An article describing how her parents’ involvement with the NGS had inspired her to go into garden design, how she wishes her father had lived to see... So she was the daughter from a previous marriage, hence the different surname. Another article, showing her gazing romantically into a pond. Ironic really, I thought, dazed with shock: I’d always wanted a water feature in our garden but Jez had been so strongly against it. It now looked like I might be getting one after all – if I could stay around long enough. I scrolled down. Reports of a serious assault on an unfaithful husband that sounded interesting until located to a 46-year-old Sarah Hilliard in Kansas. ‘Sarah Hilliard + husband’ only produced further lurid details of the poor Kansas woman’s actions. Nothing else.
One fifteen. I tried his number again: still off. I was furious at this irresponsible blocking of all communication, this temporary exclusion of his family, even his darling Kenny, in favour of this comparative stranger and her romantic notions. Something I’d never allowed myself with Ricardo.
I went to the kitchen and stacked the dishwasher. Put a wash on. Went to the bathroom and did my teeth. I could just carry on, let him give me whatever lie he was going to produce and make out I believed it. Or I could challenge him. But that would involve telling him about Ricardo; it didn’t have to of course, but I knew it would. And then what? An image came to me of Kenny’s shocked, tearful little face when we explained to him that... I decided to wait and see – after all, there still just might be an explanation. I took three Neurofens and put my head on the pillow.
***
I woke before dawn and for a few peaceful seconds was unaware, rolled over to go back to sleep. But the empty pillow beside me brought the reality back with a jolt: Jez was sleeping elsewhere, with someone else. I shouldn’t have turned over. I sat up, but it was no better – too much wine. I just made it to the toilet to be sick. I hated vomiting, was afraid of it, and imagined Jez’s hands holding back my hair, his cheery encouragement jollying me along. Except he wasn’t there to do it, and perhaps never would be again. I started to shiver.
I fetched a bottle of water and sat in bed sipping it, waiting for the light. When it’s light, I told myself, Jez will come back. We only had two days to go until the BBC came to consider the garden, but presumably that was now a foregone conclusion. Perhaps that was the point: he was sleeping in the director’s casting couch, the TV gardener’s flower bed. The idea lifted my spirits slightly. It was temporary, a means to an end. He was desperate to have his creation recognised; a crowd of old ladies at the Open Day wasn’t going to be enough, only national coverage would suffice. After all, the garden was costing him dearly: his illustrating career, his job in the art shop, a lot of money we didn’t have.
I started to feel a little better, managed a banana, had a shower. I wanted to be ready for work by the time he came home. There’d be an apology, the excuse, my acceptance, and a coffee together. And then I’d go to work; I wouldn’t achieve much, but it would be better than being at home trying to be normal. I’d come back late after staying on to ring patients from the hospital. On Thursday evening I was driving Seb back to school. And then on Friday evening we would be opening some champagne to celebrate the news that our garden was going to be on the telly. He would have what he wanted, and hopefully want to share it with me. For a while at least.
***
‘Can you do the watering?’
‘Apparently.’
‘I mean, are you allowed?’
‘Apparently.’
‘What is apparently?’
‘Well... visible. I’m doing it, so obviously I can.’ I’m still here, so apparently I’m coping. I’m not prostrate on the grass crying, so apparently I’m okay.
‘You mustn’t water the faces.’
‘Yes I know that.’
He stood there with his arms folded, eyes fixed on the jet of water. A miniature version of his bossy father.
‘Where’s Daddy?’
‘You know where he is. He’s taking Seb back to school.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s Monday tomorrow.’
‘Why aren’t you?’
‘Daddy offered to do it, thought it would make a change for me.’ Daddy’s trying hard to be really nice. He’s all consideration. Because four days ago he looked me in the eyes and lied.
‘Who’s going to make my dinner?’
‘Who d’you think?’
‘Daddy says you make eggs over-cooked.’
