Living With It

by Lizzie Enfield

  ‘It must have been a hell of shock to find out he’s planning to sue. I feel a bit sick myself.’

  ‘Of course it was. He’s Eric’s oldest friend. I don’t think they’ve ever fallen out over anything. But I just don’t get what Ben thinks he’s playing at. I mean, why didn’t he speak to us first?’

  ‘Did you call him?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘I was sort of waiting for him to get in touch. I did text him and he never replied.’

  ‘And you didn’t call Maggie either?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Do you think she put Ben up to this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sally says. ‘It doesn’t really seem the sort of thing either of them would do.’

  ‘I just don’t get it.’

  ‘It’s hard.’

  ‘It’s impossible, Sally. I mean, of course now I wish I’d done lots of things differently. But it’s not as if any of this was deliberate. Everyone is behaving as if it is.’

  ‘Everyone?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Well, people. I had a bit of a run-in in the staff room this morning too.’

  ‘What sort of run-in?’

  ‘Nothing really. Just a pointed comment. And then I met this woman who…’ This was a longer conversation than I had time for. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. It just seems that everyone I try to talk to thinks it’s all my fault, and I really don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Maybe you should speak to Yasmin?’ Sally suggests. ‘You could ask her advice. I mean, I know it would be better if you could sort it out between yourselves, but if they’ve already got a solicitor and they’ve started proceedings maybe you need to talk to someone too?’

  ‘I suppose I could,’ I say.

  ‘It might help you. If you spoke to Yasmin, she might at least be able to give you a clearer idea of the legal position.’

  ‘Mmm – I could give her call at home. Although she’ll be tied up with Conrad.’

  ‘You don’t sound sure.’ Sally picks up on my hesitancy.

  ‘It’s just that…’ I begin.

  ‘What?’ Sally asks.

  But I don’t answer because I am not quite sure what the answer is. Perhaps I was being oversensitive, but at the party, when I found out, when Yasmin took me up to the bathroom, she didn’t say anything, so maybe that’s it: I’m not sure that she will sympathise with me, so I’m nervous of asking for her help.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Sally,’ I reply, trying to sound a bit brighter. ‘I’d better go now. I’m just about to pick up Vincent.’

  ‘OK,’ Sally says. ‘But if you need to talk…’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, as I hang up.

  Ben, Friday, later

  I check my watch in the middle of a lesson and think, they must have read the letter by now.

  Funny how one thing replaces another in your thoughts. I can’t stop thinking about the legal action now, and that means I think a bit less about Iris being deaf.

  I wonder how long it will take them to respond to the letter. ‘We’ll follow it up if we don’t get a response within a week,’ Hedda had said to me.

  It seems too long. I want an immediate reply.

  I’d been through the timings of everything with Hedda in her office. ‘Let me just go through this again,’ she’d said, even though she’d written everything down and questioned me, as we went along. She is nothing if not thorough. ‘It is very important if the case is to be successful.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure that Isobel Blake had knowledge that her daughter was infectious when she left her with your wife and baby at the holiday house in France?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘You are certain?’ she pressed me.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘I am certain.’

  I didn’t realise it at the time, but when we started piecing the events together afterwards we knew she must have known.

  ‘And she did warn you that there might be a risk to your child of having prolonged contact with her daughter?’

  I shook my head this time.

  ‘Mr Deakin?’ Hedda asks, and I realise she needs me to say it.

  ‘She never said anything at the time. When she came back from the doctor and he had confirmed that Gabriella had measles she told Maggie that she’d known there was a lot of it about. She knew some of Gabby’s schoolfriends had been ill and she knew that she had spent time with them, especially with Sam, her boyfriend – a great deal of time – before they went away.’

  ‘So you think she knew that her daughter’s first symptoms of illness were measles?’

  ‘If she didn’t know for sure, she must have had a pretty good idea. Isobel is not stupid, far from it. She knew the symptoms, she knew Gabby had had contact with people who had the disease, and she knew she hadn’t been vaccinated. She must have known that it was the most likely cause of Gabriella’s illness.’

