Out of Step

by Maggie Makepeace

  ‘Mum!’ he’d said urgently. ‘Open your eyes! ‘SChristmas!’

  ‘Gerrof!’ Mic groaned, burying her face in the pillow. ‘Too early.’

  ‘But I want ter open me presents.’ He pulled the bulging sock up the bed towards her.

  Mic squinted blearily at the clock.’ ‘Snot morning for a nuvver two hours yet. Ger in, and we’ll have the rest of our kip together, yeah?’

  ‘Oh, Mum…’

  ‘Come on. I mean it.’ Gavin climbed into bed and settled down with reasonable grace, with his back to her. Mic rested her chin on his tousled ginger head, and was just about to drop off again when the door burst open and an ear-splitting cacophony of football rattle and overblown penny whistle blasted her into total wakefulness.

  ‘Yoo hoo!’ Josh cried. ‘Look what I’ve got!’

  ‘An’ me, an’ me!’ Rosie was right behind him and together they bounced onto Mic’s bed, waving their instruments.

  “Snot fair,’ Gavin protested, struggling out from Mic’s embrace and sitting up. ‘They’ve ‘ad their presents and I ‘aven’t.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Josh boasted. ‘I’ve got loads more. I bet I’ve got squillions more than you have!’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Mic said sternly. ‘It’s way too early. Back to bed the pair of you, and don’t come in ‘ere till seven. Right?’

  ‘But it’s Christmas,’ Josh complained. ‘We always get up early.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Mic said. ‘I needs me beauty sleep. Off you go. You too, Rosie. An’ settle down, Gav.’ She watched through half-closed eyes as they trailed out again. Gawd, she thought, it ain’t half hard work disciplining those two, but I reckon I could still win. All I need is a bit of backup from you know who …

  The bedroom door burst open again. ‘What did I say?’ Mic demanded furiously, sitting bolt upright in bed. ‘I said don’t come back until seven o’clock!’

  ‘When the little hand’th on theven and the big hand’th on twelve,’ Rosie supplied helpfully.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, it is,’ Josh said, holding up the battered nursery clock with its front glass missing, and showing her his handiwork with pride.

  Mic was torn between sighing and wanting to laugh. ‘You have to wait for it to ‘appen, dumbo! Just pushing the hands round don’t make the time pass, do it? An’ it wrecks the clock an’ all! So, go away, yeah?’

  ‘Mum told us to come in here,’ Josh said sulkily. ‘She says she’s got a headache and mustn’t be disturbed. She said we could open some more presents with you.’ He was pulling a loaded pillowcase behind him.

  Oh terrific! Mic thought. Thank you, Cassie! A compromise seemed to be the only way out. ‘Well, not in here, right? You two take ’em downstairs, and me and Gav’ll get dressed and get down quick’s we can. Off wiv yer.’

  Gavin raised a clenched fist. ‘Yeah!’

  ‘An’ you can leave that out an’ all,’ said his mother.

  Cassie did not appear downstairs until eleven o’clock, by which time Josh was tearful in his thwarted desire to show her his presents and get her to help him play with them. They were, in Mic’s opinion, too pricey, too breakable, needing too many batteries, and would most likely run out of power before their owner could yell, ‘Hey! Give us that back!’ She had tried hard to be as equitable as possible, giving all three children similar toys, but Cassie hadn’t attempted to disguise her favouritism, and her presents were all too obviously ranked in the order of her affections: big for Josh, middling for Rosie, and tiny for Gavin.

  Mic’s heart went out to her son. She was torn between trying to pretend that everything was fair, in order to bolster his self-esteem, or sympathising with him, which was more honest but which might make him feel even worse.

  ‘Knock knock,’ Gavin said stoically, toughing it out.

  ‘Who’th there?’ Rosie chanted obediently.

  ‘Scott.’

  Thcott who?’

  ‘Sgot nothing to do with you!’

  Cassie put on her Lady Bountiful act at lunchtime, and produced an expensive confection awash with fruit and cream, from a box Mic had overlooked. ‘Marks & Spark’s best,’ she said proudly. ‘And so much lighter and easier to eat than the usual figgy stodge, don’t you think? That stuff lies like lead on your stomach for hours, not that I ever have room for it, of course.’

  ‘So how do you know, then?’ Mic muttered sotto voice, moving the steamer containing the pudding she had bought as a contribution off the heat.

  What am I doing here? she asked herself, not for the first time. Being taken for a ride, that’s what!

