by Suzanne Leal
Today, she’s doing a house in Raleigh. It’s a good job because no one’s ever there when she arrives; she just lets herself in and gets on with it. The way she attacks the house, you’d think it was a workout. She’s dressed for a workout, too: she always is. Not that she ever goes anywhere near a gym, she just likes to look as though she does. Because gym gear solves everything. Running late dropping the kids to school? No problem, so long as you’ve managed to swap your PJs for a pair of leggings and some sort of zip-up sports top. That way everything thinks you’re only late because you managed to fit in a run before breakfast. Why spoil a good story by admitting you just slept in again? Gym gear’s the bomb for cleaning, too: it’s easy to move in and if you work up a bit of a sweat, who cares? The special gym gear fabric has got that all factored in. And if the owners happen to be home, well, that’s good, too; it looks like you’re about to get to the housework in an aerobic frenzy, and that’s got to make them happy. By the time you make it back to school, if you’re still perspiring from the exertion of it all, it’ll just look like you’ve finished your second marathon for the day. Which is yet another reason for not having the car boot filled with cleaning crap: because you don’t want to destroy the image with a reality check.
Today Mel’s on fire: by 2.30 pm, she’s finished everything she needs to do. If she wanted to, she could leave early, but she doesn’t. Call it overkill or call it ethics but if the deal’s 11 am to 3 pm, then she’ll be there from 11 am to 3 pm. She can always find something extra to do. Today she decides to spend the time sorting out the fridge. At home, her own fridge is a nightmare: plates of scraps covered in cling wrap on the off-chance that they’ll get a rerun sometime during the week; jam jars with less than a teaspoon of jam left inside that won’t get thrown out until Mel discovers them. The Raleigh people are better than that but Mel can still put some order into the shelves and give them a wipe-down with water and vanilla essence to freshen things up. Which means that by 2.55, she can close the door on a fridge that’s sparkling and a house that’s spotless.
Nina
Nina is in the staffroom when Marina walks in. Today she’s all bohemian chic: long earrings and a loose grey shift with a white scarf draped around it. When she sees Nina, she starts. This makes Nina laugh. ‘Did I scare you?’
Marina shakes her head but she’s still looking unsettled.
‘Everything all right?’
Marina shrugs. ‘A bit knackered.’
But Nina’s not convinced. ‘That all?’
Marina gives her a wan smile. ‘Maybe it’s the start-of-winter thing. Or maybe I just need a cigarette.’
Nina picks up two cups from the draining tray and gives them a shake. ‘I’ll come with you.’
At the other end of the staffroom is a door that leads to a small, enclosed courtyard. It’s a secluded place, unevenly paved with house bricks, its walls covered with overgrown ivy. This is where Marina goes for a smoke, away from everyone else.
Marina waits while Nina makes them each a cup of tea and then together they go outside to the courtyard.
‘How’s Steve?’ Marina asks her.
Nina tries to sound positive. ‘He’s good.’
Marina looks surprised. ‘Really?’
She gives her friend a rueful look: Marina can always see through her. ‘Actually, he’s been a bit difficult,’ she admits. ‘It must be the new job. He’s been working long hours—I didn’t think he’d be so busy.’
Marina lights up then tilts her head away to exhale. She takes a while to answer. ‘I saw him on Friday night,’ she says, her voice slow.
Nina looks surprised. ‘Who, Steve?’
Marina nods. ‘Yeah.’
‘What, at the club?’
She shakes her head. ‘He wasn’t at the club.’
Nina gives a puzzled laugh. ‘Yes, he was. He would have been there until about eight.’
Again Marina shakes her head. ‘Well, at seven o’clock he was in Baranton.’
‘Baranton? That’s nowhere near the club.’
Marina doesn’t answer.
‘Well, what was he doing there?’
Still Marina says nothing.
‘What did he say to you?’
‘Nothing.’ There is little left of the cigarette now, which has burnt down to the filter. Marina flicks it away with her fingertips. ‘He didn’t see me. I was walking past this restaurant, I happened to look in, and there he was.’
