Getting Home

by Celia Brayfield

  On the cart, a dwelling had been erected in the style of a covered wagon, with black polythene stretched over a barrel-shaped frame. As the vehicle progressed it swayed from side to side, a jaunty pennant made from an old yellow fertiliser bag waving at the rear. Various pieces of equipment hung clanking from the body, among them a ladder, some shovels, a rusted Hibachi barbecue and a child’s pushchair.

  Behind the cart skulked a fourth dog of unrelated breed, skinny and greyhound-like, and at a proper distance crawled the last unit of the procession, another officer on a motorcycle, sun twinkling from the chrome. He smiled around him at the people who appeared at doors and windows to gape at the spectacle, his cap pushed back on his head in self-satisfaction.

  Ted observed that all the performers in this tableau enjoyed their roles, that the women were delighted with the degree of outrage which they offered the village and the officers were well pleased to be protecting their community by escorting such a dire menace safely on its way. The inhabitants of Ambleford also seemed gratified to have been visited by a manifestation of the great public drama of the Strankley Ridge inquiry. Ted himself felt satisfied to see his fears actually made flesh before his eyes. If Adam had seen this, he thought, he would hear me better.

  The air became still again. The mother-of-pearl light of the early evening softened the pink of the roses and warmed the plain stone walls of the Meeting House. The cooing of a dove echoed between the hillsides. A grinning youth drove his tractor down the main street and collected the girl from the general store as she locked the door. Ted climbed back into his vehicle, in no hurry to get home.

  A traffic jam gives a man a dangerous sense of impotence. ‘Ecoute-moi,’ sang Sumi Jo as he waited stoically in the tailback to a crash, ‘Rapelle-toi! N’est-ce plus ma voix? N’est-ce pas ma main que cette main presse? N’est-ce plus Manon?’

  In the last roadhouse in the 31 corridor, with a cup of coffee-flavoured liquid on the table, Ted pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase and wrote a letter. ‘I can’t go back to what I was,’ he wrote. ‘I am like wine in a bottle and you poured me out. I don’t care what you do with me now, whether you drink me or throw me away. But you have to know what you’ve done. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I know this is stupid.’

  The roadhouse offered every convenience necessary to support human life: vegetarian hamburgers; fragranced plastic flower arrangements in the toilets; a post box and a vending machine for stamps.

  Mrs E Parsons had such poor muscle tone that it seemed biologically impossible for her to stand upright. Her blood pressure was high for a woman her age, her resting heart rate was fast, her BMI was low but body fat was surprisingly high. Grip strength was poor, stamina, was poor, flexibility was below average, peak flow rate average. Rod assessed her build as endomorphic, query disguised by an eating disorder. She gave off the sour smell of a body which was never used. Spod city, absolutely.

  To touch she was like an oven-ready broiling chicken, cold and flabby and rather light for her size. He considered tactful approaches to suggesting she should have a bone scan.

  ‘I have so much stress,’ she told him. ‘Media is a real high-stress profession. You know, deadlines, pressure … and I carry my show, I just am the whole thing. It’s a real responsibility. Sometimes when I leave the studio. I’m so tense I feel like screaming.’ The hand to the forehead, the fingers to the bridge of the nose, anguish mimed so as not to smudge the make-up. A miniature woman, everything undersized.

  ‘What I would recommend is a programme of three sessions a week to start with, building to four …’

  ‘Oh God, I’ll never have the time …’

  ‘And I’d suggest concentrating on aerobic work to begin with, to give you a base level of general fitness, plus I’d like to do some Pilates exercises with you to work on posture and flexibility. Then in time we can start thinking about strength work.’

  ‘I’d hate to get muscles. I hate that look.’

  ‘Tone. Just toning. Tone is essential in the abdominal area to hold your spine correctly, and toned muscles work better and protect you from getting injured.’ The same lines every day. When you are in the theatre again you will have to say the same lines every day; look on this as training for yourself.

  ‘I can’t possibly do three times a week.’

  ‘I could come to your office. I do that with quite a few of my clients.’

