Her Get-Well-Sooners. Their faces pressed up against the window of the drawing room as Marianne drove up the driveway. Waiting for Rita.
She bypassed them and retreated up the stairs, to her bedroom. ‘I’m tired,’ she said when Marianne asked her why she was getting into bed.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said later, when Marianne, having beaten the ancient biscuit tin with the wooden spoon to announce dinner, went up to her.
When Marianne woke the next morning, George was not leaning over her, licking her face and pawing her arm. He was asleep at the end of her bed. Marianne sat up and rubbed her eyes. The day was already lit by the sun, the light streaming through the gap in the Paddington Bear curtains. Marianne had long given up trying to get them to meet in the middle, like curtains should.
She blinked in the unfamiliar light, tried to get her bearings.
It felt like some line had been crossed and everything was different and nothing was the same.
She pulled her feet out from under George’s deadweight, struggled out of bed, threw on some clothes and brushed her teeth. When she returned to the bedroom, George had not stirred and she approached him cautiously, put her hand on his coarse fur. He was warm. She watched her hand lift and fall with his breathing.
She left him to sleep.
She thought briefly about going to the beach alone but then she thought about George.
George would smell the sea on her and would look at her with his head cocked to one side and such sadness in his amber eyes.
She didn’t go to the beach.
She couldn’t.
In the kitchen, only Patrick, making a pot of coffee, and Aunt Pearl, reading the newspaper. She lowered it when Marianne walked in, peered at her across the top of the page, her eyebrows arched like meringues, in stiff peaks.
‘You look tired,’ she said, her tone not as sharp as her usual nib.
Patrick appeared beside her with a mug of coffee, the steam rising from it in pungent swirls.
‘Thanks,’ said Marianne, taking it from him. He smiled his small smile at her.
‘Is Rita still in bed?’ she asked then, sitting down.
‘Yes,’ said Aunt Pearl, but beneath her disapproving tone there was a note of worry that Marianne could hear as clearly as Rita’s dinner gong.
Patrick was worried too. Marianne could see it along the rigid line of his shoulders. She set her mug on the table and stood up.
‘I’ll go and get her,’ she said.
‘Rita?’ Marianne knocked briefly on her mother’s bedroom door and opened it. She stepped inside and the air that enveloped her was musty and stale. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, approached the bed.
‘Rita?’
The covers shifted and Rita’s head appeared. She shielded her eyes from the daylight streaming through the door with her hand.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Patrick is worried about you.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘So is Aunt Pearl.’
‘Now you’re just being ridiculous,’ said Rita, sitting up. It was a struggle, the movement, like an echo of her unmade-up face, gaunt and grey in the suggestion of pale light behind the curtains, the parched thinness of her mouth, the wispy hairs of her brows.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, reaching for a glass of water. ‘I’m just tired.’ Her hand shook with effort. Marianne picked up the glass, handed it to Rita. When she drank, the bones in her neck poked through her skin in a way that looked painful. When she looked up, Marianne saw that the whites of her eyes were shot through with red thread veins.
‘It’s time to get up,’ said Marianne, taking the glass from her.
Rita shook her head. ‘Not today,’ she said.
‘You have work to do.’
‘They can manage without me today.’
Marianne shook her head stoutly. ‘You have commitments,’ she said.
Rita lay back against the pillows. Closed her eyes. She looked like a carbon copy of herself, faint and fragile.
‘Did you hear me?’ said Marianne, stepping closer, her voice louder.
‘Give me a break,’ said Rita. ‘I’m dying.’
‘You’re not dying today,’ said Marianne, grabbing a fistful of Rita’s bedcovers, reefing them down.
‘Stop,’ said Rita, sitting up. ‘It’s freezing.’
‘You’re always saying how invigorating the cold is,’ Marianne reminded her, moving the covers out of reach as Rita tried to snatch them out of her hands. ‘Nothing like the cold to make you feel alive. That’s your line, remember?’
‘I can’t believe you’re quoting me back to me,’ said Rita, petulant.
