She struggled from the chair, and sank down on one knee, laying Michael carefully on the fluffy sheepskin rug. She stretched out close beside him, luxuriating in the caress of its soft fleece, in the warm glow of the fire, the flicker of the flames against her face. Michael’s father kept returning – in the strawberries, the licked fingers, and now his sheepskin coat; in the tangled mix of memories surging through her head.
‘You’ve got to meet your father, Michael, but I don’t know how we’ll manage it.’
The baby whimpered for reply.
‘I’m sorry, Mishka, but it wasn’t up to me. If I’d had any say in it, we’d be living together – the three of us.’
He was squirming on the rug, pulling up his knees, as if in pain, making little moaning noises; fists tight-clenched and thrashing at the empty air. Perhaps he wasn’t comfortable lying on the floor, felt insecure, abandoned. She scrambled to her knees, about to move him to the sofa, when a gush of chocolate-vomit suddenly spewed out of his mouth and cascaded over the rug. She stared in disbelief. How could one small baby sick up such a flood? The rug was ruined, covered with a slimy curdled mess, some of which had dribbled on to the carpet – an expensive Wilton, naturally. She tried to scoop the puke up, averting her eyes from the undigested gobbets of congealing pinkish scum which clogged the murky brown. She would never get the rug clean; never get rid of the smell. And Michael hadn’t finished yet – a second horrifying spurt eructing unexpectedly right across her hands.
She was retching now herself, could feel her stomach lurching to her throat. She dashed out to the kitchen, praying she would make it to the sink. Halfway there, she doubled back – couldn’t leave the baby on his own. But in saving him from danger, she’d held on just too long; clapped her hand across her mouth – too late. She was already throwing up – yes, right there in the hallway, with Michael in her arms.
She slumped against the coat-stand, hardly daring to look up. The stylish blue-striped wallpaper was spattered; puke dripping slowly down it to the Persian rug below. Not even the coats had escaped – Joyce’s pricey skiing jacket, Dr Edwards’ Burberry, both flecked with glutinous grey.
She laid Michael on the parquet, subsided on the floor herself, like a beaten dog surrendering. The Edwardses would forbid her to set foot in their house again – and could she really blame them when she’d made such a shameful mess in it, made the baby ill? He was screaming in near-panic, spreadeagled on the wood. She too began to cry; listened to their mingled sobs, echoing through the hall. She knew she ought to clean him up, change his stinking clothes, then scour the place with soap and mop, but she felt too small and puny. Shouldn’t someone else appear – someone stronger, older, who’d come running at their first faint cry for help? Why was there no footstep on the stairs, no reassuring bottle in her mouth? Mummy was out working, but Daddy must be somewhere in the house, sorting through his papers, or busy at his desk. She tried to make him hear, redoubling her wild screams, imploring him to stop his work, remember she existed. Her neck was hurting from the strain of trying to lift her head – a lumpish head which seemed too heavy for her body. And she couldn’t get a grip on the shiny wooden floor, kept collapsing back as her small hands slid away from her. Her throat was hoarse, her nappy soiled, her whole body wet and cramped, but it was impossible to move until her father picked her up.
‘Please come,’ she begged. ‘Please help.’
But he didn’t answer, didn’t come, and she only made her throat worse; her face now red and swollen; her nose so blocked it was difficult to breathe. Best to lie in silence, close her eyes, give up. She could scream all day, all dangerous night, but still he wouldn’t hear.
Daddy wasn’t there.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Pass the cranberry sauce, Michael. Thank you, darling. The turkey’s good, isn’t it – moist for such a big one.’
Michael put his fork down, to caress his wife’s bare arm. She had dressed for Christmas dinner in an Yves St Laurent skirt and cap-sleeved real silk blouse; emeralds round her wrists and throat, a gold ring on her finger. ‘More sprouts?’ she asked, offering him the Wedgwood dish.
Michael took a spoonful, and another roast potato. He was wearing a new suit in an elegant blue-grey, and a tie she’d chosen herself. They had opened their presents that morning, sitting by the tree, with the baby crowing on her lap, drinking in the atmosphere, the excitement of the day, the heady smells of mulled punch and mince pies. It was already nearly three. They’d not got up till late, enjoyed a blissful Christmas lie-in, after an electrifying night together. Every time she thought back to their lovemaking – its exquisite combination of tenderness and passion – she felt a thrill of triumph, almost disbelief.