  Horror flashed in her eyes and she groped for an excuse, finally fixing on, ‘But you don’t know what my schedule is like.’

  ‘Would you say it was heavier than Oprah Winfrey’s schedule?’

  ‘She was fat.‘ She got up from the bench and pinched a little white skin at her midriff below the pristine sports bra stretched over her chest – surgically enhanced chest; they stood out like grapefruit halves.

  They were out on her patio, where the bushes in tubs were yellowed and the soft summer air had a faint ammonia tang. The end of the garden was fenced off with a Versailles-style trellis. He made out rabbit-hutches, and some kind of fat dog which was tied up, and occasionally yelped at them. ‘Be quiet,’ she ordered it, sounding irritated.

  ‘We could include power walks, just around the block here or over in the park. He could come along.’

  ‘He’s my husband’s dog,’ she told him, with emphatic distaste. ‘I can’t really walk in the street, in public. Not in my position.’ The example of Jackie Onassis came to his mind but he let it go. He was feeling tired now, and the right Achilles was flaming, and the management had issued a disciplinary notice about using original music for classes instead of the synthetic tempo-adjusted bilge which cleared the copyright laws.

  She suggested going into the kitchen for a drink. Was he kidding himself or was there something a little off about this? She had a preening manner, and a way of over-emphasising her words which made simple statements sound suggestive. Her interest in her health was clearly recent. All her kit was skintight and brand new, but that was not unusual in Westwick.

  ‘Having children can raise the stress levels of working women so much that their health could be at risk,’ she told him, finding an item from that morning’s show still retrievable in her memory. ‘They did research somewhere, California I think. Even if they have only one child, the stress hormones just shoot right up. And I have three kids.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he agreed, wondering about working men with children.

  ‘Shall we have that drink now?’ she suggested, heading back to the kitchen where unwashed plates covered all the surfaces. ‘Do you think I need massage?’ she asked, wiggling her rear as she peered into the fridge. He retreated to the far end of the room. ‘My shoulders get so-o-o tight …’

  Her shoulders were habitually dragged forward, the left lower than the right, with marked torsion through the middle thoracics. It was a mess. Actually, the whole body was a mess, right down to the prolapsed metatarsal arches and the bunions. ‘Working on your posture and the way you use your body will help realign your spine and stop that tightness from building up.’

  ‘I just love massage.’

  ‘Of course, massage is good for releasing tension, loosening you up, helping the muscles work through their fullest range of motion and recover from training so building up strength faster.’ Mistake, mistake. Even before he had finished speaking she was perking up hopefully.

  ‘I thought maybe Shiatsu, or something? To get my energy moving. I have no energy, I feel kind of bleaghh, you know? Would you do that, massage?’

  ‘It isn’t something I do, no. Fitness training is all I’m qualified for. Pilates technique works on the alignment of the whole body, it would definitely release the kind of tension you have.’ She gave a pout of disappointment, and more little ridges appeared in her make-up like sand waves on a beach.

  ‘What age are your children?’ He had noticed the detritus of pink plastic shards and dead cyberpets around the edges of the room.

  ‘Oh – young. Really young.’ She cracked a can o
f diet drink and poured it into two smeared crystal glasses. ‘They need so much, children. They drain you. So you don’t think shiatsu?’ Now she was fetching ice. ‘You know, you look familiar to me … Of course, I’ve seen, you at The Cedars but I’m sure I know you from somewhere else.’

  ‘I’m an actor,’ he owned, knowing what would follow.

  ‘An actor,’ she repeated, seeming pleased. ‘Of course. Weren’t you in … what was it …’ Yes, his instinct was correct. There was her hand trickling over his when she gave him the drink, and her eyes heading his off at the pass.

  ‘You won’t have seen anything I’ve done. A lot of theatre, just a few little things for TV. My high spot was an educational video of Julius Caesar.’

  ‘Shakespeare. Well for heaven’s sake.’ His personal space was invaded, indeed it was almost colonised, she was too close and she was lingering. ‘I can see that. I bet you could really fill out a toga.’ Sweat broke out at his temples and a drop ran down his cheek.