‘It seems like the least you deserve,’ said Marianne, tossing the eiderdown behind her and facing her mother again with her arms tightly crossed. ‘Now get up.’
‘There,’ said Rita, pushing her legs off the bed and perching on the edge.
‘And get dressed.’
‘Right now?’
‘Yes.’
Rita signed and shook her head. Marianne did not budge. ‘Oh, fine then,’ said Rita after a while. ‘Pass me those tracksuit bottoms.’
‘You don’t wear tracksuits,’ said Marianne, kicking the bottoms under the bed.
‘What are you …?’
‘Here.’ Marianne picked one of Rita’s complicated dresses off the back of the chaise longue and held it towards her. ‘This one is nice.’
‘But you were right about tracksuits,’ said Rita. ‘They are very comfortable.’
‘Don’t make me wrestle this over your head,’ said Marianne, taking a step towards Rita with the dress.
‘I’ll freeze in that rig-out,’ said Rita.
‘You can wear thermals underneath it,’ said Marianne, dropping the dress on Rita’s lap.
‘Thermals?’ said Rita, as if Marianne had said the word in Chinese. Marianne took succour from her tone. She sounded more like herself.
‘A vest then,’ said Marianne.
‘Vests are for men,’ said Rita, moodily.
‘Shirley would not be impressed with such gender-normativity,’ said Marianne, searching through Rita’s chest of drawers. ‘Here, this will do.’ She took out a slip, a pair of hold-ups and the biggest, warmest pair of knickers she could find, which were silk and neither big nor warm.
‘That’s better,’ said Marianne when Rita was dressed. ‘Now, what colour turban are you wearing today?’
Rita shook her head. ‘I’m not going to bother.’
‘Orange, you say?’ said Marianne, spying a snatch of bright orange silk hanging off the full-length mirror. ‘Excellent choice.’ She sat beside Rita on the bed and did her best to arrange the scarf around Rita’s head in that nonchalant, jaunty way that Rita usually did. She leaned back to survey her work. ‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘You look nearly civilised. You just need a bit of make-up and—’
‘No,’ said Rita. ‘The smell of it makes me feel sick.’
‘That’s never stopped you before,’ said Marianne, opening her mother’s monstrous bag of cosmetics and peering inside. She found a foundation.
‘I’m hardly going to blend in with that shade,’ said Rita when Marianne picked it up.
‘You’re not supposed to blend in,’ said Marianne, dabbing blobs on Rita’s forehead, her cheeks, her nose, her chin. She used the pads of her fingers to rub them in, as gentle as she could, trying not to notice how worn out Rita’s skin was, how threadbare.
She used a pencil to draw on Rita’s eyebrows and even managed to stick lashes on without taking her eyes out, although they did water quite a bit.
‘Eyedrops,’ said Marianne. ‘And lipstick. Then you’re done.’
Afterwards, she marched Rita over to the mirror, stood her in front of it. ‘There,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think I’m depressed,’ said Rita.
‘I meant, what do you think of your rig-out,’ said Marianne.
Rit
a shrugged. ‘I don’t know why you’ve gone to all this—’
‘Just tell me what you think.’ said Marianne.
‘It’s fine,’ said Rita, her shoulders slumping with resignation.
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Marianne, smiling at her mother’s reflection in the mirror. ‘Now,’ she went on quickly, steering Rita towards the door, making sure they gave the bed a wide berth. ‘Time to eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Hunger has nothing to do with it,’ said Marianne. ‘You need to eat something.’
Rita opened her mouth to say something else, to feebly throw another obstacle in Marianne’s way, perhaps, then didn’t. Instead, she followed Marianne down the stairs to the kitchen.
‘Well,’ said Pearl, folding her newspaper in two with a sharp snap. Marianne narrowed her eyes at her and shook her head. Pearl bristled. ‘I was merely going to ask if Rita would like a cup of tea.’
‘Oh,’ said Marianne.
‘Did you think I was going to make some snide comment about Rita finally deigning to join us for breakfast at this ungodly hour of the day?’
‘Well,’ Marianne began, flushing, ‘I …’
‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ said Rita, sitting down. Marianne filled the kettle.
