Striking a Balance

by Curtis, Norma

He’d missed the rope. Perhaps, yes, that was it, he’d only imagined it. He sat down again, defeated. ‘Can you blame me for not being as good as you?’

  ‘And can you blame me for giving the girls another father?’ She got up hurriedly, shaking with anger. She put the cup down on the floor and hurried to the door. He thought she was going to run out but when she saw that he hadn’t come after her, she hesitated. ‘Marrying you was the worst thing I ever did, James. I’ll regret it until I die.’ She slammed the door behind her and he jumped at the force behind it.

  He heard her feet on the path and knew she was running to her car. ‘You don’t mean that!’ he shouted loudly.

  He waited for his heart to boom in his ears.

  He waited and waited until the silence was bursting in his head. But it was no use. It seemed not to be working at all.

  34

  Megan was on the phone to Paul Camberwell of Triton, who had approved the shortlist and wanted to arrange for the candidates to meet the Triton team.

  After she put the phone down she turned to Lisa with a smile. ‘That was Paul Camberwell. He wants our chaps there next Wednesday or Thursday, whichever’s best. We’ll arrange a briefing before then.’ She paused. ‘I’ll do Larry.’ She stretched with a nervous excitement at the thought that soon, Larry might be working again. Oh, please, she added to herself.

  Lisa was looking at her in a concerned way that would have seemed patronising from anyone else. ‘You look tired, Meg,’ she said.

  Bathed in the soothing wash of green eyes, Megan smiled again. ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night.’

  Lisa got up and walked over to her. ‘I’ll give you a massage,’ she said, coming up behind her and putting her hands on the thin cotton of Megan’s shirt.

  Megan shut her eyes and thought of Larry massaging mothers and grandmothers and letting the house fall apart without noticing it. She recalled fondly the days of Ruth who, by the end of the day, gave the impression of the chaos being kept in check, but only just. Lisa’s fingers pressed deeply into her shoulder muscles, hurting and soothing at the same time, and her distinctive perfume settled around Megan. It was blissfully quiet in the office; it seemed ages, so long since they’d had a quiet day.

  Lisa’s fingers seemed to loosen her so well that she could feel herself dozing. She felt her head jerk up and her hair fall on her cheek. Brushing it away, she became awake and realised that it wasn’t her hair — her hair wasn’t long any more — and she turned, startled, to look at Lisa.

  Lisa’s pupils were so large that her eyes looked dark, as dark as Larry’s, and her hair was hanging loosely around her face, heavy and glossy, but with stiff tracks around her face, from the gel that she used.

  Meg’s surprise turned to discomfort, and slight embarrassment. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I feel heaps better now.’

  ‘Men just don’t understand, do they,’ Lisa said softly, her fingers still moving gently. ‘They want you to be like them at work, and they want you to be a woman when they’re ready to play.’

  ‘Not that that’s very often at the moment,’ Megan said ruefully.

  The phone began to ring and for an instant, neither of them moved. Megan reached for it on the third ring and in leaning forward she moved away from Lisa’s soothing hands.

  She saw Lisa turn away and gather her hair together and twist it into the silver ring that held it back from her face.

  *

  At the playgroup, Larry ended his hour of massage early so as to speak to the reporter from the Journal, while the photographer gathered the children together outside the building and asked them to look sad for the camera. The photographer asked for a pretty mother to go and stand with them and Larry, in the absence of Helen, suggested Becky, who wasn’t a mother but was definitely pretty.

  The playgroup was not the only potential victim of council cuts, as he had known. The library and the community centre were taking action too, and the local socialist party was organising a march in protest.

  ‘We could join in from about halfway,’ Larry said to Emma after the massage class had finished and the men from the Journal had left. ‘The whole route is too long for the children, even if they’re in pushchairs.’

  Emma agreed.

  ‘We ought to get some flyers made,’ he said, ‘so that we can hand them out on the way.’