Nina is still confused. ‘What, having dinner?’
‘That’s what it looked like.’
‘By himself?’
Marina stops to light another cigarette before she turns to Nina. ‘You want me to tell you stuff, don’t you?’ Her voice is serious now. ‘I mean, you don’t want me to keep anything from you, do you?’
Nina feels a weight drop down into her stomach. She forms the question before she says it out loud. ‘What are you saying?’
Instead of answering, Marina starts to tap her foot softly. ‘Nina, he was with a woman,’ she says finally. ‘He was having dinner at a restaurant with some woman.’
Nina tries to process this. ‘Maybe it was a work thing?’ Her voice sounds hollow, so she clears her throat and tries again. ‘Maybe they were having a meeting?’
This time, Marina doesn’t turn away to smoke. ‘They were all over each other,’ she says.
Nina repeats the words to herself. All over each other. ‘What do you mean, all over each other?’
Marina’s voice, when she responds, is very slow and very clear, as though she is choosing her words carefully. ‘They were holding hands and they were kissing.’
‘Oh.’ Nina says. ‘Oh.’ She’s not sure what else to say. ‘Who is she?’ Marina throws the cigarette down in front of her and squashes it with her shoe. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Okay.’ Gripping her mug, Nina tries to raise it to her lips but her hands are shaking so hard she spills tea over herself. ‘Oh God,’ she says, as the hot water seeps through to her skin. ‘God.’ She stands up quickly, holding her shirt out in front of her. ‘Fuck!’ she shouts. ‘Fuck!’
But she’s only wet, not burnt. Even so, the tea has left a faint brown stain down the front of her white shirt, and this distresses her. ‘Look at me,’ she says, her voice catching. ‘Look at me.’
Marina unfurls her scarf and hands it to her. ‘This’ll cover it.’
But Nina can only stare at it. ‘I don’t know how to tie scarves,’ she says as she starts to cry.
Marina loops the scarf across Nina’s shoulders and over her shirt. ‘See,’ she says, ‘now you can’t even see the stain. Not at all.’ But her voice is so tender it just makes Nina want to cry harder. And here, now, she can’t afford to be crying at all.
‘Thanks,’ Nina whispers as she fingers the scarf. She tries to swallow. ‘Marina,’ she says softly, ‘are you sure it was him? I mean, are you certain?’
Once again Marina is slow to answer. ‘It looked a lot like him.’
It looked a lot like him.
Which doesn’t mean it was him, does it? But when Nina tilts her head to check this, her friend’s eyes are filled with such pity it makes her flinch.
‘I have to go,’ she says, her voice choked.
Marina nods. ‘Do you want me to walk you down?’
Nina shakes her head vehemently. ‘No,’ she says.
Once she is back in her room, she closes the door, takes her mobile out of her handbag and dials his number. It would be better to wait until they are at home, better to talk to him face to face, but she can’t leave it until then. While she waits for the call to connect, her hands start to shake once more. But his phone doesn’t ring at all. It doesn’t even go to voicemail. Instead, a tinny recorded voice tells her that the service is currently unavailable and she should try again later.
She doesn’t want to try later. She wants to try again now. She wants to sort it all out straightaway. So she calls him at work, on his direct line. The switch receptionist ans
wers. Nina finds it hard to keep her voice light and steady. ‘Hi,’ she says, ‘it’s Nina Foreman here. Can I speak to my husband, please?’
The woman’s voice is pleasant and nasal. ‘Just a minute, please.’
There is a long wait until, finally, the woman returns to the phone. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and she does sound apologetic, ‘but Mr Foreman called in sick this morning and won’t be at work today.’
Nina swallows. ‘That’s right,’ she says with forced gaiety, ‘I’d forgotten he was sick. Sorry about that.’
The woman’s voice is too gentle to be comforting. ‘No problem, love.’