Patrick, who had been busy at the pan, now set a stack of pancakes on the table, along with a bowl of melted chocolate, a plate of raspberries, banana slices, and a jar of honey.
‘What’s the occasion?’ asked Rita.
Patrick didn’t answer but placed his hand on Rita’s shoulder. She touched his hand with her own and the gesture was so quiet and tender, Marianne had to look away.
Aunt Pearl put a pancake on a plate, decorated it with two raspberries, a slice of banana and a semi-circle of melted chocolate. She set the plate in front of Rita.
‘Is that a smiley face?’ Marianne asked, looking at the pancake.
‘What else would it be?’ snapped Aunt Pearl.
‘Thank you, Pearl,’ said Rita, picking up her knife and fork. Pearl nodded stiffly and left the kitchen, trailing 4711 and carbolic soap.
Rita ate one of the raspberries, the slice of banana and two mouthfuls of pancake. She drank half a cup of the tea Marianne made her with the mucky weeds.
‘Right,’ said Marianne, picking up the keys of the Jeep. ‘Come on.’
Rita looked at her in alarm. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re going to pick up the Get-Well-Sooners, of course,’ said Marianne, walking with purpose to the door. She turned round when she reached it. Rita had not moved.
‘The doctor said I should rest,’ Rita said.
‘You can rest in the Jeep,’ said Marianne. She knew she was being heavy-handed. She didn’t know what else to do. The only thing she could think of was routine. Routine might tow them out of whatever lay-by they’d broken down in, give them a jump start.
It wasn’t a brilliant idea but, in the absence of anything else, it would have to do. She handed Rita her faux-fur jacket, her cashmere scarf, and was amazed when Rita, obedient as a child, stood up and put the jacket over her shoulders, wound the scarf around her neck. She looked up and nodded at Marianne. ‘Okay,’ she said. It wasn’t a massive endorsement of Marianne’s plan but it was a tentative lean in that direction.
‘You look lovely,’ said Marianne.
‘So do you,’ said Rita, which was worrying since Marianne was wearing her usual uniform of tracksuit bottoms, a fleece jumper over a T-shirt and her worn-out runners. She threw on her anorak and looked at Rita. They studied each other, perhaps noticing the small hollow in the middle of their chins, the gunmetal-blue of their eyes and the shape of their mouths, wide and full and a little too big in the small, pale circles of their faces.
Marianne opened the passenger door of the Jeep and waited for Rita to negotiate her way inside.
It took longer than usual.
The Jeep did its usual groaning protest when Marianne turned the key in the ignition but she had developed a knack by now; three short pumps on the accelerator followed by two long ones and the engine roared into life, although perhaps roar was overstating it. Still, it started. Ethel would consider that a sign. A good sign.
Today the flowers on the side of the road were tulips, in pinks, reds, yellows, and purple. Marianne did not hold her breath or accelerate as she passed them. Instead she looked at them. So did Rita.
‘I always thought you put the flowers there every day,’ said Marianne.
Rita shook her head. ‘Pearl does,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ said Marianne.
She drove on.
At the traffic lights on the way into Skerries, the Jeep cut out. The lights were red.
Marianne turned the key. Three short pumps on the accelerator, then two long ones.
Nothing happened.
She looked in her rear-view mirror. Three cars behind. She tried again.
The lights turned green.
Marianne put on her hazard lights.
She tried a different tack, this time applying gentle but persistent pressure on the accelerator.
A horn blared.
Marianne looked in her rear-view mirror again. The driver of the car – a burly man with a hipster beard and a tweed peaked cap – stabbed the air with his finger towards the green traffic light. With his other hand, he leaned on the horn.
Marianne looked at Rita, who seemed to be following her doctor’s orders for the first time in her life and was resting, her head leaning against the worn leather of the seat and her eyes closed.
The car behind pulled out to overtake the Jeep but the traffic lights, already amber, turned red. Marianne could see the man mouthing a profanity. The F word. And the C word.
‘That is well out of order,’ said Marianne, glaring in the rear-view mirror.
