by Anna Hope
‘Take a seat, Cate,’ says Zoe. ‘Excuse the mess.’
Cate perches on the seat of a battered sofa, which is covered with throws and cushions. Sunlight slants in from the window behind, warming her back. Kilner jars compete for shelf space with books and toys and bottles, glinting in the sunlight. More books lie in piles on every other surface. A biography of Louise Bourgeois is being used as a plant stand. There is dust on the dado rails and the floorboards are scuffed. Washing-up is piled in the sink. The sight of the dirty plates invokes in Cate a mild but profound sense of relief. ‘Have you lived here long?’ she asks.
‘Five years.’ Dea shakes herbs into a pot. ‘We were in the States before that. I was teaching at a university out there, which is where we met. But I’m a Kent girl. I grew up just outside the city. What about you? Have you been in Canterbury a while?’
‘Almost two months. We moved when Tom was five months old.’
‘That can’t have been easy.’
‘It was OK,’ Cate lies.
‘Where are you living?’
‘Over the other side of town. Wincheap way.’
‘I know it over there,’ says Dea. ‘We have an allotment, round the back of Toddler’s Cove.’
‘Well, lovely to meet you, Cate,’ says Zoe. ‘I’m just off to do a little work while Nora naps.’
‘Oh, the spacious joys of a funded PhD.’
‘Oh, the joys of fully paid maternity leave,’ says Zoe, blowing Dea a kiss. ‘Hey,’ she says, turning at the door. ‘You should set something up, you two. Something chilled. Something where mothers get together.’
‘We’re doing it.’ Dea walks over with a cup of tea and hands it to Cate. ‘Aren’t we, Cate? This is it. This is our group. Right here. Right now.’
‘Er … yeah, I guess so,’ says Cate. She lifts her tea – it is pale yellow and gently fragrant. Small flowers float on the surface.
Dea slides herself on to the sofa beside Cate. ‘Mum Club. The only rule of Mum Club is that we don’t talk about Mum Club. Right?’
Zoe laughs and rolls her eyes. ‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ she says with a wave.
When Zoe has gone, Dea turns to Cate. ‘Chocolate biscuit? I’ve got a stash.’
‘Um. Sure.’
Dea reaches into the cupboard behind her and takes out a tin. ‘Amazing the stuff you find yourself buying when you become a mum. I’d forgotten how delicious chocolate fingers are.’ Cate leans in and takes one.
‘So …’ says Dea. ‘How are you doing, Cate?’
‘I’m …’ Cate falters, taken aback, her mouth full of biscuit. ‘I’m OK,’ she says.
‘We tell the truth in Mum Club,’ says Dea reprovingly. ‘I’ll go first. Ask me. Ask me how I’m doing.’
‘Um … how are you doing, Dea?’
‘Hmm. Let’s see.’ Dea closes her eyes for a moment. ‘Well, I sleep on average five hours a night. I used to be a person that slept for eight or more. If I didn’t get my sleep I would freak out. I’m still that person, somewhere inside, but I don’t think I’ve completed a full sleep cycle since my daughter was born. My knee has flared up. It’s an old injury, exacerbated by lugging my daughter in a sling, which seemed like the best and most wonderful thing to do when she was three weeks old and now is feeling like a less good idea. But it’s the only place that she’ll sleep. So. My boobs are enormous. I was told they would go down. They haven’t gone down. My left shoulder has seized up. I’m assailed night and day by visions of horrors: my daughter falling, my daughter hurting herself, someone hurting her. I can’t listen to the news without crying or switching it off. I haven’t had sex since my daughter was born.’
Cate smiles.
‘You think it’s funny?’
Dea sips her tea. The chocolate fills Cate’s mouth with sweetness.
‘There’s more, but – you know. I can keep it till next time. Now,’ Dea says, turning to Cate. ‘Tell me. How are you?’
She has made pasta and tomatoes; olive oil, a little bit of chilli. A knuckle of Parmesan she forgot she had at the back of the fridge is grated over the top. A portion for Tom in his little green bowl is ready to go, and a bottle of red is open on the table.
