Within a twinkling I’d locked the door to my room but also pulled a chair across it. I set up my easel and screwed in the painting. Finding my palette, stiff with misuse, on the floor of the cupboard I squirted out a few blobs of colour. Just a bit, I wouldn’t be here long. Then I got to work: cornering the memory in my head, reproducing it bit by bit, dab by dab. I’d thought holding a paintbrush in my hand during daylight hours – I had occasionally dabbled at night – after so many years would feel strange, nervous-making, but I was wrong. It was like holding a baby again: lovely, natural, familiar. I knew exactly what to do with it. And as that familiar feeling flowed in a circular motion from my brain, to my fingertips, to the canvas, then dipped back into my head for more inspiration, it became so absorbing, so automatic, I felt the years roll back. It was as if all the strokes I’d neglected to make in the long hiatus, the great yawning gap, had been stored somewhere, and were all the more concentrated and forceful in their surging comeback.
Three hours later I emerged from the room, shocked but sated. The painting was safely stashed away in the cupboard again, on top of the others, to dry. The door was locked, the key under the floorboard. And I was outside, walking, almost blindly, through the fields behind the house. My hands, hastily washed in white spirit, like a murderer removing all traces of blood, were thrust guiltily in my Barbour pockets; my face to the sun, like a salamander. I felt glorious. As if I’d been touched, or seen a vision. I imagined some sort of aura around me – like an angel in a child’s picture book. Ridiculous, of course. A white light, then, at any rate. In reality I suppose it was just a middle-aged glow of satisfaction but there seemed so much more to it. I walked on, my face trained to the sunbeams in the west as if in a trance, as if I were walking across a desert barefoot with a cross in my hands. My eyes were half shut as I kicked up the leaves and laughed softly to myself. If anyone had seen me, they’d have thought me a trifle odd. Soft in the head. Either that, or in love. But no man, in my past life, or in my future life, could ever make me feel as I did at this moment. I knew I had never been happier. Knew it was euphoria in the truest sense of the word.
Sometime later, as I came back across the yard, I saw the school bus. It rumbled to a halt in the lane behind the hedge. A couple of boys who lived in the village dismounted, then, after a pause, Josh got off. I waited for him as he came through the yard from the opposite side, shoulders slouched, hands in pockets, dark suit that passed for sixth-form uniform tatty and frayed at the edges. His trousers dragged in the mud. With three terms to go I wondered if it would stay the course. I quickly shoved my hands back in my pockets.
‘Hi, darling.’
‘Oh. Hi.’ He glanced up, surprised. He’d been miles away. Then he did a double take. ‘What are you up to?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Dunno. You look … furtive, or something.’ He grinned as he joined me. ‘Like you’ve got a lover.’
I flushed. ‘Don’t be silly.’
He blinked. ‘Easy. Joke. Have I struck a chord or something?’
I laughed gaily. ‘Yes, that’s it. Me and my lover have been rolling round the hay barn while you’ve been at school. What else would I be doing with my day?’
He shrugged, bored with the subject of his middle-aged mother, and quite possibly repulsed as well. We walked towards the house in silence.
‘Dad says you might go to Oxford with him when he starts his new job,’ I said easily, blithely even, congratulating myself on my phlegm.
‘Yeah.’ He shot me a cautious look. ‘You all right about that?’
‘Of course.’
‘Only in term time,’ he said hastily. ‘It’s just, it’ll be so much easier than getting that fucking bus into town every day.’
‘Well, quite. Except, he thinks you might want to work at the Playhouse in the holidays. Haven’t you applied for a job there?’ I helped him.
‘Yeah.’ He reddened. Unusual for Josh. He eyed me warily. ‘Is that OK?’
‘What, for you to apply for a holiday job? No, I forbid it. How dare you earn good money and get work experience too?’
He grinned. ‘Cool.’
I could tell he was relieved. I really was doing terribly well. No twanging apron strings, no straining umbilical cord. That’ll be the painting, I decided. The real work. Not the pretend work, with Leanne et al.
‘It’s just, Tabs and I thought you might be a bit – I dunno. You know.’