  After lunch she had planned to take Gavin to see her mother, just the two of them, and had deliberately not mentioned this to Cassie, knowing from experience how she tended to hijack such plans. Mic now decided to be assertive. After all, it was Christmas Day.

  But Cassie got in first. ‘Oh dear,’ she sighed, within moments of her last mouthful, ‘I think I can feel my migraine coming on again. I’m afraid I’ll have to desert you all once more. I’m so sorry.’ She got up.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Mic objected. ‘Gav and me are off to me mum’s for a bit. I promised her we’d go today.’

  ‘But of course,’ Cassie said generously, at once. ‘Then you must see her. I expect Josh and Rosie would love to go along too, wouldn’t you? I’m sure she’ll have one of her little presents for you both.’ She smiled bravely at her children and then at Mic. ‘That’s a lovely idea of yours, Mic. They’re always telling me how fond they are of Granny Potton.’

  Nell hadn’t reckoned on having Elly with her as well as Sibyl on their journey home on Boxing Day; an Elly moreover who had become seriously deflated since the previous day. They had all gone to Heathrow to see Paul and the two boys off to Switzerland, and after the plane had taken off, Elly went all weepy and announced that she was leaving Paul’s car in the long-stay car park, and coming home with them both.

  ‘I can’t bear to be alone,’ she wept in Nell’s car.

  ‘Here,’ Sibyl said, leaning forward and offering her a lacy handkerchief.

  ‘I’ve never left Paul in charge of the boys before,’ Elly sniffed, taking it and clutching it to her mouth with one hand. ‘How can I be sure they’ll be safe?’

  ‘Well, he takes his pupils on school trips,’ Nell said reasonably. ‘He’s very responsible.’ When he’s not sailing.

  ‘I didn’t mean it to happen like this,’ Elly said, ‘I really didn’t. I was going to go on the skiing holiday and then break it to him in the New Year, but then Malachy told me he’s going abroad, filming for most of January, and I suddenly couldn’t bear…’ She was crying again. ‘I’m so … sorry… if I ruined your Christmas.’

  ‘You did rather,’ Sibyl observed from the back seat. ‘How about stopping for a coffee at the next opportunity, Nell?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Nell said, but she was thinking: I can’t put it off any longer. It would be much too cowardly to break it to her over the phone.

  At the service station they carried coffee for three, and Bath buns for two on a tray to a window table and sat down. Nell and Sibyl ate the buns and had milk in their coffee. Elly sat, tragic but dry-eyed, sipping hers black and without eating. ‘You both blame me, don’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘No, darling,’ Sibyl said. ‘I’ve seen this coming for quite some time, but I must confess it isn’t turning out quite as I’d imagined.’

  ‘Actually, I think it is,’ Nell said. Sibyl raised her eyebrows. Nell braced herself. ‘Would you be surprised if Paul was having an affair too?’ she asked Elly.

  ‘Amazed!’ Elly snorted. ‘Who’d have him?’ Then she saw Nell’s expression and frowned. ‘D’you know something that I don’t?’

  ‘Well, I suspect something, yes,’ Nell said, fudging and despising herself for it.

  ‘Paul? Having an affair?’ Elly seemed mildly amused.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Strangely en
ough a woman who swims at the same pool as me. She’s called Anna Smith.’

  Elly frowned again. ‘The name seems familiar. Didn’t she used to teach at Paul’s school?’

  ‘She is a teacher, yes.’

  ‘Thought so,’ Sibyl muttered. ‘Explains so much.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Elly said. ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Nell blushed.

  ‘It started well before Malachy and me, didn’t it?’ Elly was staring at her.

  ‘Probably,’ Nell said feebly.

  ‘But don’t you see,’ Elly said, getting heated. ‘Don’t you see where this leaves me? Paul is going to feel fully justified in blaming me for our break-up now, when all along he’s been screwing some slag. The incredible hypocrite! No wonder I was driven into Malachy’s arms.’

  ‘But you didn’t know then,’ Nell protested, confused.

  ‘No, you should have told me!’ Elly flashed back. ‘Both of you. Look at the position you’ve put me in now. Even my boys think it’s all my fault. How could you do that to me?’

  ‘We were hoping it wasn’t true,’ Sibyl said.

  ‘You’ve talked about it behind my back?’