The door goes and she hears Sam hang up his coat in the hall. ‘Hey.’ He sniffs the air. ‘Something smells good.’
‘I thought I’d make some food.’ She scoops Tom up from where he has been playing on the floor. ‘C’mon, poppet. Come and try some pasta.’
The pasta is rather successful. Tom proves surprisingly adept at fingering farfalle and sucking off the sauce. When the meal is finished, when she and Sam have both had a glass and a half of wine each, Sam offers to give Tom his bath and Cate sits at the table, listening to them giggling and singing together. When the bath is done Sam brings him back down, his hair curly and wet, and she kisses his forehead. ‘Who’s my boy?’ she says. ‘Who’s my lovely boy?’
‘Shall I get him in his PJs?’ says Sam.
‘Yes, please.’
When she collected Tom from Alice’s he was happy and calm.
She rises and does the washing-up, wipes down the table, and pours herself another half glass of wine.
The truth?
Yeah. We tell the truth.
The way Dea had said it, as though she wanted to hear the answer. As though anything other than the truth would not be good enough.
The truth is I’m scared too.
Go on. What of?
Of everything. All the time. I’m lonely. I’m in pain. I still can’t deal with the fact that they sliced me open. I feel like a failure. As a woman. As a mother. I get everything wrong. My mother isn’t here. I miss her. I realize I’ve always missed her. She didn’t prepare me at all. I’m angry that she left me on my own. I’m not coping. Not coping. No one told me it would be like this.
I think I married the wrong person.
She didn’t say the last bit, but she said all the rest. Once it started, it didn’t stop. And Dea sat there, listening – the simple, heady oxygen of being listened to.
So. Same time next week? Mum Club?
Yeah. Same time next week.
‘Hey.’ Sam comes into the room. ‘Tom seems on good form. Did it go well with Mum then?’
‘Oh,’ says Cate. ‘Yeah.’ She drains her glass. ‘I think it’s going to work.’
Lissa
They are going to play a game, Klara says. Although it is a serious game, a technique, a technique for getting out of the skin. They need this technique because they are stiff. They are stiff in an English way. Not like the Russians. The Russians are not stiff, not at all. They have vodka and grief and the blood of the land in their veins, and the English have weak tea and the damp.
So.
The director stares around the room – her cast is assembled before her, a full roll call. It is first thing Monday morning, the beginning of the third week.
‘Leesa.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘You are stiff. Always you are stiff. See how you sit? What does Vanya say about Yelena?’ She turns to Johnny. ‘About the way she is?’
‘If you could see the way you look,’ says Johnny, fixing Lissa with his eyes. ‘The way you move. The indolence of your life. The sheer indolence of it.’
‘Thank you, Johnny. So, Leesa – does Yelena sit like this?’ She crosses her hands over her lap in imitation of Lissa’s posture. ‘No. You are English. You are all wrong. Why did I choose English people to interpret this Russian play? I am crazy. Never again. Leesa – do you know the Meisner technique?’
Lissa nods; she does. ‘We did it at drama school. Although it’s years since—’
‘Good. Sit here, please.’
A chair is produced and Lissa dutifully makes her way into the middle of the space and sits upon it. ‘And you’ – Klara turns on her heel and points to Michael – ‘you are also stiff. You are only on stage for five minutes but you are stiff. It is horrible. Come here.’
Michael stands, runs his hand through his hair. He is g
rinning. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Nice one.’
‘Michael, do you know this technique?’
Michael shakes his head.
‘Leesa. Describe it to Michael, please.’
Lissa crosses her legs at the ankle, then uncrosses them. ‘So … as far as I can remember … it starts by one or other of us noticing something about the other person. I will notice something about you, something on the surface at first. It may be what you are wearing. I might say, You are wearing a blue top. And you repeat it back to me. I am wearing a blue top. We do that for a bit, and then we go deeper—’
‘Stop!’ Klara slaps the desk. ‘Enough explanation. Begin.’
Michael gives a quick barking laugh. Lissa takes a breath.
