by Lulu Taylor
David came into the drawing room. ‘A present has arrived for you, Julia.’
‘Has it? I didn’t see the postie’s van.’
‘This one came by taxi. Didn’t you see it come up the drive?’
She shook her head.
David stood back, pushing the door open wider behind him, and there was Lala in the doorway, in a fur-collared coat and hat, pink-cheeked and smiling.
‘Darling Julia. Happy Christmas,’ she said.
Astonished, Julia tried to get off the seat, but her huge bump hindered her, and she moved slowly. ‘Lala, you never said!’
‘I wanted to come before now, but I haven’t been able to.’ Lala came forward. ‘You look wonderful. Wonderful.’
Julia laughed wryly. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve got so fat, I can’t think how.’
Lala blinked at her. ‘Well, the usual way, I expect!’
‘Yes, far too many cakes. Mrs Petheridge made her famous Christmas cake and I can’t stop eating it.’
Lala exchanged a quick look with David as if to show that she now saw what he said was true. ‘Cake is allowed in your condition,’ she said briskly.
Sally stood up, smiling but a little shy. ‘You must be the famous Lala.’
‘Well, yes. And you must be Sally, the companion. Hello.’ Lala’s gaze swept over Sally but didn’t linger. She turned back to Julia. ‘Now the exciting news is that I’ve brought someone with me from Paris.’
‘Denis?’
‘Oh no, not Denis. No. He and I are no longer together. I’ve found a very charming new friend called Lisbet. She is waiting outside to meet you.’
‘Outside in the hall? You must bring her in!’ exclaimed Julia. ‘Don’t leave her in the hall, she’ll freeze.’
‘Lisbet!’ Lala called, and a petite younger woman with jet-black hair in a curly bob came in. ‘This is my sister Julia.’
‘Welcome,’ Julia said, with a smile, and she kissed her on both cheeks. ‘I’m so glad you could come to spend Christmas with us.’
‘I am very happy,’ Lisbet said in a strong French accent. ‘Thank you.’
Sally went to fetch the children and the babies were exclaimed over and tea offered. It was all so delightfully normal. No one could mention the strangeness of the unacknowledged presence of Julia’s pregnancy.
Julia tried hard: she drank a cup of tea, talked to Lisbet, kissed Johnnie on his soft cheek. She was afraid. She felt the delicate fabric of her mental world shimmering when she saw Lala look at her bump. It might tear at any time, and she couldn’t risk that. Blessed oblivion and freedom from the terror she knew was coming were all she craved. Like an inhabitant of Pompeii who went to a room and sat and waited, knowing death was coming in a toxic cloud but who could think of nothing else to do, she decided that she would stay in bed now, if necessary for the rest of her life, and only wait.
‘I’m just going upstairs,’ she said quietly, and lumbered slowly out of the room, and up the staircase, leaving them behind her in the warmth and light. She did not come down.
Julia missed Christmas and Lisbet’s return to Paris. They brought Johnnie in to open his stocking with her, but she never saw the presents under the tree opened, or did any of the usual Christmas things. She was only glad when it was all over on Boxing Day, and the whole family went out to spend the day outdoors. Only Lala remained, and she came upstairs to sit with Julia and hold her hand. Julia was grateful to her, and even more grateful that Lala said nothing about all the problems, but was only with her, quiet, comforting and loving.
On New Year’s Eve, the pains began. As soon as she felt the first contractions, Julia’s fragile construction of fantasy collapsed and she fell headlong into blank, bleak terror. Her memories afterwards were vague: she knew she called for David and begged him to help her, to get the gun from the gun cupboard and shoot her, now, quickly, while there was still time. She recalled being in the back of the car with Lala holding her tight and soothing her, that she screamed hysterically with each contraction and, as they gathered force, she lost more of what little control was left.
Julia had no memory of arriving at the hospital, or of the frantic attempts to calm her, and the decision that she would need to be sedated as quickly as possible and the baby removed by Caesarean section.
