by Gill Hornby
She felt so much better, around the table with the rest of them–she was a working woman, an active volunteer, the mother of fine girls, the wife of a good man, the architect of this unit that was a building block in the future of the world. Only with them did she really feel important; only with them did she feel herself.
‘So,’ she began. They had gathered all the girls together on that Saturday morning to thrash out this whole business about Jess and the baby. Neither parent had spoken to her since she had told them about the pregnancy, and they were quite unable to bear the situation a moment longer. Annie in particular wanted to go over all the important stuff: what week number, how much folic acid, how many–dread thought–vodka shots. They needed to get her to a doctor and choose a hospital, and they felt they really could do with the moral support of the older girls. James, like a love, had driven up to college at 9 a.m., fished Jess out of her fetid bed and brought her home. It was time for a family summit, and Annie was dreading it. So it was a relief that before they could even begin, a natural, happy, irrepressible family conversation had spontaneously come to life.
‘You will never guess who I saw last week with a ring through her nose.’
Annie sat with her chin on her hand and watched them. They were so lucky, to have these shared, entwined histories; that whenever they saw each other, for the rest of their lives, they would be able to communicate without explanation or translation.
‘So are you going to call him or let him stew?’
But the best thing was the way they all had their roles. Although to the casual observer they were all much of a muchness, they had a strong sense of their own positions–oldest, youngest, cleverest, naughtiest, most popular, most dippy, and on and on. A good-sized family was a microcosm: when you looked out on the real cosmos and couldn’t see how you could ever fit into it, you could always retreat back into that little version and know your own place.
‘Of course you’ll get it. Why wouldn’t they hire you?’
Annie and James exchanged a look across the table, and a smile.
‘Anyway, what is all this about?’ said Rosie, her face screwed up with worry. ‘We’ve never had a “family summit” before. You’re making me nervous.’
‘They’re getting a divorce, obvs,’ yawned Jessica. ‘What else can it be?’ She reached over, fingered all the biscuits until she found a chocolate chip and took a bite. ‘It’s all a bit tacky, IMO.’
Annie had sort of taken it for granted that she’d had all her shocks to be going on with and was not armed to deal with another one. The very D-word nearly winded her.
‘DIVORCED?’ Lucy shrieked. ‘DAD. FUCK. SHIT. What have you gone and DONE?’
But not enough to deafen her to that: how very interesting, she noted, that they assumed him to be the guilty party.
‘LUCE!’ James shouted. ‘Stop that at once!’
‘But I don’t see why,’ continued Jess calmly through her munching, ‘we had to come all the way home for it in the total dead of night. A phone call would’ve done the trick.’
Rosie had flung her arms around Annie’s neck and was sobbing energetically.
‘Really. Girls. Stop this.’ James took control as Annie stared aghast at the chaos around her. ‘Of course we’re not getting a divorce.’
‘We’re not?’ Annie thought she might as well check, just while they were on the subject; it all sounded so certain.
‘Annie! For God’s sake. Your mother and I are very firmly together.’
‘Except,’ she didn’t add, ‘you never come home.’
‘Fine,’ said Jess, rising. ‘I’ll be off then.’
‘Sit down!’ James shouted. ‘We have a crisis and your mother’–he pointed at Annie–‘the woman to whom I am married, and I thought it would be better for everybody if we all got it out in the open and talked it through. Jess,’ he gulped; Annie’s heart went out to him. He looked quite old and extremely knackered, ‘has something to tell you.’
Jess, who was now texting, looked up through the curtains of her hair with her mouth hanging open. ‘Do I?’
‘Yes!’
‘What?’ She frowned, looking genuinely baffled.
James shook his head in despair. ‘Jessica is having a baby,’ he announced to the room. ‘There.’ Then he put both hands flat on the table, and looked at them.
‘FUCKING HELL.’ Lucy’s shriek was back. ‘You silly, stupid COW.’
‘Oh, J.’ Rosie started crying again. ‘You’re NOT!’
‘No.’ Jess spoke calmly through the mayhem, like everyone else was stupid. ‘I’m not. Is this really what all this is about? Christ. You lot. Pathetic.’
‘WHAT? You rang me up,’ countered Annie, her voice rising to the level of all the others. ‘You said you were pregnant. And then you disappeared from all contact. Were you lying? Was it a JOKE?’
‘Well, yeah, OK,’ Jess, bored again, grudgingly conceded. ‘I was pregnant and I did mention it.’ Her sisters started up again but she just shrugged. ‘And now I’m not. Big deal. None of anybody’s business. And I might have said I was pregnant but I never said I was having a baby. Honestly, Mum, what is it with you? Did you seriously think I would?’
