This Holey Life

by Sophie Duffy

  ‘No, you definitely won’t get hairs on your chest. That’s just a joke of Granddad’s. He used to say it to me as well and last time I looked I didn’t have any hairs on my chest.’

  Olivia sighs with relief and then spies the tin in my hands.

  ‘Ooh, Mummy,’ she breathes. ‘What’s in there?’ She starts to go through the contents carefully, somehow knowing these are special things.

  ‘This is Grandma’s tin,’ I tell her. ‘Like Mummy’s tin back home.’

  ‘I miss Grandma,’ a voice says. It is Rachel. She has crept into the room as well, shuffling onto her bottom and sitting alongside us.

  ‘Can you remember her, Rach?’

  ‘Course,’ she says, as if it’s the most stupid question she’s ever been asked. ‘She had curly hair like grandmas in books and she gave me chocolate buttons and cut the crusts off my soldiers. You always make me eat the crusts on my soldiers.’ Rachel’s not one for letting anything go.

  ‘They’re good for you.’

  ‘Well, I miss her.’

  ‘Me too, darling,’ I tell her, gently, squeezing her cold hand. ‘I miss her too.’

  Olivia carries on studying the postcards and letters and then she stops for a moment and leans back on her heels, looking from her sister to me. ‘Are you sure you’re not going to die, Mummy?’ she asks.

  ‘Not till I’m very old.’ I give her a smile, which I hope is full of reassurance. I don’t know if I can promise such things. Is it right to make her believe this? Or should I prepare her for the fact that life is fragile? That it can crack and shatter in a moment.

  Rachel is holding the photograph of Dad and Uncle Jack, handling it delicately as black and white means precious.

  ‘Very, very old, Mummy?’ Olivia is still in need of reassurance, her eyes wide and dark and full of uncertainty.

  ‘Very, very old, Olivia.’ I squeeze her hand tighter and grab hold of Rachel’s too. Reassurance of my own.

  ‘Who’s old?’ asks another voice. Dad has climbed the stairs and is standing holding onto the door handle, breathing heavily. ‘Are you talking about me?’

  ‘No, Dad, don’t get paranoid. We were just talking about, you know, stuff.’

  ‘Oh yes, Stuff. I know all about Stuff.’ He winks at the girls, who giggle, which makes Dad stand up tall, chest back and head held high. He’s still got it, whatever it is he thinks he’s got. Whatever it was that made Mum giggle like a girl all their married life. You could hear it at night, as the house settled to sleep, Mum’s giggles drifting like snow. Magical Christmas snow. It wasn’t embarrassing, cringing giggling, giggling you don’t want to associate with your parents. Giggling like Dorota. It was what he said to her, summing up the day, a way with words, a silver tongue to go with his green fingers. He misses his audience, his captive audience that used to hang on his every word, even when she was shattered from a day out in the open, shovelling and digging and pushing wheelbarrows. She always had a last scrap of energy to muster up a giggle. I’m not the giggling kind but the girls do their best to make up for this whether they mean to or not.

  As I watch Dad watch the girls, I see a flicker of something cross his brow like a cloud passing overhead on a fine summer’s day, unexpected and unwanted. Then as soon as it’s come, it disappears, replaced by the smile, but the smile doesn’t quite do it this time. It doesn’t quite brighten the eyes or wrinkle his brow. I look back at the girls. Maybe they’re up to no good all of a sudden. Not taking care.

  But no, they are still sitting as well as they can, Olivia holding the tin like it’s the Ark of the Covenant, Rachel still with the snapshot in her hand. Turning back to Dad I realise that it is Rachel he is watching, her hand. He is looking at the photograph, remembering his old pal, Jack.

  ‘Do you want to have a look, Dad?’ I ask him, reaching for the photo but he waves me away.

  ‘No, no, you’re alright, Vicky-Love. I need a cup of tea. Jeremy was supposed to be putting the kettle on. I can look anytime I want. Make sure you put it away safely.’ And he’s gone, shuffling off and breathing heavily like his son. Martin.

  Thoughts for the Day: Perhaps we could deck over our garden – then I wouldn’t have to worry about the weeds.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Wednesday 20th February

  Time to go home. Relief combined with regret. I should have talked to Dad more but it’s been tricky with the kids and Pat and the ‘stuff’ and trying to spend some time with Steve. Right now Steve is outside packing up the car, assisted by his new apprentice, Jeremy.

