by Meg Mason
‘Well I know from Polly it was premium, so you can drop the act. Anyhow, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re saying but it sounds like I ought to. I will thank you to sit down and be out with it.’
Brigitta slumped against the dresser, eyes averted.
‘In your own time.’ Phil folded her hands above the sheets.
Finally Brigitta came to the edge of the bed and sank face-first into the covers, mumbling something out of Phil’s hearing.
‘Darling, you’ll have to sit up. I can’t hear you. Up, up.’ Phil’s foot found Brigitta’s side and gave it a forceful nudge. ‘And you needn’t be so theatrical.’
Slowly Brigitta levered herself up. ‘I said, Guy and I are seeing each other. Even though, technically, he’s not quite divorced. Yet.’
Phil let out a short yelp and lunged for the box of tissues on the night table.
‘This is exactly why I didn’t say anything! Because I knew you’d go completely fucking Mrs Bennet about it.’
‘Bed of peace! Bed of peace!’ Phil wrenched tissue after tissue from the box until they ran out. ‘Need it make you so coarse? Oh, but a married man darling, really truly.’
‘They’ve been separated forever. He’s been trying to move out.’
‘What, so that you can move in?’
‘I might,’ Brigitta said with a flash of defiance. ‘What if I did?’
‘Darling, I’m sorry but it’s simply not the way things are done.
Your father would have been horrified, and as for me –’
‘You don’t mind when other people cohabit.’
‘That’s totally different and you jolly well know it. Abigail is from a totally different – this is all beside the point. The point is, Brigitta, this affair or whatever it is will not end well.’
‘It’s not an affair. He doesn’t love her. He loves –’
‘Don’t say it! Even if it were the case Brigitta, and I’m sorry to say that I doubt it, but whichever – a man who’s been married to someone else will never be yours entirely. Surely you know that, darling. You’ll quite simply always be second violin.’
‘No change there then.’
Phil looked arch. ‘Meaning what, precisely?’
‘Meaning, I should be used to it. In fact, second violin would be a step up from where I usually sit in this family.’
‘Oh not this again Briggy, really,’ Phil looked away, exhausted. ‘I’m really not sure how, at your age, you can still carry such a chip about being overlooked, as you call it. Your father and I loved you all the same and there isn’t any more to say about any of it.’
The crackling between them.
‘Well it’s probably over now anyway,’ Brigitta said, getting up and stomping into the hallway. ‘Because I’m here again,’ she called. ‘And the others are all somewhere else!’
* * *
Phil slept badly and woke much later than usual the next day, feeling nauseated. She sat up and sipped the glass of stale water beside her bed. The memory of their argument lingered like a hangover and she longed to sink back into sleep. But no, she must get up and sort things out now. Clear the air before Brigitta left the following day, and with any luck she would weaken, Phil could set her on a path towards flicking the chap, and still have the prospect of a pleasant last day together.
Phil put her good foot down first – Lord, she was beginning to sound like Noel – and hobbled off on the crutch. Thinking how she might start things off, Phil made her way slowly down the hall and tapped on Brigitta’s door. It was ajar, and after a moment she gave it a little push open. A rester like her mother, Brigitta would still be sleeping off last night’s stoush.
Her bed was empty, unmade, with a soft impression in its centre. Phil looked around the dim little room – never the best in the house, wrong side for morning sun. A wastepaper basket in one corner overflowed with Brigitta’s detritus and a pile of sour-smelling towels had built up in one corner. Phil backed out and softly closed the door, realising, of course, that she was gone.
40.
Sniffer of nighties
Abi stayed upstairs, out of the way, for as long as she could, not knowing when Brigitta was supposed to be leaving. Eventually, Jude’s rising discontent forced them out and as she set off on the path, she saw Barb and Sandy ducking out of their low bungalow. Sheepishly, she fell in behind them hoping they were setting off to the kiosk. Abi’s need for company finally overpowered her instinct to stay out of the Woolnoughs’ orbit. She followed behind at a distance but before the ramp down to the ferries, Barb and Sandy peeled off towards the buses. Abi pressed on. Noel. Noel might be there. He would do, even by himself.
