Dolly doesn’t for a moment slip from thinking about herself to noticing what her mother has said. ‘And I can’t find my pink T-shirt, and I’ve looked everywhere, and you said we would take Zeus to dog training tonight. Just you and me on our own.’
The self-centredness of teenagers is truly breathtaking. Laura opens the bathroom door, not for Dolly, but because she is now running late and must leave. Dolly is there on the threshold, tall now, so she is eyeball to eyeball with her mother. Draping a friendly but demanding arm around her neck, Dolly accompanies her down the stairs, leaning into her, whispering pleas. ‘Fred won’t mind being left here on his own while you and I go to dog training. I just think it ought to be two of us not three, but can we just look for my T-shirt? I think it might be—’
‘Dolly, DOLLY.’ Laura turns to face her at the bottom of the stairs, disentangling herself from the tentacled grasp, waving an exasperated hand in front of her face. ‘I’m going out! Look! I’m wearing lipstick and party clothes. I’m going with Dad to a party. We can’t go to dog training tonight, I’m sorry.’
Breathing shallow and fast Laura shrugs her coat on. Trying to ignore the gloom gathering on Dolly’s face, in the droop of her shoulders, the slump of her body against the banisters, Laura kisses her briskly. ‘Come on, darling, I did tell you days ago that I had to go to this thing.’
Dolly shakes her head. ‘No, you didn’t. You never tell me anything.’ She gives her mother an evil look. ‘You just aren’t interested in anything any more that isn’t to do with your stupid life in Norfolk.’
Laura sighs. Dolly is showing all the signs of working herself up into a hysterical frenzy and the party will be in full swing by now. Laura should be there. She pats Dolly’s head, flashes an instant smile and picks up her keys, ready to depart. She looks at her watch and suggests soothingly, ‘Watch a movie in my bedroom, and have a look in the ironing pile. I think I might have seen your pink T-shirt there this morning. Bye, darling. Look after Fred.’
Retching sounds issue from the sitting room, faintly accompanied by Fred’s indignant voice. ‘Don’t be so sad, Mum! I’ll puke if she tries to look after me. I can do it myself, thanks.’
Fuelled by guilt and a strong sense of inadequacy as a mother, Laura reaches the mystifying address in the East End. ‘X Building, Work House Street, Hoxton’ reads the invitation. Laura is convinced that the only reason the National Academy chose this place was its name; and locking her car, this conviction grows. It is a damp September evening and the slice of sky Laura can see is bruised purple above the yellow glow of the city. The street she is in has the empty silence of a film set – few cars parked along its narrow length, no lights in the dirty windows of five floors of warehousing in front of her, and at the end of the building, a grey block that must be the factory.
Regretting her choice of the yellow milkmaid dress when black, no matter how badly wrapped, would have been so much less conspicuous, Laura crosses to the factory and walks its length looking for a door. There isn’t one, nor is anyone else arriving. A car alarm throbs in the distance but Laura can hear no voices, no footsteps, no music. Nervously, she reaches into her bag to check the address on the invitation, and on the A to Z, in case she has gone mad. Looking up again, she notices a ramp beyond the end of the building. It would be so much more enjoyable to get back into the car and drive home at this point, but it isn’t even worth considering. Laura turns the corner and walks down the ramp towards a pair of big brown metal doors, one of which has a small opening like an up-ended letter box flooding light onto the ramp. A constellation of fairy lights Laura recognises as The Bear because she has seen it labelled as such in the National Academy shop, twinkles above the narrow doorway. Evidently, she has arrived.
Two photographers, both swarthy and wearing leather jackets, hear the click of her heels before they see her, and throw the lit remains of their cigarettes into the gutter. They lurch forwards, unbalanced beneath a battery of cameras and flash guns. Laura grits her teeth and raises her chin, knowing what will come next. The younger one almost hoists a camera to his face, and begins to shout out, ‘Come on love, give us a—’ but a whispered word from the other and he turns away, fumbling in his pocket for another cigarette, not wanting to catch her eye now he’s been told she is no one they need to photograph. Laura flashes a tight smile at them and steps in over the threshold. It would be so much better for morale if they could just pretend to take a picture of you at these parties, she thinks. No need to waste film, anyone would fall for the tungsten gulp of a flashbulb, but that lit-up moment of being wanted, glamorised for a white bright second, would be as good as a drink for creating a small cushion of confidence with which to greet the party.
