The meal burning in the oven is all my fault. I should have known not to break my rule of fifteen years never to be domestic again, but after Gareth had left this morning, and after the world had returned itself to an even keel, I thought of everything that Georgina had said to me and Doris’s advice on matrimony, and the only way I could think of overcoming the restlessness I felt was to embrace my status as a housewife. To make the word manifest and to cook. Perhaps to the average person on the street it might not seem like a terribly grand gesture, but to a certified expert on me like Fergus it would look exactly like what I meant it to. A towering gift of love, an affirmation of my commitment to him. Christ, I was practically renewing my marriage vows.
Fergus had been out of the house maybe only twenty minutes this morning when I bundled Ella into her buggy, stuffed my hastily completed CV into an envelope and headed for the door. I was going to make shepherd’s pie; I was going to show Fergus that my cooking, even though I had chosen not to display my prowess so far, was better than Georgina’s any day of the week.
As I wheeled Ella around Tesco’s selecting the best ingredients, I pictured Fergus’s face as he walked in through the door and sat down to a steaming home-cooked meal. Okay it’s June and the promise of a sweltering summer is already lingering stickily in the air, but in my imagination it was a cold dark evening and he was thrilled to be presented with my nurturing sustenance. On the way home I posted my now rather dogeared CV to the management college, and when I got home I spent almost an hour preparing my pie whilst Ella slept face-down in her playpen. That afternoon I picked up all her toys from the living room floor and even dusted, pausing only to wonder if the spirit of Doris had seeped out of my dreams and off the stage into my head: ‘A Woman’s Touch’. Once I was done, I sat Ella on the rug and we played with all of her toys until the room was covered once again. At five I called Fergus, but it was Tiffany who picked up the phone.
‘Hi, Tiff,’ I said breezily. I pictured Tiff raising her eyebrows as I had never addressed her by her nickname before, but so confident was I in my home-cooked bliss that I felt expansive and generous. ‘Listen, can you ask Fergus to call me if he’s going to be in any later than seven?’
Tiff told me she would and so when, after feeding Ella and bathing her and putting her to bed just like Scary Poppins said, Fergus hadn’t phoned, I’d put my pie in the oven and changed into a low-cut top. I’d brushed my hair and even put on a bit of mascara, enjoying my 1950s fantasy act. I’d found his favourite wine and opened it to breathe and laid the kitchen table. Then I’d sat down and I’d waited for him to walk through the door.
Only it’s almost ten and he’s still not home. Of course he isn’t, why would he be? Have you ever read a book or seen a film or a soap when one character tries to improve relations with another and everything goes according to plan? Don’t you wish that just once there wouldn’t be that mishap or misunderstanding, or that one person would tell the truth whilst the other kept the deep dark destructive secret to themselves? I know that personally, after two-thirds of a bottle of Fergus’s favourite wine, I do. I would have thought that he could have called, but I suppose if my life is to be ruled by the gods of pointless drama, what probably happened is that the usually efficient Tiffany fell down two flights of stairs, which caused her to suffer from temporary amnesia, meaning she was unable to pass on the message and now needed an urgent brain transplant. Either that or he just forgot. Either that or she’s hoping that I’ll think he’s forgotten and we’ll fight and then she’ll nab him on the rebound, bitch. Or he just forgot.
In any case, I pour the last two inches of wine into my glass, giving the bottle a good shake, and peer into the wine rack looking for something else Fergus has been saving for a so-called special occasion. I find a bottle of port that his father gave us on our wedding day and crack the seal, drawing a smiley face in the dust that films its dark surface. Doris watches me, leaning against the fridge in a crisp gingham dress, replete with sparkling apron over her full skirt.
‘The important thing is to give him a chance to explain, honey,’ she tells me. ‘Don’t just go leaping down his throat the moment he walks in the door. If you let him explain, then he’ll appreciate everything you’ve done here today and you’ll have the moral high ground.’ She watches me top up my wine with port and wrinkles her nose in disgust. ‘A lady is never seen to be inebriated,’ she sniffs before vanishing just as the phone begins to ring.
