Everything and Nothing

by Araminta Hall

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ Aggie was saying now. ‘You’re going to have a lovely day with Mummy. I’ll see you later.’

  Reluctantly Hal let Ruth take him, but she knew he was looking at Aggie over her shoulder as she carried him out to the car.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Christian as they drove off. ‘You look very pale.’

  ‘No, I’m not okay. Hal didn’t want to come.’

  ‘I don’t blame him.’

  ‘No, Christian, I’m not joking. I had to pull him off Aggie just now. It was like he wanted to be with her more than me.’

  Christian cut up a woman in front of them. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He was probably tired or something.’

  ‘No.’ Ruth looked out of the window and tried to make sense of what she had seen. ‘No, it was more than that. It wasn’t right.’

  ‘You can’t have it all, Ruth. You can’t leave them all week and then not want them to get attached to the nanny. You should be pleased they like her so much. Think of Mark and Susan who found out that girl had been sitting Poppy in front of CBeebies for eight hours a day and feeding her chocolate spread. At least we know Aggie’s doing a good job.’

  Ruth looked back at her two children strapped into their seats as they sped along the dirty London streets. Stop the car, she wanted to shout, it’s so much more likely that we’ll crash than get there unharmed. The air vibrated around them and everything seemed painfully fragile.

  It had started to be that Agatha felt scared when Hal wasn’t near her. And not only scared that something might happen to him, but scared for herself. She recognised it as a return to the restless anxiety which had accompanied so much of her childhood. After they had left for the farm Agatha went into Hal’s bedroom and sat next to his cot. She pressed her face against the cold wooden bars so she could draw in the scent of him, but it wasn’t enough. She pulled the bedding out of the cot and lay with her head on his soft pillow and the covers over her head. But even Hal couldn’t stop the memories.

  ‘Just touch it,’ Harry had said. ‘You don’t have to do anything more than touch it.’

  But of course that had been a lie. Over time touching had not been enough. In the end it had filled her up so she felt sure it had passed through every organ in her body. It was too big. Everything about Harry was too big. From his lips to his fingers to his stomach. Sometimes he would forget himself and then she would feel like he was going to crush her to death and all the air would be pushed out of her as surely as a deflated balloon.

  At night she would sit with her parents and Louise, her sister and will one of them to notice her, to see that she was not normal. But no one had ever looked up from themselves and so she had begun to tell herself stories to make it better. Harry died many, many times. His deaths were violent and painful but never caused by Agatha herself or even a member of her family. Eventually her family started to die as well, less violently and less painfully, but with pathos and sympathy. Agatha told their teacher that her dad had leukaemia and only a few weeks to live. And that same teacher had taken Louise aside to tell her how sorry she was and from her reaction they’d guessed she didn’t know and so they’d taken her to the school offi ce and called up their mother and she had rushed over and again failed to back up Agatha’s story. The school’s counsellor had tried to get to the bottom of it, but her questions had been so standard that Agatha had been able to give her answers without saying anything real.

  Tell us why you did it, her parents had pleaded as they’d sat round the kitchen table that night. It’s such a wicked thing to say and so obvious that you were going to be found out. Did you really think you could say that and the school wouldn’t mention anything to Louise, or us? And so Agatha learnt a lesson: stories had to be based in reality or they were lies, and they had to be told to the right people.

  The farm was exactly as Ruth had imagined it would be. A perfectly proportioned house surrounded by muddy fields up a bumpy track. The front door was open and smoke was puffing artfully from the chimney. Children’s bikes were scattered in front of the door and chickens were pecking in a corner. Even a sheepdog lay asleep on a flat stone. She was surprised that Channel Four hadn’t snapped them up for a sanctimonious lifestyle documentary.

  ‘God,’ sighed Christian. ‘This looks like hell.’

  An overly thin man sauntered out of the door, a young boy hanging off his leg as another, slightly older, hit him with a stick.

  ‘Cut it out, Jasper,’ snapped the man. ‘Those people are here now. Mummy wouldn’t want them to see you doing that.’ Ruth noticed that he had a glint in his eye as he spoke and he had raised his voice, making sure they heard.

  She got out of the car, taking charge of the situation as she knew she had to, even though every fibre of her body wanted to run and hide. She didn’t dare even look at Christian, his anger would be too terrifying. ‘Mr Lansford?’

  ‘Charlie.’ He wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I’m Ruth, from Viva. Thanks so much for having us all out here. Letting us intrude on your weekend.’ Her voice sounded ridiculously jolly, like she was trying to keep them all upright with the force of her goodwill.

  ‘Margo insisted,’ he replied, peeling his older son off his younger one. ‘Fuck knows where she is though. Probably baking some bread to impress you. Really we live off economy white sliced.’

  Ruth started to attempt a laugh, although the whole situation lacked any humour. Christian had been right, she should have come alone.