  ‘It was modern dress. I had a suit.’

  ‘Look,’ she said after a few moments, mercifully taking a step back. ‘I’m sure you haven’t watched my show Family First, you know, it’s all sort of family oriented why would you? But, you know, every series I have a co-host, you know, a man.’ It was as if she had named a magical, mythical animal, seldom sighted. ‘We’ll be looking for someone new next year – starting late September. Screen experience, a good presence, intelligence … You don’t have to write scripts or anything, they do all that for you. Why don’t you think about it? Do you have an agent?’

  ‘That’s very kind.’ He never knew how to get out of these things, or for that matter how he got into them. ‘But I have a family. I’ve booked myself out for a few years, while my daughter is growing up. I can’t really commit myself to anything. We lost her mother a few months back so I’m all she has, really.’

  ‘Oh, I do know, those early years are so precious. But I’ve got children, and I manage.’

  Clearly, no need to fear sympathy, but all the same he kept his eyes down and tried to look stupid, and probably succeeded, because her lack of interest was total. Speaking lightly to indicate that she cared nothing either way about the outcome, she continued, ‘Think about it, why don’t you?’

  He promised to do that. For her own good, he manoeuvred her into booking three sessions for the following week, anticipating that she would call and cancel.

  Sweetheart, he remembered while buying frozen peas at Mr Singh’s, had once pointed out the Parsons girls to him at the kindergarten. That evening, over his famous linguini primavera with sweetcorn, he asked her opinion. ‘Their mummy is on TV,’ she said. ‘She never comes to school except once on Sports Day she gave the prizes.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘The big one is a total bubble-head but she left because she’s older. The small one cries all the time. She says her mummy will take her away because she hates it. And their brother is going to be in prison, Topaz says.’

  ‘You don’t like them.’

  ‘No. They’ve got stupid names. Nobody likes them.’ And she giggled and shovelled down another forkful. ‘Will you come to Sports Day, Dad? You can win everything.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t come. It’s not always smart to win everything. Sometimes it’s smarter to give someone else a chance.’ The worst thing about parenthood was it made you sanctimonious. The real problem with Sports Day, and every other social event he attended as a father, was the loneliness – the mothers avoided him as if he carried a flesh-eating virus, the few fathers talked over his head. He did not understand why. Gemma said it was all down to sex and something to do with projection and envy in the case of the fathers, though he saw no cause for a man with a new Range Rover and a new Mercedes to envy him, running a seven-year-old Toyota.

  ‘Will you make a cake?’ she persisted. ‘Everybody liked the one you did last term.’ Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, only a tiny bit collapsed at the centre. Not bad for an amateur.

  ‘The Carman boys didn’t, they said it was disgusting.’

  ‘They never eat anything home-made.’ She stabbed the air with her fork as if to impale the Carmans, left and right.

  ‘Don’t wave your fork around, it’s bad manners.’

  When she was asleep he went up on deck to put the remaining frozen peas on his swollen tendon and watch the stars twinkle to life in the creamy summer night. Lights twinkled along Riverview Drive, and up Alder Reach, and all over Westwick, where husbands were coming home to their wives; granted, Westwick husbands, when they were not travelling, seldom made it through the door before 10 pm, but it was domesticity of a kind, along with brothers and sisters arguing over TV. Families all together under one roof, most of the time, at least. In the North Helford Hospital and Home for Incurables, his wife was drifting towards the end of her life on a river of morphine. Her eyes were open but unseeing. She was nourished by a plastic bag of soluble chemicals, and a vibrating waterbed coaxed her blood through her capillaries and stopped her getting bed sores. He could not go up to Mr Singhs to buy wine and leave Sweetheart alone. So here he was again, alone on deck, watching Venus blinking at him over the willows.

  5. Masquerades

  In Westwick there was no smoke without a barbecue. Smoke rose above Riverview Drive. The first barbecue of summer was a rite which belonged to Adam DeSouza, who had dreamed of boerewors sausages with gravy everyday since he had left Cape Town and, in his reasonable and ruthless way, had made Belinda’s existence unbearable until she transmitted her persecution to the proprietor of Catchpole & Forge, Family Butchers on the Broadway, who petitioned his wholesalers and placed a regular order.

