‘Perhaps one of those deeds of covenant?’ Guy suggested. He’d been through the figures in bed this morning while the household was still asleep. It would be a pinch. They could wave goodbye to the idea of getting decorators in, and the car would have to limp on through another few MOTs, but they wouldn’t starve. And Jane always rose brilliantly to the challenge of thrift. ‘I’m not the sort of person to dodge my financial obligations,’ he finished, a trifle stiffly.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Nina, sliding her glass across to him. ‘It’s your round.’
There was quite a crowd at the bar by this stage of the evening and it took Guy a while to be served. They were both on soft drinks now. Nina had explained her predicament with regard to transport, in which she was obliged to borrow back her own car for the evening, from which Guy deduced, incorrectly, that she could no longer afford to run it. While he was waiting for the woman beside him to finish reeling off her order he caught sight of his appearance in the mirror behind the bar. His hair and the front of his shirt were limp with sweat and his face was pink and greasy like a ham left out in the sun. He looked as if he’d just staggered off a squash court. He glanced at his watch. Jane would walk in any moment now. At the thought of brokering this particular introduction Guy’s guts began to churn ominously. He abandoned his place at the bar and made it into the Gents with seconds to spare.
Outside in the car park, Jane put down Jude the Obscure, marking her place with a pay-and-display ticket from the dashboard. The book was obviously an old school edition, misappropriated by Erica years earlier, as it had St Philomena’s stamped on the endpapers and its margins were richly defaced with doodles, exclamation marks and cryptic annotations in different hands. Irony, Symbolism, cf J.S. Mill, good quote, someone had signposted at intervals throughout the text, while the less scholarly offerings included A.T. is a Big Lezzie, and a pencil drawing of a penis.
Jane locked the car and made her way towards the pub, smoothing the creases out of her T-shirt. She had dressed down for the occasion – some might say belligerently so – in faded jeans and trainers, in order to signal that she considered the event of no great moment. When she saw Nina, alone at the table, apparently reading a book, she hesitated. But before she could retreat Nina looked over, straight into her eyes, so she was forced to keep walking. ‘Hello, I’m Jane,’ she said, sliding into the seat recently vacated by her husband. ‘Where’s Guy?’
‘At the bar, I thought,’ said Nina, closing her photo album. ‘But he’s been gone rather a long time. I’m Nina. It’s nice to meet you.’ They began, tentatively, to extend right hands, and then stopped half way, laughing at the oddness of the gesture. The ice broken, Jane allowed her smile to unclench.
‘How did you know I was me?’ Nina was asking.
‘I watched you come in,’ Jane confessed, no alternative explanation leaping to her mind. ‘You were the only person who fitted the bill.’
‘Resembling one’s reputation,’ Nina said, shaking her head in despair. ‘What a thought!’
‘I didn’t mean . . .’ said Jane, who wasn’t quite sure how to take Nina. She had expected coldness, resentment, not repartee.
‘It’s all right,’ said Nina. ‘At least you didn’t mistake me for her.’ She indicated a ravaged-looking woman by the door with a brittle perm and a plunging top which exposed a tanned and leathery cleavage.
‘Imagine,’ said Jane, faintly.
‘Where are your children tonight?’ Nina went on.
‘Staying over with a friend,’ Jane replied, always glad of an excuse to invoke Erica, even tangentially and in front of a total stranger. It was only the second time they had stayed away from home but they had romped down Erica’s path in their pyjamas and slippers, toothbrushes in hand, without a backward glance.
‘It goes so quickly,’ Nina said, her hand straying to the photos again. It was a moment before Jane realized she meant childhood.
‘When observed from above, it does. My own seemed to last for ever. What have you got there?’ she added. ‘Pictures?’
‘Just shots of James growing up.’ She started to turn the pages.
‘He’s like you,’ said Jane, leaning towards her and scrutinizing the images for traces of Bromelow genes. A pleasant face – not Hollywood material, but intelligent and interesting. He had brown hair, like Guy, but the features were pure Nina. Jane felt a sense of relief at this, but wasn’t sure why. It didn’t change anything.
