by Clare Boyd
Halfway through one of Beatrice’s poem readings, a text from Dilys pinged through:
Bad day today. Be home early. ETA 5.30. D x
‘Daddy! Stop going on your phone!’ Beatrice cried.
‘Sorry.’ John pushed his phone away and braced himself for the disturbance to their peaceful afternoon, anticipating Dilys’ bad mood. In spite of her bad day, he had the urge to tell her about Francesca right away. The secret was too big to keep inside. He couldn’t lie to her any more.
That afternoon, he felt he had toppled over a cliff into Francesca’s arms and plunged into the waters he had always been too frightened of swimming in.
When the children were in bed, he would tell Dilys what had happened. He did not feel scared. She could flail and scratch all she liked; she was not going to control him any longer. Ironically, it was his wife’s ruthlessness that helped him to conquer much of his guilt about Francesca. Her authoritative, regulated, hard-hearted attitude to her life, to their marriage, and to him, had been counter-intuitive; pushing him into Francesca’s arms, where he could be messy and destructive and reckless. A bit like Robert might have felt that night.
A call from his mother flashed up on his phone. He switched it to silent. They had not spoken since their argument.
A few minutes later, a text from her came through:
Call me please. Mum x
Why couldn’t his mother call once, leave a voicemail, and wait for a response, like normal people? Most people might be alarmed by this text. Not John. This text could mean that Valentina had burnt her toast or Mrs Ambleside’s cat had died.
‘Okay, Olivia. Ready for your test? Here goes – disappear… competition… correspondence… aggravate… monorail,’ he read, and paused. ‘Monorail?’
‘Come on. I’ve done that one.’
‘Is “monorail” one of life’s essential words?’
Olivia giggled. ‘It’s an extremely fast train, Daddy.’
‘Fair enough.’ John grinned, continuing the list, enjoying his daughter’s conscientiousness. She didn’t question the status quo, and fair enough, it was probably simpler not to.
Dilys would be home any minute. A familiar creeping fear tingled down his back, and he had a sense of Robert’s omnipresence. Even in death, he lingered in John’s conscience.
He thought back to Robert’s aggressive sulks, his slammed doors, his loud music. If John had not complied with Robert’s wishes, there was no more fun, no more play, no more love. Perversely, John would feel guilty and responsible for the shift in atmosphere, and he would try everything to make Robert happy again. But Robert’s moods could shake the foundations of the whole household. From day one, he had been a charismatic and powerful character, just like their mother.
But John was going to break the spell.
On the way home from Francesca’s, with the music cranked up and the windows down, he had vowed to himself he would stand up to Dilys and overcome the hold Robert had on them.
‘Look, Daddy,’ Beatrice said, showing him her poem, around the edge of which she had drawn emojis and a strange half-breed of animal he couldn’t recognise.
‘Wow, darling, your handwriting is so neat. Well done, Bea,’ he said, kissing her head.
Everything he did that afternoon, he reassessed through the prism of his desire to leave Dilys, to be with Francesca. Even when he made the children their spaghetti pesto, with no parmesan for Beatrice, who thought it smelt of sick, he imagined what it would be like to be doing the same thing with Francesca at his side, with Alice scampering around.
By the time John heard Dilys’ car crunch into the driveway, at six o’clock, the girls were putting their bowls in the dishwasher.
‘What can we have now?’ Olivia asked.
‘Fruit,’ he said.
‘Isn’t there any yoghurt?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Because of Francesca, he had failed to go to the supermarket.
Dilys would go straight to the fridge, but she was not going to find anything more than some potatoes, a leek and some cheddar cheese.
‘Helloooooo-ooo!’ Dilys cried from the hallway, her high-heels click-clacking along the corridor towards them.
‘Mummy?’ Beatrice’s little face lit up. ‘Is that Mummy?’ she cried, as though it couldn’t possibly be real. She charged through the door, careering into her mother.
Dilys hugged Beatrice. ‘Hello, love.’
‘Mummy! You’re home two hours and forty-five minutes early,’ Olivia said, looking at her watch and jumping down to hug Dilys.
‘Yes, I am,’ Dilys said, kissing Olivia on the head.
‘Hi,’ John said stiffly. He noticed her eyes looked a little bloodshot, and her usually perfect lipstick was smudged at the corner.
Dilys clapped her hands. ‘Okay, girls, Mummy’s had the worst day ever, so I need cheering up. Go get your jammies on, we’re having movie night. I’ve bought popcorn!’
The girls yelped and ran off excitedly.
‘It’s a school night, Dilys.’
‘So what?’
‘They get tired and I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout the next day.’
Dilys went over to the fridge. ‘Lighten up, John,’ she said. ‘What’s for supper?’
John thought fast. ‘Baked potatoes and cheese and leek special.’
She slammed the fridge. ‘I hate leeks.’
He waited for her onslaught.
She turned around and her face crumpled.
‘I hate leeks,’ she said, bursting into tears.
‘Dilys! What’s wrong?’
‘Why don’t you know I hate leeks?’
‘What? I’m sorry. I do know!’ He laughed. ‘I won’t ever suggest leeks again.’
