by Fiona Gibson
And I dream I’m wearing a red dress, so tight its seams threaten to split. “Get married in red, wish yourself dead,” Constance warns. She laughs, showing big yellow teeth like peanuts. I follow her between flower beds, the sickly plants evenly spaced. Up the wide sandstone steps, through the chipped maroon door. First right into a lemon-painted room whiffing of Sunday school.
The registrar lady looks up, not at my face but at the too-tight dress, knowing my stomach hurts from being held in, that I’m faking my thinness. She suppresses a smile, as if she’s in on a practical joke. Only then do I notice that guests have arrived: my mother, her hair partly obscuring wet eyes, and her hand at her mouth to stop giggles (or maybe she’s crying). Beth holds Maud firmly, urging her to latch onto a fully inflated breast which hangs from her unbuttoned denim dress. Maud wears heavy black velvet, matching Raven who perches beside her, those petulant lips stained with blackcurrant ice lolly. Behind them is Matthew, his fingers interlaced like the child’s game (here’s the church, here’s the steeple). Next to him, wearing a white cotton sundress, sits Rosie with hands on her lap, primly clasped.
Lovely hurries in late, hissing that I’ve missed the deadline for the spring/summer model directory and squeezes onto the end of the front pew, meant for important people. My parents and Constance shuffle along to make space for her. Later still are Ranald and his girlfriend, in swimwear, dripping onto the registry office’s glazed parquet floor. “Are we ready?” says the registrar, glancing at the chrome alarm clock which dominates her leather-topped desk. Let’s get this over and done with. I don’t have all day. There’s another fifteen couples out there in the hall.
She stands up to start proceedings when Eliza tumbles in, her lips glossy red, the wedding dress skimpily cut and edged with ruffles. “Sorry,” she mouths as she reaches the spot before the desk where Jonathan stands, takes her hand and kisses her, in a way he’s never kissed me.
I sit at the far end of the front row, close to the wall, half my backside hanging off the pew. Constance’s papery hand wraps around mine, her fingernails spearing my palm. The registrar’s alarm clock goes off with a deafening screech.
You know, before you’re fully conscious, when you’re in an unfamiliar bed. And you’re already skimming through possibilities: your best friend’s spare room with its molding tangerines? In a hotel that’s falling drastically short of its brochure description? Or a misguided one-night stand: how could you? Who is he? What happened to your clothes?
The mattress is lumpen like porridge. Ben and I have sunk into the middle. His clammy head rests against my chest. Something rigid digs into my shoulder blade; a spring, trying to escape the vile mattress. Ben wriggles and shifts, moving perilously close to the edge. I slide both hands under him to pull him closer. He mustn’t wake up, not yet, and start wanting things: milk, warmed to the correct temperature (how? Is there a kettle? Does the cooker work?), breakfast (not banana again?), and his dad (where is he? What happened to our family unit?).
Jonathan would never wind up in this mess. He’d have had the cool box packed with butter, yogurt, cheese and proper milk (not the ready-made formula in cartons I snatched in Dover). He’d be down there now, scouring the sink, making things work. I’d smell real coffee. The boiler would have been lit hours ago. By the time I made it downstairs, my parents’ derelict shack would have been as gleaming and well-functioning as our flat.
I shiver, pulling up the candlewick bedspread to cover everything but our faces. Ben’s is blissful (still sleeping and therefore knowing nothing about the domestic horrors that await him). Mine, I imagine, is a little tense and certainly unwashed, the frown lines etching permanently as I wonder what to do, now that I’m in charge.
Three voice mail messages:
Nina, Jess from Promise. Is there a problem with your copy? Some misunderstanding? I’ve tried you at home and e-mailed you. We’re having to fill the page with a puzzle this week. Call me. We’re a bit desperate.
Nina? Rosemary from the Fox . You said you’d call to finalize numbers. I’m assuming it’s just wine and beer, no spirits, is that right?
It’s me, just checking you arrived okay.
I wonder how long Jonathan will wait before calling the Fox to explain. How do you undo a wedding? Will he phone round personally or will Matthew, as redundant best man, do it for him?
