by Sophie Duffy
‘Zed-bed?’ Martin doesn’t even bother to stifle a laugh. ‘Sorry, am I in a time warp?’
‘No, Martin. You’re in my house.’ I underline this statement by flouncing out of the room, which is good timing because once I am in the hall – our poky hall, made pokier by the wretched cello – I can hear little Imo whimpers coming from above.
My breasts are tingly and heavy. I feel like marching back in there and telling Martin that, to see him squirm. But unfortunately I can’t bring myself to mention the word ‘breastfeeding’ to him. He’s my brother. He’s Martin.
I climb the stairs, slowly, wearily. Maybe things will be better in the morning. That’s what Mum always used to say.
Then I hear his voice call out to me: ‘Night, night, Vicky-Love.’
Hours later, all is quiet. Steve lies next to me, warming his cold feet on my legs, smelling slightly of beer. ‘I had to keep him company,’ is his excuse. ‘You left me to it. I had to listen to his story. It’s a mess.’ He tries to squash a hiccup. ‘And this can’t be good for poor old Jeremy.’
Poor old Jeremy is wrapped up in a sleeping bag on the zed-bed in the back room. Martin is on my new leather sofa with a Pocahontas duvet and pillow set kindly donated by Rachel. (I’m too big for Disney, Mum. Disney’s sad.) I don’t have to see for myself how Martin looks. I can picture him perfectly well, no different now at six foot two with a paunch and a beard than he was at fourteen with spots and smelly feet. He somehow takes over any room he enters. He has one of those ‘big’ personalities, which wouldn’t be so bad if he were charming, nice even. But he’s neither of those. I can only wonder how it’s taken Claudia so long to take this latest action. A lesser person would have done it years ago. And yes, if Steve had access to my thoughts, he would tell me to be more understanding. More forgiving. But when it comes to Martin that is quite impossible.
‘Do you think you could stop huffing, Vick. I’m trying to get some kip. Imo will be waking us soon.’
‘He’s got me all stressy.’ I sit up in bed, adjusting my breast pads and disentangling my nightie from the duvet.
‘I know.’ Steve uses that tone of his he reserves for the kids or a parishioner with learning difficulties. ‘Just relax.’ He makes a half-hearted attempt to rub my back. ‘Claudia will be begging him to go back before you know it,’ he goes on, stifling a yawn. ‘She’s besotted with him.’
‘Mmm, maybe. I’m not so sure.’ I wriggle his hand away and lie back down, trying some deep breathing, the way Steve’s always encouraging me to do.
Maybe. Bizarrely, Claudia worships the ground Martin treads on with his big, flat, still-smelly feet. Worships the very air he hogs. Well, she did. Maybe she’s simply proving a point: she’s not the pushover he thinks she is. Or maybe – please, no – maybe she’s... serious?
Thoughts for the Day: Why do women always follow men? Look what happened when Pocahontas came to England to be with John Smith. Will Claudia cave in and crawl after her husband, plucking him from the perils of Penge? And what will become of me? I thought I’d be a plumber’s wife till Steve retired. And now look. Steve’s a vicar, a curate. And I’m a curate’s wife. Only I don’t want to be. I want to be me again. Only I’m not sure I actually know what that is anymore.
Chapter Two: Saturday December 29th
I am locked in my bedroom. Not from the outside, barricaded by a makeshift Berlin wall of Encyclopaedia Britannicas, craftily constructed by Martin as he used to do when he’d had enough of my ‘whining’, but from the inside. Why? Because Martin is still here, downstairs, sprawling his over-indulged body across my new leather sofa, amongst the ravages of a cold meat lunch, three days on from his unexpected arrival. And Jeremy is practising the Harry Potter theme tune on his cello. Or is it Lord of the Rings? Or The Simpsons? They’ve all blurred into one mournful dirge over the course of the last few days. Whatever happened to Elgar?