But as she came down the ramp searching for Noel, she saw Phil sitting alone, watching the water. The sky behind her was leaden and the near part of the harbour moved in multiple, messy currents. As a gull stalked across the wooden floor of the café, Phil tore off a corner of toast and tossed it in the bird’s direction, before turning listlessly towards the ramp.
Abi watched her expression change from gloom to surprise.
‘Pull up a crate!’ Phil signalled straight away to the man behind the coffee machine. ‘Well,’ Phil said, folding her hands in her lap as Abi sat down with the pram drawn up to her side. ‘She’s gone. She had to go a day early in the end, so now of course I’m in slough of despond.’
‘Well that’s fair enough, definitely,’ Abi said with dissolving anxiety. The coming and going of Brigitta seemed to have supplanted any thought of the horrible hallway stoush. Abi hoped against hope. ‘Brigitta seems so nice. She looks loads like you.’
Something seemed to occur to Phil then and she looked at Abi soberly, causing her to blanch. ‘Dear, I feel an apology is needed.’
Abi knew she was wrong about the hallway, and rallied herself to apologise.
‘I worry –’ Phil cut in, ‘– I worry I was rather brisk with you when Briggy was here. We’ve got a nice little friendship, don’t we, so I do hope you didn’t feel thrown over. It’s only that grief makes one act in all sorts of terrible ways. But I expect, you of all people know that too well.’
‘Mmmm,’ Abi said, the catalogue of her crimes born of grief now too long to consider. ‘I do, yes, definitely.’
‘Anyhow, the less said on it the better, Frederick always used to say.’
‘It was nice she came out for you,’ Abi said, as eager as Phil to move the conversation on. ‘Even though she’s got loads on I bet. How amazing, being an actress.’
‘Indeed. I am always thrilled when they come home. But then of course, they’re only to leave again. And these goodbyes, Abigail, they simply never get better. In the sense of easier. Briggy left a nightie behind in her bathroom and you’ll think I’m mad, but this morning, I couldn’t help giving it a little sniff.’
Abi thought of Phil’s throw rug, currently folded under her pillow. ‘I don’t think you’re mad. I’m always smelling . . . things of Jude’s. If I’m ever feeling a bit lonely. I hardly ever am though, obviously. What with him actually always being around. And Stu being so . . .’ Abi swallowed ‘. . . hands on.’
‘I suppose I’d never have anticipated that life would become this exasperating sort of cycle. The countdown to them coming and the looking forward to it. And then whatever it turns out to be. The visit, whether it’s good or one that doesn’t gel, so that we part on poor terms that can’t be set right over distance. You would think that losing their father would bring my children, my surviving children, together. Well a mother can hope, but instead they’re all behaving like brutes. And in the meantime, I’m reduced to a sniffer of nighties. Waiting for ruddy Godot, aged widow’s edition.’
In spite of herself, Abi giggled. Phil looked at her crossly for a second, before deciding it might as well be funny. ‘I see I’ve made myself the object of scorn.’
‘I’m so sorry, it’s not funny at all,’ Abi said as they both dissolved into laughter. ‘It’s not funny, I don’t know why I’m laughing.�
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‘No neither do I, with such rotten children. Goodness we must look a pair,’ Phil said, wiping her eyes. ‘Now. Abigail. Serious for a moment, what else did I have to tell you? Oh yes, the good news, this wretched thing can come off tomorrow.’ Phil lifted her ankle an inch. ‘I’m ready for a ghastly little brace apparently, but at least I’ll be able to turn over in bed. I wondered if you’d think about coming along. More for company than anything else.’
‘Of course. I’d love to.’
‘Oh and thank you for the soup.’
Abi cringed. ‘That’s all right. I hope you didn’t eat it or anything.’
‘We gave it our best try, although I wasn’t sure you’d really meant to put cucumber in it. Or did you? It made me wonder if we ought to have a little run of cooking lessons. There’ll be bless all else to do once winter really sets in.’
41.