‘Don’t laugh at me,’ she said, but then she nuzzled her head into his neck and continued to cry. She smelt of Chanel perfume and coffee.
‘What happened today?’
‘I had a row with Sebastian and he told me I was aggressive and that I needed to learn how to keep my cool if I wanted to keep my job.’
John sighed. ‘Oh.’
‘I know, I know,’ she said, pulling away and throwing her hands in the air. ‘You think I’m aggressive, too. I know. I’m a horrible person. You don’t have to rub it in.’
‘I’m not going to rub it in.’
She dropped onto the kitchen stool and put her head in her hands.
‘I’m a nightmare. I know I am. I don’t know why you put up with me, I really don’t.’
John was hearing what he had heard before, many times over, but it never failed to soften her in his eyes.
‘Because you’d shout at me if I didn’t?’ he teased.
It would usually make her laugh. ‘Don’t say that!’
‘It was just a joke.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, beginning to cry again. ‘I think I need help.’
John held his breath for a second. He had never heard her say that before. ‘What kind of help?’
‘When I was on the train, I searched online for some therapists.’
‘Wow. That’s great.’ He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘You’ve been telling me to go for so long, but I’ve been too scared. There’s so much I think I need to sort through.’
John imagined her kind, gentle parents sitting in front of the television in the Welsh village Dilys grew up in, and he wondered if there was more to it – in the way that there was more to his own family – than met the eye.
‘I think it’s a really good idea.’
He felt utterly conflicted. On the one hand, Dilys was telling him what he had wanted to hear ever since she had pushed him into the mantelpiece. But now, he felt resentful about her sudden change. If she began to turn things around, and really make the effort to manage her anger, where did that leave him with Francesca?
‘I’m so sorry, John. I’m so sorry for hurting you,’ she said. She stood
up and moved towards him. She looked like Olivia when she was scared. Her fingers reached out towards his eye, and he flinched. She withdrew. ‘I understand why you don’t trust me,’ she said, sitting down again. ‘I don’t blame you, honestly.’
He imagined she was still in shock about Sebastian’s admonishment. It was ever so slightly galling that she had ignored so many of his own pleas and complaints over the years, but when suited-and-booted Sebastian told her she had anger issues, she listened.
‘I’ve wanted you to do this for a very long time,’ John said.
She sat up slightly, and smoothed her hand down her ponytail. ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to find the best therapist in the country to help me.’
The sound of little feet broke their conversation and the two girls came charging back into the room.
Dilys snapped a brave smile onto her face and put a paper bag of popcorn into the microwave.
‘Can we watch Cinderella?’ Dilys asked her daughters, as though she were their sister.
‘You always cry when we watch it, Mummy.’
‘Happy tears!’ Dilys said, tickling Olivia in the ribs. ‘I’m off to get my jammies on. Get the film ready. Daddy, bring the popcorn through.’
With the lights off and the volume turned right up, they found their places on the sofa. Dilys had cleaned off her work make-up and had changed into her sweatpants, and had snuggled each child into the crook of each arm. They had a blanket pulled right up to their chins.
‘This is what it’s all about,’ Dilys said, peering over their heads to wink at John. The girls’ faces were a picture of contentedness. They were in heaven with their mummy, watching a film.
John sat awkwardly next to Beatrice, the large bowl of popcorn in his lap. His mind was screeching with conflict and guilt.
He felt a heavy feeling on his chest, as if the children were physically sitting on him. He tried to concentrate on the film, in case the girls asked him questions. At first, watching it was an effort. Slowly, he engaged with Cinderella and her plight for her Prince Kit, who wanted to be brave and kind like Cinderella. Courage and kindness. John had neither, and he would offer neither if he left Dilys when she was at the point of getting help. If he ran into Francesca’s arms again, he would be weak in the face of the more challenging struggle to keep his children happy. If he destroyed their lives, he would have failed as a parent. It would be cruel. Weak and cruel. He would not be those things to them.
Fantasies of having full custody, with Francesca at his side, had been madness. Dilys would never let that happen. If he left her he would become a weekend father, like a few of his divorced friends. How could he have thought, even for a minute, that he could ever break up this unit? They loved their mummy. The three children took their parents’ togetherness for granted, they took their secure home life for granted. It was the way it should be. How could he jeopardise that for his own selfish reasons?
On the surface, the rest of the evening continued as normal. How easily it had been to carry on their routines together, brushing their teeth, putting their dirty clothes into their shared laundry basket, conversing about the children or the film, reading in bed now, as though nothing earth-shattering had occurred in John’s life.
Inside his head, everything had changed.
Earlier, he had not been able to fathom keeping the secret inside, and now he couldn’t contemplate airing it to a soul. Francesca and Dilys were like two misfit pieces of the same puzzle that he could not slot together.
Dilys’ phone rang from her bedside table.
‘Hello, Camilla… How are…? Oh, dear… yes… Oh, no… Do you want to speak to him?’
John shook his head frantically, miming cutting his throat.
‘Right… yes, I’ll tell him… okay… yes… I’m sorry to hear that… Bye.’ She pressed ‘End call’ on her phone and sighed.
‘What’s “Oh dear”?’