Mum said, “I thought you were rushing things. You’d be better waiting until you’ve got your figure back.” I told her there won’t be a wedding, ever. “You can still have your present,” Mum added. “It’s a lovely lamp. Doesn’t work, probably needs to be rewired, but it’s pretty. You could hang things from it.”
All Eliza said was, “It’s better than getting divorced,” thinking, perhaps, thank God it’s only a borrowed dress.
Ben wakes hungry and irritable. His vest is damp around the nappy region. Gray light creeps in through the cracked window. The wallpaper, a faded pink and lime floral print, curls at the joints. On a pine chest of drawers at the window stands a blue-and-white-speckled jug, bearing flowers, now dried crisply. The room smells doughy, as if something is brewing, perhaps in the depths of the mattress.
A red wine bottle, an inch left undrunk, sits on the gray wicker bedside table. A pair of lilac knickers hangs on the washstand. As a child, I was unaware of my parents’ lack of regard for domesticity: the twice yearly vacuuming session, so traumatic to the Hoover that it would clog instantly, to be jabbed by my mother with a straightened wire coat hanger. I’d thought this was normal until Imogen Priestley came round, stood in the doorway of my bedroom and said, “Why is everything dirty?” She perched nervously on the edge of my bed and asked my mother to call her dad so he could collect her early.
I carry Ben to the kitchen and fill his bottle one-handed. The rough kitchen walls look moldy. The kitchen cupboards have a homemade, out of synch look. A little cabinet with a wire door, presumably for cheese, sits on the scratched fridge. A mousetrap lies on the floor nearby, with a withered black mouse in it, the size of my thumb.
Ben settles on my lap, glugging his bottle, as if Jonathan might emerge from a rickety cupboard and say, “So! Here we are. Shall I put some coffee on?”
But of course he doesn’t. And I haven’t brought coffee. I don’t even know where the toilet is.
18
Cruising
Babycare doesn’t warn you about the whopping developmental leap that occurs when an eight-month-old baby is left in sole charge of its mother. No one points out that infants are, in fact, wiser than their own parents in that they never embark on unsuitable relationships or willingly exchange a clean, warm bed, with its duvet from Heal’s, for a dank mattress reeking of fungi.
Though still reliant on me for nutrition and toileting procedures, Ben matures at such breakneck speed that I expect to discover him mulling over the leaflet about Chatillon, left on the fireplace, which suggests an outing to the Musée Archeologique with its breathtaking artifacts including a bronze vase of Greek origin.
Instinctively, he knows what we should do. I huddle over the living room fireplace, recalling Ranald on our camping trip, barking instructions on the fashioning of newspaper firelighters (“What are you trying to make? A doughnut?”). When Ben witnesses his mother cursing over the grate, he crawls swiftly to the front door and batters it with a fist, demanding to be let out.
He’s right: the fire can wait. We’ll probably freeze and be discovered like mammoths, trapped in ice, but without firelighters nothing is likely to happen in the flickering flame department. What we need urgently (his hollow face tells me) is a supermarket shop. We can’t live on bananas, aging torpedo rolls and cartons of milk forever.
As we drive to Chatillon I talk to him like the adult he has become. I ask him, “Should we get ourselves a proper map, instead of relying on Grandad’s serviette?” Ben seems to think this is a good idea, and who else is there to ask? With a distinct lack of significant other/baby support group to hand, Ben is all I have.
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In the supermarket he gazes thoughtfully from the trolley, accustomed now to this mode of transport. Chill cabinets whir lazily as I prowl the aisles in search of cleaning products. Once located, I am unsure whether to snatch anything with a lemon-fresh look about it (signifying an extended stay) or just washing up liquid and a spongy wipe.
The choice is too baffling and we leave with fresh milk, cheese, a bumper clear plastic packet of bald sponge cakes and baby food—salmon and vegetables which appear as alternate pink/buff-colored stripes in the jar, and contains both sugar and salt. Back at the house we eat quickly and messily, stoking up for warmth. Ben perches dumpily on my lap, nappy loaded with several gallons of wee, beaming all over his salmon-splattered face.
