‘It looks okay… No, really, it does… quite cool, in fact. You've got enough hair, that's the main thing –’
‘Right, thanks,’ Theo cut in, wanting to stop any further analysis of his face. ‘And when did you decide to mutilate your stomach?’
‘A few weeks ago,’ Clem murmured, chewing her gum and looking out of the window, because the piercing had been Nathan's idea and she couldn't think how to broach such a fact with her cousin. I like an older man. A much older man. He draws me and tells me I'm beautiful. He feeds me exotic foods and calls me his muse. He has asked me to take my clothes off and I think I'm going to. I want to, because he looks at me as no one else ever has: as if I am good and pure and worthy of reverence. I tremble under his scrutiny but I love it too. The hours I have spent sitting for him are the best I have known. I live for them. When he comes into the wine bar the plates and glasses shake in my hands.
‘They're all worried about you,’ Theo blurted, needing to get at least some of his sense of duplicity off his chest.
Clem rolled her eyes and blew a dainty pink bubble with her gum. He didn't have to say who they were. She knew only too well. ‘Like they haven't got enough other things to worry about right now,’ she said, once the bubble had made a satisfactory pop and she had scraped all the last little bits off her lips with her teeth. ‘I presume you heard about Granny?’
Theo sighed. ‘Yeah. Unbelievable.’
‘Totally. I mean, what's that all about? Granny…’ Clem's eyes filled with tears as she tried for the umpteenth time to equate the desperation of suicide with the cosy image of her grandmother in one of her soft wool twin-sets, pearls round her neck and in her earlobes, a knitting pattern on her lap, her veiny stockinged feet resting on the footstool in front of the fire. Telling Nathan about it, she had cried like a baby. He had stroked her back, then given her a white silk handkerchief and a glass of wine. While she sipped it he explained that the drama of living never ended, that age meant nothing when it came to pain or loss or love. He had uttered the last word very softly, so softly that Clem had experienced a frisson of something else within the consolation, something that had burned like a flame inside her ever since.
‘They weren't even going to tell me about it, did you know that?’ she continued now. ‘It was good old Ed who did that –’ She broke off, recalling with some discomfort her brother's now impregnable sulkiness – he was punishing her, she knew, for resisting his plea to attend their aunt's birthday party. He hadn't said as much – he didn't have to – but when she phoned now he was too busy to talk and if she sent a text he never answered, not even if she wrote ‘TMB' at the bottom. ‘When Mum finally deigned to fill me in I had to pretend I was hearing it for the first time, as poor Ed, from what I could gather, was in enough trouble.’ Clem let out an affectionate groan, then plucked out her gum. ‘The family…’ she sighed, moulding it into a tiny perfect ball between her thumb and index finger ‘… It's like they want us to be involved but on their terms, don't you agree?’
‘Sort of,’ said Theo, watching with faint disgust as the gumball was pressed flat and popped back into her mouth. He decided in the same instant that he had never encountered anyone less in need of looking after. His cousin was more confident than he'd ever seen her, and more beautiful, with a new womanly elegance to offset her huge blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. In fact – Theo's eyes widened, as an idea, glaring, simple and fantastic, exploded in his mind. Clem looked like his Serbian heroine. She was his Serbian heroine. How had he not seen it before? How could he ever have considered the snivelling, chubby-cheeked Charlotte Brown for the role when he had known his perfect leading lady all along? He would make the film. He bloody well would. He would use the trust fund left by their grandfather. Five thousand pounds wasn't exactly a Hollywood budget but it would be enough if he was clever and careful and saved from his job in the summer. Theo was so excited he wondered that Clem didn't turn from the window and remark on it. He would ask her later, he decided, sitting on his hands, then releasing them to hug his bag, needing to make some outward gesture of the energy – the inspiration – surging inside. He would wait till the moment was right – after a few glasses at the ball, perhaps. He had planned to set much of the action in London anyway. Clem's flat might work for some of the interiors. It would be perfect.
The bus was now locked in Saturday traffic, edging its way along the high wall guarding Worcester College from the road. Two dishevelled drunks were reeling along the pavement, drinking from cans and waving the stubs of their cigarettes at each other as they talked. ‘Don't you envy people like that sometimes?’ murmured Clem, pressing the tip of her nose against the window.
