by Sophie Duffy
And while we play musical beds, where is Jeremy’s mother in all this? Has she made an effort at reconciliation? Not with Martin, no. Not that I blame her. And not so as you’d notice with her son either. She’s only had him for the weekend. Half a weekend because on the Sunday, Jeremy wanted to come to church and Claudia conveniently ‘had things to do’. Apart from that, she’s called in to see him a measly, miserly once. When she left she looked slightly forlorn but not enough to persuade him to come home with her. After she had convinced herself he hadn’t become overly evangelical, she scurried away, dodging the bullets that are commonplace down our street.
But no time for bad thoughts. Must get down to the church hall to check up on things for tonight. The first Alpha meeting. Thankfully I’m not helping with the food, being excused due to childcare responsibilities (children come in handy sometimes). But I need to make sure everything’s shipshape. Church halls don’t have the best image, being the sort of place you go to for AA meetings or badminton. I don’t want our hall to be seen in that light. I don’t want it to smell of old socks and mould. I might not be a theologian but even I can see that old socks and mould are not conducive to discussing the big questions of life and death. There aren’t many opportunities in this day and age, in our culture, to discuss these things. Apart from Big Brother.
I haven’t got a lot to work with, hall-wise, but I can spray round with Febreeze and put some flowers in a vase. None of those churchy crysanths. Something white and simple. Something cool and fresh and modern. After all, that’s exactly the sort of statement Steve would want to make about St Hilda’s – to counteract the appearance of Desmond’s vestments.
‘Can I make you a cup of tea, Vicky? You look so tired from carrying the baby around all day.’ Dorota manages to make a kind offer sound like a criticism of my child-rearing.
But I will be gracious. ‘That would be great, thank you.’ What I really want to know is when is she going back home. Like Martin, Dorota takes up too much space, physically and in every other way too.
She must pick up on my thoughts because she asks: ‘Where is that big hunky brother of yours?’ She loves that word ‘hunky’, always says it with a giggle, making you catch a glimpse of how she was as that lone girl in London, so far from home. When I pretend not to hear, she persists, astutely. ‘Are you hiding him from me?’
‘No, no, he’s working. He was at a friend’s last night.’
‘Oh, that is nice,’ she says. ‘A sleepover.’
A wave of nausea pours over me. A sleepover? I assumed this friend of his was male. But this friend could just as easily be female. It could be Melanie... if her parents are away... or liberal... or completely barmy.
‘Are you alright, Vicky? Would you prefer something stronger than tea? I have my sherry. Would you like me to pour you a little one?’ She indicates the size of a little one, which would put me over the limit straight off. Why doesn’t she drink vodka likes she’s supposed to?
I’d jump at the chance of one of those, topped up with cranberry juice. That would be cool and fresh and modern.
Teatime. We are all here, the usual suspects, though Dorota has stepped into Martin’s shoes, which she fills easily. Steve is tossing pancakes while I sort fillings. My shoulders have relaxed and my neck un-tensed – an experience I haven’t had in a while. Even Imo joins in, entering wholeheartedly into the celebratory atmosphere, squishing the soft batter in her hands and squealing with pleasure. It makes a change to see the world through her eyes so I can remember the potential for happiness. For joy.
The front door crashes open. My brother thunders his way down the hall and stands in the doorway taking in this scene of family life that includes his son. His son who earlier announced he’d had no idea as to why we were having pancakes. The only time he has had pancakes was at a Little Chef.
‘Ah, Martin,’ Steve says as if it’s the return of the prodigal.
‘Come in and have a pancake. There’s plenty to go round.’
‘I’m not stopping. Just wanted to pick up some stuff. And check on Jeremy, of course.’ He looks at the munching going on around the table and his tongue is virtually dropping out of his mouth. ‘I suppose I’ve got time for one.’ He sabotages a chair, taking over the room. ‘To be sociable.’
Dorota hands him the sugar bowl, smiling sweetly. Martin smiles back at her, charm personified, cascading sugar over the pancake Steve has presented him with. ‘I wish I could stay longer and enjoy the party only I’ve got a meeting,’ he says, tucking in.
