Out of Step

by Maggie Makepeace

  Nell glanced at Rob’s horrified face and felt sorry for him, but she couldn’t prevent her heart from lightening.

  ‘But before we move,’ Cassie said, ‘there’s things of mine you’ve still got, and I want them back.’

  Rob was clearly averse to making a scene in public. His voice was studiedly neutral. ‘You got the carpet, didn’t you? What more?’

  ‘They were on that list I gave you over a year ago, but I suppose you’ve conveniently lost it?’

  ‘Write it out again,’ Rob said, ‘give me back my photographs, and you’ve got a deal.’

  ‘Typical!’ Cassie snapped. ‘Why do I bother?’ and she went off in a huff to collar another member of staff.

  Rob and Nell found Josh and Rosie and got them to introduce them to their form teachers. Sitting at low tables in rooms with walls covered in childish writings and drawings, Nell found it hard to concentrate, and equally difficult to stop smiling dreamily.

  When they finally got home again, Rob was scratchy and irritable. ‘Trust the Mad Cow to drop a bombshell on me in front of everybody, where I couldn’t have it out with her,’ he complained. ‘She can’t just take my children away like that. How would I ever see them? It’d cost a fortune in petrol to be up and down to flaming London all the time!’ He stopped and glanced at Nell. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Nell composed her face. ‘You just reminded me of something I heard on the radio this morning. This man was talking about some crisis about to hit the government and he said, “This is a ticking time bomb, which we have got to get a grip of” …’

  ‘This is serious, Nell,’ Rob said, with a dismissive gesture. ‘I shall have to find out whether I can legally stop her from going, but whatever happens it will cause no end of a fuss.’ He ran a hand through his hair, and took a handful of it as if to tear it out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nell said hastily, touching his arm. She felt genuinely sorry for him, but an unwonted sensation kept creeping in and overtaking everything as she contemplated a future with Rob and the baby – and no one else. She welcomed that feeling like a long-lost friend. It was deliverance.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  August had been uncharacteristically dry, and as uncomfortable as the previous months. September so far appeared to be no better. Nell was philosophical about her misfortune to be pregnant during the hottest summer for three hundred years, and grateful to Sibyl for suggesting that she work mornings only at ARTFULL for one more month, before stopping altogether. So now, thankfully, she spent a lot of her time indoors with an electric fan for company, only venturing out of the cottage in the blessed cool of the evening to wander by the river and wonder about the baby. She had taken to referring to it as ‘him’ whenever she discussed it with Rob, in order to hoodwink the contrary fates. And because she had begun to feel more hopeful about the future, she came to appreciate that Rob was as excited as she was about their forthcoming child. He started to accompany her on her evening walks, helping her over the stiles and being generally attentive. And now that there was a real prospect of his children moving away, Nell felt much more relaxed when they visited at weekends. It was as though a life sentence had been commuted.

  She felt less disturbed by Cassie as well, since she would soon be removing her malign influence to another sphere. Nell looked forward to being able to walk around the whole of Boxcombe without having to look over her shoulder in case the Mad Cow was observing her. I really have been paranoid about her, she thought shamefacedly. How silly!

  She asked Rob about Cassie’s malachite necklace, when they were on a walk together. ‘She wears it on purpose,’ he said, ‘to annoy me.’

  ‘So Bert did give it to her?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But not for the usual reason?’

  ‘Who knows? He gave it to her when Josh was born, but I wouldn’t put anything past her.’

  ‘You’re joking! But presumably she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to sleep with him anyway?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Rob said, ‘when we were first married she was still working for television. She used to go up to London regularly to record the programmes, and she always stayed overnight at Bert’s house.’

  ‘So she knows him well then? You never said.’

  ‘Well, you never asked.’

  Nell felt unreasonably jealous, considering that she didn’t even like Rob’s father. ‘And is Bert fond of her?’ Why was she asking this?

  ‘Oh, yes. He thinks she’s wonderful.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nell was silenced.