She sat gazing at her husband, who had changed since she’d moved in with him. He no longer wore his glasses, so his eyes blazed naked-blue, and he had grown his hair, to please her. His hand was fondling hers on the festive Christmas table; a table she had laid herself with a white lace cloth, a frieze of scarlet crackers, and a vase of gold chrysanthemums. It was the best Christmas of her life, so far, and she had hours more to enjoy – hours of luxurious happiness. Nothing had been stinted, not food nor wine nor love, and the most precious of her Christmas presents was the gift of Michael himself. She had learned new skills, to surprise him – spent ages last week fiddling around in the kitchen, trying to get the hang of home-made petits fours, and had mixed a Christmas pudding so full of rum and brandy it was reeling in its pan. She could hear it bubbling on the hob with an exhilarated sputtering noise which matched her own elation. She ought to go and turn it down, didn’t want it boiling dry or burning.
She jumped up from her chair, wheeling back to Michael before she’d even reached the door. She just had to stroke his neck again, feel the silky texture of his hair. It was impossible to concentrate on cooking when she was so utterly absorbed in him, so distracted by the tiniest of details – the fact that one neat eyebrow was a fraction thicker than the other; the reddened criss-cross pattern of the small scar on his thumb. Last night, he’d chafed that thumb against her breasts, then lapped them with his tongue, and this morning he had …
The phone shrilled through the images, capsizing them abruptly. She darted over to answer it, rehearsing her hello. It might be one of Michael’s colleagues inviting them for drinks, so she must sound gracious – the perfect doctor’s wife.
‘Is Lucy there?’ a girl’s voice asked – drawly and offhand.
‘Er … no,’ she said. ‘She’s not.’
‘Is that Elizabeth?’
‘No,’ repeated Tessa, with a hint of irritation. Her turkey would be getting cold, and it was draughty in the hall.
‘And it’s not Antonia.’
She wasn’t sure if that was a statement or a question, but she answered no, in any case.
‘Who is it, then? Sorry – that sounds rude – but I don’t know who I’m talking to.’
Tessa tightened her grip on the receiver, hoping its solidity would somehow be transmitted to her, stop her falling apart. People shouldn’t ask her who she was. ‘This is Mrs Michael Edwards,’ she kept repeating to herself, but the name no longer sounded quite convincing. The girl at the other end was becoming confused and then exasperated, and finally rang off. Tessa stood listening to the accusing vacant whine, then replaced the receiver, glancing at her hand – no gold ring on her wedding finger, no emeralds round her wrist; only a grubby tracksuit sleeve, with a sweatshirt underneath.
She slunk back to the dining-room – nothing on the table now but a bag of crisps, uneaten, and a glass of diet Coke. She drained the Coke in one violent choking gulp. She was still his wife, still Mrs Michael Edwards – even if she didn’t possess a Wedgwood dinner service, or shop at Yves St Laurent – and she would still spend Christmas with him, or part of it, at least. It was just a matter of waiting, and she was bloody good at that. She had waited up all night, passed the barren morning counting minutes, mooching round the cold and empty hous
e.
The phone had started up again, but she let it ring this time; its relentless high-pitched warble jangling through her head. She prowled to and fro until it stopped, then snatched up the receiver – had to phone the surgery once more. She’d rung sixteen times already, starting at sick dawn, when it was still blurry grey outside, and the other houses in the street were swathed in sleep; their windows blind, their bulky hedges insubstantial shadows. Sixteen times she’d listened to those reassuring words; let her body soak them up, like brandy. ‘This is a recorded message. The surgery is closed, but in case of emergency, please phone Dr Edwards, on …’
There were six GPs in the practice, but it was Dr Michael Edwards who’d been chosen as the duty-doctor for Christmas Day of all days. She’d found out only this week, but had realized instantly that it was a gift to her, a stroke of luck, and she had to change her plans, rearrange her own Christmas. It had proved extremely difficult, entailed lying and invention – the creation of a new and serious boyfriend who had invited her to stay.