  ‘I heard that,’ sang a woman’s voice from inside the house and then Margo appeared and everything went back to normal because she was completely and exactly as she should be. She was tall, thin to the point of wiry, with long, straggly hair that probably always lived bunched up on top of her head. She was dressed in an odd assortment of silky, ethnic clothes that did nothing for the near concave nature of her body. A baby of inde-terminate sex rested on her hip whilst a toddler clutched her free hand. ‘We never eat white bread, do we, Sammy?’ Sammy stopped thumping his brother for a second and looked at his mother with utter disdain.

  ‘Of course we don’t,’ shouted Charlie, hugging his wife too tightly. ‘That would never do, would it?’

  Ruth realised they had gate-crashed a row and were going to be used as some sort of disenfranchised referee unless she checked the situation. She also realised that the Lansfords were enjoying it. ‘Anyway, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed,’ she said to Margo. ‘And for letting us all descend on you like this at the weekend.’ Christ, she sounded as though she was at a demented drinks party. ‘This is Christian.’ She turned to see Christian still sitting scowling in the car, the kids fighting in the back. He got out as he saw them all looking at him and Ruth wondered if Charlie and Margo could see how much he hated her at that moment or if only she could read his face so precisely.

  Margo took charge as she no doubt always did. ‘I thought you boys could take the children round the farm. Why don’t you let them play on the hay? Then Ruth and I can have our little chat.’ No one wanted to do what Margo had suggested, but no one raised any objections. Ruth decided not to even look at Christian, to go into the house and deal with all the shit on the drive home.

  The house was as beautiful on the inside as the outside, which somehow sunk Ruth further. Margo had perfected the look of disorganised mess which looked comfy and inviting and flowed together and, even though Ruth knew it took a whole lot of effort, she was still charmed. They went into the white kitchen plastered with shelves and cupboards overflowing with often cracked but still beautiful bits of crockery. Margo gestured for her to sit at the obligatory long wooden table with a bunch of flowers in the centre which Ruth feared had been picked somewhere on the farm.

  ‘What can I get you to drink?’ asked Margo.

  ‘I’d love some coffee,’ answered Ruth.

  Margo frowned. ‘Oh, sorry, we don’t do caffeine in this house. I’ve got all kinds of herbal tea though.’

  Ruth hated herbal tea.
‘Oh, right, don’t worry. I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

  As the kettle whistled, Ruth tried to remember why she was there. She struggled to think up some good questions to ask this vision of perfection before her, but she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to know the answer to.

  ‘So,’ she began, hoping something would follow as Margo handed her a steaming cup of purple liquid. ‘What a beautiful house.’

  Margo was obviously used to hearing this. ‘It was a complete wreck when we found it, but we saw the potential and we love a challenge.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Four years.’

  ‘So you did all this with the children?’

  ‘With some of them. Two came during.’ Margo laughed; she was used to being told she was wonderful, but Ruth couldn’t force the words out.

  ‘So, Vicky, our Features Editor, who you’ve been speaking to, she tells me that you and Charlie worked in the City before all this.’

  ‘We did, that’s true. We were both investment bankers, for our sins.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a change then, from the City to this.’

  ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it.’

  ‘What prompted it?’ Speaking to Margo was a bit like reading OK! magazine. It made Ruth feel dirty and unworthy, yet fascinatingly jealous.

  ‘I suppose it was one of those eureka moments. We were on holiday in Greece and Charlie and I suddenly realised that the nanny had put Jasper and Sammy to bed every night since we’d got there. And I said to him, Haven’t we earnt enough money? Don’t you think we could just bloody stop? And I expected some huge row or something, but he looked up at me and said, Yes, I think we probably could. We both resigned the day we got back from holiday and put our house on the market and found this one, all within a month.’

  Did people have eureka moments? Had that particular cliché moved out of language and into experience? Ruth doubted it, but she laughed, trying to sound jolly, ‘That’s a very supportive husband.’

  ‘We’ve a strong bond, Charlie and I,’ answered Margo. ‘We know intuitively when the other needs something.’

  Ruth wanted to throw her disgusting tea in Margo’s face. Her hand vibrated on the mug and she wondered what would happen if she did, if that would be the signal that she had gone mad, if she’d be carted away and labelled forever more. Instead she said, ‘But did you have any idea what you were going to do?’

  ‘Not at that time.’

  ‘So I take it you had enough money not to do anything?’

  ‘Not really. We had about a year’s grace.’

  ‘That was very brave.’

  ‘It felt more like necessity. Bravery didn’t come into it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Margo looked a little irritated. ‘I mean, sometimes you reach a point in your life when you know it’s not working and you know you’re going to have to change or go under.’

  Ruth wondered if anything Margo ever said was real. She could imagine her screaming at Charlie or weeping when she thought no one was looking, but she doubted she would ever let her mask slip in public. It was tiring talking to someone who didn’t say anything other than what they thought you wanted to hear, or maybe what they wanted you to hear. But it was also terrifying to hear herself in Margo, to hear a woman she knew she hated articulating her own desires. She tried another question. ‘Have you ever regretted it?’

  The baby started to cry and so Margo picked her up and began to feed her. Ruth remembered the feeling and it surprised her with an internal tug. ‘No, I don’t believe we have. It’s been tough, but most things that are worth achieving are tough, don’t you find?’

  ‘Tough how?’