‘Your Uncle Ralph’s gone loopy. She wants you to go over there tomorrow morning.’
John groaned. ‘What’s he done this time?’
‘Ransacked his house looking for some money he stashed, apparently.’
‘He doesn’t have any bloody money.’
‘He’s stopped taking his pills.’
‘Hasn’t the nurse been round?’
‘Don’t ask me. Why didn’t your mum call you about it directly?’
‘We had a fight.’
‘When?’
‘The day they arrived back from Italy.’
‘What did you fight about?’
‘She found out about Fran and Paul. Somehow, it’s my fault.’
His mother had not apologised for her vicious outburst. She did not do apologies. She was self-righteous and haughty and entrenched in her matriarchal superiority.
An image of Francesca’s beautiful pale skin seared into his mind. He pushed it out.
‘It wasn’t a secret, was it? What’s wrong with them dating, anyway?’ Dilys snorted.
‘Paul’s not an accountant or a lawyer. He wouldn’t fit into their parties at Byworth End.’
‘But didn’t she introduce them?’
‘Mum wouldn’t have thought for a minute that Francesca would want to date a “handyman”.’ John sighed, and he got out of bed, unable to talk to Dilys about Francesca and Paul. ‘I’d better call Mum back.’
Here he was again, at the mercy of the bullies in his life. This was his destiny. To suffer in silence, while they walked all over him.
* * *
‘He is refusing to take his pills until he’s found his money.’
John could see exhaustion and worry running through the lines around his mother’s eyes. Behind those blue eyes, she had hidden the secret of Robert’s addiction, but it had spoiled her face. A blaze of anger erupted inside him. Right there and then, he should confront her, he really should. But he didn’t have the courage. Old habits die hard.
‘Do you think the money is really here?’ he said, instead.
‘Who knows, but he wants us to search every corner of the house with him, and then he promises he will take his pills.’
Uncle Ralph shuffled hurriedly towards them from the back of the house, greeting John with a hearty, manly handshake.
‘How’s it going, Uncle Ralph?’
‘Great, great! Realised I needed to get this place ship-shape if I’m going to find that money,’ he explained, stumbling over his words. ‘In here, first,’ he said, taking them into the sitting room.
Every spare inch was scattered with elegant, worn detritus and expensive ornaments, in leather or cut glass or bronze.
‘I see why you needed the help.’
‘You’d think a burglar’d been, wouldn’t you?’ Camilla whispered in John’s ear, and arched an eyebrow at him.
Uncle Ralph bent his head into a blanket box and began pulling out stacks of photograph albums and emptying bulging envelopes. ‘I’m pretty sure it was in here, Camilla. I’m certain of it. Certain of it, in fact.’
Photographs and newspaper cuttings were fluttering to the floor. Camilla began picking them up and placing them back into the envelope.
‘How much are we looking for, exactly?’ John asked, in all innocence. Maybe the crazy old man did have some cash somewhere, John thought. But his mother glared at him.
‘Cash! £3,000, my boy!’ his uncle cried, and then his eyelids stretched back from his eyeballs. ‘And I’ve counted every single note, you understand me? So, if any goes missing,’ he said in a nasty tone, wagging his finger at John, ‘I’ll know who took it.’
There was an air of violence about him. John thought about Robert’s ‘sticky fingers’.
Camilla said, ‘Darling, Ralph, you start in the dining room, and John and I will start here.’
John realised it was going to be a long day. He had the time. His editor would take a few weeks to get back to him with the changes on the script. In this downtime, the distraction of Uncle Ralph’s house would be welcome.
‘
Let’s delve in.’
John and his mother knelt down next to each other at the mouth of the blanket box and peered in.
The hope of finding £3,000 for Uncle Ralph was exciting, and the quest was in stark contrast to the hopelessness of his own situation. The methodical work was strangely satisfying. They had a bin bag for rubbish, and a ruthless attitude to anything that wasn’t valuable, either historically or in monetary terms. His own dilemma turned in his brain like two rusty cogs: noisily, and going nowhere fast. He thought of Fran, and how much he loved her. He thought of the children and how much they needed Dilys, and their security.
They stopped at some of the old baby photographs of his father and Uncle Ralph in perambulators, and in bonnets and velvet collared coats, or in short trousers, and Red Indian costumes, or under a cloister’s arches in their Eton uniforms.
‘Look at your father! He looks so uptight,’ Camilla cried affectionately, lingering on this photograph.
The search for money was paused as they continued to flick through the photographs of John’s father as a young man. Various peers and relations, and old girlfriends, prompted Camilla’s insightful stories of Patrick before he was John’s father. The antics, the accolades, the ambition.
‘Who’s that?’ John handed her a photograph of Patrick, in his early twenties he judged, with his arm around another man, who was as handsome and brooding as James Dean.
Camilla remained glued to this photograph. ‘That was Eddie.’
John studied his mother’s face, which had changed. He could detect sadness and anger in her slight frown and downturned mouth.
‘Who was Eddie?’
‘You knew him well. He used to live around here when you were small.’
‘I don’t remember an Eddie at all.’
‘Really? You don’t remember Edward Dillhurst? And his wife Hettie?’