‘But can’t you bring him here, Toots?’ her mother had complained, after an initial spate of questions about who he was, what he did, and why in heaven’s name she’d never said a single word about him until 8.00 PM on 22 December, especially if he meant so much? ‘It won’t be Christmas without you,’ April had concluded, her voice harsh with disappointment.
She had explained her boyfriend’s circumstances – the fact that he’d promised faithfully to spend Christmas with his own mother, who’d been widowed just three months ago. The lies about the husband’s death had been the easiest of all. She could feel the rawness of the wound, the sense of loss and void. Nor had there been any difficulty in supplying the boy’s name. It could only be one name – though her mother was upset by it.
‘Another Michael? That’s cruel, my pet.’
It seemed equally cruel to scupper April’s Christmas, leave her with two lodgers who had nowhere else to go, a pair of maiden aunts, and a female friend bruised by a recent divorce. But she didn’t have a choice – had to take her only chance of seeing Dr Edwards. If she was ill on Christmas Day, he would visit her, acknowledge her, spend time with her, alone.
‘Alone’ had been another problem. It would be horribly embarrassing for him to call with April there. Her mother would spoil everything, fussing round with cups of tea and her Reader’s Digest medical lore, or – even worse – the lodgers might appear. She could just imagine Eric asking his advice about why he couldn’t eat dried fruit without getting flatulence, or a well-oiled Frank clapping him on the back with a kipper-scented hand, and bombarding him with nudge-nudge wink-wink jokes. Yet she could hardly turf them out, along with two rheumaticky aunts, who’d only panic anyway if she was ill enough to be summoning a doctor. In the end, she had phoned her father, Dave, told him in the strictest confidence that she and her new boyfriend were itching to spend Christmas on their own, and since she’d heard from April that Dave and family would be in Bristol with the in-laws, she wondered if she could possibly borrow his house?
The ‘yes’ had been reluctant and a very long time coming. He’d probably only agreed in the end because he found he got a certain kick out of ganging up with his daughter against his former not-quite-wife.
‘Mum thinks I’ll be in Essex, you see, with Michael’s widowed mother, and I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell her otherwise.’
‘Okay, Tess, you can rely on me.’ Dave had given a conspiratorial laugh, which she’d forced herself to echo. It upset her, actually, to realize that her parents were still antagonistic to each other, despite the fact that they lived their separate lives. April had always done her best to rose-tint the relationship, present it as quite painless, but Dave’s remarks had hinted at the petty animosities, the grudges and resentments, which must have festered beneath the surface for close on twenty years.
But at least she had got the house – an elegant attractive house she needn’t be ashamed of when Dr Edwards called. He’d feel very much at home as he stepped into the hall, with its thick-pile carpets and gold-framed prints of Surrey; sauntered down the passage to the fitted modern kitchen – in fact, more at home than she was. Although her father lived relatively close, she very rarely visited, felt a virtual stranger sitting in his dining-room, and had never really mastered the lay-out of the house. She had trouble remembering where everything was kept – especially in the kitchen, where an array of identical cupboard-fronts concealed waste-bin, fridge and dish-washer, and even tracking down a teaspoon was a major undertaking. Dave’s present wife and family were the legal and official one, so she and April must be something of an embarrassment, perhaps regarded as a brief impulsive youthful fling, which could now be filed away as ‘Finished business’.
She had wandered round his territory, this morning and last night, trying to piece his life together from the welter of painful clues; Lucy and Elizabeth continually confronting her in their toys, their clothes, their photographs, their drawings proudly pinned up on the wall. His wife was also everywhere, outclassing April in her furnishings and taste – the latest Ian McEwan on her Victorian bedside table; a pile of concert programmes in what Dave called her den. Even her name – Antonia – had a certain quiet distinction, a gulf away from corny names like April. Three females in her father’s house, all with classy names, but no trace of her – the eldest child – no sign she even existed. It also struck her as ironical that the longest stretch of time she’d ever spent there in her life should be when Dave was absent, a hundred miles away.