‘A meeting?’ Dorota makes it sound like Martin is about to do something dangerous and brave. Unbelievable. I know for a fact she thinks the British waste far too much time in meetings. Dorota never reacts like this when Steve goes out to a meeting. She usually sighs or shakes her head. And, studying my husband, I catch a glimmer of affront in his eyes, but he quickly blinks this away.
Martin changes the subject deftly, so as not to engage in work-related discussions with ‘Dotty Dorota’ as he refers to her. He puts us off our stride by asking what we are giving up for Lent.
‘We-ell,’ Steve rubs his hands together for this is the sort of challenge he relishes, his earlier negative feelings wiped clean. ‘For me, it’s got to be cake. There’s always so much of the stuff in this house and, as Vicky likes to point out, it’s not doing anything for my figure.’ He pats his stomach. The one hidden under his black vicar shirt but not so well hidden that it can’t be seen pulling at his buttons.
‘I think you look so much better for a little fat on you. You were always too thin,’ Dorota says, refilling her sherry glass.
‘Anyway,’ Steve goes on, ‘what about you, Vicky? What are you going to give up?’
‘Breastfeeding,’ I state confidently, out-staring my brother who has taken a sudden intense interest in the cocoa content of the Fairtrade dark chocolate wrapper. ‘If Imo agrees to do that too.’ I look at Imo then, her small plump fists full of pancake-goo, 70% cocoa Fairtrade dark chocolate smeared round her face.
‘Really?’ Steve asks. ‘Are you sure?’
He knows that I know this is not exclusively about giving up breastfeeding Imo. This is about not having any other chances to breastfeed. There’ll be no more babies. We agreed Imo would be our last. Unless God has other ideas in the future, Steve was sure to tell me. But, at this point in time, we are both pretty sure another baby is more than either of us could handle. The strain on the house, our finances, nerves. Brittle, fragile nerves that could snap if pulled too taut. We have produced three healthy girls and poor little Thomas. Let’s leave it at that and be thankful. That’s what we tell ourselves. Again and again. Let’s be thankful.
‘And Rachel. What about you?’ I ask, to stop thinking, to keep going.
‘Well, seeing as you’ve both chosen like difficult stuff and that, I’m going to give up TV.’
‘Really?’ we all chorus.
Rachel looks around the table at her waiting audience, realising the import of what she has promised. ‘Well, not all TV, obviously, that would be dumb,’ she says, as if this is what she had meant all along. ‘Just the American crud.’
‘So no more Pimp my Ride?’ I ask.
‘No more Pimp my ride.’
‘No more Cribs?’ Jeremy asks.
‘No more Cribs.’
‘Give me a high five,’ says Steve.
Rachel gives her father an extremely embarrassed high five and blushes the colour of the defrosted raspberries. Her dad, the vicar.
‘If you can do that, Auntie Vicky,’ says Jeremy, bolstered by his cousin and looking to up the ante, ‘then I can give up Pot Noodles.’
Sensing a chink here, I venture: ‘Just Pot Noodles?’
Jeremy sighs. ‘And McDonald’s, I suppose.’
‘Does that mean more expensive pizzas?’ his father asks. I think he’s joking. I hope he’s joking. Surely he doesn’t begrudge his son the odd trip to Pizza Express?
But Jeremy takes his father seriousl
y, at his word. ‘Not if you sort things out with Mum. Then we can have homemade pizzas. In Dulwich. No offence, Auntie Vicky,’ he adds quickly.
‘None taken,’ I reassure him. Jeremy can offend me as much as he likes if it enables his family to have another go at being a family, in their own home, a few miles and another world away from here.
Having wolfed down his pancake, Martin has become twitchy, pulling at his revolting beard and bouncing his leg up and down like a schoolboy in need of the loo. ‘Would you excuse me while I have a quick shower?’ He addresses this question to Dorota. He’d never normally ask permission to leave the table but he is obviously keen to perpetuate the myth of the charming gentleman. But I know the truth: he is a coward who will not answer his son’s question. Dorota isn’t quite taken in by his charm but she will forgive him anything because, bizarrely and like all those deluded souls before her, she thinks he is ‘hunky’.