She waits five, maybe ten minutes before trying his mobile again. This time he answers on the second ring. ‘Babe,’ he says, ‘hi.’
‘Hi,’ she says, ‘how’s work going?’ She has practised the question in her head but now her voice falters as she reaches the end of it.
He, by contrast, doesn’t hesitate. ‘Busy. It’s been full-on all day. Really full-on.’
‘Oh.’ Her throat is so dry it hurts to swallow. ‘So what time will you be home?’
She listens as he calculates aloud what he has left to do. ‘Not late,’ he decides.
‘Sounds good.’ She almost chokes on the words. ‘I’ll see you then.’
When she hangs up, she is numb, so numb she can’t even cry. So numb, her mind empties. All she can do is hum to herself: a wandering, tuneless hum that becomes ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, a song she has never learnt and doesn’t really know. In front of her, sunshine pours in through the windows and, caught by the crystal pendants, splinters into rainbows across the room. How does that work? she wonders.
And as she contemplates this, there is a knock at the door. When she checks her watch, she is surprised to see that it is already two o’clock.
Opening the door, she does her best to smile. Immediately, Paige beams back at her. ‘Hi, miss, I done my reading homework,’ she says.
And although she feels like weeping, Nina keeps smiling as she ushers the girl into the room and sits her down. ‘Did you really?’
‘All of it,’ she says. ‘I did all of it.’
‘Well, then,’ Nina tells her, trying not to let her voice slip into a whisper, ‘you’ll have to show me, now, won’t you? So I know I can believe you.’
The girl’s eyes are wide and serious. ‘You can completely believe me, miss, completely.’ From her bag, she takes out her reader. ‘Test me, miss, test me. I swear I can read the whole thing.’
And opening up her book, she starts to read. The Hare and the Tortoise, she says. She reads slowly and without expression. But she reads.
‘Wonderful,’ Nina tells her when she has finished the page. ‘Wonderful.’
Paige smiles to herself as she runs her fingers down the page. One eye squinting, she looks up at Nina. ‘Bit of a crap story, though, miss, wasn’t it? I mean, about talking animals and that. No offence or anything, but I’m a bit past that stuff, don’t you think?’
Despite everything, this makes Nina smile. ‘Should I find you something harder to read?’
Paige shakes her head. ‘Doesn’t have to be harder, just better. With people in it and that. Like I said, I’m a bit over talking animals.’
Nina manages a laugh. She hates talking animals too. ‘So, what, an adventure story or something like that?’
Paige shrugs. ‘Maybe. Depends on the story, doesn’t it? Just something that’s not really boring.’
To give her a choice, Nina picks out six or seven books. She’s pleased when Paige takes her time to look through them all; pleased, too, when she becomes engrossed in her work, so engrossed she seems surprised when the school bell rings. She’ll do well, Nina thinks. With more time, she’ll do really well.
When she realises it’s time to go home, Paige’s face falls. ‘Miss,’ she says softly, ‘how come I didn’t get a hot chocolate today?’
Her disappointment is so keen Nina wants to wrap her arms around her. ‘Paige, I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘how could I have forgotten? Especially after all your good work.’
So even though it is late, Nina switches on the kettle and makes them each a hot chocolate. As they drink, they are both quiet, and it is a silence Nina savours, a silence that calms her.
A loud knock makes them both jump. When she opens the door, Nina finds herself at eye level with a woman who looks familiar. She is dressed in a cropped jacket with jeans that are tight down to her ankles.
When she sees Nina, her face colours. ‘I was told to come here,’ she says, and her voice is low and gravelly. ‘The teacher said Paige was here.’
Paige’s mother, Nina thinks.
But that’s not why she’s familiar. It’s something else. ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’ she ventures.
The woman nods. Reluctantly, it seems. ‘At the club.’
Then it comes back to her. Steve’s friend, his school friend. His stumbling school friend, so drunk she couldn’t even open her front door. In her place, Nina would be embarrassed too. She searches for her name. ‘Sue?’