Over-cooking is common among the unskilled. Take your father’s lying, as a further example. Getting John over last night to corroborate the story, making him re-enact his misery over his ex-wife’s intention to divorce him. A laughable double-act really, especially when John went seriously off script with a tale of a recent conquest at his office.
‘I’ll do something else then. What d’you suggest?’
‘Semolina.’
‘And?’
‘Um. Carrots... and strawberries.’
‘Haven’t got any strawberries.’
‘I have. In a tin.’
‘And how did you get that?’ I asked, as if I didn’t know. He’d been pinching from the supermarket again.
‘In my monkey bag. Is it cheating?’
‘No, it’s stealing.’
‘What’s the difference?’
Not much. Cheating steals. Stealing cheats. It cuts you open, takes part of you away. Even if you completely deserve it. ‘Just don’t do it again,’ I said. I should have lectured him, but there was nothing I could say that would make him stop; only he could make that decision.
22.
Mostly I was forgetting about eating; I’d get on the train and realise that breakfast hadn’t happened, buy a croissant at London Bridge and be nauseated after two mouthfuls. Even though I knew better.
Peter came in when I was setting up my equipment. ‘Ah, Rosie. Ricardo’s lad’s coming in this afternoon. He’s broken his glasses so they’ve brought the appointment forward. Tell Dipti, because obviously he has to see you.’
Couldn’t he have warned me?
‘Bit tired this morning?’ he asked, putting his head on one side like he did when talking to the kids.
‘Yes a bit.’ My neck was tightening, a bolt had slid into the right side of my skull, my tummy was considering what to do about the two bites of croissant: I was getting a migraine.
‘I just wanted to tell you about this one,’ he said, opening a set of notes to show me. ‘Also for you. Not the easiest of customers I’m afraid. And she’s got a history of not tolerating the full prescription, but I’d like to try again in case I can avoid surgery on the squint...’
I wished he’d stop turning the pages back and forth, it wasn’t helping my nausea. His voice seemed very far away, I couldn’t understand what he was on about. Then he seemed to be tilting the book so that I couldn’t read it. But actually it was me that was tilting, and then there was a roaring in my ears... The next thing I knew I was staring at a red ‘I was good at the hospital’ sticker stuck on the floor, inches from my face, and for a few dazed seconds I found this funny. Then my stomach heaved and somehow I had to sit up and communicate with Big Janet, who was fussing around with the blood pressure cuff.
‘Sick.’
‘Okay,’ she said, handing me the bowler hat thing the kids like to play with, while Peter put a comforting fatherly hand on my shoulder.
‘Poor old Rosie,’ he said later, when I was lying on the bed in the nurses’ room. ‘But really, I thought you learnt your lesson last time. No more missing breakfast. Promise?’
‘Promise.’ I swallowed my migraine pill.
‘Stay here until you’re fit to travel and then get off home.’
‘Really sorry.’
‘Ricardo will certainly be very sorry. He and his family are such fans of yours. It wouldn’t surprise me if they somehow patch up Gabriel’s glasses and move the appointment to next week.’
***
‘Rosie! A
re you okay? Call me.’
‘Can’t speak much. Migraine. On way home.’
‘Call when you can. Boardroom Wed lunchtime? Will bring clarinet x.’
‘OK x.’
I put my phone away and leaned my head against the window. Then got it out again: I’d almost forgotten.
‘Sorry but not well and have to go home. See you next week – keep practising! Rosie x.’ I pictured him limbering up at the barre, about to start class; I didn’t expect a reply until much later. But my phone buzzed in my hand.
‘No! I hope better soon xxxxx.’ I tried to press Delete, but how could I? Not with that many kisses.
***
‘When we get to the end – if we get to the end – I’ll tell you the surprise,’ Ricardo said, and then ran through the troublesome quavers again. I quizzed him further, but he just grinned and went on playing.
‘Okay, from the top,’ I said. ‘No laughing.’
‘Not a titter,’ I said, immediately starting to giggle again.
‘Come on.’
‘Sorry. Anyway, what are we doing a piece called ‘Saturday’ for, a day we can never see each other.’
