Tideline

by Penny Hancock

  Outside he told me to lie on the grass.

  ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘So?’

  As usual, in the end I did as I was told, and I clung to him. But he didn’t do what I expected. Instead he clutched me to him and we rolled down the hill. We hurtled over the bumps and tussocks, his weight crushing me, the sky tilting and vanishing and reappearing as we tumbled so the breath was snatched from us as we went. When at last we came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, Seb dragged me up to higher ground. This time there were ledges that he wanted us to roll off, so that we were suspended for seconds in midair. I tried to resist but he lay on top of me, pinned my arms behind my back and we were off.

  There were so many occasions when Seb might have hurt me or himself. Yet Seb thought we were invincible and I believed him.

  Outside my mother’s flat I ring the bell and wait impatiently for her to answer. It’s a pity it’s this Tuesday and not last or next as every other one my mother goes to meet her local University of the Third Age group to discuss what they are going to talk about next. I don’t like to leave Jez alone in the house for too long.

  The door opens and my mother regards the bags I’m carrying with suspicion.

  ‘I’ve brought you some cheese from the market.’

  ‘From the market?’

  I walk down the hallway, drop her bag of pads off in the bathroom and go through to the kitchen where I place the packages of pecorino and taleggio in the fridge.

  ‘June will only shop at the market. You’d think she was penniless the way she carries on.’

  She stands in the lobby by the door, talking to my back. She’s forgotten that she enjoyed these cheeses the last time she had lunch with me, that I told her I’d got them from Alexi at the market.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think people shop at the market for economy’s sake,’ I say. ‘It’s for the novelty value. You can find things there you don’t get anywhere else.’

  ‘If you’re trying to tell me you can’t buy taleggio at Waitrose you must think I’m daft,’ she snaps. ‘I’m not completely gaga yet. The computer’s playing up but that doesn’t mean I’m not perfectly capable of buying my own cheese once I get through to them. The Ocado man knows exactly what I like and the cheese is all pasteurized. You know where you are with Waitrose.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve put it in the fridge. I’ll do your next order for you now if you like?’

  I sit at her computer and try not to let her comments niggle at me while she makes my coffee. Circumstance means I’m left to keep an eye on my mother. There’s no choice. There are no other siblings who might have had better luck at pleasing her. At the worst moments, when her searing comments hit a particularly sensitive spot, I remind myself that it is small penance for living in the River House, for being where I need to be.

  ‘I’ve been going through that case. I decided that now you’re selling up, I should coil in my ropes,’ my mother says. I bite my lip and follow her gaze. She waves an arthritic finger at an old leather suitcase that’s been in this room since she moved in. She left most of her box files of old paperwork and out-of-date albums at the River House when she moved. There is adequate storage space there, including a garage that we never park in, and the attic with the low pitch which is only good for shoving boxes of junk into. But for some reason she insisted on bringing this case, crammed with odds and ends.

  ‘I don’t want all and sundry rifling through my personal effects,’ she’d told me when I suggested she leave it in the garage.

  ‘No one can get in,’ I’d reassured her. ‘You know Greg reinforced the doors for security.’

  ‘I need to sort through it. It’ll keep me occupied now I haven’t got a house of my own to care for.’

  Periodically I think of the other cases she’s left in the attic and despair at the thought that one day, I’ll be the one who has to go through them all. As if reading my mind she says, ‘Those boxes in the attic. You can deliver them to me when you clear the house.’

  She goads me with this talk of moving but I refuse to be provoked. The suitcase she’s pointing to now has got its lid up, wedged against the pouf she uses to rest her feet on in her sitting room.

  I join her in the patch of sunlight coming in through the window. The rain’s stopped. The gulp of the percolator is soothing. It’s still cold out there, but the sun shines directly into her sitting room. She settles herself with her lap tray – an odd thing that has a beanbag sewn onto its underside so it doesn’t wobble – and pours coffee. One thing about my mother is she knows how to make decent coffee.

  ‘You can take most of that stuff. I don’t want it.’

