You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

  The sight of Guy, so tall and slender with his precise, studied way of moving, gave Brigitta a thrill somewhere enjoyably deep. Unnoticed, she watched as he felt his chin with one of his long elegant hands, which Brigitta knew from experience were also unusually dexterous. She decided to let him see her first, and slipped out of her coat, taking a seat in the front row.

  For the time being, Guy thought it best to keep their little thing, whatever it was, between themselves. It wouldn’t be good for the rest of the company to know their relationship had moved beyond the professional only days after they’d met for the first time on a quiet Friday night at the bistro, and again at a cursory audition held very late one evening in his office.

  Jealousy, Guy said, was an industry hazard, and since he sensed that Brigitta had a rare and very particular talent, more experienced actors were likely to find her sufficiently threatening already. How he could tell – she only came on at the beginning of Act One to say, ‘Their train is stuck at Potter’s Bar,’ and again at the end of Act Two to take away a tray – Brigitta wasn’t sure, but she readily agreed to all of it since he was a director of such experience and standing. Early in their relationship, he had made a call from her bed to someone he kept calling ‘Ken darling’. Although he seemed a touch eager for Brigitta to figure out that it was Kenneth Branagh, she could not help being impressed.

  There was something addictive about Guy’s attentions. Although she resented the cliché, there was no other way to describe it – he made her feel like she was the only woman on earth.

  She was yet to tell Polly about him, unusual for her, but then nothing was usual anymore and might never be again. First James, now her father, her mother in pieces and Polly being so tough about it all. At least Freddie was a constant. He was rubbish but very consistent about it. Such a mess. It is all such an awful mess, Brigitta thought as she crossed her legs and arched her back expansively, in case Guy happened to turn at that moment.

  Also to be dealt with was his soon-to-be ex-wife Sylvie, who was a bloody nightmare in real life apparently – as in properly mental even though she always looked amazing in the papers. Whenever her picture appeared, the accompanying caption would be sure to point out she had a face wasted for radio. Brigitta listened to her programme once, a snoozy late-night drama discussion thing on Radio 4, but found the whole thing stupidly luvvie and Sylvie’s tinkling laugh incredibly grating.

  None of that was her problem at this particular moment, she decided, as Guy finally swivelled on his stool. ‘Hello Birj, darling,’ he said, smiling as he gave her a furtive once-over.

  ‘Oh, hello Guy. I didn’t see you there.’

  23.

  Jude, get your wallet

  For the first time since Abi arrived, the sky outside the bedroom window was not its usual hard blue when she opened her eyes. Rain fell in heavy bursts and poured down the glass in twisting silver cords.

  Stu had left for work in the dark and would return in the dark. As the start of the semester drew closer, he became more and more agitated about money, complaining about a night of bad tips, starting and abandoning household budgets when the numbers couldn’t be reconciled and focusing instead on how much Abi was spending on Supa FoodBarn’s loss leaders. Even though he came home too exhausted to talk or lug a load of wet washing up from the communal laundry or show any interest in Jude, Abi missed him, almost as much as she had during the eight months of their separation. At least there had been Instant Messenger, the possibility then promise of a reunion. His long daily absences and unhappiness when home were a new norm.

  For the entire week that followed, a week of a million hours, it rained. Water poured from the sky, bending the thinnest branches of the trees and pouring from the guttering.

  Abi tried to keep Jude occupied, but could think of little to amuse someone whose range of vision didn’t extend beyond his own hands. In First Year with Baby, she flipped to a chapter on ‘Infant Toys and Games for Mothers on a Budget’ in case there was anything for Jude’s age. The nearest was an onion bag filled with screwed-up paper, supposedly both aural and tactile. It was an idea more economical than Abi could bear. Cabin fever set in. Even Jude seemed to resent the contraction of his already tiny world.

  When he slept, Abi chipped the black bits off the inside of the oven with a butter knife or sopped up the water that leaked through the living room windows, creating semi-circles of darkness on the carpet. When she couldn’t hold out any longer, she smoked a Marlboro out the window, letting herself be soaked to the shoulder. She texted Rae a picture of Jude in his bath, to which she replied with a message about her other-side neighbours sneaking rubbish into her bins. ‘. . . of course I Cant fill it on my own. Pat trying to get off the Parliaments.’

