The Simple Rules of Love

by Amanda Brookfield

  Clem waited at the bus stop for a few minutes, enjoying the sight of everybody dawdling on doorsteps and the heat pulsing up from the pavement, caressing her bare legs. She was thrilled with herself about Roland. The most she had expected of Nathan was a few comments, or maybe, at very best, a suggestion that he meet her cousin to talk stuff through. But to offer to hang Roland's two weird swirling oil paintings in one of his own exhibitions had never entered her wildest imaginings – or Roland's, from the sound of the unRoland-like shriek that had pierced her ear on the telephone.

  As a bus lumbered into sight Clem turned her back on it and began to walk, in no mood to be cooped up among the crush of body smells and people with desperate expressions on their faces. Sadness was seeping back into her, riding in on the knowledge that she had probably seen Nathan Chalmer for the last time. He had asked for Roland's address, so he could send details about the exhibition, he said, and also arrange to have the pictures returned to him afterwards. Clem jotted it down for him on a piece of paper, aware of the gentle rejection the request entailed. ‘You were great, Clementine Harrison,’ he said, when she had finished. Waiting with her for the lift to arrive, he had repeated the compliment, planting a fatherly kiss on the top of her head. ‘You are great, never forget that.’

  Clem took a detour into a park and sat on a bench, telling herself to have a little cry, if she wanted to, to get it out of her system. But then she spotted a kiosk and bought herself an ice-cream instead, a plain orange one that melted almost faster than she could eat it. She wasn't that sad, she decided, licking her fingers afterwards. He was so old, after all, the whole thing would have been totally weird; not exactly the sort of boyfriend one would want to shout about, even if he was as famous as her uncle had suggested.

  Clem left the bench and began to walk with more purpose towards the street. She was getting used to the situation already, she mused, just like she got used to almost anything with time. Like the Ed and Jessica fiasco, the whole notion of her brother fathering a baby. Back at Ashley House for a brief spell after the holiday, she and Maisie had even had a giggling conversation about names and whether, if there was a christening, they would want to attend. ‘We could cut off the hems of our bridesmaid dresses and wear those,’ Maisie had shrieked, leaping in front of her bedroom mirror to perform her best rendition of a simpering aunt. Clem had laughed till her eyes streamed, squawking admonitions but loving every moment, loving how they understood one another.

  Maisie was coming to supper that night with her new boyfriend. Clem had phoned her mother to ask how to cook coq au vin. She had a list in her pocket of what to buy and how long to fry the meat and onions. And the bacon, too, she mustn't forget that. And garlic. Two cloves at least, her mother had said, clearly delighted to have been consulted. They had had a lovely talk, Clem disclosing that she had packed in the wine bar and applied for a couple of jobs on the Internet – one as a junior press officer for Southwark borough council and the other as a publicity assistant in a small publishing house. Serena had sounded so pleased, so interested, that Clem had almost told her about her manuscript. Then she had pictured it sitting in a dusty, untouched pile on Stephen's editor's desk and switched to the subject of her and Maisie's bridesmaid dresses instead. Her aunt was planning a final fitting for them at Ashley House the following month before Maisie started at Bristol, the idea being that the dresses could be stowed there afterwards, ready for the big day. They were worried, Clem confided to her mother because, since giving their measurements, she had put on weight and Maisie had lost some. Serena had laughed – a wild, exultant laugh which, Clem knew, was because she had managed to talk, like it was no big deal, about having got a bit fatter. Cassie was a wizard with a needle, Serena had assured her happily, and Granny too. Hems and seams could be altered. It didn't matter a jot.

  Clem had saved inquiries about her brother till last, fearful that so dark a subject might somehow shatter this new ability to report and share things about her life without the sense that they were being offered up for parental approval. But Serena had been upbeat about Ed, too. After initial resistance Jessica had co-operated with the test and the result was due any day, she said. ‘Keep your fingers crossed,’ she added, ‘but I have a good feeling that everything will be fine.’