Steve’s disappeared to the park with the girls, rather more quickly and enthusiastically than usual, to get some fresh air, leaving me to deal with Martin and Jeremy and Top Gear. I lasted five minutes before having to storm up here with a gin and tonic, two aspirins and the remainder of a giant Toblerone. The giant Toblerone was a Christmas present from Rachel who spent her pocket money on me, wrapping it carefully (You’ll never guess what it is, Mum), and putting it under the tree – only to discover her cousin Jeremy would eat half of it for breakfast a week later. Imo is too young for pocket money. At six months, she’s too young for most things except milk. My milk. And Olivia got me a pack of dusters. Yes, dusters. To help with your cleaning, Mummy. At three years of age, Olivia is the one to get my cleaning genes. The ones that came from my grandmother, bypassing my mother, whose fondness for tea-making was the height of her domesticity.
So, to pass the time, I’ve treated myself to a long overdue tidy-up, which is something I could thank Martin for, if thanking Martin wasn’t a task that went against the grain. But I can’t help that feeling of martyrdom creeping through my bloodstream like malaria, knowing that while Martin is slobbing away to his heart’s content on my new leather sofa, I am performing household duties usually reserved for springtime. But then I would never have tackled the contents of the bottom of the wardrobe. I would never have found the box.
Mum had given us one each, me and Martin, a box, the night before her bunion operation. She must have felt herself in the chilling grip of Death, vulnerable and scared, worried for her children, wanting to make her mark on their history, their future. They were only two old biscuit tins – his Jacob’s to my Family Circle – but she made a big song and dance about them. Mine still had crumbs in it that I had to wash out.
Put all the things you treasure in here, she said. And when you’re older, if you’re sad or lonely (ring any bells, Martin?), you can look back at all the important times in your life and see what you’ve done with it.
Her eyes were glistening as she said this. She thought she was going to die and leave her two children behind with Dad, who had even less of an idea how to work the washing machine or clean a toilet than she did.
She didn’t die. It was only a bunion operation after all. But she hated hospitals. And she had good reason in the end. Poor Mum.
I sit on the bed, the tin in my lap. I don’t know what Martin has done with his, probably chucked it out years ago – he doesn’t do sentiment, being a scientist – but mine’s been at the bottom of this wardrobe ever since we bought it for our first flat.
It’s been ages since I’ve had a root through it. Stubby baby teeth tucked in a matchbox. A ticket to a Wham! concert from the days when it was still possible I could marry George Michael. A train-spotting book from one mad summer. Foreign pre-Euro coins. A photo of Alice, my solo friend. Three pink baby nametags. And a blue one that makes me catch my breath. My poor little Thomas. I hold it in my hand briefly, but it is still too painful, even though it’s been six long years and I’m supposed to have ‘moved on’. Tucking it away with his sisters’ tags, I make myself look at something else and I see the diary. 1978. My last year at primary school; the first at secondary. All those forgotten days.
But I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to live with Martin. How did I ever manage to inhabit that life, sharing a home for the whole of my childhood, until he left to go to university when I was thirteen? The past few days have taken me back there; I don’t need the diary to remind me that some things never change. Martin is different to me. It is absolutely impossible to beat him at anything. Savings accounts, Boggle, the perfect boiled egg. He can do it all better than me. And right now he’s downstairs with his slightly strange child on my leather sofa while I am sitting up here cross-legged on the newly-cleaned bed. How did I let that happen?
Except for marriage. He hasn’t beaten me at that. He was in the lead for a while having got married the year before me and Steve. He had the full white cathedral wedding, the hypocrite, with bullet-sleek cars, fields of flowers, and sugar-icing bridesmaids. I had to make do
with Lewisham register office, mini-cabs, and a buffet at Lee Working Men’s Club. But now, Martin’s marriage to the beautiful Claudia looks somewhat shaky. She has kicked him out, like a fishwife on Eastenders, according to Martin. And who can blame her? Certainly not me. Us fishwives have got to stick together. Though, despite him being my nephew, I wish she’d hung onto Jeremy. And the cello.
The cello. Jeremy is cranking it up again.
I swallow two more aspirins and crawl under the duvet with my diary. Perhaps I’ll fall asleep. Perhaps when I wake up it’ll all be a bad dream.
January 1st 1978
Martin is really annoying me. He got Space Invaders for Christmas and he’s hogging the telly. I wanted to watch Black Beauty because I love horses even though they are a bit smelly and I have never actually sat on one except for that manky donkey at Weston-super-mare last summer. I asked him very nicely and even offered him the Marathun from my selection pack but he thumped me and told me to get lost. And he took my Marathun. So I got my own back and put itching powder on his stinky sheets. Just wait till later – ha ha.