  ‘I think I may have thought of one way to scupper the bloody woman’s plans for moving,’ Rob said, stooping down and picking up a smooth stone from the river bank.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, she’s clearly hoping the financial settlement will be through by the New Year, so she can make a clean break and start afresh in London.’

  ‘Ye… es?’

  ‘So it’s obvious,’ Rob said, throwing the stone with a flick of the wrist so that it skimmed the surface of the water, bouncing four times before sinking from view. ‘I can just stall and stall so she doesn’t get the money she wants, at the time she wants it!’ He picked up another stone, crouched, and got five bounces. ‘Why on earth is this called ducks and drakes?’ he asked, smiling up at her.

  *

  On 15th September the rain began in earnest, and looked to be settled in for a season. Josh and Rosie arrived for the weekend, Josh in new pale beige suede shoes which were already soaked through and stained.

  Very practical! Nell thought, glancing down from the stove where she was preparing lunch. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘this is ready. Time to wash your hands.’

  ‘We always have sandwiches for lunch,’ Josh said, squishing the soap between his hands so that it skittered across the draining board and landed on the floor.

  ‘So, what d’you have for supper?’

  ‘Thandwiches,’ Rosie giggled, giving it a kick. ‘That thoaps all furry!’

  Nell bent, picked it up and washed the dust off under the tap. ‘You must have proper meals sometimes,’ she said, and thought, I sound just like my my mother!

  Rob came in with an armful of firewood and dropped it into the basket, brushing the sawdust off his jumper. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘food! That smells good. Come on, you two.’ He sat down at the table looking expectant.

  ‘Smells like poo,’ Josh said, looking sideways at Nell as she put his lunch in front of him.

  ‘Sssshhh,’ Rob said. ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh…’ Rosie chanted in an undertone.

  ‘That means you too, Rosie.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Josh asked, prodding a boiled potato disdainfully with the prongs of his fork. ‘And why are we having soup all over it?’

  Nell looked hard at him. It appeared to be a genuine question. ‘It’s not soup,’ she said patiently. ‘It’s gravy, and it’s what you have on meat and potatoes to make them tasty.’ What does Cassie feed them on? She glanced interrogatively at Rob across the table and he made a God knows! sort of face.

  ‘What’s for pud?’ Rosie mumbled with her mouth full.

  ‘Blackberry and apple crumble. I picked the blackberries this morning.’

  ‘Yummy.’

  ‘My mum says you shouldn’t eat wild blackberries because the flies spit all over them,’ Josh said, ‘and they get full of maggots.’

  ‘No, that’s much later in the season. They’re all new and fresh and delicious now.’ Horrible child!

  ‘How are your music lessons going, Josh?’ Rob asked.

  ‘Great. Mrs thing says I’m a natural.’ He swung the top half of his body from side to side as though acknowledging the applause of an enthusiastic audience. ‘Bet you can’t play the violin?’ he challenged Nell.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, remembering an old joke. ‘I’ve never tried.’ But it was lost on Josh.

  ‘Reasonable weekend?’ Sibyl asked as she
arrived at ARTFULL on Monday morning.

  ‘So, so,’ Nell said. ‘It’s been wonderfully cool and wet at long last, hasn’t it? We stayed indoors all Saturday and were reduced to playing Happy Families.’

  ‘Good fun?’

  ‘Yes, except that Josh just has to win, so he cheats quite blatantly! I was always brought up to be strictly truthful, so it’s off-putting to say the least. Then on Sunday we went out for a walk in the rain and looked for conkers, so that was better, except that Rosie has taken to holding her nose every time she passes a cowpat.’

  Sibyl smiled. ‘You sound more relaxed about things.’

  ‘Yes, we had some laughs. You should have seen Josh trying to eat sweetcorn with half his baby teeth missing!’

