Felix would come, between his stints in Malaysia, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Suez. He stayed sometimes for an afternoon, sometimes for a day, sometimes for weeks at a time. Lexie made sure he kept his own flat. He proved to be a fond, if semi-detached, parent. He would bounce Theo up and down on his knee for a few minutes, then put him down and pick up a newspaper, or lie on a rug in the garden while Theo pottered around him. Lexie once came out into the garden to find Felix asleep, covered with sand – and Theo industriously heading from sandpit to prone father, trowel in hand, burying him bit by bit.
It’s hard to say what Theo thought of Felix, of this man who appeared in the house after long gaps, bearing expensive yet inappropriate gifts (Meccano for a one-year-old, a cricket bat for a child who couldn’t yet walk). Theo didn’t call him ‘Daddy’ or ‘Dad’ (‘Rather silly names, don’t you think?’ said Felix) but ‘Felix’. Felix called him ‘old chap’, which never failed to irritate Lexie.
Ted stands in his back garden, contemplating the flowerbed. Perhaps ‘flowerbed’ isn’t quite the right word. Bindweed-and-dock-bed. Tangled thicket of weeds. Complete bloody mess.
He sighs, leans forward to pull at a particularly voracious plant with a fronded top but it refuses to leave the soil, breaking off in his hand. He sighs again and tosses it aside.
Elina is behind him somewhere, in the house. He can hear her talking to Jonah, on and on, in Finnish. Sometimes, she’s told him, she switches to Swedish, just for a change. Ted can’t tell the difference. As a language, it defeats him utterly. He knows a total of two words in Finnish: ‘thank you’ and ‘condom’. He’s never heard Elina talk Finnish much before – occasionally when she’s on the phone to her family, and sometimes if she met up with a Finnish friend. But now she seems to speak it all the time.
Ted picks a pair of shears and kneels on the grass. They open with a clean sssshkk sound, the blades moving across each other. Surprisingly, they are unrusted inside. He positions the V of the steel near the earth, then slices. The weeds topple, then fall. He does this again, then again. Weeds lie stranded all about him.
Yesterday he’d caught Elina staring out of the back windows of the house. Jonah was propped against her shoulder, eyes facing the door, so that it was the baby’s sudden jerk of head that had alerted her to his presence.
‘What you looking at?’ he’d asked, coming to put his arms around her, to pull faces at Jonah, who stared at him in astonishment.
‘My studio,’ she’d said, without looking away. ‘I was just standing here, thinking that . . .’
‘What?’
‘It looks like Sleeping Beauty’s castle.’
Ted had racked his brain to remember this story. Was this the one about the glass shoe? No. Or the one with the woman and her long plait of hair? ‘In what way?’ he asked, deciding to play for time.
‘Look at it!’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘You can barely see it any more for all the weeds. Another few weeks and it will have completely disappeared. When I finally do have the chance to work I won’t be able to get in there.’
So here he was, on his hands and knees, saving her studio from being engulfed by the garden. He wants to give her a surprise. He wants her to be happy. He wants the baby to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch. He wants to have if not his old life then some kind of life, not this constant lurching from one day to the next. He wants Elina not to have huge dark circles under her eyes all the time, for her not to have that tense, bitten-lip look she’s developed recently. He wants the house to stop smelling of shit. He wants there to be a time when the washing-machine isn’t on. He wants her to stop getting upset with him when it slips his mind to take the laundry out of the machine, to hang the laundry, to fold the laundry, to buy more nappies, to make the dinner, to clear away the dinner.
Ted slices and slices at the weeds and when he’s cleared the area outside the studio door, he begins to push the fallen plants into a plastic sack.