Annie slumped. Her hands were shaking, her mouth dry. She had bred a monster. She had done everything she possibly could have done to bring these girls up to be wonderful and at least one of them was, before their eyes, revealing herself to be an absolute monster. Having grown-up children was like living in a horror film half the time. There she was, in her normal life, in her everyday kitchen, and these bizarre creatures who on the surface seemed so familiar suddenly come out with the most terrifying and unexpected things: Jess tilting her chin at them–James’s chin, originally–and flippantly dismissing the existence of their grandchild; Lucy, from that mouth that was so like her mother’s, swearing at the top of her lungs. They all seemed to be flickering in and out of an alternative universe. Annie could hardly bear to watch.
‘You can sort of see,’ sneered Lucy, ‘how the confusion came about. I mean, pregnancy does often lead to babies, after all, doesn’t it? It is one of the many awkward side-effects.’ She climbed out of her seat and then collapsed back down looking suddenly exhausted. ‘Oh, J.’ She shook her head, in sorrow. ‘You are such a fuckwit.’
Lucy was doing very well for herself in the City these days, which both parents were delighted about, but for some reason the higher she rose in the business, the lower her language sank into the gutter. In the world that Annie had been brought up to join, bad language had a completely different social significance: stock-brokers spoke like royals and swearing belonged to dockers. Still, that was back when Annie was an actual person, one who vaguely mattered, instead of this unconsidered wisp of a thing she had become–a wife one decides to divorce or not; a mother one chooses to inform or not; flesh and blood that is rendered invisible whenever it leaves the town boundaries.
‘Well, it’s all sorted now, isn’t it?’ Jess had that shifty look on her face that Annie associated with matters of homework and its non-completion. ‘D-rama. Not.’ She waved out the palms of both hands, waggled those–now retired–pianist fingers, then added: ‘Mum. Stop snivelling. I’m going to be a lawyer, remember? You wanted that as much as me, didn’t you? I’ve got years and years of studying ahead of me. Did you want me to have a baby?’
‘Of course not.’ Annie sniffed. ‘Of course not.’ Tired, ageing, barren Annie just wanted tired, ageing, barren Annie to have a baby. That was all.
At some point she lost her bearings and her grip on the rest of the conversation but as suddenly as that enormous scene had blown up it was over. James had taken himself off to the pub–in search of some male company, she suspected, and it was hard to blame him–Lucy and Rosie had nipped into town, Jess had gone round to see Araminta. And that left Annie, collapsed over the back of a kitchen chair; a smashed-up, defeated boxer against the side of the ring, facing up to a career in ruins.
Bennett’s exp
erience of parties was really not extensive. He had attended a few, of course–but not as many as he had wriggled out of going to. They had, as a family, thrown one or two, though he had always managed to excuse himself from the actual planning and scheming and inviting. And then, at the do itself, he had always found a way of travelling through the evening well below the social radar: standing behind a barbecue with a flipper was a solid approach, or hovering around a drinks table, opening and filling. Packets of crisps were a useful diversion and Sue never actually complained if he just vanished into the kitchen and did the washing-up–that was a solution that seemed to satisfy all concerned. His trouble tonight was that none of these coping mechanisms would be available to him.
He put the hired wine glasses out in carefully straight lines on his new kitchen table. The man in the shop had asked him how many guests he was expecting, and he had answered frankly that he didn’t have a clue. But that was the thing with an open house, wasn’t it? Anything could happen. The new Bennett had rather liked the wild danger of the idea, when he was back in the planning stages; but then the old Bennett popped up, rather nervous, when the off-licence chap looked into his eyes and asked if anyone at all had replied and if he had any idea how many people he had asked.
He counted the packets of crisps and deliberated on the best time for their opening. It would be fine, as he kept telling himself. In Bennett’s experience life never turned out to be as extreme as the imagination might lead one to expect–neither as bad as might be feared nor as splendid as might be hoped. Although he was apparently popular these days–and the latest rumours, that the superstore was not now going to happen, could only increase his position–he was pretty confident that his popularity was not so extraordinary that the house would be swamped and the police would be called. And some guests were definitely coming. The children, for a start–although not quite guests, still very welcome–and most of the Choir, he was sure, because why wouldn’t they?–and if the protesters had indeed won their case then they would be in the mood to celebrate. He had not after all invited the woman in the butcher’s–Araminta had put him off, and also the mince she sold him last week was a rather off-putting grey–but he thought she wouldn’t make much difference either way.
The phone rang. Hugging several packets of crisps, he went to answer it.