‘I must say, you’re taking all this . . . very well,’ said Nina.
All this shit, Erica would have said.
‘Well,’ said Jane non-committally. At last, she thought, something I’m good at.
When Guy emerged from the Gents not long afterwards, having flicked cold water in his face and dried his hair under the hand-dryer, he looked marginally cooler and less overwrought. He went to wave at Nina to reassure her that drinks were on their way, when he saw with a jolt that Jane had joined her at the table unannounced. There they sat, in one place, the mothers of his children, their heads bent together, like old friends, over the pages of a photograph album.
35
A week or so after this encounter in the Windmill, Jane was in the kitchen with Harriet, making pastry for a chicken and ham pie. Cooking with actual ingredients, Erica would call it. Harriet had her own piece of dough to maul and was rolling out a long, greasy snake while Jane lined the pie-dish. From the dining room came the jangle of a commercial radio station: a continuous spool of adverts, pop music and chat. James and Kerry were in there wallpapering – an arrangement devised by Guy and Nina to dignify an awkward transfer of funds. ‘I’d rather he worked for the money,’ Nina had said. ‘And if there are jobs around your house that he could do it would be a good way of keeping him busy this summer.’ His attempts to find orthodox employment had been unsuccessful. He had chucked in a Saturday job at Sainsbury’s before his A levels to give himself more time to study, and the temp agencies had nothing for a school-leaver without experience or special skills.
‘This is the ideal solution,’ Guy had said, when Jane expressed doubts. She didn’t relish the prospect of having someone, especially this someone, in the house all day wanting cups of tea and snacks and supervision, and generally filling up her space. ‘James gets work and we get the dining room decorated. You know you’ve wanted something done about that damp patch since we moved here.’
‘I’ll feel uncomfortable with him under my feet all day,’ she protested, but not too forcefully, because she did, after all, want the job done, and they wouldn’t now be able to afford a proper decorator. But she wanted it duly noted that she was the chief victim of the scheme’s shortcomings.
‘What if he turns out to be hopeless? DIY isn’t everybody’s thing,’ she said, pointedly. Guy had a modest selection of power tools, still in sealed boxes in the garage, and a slightly larger collection of blunt, rusty, lethal hand-tools such as might be found in a provincial museum of Victorian life. His home improvement projects tended to be characterized by vaunting ambition and minimal competence, and inevitably foundered before a finger was lifted. If the aptitude was inherited, went Jane’s reasoning, all was lost.
Her fears on this score proved to be unfounded. James was in fact reasonably diligent and painstaking. As he was being paid by the job, instead of by the hour, Jane had rather assumed he would dash the work off and be gone as quickly as possible, and was nonplussed to find him, a week on, still on the doorstep at eight every morning. He had begun by sanding down the floorboards – a noisy filthy job from which the dust was still settling. Each new day there would be a fresh fall on the window sills and picture rails. He had applied several layers of varnish to the floor which was now finished, dried and buried under layers of polythene sheeting. The rambling rose wallpaper and contrasting borders had been steamed and scraped off the walls and the room was starting to look clean and bare. All this was in sharp contrast to the rest of the property, which was having to accommodate the dini
ng room furniture and now looked full and cluttered. The Welsh dresser was in the hallway, occluding the porthole window, along with two carvers and a granddaughter clock. The living room was playing host to an extra table, four chairs and a piano, while the contents of two shelf units were stacked at the end of the marital bed. The spare room was not available. It was no longer spare: Jane was sleeping there. Ever since she had come back from her night at Erica’s she had insisted on separate rooms. It was only a case of enacting physically the sort of mental disengagement she had been feeling for months, but this new revelation of Guy’s had provided her with the perfect pretext.
‘Please don’t do this,’ Guy had begged. ‘We need each other more now, not less.’
‘Don’t think I’m trying to punish you,’ Jane said. ‘It’s only temporary. I’m still having difficulty with this whole business. I need a bit of thinking space where we’re not . . . on top of each other.’
‘You don’t love me any more is what you mean,’ said Guy.