It is a simple movement: scrape-scrape-gather with one hand, then shovel into the bag held by the other hand. There is something hypnotic in it, in the noise, in the movement. Ted watches his hands, engaged, seemingly without his input, in this straightforward act. Here he is, he thinks, a man, a father, weeding a garden on a Saturday afternoon. There is the sound of a helicopter somewhere in the sky above him, the saarh sound of his breath as it enters his body, the haarh as it leaves, the sense of his lungs as a pair of bellows, powering his system, his hands in their rhythmic movement, the noise of some children on the other side of the wall, heading on bikes towards the Heath, the weeds’ reproachful rustle as they enter the sack, and perhaps there is something familiar in this act, this movement, or perhaps it is some confluence of elements causing a new connection because it is suddenly as if he has fallen through a trapdoor or down a rabbit hole. Ted can see himself as a small boy, he is himself as a small boy, and he is crouched at the end of a lawn and he has in his hand a small green plastic rake.
Ted blinks. He straightens up, turns his head from left to right.
Here he is, back in his life. The weeds, the shears, the garden, Elina and Jonah somewhere behind him. But at the same time he is also a little boy, crouching at a lawn edge with a green plastic rake in his hand and people behind him. His father, sitting in a deck-chair, and someone else, just out of sight: the hem of a long red dress and a bare foot, the nails painted purple, shoes lying discarded in the grass. His father is lighting a cigarette and he is speaking, his lips clenched around it. I never said anything of the sort. There is a sudden movement and the other person has got out of their deck-chair. Ted sees the red of her dress as it swirls about her ankles. The red hem, the purple toenails, the green grass. It’s out of the question, she says.
And then she leaves.
The dress swoops behind her as she walks away from them towards the house – and what house is this, what place is this, with plant pots lined along a patio, with a narrow door? Ted sees her back as she strides over the lawn; he sees long, smooth hair tied in a scarf. It’s out of the question. He sees the ties of a red dress fluttering, the white soles of feet flashing at him in turn. Ted looks down at the rake he’s holding. He looks at his father. He looks at the empty shoes lying on the grass. He looks as the woman with the long red dress and long smooth hair disappears into the dark oblong of the back door.
Elina steps out of the kitchen into the garden, Jonah in one arm, a blanket over the other. She tries to spread out the blanket on the lawn but it’s hard with one hand so she says, ‘Ted, could you help me?’
He is standing with his back to her. He doesn’t turn round.
‘Ted?’ she calls again, more loudly.
Ted is rubbing and rubbing his forehead. Elina lets the blanket slide to the decking. She nestles Jonah inside it and walks over to Ted. She touches his shoulder. ‘You all right?’
She feels him start beneath her touch. ‘Yes,’ he snaps. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I was only asking,’ Elina snaps back. ‘There’s no need to shout.’
He stops rubbing his forehead, puts his hand into his pocket, then takes it out. ‘Well, I’m fine,’ he says.
‘Good. I won’t make the mistake of asking next time.’
Ted mutters something inaudible and turns away, back to the flowerbed. Elina looks at the ground, which is littered with fallen flowers.
‘What are you doing, anyway?’
He mutters again.
‘What?’ she says.
He turns his head towards her and says, ‘Weeding.’
‘Weeding?’
‘Yeah. What’s it look like?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘Aren’t you supposed to pull weeds out by the roots, not just cut them? They grow again if you leave the roots in, don’t they?’
Ted picks up some shears, opens the blades. The light glances off the steel, sending sparks all over the garden. And they launch with something close to relief into the argument, as if they had b
oth been waiting unconsciously for this release. He is saying you have to cut weeds before you can clear them and that plants can’t grow without their leaves.
He’s losing his temper. He’s flinging away the shears, point down, so that they stab into the grass and stay there, like Excalibur. She’s using this as more fuel for her anger, pointing at the shears and at the proximity of her foot, meanwhile telling him he’s an idiot. He’s shouting that he can’t do anything right.
Jonah lies on the blanket on the decking. He has his thumb deeply inserted in his mouth and is sucking it with alert, concentrated intent. His eyes are round, unblinking. He is listening to his mother’s voice, raised in anger, in distress, and the four-month-old neurones in his brain are trying to decode what this might mean, for her, for him. A tiny, momentary frown dips his brow and it is the perfect simulacrum of an adult frown.