  Only once did she look down and see Phil, sitting with her back to the window with a steaming cup of something that made a circle on the glass.

  Abi longed to call down, to share Phil’s window seat and let her hold Jude. Most of all, Abi longed for a conversation of two sides. As the rain continued, Abi began speaking both parts out loud, as though she was there with Phil. ‘Oh thank you, I feel like Jude’s my teacher really. He makes it all worth it.’ ‘Thank you, I would love to stay for lunch.’ ‘I love what you have done here.’ ‘Just water for me, thank you.’

  When Jude was happy to be put down, lying on his back and staring cross-eyed into the near distance, Abi let her mind embroider the scene in such detail, she came to believe she really knew what sort of sofa Phil would have, how the guest lavatory would be prettily wallpapered, that there would be cut flowers in every room.

  By Thursday, when she woke up worrying that she had gone mad, she bundled Jude into the pram and set out to find the library. Before they reached the bus shelter at the top of Milson Road, the sky released a downpour that soaked Abi through and pooled in the hood of the pram.

  Then, Friday. Abi stood at the sink eating a sandwich made with loaf-ends and tomato sauce. All at once, the rain stopped like a switch had been thrown.

  ‘Oh my gosh!’ she said, tearing to the living room where Jude had fallen asleep on a towel. ‘It’s stopped, Jude! Get your wallet, we’re going out.’

  Downstairs, the pavement steamed, and trees shook heavy droplets from their leaves. Abi breathed in lungfuls of the humid air, and jogged the whole way to the pool, ballet flats squelching

  She dried a bench with her sleeve and waited. The water looked uninviting, the murky green of an aquarium. She could not imagine getting in and as she sat, her hope of Phil appearing began to fade. Eventually, she stood and began a slow walk home but as the flats hove into view, the image of an onion bag filled with scrunched paper compelled her onwards. They could go as far as the ferry, and sit and watch the boats.

  As she made her way down the slippery ramp to the enclosed pontoon that served as the terminal, she noticed for the first time a hole-in-the-wall café tucked into a protected corner. Upturned milk-crates that had been fitted with square cushions served as chairs. The day’s newspapers hung folded on a rack. Abi had change enough for a small coffee so she steered the pram onto the floating dock. It lifted and fell with each sloppy wave.

  ‘Abigail! Thank heavens.’

  Abi almost slipped as she spun around to see Phil tucked in a corner. She had a coffee in front of her and a thick novel open face down on her lap. Immediately, she drew another crate towards her and waved Abi over. She wore a soft white linen shirt, fitted trousers, many strands of amber beads and a dash of rouge. To Abi, better used to Phil in a robe and swimsuit, she looked quite breathtaking.

  ‘Hello dear, hello Jude. Good to know you weren’t swept out to sea. What a fearful week. How did you bear up?’ As she spoke, Phil made a little signal to the man behind the coffee machine and pointed to Abi. He nodded and discharged the steamer.

  ‘I was starting to go a bit crackers, truth be told. It’s actually so nice to see you.’ She reached over to lift Jude out of the pram and Phil held her arms out for a t
urn.

  ‘I do think you’ve grown in a week, young man. Really, he’s getting so bonny, Abigail.’

  Soon the man set Abi’s coffee down in front of her. Unsure, she took coins out of her purse and held them towards Phil in her flat hand.

  Phil stared at the coins quizzically, as though failing to recognise the small objects she was being offered.

  ‘Oh why don’t you keep those, dear,’ she said after a moment, ‘I’ve got a sort of arrangement with the chap here.’

  ‘If you’re sure, thank you,’ Abi said, feeling Phil’s eagerness to have the tedious business of money behind them. ‘What are you reading?’ Abi tilted her head to read the title upside down.

  ‘Ah, this ruddy Booker. Although I think I’ve finished with him. I gave him fifty pages to turn me around but he’s not done it. It’s like a school writing project allowed to get out of hand. All this jolly sex when he couldn’t think of anything else to put.’