  ‘So when she asked if she could leave her daughter, who was too ill to go on this outing, with your wife and daughter, you are certain she knew she was putting your child at risk of catching this highly infectious disease?’

  ‘She knew. She must have known,’ I said, and then to myself, because I didn’t want Hedda to write it down, but she never fucking mentioned it. Not until she came back from the doctor with Gabriella the following day.

  I had felt a bit more relaxed when Isobel took Gabby off to the doctor. Her fussing over the kids, not just Gabs when she started to get ill but all of them generally, was beginning to get to me.

  I’d taken a brioche out of the bread bin a few days beforehand, only to be asked by Isobel to put it back.

  ‘Ben, would you mind leaving that? Harvey hasn’t had anything to eat yet and he can’t eat croissants, as they are more likely to have come into contact with nuts.’

  I had felt like contesting both these statements. A, Harvey was sitting at the table with a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of him and it wasn’t Goldilocks who’d been at it, and B, I was fairly certain that croissants were no more likely to have come into contact with nuts than brioche rolls.

  What Isobel meant was that Harvey didn’t really like croissants, and as there was only one brioche roll left but plenty of the former she thought it perfectly reasonable that it should be set aside for her precious son, rather than eaten by me. But she’d never have said outright, ‘Could you not eat that because they are Harvey’s favourites and that’s the last one, so I’d rather he have it than you!’

  And she’d been doing her ridiculously even-handed routine with the boys just before that. Harvey and Vince had both drawn a picture and wanted to know which was best. I reckoned Vincent’s was definitely the best but, rather than just saying this, she had pointed out the various merits of both drawings. Which wasn’t good enough for either of them.

  Vincent had picked up a cereal packet from the table. ‘Let’s make a sunflower out of cereal and see which is the best!’

  I’d laughed because Harvey had only just told him his picture looked like a potato and he’d retorted, ‘My teacher says the artist who went mad and cut off his ear painted people to look like potatoes.’

  ‘Van Gogh,’ Isobel had said.

  Clearly Vincent was warming to a theme – or would have if the removal of the cereal packet had not sent Conrad, who’d been sitting there staring at it, apparently oblivious to anyone else in the room, into a crazy disturbed fit. He let out this horrendous scream, threw himself from his chair on to the floor and began crying. Suddenly this huge sixteen-year-old boy was lying on the floor, hammering it with his fists and sobbing like a toddler.

  It was disturbing to watch.

  My first thoughts were ones of sympathy, for Yasmin who had to try to calm him, and for Conrad himself. What must it be like to be him? I wondered. What demented world did he inhabit, that things like that caused him such distress?

  Iris was still upstairs in our room with Maggie at the time, so any disturbance the scene might have caused her didn’t really come into it. V
incent, though, was visibly shocked and upset. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m sorry,’ he said, putting the cereal packet back. But it was too late. The damage was done.

  ‘Yes, sorry,’ Isobel said. But she didn’t look sorry, and I don’t think she was. I think she was pissed off that Yasmin’s crazy son had upset her sane ones.

  So I was glad she’d had to take Gabriella to the doctor.

  Maggie and I were lying by the pool. Iris was in her inflatable boat under a sunshade and we could see the boys and Conrad’s younger sister Mira a little way away, attempting to climb a tree, probably relishing their mother’s absence too. There was no one to spoil their fun by saying ‘Be careful’, ‘Don’t go too high’, ‘I think you should come back down now’.

  Conrad was in his room and Yasmin had earlier dragged a sun-lounger away from the pool to a quieter part of the garden, where she was reading. Perhaps everyone wanted time to themselves.

  ‘I’m going to take a walk down to the lake.’ Eric emerged from the kitchen where Paddy and Sally were still seated at the table, sharing a quiet cup of coffee. As the hosts they were the ones doing the lion’s share of interacting. They didn’t seem to mind, but, as I turned my head lazily in the heat and caught sight of them sitting quietly, I reckoned even they too had probably had enough bonhomie for a while and wanted to stay where they were, not talking or doing, just being.