‘Tabs and I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Tabitha’s not going.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s fifteen, Josh. A schoolgirl. She can’t be swanning around Oxford at that age like a – a squatter!’
He gave me a ‘you’re weird’ look. The one with the squinty eyes and the chin tucked into the neck. ‘She’s not squatting.’
‘Well, living away from home!’
‘Hardly. It’s with Sebastian. Not in some fetid bedsit with drug fiends. And she’ll be back in the holidays.’
‘Will she?’ I said, hyperventilating now. ‘Oh, how marvellous. Oh, I am pleased to hear that. What – to visit her lonely mother at the farm?’
‘Ella … Shit.’
This was awkward, clearly. A huge word in the teenage vocabulary. It simply didn’t do to be awkward.
‘It’s out of the question, Josh. She stays here with me!’ Panic was rising in my breast, but, even as I said it, I knew I couldn’t stop her. He knew it, too, and didn’t say anything. My breathing became laboured. My voice shrill.
‘So you’ve decided all this, have you, the three of you, without even consulting me!’ I shrieked.
Josh felt the injustice of this. ‘It wasn’t like that. We were going to ask you, talk to you about it. But it never seems to be the right moment. We didn’t want you to – you know.’
‘What? Didn’t want me to what?’ I yelled.
Fly off the handle. Like I was doing right now, in the middle of the yard: colour high, tears springing, bellowing at my son. But this had been sprung on me. And I was horrified. My baby. My Tabby. That she’d even want to go! But at the same time a tiny bit of me knew I’d want to go, too. And that she wasn’t deserting me. She just wanted to be in town, with her brother and her dad – what fifteen-year-old wouldn’t? It didn’t mean she loved me less, but, boy, did it feel like it. As I trembled with fear I was aware of Mrs Braithwaite, back from the surgery, watching from the cottage window, brought to it by the raised voices. Jason was beside her. Ottoline had been drawn to her window, too, together with Becks and Debs and Ray and Charles in the pottery group, aprons on, clutching jugs and ashtrays. And at the Granary – oh, good. Even my naked mother and Sebastian had been roused from their artistic reverie. Mum was in some kind of paisley dressing gown as she peered out, wiping the grimy pane. I took Josh’s arm roughly, to pull him inside. He shook me off, though, standing his ground. This left us mid-amphitheatre, the denouement to be played out.
‘I won’t have it, Josh,’ I continued in a low voice, which, nonetheless, shook with emotion. ‘And I cannot believe –’ No, don’t go there, my head shrieked, but still I went. ‘I cannot believe you and Tabitha would do this to me. Cannot believe you’d be so cruel!’
There. It was out. Bad behaviour complete. Finish with a flourish, Ella: with the lowest card in your hand. Not with consideration for children old enough to choose which parent to live with, but with the most craven trick any separated parent can play in the divorce book. A plea to make the child feel guilty. To make them feel it was their fault their parents’ marriage had failed and they could no longer live together as one happy family.
Josh was no fool. And he certainly wasn’t going to fall into any guilt trap. Two bright spots of colour burned high in his cheeks and his eyes glittered furiously.
‘Great. No, really, terrific, Ella. Thanks for that.’ He shot me a venomous look, before turning to go inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Bunch of Grape
s was off the cobbled high street and down a dear little country lane at the bottom of a no-through road. Rather appropriate, I thought, coming to a halt in the car park and turning off the engine to contemplate it. No way back. It was achingly quaint with a long, low, thatched roof under which poked the eaves of the bedrooms, like eyebrows, and which no doubt harboured plump little feather beds within, and all, I imagined, up some charming, old, rickety-rackety stairs that led up from the bar with its roaring log fire, from whence, after dinner, having got quietly plastered, one could retire.