She only knew that she crawled back to the world, battered and bewildered, on the first day of the new year, feeling as though she had been through some kind of epic battle that spanned the midnight of the year. She was alive; she had, somehow, survived. And in the plastic cot by her hospital bed was a tiny, perfect baby girl.
Julia was welcomed home like a conquering heroine and while she smiled and appeared perfectly happy, she felt like a fraud.
The baby was beautiful and, just as Johnnie had, she banished the demons. They faded into whatever hell they’d come from and Julia was free again. At least, the terrors that had tormented her throughout the pregnancy were gone, but she was not able to return to herself again as easily as she had the previous time.
‘You’re tired – exhausted!’ Lala decreed. ‘Of course you are, that’s only natural. You’re recovering from an operation. You need rest and time with the new baby.’
She guarded Julia carefully, making her eat, get up, walk, rest and sleep as regularly as clockwork, while preventing her even from lifting the baby until she was properly healed. Alexandra was brought to her for feeding and cuddles, then taken away again.
David was happy, overjoyed with his new daughter, with her thatch of dark hair and navy eyes, and relieved that Julia was back with him. The madness was in retreat.
‘No more babies,’ he said, gazing down at Alexandra with love and pride. ‘This little one completes us. We don’t need any more.’
Julia smiled as she watched him gaze at their daughter. ‘Yes. No more babies.’
She was utterly wrung out, mentally drained by her experience, and it was hard to imagine having any real strength again, but the knowledge that this madness never need come back was a comfort. No more babies. No more babies.
But she was afraid that it was something they could not control.
With Lala’s arrival, Sally had faded tactfully into the background. She’d gone off to her parents’ for Christmas, taking Mundo, and had returned in the dark days before New Year and the drama of the baby’s arrival. Now, with Lala still here, she kept to the edges of family life, making herself useful looking after Johnnie but giving Lala and Julia plenty of space together.
The sisters were in the drawing room, close to the warmth of the fire, the baby nursing contentedly as Julia relaxed into the calm that feeding brought on.
‘I’ll need to go home soon,’ Lala said. She bent forward to poke the fire, sending a flurry of sparks upwards. ‘There’s work. I have to get back to that.’
‘And . . . Lisbet?’ Julia raised her eyebrows enquiringly.
‘Yes. She was – is – rather a surprise, but a good one. I didn’t expect my life to take this turn.’ Lala smiled, flushing slightly. ‘But I like it. I wonder now why I wasted so much time with Denis, long after it was obvious he and I weren’t really suited.’
‘You were waiting to find the right path.’
‘Denis doesn’t see it like that at all. He sees betrayal, lies and deception. He’s very, very angry.’ Lala shrugged. ‘What can I do? I can’t live my life to please him. We had our time and it’s gone. I didn’t lie to him, I didn’t know myself what lay ahead. I tried to treat him with kindness and respect but what I couldn’t do was turn time back. So now, we don’t speak.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t mind that much, to be honest.’
‘I liked Lisbet. She seemed lovely.’
‘She is. And very talented too. But don’t get me started, or I’ll not stop. You should meet her properly now you’re well.’ Lala looked over intently. ‘You are well again, aren’t you, Julia? Like last time?’
‘I . . . I think so. I hope so.’
‘Last time you were so flushed with joy. Y
ou’re not like that now. There’s something about you – as though you’re very tired. Is that right?’
‘I do feel tired,’ Julia confessed. She stared down at the movement of the baby’s tiny jaw as she suckled with her eyes tight shut, one small fist resting on Julia’s chest. ‘The old Julia feels like she’s gone far away and left me here to cope. And I will cope. It was just easier when I was my old self.’
‘I’m sad to hear that. I’m sure you only need time to regain your energy and your joie de vivre.’ Lala looked at her questioningly. ‘Do you think so?’
‘I hope so. Yes, you’re right. Time will do the trick.’