The room is colossal, ill-lit and loud when Laura walks in. There is no one she knows and no one she wants to know, and not for the first time at a party, she wishes she had worn dark glasses like Inigo, so she could hide the nervous sweep of her gaze around the crowd. There are hundreds of people here, all impossibly thin, striking poses with hips thrust forward and shoulders back or spines curved over a pointed toe to give an impression of angles and concavities.
A girl wearing almost nothing except a criss-cross of belts offers Laura a glass from one of the belt’s pouches. ‘Here, have a shot. I’ve got vodka, tequila or absinthe.’
God, what a choice. Laura teeters between living dangerously and diving into a bohemian abyss of drunkenness, and chooses the middle way – tequila. The alcohol burns a path into her stomach, and lighting a cigarette Laura nods at the bottle, signifying her enthusiasm for a second one. The tequila girl shrugs her indifference and refills Laura’s glass, then moves on through the room. Feeling very much braver, Laura stares at the crowd, craning on tiptoe for a glance of a familiar face. Remembering her mother’s somewhat redundant maxim that, ‘At a party you should always have a talking point handy – how the room is heated, for example, or the many uses one can find for a ball of string,’ Laura takes a deep breath and plunges into the crowd in search of Inigo and another, less challenging drink. She finds neither, but a warm hand clasps the back of her neck and Jack Smack presses a really horrible soft kiss on her cheek and a second, worse still, on her mouth.
‘Laura, what a pretty dress!’ His amused gaze travels slowly up her person, making her long to punch him on the nose, the patronising git. Smiling sweetly she steps back from him.
‘Hello Jack. Where’s Inigo? Have I missed the awards?’
Jack’s attention span has never been impressive, but with her first words he has already lost interest, and his eyes move restlessly past her as he answers, ‘Er, Inigo? Inigo? Can’t tell you that, m’dear, but I do know you haven’t missed any awards and,’ he grips her by the elbows and swings her forcibly to one side, ‘just stay there a minute,’ he murmurs. ‘There’s the chairman. I must just catch him, we’ve been trying to have a word all evening.’
Jack dives back into the throng, his now realistic-looking bottle-brush hair sailing for a moment above the surface of strange figures before sinking with him into a fawning greeting. Laura is relieved to have got away so lightly from him. Peering round a man wearing a white velvet suit who is gazing silently, but passionately at a small electric fire which is dangling from a socket next to a label saying Hang Fire, Laura at last sees Inigo. She jumps up and down and waves, suppressing an urge to shout, ‘Yoo Hoo!’ because she would only be doing it to annoy him. Inigo raises one eyebrow to acknowledge her approach, but continues to nod and gesture to his companion, a figure draped in black feathers and lace and looking more like a shuttlecock than a person.
‘Are you an exhibit?’ Laura asks with polite interest, having kissed Inigo on the cheek and rubbed off the lipstick she inadvertently smeared on his face. Inigo laughs lightly while shooting Laura a venomous glance.
‘Now darling, you must know Mabel Babel-Bentley? She’s with the Daily News and, I think I’m right in saying, she is our most feared and revered art critic.’ The pleading n
ote in Inigo’s voice is not lost on Laura. What fun. She puts her head on one side and scrutinises the pile of lace in front of her, deciphering a large, vigorously powdered nose and a bloodshot eye behind the filigree. She shakes her head regretfully. ‘No. I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,’ she says, enjoying herself hugely. ‘But then it’s so hard to tell. People tend to blur into one after a few years of going to these parties.’
There is a snort from within the Babel-Bentley outfit and a muttered outpouring which Inigo bends his head to decipher. Laura’s memory stirs, with the recollection of a children’s programme she used to watch in which a creature looking very similar to Mabel Babel-Bentley had a walk-on part.
‘Do you remember Michael Bentine’s Potty Time?’ she asks no one in particular. ‘It was on when I was little anyway and – Ow! Don’t do that, Inigo, I’ll fall!’
Laura is thrust forwards and away from the lacy lunatic by a firm hand between her shoulder blades. Suddenly she is sandwiched between the wall and an ironing board with a Barbie Doll strapped down on it in front of a tiny toy train. Inigo stands over her, a black expression on his face.
‘You bloody idiot,’ he hisses. ‘That woman is incredibly important. What were you playing at?’
