by Sarah Duncan
At midday she thought wistfully of swimming, of lying suspended in cool water, but there was too much to be done. Windows were washed, flowers arranged in vases of aspirin-laden water, toys put in graded ranks - big at the back, ranging down to the front row of tinies. A bit like war, she thought. The most vulnerable go over the top first while the big guns lie in safety deciding which way to jump.
She paid particular care to the guest bedroom, putting out new geranium-scented soap. There were so many flowers in Patrick's bouquet that each room could have a bunch. She'd have to tell Neil that she'd bought them in honour of his parents' visit, although he was unlikely to notice. More likely his mother would comment on the unnecessary extravagance. Still, the alternative was to put them in the bin. She popped some freesias, alstroemerias and a few fern fronds into a small milk jug. She hoped her mother-in-law wouldn't notice the chip. Fat chance. As she worked she listened to Radio Four, turned up loud to drown out the continuous murmur of dissent in her head. Miserable old cow. Coming to interfere. Not fair. Not fair.
Her lower back was still sore from Tuesday, the desperate coupling on the sitting-room floor. At the beginning of the affair she'd been excited by the roughness; common sense and rationality overcome by a more urgent force. Lust, she supposed. She felt as if she'd been sleepwalking and Patrick had woken her up. And there was no doubt that once you started thinking about sex, you became more interested. It was like buying a new car; suddenly the same model seemed to be everywhere, cruising down the street, popping up in advertisements.
But at the dinner party everything had changed, become complicated and dark. Poor Victoria. She'd looked so happy, her face lit up. Isabel wondered if that was how she'd looked after the first time with Patrick, and was amazed yet again that Neil hadn't noticed. She felt dishonest, sordid even. Oh, Patrick. Was he thinking of her, as she was of him? Mi perdone meant forgive me. She couldn't work out what he meant. Forgiveness for what he had done, or what he was going to do? He had been difficult on Thursday, irritable and cold, hardly speaking to her all day.
She plumped up the pillows on the guest bed, shaking them out and thumping them so they looked temptingly soft. The sheets were her best ones, properly ironed and put away with lavender bags. The dusty scent irritated her nose and she sneezed. One for sorrow. It seemed an easy prophesy. Why were mothers-in-law quite so irritating? Everyone she knew was driven mad by their mother-in-law. Except for the smug few who cooed over how wonderful theirs was, winners in the ma-in-law stakes. What was the problem? She had older women friends, got on well with the swimming-pool crowd, so it wasn't the generation gap. Perhaps it was the forced intimacy with strangers, the feeling that you had to get on. Or perhaps it was the power issue, suppressed for the sake of family harmony; like dogs, sniffing, circling, growling, but unwilling to fight outright.
Why do I feel the need to compete with her? she thought. The tidying, the cleaning, the Stepford wife stuff? It's so dishonest. Suddenly she laughed. Imagine what she'd say if I announced that I was being unfaithful? 'Whore, slut, always knew my Neil was too good for the likes of her.' She smoothed the bedspread with slow strokes, then straightened up, wincing as the pain in her back caught. And she'd probably be right. Neil doesn't deserve someone like me. Isabel looked about her. The room was ready, immaculate as a magazine set, a gleaming shrine to the benefits of Mr Sheen and dusters. There was no more she could do.
- ooo -
Neil stuck his head around the kitchen door just after Isabel brought the children back from school. She was trying to feed them without making any mess in the kitchen, an enterprise that was successfully tightening all her nerve endings.
'Hello, everybody.'
'Daddy!' Katie leapt up, knocking over her milk, and attached herself to Neil, clinging like a gibbon. Isabel mopped up silently, lips compressed into a straight line. Neil unpeeled Katie.
'No need to break my neck, poppet. Hi there, Michael.' He kissed the top of Michael's head, which Michael ducked with an embarrassed shrug of his shoulders. Isabel pushed a loose strand of hair out of her face with the back of her hand, and offered her cheek to be kissed.
'Any chance of some tea?' he said. 'I'm knackered.' She made him a cup while he listened patiently to Katie explaining about some dreadful act of injustice at school. She desperately wanted him to look after the children so she could have a bath and wash her hair in preparation for the arrival of his parents. Her skin felt covered by a thin film of dirt that she longed to soak away. She put the mug of tea down in front of him.
