William hugged Beth harder, inwardly cursing the tidal advance of communications’ technology, making loved ones seem so close when they were in fact far away, opening up emotions that for years he had found fairly easy to compartmentalize. ‘Life wouldn’t be life without its ups and downs, would it now?’ he said hoarsely, stroking Beth’s hair with his fingertips, slightly unnerved at how like a child she seemed herself, curled up in such a ball on his lap, her head tucked under his chin, her fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt. It was endearing, of course, but also strange, like becoming acquainted with yet another of the new sides to her that had been revealing themselves throughout the summer – the jealousy, the snapping when she felt cornered, the capacity to swing from intense happiness to gloom. She was right: since England things had hardly been plain sailing. But he hadn’t exactly been revealing the best of himself either, William reasoned guiltily – and wasn’t that what a good marriage was all about? Getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses – loving each other in spite of them? And his volte-face on the decision not to have a child – hadn’t she been amazing about that?
‘Hey, baby, your heart is beating fast,’ Beth whispered. She was composed now, breathing softly with her cheek against his collarbone, one hand pressed against the left side of his chest. ‘So fast …’ She undid two of the shirt buttons and slid her hand onto the same place on his bare skin.
‘I’ve got a letter to write …’
‘And you’ve got me,’ she murmured, lifting her face, still streaked with tears, the eyes red-rimmed, looking at him in the new bold way she had – the lids heavy, her pupils wide, her lips slightly parted in the suggestion of a kiss planned or recently delivered. ‘Nothing matters except us.’ She nimbly shifted her position, until the tips of their noses were touching, her legs straddling his waist, their chests pressed close. ‘I love you, William Stapleton,’ she crooned, brushing her lips against his and starting to press her pelvis in a slow, determined rhythm across his lap.
William moaned softly. He was being manipulated, of course, but who could mind? And there was the possibility of conception too, an added turn-on for him although he hadn’t yet had the confidence to reveal to Beth quite how much. Her hands had moved to the lower buttons of his shirt and her hips were moving faster. ‘We could go upstairs …’ The chair tipped and he glimpsed the image of his three sons on the screen behind her. It felt too much, to have the boys there, with their messy, guileless happiness, watching. And their dimpled smiling faces were stark, sore reminders, too, of where he had failed … where he was continuing to fail. ‘Upstairs,’ he said again.
‘No. Here.’ Beth stripped off her T-shirt and tossed it onto the floor. ‘I – want – you – here.’ She knelt up, hitching her skirt to her hips. ‘Say you love me,’ she commanded, tugging at the zip on his trousers and then lowering herself back onto his lap. ‘Say you’ll always love me – and no one else – no matter what. Say you will never leave me – never – never – never –’
It was good sex, of that there was no doubt. Fast, furious – no man, let alone husband, in his right mind, would have complained. And yet even as William succumbed, swearing the words she needed to hear, forgetting, in the heat of his own arousal, the protesting creaks and teetering of his desk chair, there was something disquieting about it too – something connected to the realization that yet another facet of her was emerging, that the task of getting to know the woman he had married had only just begun.
It wasn’t until nearly midnight, with more wine inside him than food (the meat loaf, as Beth had feared, had been well past its best, somehow justifying solace in a second, cheaper bottle), that William again picked up his fountain pen. Tearing up his first efforts, he set upon a new page, writing with fast, alcohol-fuelled fluency.
My dearest, beloved Harry,
You’ll hate that opening, I know, but I don’t care. This letter is going to say important things – things that are real and true – so please do me the honour of reading every word. You were a long time in entering this world, did you know that? Hours and hours – your poor mother. Not for nothing is it called ‘labour’. And then suddenly the room was full of white coats and machines and doctor-speak and I was booted into the corridor. Your heartbeat was getting faint, you see, so they had to move fast to get you out. Christ, I thought, not born and we’re going to lose him. To be honest, it was only at that moment I knew how much I loved you. That corridor – the waiting – I promised every deity I could think of that I would guard each precious intake of breath you took, if only you came out of that room alive, bawling your eyes out. Which you did.
But the joke is, of course – proof of god(s) aside – that it wasn’t a promise I could keep, not just because I’ve been a crap father (yeah, yeah) but because no parent can offer such protection. You are you, Harry. It’s your life, your choices. Being eighteen makes this obvious, but for even the smallest child, there is only so much looking-after a parent can do. It’s torture, frankly, and no one warns you, but it is also wonderful and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m rambling, I know. It’s late and I’m not at my best. But stick with me, please, I’m nearly done. As you get older doors close (I’ve had, for example, finally, to let go my hopes of opening the batting for England, ha ha) but at your age – and for many years to come – they should still be flying open on all sides. If you pack in your education now, that won’t happen. It will be hard graft all the way, making any direction change hugely difficult. I’m not saying don’t play in a band (maybe you’re going to be as big as the Rolling Stones, or the Cure, or whoever you listen to on that iPod of yours) but you can do that at university, you know, while getting a degree …
The world should be your oyster, Harry, so don’t turn your back on it. On me, yes, if you must, though it breaks my heart.