He looked serious for a moment; I shouldn’t have spoilt the mood. I crossed out the title and wrote ‘Wednesday’ on my copy.
We were off again. It was a jazzy little number, not difficult really, but you had to count or it became a hysterical jumble. I bit my lip and just about managed it.
‘Wow!’ I said.
He put the clarinet down and put his arms round me as I sat at the piano, his cheek against mine.
‘So? What is it?’ I said, nudging him.
He reached in his pocket. I thought he was going to give me a little present; he’d been so apologetic about not warning me about Gabriel’s appointment. But it was a hotel leaflet.
‘A private patient has cancelled. I can be there at four – maybe earlier. But the room’s booked from two, so you can go any time from now if you like.’ I hadn’t expected this to happen so soon. He turned my face towards his. ‘You can come?’ he asked, his smile fading for a moment.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘You don’t look sure,’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful, fun place. You won’t feel... It will be lovely, you’ll see.’
***
Damian was in the office, aggressively tapping away at his laptop. Wasn’t he supposed to be doing something with his cells in the lab? Maybe he’d killed them all.
‘Hello Rosie, how are you?’
‘Fine thanks.’
‘I heard you passed out and threw up in Peter Allen’s arms on Monday.’
‘Something like that.’
He watched me tidy my desk, put my Filo and water bottle in my bag. ‘Off home?’
‘Yes. Still very tired,’ I said, wondering if getting my toothbrush and toothpaste out of my drawer would look odd.
‘So not fine, then.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ What did he care anyway? I decided I’d have to buy some teeth stuff from somewhere on the way.
‘Well, take care. Why don’t you treat yourself?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Get a cab to London Bridge rather than a bus.’
I couldn’t recall discussing how I got to and from work. He must have seen me at the bus stop. ‘Yeah. I might do that. Bye then.’
***
Toothpaste, toothbrush. What else might be useful for an afternoon of sex in a hotel? I drifted down the aisles for inspiration, annoying the purposeful other shoppers. Shampoo? No, that would be supplied. Glucose tablets. Yes, I might well need those, but chocolate might be a more subtle way of giving myself the energy I so desperately lacked. A hairbrush. A bunch of hair elastics for getting my hair out of the way when I had a shower. All I needed was a nightie and a Hello magazine and I’d have packed for an overnight stay in hospital.
I continued down the road; I couldn’t face getting into a taxi and asking for a hotel at two in the afternoon. Besides, it was a deliciously sunny day with a light breeze. I would rather have spent our impromptu and irresponsible afternoon off in a park. Coffee and cake al fresco. A boating lake. The zoo. But opportunity dictated that I’d be spending the afternoon indoors, and in bed.
Suddenly I was in front of its utilitarian and deceptively small frontage. Wasn’t he concerned about its proximity to the hospital? I suppose he thought that, by the time we left, any hospital staff walking home this way would have already done so. And what time were we leaving, anyway? He hadn’t said. I’d told Jez I wouldn’t be late, having just had two days of migraine.
My early, separate arrival seemed to be expected. An alarmingly young receptionist gamely informed me of the dinner and breakfast arrangements that I wouldn’t need. I stepped into the welcome solitude of a tiny orange-furred lift.
The room was also small and fluffy: a sort of sensual, adult version of Bounceland: massive pillows, a tumble of silky cushions and a cuddly elephant on an orange chenille bedspread. There were some orange and yellow daisies with a card saying ‘R loves R xx’ and a box of Lindt chocolates.
I cursed myself for being so miserable and ungrateful. I took off my shoes and lay on the bed with the Aero I’d bought; it didn’t seem right to start on the Lindt until I’d entered into the spirit of all this. But even lying there with the elephant under my arm I couldn’t dispel the image of myself as a mistress waiting to be shagged.
