by Tim Adler
Next was my bedroom with its emperor-sized Napoleonic bed, although I felt embarrassed by the black silk sheets. To be honest, the only action they had seen recently was the launderette. Next we stood in the second bedroom doorway and unconsciously held hands. Possibly both of us were thinking the same thing – that one day this would be nursery of our first child. Things were moving quickly between us, in hindsight too quickly: we answered a need in each other, both only children whose parents weren’t there for them – Mole because of her parents’ tragic car accident and me because, well, I had never really known the warmth of a family around me. I developed a stutter after my parents’ divorce, and Mum, who was concerned enough to take me to a child psychologist, later took great pleasure in repeating the therapist’s description of Dad as a "pathological narcissist". Right now, though, all we were looking at was a bare spare room that Currie sometimes crashed in if he stayed over. Mole squeezed my hand back and let go.
Finally I showed her the view from the balcony. The space-age nightscape of Canary Wharf lay in the distance, hot pink and electric blue lighting up the skyscrapers. You can always tell what's most important to a society by the height of its tallest building, I reflected. It used to be that churches dominated skylines, but money is what we worship now – Barclays, Citibank and HSBC. Below us, a solitary man was ploughing up and down a swimming pool lane through the glass roof of the fitness centre. He was a gay guy who lived in one of the flats below mine – John? James? I wasn't sure of his name – and he was always in there as far as I could tell, one of those insecure gym bunnies too obsessed about their weight to go out and ever meet somebody. We bumped into each other sometimes when I pounded the treadmill before work, doggedly running after Miley Cyrus or Rihanna or whoever else was cavorting on MTV. "This could be the start of my fitness campaign," Mole said brightly.
I don't remember much about those first few weeks together except that we were happy. Happiness, after all, ends in itself; misery is what you remember. Of course, I recall what came later in exquisite detail, like a map of hell that you retrace with every step. What I do remember from that time is being curled up on the sofa watching a DVD and eating ice cream, trudging through frozen grass in the park, and Mole tumbling back into bed naked, laughing and adorable.
Then there was the whole delightful process of introducing each other to our different worlds, although, to be honest, mine was never as interesting as hers. She took me to artists' parties, where I felt people's eyes glaze over when I told them I worked in insurance. You could see them thinking, who is this boring man Mole has shacked up with? She tried developing my visual sense as we went around Cork Street openings and she explained the history of art. I felt embarrassed about the framed Ikea posters on my walls. This visual sense was something I had never used before. In turn I showed her around Lloyd's, and she seemed impressed by the floors of underwriters. She pored over the ledger that recorded the Titanic disaster and admired the famous Lutine Bell, which used to be rung whenever there was a loss at sea.
I remember one Sunday in particular – we didn't even do much, just wandered around the flower market and had lunch in a pub – and yet I had never felt so happy.
It must have been a couple of months after we met that we drove down to see my mother. By now Mole was spending most evenings in my gated apartment block, which, as I said before, felt soulless by comparison with hers. I missed our weekends in Quigley Street, but we wanted to spend as much time together as possible, and my flat simply had more space than her single room.
Mum had badgered me for weeks for us to come and see her, but I had always found an excuse – pressure of work, that kind of thing, you know how it is. The truth was that Mum drank, and I dreaded going to see her for that reason. Often she would slur her words when she rang up, and I never answered her calls after nine at night.
The car rolled to a stop outside Mum's bungalow in St Leonard's- on-Sea near Hastings. There was a threat of rain: typically English weather, soggy and redolent of childhood days out in an anorak with a packed lunch. Mum's bungalow was in a cul-de-sac with other bungalows built in the early sixties. As I pulled up the handbrake, Mole said she had expected something grander. I explained that Dad's lawyer made sure Mum got as little as possible after the divorce. By putting all her cards on the table and confessing her adultery, she thought she was being grown up and honest. Instead, Dad had punished her. He had even made sure he got custody of me, her only child, claiming drink made her an unfit mother. The truth was that she had never really drunk until her son was taken away from her. I remember my acute embarrassment when she would unexpectedly appear at school chapel on Sundays. Of course, she had been desperate to see me.