Chapter Three
The story according to Martin:
I work hard. Long hours. Early starts. Late nights preparing for overcrowded seminars with thick, dumbstruck students and marking essays for aforementioned thick, dumbstruck students. When I come home all I want to do is have a cold beer and watch Newsnight. Claudia wants to go out. To talk. To have dinner parties. Overseas holidays. Skiing in Klosters. Shopping in Paris. Well, it’s alright for Claudia. She only works part-time from home, ‘freelance’ she calls it, cutting-and-pasting grubby celebrity ‘stories’ on her Mac. She’s being completely unreasonable. Unrealistic. These things cost. I’m a university lecturer. A senior lecturer, granted, but I’m not exactly minted, not with the whacking mortgage payments we have to churn out every month, despite the in-laws’ handouts. And I’ve slipped behind on my research. It’s embarrassing. All these younger academics creeping up on me with designs on my job. I’m only forty-five. I’m in my prime. And then there’s Jeremy. Claudia’s too soft on him. Insisted on Dulwich Prep. I should’ve put my foot down. He would’ve been fine at the local school. More streetwise. Wouldn’t have opened his big mouth and One Small Incident (he pronounces these last three words with capital letters) wouldn’t have got blown out of all proportion.
Martin bombards me with this ‘story’ once I’ve woken up to reality and ventured back downstairs to the kitchen. He is smoking out the back door, exchanging our heating for an easterly.
‘And where’s Jeremy gone now?’ I ask him, ignoring the One Small Incident because I can’t go there right now. There’s washing up to be done.
‘To the park to find the others,’ he mumbles.
Claudia would have hysterics if she knew her innocent son was walking the streets of Penge un-chaperoned. But he’s obviously had enough of his father, so high on caffeine and sugar he’s stuck to the ceiling... and oh my goodness look at the cobwebs up there... must get Steve onto them, though Martin’s half a foot taller. There’s no way I’m asking him. He’ll call me suburban and obsessive. I like being suburban and obsessive. I like keeping a clean house. But he sneers at me. Has no idea how important it is to keep on top of things, to keep busy.
‘Can you get a move on with that, I’m freezing.’ I snap on my rubber gloves and make a start on the stack of dishes in the sink. ‘Have you tried Claudia again?’
Martin blows a smoke ring, screwing up his eyes, Mum’s eyes, spilling ash on the floor, my nice clean floor. He knows I know he’s talked to Claudia again and again but it is not in either of our remits to draw attention to this.
He lobs his butt into a puddle (must get Steve to clear the storm drain), and slams the door shut. Then he stands there, watching me. I can hear his rasping breath, feel his beady eyes on my Marigolds, half-submerged in detergent bubbles. Does he offer to help? No. He just says: ‘Why on earth don’t you have a dishwasher?’ then helps himself to a beer from the fridge. My fridge.
The story according to Jeremy:
Mum and Dad are always arguing. Then they like moan at me for ‘skulking’ in my room and listening to my iPod and for playing my cello too loudly. How can you play a cello quietly? It’s a big instrument. And I’ve got my Grade 4 coming up. They should be proud of me. Not annoyed. It’s not my fault I told Mum about the student. The one with the hair like Christina Aguilera. The one I saw having a frothy coffee with Dad outside Starbucks in Greenwich when we went on that school trip to the maritime museum. I was only saying.
Jeremy tells me this on his return from the park, messy-haired and rosy-cheeked, sitting down at the kitchen table, cracking open a can of Coke. (Several of these death traps have appeared in our fridge despite being a zero tolerance house. Thank you very much, Martin.)
‘Can I have a packet of crisps please, Auntie Vicky? I’m starving.’
What I should do is refuse his request; tea’s nearly ready and if Rachel or Olivia catch a whiff of the possibility of heavy salt intake they’ll be clamouring for crisps too. But I feel a whoosh of sympathy for Jeremy, motherless at this point in time and space. And at the mercy of his father.
‘Help yourself,’ I tell him. ‘They’re in the pantry. Only do you mind eating them outside? You can go in the shed, if you get cold.’