  An Evening Standard photographer came later on to take photographs of the wide-eyed children, with Damon and Bill and the children looking soulful in the playground and the childminders and the mothers looking glamorous in the kitchen.

  Jean decided to start a petition and the photocopied forms were left in local shops to be signed as the mood took the customers.

  If Larry, on dropping them off, recognised several names with the same signature, he didn’t bring it up.

  And although he kept looking out for her, Helen never came.

  35

  Larry went to Triton to be interviewed by Paul Camberwell and his team.

  He interviewed well. Relaxed, with nothing to lose, his best qualities, which at the beginning of his job search had been masked by panic, were now evident. He was more himself than he had been since the day he’d stepped into Burgess’s office vowing to take his bomb curtains down.

  After leaving the Triton building, as his mother was looking after Bill for the day, he rang up James and asked him if he wanted to go for a drink.

  They arranged to meet in a club in Beauchamp Square, near the Triton offices. Larry, a beer in his hand, hardly recognised James as he walked in. He looked gaunt, the skin pulled so tightly over his face that it made a ledge of his cheekbones.

  For a while, James didn’t talk, but the beer on an empty stomach brought the story out of him, how Lydia was sending the girls away. ‘The myth of quality time,’ he said. ‘What children need is for you to always be there.’

  ‘They’re growing up,’ Larry said. ‘Maybe they feel it’s time to go.’

  James looked at him with the first flicker of feeling in his pale eyes. ‘They’re only eleven years old,’ he said. ‘They should be at home. They should be with me.’

  Larry felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked up and found Lisa there.

  ‘How did it go with Paul Camberwell?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re a good team,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘An informal interview with a Triton executive who wants to get out. Don’t let it put you off, Larry. And don’t worry, he’s gone now.’ Her eyes kept returning to James, which was hardly surprising as he looked on the point of collapse.

  ‘Lisa, this is James Wilder, an old friend. James, Lisa Ashridge. She works with Megan.’

  Lisa held out her hand and for an awful moment Larry thought James was going to kiss it, but James just shook it briefly as though conserving energy. ‘I don’t usually look like this,’ he said, ‘but my wife has left me and she’s sending my children away.’

  Larry found himself grinning at Lisa in the vague hope that she would realise James was not himself and leave them to it.

  Lisa raised her hand and ordered a drink. ‘Will you have another?’ When James nodded, she said coolly, ‘You’re well rid of her, I expect.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I love her.’

  ‘Still?’ Lisa said with a sneer. ‘Most men can’t wait to get rid of their little wives.’

  James seemed to consider this statement very seriously before replying. ‘No one would ever call Lydia that. She was the man of the house, wasn’t she, Larry? I used to look after the girls for her.’

  ‘You were a househusband?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that. But I wasn’t good enough for her. She got tired of having me at home. She’s married to someone else, now.’

  Lisa drew her fingers along the gelled strands of hair that led to the hoop at the back. ‘You should get your hair cut. You’d have a better chance.’

  James seemed to sink into a bubble of apathy at the thought. ‘Can I have a quick wor
d, Larry?’ she asked when their drinks came.

  ‘Sure. Will you excuse us, James?’

  James nodded and wrapped his hand around a fresh glass and Larry and Lisa moved to the bottom of the bar.

  ‘What do you know about Peter Dawlish?’ she asked.

  Larry grinned. ‘You headhunters never give up, do you? Peter Dawlish.’ He rubbed his chin slowly. ‘He’s worked at I&R for at least ten years — he used to do our sales promotion literature for us. When I say us, I mean Burgess McLane. Probably still does it for Xylus. John King used to deal with that side of things, it was one of the last things we talked about. I wondered whether or not it was time for a change.’

  Lisa grinned and squeezed his hand. She put her drink on the counter. ‘Nice to see you. I’ll be in touch, Larry.’

  Larry watched her go and turned his attention back to James.