Again the woman nods. ‘That’s it.’
‘You went to school with my husband.’
‘Something like that,’ she says, her voice rushed. ‘Come on, Paige,’ she calls to her daughter, ‘we’ve got to get a move on.’
Nina needs to go, too. And although it’s the last thing she feels like doing, she offers to walk them down to the gate. It’s always good to get to know the parents. It can explain a lot. Even reading problems.
But as they walk through the playground, Sue is quiet. When, eventually, she turns to Nina, her voice is puzzled. ‘Steve didn’t tell me you worked here.’
Nina is surprised by the remark. Why would he?
At the gate, they part ways: Sue and Paige head up the street while Nina walks down towards her car. She’s about to open the door when she hears Marina calling.
When she turns around, her friend is hurrying towards her. ‘Nina, that woman,’ she says, stopping to catch her breath. ‘That’s her.’
Nina looks at her blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s the one,’ Marina says. ‘She’s the one I saw with Steve.’
On a better day, that would make Nina laugh. ‘No, she’s not. She’s Paige Peters’ mum.’
But Marina is adamant. ‘She was with him. I swear it was her.’
Again Nina shakes her head. ‘It couldn’t be.’
But as she drives away, she is less certain. And when she thinks back to the party she starts to worry. She shouldn’t think about it. Especially not now. Not while she’s driving. And not when she’s about to pick up Emily. Instead, she turns the radio up high, as high as it will go, high enough to drown out every thought.
But by the time she arrives at Emily’s childcare centre, her whole body is cold. Inside the centre, she keeps her head down so she won’t have to talk, so she won’t have to smile.
She finds Emily, who is playing in home corner, and whispers softly, ‘Let’s go.’
It is a relief when, in the car, the little girl lets herself be strapped into her car seat without protesting.
It’s okay, Nina counsels herself as she puts the keys into the ignition, it’s okay.
But as soon as the engine starts, music shoots through the speakers, so suddenly and so loudly that Emily, terrified, begins to scream.
Her fingers clumsy, Nina struggles to turn the volume down until at last she finds the power button and the music is gone.
Emily is still screaming. Depleted, Nina leans back against the headrest. Now what?
She could get out of the car, she could go to Emily, she could cuddle her. That’s what she could do.
Instead, she puts the car into gear. And as she drives off, she clears her throat and starts to sing. She sings ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, softly first, then louder and louder and louder until she is shouting the words out, shouting them out so loudly that Emily’s screams no longer penetrate. ‘Old MacDonald had a
PIG,’ she bellows. ‘E-i-e-i-o.’
Finally, it works. Finally, out of sheer astonishment, Emily falls silent. Then she starts laughing and soon she is laughing so hard it sounds like she is choking, her little voice straining as she cries, ‘More, Mummy, more, more.’
And so Nina gives her more. More cows and more pigs and more sheep and more chickens and more geese and more caterpillars and more cockroaches and more worms and more ants until they are home and Nina realises that her fingers are wrapped hard around the steering wheel and she is wet under the armpits.
Once inside, it is all Nina can do to open a can of baked beans, tip the beans into Emily’s favourite bowl and zap them in the microwave.
When she calls Emily over to the table, she makes an effort to sound excited. ‘Guess what I’ve made you for dinner?’ she says. ‘Baked beans!’
Emily looks unimpressed. ‘I need noodles.’
‘But I’ve made you baked beans,’ Nina tells her.
Emily shakes her head. ‘I really need noodles today.’
She doesn’t have it in her to argue, so without a word, she covers the baked beans with cling wrap and puts them in the fridge. Then she boils water on the stove, drops a packet of two-minute noodles in it, sprinkles over the contents of the flavour sachet and serves them up.
Nina sits with Emily while she eats. As always, noodles are a messy affair: half of them make it into the little girl’s mouth, the other half fall down her front. Watching on, Nina marvels at the mundanity of it all. She wonders, too, at how it can be that everything is both just as it always is and absolutely changed.