We walked down the garden path, pressed the bell and waited. Privately I sent a prayer that Mum would be in a fit state to see us. But sure enough, she answered the door unsteadily, her head bobbling from side to side. It was just after midday and she was pissed. "Mum, this is Mole; Mole, Mum," I said, stepping across the threshold.
We exchanged greetings, and Mole presented a little posy of flowers she had bought on the way down. Mum looked Mole up and down for a moment and then turned away, shuffling towards the kitchen sink. Mole and I exchanged a look. She had heard my teenage stories about having to hide the vodka bottles; one night I had got so desperate that I had thrown all the booze in the house into the dustbin.
Not that it helped. It was difficult to believe that Mum had been an alluring flight attendant when she met Dad. She had served him on a flight to the Middle East and had gone out with him during the stopover. In a moment of clarity once, Mum admitted that she had let herself go. A girlfriend from her stewardessing days had come to stay and bluntly told her the truth, which had left her shaken. "And your mother never met anybody else?" Mole asked. I shook my head.
We went through into the sitting room, and Mum asked what we wanted to drink. Mole said she would have a tonic water, and I nodded that I would have the same. We made small talk, and I explained how we had met. The conversation proceeded in fits and starts, and it never seemed to get going. Every time Mole lobbed the conversational ball towards Mum, it would roll to a stop at her feet. She lit another cigarette and tapped ash into an overflowing cut-glass ashtray resting on the wing of her armchair.
Eventually Mum asked, "So, how's your father?"
"His kidney problems don't appear to be getting any better. He seems to spend more and more time hooked up to that dialysis machine."
"Is he still with that Russian bitch?"
"Mum, Eliska is Czech, she's not Russian. And they've been married for nearly ten years. The way you talk, it's as if it happened only yesterday."
As I said, Eliska was my father's second wife, a grave woman in her thirties who always seemed to be dressed in black. Dracula's wife, I called her. When I was a kid, I used to stay up late watching old horror movies on TV. On one occasion, I must have fallen asleep, because all I remember was Dracula swooshing down candlelit corridors and his ethereal brides materialising out of the fog. At first I thought Eliska was another of Dad's girlfriends, women tottering around overpriced boutiques in high heels. Eliska, though, stuck around. I noticed her look of peasant cunning when she visited Sundials for the first time.
"This must be a beautiful view in the summer," said Mole, interrupting my thoughts. She stood up and walked over to the picture window. The clouds were sagging with the inevitable rain. Mum asked Mole about her parents, and she told them about the fatal car crash. A passer-by had seen the car swerve on the country road and go straight into a tree. The inquest blamed mechanical failure in the car, she said.
We had lunch, and I kept furtively checking my work emails. As I expected, the whole afternoon had been a waste of time, and I wanted to get back to London. I sensed that it was a strain for Mum too. All she wanted to do was carry on drinking and ruminate bitterly on the past. It was so desperately sad.
Having said goodbye, we sat in the car listening to the rain
thrumming on the roof and watched water rivulets chase each other down the glass. "Fuck," I said finally. Mole leaned over and put her hand over mine. I felt my eyes pricking with tears, but I was determined not to cry.
"It's not your fault," Mole said. "She's a deeply unhappy woman."
"I know. It just hurts when I see her like that." I blinked and shook my head before starting the engine. It throbbed with its reassuringly throaty growl.
"You don't make her drink. That was her choice, remember that," Mole said, squeezing my hand. I was so thankful this woman had come into my life. She was my support, my helpmeet. "Now that I've met your mother, when am I going to meet your father?"
"He says he's not well enough to meet you yet. Honestly, Mole, he wants to see you. It's his damn kidneys. Mum says he's being poisoned to death from the inside. He doesn't want to be bedridden when we go and see him."