  Inside, the girls trail after Pat while she does her chores, asking her intimate questions that she answers with more honesty than I feel comfortable with.

  As for me, I am sitting on the dustbowl with Dad who is watching the box, for a change. I am giving Imo a last feed. We’ve been doing pretty well, just mornings and bedtimes but she needs one for the road. I’ll knuckle down once we’re back and our routine gets under way again.

  Imo drifts off and I tip her up and pat her back gently, her soft warm back, gathering the energy to speak to Dad, last chance for a while. ‘So you’ll be alright with us going home? You’ll manage?’

  ‘I’ve got Pat,’ he says, matter-of-fact, eyes on the screen.

  ‘Yes, you’ve got Pat.’ I wind Imo a little more vigorously.

  ‘And what about the anaemia? What have the doctors said about that?’

  ‘They said I wasn’t eating properly. They said proper grub and some iron tablets will sort me out.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, insist you get another blood test soon. To make sure your blood’s back to normal.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with my blood. Pat’s doing me some liver and bacon later. Special treat, she said.’

  I bet she did.

  I’m about to say something to this effect when Dad zaps off the telly, rests the remote on his knees, sitting still like he’s in church, waiting for the right moment to speak. It’s suddenly very quiet. The clock ticks on the mantelpiece. Rachel and Olivia screech somewhere upstairs, like baby gulls.

  ‘You can get help, you know,’ he says, a slight tremor in his normally assured voice.

  ‘With the kids... ?’

  ‘No, not the kids. You’re doing a grand job with the kids. For you, I mean.’ His knees jig up and down; the remote wobbles.

  ‘What... a cleaner?’

  ‘You really think you need a cleaner?’ Dad tries a smile.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then. No, I mean for your... for Thomas. You can get help to get over it.’ The remote falls to the floor and as I reach down for it, clutching a heavy Imo, Dad stops me, grabbing my hand and holding it the way I held my daughters’ yesterday on his bedroom floor, Mum all around me.

  ‘Get over it?’

  He lets go of my hand, hearing the sharp note in my words.

  ‘I mean “him”. Get over “him”.’

  ‘I don’t want to get over him, Dad. Why should I get over him? It’s all I’ve got left. This... thing.’

  ‘It’s called grief, Vicky-Love and it’s been going on long enough. I know you’ll never get right over him,’ he goes on, ‘I’ll never get over losing your mum. But... look at me, Vicky... you can feel better about things. I feel better about things. It doesn’t stop me missing her, mind, but I don’t wake up and wonder what’s the point in getting up no more. I want to get up and have my cuppa and listen to the radio. I want to get out in the garden and smell the sweet peas, pick the runners, sow the potatoes. See spring and autumn come and go, the year passing. It was winter for a long time but now the sun’s shining.’

  We look out the window at the flat grey Worthing sky.

  ‘Not brilliant sunshine, granted, but enough to lighten your day every now and then... ’ He catches his breath. ‘Steve must know someone. You get all sorts in churches.’

  The phone goes, grabbing our attention. Here’s my chance to avoid carrying on this conversa
tion. I plonk Imo on his lap, rush over and pick it up.

  ‘Vicky, you coming home today?’

  ‘Tamarine?’

  ‘Yes, yes, is me, Tamarine. You coming home today?’

  ‘We’re leaving any minute now. Is everything alright?’

  ‘There is problem with your brother. He had fight with my Bob. And my Bob better fighter than your brother. Your brother he got brains somewhere I guess though I can’t see them but my Bob he got muscle. Your brother he’s in your house. I let him in with your keys. I try to keep him out of Bob’s way. You better come back and sort him out.’

  Tamarine’s gone before I can ask what the fight was about. Instead I kiss Dad goodbye, peppermint and compost, ignoring the exasperated look he tries to pin on me, telling him I’ll phone him later, there’s a problem at home with Bob.

  I don’t mention Martin. Not till I know more. Not to protect Martin, to protect Dad. He doesn’t need this. I don’t need this. But I need to go home. My home.