  I glance down at the open case. It’s lined in an attractive fabric, with a ruched pocket and diagonal fabric hinges that stop the lid from falling backwards when it’s open.

  ‘I’ll keep the case, though. It’s a Revelation. They don’t make cases like that any more. They all have wheels these days. As if we can’t use our own arms and legs. It’s why people are getting shorter and fatter, you know that, don’t you? It accounts for this terrible epidemic.’

  ‘Which terrible epidemic is this, Mother?’

  ‘The obesity epidemic. Everyone’s fat these days. It’s all this wheeling cases around instead of picking them up. It’s all these remote controls instead of getting up and turning a knob.’

  I smile. Seeing my expression she laughs, and for a brief while we seem in quite high spirits.

  I put my coffee on a small side table and bend down to rummage through the case. There’s a pile of fabrics, ribbons, sewing things. A darning mushroom! I pick it up in surprise. Where was I recently when a darning mushroom came to mind? With a jolt I remember the hole in Jez’s sock and it fills me with such an intense longing to get back to him I can barely face the rest of the morning.

  ‘If you need buttons, take them. I can’t sew on buttons any more . . . my fingers.’ She nods towards a square biscuit tin tucked into the corner of the case. I prise off the lid and delve my hand into the cool heap of plastic and mother-of-pearl. One particular button, a daisy, catches my eye and I find myself face to face on this early spring morning with Jasmine. I don’t want to disturb that memory. It’s buried deep within me. I put the lid back on the box.

  It’s too late. My mother has started.

  ‘Oh, I recognize that button. The one in the shape of a daisy. Open up. Hand it to me! Why do I recognize it? There was a girl. A beautiful girl with a flower name. I always liked flower names but your father insisted on Sonia. Was she a school friend? Oh, who was she? Yes that’s it. She sat next to me at Sunday school.’

  No she didn’t, Mother. You’ve got your pasts mixed up. You brought Jasmine to the River House. The first time you ever invited another child home. You had some twisted plan. I think you know that, really.

  ‘She left one day, after classes, in such a hurry. Someone had upset her. Who was it?’

  It was me, Mother. I upset her. She was going to steal Seb from me. I had never felt such pain. I couldn’t contain it. The trouble with jealousy is there’s nowhere for it to go. It ricochets back and forth, because if you express it you are reviled, and if you don’t, the discomfort is unbearable. It’s a curse. Jasmine was a curse on me.

  My mother is out of her chair and making for the window. It’ll take her some time to fumble with the curtains in order to block the sunlight that’s in her eyes. I get up to help but she shrugs me off.

  ‘I can manage, thank you. It’s good for my waistline.’ She’s still in her giggly mood so I humour her and give a little conciliatory chuckle as I sit back down.

  She speaks with her back to me, so I cannot make out how genuine her confusion is.

  ‘The buttons, the buttons. In the alley outside the River House. At least three, there were, fallen off the front of that pretty dress she was wearing. It reminds me of that poem.’ She throws back her head and chants, ‘A sweet disorder in the dress, kindles in clothes a wantonness! That’s Herrick, Sonia
.’ She edges back to her chair. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Her name was Jasmine, Mother. You wanted me to be friends with her.’

  ‘And you refused. So headstrong you always were. Was it you who made her cry?’

  ‘I don’t remember the details. All I know is she’s the one with the daisy buttons.’

  ‘The buttons that fell off all along the alley. Who picked them up? How did they end up in my sewing box? Take them Sonia, please do. I don’t need these things any more. Make Kit a pretty top with the daisy buttons.’

  I stand, gather up the haberdashery, the ribbons and darning mushroom and button box, and stash them in a carrier bag. I’ll dispose of them later.

  On the bus on the way home I work hard not to let the images of Jasmine and Seb unfurl. To distract myself I pick up a copy of Heat magazine that someone has left on the seat. I flick through the pages but feel repulsed by the enhanced, airbrushed celebrity beauty and yearn more than ever to be back with Jez. I toss it aside onto the seat and pass the rest of the journey letting the buttons run through my fingers which I find unexpectedly soothing.