'Look, would you mind if I had a five-minute lie down before I help?' he said.
'Is everything all right?'
'I'm fine, just a bit tired that's all.'
What's the point of coming back early if all you do is go to bed? she wanted to scream at him. And what about me? Don't I get to be tired too? But she suppressed her irritation. When all was said and done, her tiredness came from having an affair that was disintegrating whereas poor Neil was having to spend three hours a day commuting as well as often having to stay late at the office.
'It's fine,' she said, gently touching his shoulder. 'I've got everything ready. Go and relax.' He looked relieved.
'If you really don't mind...'
'Go on, before I make you wash the kitchen floor.'
He grimaced, kissed her cheek then went, taking his tea with him. Isabel could hear his feet treading heavily up the stairs to their bedroom. So much for helping. Never mind. Just so long as the in-laws didn't come early.
Whatever time they arrived it would have been too soon. But Isabel hadn't reckoned on their appearance before seven. At five thirty-five she registered the sound of a car engine outside, but ignored it, assuming it must be the neighbours. The front doorbell didn't ring, after all. She carried on mopping the kitchen floor, squeezing the grey water out with energy. It's a bad idea for me to do housework, she decided. It just makes me think mean thoughts. A puncture, exhaust dropped off, tragic accident on the motorway? The nice bit of her brain stopped there, deterred from continuing by thinking about how Neil would be upset. The wicked bit snuck in an image of her dressed in black, being wonderfully supportive, holding Neil's hand at the funeral. She slapped the mop back onto the terracotta tiles. She was just wondering if the police would telephone or call round in a car with flashing lights when a loud rap startled her. She clutched the mop in surprise as the very alive face of her mother-in-law loomed through the kitchen window.
'Cooee,' Moira said, her Exocet eyes pinpointing immediately the bit Isabel had missed. 'Sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump.'
Liar, thought Isabel, whose heart was pounding as if she had seen Frankenstein's monster. Still, two can play at that game. She put her perfect daughter-in-law face on.
'Moira. How wonderful to see you. And so early, too. The traffic must have been good.' She opened the kitchen door. 'Where's Ian?'
'Getting the luggage out of the car.' Moira ran one pearlised pink fingertip over the window sill, and sighed happily at the sight of dust. 'I thought we might be a wee bit early, so I came round the back to check you were here first.'
Isabel tried casually to tidy the mop and bucket away, a difficult task as it was full of soapy water. 'I didn't hear the front doorbell.'
'Och, I didn't want to bother you with that. Shouldn't you empty the water out before putting that away?'
'I will later.' Only two minutes and Isabel could feel her cheeks aching with the effort of keeping a welcoming expression on her face. 'I'll go and help Ian with your things.'
Neil's father was ponderously taking luggage out of the boot of the car, hampered by his walking stick, and the dog, a West Highland terrier, yapping at his heels. Isabel rushed to help take out a matching pair of suitcases, a travel rug and a carrier bag that clinked as she put it down. Please, Isabel prayed as she embraced Ian, not more whisky. Isabel took the two suitcases and went into the hall followed by the dog sniffing the corners suspiciously.
'Perhaps Buster can stay in the kitchen?' she asked, worried, as the dog seemed about to lift his leg against her Korean spice chest.
Moira shooed Buster into the kitchen and shut the door.
'I know you don't like dogs, Isabel,' she said.
How to say, I do like dogs, just not yours? Isabel decided it was best to say nothing and led the way upstairs to the guest bedroom, Ian hauling himself up as if the stairs were a rope ladder.
'I expect you'd like to wash and relax for a little,' she said hopefully. 'Come down and have a drink when you're ready.' She escaped without waiting for their reply. She carried on down the landing and gently opened the door to her bedroom.
'Neil? Your parents have arrived.'
He was lying on the bed fully clothed as if he had just decided to rest for a second before being overcome by sleep. His face had sagged with the weight of sleep into a younger, more relaxed Neil, closer to the man she remembered under wide African skies. Isabel carefully undid his laces and eased his shoes off, lifted his lower legs so they were properly on the bed, then covered him with the bedspread, and drew the curtains. He was snoring slightly when she left the room. Isabel ran downstairs to the sitting room where the children were watching television, the toys Isabel had so carefully tidied earlier spread out all over the carpet.