‘Well, she looks ridiculous. I can’t take this nonsense seriously any more. I mean, look at this.’ Laura pings the rubber band holding Barbie down and it flips away. Inigo slaps his hand down over the doll, as if protecting her modesty. Laura pulls his hand up, and holding it in both of hers, looks at him beseechingly. ‘This is real crap, and it was shortlisted with your stuff. I think it’s undermining, Inigo. You shouldn’t be doing this any more, we’re too old to play these games.’
Inigo’s eyes are opaque with rage. He grips her arm and steers her away from the throb of noise in the party to a shadowy doorway.
‘This is not crap.’ He leans towards her mouth. Laura closes her eyes. Surely he can’t be about to kiss her? She rather likes the swoony savagery of a snog in the middle of a row. Mmmm. Why not be a little depraved? However, Inigo merely sniffs her breath and steps back again.
‘You’re drunk,’ he says accusingly, adding in a special slow voice for halfwits and drunken wife figures, ‘Now listen to me, Laura. This is the art world and it pays for our lives. I have a reputation in it, and a place in it, and so do you, so pull yourself together and play the game, because if you don’t we’re on the streets.’
Laura pulls free, rubbing her arm, exhausted now, the alcohol flush already burnt out and the truth of his words hanging in the air between them. Hot tears sting and fall on her cheeks, and her bravado landslides to dust.
‘I’m sorry, Inigo. I didn’t expect to feel like this. I can’t play this game any more. I don’t believe in it. I’m going home.’ She squeezes Inigo’s hand, then pats the back of it and walks away, biting her lip to stem the falling tears.
At home, she unlocks the front door and treads as silently as possible across the hall, wanting to reach her bedroom and not be seen by the children. However, the click of her key in the lock, the creak of a floorboard and the pug Zeus is at her side, the tip of his tongue peeping out, absurdly pink in the wrinkled anxiety of his face. Laura scoops him into her arms and runs up to her bedroom, where, placing Zeus gently on the bed, she takes off the milkmaid dress and pulls on jeans and a shirt. Grabbing a small bag, she flings in socks and jerseys, books and underwear, overtaken by the momentum of her own actions now. Zeus finds her behaviour upsetting, and climbs into the bag, burrowing into the pyjamas Laura flings towards him.
‘Good, that’s enough.’ Laura looks round the room, slides shut all her drawers to hide the chaos within them, and picks up the Zeus-heavy bag, groaning a little at its weight. She opens it to reassure him before hoisting it onto her shoulder, and gazes in fondly. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t leave you,’ she says. Dear God, if Inigo could see her now, talking to a bag, he’d say she’s gone nuts. Lucky he can’t then. Laura glances at the clock on her bedside – it is only nine thirty; she will be there before midnight if she goes now.
The children blink astonishment and yawn when she floods on the lights in the sitting room where they are watching television.
‘Whaddryoudoin?’ groans Fred, ducking beneath a cushion. ‘Turn it off, Mum, I’m trying to watch something.’
Laura marches into the room and stands in front of the television. She keeps experiencing moments of panic when she is sure she shouldn’t be doing this, but before she can change her mind and unpack the dog and her pyjamas, she finds she has done something to push herself further along the path towards going.
She tells the children, ‘I’m going to Crumbly. I’ve got things that I need to do there and I’m taking Zeus. You two can come with Daddy at the weekend as usual if you want to, but I won’t be back for a bit.’
‘What do you mean “a bit”?’ Dolly asks suspiciously. Fred, however, accepts Laura’s behaviour without a blink.
‘Cool. Mum, can you take my ferret with you? She much prefers it there.’
Dolly jumps up and stands facing her mother in the middle of the room. ‘Does Dad know you’re going?’ she asks, her hands on her hips.
‘Er, no.’ Laura tries a competent brisk grin. ‘But you can tell him if you like.’
Dolly’s face collapses. She presses her hands to her cheeks and stares wide-eyed and shocked at Laura.
‘You’re leaving,’ she gasps.
Rolling her eyes, Laura adjusts her bag on her shoulder. ‘Yes – I mean no, I’m not leaving, I’m just going to Crumbly. I’ve got a lot to do there and I thought if I went up early this week I could get it all done for you at the weekend.’
Dolly continues to look stricken; Fred finally catches on to the existence of a scene taking place and hurls himself at his mother, lagging his whole weight on her waist. ‘Mum, please take me with you. I can’t stay here, I won’t go to school. We could say I had flu, no one would know.’