  When I get in, there’s a voicemail on the phone in the living room from Greg, telling me to ring him urgently. I pick up the phone and dial.

  ‘I’ve been trying to reach you for several days now. What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘You’ve not been picking up my messages. Have you been out? Other than to your mother’s I mean?’

  ‘Only to the market.’

  ‘You must keep your mobile on, so Kit can get you if she needs you. I’ve told you time and again.’

  ‘I’ve had a touch of flu, that’s all. Probably slept through your calls. But I’m here as usual.’

  He tuts, then speaks to me wearily.

  ‘Well look. I’ve changed my flight. I’ll be back early on Thursday morning.’

  What in God’s name has possessed him to decide to come home early this particular week? He never usually bothers. If anything, he usually extends his trips, or reports that his flight has been delayed.

  ‘You need to phone the Smythes and tell them we can’t make it on Thursday. Kit’s home and we’ll want to spend the evening together. But that invitation’s long-standing so you’ll have to make an excuse.’

  ‘What invitation?’

  ‘The Smythes, their silver wedding party. It came just after New Year. It’s pinned to the noticeboard over my desk. You’d better do it the minute you put the phone down.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No. You must check the security people can come this weekend while I’m home. The alarm has to be working when we put the house up for sale. You’ll have to find the number on Google. Oh, and Sonia? If the cold weather continues you must keep the heating on, even when you’re out. We don’t want burst pipes. They could do with lagging but that can wait till I’m back.’

  ‘Greg you know we haven’t agreed on the sale. We need to talk before you go racing ahead.’

  There’s a tense silence on the line.

  ‘Right. I see. So we’re still at this point, are we? Well, if you’d just get those things done, we’ll discuss it on Thursday.’

  When he’s gone, another memory sidles up, one that’s been curled up in the corners all these years, one I haven’t wanted to disturb from its catlike slumber. It’s been uncovered by Greg’s commandeering voice.

  Greg and me, standing outside our new house. Kit was one and a half. We were the perfect little family. I was twenty-five, Greg forty. He had just heard he’d got the professorial chair in Norwich. We’d bought this house in a village in Norfolk and everything was in front of us. I stared at the house, a flint, double-fronted Victorian cottage, at the end of the high street. There was even a rose bush climbing around the door. Beyond it was a new housing estate, still surrounded by orchards of apple trees covered in blossom. I was holding Kit in my arms. It was a blustery day and some of the petals had blown off in the wind. Kit pointed to them with her chubby finger, tiny dimples appearing in the back of her hand. She said ‘snow’ and we both laughed, finding everything she said amazing, miraculous, believing we’d borne a little genius. Greg held up the key, put his arm around his two girls, me and Kit, and kissed us each on the cheek. And he stepped forward and opened the door to the first home we’d owned. The hallway was light and you could see right down to the back door into the garden. It was very attractive, it was what we liked about it the moment the estate agent let us in. The view from the front door of the green and white and dappled sunlight in the garden. But at this moment, as Greg opened up our new home for us, I had an overwhelming sense that I could not go in. I wanted to turn and run. Walking over that threshold, I felt that a heavily reinforced door was going to slam behind me and that I’d never get out again. I smiled back at Greg anyway, kissed my little Kit on her fine, blow-away hair, and went through.

  ‘Welcome to our family home,’ Greg said, walking backwards, his arms wide, letting me and Kit follow. He led us to the sitting room, the last door on the left at the end of the hallway, bright and light and not yet cluttered with all the paraphernalia we would come to gather over the years here. Kit’s travel cot was in the corner, with her little blanket and knitted rabbit.

  ‘Put Kit in her cot,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘and come up to bed with me.’

  I put Kit down, willing her not to settle so I wouldn’t have to go upstairs with Greg. But she lay and gurgled happily. Within minutes she had her thumb in her mouth and was humming the way she did before falling asleep. I followed Greg up to our new bedroom at the back, overlooking the tarmac road that would soon be the main route through the new housing estate. Greg turned back the covers on our freshly made bed. And I got into bed with him, and as I always did, I closed my eyes and thought of something else, anything other than where I was and who was with me. Greg’s hand on me made my skin flinch, his breath in my face made me turn aside. I writhed away from him.