‘This isn’t about you; it’s about me,’ Jane replied, ashamed to find herself repeating an expression she’d heard recently on an American mini-series. She prayed Guy wouldn’t recognize it.
‘What will Sophie and Harriet think? They’ll think we’re about to divorce. Perhaps we are,’ Guy added, tragically.
In typically half-baked fashion, Jane had agreed a compromise whereby she would set her alarm for 5 a.m. – assuming she was not already awake and brooding – and creep back into bed with Guy in case Sophie or Harriet should come romping in at daybreak, as frequently happened. It was understood, without being discussed or negotiated, that this concession did not signal a weakening of Jane’s resolve, or an imminent resumption of intimacies. It was simply a matter of protecting the children. As Jane’s mini-series heroine might have said: ‘This isn’t about us; it’s about them.’
‘I’ve made a willy,’ said Harriet, pointing to the pastry snake and then suddenly and violently flattening it with her clenched fist. Jane jumped at the noise and then blushed when she saw James standing in the doorway. What must he think I’ve been teaching her? she wondered. But he just laughed and ruffled Harriet’s hair – a liberty which even Jane was not permitted.
‘Can I get some more water?’ he asked. ‘This is a bit gluey.’
Jane took his bucket and refilled it at the sink. ‘Can I help?’ Harriet asked James, abandoning the pastry and sliding off her seat. In only a few days she had developed a fixation for James and would happily shadow him all day unless Jane intervened. She was often like this with older children, boys especially. At Erica’s it was Greg she followed and pestered, even though it was Will who was her own age. James, to his credit, did not discourage her attentions, put up with her insatiable questioning, laughed at her unintelligible jokes, and forbore from snapping at her when she climbed up the stepladder behind him, or wandered off with the scissors, or whatever else he had momentarily laid aside. Both he and Kerry seemed to find her cute and hilarious – adjectives which Jane only applied to Harriet in exceptional circumstances. More commonly she was apt to describe her – to her face – as difficult, stroppy, disobedient, etc.
‘No, darling. Don’t bother James. Stay and help Mummy.’ Jane laid a coronet of pastry leaves around the crimped edge of the pie and let Harriet paint the surface with beaten egg. ‘Don’t gouge,’ she instructed, her hands itching to snatch the brush away and finish the job herself. Then, leaving Harriet happily absorbed in a messy task, Jane put her head around the dining room door to check on progress and offer the workers a sandwich. The pie would not now be ready in time for lunch.
‘Would you like . . . oh!’ Jane stopped. They were standing in the uncurtained bay window, in a deep embrace. James was holding the back of Kerry’s head and kissing her as though eating a large, overripe peach. They broke apart with an audible pop. ‘Sorry,’ croaked Jane, paralysed with embarrassment at this display of adolescent passion under her own roof. She flapped her hand feebly. ‘Carry on.’
‘We were . . . er . . . just having a break,’ said James, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Papering’s nearly done.’
Jane glanced at the fireplace wall, stripped and sanded and mapped with a tracery of dried polyfilla. The rest of the walls were covered with lining paper, still wet in patches, with the odd blister showing beneath the surface. James, following the direction of her gaze, said, ‘Don’t worry about those air bubbles. They’ll pull out.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Jane agreed. She’d be back later with a brush to make sure.
They accepted her offer of a sandwich, but when she checked the bread bin it was empty. Guy must have had the crust for breakfast. ‘I’m afraid we’re out of bread,’ she called. ‘I’ll have to go round the corner.’ She rescued the pie from further damage by Harriet’s aggressively pointilliste brush-strokes, and slammed it into the oven. ‘Come on, Harry, you’ll have to come too.’
‘I want to stay here,’ said Harriet, who was now slapping beaten egg over her mangled pastry penis.
‘Well, you can’t,’ said Jane, thinking how much quicker and easier it would be if she could.
‘I’ll look after her,’ said Kerry, appearing in the doorway. She was wearing a black sports bra under white, knee-length dungarees, and clicking her tongue stud against her top teeth. A nervous habit, Jane decided, though no less revolting for that. Harriet was at Kerry’s side in one bound, taking her by the hand and dragging her towards the stairs.