  Back at the flat, Flora and Daisy were busy in their rooms, practising for an evening concert. Clem had shut herself into the kitchen and was studying the heap of half-frozen chicken thighs she had bought at the supermarket when Daisy's head appeared round the door.

  ‘Two messages. Can you ring Theo? He wants to shoot your scenes before he goes back to uni and…’ She stopped, looking bashful and then hopeful, as Flora appeared beside her.

  ‘Jonny came round,’ said Flora, stoutly. ‘He wants you to help out with a gig this weekend.’

  ‘Does he now?’ Clem measured a careful tablespoon of oil into a frying-pan.

  ‘Well?’ said both her flatmates at once. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied Clem, haughtily.

  ‘Well, we are cool, aren't we?’ remarked Flora, folding her arms and giving Daisy a nudge with her elbow. ‘Should we have told him to fuck off?’

  Clem took a step back from the frying-pan, which was spitting. ‘I don't think so. I might do the gig…’ She frowned. ‘But only because it would be fun to sing again. So don't go getting any ideas.’

  ‘Wouldn't dream of it,’ they chanted, laughing.

  ‘Oh, bugger off,’ retorted Clem, laughing too. She returned her attention to the preparation of her meal, unaware until she placed the lid on a passably appealing mixture of meat and sauce that she hadn't thought about Nathan for almost two hours. It was just something that had happened, she mused, something that had kept her going when she needed it and was now going to help Roland. And as for Jonny… All she knew was that she wanted to sing, that she felt ready to sing, ready to reconnect with the joy that for her was integral to the business of opening her lungs. Life, in its mysterious, complicated way, was getting good again. All that was required to make it perfect was the right result on Ed's horrible test. Remembering her mother's words on the phone, Clem crossed her fingers and managed, with considerable difficulty, to keep them that way all through running a bath and getting her clothes off. Flexing them free in the water, she began to sing, so lustily that Daisy and Flora, tying black velvet ribbons in each other's hair, did a couple of high fives.

  Sitting in line with the other interviewees, Keith ran his finger round the inside of his shirt collar, wishing he had picked a seat away from the windows where the glare of the afternoon sun was less intense. On the wall to his left was a poster entitled, Hull: Regeneration & Vision: A City of the Future. He had read this and the text underneath it so many times that he could have recited whole sections with his eyes closed.

  Hull is fast turning from a hopeless, end-of-the-line town to the youngest, most exciting waterfront city in Europe. ‘On a sunny day you could be anywhere in the world,’ says Bill Crowley, development manager of Cityscape, Hull's urban regeneration company. Island Wharf, the first phase of the Humber Quays development, has a panoramic view of the Humber. The Fruit Market on the other side of the marina brims with old town charm. The East Bank of the river Hull is being transformed by riverside apartments and lies within walking distance of the city centre, connected by several new foot and cycle bridges. Projects at Albion Square and Quay West will improve shopping and a transport interchange at the £165-million St Stephen's development will be enhanced. Redeveloped residential properties are available at well below the national average while Humber Bridgehead and Willerby Hill offer state-of-the-art leisure facilities. With several luxury hotel developments in progress and a Michelin starred restaurant in the historic old town, Hull is bringing its vision of a new city to life.

  Keith wished there was something else to look at, something that bore a closer, less ironic relationship to the tense, brooding atmosphere in the room. One job and
a score of candidates. A couple looked older but most were definitely younger than him. All were men and not one seemed nearly as uncomfortable as Keith felt, strapped into the uncustomary uniform of a suit and tie. A project manager on a rural housing development – who was he kidding? Worse still, he was only there because Barry had mentioned it to June, who had mentioned it to him. No harm in trying, she had said, having gathered through their snippets of doorstep conversation that Irene wanted him out and he had nowhere to go.

  But maybe there was harm in trying, Keith decided now, when failure was so certain, when his inner battery of determination and self-esteem was so close to empty. He glanced nervously at the door to the interview room. Lately, the thought of the kids was about all that got him off the sofa-bed – that and Irene banging the breakfast things, saying, with each clash of metal and china, ‘Get out, get a life, FUCK off.’