  ‘No,’ Nell said. ‘Honestly, we haven’t.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Elly said sighing, and then disconcertingly upbeat: ‘at least I won’t have to feel guilty now. Damn! I do wonder where Malachy is. I assumed that he and Rob and the kids would have been at his house yesterday and I was going to give him a nice surprise, but I rang and rang and all I got was his bloody answerphone.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be meeting some American friend at his house this week?’ Nell asked. ‘I mean, that was the reason you didn’t go ski –’

  ‘So I lied,’ Elly interrupted irritably. ‘I’m not proud of that, OK? The friend’s coming over at the beginning of February.’

  ‘But why –’ Sibyl began.

  ‘Because I needed some space. Because I was fed up with Paul. Because I wanted to see Malachy. Why d’you think? How was I to know he’d do a disappearing act?’

  ‘Maybe because he thinks you’re in Switzerland,’ Nell pointed out reasonably.

  ‘I’ll get in touch with him soon,’ Elly said. ‘Oh hell! I shouldn’t be going home with you at all today. I should be staying in London. But after Paul and the boys left, somehow I just couldn’t face you two going as well…’ She began to cry again.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sibyl said, patting her shoulder comfortingly. ‘You need a day or two with no pressure to sort yourself out. Perhaps when they get back from skiing –’

  ‘No.’ Elly said, blowing her nose fiercely. ‘It’s finished. I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘And Malachy?’ Nell asked.

  ‘He really loves me, Nell, and he’s great with the boys.’ She managed a tremulous smile. ‘It’ll all work out, you see.’

  After the coffee break, they journeyed doggedly westward and Nell, who was beginning to feel worn out, was grateful that it was a neutral grey day; ideal for driving. After several hours she dropped her passengers off at Sibyl’s house and headed thankfully for Bottom Cottage.

  Rob was there before her. She saw his Land Rover as she got to the end of her lane. Then the front door opened and he was standing there, smiling.

  ‘Oh, Rob,’ she cried. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to be home!’ She got stiffly out of her car and walked towards him.

  ‘Was it rough?’ he asked.

  ‘Ghastly. How about you?’

  ‘A complete washout,’ he admitted.

  ‘Oh! I’m so sorry. God, I’m absolutely exhausted.’

  Rob came forward and put both arms around her in a bear hug.

  ‘Better now?’ he asked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Over the last weekend in January, when Josh and Rosie visited Bottom Cottage, Rob made boats for them out of odds and ends of wood nailed together, and quarter-filled the bath with tepid water for them to float on. Nell was downstairs in the kitchen washing up the lunch things when there was a crash, the sound of thudding feet and Rosie’s voice raised in protest. Nell looked up from the dishwater, expecting to hear Rob’s voice, but then saw him outside the window, fetching firewood, and thought perhaps she should go and see what they were up to. She met Rosie on the stairs, carrying two small damp contraptions which were both dripping water freely. The front of her red dungarees was sopping wet, and she looked sulky.

  ‘Joth keepth thinking my boat. Not playing.’

  Nell could hear Rob downstairs, filling up the log basket. ‘Why don’t you go down and see your daddy?’ she suggested. Rosie stumped on down. Nell put her head round the bathroom door to find out what Josh was doing. He had a handful of glass marbles and he was standing up and balancing on top of the bath with his feet beside the taps, and throwing them one at a time onto the remaining boats below him. The bath was very nearly full of water and at each hit, more of it splashed over the edge on to the swimming floor.

  ‘Att-att att-att att-att!’ Josh cried, ‘BOOM!’ He threw another marble. It missed, and hit the edge of the bath a glancing blow, quite hard enough to chip its white enamel surface.

  ‘Oh, Josh …’ Nell began, hesitating to reprimand him so early on. ‘That isn’t a very good idea.’

  ‘It’s a raid,’ Josh explained. ‘I’m a bomber, and this is the enemy fleet, and I’m winning and they’re all going to get sunk. Watch!’ He threw two marbles at once and scored a direct hit, which turned one of the boats over on to its side. ‘Yesss!’ Josh crowed. ‘See that. You can be a used bomb collector if you like. You can get them out of the water and re… re… something them.’

  ‘Recycle?’

  ‘Yes, recycle them. You’ll have to roll your sleeves up though. It’s pretty deep. It’s got to be miles down there. It’s a bottomless ocean!’