Your most loving father
PS How about a hundred quid for every A level above a C?
William deposited the letter (carefully, tenderly, addressed with the hateful new details Susan had given him, 24D Curlew Street, SW14) in the mailbox at the bottom of the drive. The wetness in his eyes was not just from the sting of the autumn night air. He was drunk, of course, which didn’t help – full of sentimentality – but it did seem incredible that he had once fantasized about his sons growing up and moving away and not needing him. How could he have been so naïve to imagine a process so clear-cut, so simple? How could he not have known how much he would always need them, no matter how many more wives he had or kids he spawned?
Shivering from cold, William fumbled for a final cigarette, huddling close to the mailbox to coax a flame from his flimsy booklet of matches. With his free hand tucked into his armpit for warmth, he studied the night sky as he smoked, automatically identifying the constellations pointed out by his grandfather during idyllic bonding sessions under canvas and round campfires thirty years before, while his sisters – unfairly, he could see now – had been banished indoors. How lucky he had been and how little he had been aware of it – but the very essence of such luck was not having to be aware of it, William realized, drying his eyes on his shirt cuff and lifting the little flag on the box to alert Joe to the presence of an item for collection. The most nurtured child took love for granted, as his elemental right.
Tiptoeing through to the bathroom five minutes later, he dropped a light kiss on Beth’s sleeping face, wondering fondly – excitedly – if the seed of their own child might have taken root that very night, on the creaking study chair. He couldn’t wait to see the effect motherhood would have on her, the focus, the shared, mind-blowing love. Beth stirred, frowning, and then shook her head from side to side, as if banishing a bad dream. William closed the door of the en-suite quietly behind him and soaked a flannel with hot water to wash his face. His skin looked pasty and faintly yellow under the strip light above the basin, as did his teeth, he observed grimly. Too many fags – he had to stop, properly, once and for all … soon. When
he was safely through to January, he promised himself, glowering at his reflection, when there were clearer waters all around.
Humming softly, he opened the bathroom wall cabinet and scanned the shelves for a tube of whitening toothpaste that he remembered Beth buying after one of her anti-smoking tirades in England. The shelves were narrow and tightly stocked with bottles and packets of this and that – floss, shampoo, soap bars, cotton-wool buds, analgesics. William riffled through it all, trying not to make a mess or a noise but managing both as several items toppled onto the floor. Stopping to gather them up, he noticed a bright yellow oblong box, identical to the one Beth had, with such wonderful drama, hurled out of her bedside drawer.
William picked it up, turning it over in his hands and peering in at the small, foil-encased pills, two rows of which were missing. She would have several such boxes, wouldn’t she? Doctors handed out a few months’ supply in advance – that was how the system worked, wasn’t it? William scowled, trying to summon knowledge from his years with Susan, who had never refrained from acquainting him with all the earthiest aspects of the chore of being female – leg-shaving, eyebrow-plucking, her flabby rubber Dutch cap, the onset and heaviness of her periods – to the point where William had sometimes wondered if she was deliberately challenging his capacity to be repelled. Beth, in contrast, had always been sweetly, protectively – alluringly – reticent about such matters. Girls’ business was for girls, she had declared several times early on, by way of a consoling explanation for a locked bathroom door or the nights she turned her back on him instead of pulling him into her arms.
William took out one of the foil rectangles and inspected it. They weren’t pills, but capsules, quite unlike the coloured tablets he remembered Susan taking. Turning over the box he studied the small print: KLB6, containing Kelp, a natural food rich in iodine, helps to maintain a healthy thyroid. Lecithin – an excellent natural source of choline and inositol, two members of the B-complex vitamins, B-6 – functions as a co-enzyme involved in protein and fat metabolism.
Not contraceptives, then, but vitamins of some kind, helping to speed up the metabolism by the sound of it. He must have got the packets mixed in that case. Two yellows – similar in his memory, but no doubt quite different shades when side by side. Easy mistake to make, especially for a man barely awake he was so tired. Giving up on the whitener, William carefully stowed the fallen items back in the cabinet and cleaned his teeth with ordinary toothpaste, before creeping to bed. His last waking thought was of his letter to Harry, sitting in the cold mailbox, and what a flimsy thing it was for the transport of so much hope.
13
To: [email protected]
28 October
From: [email protected]
Subject: NY Tour
Dear Ann,
Thank you so much for that outline itinerary – it looks as if things are shaping up really nicely. I wish I could say the same for this end! The rehearsals are not yet close to the standard we need and my letter asking parents for final commitment and payment just before half-term has prompted quite a few pull-outs. That said, I have – as I hope you’ll agree – made a couple of inspirational additions to the programme: namely, a portion of the Rachmaninov Vespers and, by way of a grand finale, Herbert Howell’s tribute to JFK, ‘Take Him Back For Cherishing’, an exquisite piece of unaccompanied singing, which I expect you know. If we can only pull it off there shouldn’t be a dry eye in the house!