I needed this, I thought fiercely, gripping the wheel as I looked up hungrily at the late Virginia creeper encircling those bedrooms. Needed it very badly. This week had been terrible. Ghastly. Particularly the day following the little exchange between Josh and me. On the night of the debacle, Tabitha had stayed with a friend in Oxford, so when she finally came home, and having had twenty-four hours to think about it, I’d determined to be reasonable. Reasonable, but firm. In fact, I had the whole evening planned. We’d sit down to a proper supper: spaghetti carbonara, her favourite. And then, as we were clearing the plates together – already a fairy tale: my children habitually bomb-burst from the table and when I shriek for them to come and help, take one plate each, their own, to deposit in the dishwasher at a strange angle – anyway, when we were washing pans at the sink, I’d carefully catalogue the drawbacks of the plan. The lack of support during her crucial GCSEs – Sebastian was famously disinclined to toil over homework, saying it was the teachers’ job and when teachers became artists he’d swap roles too; the lack of creature comforts, home cooking, et cetera; the lack of a maternal presence. I wouldn’t go so far as to say a role model. I’d thought about that, but decided not, on the grounds of derision. And gradually, as the two of us dried up together, I’d let her make up her own mind, which, naturally, would concur with mine. I’d reckoned without her and her brother texting, or even conferring at school, though. When she came through the back door that afternoon, on an earlier bus than Josh, resentment was already all over her face.
‘It’s fine,’ she told me, marching across the kitchen and through to the front hall. ‘I won’t go. Josh has already told me you’re stressed about it.’ And on she flounced, upstairs.
I gave chase, abandoning the carefully concocted vinaigrette to go with the lightly tossed green salad accompanying the carbonara.
‘I’m not stressed,’ I told her, mounting the stairs two at a time behind her. ‘I just think that, in the first place, you might have discussed it with me, and in the second, it’s inappropriate for you to disrupt your studies in this way.’
‘That’s not true.’ She swung round furiously on the landing. We faced one another in her doorway. ‘That’s dishonest. You think we’re abandoning you. That’s the reason you don’t want us to go. And that is so insulting, Mum.’
‘Is it? Is it, really? Without any warning or previous discussion I hear through your brother that the three of you are planning to up sticks and live in a cushy pad in town together, and that’s not desertion? And, what’s more, I’m insulting you?’
‘Yes, because you’re twisting things. All I wanted to do was be nearer school during the week – I’d be back at weekends – and be with Dad and Josh, and you’re like – oh, poor me, they’re running away. It’s all about you, Mum, isn’t it?’
I was speechless. Stung. I felt it was about me. And I hadn’t been told she was coming back at weekends, just in the holidays. But I was too incensed to be reasonable.
‘No, it is never about me, Tabitha. It is always about what you or Joshua or your father want. No one gives me the slightest consideration or even consultation –’
‘Because we knew you’d be upset!’
‘Too right I’m upset!’
‘But that’s not right, Mum. Don’t you see? You’re the adult, you should be like – oh, I must look at it from the children’s angle. What’s best for them. This way they get to see both their parents, how brilliant.’
‘But we had that here, with Dad in the Granary –’
‘But that’s horrid for Dad, don’t you see? It’s no life for him!’
No life for him, again. And I thought I’d been so magnanimous, so gracious, by letting him stay, giving up one of the holiday lets. Everyone said I was marvellous to have him in the garden. Marvellous, Ella. I’d believed it.
‘Right. Well, then you must go, Tabitha, I can see that. I can quite see that. I mean, it’s no life for any of you here, is it!’ Why? Why did I always do that?
‘You see!’ she shrieked. ‘That’s why I can’t! That’s why I’m fucking well staying, because you make it impossible for me to do anything else!’