  ‘I heard it was heavy going in places, but I liked the first one.’

  Phil pressed her hands together, prayer-like. ‘Have I uncovered a passion? Are we both readers?’

  Abi nodded. ‘My dad was an English teacher. I mean, just at the comprehensive near us but he probably would have been head of department if – some times I think I got it from him anyway. He was always reading more than one thing at a time, same as me. Well, not at the moment because I couldn’t fit anything in my suitcase, so right now I’m only really reading First Year with Baby. You probably haven’t heard of it. Anyway, he used to take me and my sister to the library on Saturday mornings and we were allowed to get anything we wanted.’

  As she spoke, Abi glimpsed her father in his corduroy coat, standing at the high circulation desk, smiling as she struggled to fit so much loot into her homemade library bag. ‘Sometimes I’d choose hard things to try and impress him. He probably knew I wouldn’t finish them,’ Abi said, realising it only as she spoke. ‘But he still let me get them. He did make me carry them though. I tried to get up to the library this week but it was too wet.’

  ‘I must confess I’ve never been much of a one for the bibliothèque,’ Phil said. ‘As a girl, more so, but you see Frederick felt having library books in the marital bed was unsavoury. But of course if I can’t have a thing in bed, it simply won’t get read.’ Jude had begun to squawk and Phil handed him back.

  Abi let Phil’s chatter wash all over her, a salve after those days of speaking only to Jude. ‘First Year with Baby sounds a bit dire, I must say,’ Phil added.

  ‘I know the whole introduction off by heart. Do you want to hear it?’ Abi continued in a high pitch. ‘Baby’s first year is a magical journey of discovery for mother and child . . .’

  ‘For Lord’s sake, what a lot of rot. First year with baby is a bloody shock.’ Phil snapped her book closed and held it out. ‘You really must take this then. I was about to biff it into the harbour, so do.’

  ‘If you’re sure? You don’t have to,’ Abi said. But she had already taken it in both hands and stowed it under the pram.

  ‘I would consider it a favour. I think I’m finished with anything that centres on a mango tree that turns out to have powers. Goodness though, it’s feeling distinctly tropical today, isn’t it?’ Phil reached for a folded newspaper and fanned herself with it.

  ‘I took Jude down and had a look at the pool but it’s gone a greenish sort of brown.’

  ‘Ah yes, it’ll be vase-water after so much rain, but the council will put a sieve through it over the weekend and we’ll swim again on Monday.’

  * * *

  Abi waited until Jude was asleep later in the afternoon to open Phil’s book. She pressed her nose deep into the middle crease, inhaling the scent of lemon and powder. On the second page, Abi saw Phil had written her name in a large, looping hand and underneath, ‘Milson Road, Dec ’10. Poll etc. just got back.’

  Abi ran her finger over the inscription feeling the indent Phil’s pen had made, and then borrowing one of Stu’s markers, wrote below it, ‘Abi Egan, Milson Road, 2011, just come to Australia.’ She put it beside the mattress under First Year with Baby. Stu wouldn’t notice or worry that she’d spent money on it, but it was better to be safe.

  Late that night, a lengthy text message arrived on her phone.

  Are you a Mitford reader, dear? Plucked one off shelf just now and thought you wld like: “Housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is . . . yet after hunting we had eggs for tea & were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if NOTHING special had happened.” Love in Cld Climate, emphasis mine.

  She signed off Regards Phil as though it was a letter, and Abi made a note to find the library the very next day and check out its entire stock of Mitfords.

  24.

  Cohabiting’s a bit louche

  ‘Oh my God, Mother, the sun isn’t even up,’ Brigitta said by way of a greeting.

  ‘It’s London darling. It may never come up.’

  ‘Really, though, it’s not a madly good time.’

  ‘Ought that to surprise me? I suppose not.’

  Brigitta heard her mother sigh into the phone ‘How are you, Mum? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose – gross tedium of late middle age to one side.’

  ‘Poor you, Philly,’ Brigitta made a gesture of shushing Guy, who had woken up and was moving towards the bathroom covering his best bits with her copy of An Actor Prepares.