When the lights turned green, Marianne floored the accelerator. No response from the Jeep. Now the man pulled down his window, leaned out, shouting.
Marianne put on the handbrake and took off her seat belt. She rolled down her window. It stopped halfway so she had to push it with her hands to get it all the way down.
‘What are you doing?’ said Rita, opening her eyes.
‘That man is being reprehensible,’ said Marianne, kneeling on the seat.
‘Does that mean he’s being a dick?’ said Rita, sitting up.
‘Yes,’ said Marianne.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ Rita unclipped her seat belt, rolled down her window, turned and kneeled on her seat. Then, like a pair of synchronised swimmers, Rita and Marianne leaned out of their windows at the same time, waited until they had the driver’s full attention before extending their hands out as far as they would go with their middle fingers raised and rigid.
The man was purple with rage by the time he manoeuvred his car past them. He glared at the two women, hanging out of either side of the Jeep, and then spat at them, out his window as he drove by. But the wind was not in his favour. It caught the line of his spittle in mid-flight before flinging it back in his face. It landed in one of his furious eyes. Marianne and Rita cheered loudly.
The lights were red again.
Rita, her cheeks flushed pink, sat back in her seat and reached for the seat belt. Marianne did the same.
‘You have to talk nice to it, remember?’ Rita said.
Marianne leaned forward. ‘Who’s a lovely Jeep then?’ she said, patting the dashboard. She turned the key in the ignition and stepped cautiously on the accelerator. The engine, old and tired and in need of a good deal of attention, wheezed and juddered but turned over. Eventually.
It felt triumphant and exhilarating. Like something extraordinary had happened. Marianne flung her hand out the window and gave a thumbs up sign to the unfortunate woman waiting patiently behind the Jeep, whose car was full to the brim with babies and toddlers, all of whom appeared to be crying. The woman had banana mashed into her fringe. In spite of that, she rewarded Marianne with an exhausted but warm smile.
The lights turned green.
Marianne drove on.
Chapter 34
Things kind of went back to normal after that. Not the normal that Marianne had once known. Long ago.
An Ancaire kind of normal.
The picking up and dropping off of the Get-Well-Sooners, for example. Freddy yelling, ‘Go-go-go,’ as he hurled himself into the Jeep ahead of his mother’s steady but slow beeline towards them, with her mantilla of hair and her interminable air of injury. So far, Mrs Montgomery had made it as far as the driver’s window only once, bending at the waist and peering inside at them like a drill sergeant carrying out a uniform inspection.
Carefully, Marianne lifted her hand from the steering wheel and waved and, from the back seat, Bartholomew and Ethel followed suit.
‘Whatever you do, don’t lower the window,’ Freddy hissed at Marianne, without seeming to move his mouth. He was waving too. ‘She’ll invite you to tea and make you marry me.’
‘What will I do?’ hissed Marianne.
‘Pull out slowly,’ he instructed. Marianne did as she was bid, and in the rear-view mirror, she watched Mrs Montgomery straighten, her rigid eyes tracking the Jeep’s ungainly progress up the road.
‘She glared at everyone except me,’ grumbled Bartholomew, when they were safely around the corner. ‘She never so much as glanced at me.’
‘Maybe she didn’t see you, dear,’ suggested Ethel.
‘How could anyone not see Bartholomew?’ said Freddy, pulling on his seat belt.
‘That’s offensive,’ said Bartholomew.
‘I just meant, you know, you’re larger than life.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Bartholomew.
Freddy smiled shyly. ‘I do.’
Then there were the meetings themselves, filled to bursting with all the ways Rita distracted them from themselves so that, when she presented Freddy with an ‘80 Today!’ birthday badge to mark his 80th day of sobriety, everybody was surprised that so much time had passed.
‘It’s bad enough being fifty,’ grumbled Freddy, reluctantly accepting the badge from Rita.
‘You make fifty look fabulous,’ said Bartholomew.
Freddy tensed, waiting for the punchline but none was forthcoming. He smiled and pinned the badge to his lapel.
Make Yourself at Home Page 27