He gives me a look. A familiar look that says, ‘Even though you are related to me I don’t know what planet you’re from’. But he does as he’s told, putting on his coat, crisps hidden in his pocket, and hops his way across the stepping stones to the shed at the bottom of the garden, looking younger and younger the more he shrinks into the distance.
It is then that I hear heavy breathing in the room. A smoker’s rasp.
‘Stepping stones? Dad would be proud of you but where will this end, Vicky-Love? Gnomes? Budgies? The WI?’
The story according to Steve:
This was always going to happen. They have that kind of relationship. Tempestuous. Her Elizabeth Taylor to his Richard Burton. It’ll blow over in a few days, just you see. Don’t worry. You worry too much. Take a deep breath and enjoy your bath.
Steve tells me this while having a whizz while I am trying to enjoy my bath. You’d think he’d have more decorum now he is a man of the cloth, but no.
The story according to Claudia:
He’s been having it away with one of his students. Why didn’t I listen to you when you warned me not to marry him?
Claudia tells me this on the phone, on the one and only occasion I get through to her mobile. Otherwise she is unreachable. She has gone away. She doesn’t even ask about Jeremy, she is so angry. Not so much as a thank you for taking in her family. On Boxing Day. All she says is, ‘Make sure Jeremy practises his cello.’
Yes, I did warn Claudia not to marry Martin. She should’ve listened. Steve says marriage is a sacred institution, a gift from God, but what sane person would enter into such a contract with my brother, the prince of darkness?
I wish I could go away. I wish I was unreachable. But I can’t and I’m not. I am a breastfeeding mother. I have a baby, a girl of three – then a gap, a big black hole of a gap – and another one of nine. I have a good husband who loves me and my girls. Unfortunately, he also loves his parish and lives in hope that I will do likewise. Tonight – despite supposedly having a few days off – he has gone to the church hall to show his love to the Ladies Fellowship by speaking to them on the topic: ‘Identifying Your Gifts’.
Come with me, Steve said. Martin can babysit. We should make the most of this situation.
But I could not leave my children with Martin. Not because I don’t trust my brother – which of course I don’t – but because Martin chose that moment to sneak out the house. We heard the front door close and looked at each other.
He’s gone to the pub, Jeremy informed us, eyes fixed on the telly, grimy hand gripping the remote. He could be gone for some time.
So Steve went to the cold church hall to drink te
a with the women of the parish and I stayed in and baby-sat for four children, drinking Horlicks with Jeremy on our new leather sofa, watching Emmerdale. I never knew so much went on in Yorkshire.
It’s been raining but, thanks to the stepping stones and some very faint solar lighting, I can pick my way in the dark across the sodden grass without sinking. I wish I could call the sodden grass a ‘lawn’ and make Dad proud of me but that claim would be reckless. We have a typical South London garden, a long, thin strip backing onto the railway track. Not long enough to stop the back windows juddering (double-glazing would fix that – must get Steve onto it), but the toot-and-chug of a train at night is reassuring, knowing that other people are working, making a go of things, carrying on, while the household sleeps.
Though I’m more often than not awake, breastfeeding. I don’t mind. I like feeding Imo, the two of us alone in the small hours. The screech of a fox. The cat-flap banging on Sock’s re-entry. Steve’s nose whistling a chirpy tune. The fridge humming. The house creaking... Though this closeness is tinged with guilt. That I am with her. And Thomas is gone.
So... the shed. Steve’s pride and joy, lovingly constructed a few years back when he was still a Corgi gas fitter, before his Dartford moment. Finding time for DIY is not so easy now he has to care for the souls of the parish. That’s a big ask of anyone, especially someone as conscientious as Steve.
‘Jeremy? It’s Auntie Vicky. Are you alright in there?’
Nothing. The wind howls its way up the track, wrestling the scrubby trees that back onto the cutting. Looking up the garden at the house, I realise that all the lights have been switched on. Every one of them. Our poky terrace could be seen from outer space. Maybe an alien will come down and kidnap Martin and beam him away to another galaxy. If he ever gets back from the pub. And where’s Steve? What can the Ladies possibly be talking about at this hour? What previously undiscovered gifts have they unearthed?