  He didn’t know whether to be worried or frustrated about him. He told James that a lot of men went through it, and started again with new wives. There had to be many men out there going through it one way or another and coming out the other side so normal that you couldn’t tell.

  ‘Show me one,’ James said.

  The only thing that amused him was the fact that Bill called his father Larry.

  ‘Demotion, mate.’

  Reassured by the wry laughter, Larry told James he thought he ought to buck up. After all, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been through a trauma himself. And got himself out of it, got himself through the white noise and out of the pit to where he was now.

  ‘And where’s that, Larry?’ James said, his voice as flat and lifeless as dead fish eyes. ‘Unemployed and pushing your son around, a rebel with a Mickey Mouse bell?’

  36

  Peter Dawlish was in Lisa’s bath, a glass of brandy in his hand. The candles flickered and the Badedas foamed.

  He’d never in a million years expected to find himself there, but something had happened, he’d done something, pressed the right buttons, he thought — yes, that was it, pressed the right buttons — and she’d come on to him like a hot potato.

  And not just any hot potato — this one had brains.

  Like to like, he thought, groaning as she soaped his foot, slipping her fingers between his toes. He’d never had anyone go there before, not since he was out of nappies. It was to have been such an ordinary night, too. A drink after work...he tried to concentrate on her voice.

  It was amazing, he thought, what turned women on. He knew women who liked talking dirty but this one talked money. Non-stop money. She talked about rolling in it, sweating on it, licking it...never leaving his toes alone once.

  ‘What do you do with money?’ she asked in a soft-as-soapsuds voice.

  ‘Roll in it,’ he said. ‘Spend it!’

  Oh, he had the touch tonight, he had the touch. He felt her hands slither from his toes to his ankles; he’d never seen that in a book but his ankles were attached to parts of him he’d never have guessed.

  He tried to think of the magic word that would send those soapy hands a little higher. What the hell else could you do with money? ‘Throw it in the air!’ he cried, but those fingers stayed right where they were.

  And when he was almost sobbing with frustration, she asked in her smoothie voice, ‘Have you ever fiddled money?’

  ‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ he said, and her fingers inched up and bubbles of lucidity popped in his brain and he thought — set-up! ‘With John King?’

  He groaned, not so much with pleasure, this time. ‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘Or I pull the plug.’

  His eyes widened and he looked at the chain in her hand and the smile on her face and got back into it straight away, shutting his eyes as her hands inched up his calf. ‘Don’t pull it! Don’t pull it! I’ll talk!’

  Her hands were at the back of his knee, that soft crease of skin.

  ‘He pays me ten grand to do his sales promotion literature,’ he told her, and felt her hands move round.

  The front of his knee! How could he ever have knelt on such a tender spot? ‘I get Trappers to do it for eight grand.’ His thigh, and nearly there. Couldn’t wait much longer.

  ‘I invoice the company for ten grand and John King and I, we split the two k.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Over the months it mounts up. We’ve been doing it for years. Different sums, of course.’ He opened his eyes briefly and could still see her smile.

  He must be doing something right.

  And then, so did she.

  And as he sank into the bubbles he thought hey, drowning was the only way to die.

  *

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked her afterwards. He wished he hadn’t told her, but wouldn’t have turned back the clock, not for the world.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, finishing off her brandy. ‘It’s not my money.’

  The word, he noticed, wasn’t having much effect on her now.

  ‘If John King goes down, I go down, you know that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let you go down, Peter.’

  And as she showed him the door, he had to be content with that.

  37

  On the day of the march the coach was full. Larry stood outside it, ticking off names as the women went up and found their seats. There was a general air of gaiety and not only that, there was also a sense of purpose.

  Emma, in red, locked the doors of the building and came up to him. ‘That’s the lot,’ she said. ‘A good turnout. More than we expected.’

  Larry took one last, hopeful look and saw Helen, hand in hand with Lily, walking towards them.