So I went downstairs to the hotel cafe bar and found that it had an outside area, a private courtyard with just one free table left in the sun. I ordered coffee and organic plum cake and got out my Complete Brazilian Portuguese. A fun language, he’d told me, full of humour, spice and emotion. Just hard and unpronounceable for me so far, but I was determined to surprise him with something. Seb had found it in my bag when fishing for my Filo to look up Ollie’s landline, and asked what the hell I was learning Portuguese for. I’d had to say that we were considering going to Portugal on holiday, and hoped he’d forgotten us saying that we wouldn’t be having one now that he’d lost his scholarship.
I am called Rosie and I love you. No, I can do better than that. I started writing out some phrases and their translations on the inside cover, but then rubbed them out in case they got noticed by Seb or Jez at some point. I seemed to spend a lot of time rubbing out, deleting and hiding things.
‘Oh?’ he said, grabbing the book before I could stop him.
‘No! It’s meant to be a surprise.’
He sat down and looked through the book, noticing where I’d got up to. He slowly asked me my name and whether I had any brothers or sisters. I said I was Rosie, I had no siblings and loved Ricardo.
He looked delighted, almost overcome, and squeezed my hand. ‘Come. Drink up.’
I followed him to the lift and got inside. He was immediately pushing me against the furry walls and kissing me. He barely noticed the room, he was too busy getting us both undressed as quickly as possible, telling me it had been too long, much too long. There was an urgency, that desperation again, as if we only had ten minutes rather than hours. He was impatient with my failure to finish, the tension between us then making it impossible for me to do so.
He stayed on top of me, looking into my face. ‘There’s something wrong.’
‘No there isn’t... can’t expect...’ I was embarrassed; I’d managed to get through sixteen years of marriage without really talking about sex.
‘There is... you’re holding back. You’re not giving anything. What’s the matter with you?’ The usually kind eyes were staring at me sternly. Then it occurred to me that he might be expecting our lovemaking to start being more adventurous. Particularly when he’d gone to all this trouble to make it possible. Oh no. I couldn’t meet his gaze, looked over at the flowers and the elephant and watched them blur together.
‘I’m sorry, I’m just not very good at...’
‘Oh Rosie, no,’ he said, wiping the tear rolling down the side of my face with his finger. ‘There’s no need to be
good at anything... Come on, don’t cry.’ He rolled off me and put my head on his shoulder. ‘It’s me, I just don’t want to... share you anymore, it’s difficult to be patient... and sometimes I can’t help thinking that you don’t want this as much as I do.’
‘Of course I do, please don’t think that,’ I said, although sadly aware that I was lying. I still wasn’t sure. Then he propped himself up on his elbows and stroked my cheek, pushed my hair back from my face.
‘Are you better? No more being sick?’
‘Just a bit tired.’
‘You’re tired all the time?’ He put his hand over one of my breasts, squeezing gently.
‘Isn’t everybody?’
‘When I heard you were sick on Monday morning... well, you must know what I thought,’ he said, moving his hand down to my tummy. No, it hadn’t occurred to me. We’d never talked about it, but I’d assumed he trusted me to take care of things.
‘Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen.’
‘You can never be totally sure. If it has happened, is it mine?’
‘But it hasn’t,’ I said, laughing nervously.
But he wasn’t smiling. ‘When did you last... make sex with Jez?’
Make sex? I wanted to giggle, but it wasn’t the moment to laugh at his English. The answer was nine days ago, when the boys were away and I was upset about the email from Sarah. But somehow, given that from a cycle point of view the extremely-unlikely baby would be his, I felt I had a right to some artistic licence.
‘About a month ago,’ I said, and considered asking him the same question, wondered if he was hurt that I never did.
‘Sex with Jez has stopped?’
Good question. I had no idea. We certainly seemed to be going to bed at different times, and, most unusually, he hadn’t been bad tempered with me about it.
‘I can’t say.’
‘You can’t say, or you won’t say?’
‘Sort of both,’ I answered. I thought he might be cross but he just looked pensive; perhaps he appreciated my honesty.
‘If there is a baby, you have to tell me Rosie.’
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