‘Fergus,’ I mumble to myself, and I lurch towards the phone. I try to remember Doris’s words and keep my voice sweetly calm as I answer. ‘Where the fuck are you?’ I demand by way of greeting.
‘Kitty?’ Mr Crawley enquires sounding rather alarmed. I sink on to the hallway chair and rub my fingers over my eyes, catching the wreck of my appearance in the mirror opposite.
‘Oh, hi, Mr Crawley, sorry about that. I’ve, um, got flu and Fergus said he’d be home hours ago with the Lemsip, but he seems to have been delayed. Soz—’ I hiccup audibly and slouch low enough in the chair so that I don’t have to look at my dishevelled reflection. ‘So, um, whatcanIdoforyou?’ I rush the sentence out hoping that the absence of pauses will cover up any slurs.
‘Nothing really, I just called for a chat. Is everything quite all right? Would you like me to come over?’
I pause for a moment, confronted with the fact that my evasive slouch has resulted in me jamming one of my legs behind the telephone table and extending the other at an obtuse angle, which probably means that I won’t get off this chair without actually falling off it.
‘Kitty?’ Mr Crawley speaks into my ear.
‘Um, no, I’m fine, really, just this flu, and to be honest probably a bit too much medicinal whisky. Fergus’ll be home soon and then everything’ll be fine,’ I tell him with as much assurance as I am able to muster.
‘Well … all right.’ He sounds dubious. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then, at the rehearsals?’
I nod, and then remember he can’t see me.
‘Yep-a-doodee,’ I tell him confidently. ‘Oh, and Mr Crawley?’ I’ve just remembered something I want to tell him. ‘I love you.’
It takes me some time to replace the receiver on the phone, which turns out to be the fruit bowl after all, and then some considerable time more to ease myself out of the chair. It’s not that I’m afraid of falling off – in fact the notion somehow appeals to me – but that if I do fall off the clatter might wake up Ella, and the thought of trying to handle her whilst being unable to even walk makes me want to phone ChildLine, not to mention the fact that if I fed her right now, both of us would fail a breathalyser test. Once off the chair I look at the hall floor and find it rather appealing, so in the absence of anyone to tell me to do otherwise, I lie down on it, my head pointing towards the front door.
As I gaze up at the ceiling rose, following the pattern of plaster roses and ribbons that have been dulled by dust and time, I imagine that Gareth has appeared just like magic, in that way that he sometimes did, and he’s standing over me in the hallway, looking down at me and smiling. It’s a sweet smile, an innocent one, a smile that shows that deep down he’s a gentle man, a kind man who just needs rescuing from his wanton ways. He doesn’t speak, he just crouches next to me, brushes the hair from my face and strokes my cheek with his forefinger before lying along side of me, tilting my face to meet his. He kisses my forehead and each one of my closed eyes before pressing his lips gently against mine, softly at first and then a little firmer, each kiss a declaration of love. His hands gently disrobe me, laying me bare beneath his gaze and his tender touch, so sweet and gentle and loving and … then I hear a key in the lock. I blink at the ceiling rose and banish the imaginary Gareth back to the shadows with more than a little regret.
‘Hi, I’m … fuck, Kitty, Kitty!’ Fergus rushes to my side, picking up my hand and peering into my face. I think of Doris.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I ask him, and then as an afterthought, ‘Dear?’
&nbs
p; Fergus studies my face, his own a picture of confusion before he catches the scent of my breath and it all becomes clear.
‘Christ, you’re drunk! Where’s Ella?’
I snort and roll on to my stomach. ‘I dropped her down the bog. Where do you think she is? She’s in bed, has been for hours.’ I scramble on to my knees and then Fergus pulls me to my feet.
‘Come on, I’ll make you a coffee,’ he says, and even distanced from the world as I am behind this red wine warmth I can hear the weary tone in his voice. Like he’s got a sodding leg to stand on.
‘It stinks in here, what have you done?’ he asks me, sniffing the charred air. I flip open the oven with theatrical finesse to release a billow of black smoke.