  ‘Oh Sonia,’ he gasped as I tried to wriggle free, and he pinned me down and started to breathe more quickly, his rasping breath harsh and too loud in my ears. In the end I let Greg get on with it until it was over. When at last he’d finished he fell asleep and I turned over and cried into our new pillows.

  When Helen asked me a while ago, ‘But why do you stay with a man you don’t enjoy going to bed with?’ I stared at her.

  ‘It’s not Greg,’ I said. ‘It’s anyone.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Greg is the right husband for me in every other way. He’s clever, he earns a good living and, I suppose, he loves me.’

  It’s only now I have Jez in my house that I remember what really desiring another person once felt like.

  The onions soften and turn translucent in the butter as I start to make lunch in the kitchen. So Greg is coming home on Thursday morning! Then I will have to let Jez go on his birthday after all. The thought of him vanishing from me on the very day he turns sixteen, the apex that stands between boy and manhood, fills me with a terrible sense of regret that I am afraid will taunt me for years to come. If I don’t snatch the moment while I’ve got this last chance, it will be lost to me forever.

  I go to the window and gaze at the river. As I look, a huge dark seagull lands on an orange buoy. The Clipper passes, churning the water in its wake so the buoy tosses and tips in the river, as if attempting to throw the seagull off. But the big bird clings on to the buoy with impressive determination, rising and falling but not letting go.

  It has happened before when I am utterly lost, when I no longer know which way to turn. The river throws up the answer.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Wednesday

  Sonia

  Unlike Greenwich Market, the one in Deptford sells things people actually need. I walk there along the river, leaning into the perishing wind, screwing my eyes tight against its whip and sting. The skyscrapers on Canary Wharf seem closer than ever. They loom over me, steel grey. The g
lass is dark this morning, reflecting the stormy sky, the black water.

  I’m an anomaly at the market. I am conscious of my lack of expertise compared to the women who prod sweet potatoes and mangoes, who measure out lengths of fabric with their eyes. People sew around here. They buy thread and thimbles and elastic. They sell the results on other stalls, copies of high street fashion at a fraction of high street prices. And they talk. They sit in the cafés and stand in doorways and squat on boxes at market stalls. They pop out from nearby flats to fill blue carrier bags with chilli and mouli and fresh meat.

  I move straight to the DIY stall where nuts and screws and bolts are displayed in blue plastic baskets and a Bible lies open upon a pile of batteries. A woman consults the stallholder, ‘It’s not my thing, you see, DIY. Large or small heads? How should I know?’ She is holding a bag of screws in each hand. They laugh together, they seem to have all day.

  I pick out a roll of tape.

  ‘Only £2.50 for that,’ the vendor tells me, and spotting my obvious ignorance asks what I intend to use it for.

  ‘I’m fixing a burst pipe,’ I mutter, and he laughs.

  ‘You’d be better off calling a plumber, though with the cold and the leaks all over London you’ll be lucky to find one. You should of lagged ’em,’ he says. ‘Bit late now. Though they say there’s more snow on the way. Here.’ He hands me a card. ‘My plumber mate. Try him. He can only say no.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘But I’ll take the duck tape anyway.’

  ‘It’s duct tape,’ he says. ‘Lot of people make that mistake. Gorilla, Rhino, Gaffer. It’s all the same stuff basically. It’ll stick anything to anything, darling.’

  ‘I’ll take a couple. Be handy to have them in,’ I say, as if I’m talking about tins of beans.

  In the second-hand yard people scrape a living selling whatever they can. Old car seats. Worn bras. Wooden spoons. Broken keys. At a stall selling used DVDs I find two films for Jez. The Night of the Hunter and Double Indemnity. I put them in the blue carrier with the duct tape and walk back towards Creek Road.