy to broadcast the fact, forced me to defend ‘the underclass’. He turned me into a loony lefty.
He was postage-stamp close to Hitler. ‘Castrate the buggers’, ‘string ’em up’, ‘deport them’.
Martha smiled but did not argue and her lazy attitude drove me wild.
She said, ‘He says these outrageous things to annoy you. You’re not going to change him, so why bother to argue?’
I bothered because he made me feel stupid and I knew how he’d sneer if he guessed at my background.
Martha used that same sad smile when Stella ranted on at her most vindictive. ‘Hang, draw and quarter… send them back where they came from…’ Her remarks made me wince, I was so ashamed.
‘Shut up, Mum,’ I would groan in despair, making sure Martha knew that these views weren’t mine. In her bovine complacency she said nothing.
And when, at her worst, Stella’s face contorted, when she said that her neighbours came straight from the jungle, when she said hooray for the National Front, Martha would merely change the subject.
I saw this attitude as a weakness. ‘You would do anything to avoid a scene,’ I said accusingly.
‘But there’s just no point, Jennie, why can’t you see that? It’s a generation thing, you can’t change her. And fat people are known to be easy-going.’
She was just the same with Sam. It incensed me to see how she rushed around him while he treated her with such casual arrogance. If Martha had planned to go out for the evening and the precious Sam had made other plans, she wouldn’t ask him to babysit. No. Scarlett would be dumped at our house where me and Graham would be happy to have her. And when Martha was trying for that first part-time job, Sam was disparaging, no help whatsoever.
‘It seems like he doesn’t want you to work.’
‘He doesn’t care either way,’ said Martha. ‘Just as long as he’s not affected.’
‘He’s so selfish,’ I told her warily.
‘Yes, he’s a bastard,’ was all she replied, absent-mindedly stroking Scarlett. But I saw how unhappy Sam made her and I knew that he had a wandering eye.
Although Sam could have helped with the feeding, he never got up in the night for the babies. And if one night was particularly fraught, he would move to the spare room for peace and quiet.
When we enrolled for water aerobics, Martha’s main reason for going was Sam. She wanted to get her shape back for him. And when we went to Italy, it was Martha who put down her knife and fork after the babysitter’s intercom call, it was she who went upstairs every time to get Scarlett back to sleep.
And yet she had such strength and confidence. She so easily coped with two squalling babies, saucepans overflowing and telephones ringing, while Sam, the slob, sat around eating toast and reading the Independent’s sports pages.
‘It’s not fair,’ I said. ‘Sam should help more.’
‘It’s just not worth the hassle,’ she answered. ‘He is clumsy, inadequate,’ and then she laughed, ‘but not in all departments.’ And I cringed. How I loathed it when she talked like that. She could be unpleasantly coarse at times.
Scarlett was not even a year old when Martha started scanning the local papers.
It was a dismal time for me.
‘Why don’t you look for a part-time job, Jennie?’ she asked with a pencil between her teeth and rigid with concentration as she sat up at her breakfast bar. ‘Get out and about a bit.’
‘I never want to go back to work. It was more boring there than it is at home.’
‘You meet more people, get a better perspective. You don’t want your brain to disintegrate and end up riddled with gaping holes.’ She was swamped by her latest fashion creation and her scraped-up knot of hair wobbled wildly. ‘Taxi drivers’ brains are larger because of the information they store.’
‘Well, I use my brain more at home than at work.’
‘Go back to school, then. Take up a challenge.’
And I wished that I was a doctor, a surgeon, a lawyer or even a teacher, to shine more brightly in Martha’s eyes.
The last time we went to Safeways together – long ago now but I still remember – we stopped for a coffee and a bun, and Martha laughed so much she choked and spouted a mouthful over the table, her greedy fingers gleaming with butter.
At the park I didn’t tell her that her skirt was hitched up in her knickers and a passer-by tapped her on the shoulder.
She struggled from the changing room in Gap, hopelessly overweight as ever, to show how the press-studs refused to meet and her bulges dangled over her skirt. ‘These mean little people that take size ten,’ she said in a voice brimming with malice. I thought I would wet myself in the shop. I left at once with my legs tightly crossed.
Whatever we did and wherever we went was a fun event with Martha. Even a torpid day in the garden watching the sprinkler’s liquid branches was a joy. So was a winter afternoon watching old films with the kids asleep and a bottle of Safeways’ Bulgarian wine and the room fugged up with Martha’s smoke.
My mother would have had a stroke.
But Scarlett was a year old and Martha wanted her life extended; tea and fruit buns weren’t enough.
She was after something spicier.
I shouldn’t have hinted at how needy I was. Was she uneasy in my company now? I had made myself pitiful and unequal.
But I had such confidence in her wisdom: if she had some idea of what I was suffering, maybe she could sort me out. All she did was to suggest a hobby
. ‘Perhaps it would help if you took up painting.’
Was there a name for my addiction? Was it so uncommon? Maybe I was not alone. There might even be a cure.
If only someone could make it right.
Was it possible that I’d told Martha the truth about my embarrassing feelings for manipulative reasons? If she knew how I felt, might it strengthen the bond? Why did I desperately want her attention? Round and round in my head it all went till the feelings themselves seemed to fill my eyes.
It had started off with jealousy, and I hadn’t even recognized that until Graham casually pointed it out. And that was soon after we met.
Then came that empty feeling; I was half a person without her.
After this came the longing to be her, to emulate not just her style, but to actually turn into Martha, to be the person I so admired.
Don’t think these were just passing niggles which nagged at me every now and again while piercing the tomato puree tube, scattering the daffodil bulbs or trying to prise out a new toothbrush. I woke up with this obsession first thing every morning and it kept me awake, tossing and turning, each night. I imagined crazy scenarios: me and Martha forever together, her need for me turning stronger than mine, or me suddenly possessing some marvellous talent that Martha would have to admire.
God knows what this must sound like to people who haven’t been through it – this moving away from grace towards a serious corruption.
It had no name. Was I queer? All the time this worried me. Did I want to take Martha to bed? See her without her clothes? Touch her? Stroke her or, in some way, like a man, possess her? I imagined her body brought to me on a trolley, docile flesh decently covered. Would I uncover it if I could?
And if not, what were these ecstatic emotions? Surely something as fierce as this must have sex at its core?
Even now I can’t answer these questions, but I can swear on my children’s lives that I never consciously felt any of these physical manifestations.
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