'Quick, quick, pick everything up,' she hissed. 'Granny and Grandpa are here.'
'Now?' Michael said, not looking up.
'Yes, now. We've only got a few minutes before they'll be down. Thank you, darlings, that's brilliant,' she added to encourage them as the children, faces turned towards the television, started to collect their toys up in slow motion. She nipped into the downstairs cloakroom and quickly brushed her hair. She wanted to wash her face but heard the sound of heavy feet on the stairs so contented herself with moistening a bit of loo paper and wiping the dust streaks off before going into the sitting room.
'What can I get you to drink?' She smiled at them, using her best hostess smile, and surreptitiously tried to push one of Katie's plastic ponies out of sight behind the sofa with her foot. The children had half cleared up and then scarpered.
'We've brought you a little gift,' rumbled her father- in-law, holding out the carrier bag.
'Whisky! How super.' I'll be saying jolly hockeysticks in a minute, Isabel thought in desperation. 'Is that what you'd like?'
'Well, now, that would be an idea,' he said, as if he didn't have a whisky and soda at six o'clock every evening without fail. Isabel poured him a drink from the bottle she'd opened the last visit but three. The intervening bottles she'd given away. She realised that Ian thought it was a great treat for them to have whisky, as so often they were living in countries where alcohol was banned, even though they'd explained that the authorities usually turned a blind eye to drinking within the ex-pat community. She'd given up wondering if they would ever notice that neither she nor Neil drank whisky.
'Moira?' She noticed Neil's mother scan the drinks tray. I mustn't be paranoid, she told herself. She couldn't possibly be deliberately choosing something that was not there. She was.
'A gin and tonic, please. If it's no bother.'
'None at all.' Isabel answered just as sweetly. 'I put the gin and tonic water in the fridge to keep them cool.' One up to me, she thought, as she went to fetch them, inadvertently letting Buster out as she did so.
'When does Neil get in?' Moira's expression was as sour as the lemon in her gin as she fondled Buster's ears.
'He's here already, but went upstairs to lie down.'
Is he ill?' Moira looked concerned.
'No, just a bit tired I think.'
'The poor boy. And to think I'm sitting here drinking.' She glared at Isabel as if it were her fault and stood up.
'He's sleeping.' Isabel stood up too.
'I'll just take a wee look.'
'I really think it would be better if -' Isabel started, but Moira had stalked out of the room, leaving her to talk to the back of her retreating twinset. It struck Isabel that, from behind, her mother-in-law's silhouette was just like the symbol of a woman on loo doors - tiny upper body with broad, spreading skirt and tapering legs. Isabel shrugged apologetically at Ian, trying to think of a conversational starter while Buster sniffed round her ankles as if choosing the best place to bite.
'The traffic wasn't bad on the way here then? You made good time.'
It wasn't much, but Ian was off, front runner in the traffic relay stakes, describing the route they had chosen, others that had been considered and discarded, and the bad driving encountered on the road. The rot had set in during the Sixties, apparently, which opened up whole new conversational avenues: homosexuals, hippies, asylum seekers, all of whom deserved to be shot.
As he sat his jacket fell open, revealing braces pulling his trousers up towards his armpits, like an old man. But he is an old man, Isabel reminded herself. Old and set in his ways. His voice resonated around the room, bouncing off the ceiling as if he was summing up in a council meeting or boardroom, both arenas in which he'd had considerable experience. His complete confidence that she would listen attentively mesmerised her into sitting still. But, but, but, she wanted to say. That's just not true. But then, what was the point? He was hardly going to change his opinions because they so dismayed her, a mere woman. Just be thankful that the bile had bypassed Neil, who was miraculously a normal human being.
Fortunately, before she'd bitten her tongue off with the pressure of holding it between her teeth, the children created a diversion by coming in. Ian embraced them stiffly, tweed suit rough and unyielding. Isabel often thought that he would have been good with children, if only he knew where to start. But distance was ingrained from an Edwardian-style childhood, confirmed with his own children, and then the accident that had made him nearly bedridden for two years when Neil was in his early teens. Neil had ended up playing head of the household while his father recovered. Ian was left with a pronounced limp and a sudden ageing that moved him from his prime into old age.