  The women sat on the terrace with wine and the men stood over the fire with beer. Above the funereal wall of Cupressus leylandii, which preserved the DeSouza’s privacy, the evening star was faint, depicting Venus in affliction.

  Allie Parsons crossed her knees, feeling the toxins trapped in her cellulite protest. The appalling interlude of the weekend lay ahead; there was no filming to be done, no conference to attend, no story to cover. She would be incarcerated in her home. Ted would take the girls to The Cedars while she washed about the rooms like driftwood, turning over magazine pages. Of the popular press, Allie cared only for one genre: the magazines full of lovely homes, devoted couples, photogenic children and courageous triumphs over personal disaster.

  It was over a year since Allie Parsons, host of Family First, had invited readers into her lovely home to reveal how her son Damon had beaten alcoholism. She questioned the value of that exercise. Damon had been 15 then, with menacing feet the size of telephone directories.

  ‘Kids grow up fast these days,’ observed The Boss, the Channel’s chairman, appraising her with less approval than she had anticipated.

  ‘We were so young when we got married,’ she parried. ‘We made so many mistakes. Damon’s a good kid at heart. The young have so much stress these days. I was thinking of a feature on it – exam pressure, suicides, you know.’ But The Boss had merely smiled.

  A cloud of smoke from the barbecue blew towards the women. ‘My husband is a pyromaniac.’ Belinda flapped her hand at the fumes. ‘I think his ancestors must have been those people who burned each other in wicker cages.’

  ‘Sun worship, that’s what that was about.’ Rachel flicked ash into the rosemary bush, confident that her ancestors were guilty of nothing so barbarous.

  ‘They’re all just boy scouts with their camp fires if you ask me.’ Examining the futility of men was Allie’s favourite pastime in these deadly nights when couples gathered together to excavate acquaintanceships in which the seams of affinity were running dangerously thin.

  ‘You could be right. Did. I tell you, he wants us to go on a wilderness weekend?’

  ‘A what?’ Allie was alerted. Another feature?

  ‘A wilderness weekend. You go off into the woods with a backpack and a Swiss Army knife … oh, stop, Allie, I know what you’re
thinking. Adam would never do it. The firm wouldn’t let him. Besides, he’s not insured.’

  ‘I was thinking maybe another couple, if it’s a thing people are getting into. So go on. You set off into the wilds…’

  ‘With a ton of mosquito spray and your Discman and a bottle of Bolly …’ prompted Rachel.

  ‘Yes. And you sleep under the stars and tune into nature.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’ More smoke belched from the barbecue, and they all waved it away.

  ‘No tennis?’ Rachel was horrified.

  ‘No tennis.’

  ‘He’s crazy. You’re sure Adam isn’t leading a double life? I mean, maybe he’s got a second family somewhere and he just forgot which wife he was with. You’d die if you had to go two whole days without tennis. I give you that as my professional opinion.’ Rachel’s deep, rough laugh reverberated from the walls of the house. She laughed alone. Women in Westwick kept cold houses and seldom laughed at jokes about adultery.

  The essential facts of the DeSouza marriage were common knowledge Belinda had brought her condominium in Jackson Hole to the union, while Adam, as an immigrant, had been required to resit his bar exams and was therefore ten years behind his peers and trapped in a corporate job. Until his capital contribution to the family wealth outweighed that of his wife, Adam was a man who had been bought and paid for; other wives envied Belinda the power balance of her house, and wished her husband might stray to a strange bed to even the score.

  ‘So, go on. You drive out miles from anywhere …’ Allie leaned her chin in her hand.

  ‘Well, that’s it. You just go off and sleep in sleeping bags, pee in the woods and get ants in your hair.’

  ‘And what’s the point of it?’

  ‘There isn’t a point. He just wants to go fishing and make camp fires and be a boy scout.’

  ‘But is it always a husband and wife thing? Is it supposed to get you back in touch with each other and revitalise your relationship or something?’