  The door opened and the young man with the neat blond crew-cut and shiny suit who had entered twenty minutes before bounced out, looking pleased. Keith ran his damp palms up and down his trousers, trying to focus on what he would say, how he could possibly package his years of building-site experience into a convincing presentation of the possibility that he was ready to run a project of his own. He was getting nowhere when the quiet buzz of his phone sounded in his pocket.

  ‘Keith – it's Stephen.’

  ‘Can't talk now, mate,’ Keith muttered, swivelling towards the blinding heat of the window to avoid being overheard. He had only kept the phone on because there was a faint chance of three tickets to see Hull City play at the new stadium that evening. He'd cleared it with June already, just in case, but instructed her not to get Craig and Neil's hopes up.

  ‘It won't take long, I promise. I've got a request.’

  ‘Not like the last one, I hope,’ growled Keith, their unpleasant conversation of two months before flaring in his mind.

  ‘No… I'm so sorry about that. You were quite right. I felt really bad afterwards. Cassie and I… we're fine now – great, in fact. It's all systems go for the wedding – and that's why I'm ringing. I'd like you to be my best man. Would you do that for me, Keith, as my oldest friend? There's no one else who fits the bill.’

  ‘Blimey, Steve… I don't know.’

  Stephen laughed, undeterred. ‘I'll take that as a yes, shall I? And don't worry about the speech. Just tell a few of your old jokes, nothing too blue – not that one about the snake-bite anyway – thank the bridesmaids, usual stuff.’ He talked on, irrepressible, ebullient, almost manically so, Keith decided afterwards, as he reflected with deepening gloom on the implications of the commitment. It would be huge and grand, morning suits, microphones, marquees. But I would see Elizabeth, he thought suddenly, and stood up as his name was called. Elizabeth and all the rest of them, the old bird, sweet, porcelain-faced Serena, bumbling, cheerful Charlie and their messed-up son… Warmth, an entirely pleasant sensation that had nothing to do with the heat of the day, spread through Keith as he stepped into the interview room. How were they all? How would they deal with this bastard grandchild? Who had they got to take his place helping the doddery Sid with replastering damp walls and managing the rebellious glories of the grounds?

  Even as he shook the hands of the interviewers – three, in an imposing line behind a long desk – memories of his spring at Ashley House flooded Keith's mind. Leaving had been the right thing to do, but so hard – one of the hardest things he had ever done. No wonder, then, that his heart should soar at this legitimate, unexpected pretext to return. It would be brief but beautiful, as brief things often were. It would be good to see them all, to squeeze Elizabeth's hand and tell her that, while not in his life, she remained in his head and would do so until the day he died.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Holmes. Please, sit down.’

  Keith sat in the chair opposite the desk and folded his hands in his lap to conceal how they trembled.

  ‘Perhaps you could begin by telling us why you think your experience makes you suitable for this job?’

  ‘Hull has a vision for the future and I want to be part of it.’ Keith unlaced his hands and leant towards them, making eye-contact, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘I've managed teams on site for twenty years and am ready to take the next step up.’ June was right: there was no harm in trying. What else was there to do, after all?

  That evening Peter bought flowers from the stall near his chambers, three extravagant bunches, two because they had dinner guests, ‘And one just for you,’ he told Helen, thrusting them into her arms, then running upstairs to shower and change.

  ‘They're not due for an hour, you know,’ Helen called after him, then returned to the kitchen to check on the meal, all three courses of which she had prepared the weekend before and pulled out of the deep freeze that morning. She arranged the flowers in vases, placing one on the dining-table in the conservatory, one on the mantelpiece in the sitting room and one on the table in the hall, brushing off the dusting of pollen that fell on to the polished wood as she turned to check her appearance in the mirror. She had had her hair cut and coloured in her lunch hour. In the heat of the afternoon it had lost some of its buoyancy, but still looked almost too good for the dinner, which was merely a pay-back for a couple of sets of neighbours. The Wilsons and the Burridges would talk of mortgages, no doubt, and schools and what everyone was doing for half-term. Helen yawned, bored at the prospect, and decided that with her coiffure on such top form she could get away with her comfy black trousers instead of a dress.