  ‘I knew you’d settle down to it in time,’ Sibyl said comfortably, opening the till and emptying bags of small change into it.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I will, when Cassie moves,’ Nell said. ‘I hope to God she does, though. That’s the trouble.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Well, I want them to go, but Rob is desperate for them to stay, so it doesn’t make for a very united front. I wish I could get him to see it from my point of view, but I haven’t even tried. For some reason I feel I don’t have the right…’

  Sibyl went to change the sign on the shop door to ‘Open’. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘It’s a ticklish subject.’

  Nell was encouraged to unburden herself. ‘I suppose I feel that now I’ve taken Rob and the children on, I have a duty to see it through. But I just wish he’d be more open to discussing things with me. He takes it for granted that I think the same way he does. He doesn’t seem to have come across empathy as a necessary accomplishment – pity I can’t get him to go to evening classes on the subject!’

  ‘Ah, well… you know what they say,’ Sibyl warned. ‘You shouldn’t try to teach a pig to sing. It never works, and it annoys the pig.’

  Nell laughed. ‘You mean it’s useless to try and change people?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘So what do you do?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you have to keep attempting to talk everything through as much as possible, and eventually when you come up against the immutable, you just have to learn not to mind.’

  The rains continued and Nell observed with fascination the speed at which the countryside greened over again. Grass seemed to have supernatural powers of recuperation. She was glad not to have to keep on watering her precious plants by hand, now that God had taken over and seemed to be doing a much better job of it. She lay in bed after Rob had got up, listening to the raindrops beating against the windows, and smiling to herself. The news was full of the ‘Is this really the end of the drought?’ story, with reports of a fleet of tankers still attempting to fill up one spectacularly empty reservoir from another in a more favoured part of the country.

  Nell remembered the time she had driven along the top road – almost exactly two years ago – and had first seen the two chimneys of Bottom Cottage emerging through the trees. She had felt as parched and brittle inside as the surrounding fields were then. She had wanted so much that seemed unattainable … And now she had got it all – or nearly all.

  And the rain was coming down steadily, and all the latent fecundity of a hot summer was now realising its potential by swelling into fruits. The Bramley in the garden was bent double with flushed green apples. The oaks were dotted all over with acorns, and coiled ropes of ripening black bryony berries now decorated the hedgerows. Nell felt at one with the world around her, and content. The distant bellowing of a recently calved cow, dispossessed and calling for her lost bull-calf, was the only sadness. It caused her a pang of understanding for Rob, and reminded her again of how fortunate she was.

  With the new-found luxury of free afternoons, she had time to watch the season slide irrevocably into autumn; the swallows collecting, twittering, on the telegraph wires one week, and then mysteriously gone the next; the harsh chattering Tchak tchak tchak! calls of the fieldfares in the tallest trees, signalling their passage from Scandinavia to winter in softer climes; and the sun slipping ever southwards behind the hill, so that eventually on the shortest day it would rise from the sea behind the dunes.

  In the fresh lulls between showers, Nell went out and knelt awkwardly in the garden, planting bulbs for the spring. Her bulge got in the way, and her back hurt, but she felt full of hope and driven by a desire to propagate as much life as she could.

  The children, briefed by Cassie, commented on how fat she looked, so she let them feel the baby kicking and explained, as well as she was able, how it came to be there in the first place.

  ‘I know all about sex,’ Josh said loftily, ‘but what I want to know is, who did you have sex with?’

  Nell blushed. ‘Well, with Rob of course. Who else?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Josh was positive. ‘My dad wouldn’t do anything like that.’

  She and Rob laughed about it afterwards. ‘You will explain to Josh, won’t you?’ Nell urged him. ‘I want him to know that this baby belongs to you in exactly the same way he does.’

  ‘Of course I will, Miss…’ He stopped. ‘I can hardly call you Miss Dowsabel nowadays, can I? And Mrs D. sounds all wrong. What does he think?’ He rubbed her stomach proprietorially.

  ‘He likes it. What does it mean anyway? I’ve always meant to ask.’