Theo peered across her and snorted happily, his mind still on his film. ‘Not at all. Whatever for?’
‘No ties… no one to disappoint… no expectations… I mean, Mum and Dad pretend they want to see me all the time, but really, deep down, they're worried and disappointed because I'm not doing what they'd hoped I would. They'll be all over me with innocent questions and references to Maisie – and you, no doubt,’ she poked Theo in the ribs, ‘the star of the family with your big Oxford brains. My dear parents can't accept that I'm twenty years old with my own life to lead. I'm doing okay. I earn good money. I'm happy. And I eat,’ she added slyly, ‘more and more, these days, as it happens.’ Seeing the look on Theo's face she burst out laughing. ‘I know how they think, you see.’ She wagged a finger. ‘Which is why, just right now, I don't particularly want to see them.’
‘I see,’ murmured Theo, disarmed and impressed in equal measure, thinking in some wonderment of his mother's letter and how Clem couldn't have presented a better account of herself had she read it. ‘But you'll have to go home at some stage, won't you?’ he ventured, gallantly taking charge of her bag as they scrambled off the bus and headed towards Keble Road.
‘Oh, sure. Ed's eighteenth is coming up for a start. If he has a party I'll definitely go, especially with Maisie away. And you'd come, of course, and Chloë, I suppose' – she made a face – ‘and Roland, who's turning into such a sweet dark horse, all introverted and artistic. God, do you remember what a wimp he used to be, always crying and wetting his bed and taking medicines? Now he's so into his painting, and handsome enough to model for Vogue, if he wanted to.’
‘Is he?’ murmured Theo, not really listening because they had arrived at the top of his staircase and he was too primed with hope that she would remark on the beauty of his rooms to think about anything else. ‘I share with a chap called Ian, but he's away this weekend so you can have his bed. His room is through that door and mine's here and we share this sitting room in the middle, with our desks there and there – well, you can see that – and the sofa and the fireplace, which is gas but still looks quite good and…’ Theo rushed round picking up stray items of clothing and books as he talked. ‘The windowseat is rather fine too.’
But Clem had already dropped her bags and flung out her arms. ‘It's fantastic, Theo, like something out of bloody Brideshead.’
‘Except I'm not remotely like Sebastian Flyte,’ put in Theo, laughing, ‘and from what I can recall of the book Keble barely gets a mention.’
‘I want to go punting. Can we do that?’ Clem exclaimed, sprawling on the windowseat and stretching her arms. ‘And eat strawberries and cream and visit all the famous colleges, and Christchurch Meadows and Magdalen Bridge.’
Theo shook his head in happy despair. ‘We've got twenty-four hours and it's starting to rain again.’
‘I don't care. Nathan said I would love it and he was right.’
‘Nathan?’
‘A friend,’ stammered Clem, leaping off the windowseat and unzipping her bag.
‘An instead-of-Jonny sort of friend?’
Clem, kneeling on the floor now with her back to him, shrugged. ‘Suppose, sort of.’ She flung back the lid of her suitcase and slapped her hands on her thighs. ‘Now then, to more important matters. I didn't know what to wear so I brought qu
ite a few options. Tell me which you think.’ And with that she began pulling dresses out of her suitcase and spreading them out on the floor.
Theo sank back on the windowseat to watch, any lingering curiosity about the new boyfriend giving way to dismay. He wasn't good on dresses or colours or saying the right thing in such situations. Clem might have been his cousin, his old playmate, but she was also a girl, he reflected gloomily, studying the mounting pile of outfits and thinking they'd be lucky to get to the ball in time, let alone the boathouses for a quick punt beforehand.
‘You've lost weight,’ remarked the designer, managing to sound accusing in spite of the pins wedged between her lips. ‘We'll need to take it in here – and here.’ She tugged at the white silk, extracting the pins one by one to mark out a fresh seam. ‘It's weddings that do it – I was the thinnest I've ever been for mine, been downhill ever since, especially since that one arrived.’ She nodded at the Moses basket parked behind the mirror, between a mannequin and a tea-chest. ‘Breastfeeding makes you starving, which doesn't help – I'm currently on about six meals a day, and that's not counting night time snacks.’