  ‘Oh, you know, renovating a house this size is a nightmare. And then starting a business has so little to do with what you’re making and so much to do with banks and loans and scary men telling you you’re mad.’ Margo laughed and Ruth realised she was being conned again.

  Ruth looked at her notes. She could write this article with her eyes closed. She probably didn’t even need to interview Margo. ‘So how did you come up with the idea for the soap then?’

  And there you had it. Give up, give in, get back onto dry land. Ruth sat back and let Margo educate her on the finer details of plant condensing and sustainable packaging.

  By the end of an hour Ruth was desperate to leave, but she was also dreading seeing Christian, so it was a nice surprise to see him laughing with Charlie as she left the house. She didn’t let her guard down though as you could never tell with Christian, his moods could flick like a light switch so she wasn’t sure exactly what she was in for as they drove out of the farm. But his smile stayed in place.

  ‘God that was classic,’ said Christian.

  ‘Classic how?’ Ruth was rooting in her bag for Hal’s bottle as she spoke.

  ‘I don’t know what Margo told you, but her husband is one fucked-up man. He hates her.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m not, I swear I’m telling you the truth. It was hilarious. He’s got fags and whisky hidden all over that farm. He’s angry as hell.’

  ‘Angry at what?’ Betty was kicking the back of Ruth’s seat.

  ‘At her self-satisfied crap, most likely.’

  ‘You didn’t even talk to her.’

  ‘I didn’t have to. Christ, she looked vile.’

  Ruth knew this was a moment in which she could agree with her husband, they could have a good laugh and that would be that. But that was never that with them. Something about his judgemental attitude or maybe his pleasure at someone else’s distress caught at her. ‘She wasn’t that bad. God, at least she’s having a go at making it better.’

  Christian snorted. ‘At making what better?’

  ‘Life.’

  ‘You do know that her father bought them that farm, don’t you? She’s loaded. She made him give up his job and jack it all in to live on a farm and make shit soaps that will never make any money.’

  ‘You talk as if he’s got no free will. He could have said no.’

  ‘No, he couldn’t. You know what it’s like.’

  Ruth turned to look at her husband’s strong profi le. ‘What are you saying? That all you poor men have to do everything to keep us women happy because we’re all so deranged?’

  ‘No, Ruth. I was talking about Charlie and Margo. He said they went on holiday a few years ago and she cried every day and refused to get out of bed until he agreed to leave London with her.’

  ‘So you think it would have been better for them to stay in London, working hard, never seeing their kids?’

  ‘Not necessarily, but I don’t think they have to go and play at being the perfect Swiss Family Robinson when they obviously aren’t.’

  ‘Unlike us.’ Ruth could hear the pitch of her voice rising like a scale. Christian, she realised, was sure that he had heard the right story. More than sure; he hadn’t even questioned it. Ruth on the other hand was always painfully aware of what was going on behind the words. She sometimes conducted entire conversations feeling like a puppet talking to another puppet, imagining what the other person was really thinking about as they showed their public face. Christian believed people were as they seemed. He hadn’t yet worked out that everyone had a front, that they all wept at their kitchen tables and picked their noses in front of the telly.

  ‘Fuck, what’s eating you?’

  ‘Daddy said fuck,’ said Betty from the back.

  ‘You’re eating me,’ said Ruth. ‘With your sanctimonious crap.’

  ‘Bollocks. You’re angry because you didn’t get the real story.’

  Ruth always felt there was a tipping point in every argument: at one moment she was sitting on the edge of a cliff and in the next Christian was dangling her over it. Her face flushed and her heart beat faster. ‘Don’t you dare tell me whether or not I got the story.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Ruth, don’t tell me she told you anything more than a few soap reci
pes?’

  Tears scratched at Ruth’s eyes, she could feel them forming inside her. ‘That is so patronising.’

  Christian laughed. ‘But true, right?’

  ‘If you must know,’ she said, ‘I got the story our readers want. They don’t want to know about her failing marriage or the fact that Daddy pays for everything, they just want to hear about a plucky woman who’s done what they all dream of. They’ll only half read it anyway, sitting at their desks during some depressing lunch hour or with one eye on the kids in the park. They want to feel that things are possible, not that they aren’t.’

  Christian tried to take her hand. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make out that what you do isn’t good.’

  She shook him away. ‘Well, you did and anyway you’re right. What I do is shit, like what you do is. All you and I do is feed meaningless crap into people’s lives. Moving pictures and easy words to take away the pain.’

  ‘Bloody hell, you think about things too much.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. You can’t think about anything too much.’

  Betty started to whimper in the back. ‘I need a wee, Mummy.’

  Ruth ignored her. ‘And I don’t know why we bother anyway. I doubt it’s worth all the bloody sacrifice.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Christian, pulling the car into a service station. ‘You’re asking some big questions.’

  Ruth turned to see a wet patch appearing on her daughter’s trousers as they came to a stop. She felt so tired with the way they interacted she could have lain down in the car park and slept. Even breathing seemed a chore. ‘Yes, maybe I am,’ she said. ‘I just can’t find any answers.’