With Martin conveniently gone, that leaves Olivia and Dorota, who have both been very quiet, to finish what he started.
‘What about you, Olivia?’ asks Rachel. ‘Can you think of anything you can give up for four weeks?’
Olivia thinks about this, twirling her hair around her finger (it’ll need washing tonight). ‘How long is four weeks?’
‘Twenty eight days,’ says Jeremy, pouncing on the question like it’s a quiz.
Olivia considers her cousin’s answer, still twirling. ‘Is that a really, really, really long time?’
‘No, darling,’ says Steve. ‘Though it can seem like it.’
‘Well, then,’ she says, taking a deep breath. ‘My sticky pictures?’
‘Your sticky pictures? But you love doing your sticky pictures,’ Steve says, an expression of amazement on his face that his middle daughter could sacrifice so much.
We all look at her sticky pictures, stuck all over the fridge. My fridge.
‘I do love my sticky pictures,’ she agrees. ‘But they are a bit, um, sticky, aren’t they, Mummy?’She looks at me for verification.
‘Well, yes.’
‘And we don’t like sticky things, do we, Mummy?’
‘Well, no.’
This is the moment when I should be encouraging Olivia’s creativity. But instead I feel relief that we’ll have a break from the barrage of celebrities. So I don’t dissuade her. Besides, everyone is now waiting expectantly for Dorota who has just poured herself another glass of sherry.
She meets our communal gaze. ‘Okay, okay, I give up the sherry. It won’t bother me at all. Not one little bit.’ Then she downs her glass with a back-flick of her hennaed head, on the off chance we start Lent right now.
In the silence that follows, ballooning up around us, as we each consider the consequences of what we have put on the line, we can hear Martin overhead, banging about in the bathroom. Martin who started this off but isn’t here to offer up his own sacrifices. Typical. One rule for him. Still, it would take time for him to pick a vice. There’s such a long list.
And who’s he sprucing himself up for now?
Later Steve tells his mother he’s going out. ‘I’ve got a meeting.’
Dorota says nothing.
‘An Alpha meeting.’
She shrugs her shoulders.
He stoops to kiss her anyway. ‘And maybe you could think about giving Dad a ring?’ He says this gently, a hopeful smile on his slightly harassed face. The smile broadens briefly when she says: ‘I’ll think about it.’ Then it goes again when she adds: ‘I’ve thought about it and the answer is no.’
I go into the dark garden, all the way up to the end, and take a deep, deep breath. Foxes. Then I howl like a vixen and the scream is caught up by the Sutton train, hauling it off to Kent.
Thoughts for the Day: If Jesus came back to earth, would he make it into the pages of Hello?
February 5th 1978
I showed Mum the photo. She was repotting a spider plant in the front room and there was soil all over the rug. I wanted to get out the carpet sweeper but I wanted to know about the photo more.
Who is this with Dad? I asked.
Mum turned away from me and yanked off a brown leaf. I wasn’t sure if she had heard me but then she said it’s Jack. Your Uncle Jack.
I said I didn’t know Dad had a brother. She said not a real brother but like a brother. I asked if we’d met him and she said no. I asked her why not.
She rubbed her hands on her skirt and looked out the window like he might be standing out there in the street waving at her.
I looked too but then I felt silly because she said he’s dead, that’s why.
Chapter Twenty: Wednesday 6th February Ash Wednesday
My breasts are being attacked with miniature knives dipped in molten lava cutting and scorching every time I even think about moving. I woke this morning, on the floor of Rachel and Olivia’s room, having started my Lenten fast straightaway last night, to find engorged, twin peaks of burning, curdling milk.
But it’s alright. There’s a plan, carefully constructed last night between Steve and myself to help Imo and me through the first day of Lent and making use of Dorota whose appearance yesterday, if not exactly welcomed by me, was, according to Steve, another God-incidence. While Steve is at the early Ash Wednesday service, Dorota is on standby, armed with a bottle and an iron will, so I won’t give in if Imo kicks up a fuss when she realises she has to forgo her morning feed.
