Irritation was never in short supply either, however. The way her parents always expected her to go and say hello to the neighbours she didn’t like, even though she was sure they were as baffled by the need for this periodic politeness as she was; the way they used wineglasses that must have been hand-blown in Lilliput so that she felt she was filling up her glass almost every minute, her hand reaching for the bottle noted by silent eyes; the way Dad was so in-furiatingly slow and fair all the time, always seeing everyone’s point of view; and, most of all, her mother’s unruffled efficiency, her air of stoic disappointment.
Was anyone ever really a grown-up when they were with their parents, she wondered. You might think you were, but it was surely a sad piece of self-delusion. Perhaps you’d be discussing life or books or politics with them like any bunch of civilized adults of equal standing, then you’d utter one little opinion that was slightly provocative and your father would give that gentle, indulgent laugh, that little nod and smile that said ‘You will have your funny ideas, but we’ll humour you because you’re only young and you don’t know any better.’ Or your mother would purse her lips, carefully not quite concealing her disapproval: ‘It’s a shame you have that opinion. Perhaps you’ll grow out of it with time. Still, I suppose I’ve only myself to blame as I raised you.’
Going back home, Bella felt the inevitable yet unspoken questions hanging in the air:
Have you got another boyfriend yet? shone out at her from the ivory silk lampshade in the hall. Are you making enough of an effort? peeked at her from behind the velvet curtains. You’re running out of time, glinted at her from the silver salt-cellar. How much longer must we wait? whispered the soft carpets under her feet.
Alessandra, Bella’s mother, was more subtle, of course, with a diploma in Reproach by Implication so that even the most innocuous topic of conversation could become a minefield, hidden dangers lurking beneath every cautious tread. Her silences seemed multifaceted, glittering with doubt, shame and splintered expectations.
‘Do you remember Sarah Forbes, from the year below you?’ she had asked on Bella’s previous visit. ‘Who used to live in that house off Church Street with the fake bay window? Just married a lovely young man. She had such a pretty headdress for the wedding – and it drew attention away from her nose.’
The subtext was elaborate, but crystal clear: She’s a year younger and she didn’t have your advantages, but even she’s managed to get married. To somebody decent. And she’s not even nice-looking. You should do better than her.
Bella had sidestepped the shots neatly and returned fire.
‘How lovely. I’ll send her a card. Will she keep on her job at the shop, do you think?’
She may as well get married. She’s not exactly firing on all cylinders on the career front. Can’t you at least be proud of my talents and achievements?
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think she’d need to do that, Belladarling. Her husband’s a lawyer; a junior partner in a very reputable firm apparently.’ Alessandra smiled serenely. ‘He’s doing very well. Still, men can afford to concentrate on their careers, can’t they? They don’t have the same pressures as we women.’ Impressive: an attack on two fronts.
1. She’s hooked someone not just with money, but a professional with good prospects.
2. Men don’t have a time bomb nestling in their reproductive organs, so it’s fine for them to be ambitious and successful. Can’t you hear that clock ticking?
Feebly, Bella had lobbed back a boulder, a heavy and clumsy last shot.
‘A lawyer, eh? Oh, never mind. Couldn’t she find someone with a respectable profession? You know that old joke: What do you call a hundred lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? – A good start.’ Pathetic. A damp squib.
It didn’t even merit a countermeasure. Alessandra had sighed softly, unimpressed, and patted the back of her hair, smoothing her already perfect chignon.
‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind making some coffee, Bella-dear?’ A furrowed-brow glance at Bella’s crumpled shirt. ‘I must just go upstairs.’ She had got up and said, over her shoulder, ‘There are home-made fiorentine in the blue tin.’
The coup de grâce.
If you can’t manage to find a man and give us grandchildren, you can at least be useful by making some coffee. Perhaps if you could be bothered to make your own biscuits, like I do, you would have a man.