Now Ian held a protective hand around his glass as Katie lolled against his armchair, her shrill voice explaining exactly how chocolate Labradors were bred while her grandfather pressed against the seatback in unconscious alarm. He found Michael easier, his passions for fishing and racing cars safer topics for masculine conversation than Katie's innocent twitterings on dog breeding. From the comfort of his chair he promised the boy grand fishing trips on lakes near his home. Isabel twitched. She knew from past experience that his promises were easily made, equally easily forgotten. It seemed dishonest, somehow, to make the child promises that would never be fulfilled. But then, who was she to accuse another of dishonesty? She felt her cheeks go red.
'I'll just go and start seeing about dinner,' she mumbled and escaped to the kitchen where she tripped over the forgotten mop and bucket. Dirty water splashed over the clean floor. She slopped at the grey tide ineffectually, sloshing water back into the bucket with angry jerks, her lower back creasing in pain as she bent over the mop. Tears pricked at her eyes. Damn. She stood for a second, clutching the mop, a latter-day Cinderella. But no ball in prospect, no Prince Charming, no Fairy Godmother. She started to work more methodically. Perhaps that was what Cinders found, that happily ever after just meant more of the same. Finished, she poured the water down the outside drain, watching it swirl away under a froth of bubbles.
Back in the kitchen she turned the oven on ready for their meal. Smoked salmon roulade, then pheasants in apple and cream sauce and Pommes Dauphinoises, followed by lemon tart. Too much cream, too much stodge for everyday, but just right for drowning bad feelings in calories and carbohydrates. And it was easier to cook well with lots of butter and cream: everything tasted good, if heavy on the cholesterol. Still, one meal wouldn't matter. They can sleep it off later, she assuaged her conscience.
She took the pheasants out of the fridge. At this time of year they were cheap, the area being rife with shooting estates. The last two weekends Michael had colle
cted spent cartridge cases found on walks - green, yellow, red, the occasional black. Isabel kept finding them in pockets and behind cupboards. The birds looked unappetising, a mottled mixture of grey and purple. She draped them with flaccid strips of streaky bacon, drizzled them with oil, chucked a few onions into the roasting dish around the birds and shoved it in the oven, slamming the door shut with her foot.
Halfway through beating the salmon mousse for the roulade, Moira came in, shoes clacking like tongues.
'Is Neil up yet?'
'He's poorly.' Moira's mouth compressed.
'Really?' Isabel blinked. 'I thought he was just tired.'
'The boy's exhausted,' Moira said. She obviously felt it was all Isabel's fault. 'And going down with flu.'
'Poor Neil,' Isabel murmured, concentrating on spreading mousse over the roulade base. If you didn't get it even, it squidged out of the sides and bulged ominously. His mother sniffed loudly.
'I'm going to make him a hot toddy.'
'Oh. Help yourself. Just ask if you need anything.' She started to roll up the roulade, manoeuvring the greaseproof paper carefully and ignoring the sounds of slammed doors and wrenched drawers as her mother-in-law progressed round the kitchen cupboards.
'Do you not have a lemon squeezer, Isabel?'
'No, I usually use a fork. Easier to wash up.'
'I see.' More cupboard rummaging. 'What's this?' Moira pulled out an electric citrus press.
'I'd forgotten I had that. Sorry.' She must think I'm mad, Isabel thought. Still at least she'll be pleased to have a bit more evidence of my hopelessness. She finished the roulade. 'There.' She poked a bit of filling back in, then took a step back to admire the roulade, plump as a pillow. The decoration in the book had involved skinning cherry tomatoes, but she didn't feel that she had the time, now or ever, to fiddle with tomato skins and boiling water, however easily they were supposed to slip off. It'd have to do as it was. She glanced at her watch. She ought to peel some potatoes - they really should have gone in with the birds - but she needed to get the children ready for bed. Executive decision. It'd have to be mashed potato. She called the children to her and went upstairs.