He pauses in his sucking, doubt crossing his features, and he is trying to twist now, raising his legs in the air, trying to see his mother, trying to alert her to his worry. But he’s not quite there yet, not quite old enough. He lets out a cry of frustration – small, barely audible – and tries again to roll on to his side. No luck. He thrashes and wriggles like a hooked fish. Then the full horror of his situation suddenly strikes him. His thumb falls from his lips, his face crumples inwards and he screams.
In a flash, Elina is there, lifting him away from the blanket, and hurrying into the house.
Ted stays in the garden. He picks up a stick and lashes at some weeds. He pulls up the shears from out of the lawn, then drops them again. He stands for a moment, leaning with one hand against Elina’s studio.
Half an hour later, everyone is in different clothes and in the car. Elina and Ted haven’t spoken a word to each other beyond, ‘Did you call a cab?’ ‘Yes.’ And they are off to Ted’s parents for lunch.
‘And I’d only left the thing switched on all day!’ Ted’s cousin, Clara, finishes her story and everyone bursts into laughter, except Ted’s mother, who murmurs about how it’s dangerous to leave electrical items on, and Elina, who hasn’t entirely followed the story. Something about a boyfriend and hair-straighteners – Elina had missed the beginning, but she smiles and lets out a little laugh, in case anyone notices.
They are sitting at the table. They have eaten fish, which was grilled and smothered in a strange, slightly gritty sauce, and a crumble, ‘made with gooseberries from the garden’, as Ted’s mother told them. Ted’s other cousin, Harriet, has made coffee and everyone is talking about Clara’s recent trip to LA, about a film Ted edited that has just appeared in cinemas, about the actor who lives down the street. Ted’s grandmother is mumbling to herself about how she asked for cream with her coffee, not milk, and doesn’t anybody drink coffee properly any more? And Elina is looking and yet trying not to look at Harriet, who is holding Jonah. Holding Jonah in the crook of her tanned elbow. Holding him as if she’s forgotten she’s holding him. Holding him so that his body is slumped across her lap and his head is alarmingly close to the table edge. Harriet is gesturing, talking, the silver bangles up her arm clattering and tinkling, and Jonah’s head bumps up and down with every emphatic bounce Harriet gives. His expression is one of perplexity. He looks lost, he looks confused. Elina has been sending silent signals to Ted, who is sitting next to Harriet: rescue your son, rescue your son. But Ted is apparently absorbed in the back garden. He has been staring through the window for the past five minutes, not listening to a word Harriet is saying. In a moment, Elina tells herself, you’ll get up and take Jonah, casually, very casually. You could say, lightly, as if it doesn’t matter at all, as if he’s not your child that you love beyond knowing, as if—
‘She looks like that other one, doesn’t she?’ Ted’s grandmother mumbles this across all the noise. She is pointing at Jonah.
Clara leans towards her. ‘It’s a boy,’ she says loudly. ‘Jonah. Remember?’
The grandmother shakes her head, as if trying to rid herself of an aggravating fly. ‘A boy?’ she snaps. ‘Well, he looks like that other one. Don’t you think?’ At this, she turns to her daughter.
But Ted’s mother is busying herself across the room in the kitchen, unloading plates from a tray. She is speaking to Ted’s father, who is puffing cigarette smoke out of the back door, saying something about port glasses.
‘What?’ Ted says. ‘Who do you mean? What other one?’
His grandmother appears to think for a long time, frowning. She whirls a hand in the air, then places it back on the arm of her wheelchair. ‘You know,’ she says.
Ted twists round in his chair. ‘Mum!’ he says. ‘Who does she mean?’ ‘. . . and put that out, for goodness’ sake,’ his mother is saying, as she returns from the kitchen with an empty tray in her hands, ‘with the baby here.’
‘Who does she mean?’ Ted asks again.
His mother is collecting wine glasses, crumpled napkins. ‘Who does who mean?’ she says.