I imagine we’re anonymous as we explore the village, or what village there is. Its inhabitants seem to have gone somewhere else—the West Indies, perhaps, or a cinema I have yet to locate. Occasionally there’s a flurry of coat as someone slams a car door, or a smudge of face at a window. Only in the baker’s—the shop turns out to be a baker’s—do we witness a human being close up: a crispyhaired woman with firm lines from nose to mouth, regarding me as if I am planning to poke holes in her loaves.
So we fall into a pattern of driving to Chatillon every second day. That way we have some pattern to our lives, avoid the fierce bread lady and limit the chances of getting to know anyone. I’m not in the market for a new best friend or even a penpal. Days drift, with Ben snoozing off whatever striped delight he’s devoured for lunch, and my voice becomes a strangled croak from underuse.
Nina, we’re so worried…haven’t heard…think about you… Then an adult male—presumably Matthew—butts in and Beth snaps, I’m on the phone, for crying out loud. Leaving a message for Nina.
Jonathan’s voice is muffled as if coming from the inside of a dustbin. Just seeing how you are. Let me know if you need anything. Right then, okay. Knowing he’ll be at work I call the flat, taking care not to sound so gloomy he’ll assume something awful’s happened, but not too party-spirited, either. “We’re fine,” I say. “Ben’s trying to pull himself up. He’s almost standing and—” My throat clogs with something creamy and I’m forced to ring off. Ben opens one eye, as if to check where the choking noise is coming from, and returns to the safe, mother-free zone of his nap.
The house becomes so familiar that I learn how to use its different rooms at various times of the day. Midafternoon, when Ben wakes up, I stroke him back to reality in the smaller bedroom. It’s gloomy, and the sloping ceiling looms at you, but it’s slightly less bracing than the rest of the house. “Most visitors come in spring and summer,” points out Walking in Eastern France, which I filched from the ferry. “Winter can be picturesque, but is bitterly cold.” So we huddle in the little room, every so often investigating the dark space off the kitchen where the boiler lurks. Spent matches litter the floor. I call Dad, hoping he’ll shed light on the hot water situation. “We’ve never found it a problem,” he says brightly. So I try again to follow his instructions and locate the red button which must be pressed for thirty seconds until the pilot light ignites, but there is no red button, and therefore no ignition of pilot light, and no hot water.
In the evenings I tuck Ben into my coat and button it up. We position ourselves as close as possible to the fire without clambering into the flames. The fire glows tentatively, lit with the aid of seven firelighters and a stack of paper doughnuts. Two spindly wooden chairs, laid on their sides, prevent Ben from investigating the flames. A kettle is boiled for the dual purpose of heating Ben’s milk and washing the day’s clothes to be draped on the chairs by the fire. We acquire a burnt smell. It’s not quite InHouse magazine, although Eliza might say the place has a certain shabby chic charm.
Ben’s scalp smells of dough. There’s dirt under his fingernails which will never come out. I wonder what Lovely would say, were we to show up for an audition. Professional mother pays great attention to her child’s appearance. And to her own.
At least, I remind myself, no one knows us.
But they do notice us. It starts with a nod, a quick smile of recognition, though everyone is too scarved up and hatted to speak. I have had to invest in a snowsuit for Ben. His ruddy face peeps crossly from a quilted hood.
One morning, I see two women chatting animatedly outside the bakers. One is dressed not in serious winter attire but a butter-colored suit printed with turquoise sea horses. She keeps patting her extravagantly sculpted auburn curls. Her companion wears a hairy brown sweater like a horse blanket. The sea horse woman waves. Up close I recognize her face: she directed me to my parents’ place. “You found the house?” she says pleasantly.
“Yes, thanks.”
She looks down at Ben and tickles the tiny cheek area accessible in the snowsuit. “The place,” she says, “it’s not so suitable for a baby?”
I wonder whether to agree—to detail its poor fixtures, fittings and tantrummy boiler—but say only, “It’s fine. We’re having a fantastic time.”
She speaks to the other woman; I smile dumbly. The sea horse woman pats my arm and says, “You’re not staying long in that house?” That house. Instant disapproval. I can hear Constance now: “Well, I could have told you it wouldn’t work out with that Nina.”