You’ve made everything worse
Brigitta forced her way through the crowds at King’s Cross, dragging her suitcase behind her. When she emerged from the Underground, she turned her face up to a heatless sun and tried to slow her breathing.
Once again, Brigitta had intended to go straight from the airport to Barbican to make rehearsal on time, but as she’d got off to switch lines, a pressing need for air, daylight and coffee sent her surging towards the exit.
She found a Starbucks and switched on her phone, expecting a torrent of voice messages from her mother. There was only one. Polly. Brigitta waited until she was outside again and cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could listen on the walk back to the Tube.
‘Brigitta, it’s me.’ The barely suppressed rage in Polly’s voice caused Brigitta to flinch. ‘Mum is really, really upset. We spoke for an hour. What were you thinking? Really, Brigitta, this is madness. Going all the way over to look after her then leaving in a strop. You’ve made everything worse. I’m really struggling. Am I meant to be worried about you? Please call her when it’s the right time there, and sort it out, would you? I have to go, ring me as well please. Although I’m in back to back meetings until six.’ There was a pause. ‘We are all grieving you know, Brigitta, just the same as you. But some of us are able to control the tantrums.’
Letting go of her case, Brigitta stabbed at the buttons until the message was erased.
‘Fuck,’ she said out loud. ‘Fuck.’ The accusation, the ganging up, the unfairness of her dropping everything to fly out and still ending up in the wrong.
In her other hand, hot coffee was leaking down the sides of the takeaway cup she had been holding too tightly. She let herself drop it. It hit the pavement and the coffee washed out in a steaming puddle. Commuters walking behind her cleaved around the spill and closed in again, like a river running around a rock. Miserably, Brigitta took up the suitcase and decided to walk the rest of the way to the Barbican. She needed to get her thoughts in order before she arrived but as she started towards the theatre, her mind couldn’t begin to triage so many injustices.
* * *
The stage door wouldn’t open. After retrying the code, she called Guy’s mobile and mercifully he picked up.
‘Hello Birj, darling, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Where are you?’
‘I’m outside. The fucking door won’t open.’
‘Oh right. Yah, they’ve changed the codes. Wait there, I’ll be round in a jiff.’
Brigitta drew a tiny mirror out of her bag while she waited and moved it unhappily from side to side. Her skin was ashen, with dark smudges of mascara under both eyes. There was nothing that could be done.
‘Good God,’ Guy said as he stepped outside and let the stage door suck closed behind him. ‘What have you come as?’
‘I came straight from the airport. Sorry I’m late,’ Brigitta said without expression when she realised he wasn’t going to kiss her.
‘Well, I wish you hadn’t,’ Guy said. ‘You should have called, Birj. I wasn’t sure you were coming back so I’ve had to flick your part to one of the studies. You understand, don’t you? The industry. An unforgiving mistress.’
‘I only missed four rehearsals!’
‘Mmm. Anyway, I ought to jump back in. We’ll get a drink or something when you’ve had a chance to recover. Truly, get some rest, Birj, you look like you’ve been dug up.’
With that he turned, punched in the code and disappeared through the door, which gave a dull click as it locked from the inside.
42.
No lectures please
The insistent buzzing of the doorbell woke Brigitta the next morning. She opened one eye. It twitched horribly from the two bottles of shiraz she had bought on the way home from the theatre and finished on her own before falling asleep in the early afternoon. When she lifted her head, her brain seemed to lag behind, then smash into the front of her skull. Half nine. It wouldn’t be Guy and even if it was, she wasn’t going to let him up while her tongue was adhered to the roof of her mouth. She pulled the covers up to her chin and felt the reassuring weight of the Max Mara laid over the top. The heating, controlled by downstairs, had flicked off in the night and at some point she had woken up shivering. Whoever it was could go away, Brigitta decided, nestling down further.
After a minute the caller abandoned their staccato ringing in favour of a continual buzz. Polly.
Brigitta got up and staggered to the decrepit entry phone to let her sister up. As she crossed the room, her fingertips subconsciously found her temple, as though checking there wasn’t a very small axe lodged there.