Fergus quickly shuts the hallway door to cut off the clouds escaping towards the smoke alarm. Without pausing to find the oven glove I reach inside and pull out a baking tray, resplendent with the burnt remains of his dinner, feeling my fingertips burning from miles away.
‘I cooked. For you, a proper actual meal,’ I try to explain. ‘It was all special, I did all this stuff and I cleaned and everything and told that fucking bitch to tell you, but she only wants you to shag her and actually, if you knew everything that had been going on in my life, you might make a bit more of an effort instead of just turning up when you please. I mean you might appreciate me a bit more. But anyway I wanted to do something to help and then you didn’t come home …’ I trail off and tip the remains of the shepherd’s pie into the bin.
Fergus stares at me and then claps his hand to his forehead.
‘Oh God, you mean Tiff, you told Tiff to tell me to call you – and she did, honey. I just had to go straight into this meeting and I …’ He raises his hand in a gesture of exasperation and then drops it to his side. ‘It just went out of my head, and then once I got there it became clear it was going to go on for hours and I … I just forgot. I’m sorry. Tiff didn’t tell me you were cooking!’ he added, as if he might be able to blame it on poor old Tiff after all.
‘I was rather hoping she’d had a near-fatal accident,’ I tell him, disappointed in his mundane excuse. I watch him for signs of anger as he picks up the opened bottle of port, but instead he only shrugs and pours himself a glass.
‘I love it that you cooked. Why don’t you do it again tomorrow?’ he asks me lightly, with a terrifying lack of intuition. ‘So what stuff should I know that would make me appreciate you more?’ he smiles. ‘Is it even possible for me to appreciate you more?’
I stare at him, muddled and angry and, not quite understanding why, remembering the touch of excitement I felt when I last saw Gareth. The flutter of feeling in what’s been an otherwise numb and half-dead body, mummified flesh.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I say out loud. ‘I’m going to sleep in the spare room.’ Fergus laughs and catches my hand, pulling me tight against his body. I struggle to break free but he winds his arms around me, pinning my arms to my side.
‘Let me go!’ I tell him angrily, but he only laughs again and squeezes all the tighter.
‘No, no, I won’t let you go. Not until you’ve told me why you’ve got this silly notion in your head. I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I? You should have told Tiff you were planning a surprise!’ He tells me as if I were Ella. I writhe furiously.
‘I swear if you don’t let me go …’ I threaten, but Fergus’s serene smile seems set in stone.
‘What? What will you do? Just tell me, Kitty. What’s up?’ His laugh is cut brutally short as I kick him hard in the shins and stumble back out of his grasp against the door.
‘I’ll tell you what’s up,’ I challenge him, feeling on the very edge of my life with my toes tightly curled. ‘You’re so sure aren’t you? So bloody smug and sure. Sure you can trust me, sure that I will always be here waiting for you, sure that I love you.’ I grip hard on to the edges of the door to support myself and feel the words tumbling out. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I don’t know if I love you any more. Or even if I ever did.’ Fergus becomes perfectly still as my words sink in. ‘So you can fuck off and be sure about that then, all right?’ I say stupidly.
‘But Kitty, I …’ he begins.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I repeat, and I walk as quickly away from him as I’m able, ricocheting off the walls as I fall in to the spare bedroom. I sprawl on the bare mattress and blink at the light bulb, which still shines like a bright beacon even after I shut my eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
I open my eyes, certain that something has happened but not quite able to work out what. The morning light streams in through open curtains, almost obliterating the weak yellow light of the bulb but not extinguishing my final memories of before I closed my eyes.
I haul myself off the bed and rush to Ella’s room. Quietly pushing open the door I see her still sleeping, her small body pressed into one corner of her cot, her face half hidden in the mattress. Fergus can’t have gone without waking me up, I’m sure of it, so I pad down the hallway to our bedroom. The bed is empty and unmade, the house is quiet. He’s gone.
Faintly panicking I pick up the bedroom extension and dial his mobile number, hoping that he’s still on the train and that I can get hold of him. Empty seconds tick by as I wait for a connection to reach across the static, and when I finally do hear a distant ring I hold my breath. He’ll know that it’s me calling – his display will show ‘Home’ so he’ll know that it’s me and that I’m calling to apologise. That’s why, when the connection is cut dead mid-ring, I know that he doesn’t want to talk to me. I know that somehow, for the first time ever in our relationship, I’ve hurt him more than he can bear to talk about.