While the designer, Sylvie, talked, Cassie's gaze drifted from her own reflection in the mirror to the Moses basket. The baby, she had been told, was five months old and called Noah. He was lying on his back, naked except for a nappy and a square of muslin, which he clutched in one tight fist while he slept. His skin was a soft olive brown, from his father, Sylvie said, who had an Italian mother. His arms and legs were plump with little dimples in his knees and wrists. He had slept for the entire consultation, moving his head from side to side occasionally and making little smacking sounds with his lips. Cassie didn't know when she had last seen anything so beautiful. Every time she looked at him she felt an ache deep in the pit of her belly, right in the middle of the new flatness that had prompted Sylvie to tighten the seams.
Since Elizabeth's dinner such feelings had sharpened, almost as if blurting out her hopes to her family had given free rein to the true vehemence bottled inside. The ensuing shocking revelation about her mother's plunge into despair had, if any-thing, honed this desire still further. Happiness was so precarious. One had to lunge for it with both hands, hold fast no matter how it slithered between one's palms. Reaching for Stephen in the safe cage of the four-poster afterwards, icy cold and shaking with shock, she had murmured such thoughts into the warm bulk of his chest, enjoying the comfort and closeness, the tickle of his wiry chest hair against her lips. ‘To think she was so unhappy and we never knew… to think she misses Dad that much…’
Stephen had stroked her head, from time to time pressing his lips against her hair. Then, when she was finished and almost asleep, he had said, ‘I hope you would love me that much.’
Remembering the moment now as she stared at the fairy-tale image of herself in the mirror, her blonde wavy hair and creamy skin rising out of the frothing silk, with Sylvie on her knees working at the hem, Cassie felt her breath quicken. ‘Love you enough to kill myself?’ She had tried to keep the gasp from her voice, to sound merely inquiring.
‘I'd do it if I lost you,’ Stephen had said simply. ‘Without you I wouldn't want to live. But I don't think you feel like that. I think you want a baby more than you want me. You didn't used to, but you do now.’ He had sounded both matter-of-fact and accusatory. ‘The way you felt able to tell everyone our private business tonight made me realize that, and I find it hard, Cassie, really hard.’
Cassie had murmured to him not to be silly, astounded by this new revelation of the feverish workings of her fiancé's mind, so different from hers, like another world. ‘You're right, I should have consulted you before I said anything, but it doesn't mean I don't love you. And although I wouldn't wade into the lake if I lost you it doesn't mean that my love isn't fantastic and strong. Please, Stephen, trust me,’ she had begged, remembering again the ridiculous argument in the car and feeling suddenly as if they had taken a wrong turning on the journey down and had yet to find their way back to the right road.
Since then Stephen's attentiveness had reached new heights: chocolates on her pillow, love-notes in her handbag, and small gifts – a book of poetry, a pair of earrings, a phial of perfume – had materialized within the folds of her underwear, like lucky charms. The accusatory note in his voice had gone but they would not, he had insisted several times, be consulting a medical expert. He had decided, he said, to let nature take its course. When Cassie, swallowing her disappointment, had mentioned a device she'd seen in the chemist's that took a woman's temperature to indicate her precise level of fertility he had argued against that too. It would be like bringing maths into the bedroom, he claimed, remove all spontaneity, reduce sex to an obligation instead of a pleasure. Cassie had bought the device anyway and hidden it at the back of the bathroom cupboard behind the spare toilet rolls. She had taken to going up to bed before him to use it, locking the bathroom door slowly and silently, like a thief, feeling devious but justified. Her future husband needed careful handling, she had realized, now more than ever. Telling her family about their quest for a baby had clearly been a serious miscalculation and she had to make up for it.
‘You're swaying,’ scolded Sylvie, sitting back on her haunches and adjusting the train so that it fell into an elegant pool behind Cassie's feet. ‘Look, have I shown you this?’ She reached into the tea-chest and pulled out a fat roll of chiffon. ‘I thought we could put a little strip of it round the neckline and at the cuffs.’ She began to unravel the material, feeding it lovingly through her fingers and draping it round the dress. Like a web, Cassie thought, watching in the mirror, resisting the urge to shake off the gossamer strips dangling from her neck and arms.