  We reach Dulwich around lunchtime. Indeed Claudia is already having a lunch of smoked salmon and her favoured organic crusty bread as we drop Jeremy off. I leave Steve in the car with the girls while I escort Jeremy inside so it’s just he and I who stumble across Claudia’s lunch guest and I realise that it is her writer. Woody Allen. Jeremy shows an extraordinary lack of guile, beaming a bright ‘hello, Mum’, as if this wasn’t a man after his father’s crown. But Claudia gives the game away, her cheeks flushing like she’s had a bad glass of red wine, coughing like she’s swallowed a stray fish bone.

  I give Jeremy a squeeze of the shoulder and leave him with his adulterous mother.

  To add insult to injury, as we are chugging out of Dulwich, I spot the wretched shoe-fitting student, Melanie. She is hand-in-hand with a tall, slim, cleanly-shaven young man, strutting towards the park. And if she notices me giving her daggers, she ignores it. She stares boldly ahead like she is the only woman in the world, and her newly-found partner is the only boy. How fickle are the young. How stupid the middle-aged.

  Martin is sitting in our kitchen when we get back, a bag of garden peas strapped to the side of his face with Jeremy’s old school tie. He has a black eye and dried blood on his cheek, right above the skanky beard. He glances up from his work and smiles as if he is the bountiful host, welcoming unexpected guests. ‘Cup of tea, anyone?’

  Rachel says: ‘Wow, Uncle Martin, cool.’ Then, seeing my face, backs out the room, joining Olivia who has gone straight to the telly.

  Steve deposits Imo, asleep in her bucket, on the messed-up table and says: ‘No, no, Martin, you sit there while I put the kettle on,’ as if Martin has been mugged, as if he’s been invalided through no fault of his own.

  ‘Never mind the tea, Martin. What the hell have you been playing at?’

  ‘Ask that... ignoramus next door.’

  ‘So this is Bob’s fault, is it?’

  ‘Him and the Thai bride.’

  ‘Leave Tamarine out of this.’ Sexist, racist pig. Though, hang on... Tamarine? ‘What’s this got to do with Tamarine?’

  Martin is quiet for a moment, weighing up how much to tell me, I know that scheming mind of his. He used it on Mum and Dad often enough. How much could he let on without getting into trouble? How much could he hold back without getting found out? He takes a puff of his inhaler to add to the invalid effect.

  Steve leaves us, taking Imo with him. I have Martin to myself and I am going to let rip if needs must. ‘Well?’

  ‘Don’t try your primary school teacher tactics on me. They won’t wash. I’m not a naughty boy.’

  ‘Exactly, Martin. You’re an adult and yet you’ve been fighting. Would you care to tell me why?’

  ‘It’s all Bob’s fault.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Yes, really. He reckoned I was chatting up his wife and told me to eff off. So I punched him.’

  ‘You punched Bob? Haven’t you heard of the concept of walking away or turning the other cheek? Even a Dawkins follower like you must agree that’s a good way of avoiding confrontations.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Me? Ridiculous? I’m not the one sat there with a bag of Bird’s Eye on my head.’

  Martin slouches further down the chair and removes the bag. I snatch the peas off him and put them back in the freezer; they’re starting to drip. Without thinking I make him a cup of tea while he sits there sighing and moaning and taking more puffs.

  ‘Have you got any painkillers? It’s starting to hurt.’

  I remove two aspirins from the packet in my handbag and hand them over with his tea. I have no words and the surprise of me not berating him does something to Martin. It gets him talking without me having to probe.

  ‘I was only passing the time of day. She’s a nice woman,’ he says as if ‘nice’ and ‘woman’ are words that rarely go together.

  ‘She was telling me she came over here to study for a masters and I only asked her how she ended up washing Bob’s car and looking after his kid.’

  ‘What business is it of yours how she lives her life? Maybe she likes washing Bob’s car. And I know for a fact she loves Jessica like she was her own.’ I pour myself a glass of wine, forget tea. I can’t believe the cheek of the man. He barely knows Tamarine yet he expects her to live a life he’s never let his own wife live, not without huge amounts of jealousy and fuss. ‘And did Bob hear you say all this?’

  ‘Not exactly. It was just bad timing.’

  ‘In what way bad timing?’