  ‘Why don’t you go for a late swim?’ Brigitta suppressed laugher.

  ‘It’s gone five, darling. But anyhow we’ve had rain and it’s made me maudlin.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a book down to the kiosk?’ Brigitta said, feeling just then like a mother trying to think of holiday occupations. ‘Only boring children get bored, remember? Or so you used to tell me on a weekly basis.’

  ‘I’ve already done that, thank you,’ Phil said crisply. ‘In fact, I met my rather sweet little friend – well, I don’t know what you’d call her really – but there’s a young girl who’s moved in next door. She turns out to be quite diverting and has the dearest baby. She put me in mind of that lovely bit of Wharton. Wait a minute, I wrote it down.’

  Brigitta waited, listening to a rustle of papers at the other end.

  Phil came back on the line. ‘Here we are. “She was one of the episodical persons who form the padding of life. It was impossible to believe that she had herself ever been a focus of activities.” Isn’t that glorious? Anyway, I thought you’d be pleased to know your aged mother has an episodical person at least.’

  Brigitta bristled. Sometimes she couldn’t tell what her mother was driving at. Was she supposed to feel pleased, or was her mother trying to stir up a measure of jealousy?

  ‘No family of her own apart from frightful in-laws,’ Phil went on. ‘Although actually, she and the child’s father aren’t married. They’re both extremely young as I said, him even younger than her.’

  ‘Oh well, I expect you’ll have them up the aisle in no time if that’s your new project.’

  Guy was now in the kitchenette, four paces from the end of the bed, still unclad and making coffee. Brigitta watched him, with half an ear to her mother. The excitement of having a proper, grown-up man and a known director to boot rooting around in her top cupboard had lost none of its allure.

  ‘Darling, I’m not quite as old-fashioned as you like to think,’ Phil was saying. ‘I’m quite aware your generation prefers to keep their options perpetually open. Heaven forbid anyone should have to pick a horse and stay on it.’

  With a teasing look at Guy, Brigitta said, ‘So you won’t mind when I tell you I’ve shacked up with a much older man?’ He wheeled around and cocked an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean for our sort,’ Phil replied. ‘Cohabiting’s a bit louche, don’t you think, darling?’

  ‘You are such a snob, mother! Honestly!’

  ‘Do you have company, dear? It sounds like a camp ki
tchen from my end.’

  ‘No, but I’ve just seen the time. I’d better go, I’m sorry. Really, Mum, I think you’re doing brilliantly, and I’m glad you’ve got a bit of company even if it is with a louche cohabiter.’

  ‘Yes well, it makes a change from Noel et al.’

  ‘Oh how is Cremorne Point’s foremost coffee klatch?’

  ‘More tedious than you could possibly imagine, darling. I’ve been avoiding the lot of them. Perhaps you’ll phone again in a day or so?’

  ‘Definitely, Mum. Loves. Bye.’

  * * *

  ‘What is it with women and their mothers?’ Guy asked as he slid back into bed with two drinking glasses a quarter full of strong espresso. ‘Wouldn’t you find it odd if I telephoned my mother from our post-coital bed to see how she’s getting on?’ He held a hand to his ear. ‘Hello Mummy, it’s Guy. Yes I know I’m forty-four . . .’

  Brigitta batted his imaginary telephone away. ‘She called me. And it’s completely different anyway. You know we’ve just lost Dad. I’m trying to be a good daughter.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. You’re a splendid daughter.’ He rolled towards her and kissed the expanse of bare skin below her neck. ‘And a beautiful woman. Really, Birj, I think I might be in real danger.’

  Brigitta swelled with delight but said nothing.

  ‘I suppose we ought to be getting up if we’re going to make convincing separate entrances this morning, don’t you?’ Guy said.

  Brigitta yawned. ‘Will you come back here tonight?’

  ‘Birj, you know there’s nothing I’d rather do but Sylvie’s out of town and I’m under orders to take Ludo to whatever it is, karate or something.’

  Do you have to use their names? Brigitta thought with irritation. ‘I could come over after he’s gone to bed.’