Lala looked back at the fire and pulled her cardigan a little tighter around her. ‘I wonder, though . . . about your friend, Sally.’
‘Sally?’ Julia was surprised. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s helped you, I can tell.’
‘Yes, she has.’
‘But perhaps it’s time for her to start thinking of moving on. How long has she been here?’
‘I don’t know – six months or so, I think.’
‘Her boy is growing up. She can’t stay here forever.’
‘There’s no hurry. We have plenty of room.’
After a moment, Lala said, ‘Oh, I think perhaps it might be for the best.’
‘What are you saying, Lala?’ Julia asked sharply, looking over at her sister.
‘I’m not saying anything except that it’s much better for a husband and wife not to share their lives with a third person. Marriage is for two people.’
Julia gasped and her skin across her forearms prickled unpleasantly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing – I don’t mean anything nefarious is going on. But it’s common sense, Julia.’ Lala gazed back, serious. ‘Just be on your guard. She’s settled in here, to help you. Just don’t let it get to a stage where you can’t get her out. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘She does help me,’ Julia said, feeling obstinate suddenly. ‘She’s been the best friend ever, the best I could possibly wish for. Are you trying to insinuate that she’s worming her way in or something? Because you can see how hard she works, how much she does for me. I couldn’t have coped without her. I’d probably be dead.’
‘Then we owe her all the thanks in the world. But you don’t owe her all of this – your house, your life. Your husband.’
‘That’s too much,’ Julia said, angry. ‘She’s helped David too. She’s been a friend to both of us, and God knows he needed it when I started to lose my bloody mind. He deserves someone to support him through all of that.’ She shook her head. ‘No. She can stay as long as she likes.’
Lala looked back to the fire. ‘If you say so. But I had to say something. I wouldn’t have been easy in myself if I hadn’t. Now, shall I go and get us both some tea?’
Lala’s words stayed with Julia, resonating through her thoughts. Later that evening, when she lay in bed under orders to sleep until the baby needed her next feed, she heard a whispered argument going on in the hall, of which she could make out very little, except that it was David’s voice and, she thought, Lala’s.
The next day Lala announced that she would be catching the evening flight from Exeter back to Paris. When she left, she hugged Julia tightly. ‘Ring me if you ever need me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here as soon as I can.’
Then she kissed her and kissed the baby, and climbed into the taxi to take her to the airport.
After she’d gone, David said, ‘I think it might be best if Lala doesn’t come back for a while. I think she’s disruptive and tires you out. You’re much better being looked after by Sally.’
Julia didn’t have the strength to argue.
It was, Julia thought, an intervention of fate when old Mr Kelsey died and his cottage on the edge of the home farm came up for a new tenancy. It lay on the other side of the estate, only two miles as the crow flew, but five miles round by road.
‘This would be just right for Sally, don’t you think?’ she said to David. He was back from London for the weekend, but strangely distracted. They were having breakfast in the morning room, with Johnnie playing at their feet and the baby in Julia’s arms. Sally had taken Mundo for a weekend at her parents’.
‘What?’ He looked up from his newspaper, owlish through his reading glasses.
‘This cottage.’ She pushed the report from the estate managers’ office towards him across the breakfast table. Tawray had been run by the same company in town for years, and she had kept them on to administer the usual routine of collecting rents and taking care of the various properties on the estate. All available properties and land were rented out on long-term leases, and the income from them paid Tawray’s bills and kept everything ticking over. ‘It would need to be refurbished, but it could do for Sally, couldn’t it?’
David took the paper and regarded it, frowning. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He looked over at Julia. ‘You want her to move out then?’
‘She has to some time. I mean, she can’t stay here forever, can she?’ She returned his gaze with something like defiance in her own.
‘I suppose not.’ He stared at the report. ‘Will it cost much to sort out?’
‘I don’t know. The office will manage it. It’s an investment.’
‘They’ll charge her rent.’