Mole looked disappointed, and we drove back to London mostly in silence.
The next week sped by quickly. The full extent of our losses from the Dutch Marquez was only now piling up, and it seemed as if the platform would pull our syndicate down with it. Every time I thought we had a handle on how much money the syndicate was going to lose, another liability would bob up. Rumours began circulating that we were insolvent, and the strain was becoming intolerable. Trying to put on a brave face for everybody who worked there, all those people who relied on me for their livelihoods, was agonising. I tried talking to Dad, but the fight had gone out of him. It was down to me now. I can only compare that period to walking a tightrope, and there was no guarantee we were going to reach the other side safely.
~~ O ~~
I will remember the following Saturday forever.
We were standing on the King's Road outside the Register Office at Chelsea Town Hall, watching a couple getting married. The bride and groom emerged through an explosion of confetti, and they looked so happy. I turned to Mole and wondered if she was thinking the same thing. Dammit, I loved this woman, so what was stopping us? My father was dying, and my mother probably wasn’t long for this world either. Both Mole’s parents were dead. Strike while the iron's hot, the voice in my head said. In hindsight, I realise I was probably clinging to something, anything, that would give me certainty – but then again, hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, isn’t it?
Mole said she wanted to go over the road to buy some must-haves for my kitchen, a whisk and an egg timer. She enjoyed cooking. Christmas was looming, and she also wanted to get presents for friends. Men hate shopping, I told her, so why didn't she go inside and I would be waiting when she came out?
Instead, I went into the town hall, where a cleaner was already sweeping up the confetti. He directed me to a registrar, who appeared to be packing up for the day. "I want to get married here, right now," I told him. The registrar said it wasn't as simple as that – this wasn't the movies, you couldn't just get married off the street. A notice had to be on display for at least one week.
Mole was waiting outside Heal’s when I crossed the road to meet her. She looked annoyed that I’d kept her waiting.
"What took you so long?" she said. "You've been ages."
"Sorry. I was over the road in the town hall. Listen, Mole, I want us to get married. What's stopping us? I love you."
Mole looked at me incredulously. "You haven't even asked me. This isn't the most romantic proposal. I had hoped you would get down on one knee or something."
With that, I knelt down and proposed to her right in the middle of the street as Christmas shoppers streamed past us. Of course she said yes – although she later joked that she agreed only because she was so mortified that she wanted me to stand up.
Currie was in the stands at a football match when I got him on his mobile. I told him our good news and that I wanted him to be our best man in a week's time.
The next seven days felt as if I had one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. Mole and I met one lunchtime to wander through the hush of Burlington Arcade, admiring rings in the window. There was one in particular that caught Mole's eye: a plain gold band with a stonking diamond on top. The faintest alarm bell rang at the back of my mind as I watched Mole gazing at the display in the shop window with a look of, well, to be frank, greed. I felt slightly lightheaded when the jeweller showed me the price tag. Still, I wouldn't remember how much this ring cost in a month's time or even a few days, I rationalised. This was forever. Mole's eyes glistened with tears when she tried the simple gold band on for size. "I've never seen such a beautiful ring," she said, admiring her finger.
Looking back, I suppose it was odd that the only person Mole invited to our register office wedding was a work colleague. Of course because, like me, she was an only child, there were no brothers or sisters. But didn't she have any uncles or aunts, or cousins? ("I don't really know her at all," the workmate confided over a glass of champagne in the restaurant afterward.) I was also surprised by how short the service was, despite Mole insisting on adding a vow to tell each other the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it made either of us feel. Telling the truth was important to her. ("If you don't tell the truth, there's nothing to hang onto anymore," she said.) And yet the moment the registrar declared us man and wife I felt oddly high, with the clerk's face taking up the whole of my vision. It was almost as if I did not dare look at my bride.