And the way she pronounced foreign words so over-perfectly, as if she were a newsreader. Especially Italian, although Alessandra had actually been born in Manchester, her parents having come to England several years before. The way she said ‘Bella’ – with that preposterous lingering on the double ‘L’, the way an Italian waiter would as he poked his outsize pepper-phallus under your nose: ‘Black pepper, bella signorina?’
‘I don’t want a fucking man anyway,’ Bella wanted to tell her, to see her automatic flinch. As if her mother would believe that. What kind of woman could possibly want to be on her own? A nun? Alessandra’s face would wear that baffled look, frowning at her daughter as if she were an alien species. Perhaps she would become a nun. Imagined her mother’s expression as she informed her of the solemn decision: ‘Mother, I’m joining a convent. You’ll never see me again.’ That mixture of what might pass for feelings shadowing those tiger eyes: incomprehension, shame, the guilty glint of – what? – relief? She’d rather be an anchorite, a hermit. Who knows, in her austere cell she might even take up painting again, devoting herself to the glory of colour and shape in solitude, the world outside no more than fibres for her to spin into images. Alone, the patterns of her thoughts would be clear and vibrant, shocking the virgin paper with their boldness, her brush caressing and seductive. She snorted at herself: Saint Bella of the Divine Brushstrokes.
It was late when she arrived and her mother had already gone to bed. Bella peeked into the utility room to say hello to Hund, the dog, but he was asleep in his basket, curled into an old childhood blanket. Her father had waited up, however, and was sitting in the kitchen reading a glossy women’s magazine. He hugged her fondly and put on the kettle.
‘Guess what I’ve got, Dads?’ Bella put the slabs of bread pudding onto a pair of bone-china plates.
‘What a treat – don’t tell your mother. Is this true?’ Gerald asked, stabbing his finger at a page in the magazine. ‘It says 64 per cent of women are more likely to fall in love with a man if they see him cry.’
‘I doubt it. Didn’t you know, they make up 72 per cent of those statistics or they get them from asking five people in the office. Still, I suppose most women do want a sensitive man.’ She poured out the tea. ‘Not a wimp, of course, but someone in touch with their feelings and all that bollocks.’
Gerald snorted, laughing into his cup.
‘How delicately put.’
He broke off a wodge of the bread pudding and looked at her over his steel-rimmed glasses.
‘Met anyone, um, interesting recently? – he asked in his interfering-old-parent way.’
‘It’s OK, Dads. I don’t mind when you do it. ’Fraid not. You can keep your morning coat in mothballs for the foreseeable future. Might as well flog it, in fact – I can’t see it happening.’
‘Well, you know we love you whatever you do. We just want you to be happy.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Dutiful parental speech duly acknowledged. But you want grandchildren. You all do. My friends say the same. It’s just a phase – you’ll get over it.’
Gerald smiled.
‘But what’ll we do with the Winnie-the-Pooh breakfast set we’ve been saving? We’ve got twelve rolls of cute bunny-wabbit wallpaper in the loft.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ she said affectionately. ‘I’ve brought you your favourite bread pudding. What more do you want?’
Bella slept in her old room. It was very different now, rather more restful, she mentally conceded. Alessandra had had it redecorated the week after Bella left to go to art school in London, covering with tasteful tones of subdued peach
the ambitious mural of a Rousseau-style jungle painted over one wall. Of course, you’re welcome to do another if you like, Bella-darling, perhaps something a little more simpatico, hmm? A spray of lilies could be very pretty on the wardrobe door. It had been getting very tatty anyway and she wouldn’t have been bothered to retouch the whole wall. The room had been altered at least twice since then, although it wasn’t even used very often. The bed was in the same position, though, next to the window, snug between the wall and the side of the wardrobe. Lying in it now, Bella felt she wanted to be tucked in tight and read to. She pulled up the quilt over her chin and turned off the light.
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She is lying in bed, whispering to Fernando, her toy frog. His fluffiness is flat in patches, where he has been cuddled to excess. The little side lamp is on, giving out a soft, warm glow because Fernando is afraid of the dark. The light has a pink headscarf tied around the shade, to make it less bright.