  ‘I believe it’s the English form of the Latin name Dulcibella. It means sweetheart.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ Nell reached to kiss his cheek. ‘And you called me that right from the beginning?’

  ‘Before I knew your real name, yes.’

  ‘I called you Heathcliff!’ Nell grinned.

  ‘Oh, so you did notice me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh dear, that must be a bit of a letdown.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I’m not exactly the rugged type, am I?’

  ‘You’ll do,’ Nell said, taking his hand and squeezing it.

  It was obvious to her now that Cassie had been responsible for at least ninety per cent of the trouble in their marriage. Nell was convinced that, given a proper chance, she and Rob would do much better. Soon, when the children were settled in their new home, he would get accustomed to the fact of their removal and ease into a regular routine for visiting them. It would be expensive, yes, but not prohibitive, and Nell vowed never to make a fuss about it. Then their relationship would settle down too, into comfortable familiarity. Maybe they would even get married. She wouldn’t hold her breath on that one though.

  ‘I think I’ll make green tomato and apple chutney,’ Rob volunteered unexpectedly one weekend.

  ‘Yes, do.’ Nell was amused and grateful, and remained so, even when the whole house stank of vinegar and spices.

  The 17th November brought the first frost of autumn, and Rob began making porridge every morning for their breakfast. The cherry tree went golden yellow all over, and there were crowds of redwings close to the cottage, eating the hawthorn berries under cover of the morning mists. A pair of buzzards soared and dived over the valley, and Nell found forty ladybirds all hibernating together in a crevice outside her bedroom window. Life was gentle and full of discoveries.

  ‘Do you understand how I feel about Rosie and Josh?’ Nell asked Rob one evening, meaning to explain herself at last.

  ‘Well, naturally you don’t feel as strongly as I do. That’s quite understandable.’

  ‘No, you’re right.’

  ‘You’re good with them though.’

  ‘Am I? You’ve never said that before.’ Nell was surprised.

  ‘Oh yes, and they’re very fond of you.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ She felt pleased but perfidious.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ She couldn’t say it. It would only upset and antagonise him, and what good could it do?

  The telephone rang. It was Elly.

  ‘Have a word with Nell,’ Rob said to her, pass
ing over the receiver.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Elly asked.

  ‘Backache, constipation, anticipation,’ Nell said cheerfully.

  ‘Not all bad then? Good for you.’

  ‘Not at all. Rob’s being a great help.’ She smiled at him as she spoke, and he responded by looking suitably modest. ‘How’s life with you? We missed you at half term.’

  ‘Yes, the boys had things to do in London – shame really. But we’re fine. I’ve been getting quite a lot of work, in fact, and Hat’s still a treasure.’

  ‘Have you heard from Paul?’

  ‘That’s what I’m ringing to tell you. He got in touch to speak to the boys and he’s in great form. Says he feels genuinely free for the first time in his life!’

  ‘And… you don’t mind that? I should have thought…’

  Elly laughed, a deep-throated chuckle. ‘Wait, she said. ‘I haven’t told you the best bit yet.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘It’s Anna. Paul says she’s driven him completely up the wall – or should that be up the hull? Honestly, I haven’t laughed so much in ages.’ Nell began to smile too, such was the infectiousness of Elly’s tone of voice. ‘But you’ll never guess what he’s finally gone and done?’ Elly said, exploding with mirth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dumped the stupid woman in the Azores!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rob’s father told him over the phone on 22nd December that he would be visiting Bottom Cottage for Christmas.

  ‘But why?’ Nell was horrified.

  ‘Well, we usually see each other sometime about then,’ Rob said. ‘It’s what families do.’

  ‘But where will he sleep? The children will be in the spare room.’

  ‘On the sitting-room floor. On the sofa cushions in a sleeping bag. It’s very comfortable, in fact. I’ve done it myself.’

  ‘Oh, Rob …’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Well, it’s bad enough having to have Rosie and Josh when I’m feeling so huge and so tired, but Bert as well…’