The Godmother

by Carrie Adams

  “What are you doing, Tessa?”

  “Fran—wow, you were quick.”

  Three little girls stared accusingly at my bottom. “It’s bath-time,” said Katie.

  “The ten-minute rule really works, heh?” I said, pushing myself off the floor.

  “What were you looking for?”

  I held up my bare wrist. “Silly, really. I lost one of the bracelets I bought in India, I thought there was a slim chance it might be in here.” Liar, screamed a voice in my head.

  I followed the troupe of little heads back down to the bathroom where a half-filled cold bath awaited them. They weren’t impressed. I got back down on my knees to rectify the situation.

  “Bubbles?”

  “Yes,” said Poppy.

  “No,” said Katie.

  I turned to Cora. “Half,” she said, which I thought was a daft answer until I watched them spend the next twenty minutes very happily damming the bubbles down Poppy’s end of the bath to much squeals of delight as the disobedient bubbles escaped in fronds beyond the demarcation zone. Finally we had them well scrubbed, towelled off, teeth cleaned and ready for bed. I don’t know if there is anything more delightful in this world than three little girls messing about in a bath together. Except, perhaps, three little girls in clean pajamas, curled and draped over every limb, listening intently while I read Cat and Fish. Personally, I thought the story was a bit trippy, but the girls seemed to like it.

  It was a magical forty minutes and I breathed in their collective smell and committed to memory the feel of little hands absently caressing my skin. Then Poppy let off an enormous fart and everyone fell apart giggling. I decided it was time to take Cora home before we crossed the invisible line between angels and demons. You never knew quite where it was but by the time you’d crossed it, you realized you’d seen it coming. I kissed the girls goodnight and picked up Cora. She was still very easy to carry. Sometimes I worried she had hollow bones. Caspar came up the stairs. I kissed my godson as I passed, thanked him for cleaning the car and promised to take him out to lunch soon.

  Francesca appeared from Katie’s room as I was halfway down the stairs with my human parcel.

  “I’ll see you on Saturday night,” she said. “Did you ask Caspar about your bracelet?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  Fran was too organized to let that put her off. She liked to find missing puzzle pieces even if it took all day and she had to search the entire toy collection. “What does it look like?”

  I was trapped. “Beads. Coral beads. Red.”

  “Tessa thinks she may have lost a bracelet in your room…” Fran turned back to me. “Where did you look?”

  Damn it. “Just around the beanbag and under the bed. The clasp wasn’t very good.” I was as bad as Caspar and he knew it. The look on his face said it all. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  “Have you found anything like that?” his mother asked him.

  He shook his head slowly, still looking at me in a really uncomfortable way. “I don’t think you were wearing a red bracelet, Tessa,” he said. “If you remember, you were all in white that day.”

  “What an extraordinary memory you have, Caspar,” said Fran, kissing her son on his head. “You smell nice,” she said, oblivious to the alarming look that Caspar was giving me.

  “Smile, Caspar,” said Cora. As I said, nothing gets past this kid. Cora climbed down and followed Francesca down the stairs. I stood and looked at Caspar.

  “Caspar, I’m sorry—”

  “You went sneaking through my stuff. Not even Mum and Dad would do that.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m not a fucking kid any more.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  I knew as soon as I’d said it, it was the wrong thing to say.

  “Christ, Tessa, just mind your own business, would you?”

  “You rang me, remember?” Now who was being the child? “I mean, I thought you needed some support here.”

  “Your idea of support is rummaging through my room?”

  He turned and walked away from me.

  “Caspar?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Caspar?”

  “Forget it, Tessa. I don’t need you butting in all the time.”

  He shut the door.

  On the drive back to Billy’s I only half listened to Cora. My mind was on Caspar. Cora was unimpressed when I failed to give the right answer to a couple of her questions. For example, when she asked, “What makes hair curl?” I replied, “Nearly there.” The second time I got it wrong, she got quite cross and told me I wasn’t listening to her. She was right. However good my intentions, even Cora’s constant babbling was hard to stay tuned to all the time.

  I pulled up outside their narrow red-brick ground-floor flat in Kensal Rise. Billy opened the door before we’d made it all the way up the heavily weeded garden path. She looked like a dancer, Billy. She had the same long dark hair that her daughter inherited off her, although it was now streaked with grey, the same sinewy limbs and large brown eyes. Her look hadn’t changed since I’d met her in the corridor between our rented bedrooms: Slavic gypsy, which was what she was, I suppose. There was always enough material in her skirts to wrap her up ten times over and her tops always clung to her muscular, narrow torso. It was a distinct look that has come and fallen from fashion approximately four times in the time we’ve known each other. Only during her time with Christoph did her appearance change. He preferred short skirts and heels, which made her look like an underaged gymnast from behind the Iron Curtain dressing up like a “sexetary” to please a corrupt judge. Her jewelry was a socioeconomic reflection of herself—ethnic and minimal—which meant she got away with it. Billy smiled at her daughter. “You are without doubt the best thing that ever happened to me,” she exclaimed and hugged her child.