‘Well . . .’ It was too good an offer to refuse. Jane had frequently felt the temptation to sneak out on some brief but pressing errand while Harriet was engrossed in a game, rather than drag her along, scuffing and whining. She’d never dared, of course. More often than not the errand would be left undone in the interests of harmony. It wasn’t as if James and Kerry were strangers, she told herself. They had been in and out of the house every day for a week now without showing any sociopathic tendencies. And he was, after all, Harriet’s brother.
‘If you’re sure. I won’t be too long.’
‘Don’t hurry. We’ll be fine,’ said Kerry, languidly, allowing herself to be led up to Harriet’s room to see the doll’s hospital.
‘They’ve all got chicken pops,’ Harriet was explaining, as Jane slipped out, childless and unencumbered into the sunshine.
It was only a further five-minute jog from the baker’s to Erica’s house. Kerry had told her not to rush. Jane bought an extra doughnut and trotted on up the hill. She often dropped in unannounced, usually with some sort of edible gift, which she would then leave on the doorstep if Erica was out, like an offering at the shrine of an idol.
Just a quick glass of water and a How are you? and I’ll go, she promised herself, her pace slowing to a limping walk as she turned into the cul-de-sac. Five years of plodding along at infant pace seemed to have wasted her leg muscles. It was only when she had occasion to break into a sprint that she realized she no longer could.
Erica’s house looked different, even from a distance. As Jane approached she saw what it was: the straggling privet hedge behind the front wall, which formerly reached the top of the ground-floor windows, blocking out most of the natural light from the sitting room, had been savagely pruned, so that it was perhaps a metre high and now displayed more twig than leaf. In the front garden, in place of the usual loose clutter, were five full black refuse bags, and as Jane opened the gate, now back on both hinges, the front door flew open and another black sack was ejected and rolled down the steps on to the path. Erica followed, staggering under the weight of a cardboard box, loaded with empties.
‘Hullo,’ Jane called, to ward off further missiles.
‘Oh, Jane, give us a hand with this,’ said Erica gratefully, allowing the box to slip forward into Jane’s chest.
‘What have you got here?’ Jane asked, conscious that the bread bag was now squashed against her ribcage.
‘Just some junk for the tip. If you can walk backwards we might get it in the car. Mind th
at!’ she added, as Jane side-stepped the lethally placed garbage bag and nearly landed in the hedge.
‘What’s going on?’ Jane asked, once the box was safely stowed in the boot alongside piles of broken garden furniture, and she had brushed herself down and peeled the fused doughnuts from the side of the loaf.
‘I’ve been having a bit of a clear-out,’ said Erica. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the crap in that place.’
Oh yes I would, thought Jane, but instead she handed over one of the crushed doughnuts, and said, ‘What’s brought this on all of a sudden? It’s a bit late for spring cleaning.’ Before the words had even left her lips she knew the answer. It hit her like a bucket of icy water. She stood there, drenched and gasping, while Erica, noticing nothing amiss, took a bite of doughnut and between munches, said, ‘I’ve got some people coming to look at the house tonight.’
‘You’re moving.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘Not selling, just letting. It’s all such a botched, spur-of-the-moment thing. Neil’s contract has been extended for two more years, so we’re going over to Kuwait.’
‘Kuwait?’ Jane repeated, as though trying to familiarize herself with the name of a newly discovered planet.
‘Yes.’ For a moment Erica appeared ill at ease, as if she had an inkling of Jane’s dependence on her. ‘Look, why don’t you come in? We don’t have to stand here in the garden,’ she said, still chewing. ‘I’ve got some iced tea in the fridge.’ She led the way into the front room which, clear of junk and bathed in sunlight, was unrecognizable as the crepuscular hovel of previous visits. Jane sat down heavily in one of the armchairs, while Erica clattered around in the kitchen. She reappeared moments later with two cans proclaiming themselves to be Traditional Long Island Diet Iced Tea. And for a second Jane had almost imagined Erica making the stuff herself. ‘Kuwait,’ she said again, her forehead crumpling into a frown.
A Dry Spell Page 30