‘Your hair,’ she says, ‘is … shaped like a quiff.’
Michael smiles. ‘My hair is shaped like a quiff?’ he says, giving the word a little upward tick.
‘STOP.’
Michael turns towards the director.
‘No acting.’ Klara bangs the table and Poppy the ASM jumps. ‘You are acting. If this is your acting, I am glad you have no lines in this play. The point is not to act.’
Chastened, Michael turns back to Lissa, who shoots him a compassionate look, and they begin again.
‘You look pale,’ says Lissa.
‘I look pale.’
‘You look pale.’
‘I look pale.’
She can see he is frozen now, too frightened to make a move.
She remembers her teacher at drama school, a small intense man who believed passionately in this way of working. Call what you see, was what he always said when they used the Meisner technique. Put your attention on the other person, look closely, and call what you see. ‘You look scared,’ she says to Michael.
‘I look scared,’ Michael agrees.
‘You look scared.’
The game stumbles on limply as Klara hisses and tuts and shakes her head.
‘STOP. This is terrible. Terrible.’ She waves Michael off the stage with a vicious hand.
‘Je–sus,’ he says under his breath, as he stands and hitches his jeans. ‘Good luck.’
‘You.’ Klara twitches her head towards where Johnny sits. ‘Johnny. Your turn.’
Johnny rises silently and comes to take Michael’s place.
He is still, very still, for a long while, watching her. His gaze is soft. She feels it brush her shoulders, her stomach, her feet, her breasts. She is aware of her legs, tightly crossed again – when did that happen? – the position of her hands. Aware of the heat in her palms, under her armpits. She is aware of the balance of power, of how it belongs to him. Then, ‘You look sad,’ he says.
‘I look sad,’ repeats Lissa, surprised.
‘You look sad.’
‘I look sad.’
‘You look sad.’
‘I look sad.’
‘You’re turning red.’
‘I’m turning red.’
‘You’re turning red.’
‘I’m turning red.’
‘You’re upset.’
‘I’m upset.’
‘I’ve upset you.’
‘I’ve upset you, no’ – she stumbles – ‘you’ve upset me.’
‘I’ve upset you.’
She can feel her cheeks flaming. ‘You – have a black shirt,’ she says.
Johnny raises an eyebrow. ‘I have a black shirt,’ he repeats.
‘STOP.’ They turn to Klara, who is out of her chair now, incandescent.
‘Why did you do this? Why did you talk about his shirt? Something was happening. Something was starting to happen for the first time in this stinking fucking room and you talk about his shirt? No. Now. Go again.’
Johnny turns back slowly, smiles at her. It is the smile of an assassin. His blue eyes barely blink. ‘You’re uncomfortable,’ he says.
‘I’m uncomfortable.’
‘You’re uncomfortable.’
‘I’m uncomfortable.’
‘I make you uncomfortable.’
‘You make me uncomfortable.’
‘I make you uncomfortable.’
‘You make me uncomfortable.’
‘You look sad.’
‘I look sad.’
‘You look sad.’
‘I look sad.’
‘You have a sad face.’
‘I have a sad face.’
Her throat is tightening. There is no time to recover from the last blow before he is on to the next.
‘You’ve lost something.’
‘I’ve lost something.’
She can feel it – the other members of the cast, sitting forward in their seats. As the ranged faces become an audience, the invisible filaments between her and them tightening, something is happening.
‘You’re crying.’
‘I’m crying.’
‘You’re crying.’
‘I’m crying.’
‘Good!’ Klara is hopping. ‘Now. Now. Begin your scene.’
She needs fresh air. She pushes her way outside and stands in the grotty stairwell, staring up at the sky.
Michael is out there already. ‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘That was harsh. But electric.’
Lissa says nothing.
Behind her, Johnny appears.
‘Fucking electric, mate,’ says Michael. Johnny ignores him. Michael nods to himself. ‘Electric,’ he says, into the void.
‘That was rather good,’ says Johnny to Lissa. ‘You could be a much better actor, you know, than you allow yourself to be. If you just let go.’