  Bad news from the solicitor, then, I thought, watching Cora squash Billy’s cheeks between the palms of her hands. Billy seeks solace in Cora. I wish she’d seek solace in the world around her, but she couldn’t seem to find her place in it. She gave so much of herself over to Christoph, sometimes I wondered if there was anything left.

  “Did you have fun?” asked Billy.

  “It was great, we cooked monkey pie in the garden with magic crystals that can turn your bottom green.”

  Billy looked at me. I shrugged.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” said Cora, walking into the flat that she shared with her mother and Magda, the Polish au pair. It only had two bedrooms, so it was a bit of a squash. Cora used to have her own room and Billy used to fork out for expensive childcare that left her running into the red every month. Cora, knowing that Billy was alone, would make nocturnal forays into her mother’s room and Billy would wake up to find a small body curled up next to her. Everyone told her she had to get firm, and put Cora back into her own bed. Trouble was, Cora was so stealthy that Billy never woke up to put her back into her own bed. Eventually, I suggested to Billy that she turn Cora’s deserted room into an asset—get someone to live in who could help in the mornings, collect Cora from school and man the gates until Billy got back from work. As well as having help when she needed it most, it would cost her a third of the price. We re-evaluated her monthly expenditure and worked out she’d be in the black. By not changing her frugal ways, she soon paid off her debt. Magda was a blessed addition to their lives. She even had a nice boyfriend, so Billy had enough evenings to herself, and was on-site to babysit whenever Billy wanted, which wasn’t very often. Everyone was happy. Even Cora, who now shared her mother’s bed and her wardrobe. Cora had started her life in an intensive care unit, then spent months on a ward. She could sleep anywhere, through anything, at any time. Billy came to bed, pottered around, read, did her face, and all the while this tiny curled creature breathed gently under the duvet, seemingly undisturbed. If my current security blanket was a hard-edged framed photograph that didn’t even belong to me, then Billy’s was her daug
hter.

  I had the privilege of tucking Cora into bed that night in Billy’s room, but the last kiss, as always, was reserved for her mother. Billy softly closed the door behind her and escorted me to the fridge. She handed me a bottle of wine, took two glasses and a corkscrew from the drawer and followed me to the sofa.

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “I’ve got to go to court again.” Her expression was neutral.

  “Why?”

  “He has changed how he does his accounting. I get 17 percent of what he earns.”

  “Which should be plenty?”

  “Not if he doesn’t declare it. Now he’s building boats exclusively for some very rich guy abroad, the money isn’t coming into England. He is claiming to earn much less, which, of course, puts an additional burden on his outgoings, which means he can apply to have his percentage dropped back to, worst case scenario, 10 percent.”

  “Which leaves you with?” I was trying not to get wound up. We’d been having these conversations about Christoph for most of Cora’s life.

  “Diddly-squat. He isn’t claiming not to have earned the money, he just isn’t bringing it in, so I have to put a case to the court that he needs to bring more money in. Trouble is, it’s all back-handers and cash in brown envelopes. God knows…”

  “What about his other”—I faltered slightly as I tend to do with this subject—“family?” Christoph has a new wife and two children, who both go to the best private schools and want for nothing. Except a nice dad, I suppose.

  “She has money. They live off that.”

  “Cunning.”

  “I guess it’s already declared and taxed.”

  “How very trusting of her,” I said, sipping wine. “Poor woman, I almost feel sorry for her.”

  “That’s what you do when you’re married, Tessa.”

  I was perplexed. She expanded for me.

  “You trust your other half.”

  “Yes, maybe Nick and Al and…” I suddenly saw where I was going with this, and wanted to retreat. But it was too late.

  “And Ben. I know, all the marvelous men out there who are faithful and honest as the day is long. But Christoph was that to me, and he’ll be that to his new wife. You don’t willfully give yourself to a man you think will shag everything that glances his way, spend your cash and leave you high and dry with a couple of kids and no money.”

  For a second, my mind conjured up an image of Helen being evicted from her house, two kids in tow, and Neil speeding off with a blonde in a sports car. It wasn’t wholly unpleasant, because after that I appeared on the horizon, like Zorro, to save the day.

  “You know it goes on, you just don’t think it goes on in your life. She’ll probably be thinking how brilliant Christoph is and looking forward to buying a Swiss ski chalet, a Tuscan villa and a house on the fucking Palm.”

  I frowned again.

  “It’s in Dubai, where this rich bloke lives. Doesn’t matter, all I’m saying is you assume your husband isn’t lying to you. You have to,” continued Billy.

  All I could think of was Sasha kissing Ben goodbye as she went off for another week away in Germany.

  “I don’t want to sue him, Tessa. I don’t want all that friction in my life again. He’s seen Cora twice this year, things have been getting better.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t want to go there again? You’ve never gone there. Billy, please, don’t get me wrong, but you’ve rolled over every bloody time. And it’s October, that’s hardly regular contact.”

  “He travels…”

  I’d heard it all before. “Come on, Billy. What good is living like this doing you? You think he’s going to be grateful that you’ve been so understanding? He doesn’t give a shit about anyone else apart from himself. I’m sorry, Billy, but when are you going to see it?”