When we first met, we were like, God, I don’t know, Laurel and Hardy or Morecambe and Wise. We were hilarious – when we were together we pissed ourselves laughing on an hourly basis. Dora used to say that we looked like we’d been welded together because our bodies were always touching somewhere. Some part of each of us was always melded to some part of the other like two fatally attracted magnets. We couldn’t let each other go, not even for a second, because it felt like letting go of your own hand. I didn’t expect those feelings to last for ever, but I didn’t expect them to swing so visciously into a bleak negative. One thing is still the same, though. Maybe we don’t tell each other jokes about nothing every few seconds, or cling to each other remorselessly any more, but I do still love Fergus, of course I do, and always have. I think I loved him even before I met him. And I love him more than I ever did then. I love him so much that some small part of me wants to be free of it, free of the responsibility of being his. I think that small part was the only bit left sober last night and that’s why I said what I did. Somehow I have to get hold of Fergus and explain. As I sit on the edge of bed contemplating what to do next, a small sound finds it way down the hallway and under the bedroom door. I smile to myself. Ella is singing.
Afraid of disturbing her, I creep back along the hallway to her room. Through the crack in the door I can see her standing up in her cot, her pointed chin tipped up, singing to her cow-jumping-over-the-moon clock. There’s no tune, exactly, but she’s tuneful, content to be listening to the sound of her own voice. She must get that from me.
‘Hello,’ I say to her, and the singing is abandoned for peels of embarrassed laughter.
After Ella has had her breakfast, I sit on the bottom stair with the phone in my lap as she tugs hard on the cord and then my trouser leg in turn.
‘Hang on, pickle,’ I say to her. ‘Mummy’s just got to apologise abjectly to Daddy, hope that her self-destruct button has misfired for once, and then we can go out and see your friends.’
Today should be the One O’Clock Club but frankly I don’t really know if I can face it. Maybe Clare and I could have our own One O’Clock Club round her house. Or even down the pub. I run through my rehearsed apology again and dial Fergus’s office number.
‘Fergus Kelly’s office, can I help you?’ Tiffany picks up.
‘Hello, Ti
ffany, it’s Mrs Kelly here. Can I have a quick word with my husband, please?’ I say, careful to sound happily married.
‘No,’ Tiffany tells me bluntly. ‘I mean, Fergus told me to tell you that he’d be in meetings all day long and that he would not be able to return your calls all day.’ I listen to her prim efficiency. Has Fergus told her about our argument or has she just guessed? I refuse to be kept out of his life by this firewall – it’s ridiculous. I need to speak to him in person to know, to be sure, that everything’s all right.
‘Well, you’ll have to get him out of a meeting, it’s urgent,’ I say firmly, wondering if being the boss’s wife holds any sway whatsoever.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Kelly, I can’t do that,’ Tiffany says through tight-sounding lips. ‘Fergus said that the only reason he was to be brought out of this meeting was if there was an emergency concerning his daughter.’ Tiffany paused like a well-practised barrister. ‘Is there an emergency concerning his daughter, Mrs Kelly?’
Exasperated and deflated I conceded defeat. Fergus knows that I would never use Ella in that way to get his attention.
‘No, no,’ I say. ‘Listen, Tiffany, will you ask him to call me and tell me when he’s coming home, and will you make sure that he does?’
I hang up the phone and take the cord away from between Ella’s teeth, who seems to be intent on cutting the telephone off for good. What else can I do? The PC is sitting upstairs but we’ve never got around to getting it connected to the Internet, so I can’t email him, and I can’t just bundle Ella on to a train and take a day-trip to London; that would be ridiculous. Finally I hunt through my bag until I find my all-but-redundant mobile, and sigh with relief as I see that it still has some battery power left. I’m rubbish at texting. I never get it right, but it’s the only thing I can think of doing, so I fiddle about until finally I have something approaching a coherent message.
After Ever After Page 29