In nothing but the underwear she’d put on forty-eight hours before in the bathroom at Milson Road, Brigitta opened the door. Polly stood outside, stern-faced but holding a takeaway coffee and a brown paper bag with grease soaking up from the bottom, which Brigitta acutely hoped meant bacon or pastry. ‘No lectures please,’ she said, accepting her sister’s offering. The sound of her own voice made one side of her face explode with hot, white pain. She got back into bed and watched as Polly removed her coat and, after washing her hands in the kitchen sink, sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘How did you know I’d need this?’ Brigitta asked, taking a tentative sip of the coffee.
‘Experience. Brigitta, what are we doing?’ Brigitta had been expecting the voice Polly used when the boys put a soccer ball through the window, but instead Polly spoke in the soft and measured tone of someone trying not to upset a mental patient. ‘I’m trying to understand what’s going on. Are you all right, or not? Mark and I are actually starting to get quite worried.’
Brigitta looked inside the paper bag, where some sort of toasted panini shone in its own oil. She felt bilious, but after picking out the bits of green, managed two bites of bread and prosciutto. ‘I am fine, thank you for asking. I’m just finished with being told what to do, and ordered around by you and Mum and sent to do your bidding. Her foot wasn’t even broken. I flew all that way for a mild sprain. And then I get home and all I get from you is an incredibly nasty voice message. Just before I got sacked that is. No “Thanks for going, Brigitta.” No “Sorry you just lost your job.” Seriously, Polly, you need a pill or something.’ It came out more harshly than she meant. ‘You weren’t always so tough, is all I’m saying.’
‘There’s no need to lash out at me, just because you’re not coping.’ Polly looked pointedly at the empty bottles on the floor beside a Styrofoam dish of chips Brigitta had only the vaguest recollection of purchasing from a kebab van. The sight of them, cold and skinned with sauce, turned Brigitta’s stomach.
‘Do you know, I would be coping a lot better if I was allowed to get on with my own life instead of being on constant call for you and Mum. Did you even hear me? I lost my job!’
‘Look, I’m sorry about that but you’ll get another one.’
If this was Polly’s attempt to be kind, it was not working.
‘We’ve both got to dig deep at this point and be there for Mum. She’s lost her husband, Brigitta, and you know how useless she can be. It’s a m
assive time for her, but I just feel like it’s become all about you. This mad drama that you seem to create wherever you go.’
It was true, the bit about their mother anyway, but Brigitta still seethed. The impulse to kick her sister made her leg twitch. ‘You’re the one who turned it into a drama by making me jump on a plane. She didn’t even need me there. She’s got her little neighbour running around after her anyway.’
Polly’s brow furrowed. ‘What? Who?’
‘Just a girl from those flats. Mum’s apparently talked her into bringing her food and doing errands and that sort of thing.’
‘How bizarre.’ Wearily she laid hand across her forehead. ‘She hasn’t mentioned a helper. Anyway, I came to talk about you, Brigitta. You’re the one I’m most concerned about at this point, since you’re actually giving Mum more to worry about. But if you actually want to live like this, I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it.’ Again Polly cast her eye around the sorry roomscape and Brigitta felt her anger muddle with shame. Polly stood up to leave, but paused with her arms folded as though the seconds were counting down on Brigitta’s chance to surrender.
‘Could you stop being so mean please? I am trying, Polly. That’s what you never seem to see. I am trying.’
‘Then why do you need me to rescue you all the time!’
Polly rarely cried but it seemed as if she might now. Her voice cracked in a way that sent a bolt of alarm through Brigitta’s core. She was the crier, Polly the shouter.
‘I don’t need you to rescue me, Polly. I really don’t. You do it because you want to. You think it’s your job, and I know it used to be but we are all grown up and your services are no longer required.’
Polly lit up with a fury that propelled her towards the door, where she began struggling into her coat. ‘Why don’t you act like a grown-up then! If you, or Freddie, or Mum, any of you, looked after yourselves for even one day, I’d quit in a second! I’d love to. Really, I would Brigitta. If a single one of you would just grow up!’