  Eric paused close to where we were lying. His sentence had been a statement, but his hesitancy in setting off suggested a question.

  ‘Enjoy,’ I said, freeing him from whatever obligation he felt to ask if we wanted to join him.

  He glanced briefly at the boys but said nothing and left. ‘Peace at last,’ I said when he was out of earshot.

  ‘Is it starting to get to you?’ Maggie asked, as she lay on her lounger trailing one hand lazily in the shallow water of Iris’s boat, engaging with her in the most languid way possible.

  ‘A bit.’ I reached out my hand and took her free one, holding it across the space between us. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ Maggie said, squeezing my hand. ‘It’s nice to have a bit of time on our own, though. I might take Iris for a swim.’

  Iris loved the water, but she got a bit overwhelmed when the pool was crowded. It was a reasonable size, but the weather was so hot, and there were so many of us staying, that it filled up quickly.

  ‘I’ll come too,’ I said, sitting up and scanning the boys and Mira in the distance. I imagined it wouldn’t be long before they got hot and came back to cool down.

  ‘Hey, Iris, shall we go for a proper swim now?’ Maggie bent down to our splashing daughter.

  ‘Ba.’ Iris splashed in response and Maggie scooped her out of her inch of water and carried her to the steps of the pool.

  I followed, but we’d hardly been there two minutes when the boys and Mira ran over, hot, covered in bark and grime, and jumped into the pool. Harvey began thrashing up the pool, doing a sort of clumsy butterfly, a stroke far too strenuous to be named after an insect that flutters so unobtrusively. He was making huge waves, dislodging the water so it splashed over Iris’s face and she began to cry.

  ‘Boys!’ I adopted my teacher’s tone. ‘A bit less boisterous. You nearly landed on Iris.’

  ‘Sorry, Ben,’ all three chorused at once, but the energy they brought to the pool was still making the water choppy.

  ‘Just calm down a bit!’ I raised my voice again, enjoying being able to tell them off in Isobel’s absence. I’d lobbed a few gentle ‘keep the splashing down’ remarks in the boys’ direction before, in their mother’s presence, and heard her muttering, ‘It’s a holiday,’ as if I had no right to say anything that might spoil their fun.

  ‘Sorry,’ they chorused again.

  ‘Shall we go to the lake?’ Harvey showed his displeasure at being told off by suggesting they remove themselves from the presence of one irritating adult. ‘We can swim later.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Mira shot me a look as they clambered out over the side and ran towards the path which led to the lake, bumping into Eric as he returned from his walk. There was a brief exchange between them and Eric approached us by the pool just as a car crunched on the gravel to the side of the house and the sound of doors clunking told us that Anton, Isobel and Gabriella were back.

  Eric went to greet them. ‘How is she?’ I heard him say, but couldn’t catch whatever it was Isobel was saying in more hushed tones.

  I watched them walk round the side of the house and go in, and a few moments later I could hear their voices coming from the direction of the bedroom they shared with Gabriella. They were raised, as if arguing, but I couldn’t catch what they were saying.

  It was later, a little while after Maggie had gone into the house with Iris to get changed out of their wet swimming things and I went to find what was keeping her, that I found out what it was.

  Isobel, Friday afternoon

  ‘Do you want something to eat, love?’ I ask Gabs, who is just in from school. ‘I got some scones from the baker earlier.’

  I bought them as a peace offering but Gabby rejects it.

  ‘I’ll get something,’ she says, opening the bread bin and taking out a stale loaf. She cuts herself a slice, defiantly.

  Vincent is eating slices of apple with chocolate spread. It’s the only way I can get him to eat fruit. ‘How was school today, Vinnie?’ she asks.

  ‘Yellowish,’ he says, licking his finger clean of chocolate spread. ‘Mum came in to help.’