Bella can hear Mummy talking to Poppy on the landing. Poppy comes and babysits sometimes. Bella likes Poppy. She has frizzy hair with coloured threads woven into bits of it, chocolate raisins in her enormous patchwork bag, and once she let Bella stay up and watch the Saturday-night thriller, although she wasn’t supposed to.
Out on the landing, Mummy is saying:
‘– and don’t let her keep getting up. She often says she thinks there’s something under the bed, but don’t allow any nonsense.’
‘Rightio,’ says Poppy. ‘Have fun.’
The bedroom door opens and Mummy comes in.
‘We’re off now, darling. Don’t be a bother to Poppy now, will you?’ She comes over and leans down to kiss Bella goodnight. Mummy smells wonderful – of perfume, and silk, and sparkly earrings, and evening – and Bella breathes her all in and reaches up to put her arms around her.
‘Now don’t muss me, Bella. I’ve just done my hair. Goodnight, darling. Sleep tight.’
Daddy comes in behind her.
‘Just come to say night-night.’
He treads softly, although she is still awake, and sits down on the bed. He scoops his arms under her and squeezes her tight. She can feel the smooth, soft stuff of his tie against her cheek, the rough cloth of his jacket against her nose.
‘Will you check, Daddy? Please?’
He gets down on his hands and knees to look under the bed.
‘All clear,’ he says, getting up and blowing her a kiss from the door. ‘See you later, alligator.’
‘In a while, crocodile,’ she replies.
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5
‘No rush to get up,’ Gerald said, as he poked his head round the door with a cup of tea. ‘Your mother’s had to go into town to have her hair done, so you’re a free woman.’
‘Nice of her to put out flags and form a welcoming committee.’
‘Fancy some breakfast?’
On her customary stroll around the village, she bought a couple of postcards of endearingly awful watercolour views of the high street and the church, and wandered along to The Whistling Kettle to write her cards and have a coffee.
‘Mum’s back,’ said Gerald, on her return. ‘Don’t forget to mention her hair, eh?’
Bella tugged at a pucker in her shirt and knocked on her parents’ bedroom door.
‘Mmm?’
She opened the door a little way and craned her head around it.
‘It’s only me. Just come to say hello.’
‘Oh, hello, Bella-darling.’ Alessandra glanced up at her from the dressing table. ‘Why are you hovering there? Come in, come in. Lovely to see you.’ Bella dipped to kiss her mother’s proffered cheek.
‘The hair’s great. Very elegant. Colour’s nice, too.’
Alessandra scanned Bella’s face as if to check her expression, then turned her head this way and that in the mirror.
‘I think I’d have made a better job of it myself. Anyway, how are you, darling?’ Alessandra covered her eyes with one hand to shield them from a cloud of hairspray. She smoothed down a wisp escaping from her French pleat. The salon-smell filled Bella’s nose, sending her back to long hours spent waiting at the hairdresser’s as a child, swinging her legs, reading her book or drawing pictures in her special grown-up sketch pad that Daddy had given her.
‘Fine. Yup. I’m fine.’
Alessandra’s threefold reflection peered up at her expectantly from the triple mirror.
‘We haven’t seen you for ages,’ said the full face from the central frame. ‘You really must come more often.’
‘I’d love to, but –’ Bella shrugged. ‘There was the move. There’s still loads to do, and you know how busy it gets with work and all.’
‘Well, of course, we can’t compete with the excitement of the rat race,’ said the right profile, briskly dusting its cheek with translucent powder.
‘The house is looking lovely. As always. Is that a new vase in the hall?’ The reflection nodded and glanced at her sidelong.
‘Your father misses you terribly,’ said the left profile. ‘You should really try and think of him sometimes.’
‘I do.’ Bella hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and focused on the toe of her left boot. How nice the worn leather looked against the soft green pile of the carpet, like a piece of fallen bark on a floor of springy moss. Perhaps she should go painting in the woods? Sneak out, as if meeting a secret lover. An image of dark trees came to her, the shadows beneath sliced by shafts of sunlight. Ah, Bella-dear, dabbling with your paints again? I am glad. So nice for a woman to have an enjoyable hobby …
Alessandra’s mouth formed a rictus-smile as she applied her lipstick.