In the end, she’d turned it into Dr Edwards’ house – no woman there but her; no child save baby Michael. It hurt too much to imagine him in his own house, so she’d been making (largely futile) efforts to wrest her mind from Tregunter Road; from him and Joyce in bed, exchanging gifts and bodies; him and Joyce sharing Christmas breakfast in their dressing-gowns. Those dressing-gowns kept gaping open, revealing Dr Edwards bare-torsoed, tanned, well-built; Joyce half-naked in an alluring skimpy nightdress; her skin still flushed from lovemaking. When he came to visit, she, too, would wear a nightdress; arrange herself in bed with her breasts spilling from the low-cut top; the erect excited nipples pushing through the lace. She had found the perfect rig-out in Antonia’s chest of drawers – a creation in white satin, with a near-transparent top and the skirt slit to the thigh.
She checked her watch: only two minutes past three. She must wait till it was dark – no, wait until late evening – postpone the visit as long as possible, so that her day had point and purpose, and she had something to look forward to: a burst of hope at nightfall, to redeem the lonely pacing hours. Yet it was proving hard to settle; to stop wishing she were somewhere else – in Tregunter Road, or Newcastle, or even back at home. Her mother would be tuned in to the Queen; Frank making cracks about Royal Highnesses and corgis. She was seized by a sudden longing to be eating April’s Christmas cake, instead of Smith’s potato crisps; to be surrounded by familiar possessions, not intimidated by dark expensive furniture, outstared by hostile clocks.
She switched on the television, the strains of the national anthem just fading into nothing. A circus came on next – a troupe of Spanish trapeze artists in spangles and fake smiles, cavorting on the high wire. She could hardly bear to watch. Her own life was too dangerous – no strong man to support her, no safety-net below. But if she had stayed at home with April, she’d be just a performing animal – a poodle in a frilly skirt, walking on her hind legs or jumping through a hoop, in order to reassure her mother that she was as happy as those pictures in the current TV Times. They seemed an alien race, those beaming paper families who smiled their way through Christmas week, raised their glasses in non-stop bumper toasts, rollicked by the Christmas tree with their entrancing kids, cute pets. Her own friends were very much the same – or ex-friends, she should say. Vicky, Liz and Alex had lost their third dimension, become as flat and bogus as the phoney cards they’d sent. Debbie, too, had written, to say she was expecting her second b
aby, and had moved to a new bungalow with picture-windows and a pear-tree in the garden. Could she and Deb have actually been so close, spent so many evenings together, discussing witless subjects like boyfriends, pop groups, wonder cures for spots? Now they lived in different universes, spoke different languages.
She drifted to the window, peered out at the street. All the other houses had exploded into life; plum pudding in their stomachs, tinsel in their hair; their waste-bins overflowing with turkey bones and gift-wrap. Yet they seemed no more real than the pictures in the magazines; cut off from her not only by their hedges, but by the fact that she didn’t belong; didn’t know the neighbours’ names or histories; couldn’t call ‘hello’when a car drew up, or face appeared. She had watched a boisterous family group pile out of a Ford Capri and knock at the house opposite; the door flung open to a hail of hugs and greetings – she alone excluded.
She looped the curtain back, so that she could see the scrum of little boys playing on their bikes further down the street. They too were yelping with laughter, and the sound jolted and alarmed her, like the clapping on the television. No one should be laughing or applauding – not yet, not till he came.
She trailed back to the phone, dialled the surgery once more. He might have had an accident, or have been taken ill himself, so that they’d had to change the message on the tape. No – still the same, still faithful Dr Edwards, which made everything worthwhile – the sleepless night in the coldly sterile spare room; the silent limping morning, with only a slice of staling bread for breakfast. Dave had offered to leave her food, stock the fridge and larder, but she’d told him not to bother, said she and ‘Michael’ were actually relieved to be spared all the palaver of Christmas dinner, and would simply buy in a few pizzas and a twelve-pack.
She switched off the television, went to fetch her books and files, which she’d brought with her in a plastic bag, in place of beer and pizzas. If she settled down to do some work, it would make the time pass quicker, distract her more effectively than elephants and clowns. She had written up her biography of Dr Michael Edwards, as far as she was able, though it was nowhere near complete. She had netted quite a shoal of facts about his present life and work, but had fished up very little about the years he’d spent in Leicester. She’d found no one there who’d worked with him – or no one who would talk to her – and she’d been met with cool suspicion when she’d rung the Leicester surgery. It had proved so baffling and frustrating she’d put the thing aside; embarked instead on a series of long letters – elaborate, formal letters, modelled on those of Heloïse.
Michael, Michael Page 30