As for me, I’m leaving the house, keeping out of the way for the whole morning. Steve is going to work from home, not that he’ll get an awful lot done with Dorota and Imo battling for his attention. But maybe, hopefully, he’ll get the chance for a heart to heart with his mother. He’ll manage. It’s me I’m worried about. A morning off and for the first time in a decade I am at a loss. Steve gave me some options, wrote them down on the back of an envelope, in his scrappy, plumber capitals to make them seem more real.
SWIMMING (I’ll never get these breasts into my swimming costume and even if I got that far and eased myself into the baths, I would prove Archimedes theory on water displacement for all to see.)
SHOPPING (We have no money and window shopping is depressing.)
A WALK (There’s only Penge High Street and the park and I spend most of my life in these places and can’t walk an inch without being spotted so why would I go there of my own accord?)
VISITING A FRIEND (I no longer have any friends.)
CHURCH (The service is nearly over and if I go down there now I’ll be cornered by well-meaning, nosy, demanding parishioners.)
DAD (I can’t bear to go that far away. When I know Imo can survive a while without me then yes, maybe a day in Worthing on my own, checking up on the tattooed lady, would be possible. Not that I like to think my baby will be able to survive without me. What mother does like to think that?)
So that leaves the last option:
A CAFE (But where? KFC, Burger King, Southern Fried Chicken. No thanks. Seeing as Steve has kindly offered me the car, I will go to the place I feel most comfortable. Try something new today.)
Is it really the coffee that drew me here? The ambient lighting? The colour scheme? Or is this the limit of my world?
Today I must drink my machine-dispensed latte alone, reading St Hilda’s Parish News as that’s all I had in my bag. Though not quite alone. Here comes Amanda, pushing a trolley, laden with bread and fish, enough to feed the mouths of Penge, not a cleaning product in sight. Too late to hide under the table.
‘Vicky! What on earth are you doing here? All on your own!’ Customers look up from their eggs and bacon and take in Amanda’s presence. She is not what you’d call discreet. Not one of those people who blend into the background. But she’s even more conspicuous with the smudgy grey cross on her forehead, the visible reminder that she has done her duty and gone to the Ash Wednesday service. Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return. If I didn’t know this I could be forgiven for assuming she was the local mad lady. Or just dirty – which, of course, she is.
‘Can I get you a coffee, Amanda?’
She is tempted. For a brief moment. But then she gets a grip and tells me with some determination: ‘I’ve given up coffee for Lent.’
‘Tea, then.’
‘Haven’t got time.’
‘No time for a cup of tea? Really, Amanda, you must make time for yourself every now and then.’
Amanda says nothing. She has never been offered advice by her protégée before and is unsure what is happening to the status quo. The status quo is having a machine-dispensed latte, reading the Parish News. To coin a phrase of Rachel’s: ‘big wow’. But it is a big wow, clearly. Amanda abandons her trolley – if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em – and fetches herself a hot chocolate. It’s what Jesus would have done, I know. I saw her checking her WWJD wristband. I’m not sure he’d be in Sainsbury’s. I think he’d be where the needy are, at Lidl.
She eases herself onto the plastic chair, jewellery clanging, an assortment of colourful scarves wafting 70s style perfume over me – Tweed or Charlie, something Mum used to wear – and attacks her hot chocolate with gusto. She proffers me a doughnut. ‘Thought I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’
Not sure that’s the official Church of England view on sin but I let it go.
‘Thanks. I didn’t get round to breakfast.’
She stops chewing, watching me navigate the mound of sugar on my doughnut, waiting for me to elaborate. Which I decide is probably the best thing to do or she’ll never leave me alone and part of the plan devised by Steve and I was that I would have some time alone. He said it would do me good. This wasn’t what I had in mind. Under different circumstances I would’ve used that Sanctuary voucher but ironically, at the point when I most need to be pampered, I’m not in a fit state.