  Nell was quite touched at his concern, but unsure as to how to proceed. Perhaps she should have said ‘Stop it, Josh!’ at the beginning. But she didn’t like to be so immediately authoritarian to a comparative stranger. ‘No, I don’t think so. You see the bath is likely to get damaged if you go on,’ she tried to explain, ‘and you’re making an awful mess, so I wouldn’t do it if I were you.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ Josh said with satisfaction. ‘And anyway my dad doesn’t mind. He made these boats.’

  Nell strode forward and pulled the plug out. ‘I mean I don’t want you to do it,’ she said firmly (perhaps too firmly?).

  Josh let out an injured wail. ‘Hey, you’re spoiling it all. It’s not fair. And anyway, it’s nothing to do with you. We were here first!’

  ‘Let’s go downstairs, mmm?’ Nell said lamely. Josh jumped off the bath and stamped out ahead, shrugging off any attempt at contact with her. Then he ran straight downstairs and out of the back door.

  When Nell got down to the kitchen she found Rob giving Rosie a shoulder ride. The child seemed to have forgotten her upset feelings already, and was seeing how many wet hand-prints she could make on the newly decorated ceiling just above her head, and gurgling with laughter. Nell frowned.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be changing her clothes?’ she asked. ‘We don’t want her catching a chill.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Rob said. ‘Spare clothes in that bag over there. OW! Stop pulling my ears, you monster!’

  Nell searched through the spare things Cassie had sent and held them up in turn for Rosie’s approval. ‘This one?’

  ‘That’s Joth’s,’ Rosie said witheringly.

  ‘Oh well, what about this then?’

  ‘Joth’s.’

  ‘And this?’

  ‘Joth’s.’

  ‘Well, that’s all there are,’ Nell said. ‘It doesn’t look as though your mum’s sent us any of your clothes. You’ll have to borrow something of his just for now, until yours are dry again.’

  ‘Don’t want –’ Rosie began, but Rob distracted her by swinging her down from his shoulders and tickling her under her arms. Rosie scre
amed with mirth, and Rob expertly stripped off her dungarees and the woolly pullover underneath them, and stuffed her into a jersey of Josh’s, rolling up the sleeves to expose her podgy little fists. It was far too long but it, plus her still-dry tights underneath, would have to do.

  ‘Guess what Auntie Nell made yesterday for us to eat,’ Rob asked.

  ‘Apple cumble,’ Rosie said hopefully.

  Rob laughed. ‘No, marmalade. She made it all herself. Isn’t it a lovely orange colour?’ He took one of the jars from the shelf and held it up to the light.

  ‘That’s my sweater,’ Josh protested, coming in again and leaving muddy footprints on the floor. ‘I didn’t say she could have it.’

  ‘No,’ Rob said, ‘I did. OK? We haven’t got any of her clothes here, so we haven’t got much choice. Sorry.’ Nicely said, Nell thought. She felt much more comfortable when Rob was there.

  The rest of the afternoon passed. Nell mopped up the bathroom floor and put all the marbles back in their box. She made toast-and-Marmite soldiers for Rosie, and honey slices for Josh at 4.30, and at five o’clock Rob helped Rosie back into her newly dry dungarees and then put both children into the Land Rover to take home. Rosie left, clutching one of the jars of Nell’s marmalade, and wouldn’t put it down even when Rob was strapping her in. ‘Marmlade,’ she crooned softly to herself. ‘Olinge marmlade.’

  ‘Bye, Rosie. Bye, Josh,’ Nell said, looking in through the passenger door. ‘See you again soon, I hope.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Josh said stoutly, as though completing an argument of long-standing, ‘anyway, my mummy doesn’t make jam. She’s on TV.’

  I think I’ll aim for television work, Elly thought to herself as she wrapped the silk scarf artistically round her throat to keep out the penetrating February wind. ‘Whaaa!’ she exclaimed aloud as she got out of her car and into the northerly blast. ‘I hope my nose won’t go all red with cold. Today I’ve got to look my absolute best.’ She glanced around to check whether anyone had observed her talking to herself, but the few people walking or driving through the square were in their own bubbles, self-absorbed and apparently remote from the communal atmosphere. That’s why I like living in London, Elly thought. Only here, where you’re surrounded by strangers, can you be truly free of other people’s expectations. I’m going to shed all those labels that categorise me: no more ‘Headmaster’s wife’; no more ‘businesswoman.’ I need to get a life – no, lots of lives. I shall be someone different every week! A man passed her, pushing twins in a pram. I shall always be a mother though, Elly thought. That’s something I can’t escape – even if I’d quite like to some of the time. And I’m very happy to be a lover, or even a mistress…