By now Laura is regretting not just the way this evening has gone, but almost everything that has ever occurred in her life, with special reference to motherhood and the fact that her children are huge now, and so are still up at nine-thirty at night being obstacles to her escape instead of tiny angels tucked up in their beds sleeping innocently.
‘Oh bloody hell,’ she shrieks, stamping her foot in frustration. ‘This is a sodding nightmare from hell.’
Dolly and Fred leap away as if they have been electrocuted. Dolly unzips Laura’s bag and grabs Zeus, holding him high for a moment as if he is a football trophy.
‘Stress-yyyy,’ whispers Fred under his breath, and departs, muttering, ‘I’ll just get Vice and my stuff. Hang on, Mum.’
‘You sh-sh-shouldn’t swear,’ sobs Dolly, now heaving with tears, hugging Zeus close to her chest and watching her mother with imploring eyes.
Laura is cornered and outwitted. For a moment she stands poised for flight, glancing wildly at the door, her bag clenched in one fist, the car keys in the other, panting slightly. Fred comes back, and both children stare at her apprehensively. Fred attempts a brave, reassuring smile and suddenly all the hysteric energy she has been relying on deserts her, and she drops bag and keys and slumps onto the sofa, her head in her hands.
‘All right then, I won’t go!’ she exclaims, half-waiting for protestations of joy from her offspring.
‘Why not?’ Dolly leans solicitously over her, all tears gone now, a soothing nurse-like calm attending her every word and movement. ‘You must go if you want to, Mum. We’ll be all right.’
Fred drops a duffel bag on his mother’s feet. It contains a trail of clothing and emerging from the pocket is the bushy and electrically smug-looking tail of Vice the ferret.
‘I won’t be all right,’ announces Fred. ‘I want to come with you and I don’t want to stay here. Come on, Mum. Let’s go before Dad gets back and tries to stop us.’ Fred’s eyes glitter with excitement, he is clearly enacting a scene from some ghastly Hollywood tee
n movie; Laura has played unwittingly into his hands and is now too confused and depressed to see a way out at all. Dolly’s nurselike references are more obscure, but Laura has no doubt that self-interest is fuelling her new enthusiasm for this departure.
‘Why don’t we all just go to bed?’ she suggests feebly.
‘No way,’ chorus the children.
‘Come on, you’ll feel better when you get there,’ soothes the new, weirdly kind Dolly. ‘Here, let me take the keys. Come on, it’ll all be fine, and look … we’re by the car now.’
And somehow Dolly and Fred have martialled Laura across the hall, out of the front door and down the street to the car. Orange street-lighting throws a Haliborange glow on all their skin, and has turned the car dank pond green, its dials bleeping and flashing as Dolly leans in to put the keys in the ignition. Laura protests once more that Fred should stay behind and go to school, but no one pays any attention, least of all Fred who is strapping himself into the passenger seat, making a little bed for Zeus at his feet with a jersey and reminding Dolly to tell his friend Shane that he’s gone away for a bit and doesn’t know when he’ll be back.
‘I will. Byeee! Byee, Mummy, see you soon!’ Dolly waves them off, and Laura finds that she is indicating, drawing out of the parking bay and setting off up the street towards Norfolk.
Fred settles back in his seat, twists the volume on the car sound system to high and in the pause before the beat begins, grins at her and says, ‘This is so cool, Mum, I love it.’
‘Oh God,’ says Laura. ‘Oh well, what the hell, we’re doing it now.’ And she grins back at Fred and attempts to sing along to his favourite rap anthem.
Chapter 20
A real, working weekday in the country is very different from being there on holiday. This is instantly noticeable when Laura walks into the village to buy breakfast for herself and the still-sleeping Fred. There is a bustling structure to everything, from the roar of tractors passing on the road to the clockwork charm of the village. Even the sun seems to be shining purposefully, glittering in through windows, forcing people out and on with the business of the day. Crossing the stream, Laura pauses on the bridge to watch the mist rising off the water, evaporating in the soft morning air. A lady in a red coat cycles past with a small terrier in her basket. Zeus watches with barely contained wrath as the terrier skims by, paws up on the front of the basket, ears floating behind, nose set high for autumnal scents and a pleased smile playing across his mouth.
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