  ‘Are we too late?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Never too late. Get in.’

  Larry followed her up the steps onto the coach.

  It suddenly seemed as if she was the person he’d done it for, and not the playgroup at all.

  The doors shut with a hiss behind them and as he nodded to the driver he was aware that everyone was quietening down. He rested a hand on the fuzzy orange upholstery of the bus and faced them, sixty-four expectant people waiting for motivation.

  ‘Right,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘we are not going to be the only people outside the town hall because the cuts are not only going to affect us, they’re going to affect everyone in the borough — those who use the library, those who use the sports centre, the elderly who go to the community hall. We’re all going to suffer in our own way. But we’ve got a voice.’ Rumblings of agreement, like the humming of bees, built up briefly, then subsided. ‘And we’ll make sure it’s heard.’

  The first smatterings of clapping were drowned out by the driver starting the engine.

  Larry swung himself into his seat, next to Emma. He looked along the aisle and saw that Bill had gone to sit on Helen’s knee. He gave Bill the thumbs-up sign (or was it really for Helen?) and sat back again in his seat and exhaled deeply, thinking of Megan and the Triton job.

  Emma opened a packet of Polo mints and offered one to him. He put it in his mouth, sucking thoughtfully.

  Emma was looking out of the window as the playgroup was left behind in the distance.

  She turned to him and adjusted the band around her hair. ‘Do you think we’re going to make any difference?’ she asked, and he was surprised at the futility in her voice.

  He bit into the Polo and it split in half beneath his teeth with a crack.

  ‘Every action causes a reaction,’ he said. ‘It can’t make things any worse, can it?’

  She looked at him again. He could see how the playgroup’s problem had changed her. Her skin looked pale and fine over her plump cheeks and he noticed again the strands of white crinkling waywardly in her otherwise smooth, glossy hair.

  ‘When you think things can’t get any worse, they usually do,’ she said.

  ‘You sound tired, ’he said, his head nearer hers so that he didn’t have to raise his voice.

  ‘I’m tired of struggling,’ she said. ‘The playgroup’s the best thing that’s ever h
appened to me, and I can’t even keep it open.’ She looked out of the window again at the hot, dirty streets, the grimy buildings, the cars driving alongside the bus pumping out carcinogenic, lead-free fumes. ‘I used to think there was a purpose to things,’ she said.

  ‘And you don’t any more?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I used to think things would get better, you know, that you could achieve something...’she glanced at him again, swallowing her words as though they were threatening to choke her. Larry was surprised to see tears were blurring her creased eyes.

  Larry too stared at the traffic, at the lights, the roadworks, the parked trucks with hazard lights on, winking audaciously as the traffic snaked erratically round them. He, too, had succumbed to the achievement idea. Perhaps that was the insidious side of it, the idea that you actually could reach some sort of pinnacle, and that once there a little voice in your ear would say: Look! This could all be yours. But it was what kept people going. It was what had kept him going.

  When Emma next spoke, the tears had gone although he hadn’t seen her wipe them away. ‘I suppose I expected a reward for good behaviour,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I always was a silly cow.’

  Larry rubbed his hand against the newly emerging stubble of his jaw and didn’t reply.

  She gave another short laugh. ‘Do you know what I want? I want the playgroup to stay open.’

  Larry laughed. ‘It doesn’t seem much to ask,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all uphill, whatever, isn’t it? What do you want? You don’t want to spend the rest of your life taking Bill to school and dropping him off, do you?’

  Larry rubbed the cleft of his cheek. ‘I want a job and a car and money. And I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to only see Bill at weekends. I don’t want watching my reflection in windows to be the highlight of my day. I don’t want to hurt my wife.’ He stopped suddenly.

  Ahead he could see a police van and a small crowd of demonstrators. It was the beginning of the march. Police and demonstrators kept apart like two well-matched dogs who didn’t feel confident about testing their strength just yet.