  “I think she makes it hard for him to come and see us.”

  “She?”

  “His new wife.”

  I stood up. It was too infuriating to have this conversation sitting down. “New? Billy! New? They have two daughters!”

  “He told me once she was very demanding.”

  I silently screamed inside my head. “Really. Poor man—a wife who expects her husband to contribute to family life. You’re absolutely right, she must be a witch.”

  “She doesn’t like the fact of us.”

  “I bet. Reminds her of what a shit of a man her husband is.”

  “Tessa!”

  “What? Do you want my help or not? Because I can probably get that money for you.”

  “Without going to court?”

  I wanted to shake her. But thinking about it, maybe there was a way to do this without going to court. In fact…I felt the tingling excitement of a plan. The lure of a project.

  “What?” asked Billy. “You’ve got a strange look in your eye.”

  “If I can find a way of proving Christoph is earning more than he says he is…”

  “That sounds like spying.”

  I dismissed her concerns. “No more than the shit deserves.”

  “Tessa.”

  Please stop being so pathetic, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I was on a roll. “I have a good friend who works in this field. I tell you, men hide money from their wives all the time, usually just before they announce their intentions to leave them. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. If you’re right about brown envelopes, he won’t want me sniffing around.” I turned to face Billy. “We could scare him into handing over more cash. The threat of court might be enough!”

  For a moment a wicked little smile crossed Billy’s lips.

  “What do you say?” I asked.

  “Go on then, but don’t do anything without telling me first.”

  “I promise.”

  “A real promise. Not a Tessa King promise.”

  I put my hand to my heart and feigned shock. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Fuzzy around the edges.”

  “I sincerely promise. Now, let’s order a takeaway, I’m famished.”

  This was a lie. I’d eaten far too many of the children’s sausages, but if I ordered and paid for a large Indian takeaway I knew Billy could live off it for a few days.

  “So,” said Billy, a mouth full of balti, “any bad behavior you can tell me about?”

  I shook my head, and helped myself to more food that I didn’t want.

  “I take it that bloke didn’t call?”

  I wasn’t sure how much I appreciated her “I take it,” but I shook my head again. The fantasy of Sebastian the civil servant waiting outside my building in the pouring rain to tell me he couldn’t get me out of his mind had been superseded by a far less palatable one. The one where I play the marriage-wrecker. The one in which I divide the loyalties and affections of my root friendships, the one in which that kiss did not end with Claudia calling out for Al.

  “Just another notch,” I said finally. “What about you?” I asked, knowing it was futile. Billy had cut the wires that sent any kind of signal to the opposite sex. It wasn’t that she played hard to get. You had to do a little come-on dance first, to do that. She played nothing to get. And it worked.

  “What about any of the men who come through the surgery?” I asked, trying to be encouraging. Billy worked for a nearby dentist.

  “People with teeth,” she said. This is what I meant by no signal. “I’m hardly what the average male wants, am I?” she continued. “Practically middle-aged myself, bogged down by a seven-year-old. Divorced. Broke.” She was wrong, of course. If she could see what I could see, we could duct tape those wires back together again. She was beautiful, ethereal, considerate, caring; she was honest and faithful, dedicated and conscientious and she looked fit enough to ride in the Grand National or play Giselle. When Christoph left her, he stole a chip from inside her that rendered her inert. It was the worst kind of heartbreak. He didn’t want her, but he made sure no one else would either.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” I said, tryi
ng to cheer her up. “I was wondering if you’d be my date on Saturday night. Channel 4 are hosting a grand party for the launch of the comedy series that Neil is in. Nick and Fran are coming,” I added quickly, before terror got the best of Billy. “Francesca could really do with a good night out; we can get dolled up and dance around our handbags.”

  “I don’t know, babysitters on Saturdays are—”

  “Billy, Magda is supposed to sit twice a week for you and she never has to.”

  “No, but she covers when I’m late back from work and—”

  “It’s free booze. You can come round to mine beforehand and we’ll get ready together. Please. It’ll be like the old days…”

  What I wanted to say was, “What are you so afraid of?”; instead, I smiled. “Fine. Meet me there.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “One good turn deserves another. I’ll look into this,” I said tapping Billie’s file on her ex-husband. “You be my date.”

  “You’re the one who wants to go after Christoph.”

  I put the file back down on the table and put my hands on my hips. “So you don’t want me to do it?”

  She blinked a few times.

  “Come on, Billy, not this again.”

  She waved her hand over the file. “OK, take it. But I’m sure you have hundreds of dates you could go with.”

  “No, Billy, I don’t. I just thought it would be fun for us all to go out, that’s all.” It was like pulling teeth with her.

  “OK. I’ll come,” she said.

  What was that? An involuntary surrender. Sometimes I wanted to shake her, remind her she was alive, prise her out of the bog she’d got herself in. But I couldn’t, because ultimately it was down to her. I watched Billy stifle another yawn so I carried the tray of half-eaten food back to the kitchen, kissed her goodnight, took the file of damning evidence against my goddaughter’s father and drove myself home.

  12

  pumpkin time