  ‘Right.’ She closes the bread bin again. ‘And what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Vincent says cheerily.

  Gabriella seems to think he needs pointing in the right direction. ‘Do you want to borrow my ukulele?’

  Vincent’s been teaching himself to play, and sometimes the instrument walking from her room is a source of tension. But today she seems keen for him to go and take it.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says, getting up. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s under my desk,’ Gabs tells him, as he leaves the room. Then she asks me, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The letter you got this morning. Obviously there was something in it. What was it about?’

  ‘Well, it was…’ Gabs has taken me by surprise. ‘It was…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need to talk to Dad about it first,’ I try.

  ‘Was it from Ben?’ she asks, more attuned to the momentum of the past week than I realise.

  ‘No, not exactly?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ she says sulkily. ‘If it wasn’t from Ben, who was it from?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. I just need to talk to Dad first.’

  ‘Why am I always the last to know anything?’ she demands, starting to get agitated. ‘You never tell me anything! I have a right to know. I know from the way you’re behaving that it’s got something to do with Ben and Iris. Maybe you should tell me. Maybe I could do something. Maybe if you’d thought to tell me I’d never been immunised I could have done something about it.’

  ‘It wasn’t your decision – ’

  ‘Why not? You could have at least told me and let me do what I thought best when I was older. People talk about it at school, you know. Other kids know they’ve not had jabs. First I know of it is when that French doctor turns round and tells me I’ve got the fucking rougeole.’

  ‘Gabs, don’t speak to me like that – ’ I begin, but she’s already leaving the room and heading up to her bedroom, just as Harvey comes in from school.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, looking chirpy.

  ‘Hi, love. How was football?’ I ask.

  ‘Yep. Good. I’m starving.’

  ‘There’s scones,’ I offer.

  ‘Great.’ Harvey enthuses where Gabriella had scorned the offering. He plonks himself down at the table, clearly expecting me to get them for him. I oblige, tired of Gabriella making me feel as if I have failed her; I can at least keep Harvey happy by feeding him.
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  Eric was furious when we came back from the doctor in Biscarrosse. ‘I told you at the time that it was irresponsible but you wouldn’t listen.’ His voice was raised. ‘Jesus. I might have known something like this was going to happen.’

  We were in our bedroom and Gabs had gone back to bed.

  ‘Keep your voice down, Gabs is trying to sleep,’ I said, but I was more worried about the open window and Ben and Maggie, who were by the pool, being able to hear us.

  It hadn’t taken long for the French doctor to pronounce that the cause of Gabriella’s illness was ‘la rougeole’. My French isn’t good, but it’s good enough to know that sounded red and rashy. ‘Measles,’ he’d confirmed.

  ‘Measles?’ Gabby had asked. ‘How come I’ve got measles?’ She’d sunk down in her chair in torpor, breathing heavily.

  ‘You must have caught it from Sam,’ I’d told her, gently, but I knew that was not what she was asking.

  ‘What else did the doctor say?’ Eric asked. ‘Is she going to be OK?’

  ‘Yes, he just said she needs paracetamol to ease the temperature and something for the cough but otherwise just to let it take its course.’

  ‘And how long is that?’

  ‘Possibly around two weeks, as long as there are no complications,’ I said.

  ‘Well, let’s hope there aren’t, for your sake.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Eric. Don’t you think I feel bad enough already? Don’t you think, seeing how ill Gabby is now, that I wish I’d done things differently? It doesn’t help, you rubbing it in.’

  ‘What about the boys?’ Eric asked, quieter but not exactly contrite.

  ‘He said they may have picked it up from Gabby already,’ I told him, ‘but that we could take them in for jabs anyway if we wanted, although it will take a few days for immunity to kick in.’

  ‘I’ll do that this afternoon, then,’ Eric said, clearly needing to distance himself from my decision and show he was the one who did the sensible thing.

  ‘They might be OK,’ I said, hopefully. ‘They’ve spent so much time outside. They’ve hardly been in contact with Gabriella.’