Thank you too, for all your kind words with regard to Olivia, understanding so well (unlike Sophie, I regret to say) that it is the wasted potential which upsets me most. She was born with a gift and would, I am certain, have got into the Royal College or one of the other five top conservatoires. Reading music at one of the regular universities – after a gap year, for heaven’s sake – just won’t be the same. She’ll lose her edge, disappear into the crowd, end up doing something menial like so many talented girls seem to …
Phew! Sorry to lumber you, Ann, but it is impossible to voice such thoughts at home, partly because Sophie has very much taken Olivia’s side and partly because Sophie herself has always had a bit of a chip on her shoulder about not getting a degree, not being musical, etc., etc., which is ridiculous, of course, and should have no bearing on every parent’s duty to encourage the very best from their child (as opposed to second best, which is what Olivia is settling for). Thank goodness for dear Milly, is all I can say, practising like a fiend already in anticipation of her secret dream of auditioning for the Juilliard in two years’ time!
As to the other thing you mentioned – it blew me away, to be honest. I am tempted of course, but – if I am to be completely truthful – I am also terrified of looking a fool. The competition doesn’t bear thinking about. Then, of course, there would be the massive logistical implications to consider too. The only thing I can say with absolute certainty is how deeply grateful I am to you, Ann, for showing such faith in my abilities. As a washed-up has-been of a musician, soul sold to bureaucracy, paperwork and a failing educational system, I can’t tell you what it means to be invited even to consider such a possibility. And I will be in your debt for that always, no matter what happens.
In the meantime, the coal-face beckons. Counting the days now till the tour … excited but apprehensive!
With love
Andrew
PS Yes, I think it’s a brilliant idea to ticket the events and sell as many as possible in advance.
PPS Please thank Meredith for finding the time to send a reply to Milly’s emails – she was thrilled.
Autumn had turned ugly, the leaves clogging the gutters, the frosts seeing off the last flowers, but Sophie felt her faith in the world returning in ever greater depth, the old layers of herself – her life – falling back into place, stronger, more certain for having been called into question. The decision to ignore any further communications from the odious Beth Stapleton seemed to have paid off. Weeks had passed without a further word. Indeed, the flurry of panic caused by the woman’s two creepy emails had receded into a pinprick of a memory, along with the Darien holiday itself and the suntan that had encouraged the purchase of a white cardigan, ruined on its first outing, thanks to slops from the dinner-party lamb steaks.
Sophie fell into the half-term break with groans of grateful exhaustion, sleeping in as late as the girls on a couple of mornings and, even if she was up, enjoying padding round the house in socks and crumpled clothes, idly catching up on chores between cups of coffee and reading the paper. The tiredness felt natural and good – quite unlike the fretful state of mind that had gnawed away at her earlier in the year – and was as much from demands made within the family as being back at work. There had been hitches – mainly with Olivia – but nothing that had felt beyond Sophie’s capabilities; on the contrary, supporting her daughter in her momentous decision to change tack – not just by applying to university rather than music college but waiting until she had secured her A levels before doing so – had wrought a wonderful new bond between them. Andrew was still a little prickly about it – not surprisingly – but privately Sophie felt she had handled her husband well too, pointing out that it wasn’t about taking sides so much as having the faith to let their much-loved firstborn find her own way in the world, as opposed to the one they might have mapped out for her.
‘I think he’s finally recognized that it’s Olivia’s life, not his,’ she told Zoë, when they met in what had become their regular café for a sandwich lunch on the Friday during half-term, ‘while all I can think is how brave Ollie is being, how honest, daring to plough her own furrow with her father glowering in the background. He’s strong, Andrew – sometimes I don’t think he realizes quite how strong.’
‘Pete too.’ Zoë grimaced in sympathy, before going on to recount at great length a recent marital stand-off about the purchase of a new carpet.
With the tone of sharing confidences thus set and the happy sense of being able to discuss a drama that was sa
fely past, Sophie found herself talking about the less exemplary aspects of her time in America. It took a while, both because she left no detail out and because she was at pains to explain the nuances that had led to the folly, the reasons why she had been so vulnerable.
‘Or maybe you fancied this American and told him your life history in the hope of having a snog,’ Zoë teased, shaking her head in amusement.
‘That’s monstrous,’ Sophie cried, flapping her paper napkin in protest, laughing in spite of herself. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’
‘So much angst over one embrace,’ Zoë scoffed. ‘I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous, even if, as you say, it was quite a long embrace and you had done rather a lot to encourage it …’ She started to laugh but then stopped abruptly, flinching. ‘It certainly doesn’t compare to the fling Pete had a couple of years ago – six whole months before I found out. Some mother from the football club, if you can believe it. I couldn’t tell you before because I couldn’t tell anyone. They used to screw in the back of her car, of all sordid things, parked in lay-bys and behind wide trees, like desperate teenagers.’
‘Oh, God, Zoë, I’m so sorry …’
‘No need. We’re totally through it now – stronger for having been tested or something.’ She pulled a face. ‘All I’m saying is, this Curtis business –’
‘Carter,’ Sophie corrected her.
‘Whoever. It’s a big deal out of nothing. Mountains and molehills. Not telling Andrew from the start, that was your only mistake.’
Before I Knew You Page 20