‘Are you all right? You're a little pale.’
‘I… A sit-down, I think… I feel…. My legs are aching a bit.’
‘Sure, I'll make some tea. Look, his lordship's waking anyway. He'll want a feed.’
The baby had opened his eyes and was screwing up his face, making little punching movements with his fists.
‘Pick him up, if you like, while I put the kettle on. Here, you'll need this.’ She pulled a white cloth off the back of a chair and threw it at Cassie. ‘So he can't do any damage. Hey, you, nothing but trouble,’ she scolded, bending down and giving a gentle poke to the tight little swell of the baby's belly, then disappeared into the kitchen.
Noah whimpered, then fell silent. Cassie stepped towards the basket. ‘Hey, little one, you be good now. Mummy's only gone to the kitchen.’ At the sight of her face – the wrong face – Noah, with no notion of virtue beyond his own wants, clutched frantically at the air with his fists and then began to cry, firing each sob from the back of his throat with terrifying machine-gun ferocity. ‘Oh dear, oh dear… Come on now, stop this.’ Cassie dangled the cloth over the basket, trying in vain to distract him. She had held all her nephews and nieces as babies but had never been very good at it. Even with little Tina she'd kept such attentions to a minimum, in spite of Serena being the sort of mother who plonked her little ones into the arms of anyone who happened to be passing. She had had even less practice with her youngest niece, Genevieve, not seeing her eldest brother's family quite so much and with Helen being the antithesis of Serena, displaying the sort of devoted, controlling approach that precluded intervention, even from Peter a lot of the time.
‘Oh, blimey, all right, here goes.’ Cassie arranged the cloth carefully across her shoulder and bent down to pick up the baby. He stopped crying at once and stared at her with big blue-black eyes. Holding him at arm's length, like a dangerous parcel, she stepped between the piles of material and pin boxes to the sofa. He seemed to like dangling and kicked happily with his chunky bare legs, curling and uncurling his toes; but the moment she sat down he was squirming and whimpering again, turning his face to her chest, opening and closing his mouth against the folds of the cloth like a fish.
Sylvie, returning with the tea, laughed. ‘Come on, Noah, no milk there, darling.’
She flopped down next to Cassie, hitched up her shirt and reached for the baby in one easy movement. ‘There you go, my poppet…’ She glanced dreamily at Cassie as Noah's mouth slid round her nipple. ‘Latches on like a vice, as usual.’ Cassie sipped her tea trying not to watch as the baby guzzled, cradling the curve of his mother's breast with almost adult earnestness in his little palms. The tea was too hot but Cassie drank it quickly, relishing the comfort of its warmth in her empty belly.
After his feed Noah refused to settle and Sylvie, with many apologies, brought the session to a close, promising to find a child-minder for the next one and saying how much she was looking forward to getting started on the designs for the bridesmaids. Mother and son stood on the doorstep to wave her off but it was raining heavily and Cassie urged them to go back inside. As the door closed she embarked on a battle with her umbrella, which had a habit of sticking, particularly when she was in a hurry and needed it most. Usually persistence and determination met with reward, but that afternoon, grappling among the folds of nylon with the jammed catch, while the rain streamed down her neck and flung itself against the bare backs of her legs, Cassie felt as if she was in combat with some monstrous demon. I need help, she thought suddenly, looking about her. Nothing is working out and I need help. Giving up on the umbrella, she reached for her mobile, blinking the rain from her eyes as she stared at its little panel of numbers. She should be happy, she reminded herself. In six months she was getting married; she was on the cusp of a new beginning, a new life with a man who would die for her. Yet all she could think of was the clutch of Noah's little hands, the warmth of his small, writhing body and Sylvie's laughing words: no milk there. Maybe there never would be. Maybe she was barren, an old crone in spite of her still-youthful looks; a sham of a woman, a kernel, hollow inside… Cassie continued to stare at the phone, tears now mingling with the rain on her cheeks. She should call Stephen, of course, tell him how she felt, how she needed his support more than ever. But, these days, she feared the effect such a confession might have. Careful handling, she reminded herself, thinking unhappily of her lover's bottomless demands for reassurance, his new predilection for interpreting her needs as a threat to their happiness.
The Simple Rules of Love Page 22