‘Dad. ’S me. Crap news…’
Annie, punch-drunk, was still slumped against the kitchen chair, experiencing an acutely painful mixture of bereavement and embarrassment. ‘She lost it.’ That baby had been so real to, and so loved by, Annie that she was left in a state of sad and empty shock. There had been times, over the past few weeks, that she had loved that baby more than she loved her own daughters: she was pure and unspoiled and had the world at her little pink toes; she was all promise and potential, with no disappointing reality. ‘She lost it.’ The doll’s house was all ready now, total refurb top to bottom; she even–God, how mad was she?–had more furniture on order, due to arrive next week. She put the back of her cold hands to her hot cheeks. What a complete fool she had been. ‘She lost it.’ The details of it all were still unclear and Annie hoped they would remain that way. Of course, so many first pregnancies didn’t make it past the three-month mark that Annie was amazed that possibility had never occurred to her. Indeed, she was amazed by the appalling, blinkered, mad-old-bat approach she had adopted to the whole thing since the beginning. She had made so many assumptions–that Jess would go ahead with it, and would come home to her parents, and that she, Annie, would become its–her–principal carer–and recast her own future accordingly. Sue was completely right: she had invested everything in this baby as if it were a copper-bottomed empty-nest-avoidance scheme. She wouldn’t have to unearth her old identity or discover a new one or rekindle her marriage or travel the world. Instead, she would live another eighteen years beholden to a school timetable and feeding someone else and worrying always about someone else and hoping piles of hopes for somebody else and never giving very much thought to herself. And the worst of it was, she had thought that would be a good thing. Her mother would have been horrified.
It was late afternoon now: the sun had moved round to the kitchen window and illuminated the mess still spread all over the table. She got up and began to gather cups and plates. One lingering problem was that the whole of Bridgeford knew about it and she was going to have deal with that. Pat was already knitting. Why had she confided in Sue, of all people? She was a more efficient information service than ‘News from Your Neighbourhood’. Oh, well. Annie grabbed a cloth and wiped the table down. ‘She lost it.’ That was what she would have to tell everyone. And what could they say to that? ‘She lost it.’ It was just another repeat of an old pattern. ‘She’s sleeping through the night.’ ‘She just gets on with every one.’ ‘She missed it by one mark.’ ‘The school said she would get in but she wouldn’t apply.’ This was just the latest: ‘She lost it.’
The dishwasher was half full from the simple supper of the night before. Annie stacked the rest, looked at it and thought about what needed to be done for the evening meal. All three of them might hang about for it. There could even be an attempt at a vaguely cordial gathering before they all scattered once more, so all this stuff did need cleaning now, probably. Yes. ‘Let’s get it on,’ she said to herself aloud, turning back to the sink. And then, absent-mindedly rinsing the first plate, suddenly heard herself singing:
Oh baby
Dancing with her hips, she went back to the lower plate rack.
Let’s get it on
There was no need to get up in the attic and find the original 45 to sing along to. Annie had left her own body. She was now completely possessed by Marvin Gaye.
Sugar
The Annie/Marvin hybrid ground its pelvis, dancing with a mug held tight and close, before coaxing it into a tight place on the middle shelf.
Le-et’s get it o-o-on
Annie remembered every note of the funk instrumental, which was pretty amazing considering the word ‘funk’ had not even crossed her lips for decades. But then this was 1973, wasn’t it? Back when Annie was Annie and the only music in her life was hers and hers alone. She thrust her arms in the air, brought her hands down through her hair on to her neck, and caressed herself there while grinding her hips to the rhythm of Marvin’s voice in her head. Then she grooved back to the sink, and wondered if everybody’s life was like this. Did they all have their own musical identity buried somewhere back in time, beneath a mound of compromises and the choices of their loved ones? Perhaps it was just her. Only she was foolish enough to let it happen.
Annie had cherished and curated all those physical things like she was a warden in a museum: the smocks, the photos, the drawings, the toys. But the very essence of herself–that had slipped away from her somehow. And it had left no trace. If she were to suddenly die, or just fade away–and it scared her how bloody lovely, how very peaceful, those words now sounded–her family would be able to look through the Miller Collection and see which child she was holding when, which holiday she had booked and which cake she had made for what. And they would never know, because they had never asked and she had never thought to tell them, what had ever gone on in her head before it was full up with them. Or that for hour upon hour of year upon year, she had sung alone in her bedroom and dreamed of fame. They didn’t have a clue. To be honest, Annie had forgotten all about it herself, until that moment. The idea–so shocking, so, well, vulgar–had been rubbed out by her own mother with such vigour that only the merest trace of it remained. And her girls didn’t even know what music she used to listen to, what she would be listening to now if it wasn’t for them, because she simply never listened to anything. There wasn’t a music-playing gadget in this house that she knew how to use, other than the radio. It was pathetic. She was pathetic. Or, at least, she had been pathetic. She picked up a couple of teaspoons and drummed out the irregular beat while Marv crooned the backing track.
Ooooh–oooooh
&nb
sp; Her eyes were closed, her hips were rocking, she was twirling the cutlery round in her hands, humming the electric guitar part, when her happiness was disturbed.
‘God. Mum. What are you doing?’ Jess was back. ‘So embarrassing.’
‘I’m embarrassing?’ Annie swung her hips and sang like Marvin. ‘I’m embarrassing?’ She span around, rinsed a plate, stuck it in the dishwasher, thrusting her hips. ‘How very amusing…’
‘I hate it when you don’t act your age.’
‘That bothers me, Jess.’ She wriggled up to her, sang in her face. ‘That really bothers me. Grr. So bloody sexy, this. When Dad comes home I’m going to snog his head off.’
Jess gagged in a theatrical fashion and Annie stopped singing. She felt so much better.