  ‘She dropped her sponge and I was picking it up and... ’

  ‘Stop.’ I hold my hand up. ‘I don’t actually want to know any more details – it’s all a bit too Carry On if you ask me.’

  ‘That fat pillock made false accusations. I merely showed an interest in her academic career and suggested she give me a ring. I was only handing her my card.’

  ‘You and your stupid cards.’

  ‘You’re just jealous you don’t have any. Why don’t you get some printed up? Mrs Vicky-Love, Patron Saint of Good Housekeeping and Smugness.’

  ‘Believe me, Martin,’ I whisper. ‘If I had money to waste, it wouldn’t be on stupid poncey cards. And as for smugness, you beat me there, hands down. You beat me at everything. Except for housekeeping. I’m a good housekeeper. You’re right there. Nobody bothered when we were growing up. And I don’t see anyone queuing up to do it now.’

  Martin looks bemused. And then he says it; he says those words. Words he used to say all the time whenever I got het up about anything. He says: ‘Why are you getting your knickers in a twist?’

  And all those holidays in Worthing cramped into the B&B, all those Christmases sat watching Morecambe and Wise, enduring his running commentaries and eating all the best Quality Streets, all those Eurovisions, all those trips down the chemist, all my friends swooning at his big fat smelly feet, all these last few weeks running around, picking up after his responsibilities, all these images swim before my eyes and then merge and blur into one hellish red and I feel my arm swing back and then, for one glorious moment, my fist touches his face, bodily contact for the first time in our lives, Martin and I. One glorious second and then my brother is lying on the floor, curled up on his back like a swatted fly, his hands covering what was his good eye, a train of expletives filling the warm air of my kitchen. I go to the fridge, my fridge, to the ice compartment and, before leaving for the garden, I lob the peas at his horizontal body, sprawled on the kitchen floor. My kitchen floor. Ha!

  Thoughts for the Day: I have no thoughts. My mind is empty. Blissfully, miraculously empty.

  February 26th 1978

  Martin is in trouble. Big trouble. A policeman came to the house and told Mum and Dad that Martin has been up to no good in the park. The parky caught him smoking. But then it gets worse. Ha, ha! Martin showed off in front of these fifth years from the Girls Grammar. He set fire to a rocket and it landed in the pond. Two ducks had a heart attack and were floating on the wate
r.

  The police are not going to lock him up in jail, worse luck. He has been given a warning. Boo. But Dad is really angry with him. He said that he always had a feeling something like this would happen. Der! I could have told him that. Martin has done stupid things all his life. It’s just that he doesn’t usually get caught.

  And when Heidi finds out he’s been flirting with the Grammar girls she will be cross. But I don’t want her to chuck Martin because I like Heidi. She makes Martin less of a pig. At least some of the time.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Tuesday 26th February

  We have been home nearly a week and in that time I have seen neither my brother nor my nephew. I miss one, certainly not the other. I feel no remorse for flooring Martin, just relief that I didn’t do this in front of my children who I have told countless times that violence is wrong. I agree that violence is wrong but I also feel that on occasion, under duress or when there is no other choice, it is understandable, or even needed. The moment my fist came into contact with my brother’s face was both understandable and needed. How else would he have known that what he did was wrong? Hitting on another man’s wife and then hitting the husband? I had no choice. And one consequence of this is that he hasn’t come near the place. My job here is done.

  Rachel’s assembly. A school hall, heady with the smell of musty plimsolls and yesterday’s mashed potato. Steve and I have found two seats, next to Tamarine and Bob. We wait impatiently and somewhat anxiously, a child apiece wriggling on our laps, for the show to get underway. We never know if Rachel will join in or limply stand there, wearing her face of scorn. It is uncomfortable, squatting on the miniature chairs, brushed up against Bob’s fat thighs, but I grin and bear it. Now is the time to be working on our friendship, sabotaged by my brother. These are our next door neighbours; they have to put up with the constant visitors to our house, with Imo’s screams, with the general racket that goes on in our family. Admittedly we have to put up with Jessica’s ball-kicking and Bob’s ways but that’s what you do with your neighbours. You learn to live with each other’s idiosyncrasies and you are there when they run out of teabags or with a spare key. I never have to see my brother again.