And with that she slammed the door in my face. But it didn’t end there. Oh, no, I saw to that. Saw to hammering on it with both fists and yelling about her ingratitude, then collaring Josh when he came home, citing him as the ringleader. At this Tabitha’s door flew open and she screamed down the stairs, face tear-stained, that it had nothing to do with him. And then it had degenerated into the most unattractive, unpalatable scene imaginable. Which, actually, we didn’t do, the three of us, on the whole. Had lived together – up to now – in relative peace and harmony. Oh, there was the odd niggle and sharp rebuke, but, in general, I was rather smug. Had listened when other mothers complained of surly, unpleasant teenagers and flaming rows but privately thought that although Josh swore far too much, generally their behaviour was good. Particularly for children of a broken home. But, then, it wasn’t entirely broken, I’d think, looking out of the window as Tabs, say, emerged from her father’s house. I’d been clever about that. But had this ugly scene been bubbling under for some time and I hadn’t known? Had they, in fact, been unhappy but treading on eggshells so as not to cause a row? I had occasionally tested the water, said things like: Well, at least Daddy’s only across the way. No response, if I’m honest. I’d laughingly told them about a television sit-com, back in the day, called My Wife Next Door, about a couple who couldn’t live together, but had found a modus vivendi as neighbours. How funny it had been. Not much laughter from my offspring.
Later that evening, I’d had the biggest row of all. The obvious one. When the children were firmly ensconced in their rooms, doors shut, texting each other furiously no doubt – ‘Cow’ ‘God, she’s unreasonable’ – or much worse, I stormed across the yard. Banged on the Granary door.
‘Come in!’ Jovially. As if, perhaps, expecting the children.
In I flew. Sebastian’s head turned from his armchair. To my surprise, Ottoline was with him, watching the television.
‘Oh, hi, Ella.’ She smiled. Sebastian said nothing.
‘Ottoline,’ I said, wrong-footed.
‘Just popped across to watch Frozen Planet with Sebastian. We love it. It’s the penguins tonight. Pull up a chair.’
‘Um, no, thanks.’
‘Hello, darling.’ Mum’s voice, from the shadows. Lying on the chaise in the corner, in those flaming dungarees again. She’d be chewing tobacco soon. Oh, it was all very cosy, wasn’t it? How many evenings were spent thus, I wondered? And why not at my place?
‘Sebastian, can I have a word?’
We all considered this. How, exactly? Were Ottoline and my mother to leave? Was Sebastian to get up from his easy chair and retire – there was no other room, it was open plan – with me outside? In the garden? In the dark?
He regarded me coldly. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘Not really.’ I was out of control. ‘It’s about you taking the children to live in Oxford.’
There was a long silence. Ottoline and my mother gazed at me. I couldn’t read their expressions. Finally Sebastian got to his feet and I saw something I’d never seen in his eyes before as he joined me outside and shut the door. Couldn’t place it. He listened as I gave it both barrels, firing first from one hip, then the other, then probably upside down and through my legs. He didn’t flinch. When he’d heard me out, heard all about the injustice, th
e impracticality, the treachery, he responded in the same way as Tabitha.
‘Of course,’ he said evenly. ‘I completely understand. The children must stay with you. I shall tell them so.’
And with that he went back inside and shut the door. I stared at the old oak panels he’d closed in my face. Felt very empty. Listened to the hum of the television within, still flushed and breathless with the exertion of shouting at him. Wondered if I could hear a murmured exchange? But not Sebastian’s voice. He wouldn’t discuss it, I knew. Ottoline, neither. And Mum would hardly talk to herself. I crept away, back to my house and the empty sitting room, feeling shattered, bewildered and very alone.
That had been a week ago. Since then, true to his word, Sebastian had moved out, minus the children. A removal van had come, just a small one, the sort you drive yourself, but that surprised me in itself. Sebastian had never organized anything in his life without me doing it for him. I couldn’t imagine him on the phone ordering it. That evening he and the children had packed all of his belongings – precious few – his chaise, a table, a few easy chairs, but, mostly, his pictures, into the back of it. I’d watched from the kitchen window, a huge lump in my throat. When he was in the yard putting his easel in, and the children were inside packing books into boxes, I’d gone out. Asked if he’d like to take some furniture from the house. It was as much his as mine and he had a whole house in Oxford to fill. He thanked me but said no, it was fine. He had enough to be getting on with and Josh had gone on the net and ordered a fridge and a washing machine from John Lewis. Oh, and a kitchen table. He thought he’d be fine. I nodded dumbly. Josh had helped. A washing machine. Sebastian had never used one in his life, but then Tabitha would no doubt show him how. His invisible support mechanism. Neither of the children had mentioned anything of this to me.
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