  On the way upstairs she glanced in at Genevieve, who was in bed cuddling her favourite doll and listening to her tape of The Little Mermaid, eyes glassy. She popped into Chloë's room too, even though Chloe was on a school outing to the theatre. In her own bedroom, she stepped out of her work clothes and laid them carefully over the back of the chair. Peter was still in the shower, not singing for once. Helen lay on the bed in her bra and pants and closed her eyes. The blast of the shower was soon replaced by the sounds of running taps, brushing teeth and then the buzz of the electric razor, which Peter only ever used for an evening shave. In the mornings he ran a basin of water and indulged in the ritual of a blade and a badger brush, just as John Harrison had and his father before him. Familiar sounds were comforting, Helen mused, too pleasantly cool in her underwear to feel any urgency to get on with the business of dressing. The meal was ready, her makeup was fine; there was, as she had said to Peter, no hurry.

  He emerged from the bathroom naked but for a pair of boxers, rubbing the sparse strands of his hair with a hand towel.

  Helen patted the bed. ‘Come here a minute.’

  ‘Hadn't we better get dressed?’

  ‘We've ages yet.’

  ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘Genevieve's almost asleep and Chloë's out. My Fair Lady, remember?’

  ‘Of course she is.’ Peter rubbed again at his hair, even though it was quite dry. He opened the wardrobe and began to riffle through his shirts.

  ‘Peter? Is something the matter?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He spun round with an amazed smile. ‘Whyever would anything be the matter?’

  ‘Come here, then.’ It was Helen's turn to smile, not amazed at all, but full of sweet, obvious intention.

  Carefully Peter hung the shirt he had chosen – salmon pink with double cuffs and a button-down collar – back in the wardrobe before moving towards the bed, trying to muster the right facial expression, trying to act the part – to be the thing he had been so effortlessly for twenty-five years. It was Helen, he reminded himself, Helen, his wife, to whom he had made love thousands of times. Helen, who asked for sex so seldom that it would be inexplicably unkind to turn her down and yet towards whom, as she lay there in her familiar faded bra and pants, he could muster nothing more than brotherly affection.

  ‘We haven't done it for ages,’ she whispered, stroking his arm as he stretched out next to her.

  ‘That's not true.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Twice
in Umbria and not since we got back.’

  ‘Well, we're both so busy and tired,’ Peter muttered, stroking a loose thread of hair off her face.

  ‘Do you like it? My hair? I had it done today.’

  ‘Yes, it's nice… very nice.’

  ‘Not that the Wilsons and the Burridges are worth ninety-five pounds.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Is that what it cost?’ Peter cried, glad of something to latch on to, some distraction from the sheer awfulness of not desiring her. He liked her, God, he liked her – it was impossible not to: she was kind and clever and organized and undemanding and –

  ‘Mummy – Daddy – is it your bedtime too?’

  ‘Genevieve, darling…’ There was a catch of gratitude in Peter's voice. ‘Shouldn't you be asleep?’

  Helen, less delighted, told their daughter to go back to bed.

  ‘You come with me,’ replied Genevieve, folding her arms in the manner of someone well beyond her years, someone with all the time in the world to negotiate.

  ‘I'll come in a minute,’ insisted Helen, firmly.

  ‘Can I have a story?’

  ‘Maybe… yes… Yes, you can have a story, if you go now.’

  Peter put his arms round his wife and kissed her tenderly on the lips. ‘She's awesome, isn't she?’ he murmured. ‘Just like her mother.’

  Helen wriggled upright. ‘You didn't want to anyway, did you? I could tell, so don't deny it.’

  Peter opened his mouth to attempt a denial, but faltered under the honest inquiry of her gaze. She knew him so well, too bloody well. ‘No, I guess I wasn't totally… er… The truth is, there is something on my mind.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Helen snapped, managing to look at once triumphant and hurt.

  ‘The fact is, this paternity test of Edward's… More is hanging on it than you realize.’