‘Perhaps a small one. But she can do something, can’t she? She told me only the other day that she was getting requests to work on manuscripts from her old agency. That sounds like a perfect job. Easy to fit around looking after Mundo.’
‘I suppose so.’ He shrugged. ‘It all depends if you feel you’re up to it.’
‘Me?’
‘Being on your own.’
‘I have to learn how to manage eventually, and I can get help with the children, if I need it. There are lots of lovely girls in the village who would come up.’
‘Yes, but they don’t know the situation.’ David took his glasses off and put them on the table, frowning. He looked much older suddenly, she realised. ‘They won’t be able to help you in the way Sally does. She understands. You feel safe with her.’
‘But she can’t stay forever. I have to look after myself.’
‘But you can’t pretend things are normal, Julia. They’re not! You’re not your old self yet, you’re just not.’
She felt a stab of hurt. ‘I’m doing my best.’
He hesitated, visibly gathered his patience, and said, ‘I know you are. But things aren’t right yet.’
She stared at him mulishly. ‘You mean in bed.’
‘It’s not just that. But that’s part of it, yes.’ He stared back, a look of defiance in his blue eyes. ‘That’s part of it.’
It had been three months since the baby was born. Julia’s wound had healed and she was quite capable of making love. But she couldn’t do it. She loved being close to David, hugs and kisses and all the feelings of nearness and intimacy, but when it came to it, she couldn’t go through with what he so clearly desired.
‘I don’t want to have a baby,’ she said helplessly. It was almost insulting that she should have to say it, after everything she’d been through.
‘You don’t have to – you can go on the pill. You are on the pill already, aren’t you?’
‘Not yet. But it doesn’t always work, you know.’
‘We can use condoms.’
‘They get torn. They’re not reliable either.’
‘If you’re on the pill and we use condoms, the chances are tiny – tiny! And if you get pregnant again, we could think about terminating this time. I don’t want to go through that baby business again, and I’m sure you don’t.’
Anger boiled inside her. So she should take that awful risk, and perhaps endure a termination, because of what he wanted. He’d put her through having children in the first place, although of course she was happy the babies were here. Now he wanted sex. His needs were more important than everything she’d been through: the trauma and suffering and major opera
tions; the madness and horror and the closeness to death. That all counted less than his physical needs.
‘I can’t do it, not right now.’
‘Then you’re not better. And I think in that case, you still need Sally.’
‘I need Sally?’ Her tone was menacing. ‘Or you need Sally?’
He frowned. ‘What?’
‘Sally can go when I start fucking you again, is that it? But until then, she stays? Why is that? In case you get overcome with need and there’s someone willing in the house?’ She couldn’t help spitting it out, feeling reckless, as though she wanted to see what would happen next.
David looked appalled. He went as white as paper. ‘What?’
‘You heard me. Why are you so bloody eager to have Sally around?’
His expression turned to outrage. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this, Julia! Are you accusing me of something? If you are, it’s below you.’
She stood up, clutching the baby to her chest, one hand on the table. ‘Then why does it matter? Why can’t she move out?’
‘I told you, you need her!’
‘And I told you I don’t! Listen, David, Sally needs to move out. This is the perfect opportunity. I’m sorry I can’t snap back and be the wife you want, I’m sorry I’m ill and inadequate and a failure. I’ve been through hell to give you the children you wanted. I can’t risk that happening to me again, and if that means you have to bloody well be celibate, then I think you should put up with that. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Unless you’d rather see me dead.’
She walked out, shaking, holding the baby close.
I mean it. I really do.
David explained the situation to Sally at some point when she returned. Julia was almost ghoulishly amused, wondering if David had interpreted what she said as a threat not to have sex with him again while Sally was in the house, and suspecting that he half hoped that if Sally went, Julia might relent. He had no doubt heard jealousy of Sally in her words, perhaps assumed that Julia was feeling that her friend was a sexual threat. Typical male vanity. He can’t hear what I’m actually saying to him. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that my suffering is worth him making a sacrifice.