Afterwards, Currie bought us dinner at an Italian restaurant round the corner. We must have made a funny-looking group sitting round the table. Currie tried to do his worst as best man, embarrassing me with his stories about our nights on the town. He raised his glass and proposed a toast. I felt intensely proud. "The bride and groom," he said, partly for the benefit of the other diners in the room. Some of them turned and looked at us. I stood up and made a mock pompous speech too before looking directly at Mole. "I want you to know that everything I do from now on will be a flame for you to warm your hands by," I told her.
My bride looked so beautiful that evening. I remember it as being the happiest moment of my life.
Chapter Four
I don't remember when exactly we started talking about having children. There was one conversation we'd had lying in bed just before going to sleep, and we had both dived under the covers as if the decision was too momentous. Funny, really. I mentioned to Currie that we were already trying for a baby, and he said, "Well, the practising is fun." That might have been true in the early days, but it soon wore off. Mole became obsessed with her monthly cycle and the right time when she was ovulating. She started using an ovulation stick and gravely informed me that we both had to cut out alcohol, coffee and even chocolate.
I remember one afternoon in my office, going over some revenue forecasts with Brian Sibley. My BlackBerry pinged with a text: "Come home right now." There's nothing more inhibiting than trying to perform to order, let me tell you. Sometimes we had a window of just an hour where she was at peak fertility, and I began to feel as if I'd volunteered for some medical experiment. This was not exactly what you would call passionate lovemaking. I mean, the whole thing felt so ... robotic.
This went on for months. Our inability to conceive was always there, hanging over us like a cloud. One night, an underwriter pal invited us over for dinner and his wife announced that she was pregnant with their first child. I glanced at Mole, knowing how badly she would take this. Sure enough, in the car on the way home, it all came out: how she hated hearing about other people's pregnancies, the message popping into her work email telling her another friend was expecting. It made her want to roll on the ground and bang her fists in frustration.
"It's early days yet; we've only just started trying," I said, trying to make her feel better. "Mole, darling, you've got to let go of this. It's not healthy for either of us. You're becoming obsessed."
"Sometimes I eat my sandwich in the park and I see mothers pushing prams, and it makes me feel sick. Jealousy's a terrible thing. I look at them and think, why can't it be me? Why can't I have what they have? Have you eve
r wanted something with a long, bitter want? Well, that's how I feel."
"One thing there isn't enough of in this world is love," I said. "There are plenty of children out there who need parents. We could always adopt." Even as the words came out of my mouth, I thought about how badly that would go down with Dad. He wouldn't be too thrilled about his grandson being Romanian or, God forbid, even black.
Mole looked at me, and I could see she was on verge of tears again. God, women's emotions were like the weather. Please don't start crying, I thought. "That's not the same. I love you, and I want to have your baby. All this money, all this stuff, don't you see, it doesn't mean anything."
The trouble was that I knew it wasn't me. What I had never told my new wife was that I had got a girl pregnant once, a receptionist at the office. We used to go round to the nearby Council flat she shared with her mother and have sex upstairs during the lunch break. It was when I had just started at Berkshire RE, and she probably thought she was getting her hooks into the chairman's son. "I know what you've been doing," her mother would say when we came downstairs. I remember the cold shame of sitting in the abortion clinic, the other women watching me suspiciously as I waited for the girl to come out. As ever, Dad got me out of trouble by rubbing the magic salve of money into the wound. The girl was paid off and left quietly.
And then, early one May morning, there was a shout from the bathroom. It had been one year since I had met Mole, and we had been trying for a baby for six months without success. I was still half asleep and on my way to the kitchen to make coffee when Mole called for me. I found her naked sitting on the toilet with a plastic predictor wand in her hand. Hell, neither of us was wearing any clothes. "I'm pregnant," she said quietly. We both whooped and yelled and danced round the bathroom.
We developed a rich fantasy life for our child during those first few weeks. Mole imagined our baby swimming around in her tummy like a little fish, and so we nicknamed it "Fishy." I realise how cloyingly sentimental this must sound, but we both felt as if we were holding hands on the top of a hill looking down into a new landscape we were about to walk into. Our future.