‘Grandma says Jonah looks like “the other one”.’
Ted’s mother snatches a napkin off the table and the movement upsets a glass. The liquid spreads, dark and smooth, over the cloth, coursing between plates, cutlery, and forming a small waterfall off the edge to the lap of Elina’s skirt. Elina jumps up, wine falling to her shoes, and tries to dab it with her own napkin. Clara wheels the grandmother’s chair back, away from the table and the spilt wine. Everyone is standing suddenly, with cloths, advice, admonishments, and Ted is still saying, ‘Who does she mean?’ and his mother is saying, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, darling,’ and his father is passing behind Elina, she can smell the acrid cigarette smoke off him, and as she turns to him, he says, ‘A flutter in the hen-coop, eh?’ and winks at her.
Elina escapes to the loo and when she gets back, the table, the whole room, is empty. For a moment or two she has an uneasy, sickish feeling in her stomach, like a child who discovers it has been left out of a game. Then she sees them all, arranged on various deck-chairs and rugs, in the garden. As she comes out, she hears Ted’s mother say, ‘Now, give me that baby, quick, before—’ She swallows the rest of the sentence as Elina crosses the patio. Elina takes a place on a rug beside Ted’s father without meeting anyone’s eye.
Harriet gets up and gives Jonah to Ted’s mother. She makes a small, unintelligible noise as she takes the baby and Elina catches sight of long, sharpened nails next to Jonah’s cheek before she looks away. Ted’s mother will, she knows, be rearranging Jonah to her liking. His hair, which always stands on end, will be smoothed flat. She will button his jacket to the top; she will pull his socks higher or comment that he’s not wearing any; she will tug his sleeves down over his fists.
Elina doesn’t look at this; she looks about her. Harriet is reclining on a rug, her head in Clara’s lap. Together they are looking at a bracelet Clara is wearing. The grandmother has been parked under a tree, where she has fallen asleep, slippered feet propped up on a stool. Ted is sitting hunched in a deck-chair, legs crossed, arms folded. Is he watching his mother with Jonah? It’s hard to tell. He could be or he could be staring into space.
Elina finds Ted’s parents’ house strange. It’s tall, with floors stacked on top of each other, the staircase curling up through the middle of it like a helix. Its front faces out over a square lined with duplicate houses – iron balconies, evenly spaced sash windows, black railings around the basement windows. At the back, though, there is a garden that seems too small, too inadequate for the house’s height. Elina doesn’t like looking up at the house from the back. It is as if it might topple at any moment.
‘How are you, Miss Elina?’
She turns to Ted’s father. He is putting a cigarette to his mouth and patting his pockets for a lighter.
‘I’m well, thank you.’
‘How are you finding the whole . . .’ he sparks the lighter and holds it to the cigarette until the end glows ‘. . . baby thing?’
‘Well.’ She considers what to say. Should she mention the nights spent awa
ke, the number of times she must wash her hands in a day, the endless drying and folding of tiny clothes, the packing and unpacking of bags containing clothes, nappies, wipes, the scar across her abdomen, crooked and leering, the utter loneliness of it all, the hours she spends kneeling on the floor, a rattle or a bell or a fabric block in her hands, that she sometimes gets the urge to stop older women in the street and say, how did you do it, how did you live through it? Or she could mention that she had been unprepared for this fierce spring in her, this feeling that isn’t covered by the word ‘love’, which is far too small for it, that sometimes she thinks she might faint with the urgency of her feeling for him, that sometimes she misses him desperately even when he is right there, that it’s like a form of madness, of possession, that often she has to creep into the room when he has fallen asleep just to look at him, to check, to whisper to him. But instead, she says, ‘Fine. Good, thanks.’
Ted’s father flicks ash to the ground, then looks Elina all over, from her sandalled feet, up her legs, over her torso, to her face. ‘It suits you,’ he says finally, with a smile.
The Hand That First Held Mine Page 25