“Not sure how long we’ll stay,” I tell the woman. “Our plans are sort of…open-ended.” I wonder if she knows what open-ended means.
“No,” she says, patting my arm with her leather-gloved hand, “no, my dear, listen, we have a hotel. Very quiet at this time of year. No one comes—not until spring.” I wonder whether to sympathize over her ailing business. “And you’re welcome,” she says. “You and your baby—you can stay with us. It’s warm and very comfortable. No charge.” She smiles quickly and nods as if the matter is settled. “Here,” she says, “call me, and we’ll prepare a room.” And she hands me a cream-colored card on which is printed Hotel Beauville, with a line drawing of a robust-looking building and the proprietor’s name: Sylvie Laman.
“Sylvie,” she says, patting her throat. “And this is my daughter, Nadine.”
What Sylvie doesn’t realize is that we have everything we need right here. The pilot light still refuses to introduce itself but I have found, in the bowels of the wardrobe, a snagged, green satin eiderdown and a mottled gray blanket embroidered with Girl Guide badges. Despite the extra bedding I still sleep in my jeans, T-shirt, sweater and socks, and Ben wears the fleecy all-in-one with feet in, thoughtfully donated by Beth.
A parcel arrives, addressed to Ben. I shake the age twelve to eighteen month cable-knit sweater and checked woollen trousers, expecting to find a note. A few lines, perhaps, to indicate that Jonathan misses us madly and is falling to pieces and forgetting to put out the bin on a Tuesday night. There is nothing. I only know it’s from Jonathan due to the forward-slanting writing on the brown paper wrapper.
But of course he wants us back, or Ben anyway. He’s waiting, knowing we can’t hold out for long. He has seen photos of the house. “Interesting,” he said when my mother pressed snapshots into his palm. “It has potential. Quite an, uh, uh, project.”
So he waits, continuing to prepare baby food, though now with a coarser texture so that Ben can learn to manage lumps. He won’t ask us home for Christmas. Jonathan has never asked me for anything. He will spend Christmas with Constance and neither will mention the shimmering void where Nina and Ben should be.
I do my Christmas shopping in Chatillon. The department store is the obvious choice, but it’s filled with shoppers thrashing their carrier bags with time to laugh and chat and kiss each other in that French way despite having so many people still to buy for.
These people make me sag inside. Sometimes Eliza does that to me. Back in London I’d be shaking antique crumbs out of the toaster and call her for some frivolous talk—maybe she’d tell me about a model who cried because the makeup artist couldn’t provide her favorite eye cream with extract of squid—only to be told by a hoity assistant tha
t Eliza had headed off for her Indian head massage and wouldn’t have time to call until Fashion Week had finished.
Unable to face the department store, I creep into the pharmacy. It’s quiet enough for me to enter with buggy and not gash anyone’s shins. The shop is searingly clean with most products packaged in white boxes. For Eliza I choose a sparkly nail polish kit in a see-through plastic box. She’ll understand, she knows things are tricky. For my mother I grab a purple leather pouch filled with finicky implements for manicures. For Dad I pick a black-and-white-striped sponge bag with wipeable lining, and consider buying a duplicate for Jonathan (what’s the gift-buying etiquette for the man you’ve just left? Do you buy a little something to show you’ve remembered? Or a lavish gift—a digital camera, perhaps—to compensate for your guilt?).
No, a present from me would confuse and possibly even irritate. After all she’s done, she thinks she can make things right with a crappy zip-up bag. Like the one she bought me for my birthday in fact. Instead I choose stackable plastic boats for Ben, optimistic that, come Christmas, the boiler will burst into life and we’ll be awash with hot water and have bath after bath, for the sheer hell of it.
After a snooze in the car, Ben is revived and eager to demonstrate newfound skills. In the main bedroom he reaches up from a crawling position, hoisting himself higher by grabbing fistfuls of Girl Guide blanket. Look, says his bonkers grin.
He’s standing up. He moves in unsteady sidesteps until bandy legs crumple and he tumbles backward, landing plumply on his nappied bottom. And he laughs: You like that? Want me to show you again?