She has the afternoon to herself. She does not wish to go home. Nor does she wish to stay any longer in the room and watch the rest of the day’s rehearsal, and so she climbs on the bus into town, the rackety old 73: Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, Old Street, Angel, King’s Cross. The sky is low and yellow, and it is starting to rain as she descends at the library. She stows her coat and bag in the lockers, flashes her reader’s card at the guard on the door of Rare Books, finds a seat and sits down. In the hush she closes her eyes.
She is hollow; there is nothing inside her, nothing tethering her, not talent, not success. Johnny is right – she has lost something. Or many things. Or she never had them. She is the sum total only of her failures. She is so hollow she could float up over these people, their heads bent in industry, up and out over this city, this city that she has loved but which does not love her back, which does not give her what she needs to live, only to survive.
She is going to go downstairs and get her stuff and call her agent and tell her she is pulling out of the play, that she is giving up this excuse of a career.
She goes down to the cloakroom and collects her coat and bag, walks out across the echoing foyer towards the doors, and then she sees him. She knows it is him even though he is facing away from her. He is hunched and he is not speaking but it is clear that whoever is on the other end of the phone is speaking a great deal. Lissa hangs back, hands in the pockets of her coat. After a short time he turns off his phone and she sees him stand, perfectly still for a couple of seconds, and then look up. She goes to him and touches him on the arm. Nathan jumps.
‘Lissa. Hey.’
‘You OK?’
He pushes his hands through his hair. His eyes look wild. ‘I just need to … Cigarette. Have you got one?’
‘Sure.’
They make their way past the security guards, out to the small overhang that offers a little shelter from the rain, which is falling in earnest now. She hands him the tobacco, stands back while he rolls.
‘Sorry,’ he says, as he puts the cigarette to his mouth.
‘For what?’
He looks up at her and his eyes are startled. ‘I don’t know. I’m just – used to saying sorry, I suppose. Sorry for smoking. I shouldn’t be smoking.’
She hands him a lighter and he flicks it gratefully, leaning his head back with the release of smoke. She takes the leather pouch from him and rolls one of her own, and their smoke m
ingles in the damp air. On the concourse, people hurry over concrete, which is rain-slicked now, carrying their bags and their books. ‘Have you eaten?’ he says.
‘No.’
‘There’s a pub somewhere around here. Does … tapas or something.’
Something about the way he says ‘tapas’ makes her smile.
He looks disoriented as they cross the road, and she has to fight the urge to put a hand on to his arm and steer him through the traffic to safety.
‘It’s round here somewhere,’ he says, leading her through the redbrick flats that lie to the south of the Euston Road, along a wide Georgian terrace to a dark-looking corner pub. ‘I think this is it. It’ll do, anyway.’ He holds the door open for her. ‘Drink? I’m going to have a pint. And a whisky. You want a whisky?’
There is no further mention of food. She looks at the clock above the bar – two forty-five.
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Why not?’
She finds them a table in the corner of the bar, tucked away from the window. He comes back with two pints of Guinness and two glasses of whisky. ‘Your health.’ He gulps the whisky down, chases it with a healthy swig of Guinness. Then, as though he notices her presence properly for the first time, ‘How was your day?’ he says.
‘Awful.’
He nods grimly.
‘You?’ she says.
‘You don’t want to know.’ He lifts his head to her and she sees his despair. ‘It didn’t work. The IVF. The last go.’
She is not surprised. She wishes she were but she is not.
‘I’m lost,’ he says. ‘We’re lost. In all of it.’ He looks away to where rain has begun to dapple the window, and downs the rest of his Guinness in three open-throated gulps. ‘I’m going to get another drink. You want one? Another whisky?’
‘Sure.’
She fiddles with her phone when he has gone. Turns it on. Turns it off again. It is strange, she thinks, that Hannah has said nothing to her of this news. She finishes her whisky. Sips her pint.
There are two more Guinnesses when he returns, and two whiskies. ‘I’ll drink it, if you can’t.’ He gives a small smile as he slides them over the table towards her. ‘So go on then, why was your day so bad? Hannah says you’re in a play?’