‘What do you think, hmm? It’s new. Amber Spice.’
‘Lovely.’ Bella nodded at the reflection. ‘Brings out the colour of your eyes, too.’ Alessandra’s glittering eyes, flecked like tortoiseshell, brightened in the mirror.
‘Do you really think so?’ She smiled, her feathers smoothed. ‘Let’s go down and have some coffee.’ The reflection blotted its lips, turning to left and right. ‘I’ve made some new biscotti. You must try and guess what’s in them.’
Bella inhaled the salt air and looked out across the sea. It was a clear, bright day, but windy, whisking the water into froth-topped waves. She loved the beach on a day like this, cold enough to keep the Thermos brigade cocooned in their cars, watching the ocean with undisguised suspicion. Although she now lived not far from the sea herself, she had a fondness for this particular stretch of coastline, the beach of her childhood ten miles from her parents’ house. Dad had evidently wanted to come, too, but she’d just scooped up her car keys and swept out as if she were distracted. But then her mother wouldn’t have wanted to be left out and it would have turned into a sad parody of a family outing. There’d be all that hunting for a spot sheltered from the wind and the fussing about her hair and it just wouldn’t have been the same.
Two windsurfers bounced over the waves, dipping and soaring, their dazzling pink and green sails like the wings of exotic birds. The tide was out and, down by the water’s edge, a small girl shovelled sand inexpertly into a bucket. Her white hat was pulled down so low that Bella thought she must only be able to see directly downwards. She looked intent on empire-building, but her cardigan sleeves kept getting in the way and she was too young to have mastered the art of rolling them up properly. Her mother sat nearby, reading a magazine and taking swigs from a can of Coke.
Bella chucked another pebble hard towards a small piece of driftwood further along the beach. It skittered along the shingle. A man with a yapping Jack Russell scowled at her, as if she had been aiming at his dog.
‘Nearly,’ she told herself. ‘One more go, then back to the House of Fun.’
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Daddy takes her onto the beach and starts to help her off with her shoes and socks.
‘Fancy a paddle, ding-dong?’ He sometimes calls her that for fun, because of Bell, short for Bella, but Mummy says it is silly and not right
– Bella is a beautiful name. It means beautiful and she should know because she chose it and she’s Italian.
‘Me do it.’
He takes off his own shoes and socks and rolls up his trousers so they are all bunched around his knees. The sea is cold and she squeals as it rushes up over her ankles. Through the water, her feet look as if they do not belong to her, as if she had just found them while searching for shells. They are pale and soft and the sun makes little bright lines on them through the waves. When she steps out of the water, the shingle seems twice as hard and sharp on her soles.
‘Ow, ow, ow!’
Daddy scoops her up and holds her high above his head, up with the big white gulls that he says cry out for all the sailors and fishermen lost at sea. She is not sure how they can get lost because there are no roads and you do not need a map. You only need to look around and there is the beach. Then he swings her suddenly upside down and the world is shingle and sea and sky then sky and sea and shingle again. She screams with delight.
‘Daddy, Daddy, put me down.’
She lets him put her socks back on because her feet are still damp and they are hard to do properly. He gets them all crooked so the heels are round at the side, then he buckles her red shoes too tight and the left one pinches her foot a little, but she doesn’t say.
He takes her for cherryade and ‘Welsh rabbit’ in a café which has bright strips of colour hanging in the doorway, slapping softly in the breeze. All she wants is for this day to be forever: the gulls sailing above her, the sweet pink bubbles of the cherryade, the scrunch of the shingle, the salty taste of the sea when she licks her fingers, and Daddy doing up her shoes, looking down at the buckles as he fastens them, then up at her as she sits perched on the breakwater.
Love Is a Four Letter Word Page 4