‘Will you get a job then?’ asked Marion.
‘Um, I thought just for those weeks before summer I’d get the house straight, it’s only two hours in the morning. And a half,’ said Dorrie in a defensive rush. ‘Collect my thoughts. If there are any.’
‘Anyway, you do your husband’s paperwork in the evenings, don’t you?’ said Thomas’ mother. ‘The accounts and that. VAT.’
‘You get so you can’t see the wood for the trees, don’t you,’ said Dorrie. ‘You get so good at fitting things round everything else. Everybody else.’
‘I used to be in accounts,’ said Marion. ‘B.C. But I couldn’t go back now. I’ve lost touch. I couldn’t get into my suits any more, I tried the other day. I couldn’t do it! I’d hardly cover the cost of the childcare. I’ve lost my nerve.’
‘My husband says he’ll back me up one hundred per cent when the youngest starts school,’ said Thomas’ mother pensively. ‘Whatever job I want to do. But no way would he be able to support change which would end by making his working life more difficult, he said.’
‘That’s not really on, then, is it?’ said Marion. ‘Unless you get some nursery school work to fit round school hours. Or turn into a freelance something.’
‘Some people seem to manage it,’ said Thomas’ mother. ‘Susan Gloverall.’
‘I didn’t know she was back at work.’
‘Sort of. She’s hot-desking somewhere off the A3, leaves the kids with a childminder over Tooting way. Shocking journey, but the devil drives.’
‘Keith still not found anything, then? That’s almost a year now.’
‘I know. Dreadful really. I don’t think it makes things any, you know, easier between them. And of course she can’t leave the kids with him while he’s looking. Though she said he’s watching a lot of TV.’
‘What about Nicola Beaumont, then?’ said Dorrie.
‘Oh her,’ said Marion. ‘Wall-to-wall nannies. No thank you.’
‘I could never make enough to pay a nanny,’ said Thomas’ mother. ‘I never earned that much to start with. And then you have to pay their tax on top, out of your own taxed income. You’d have to earn eighteen thousand at least before you broke even if you weren’t on the fiddle. I’ve worked it out.’
‘Nearer twenty-two these days,’ said Marion, ‘In London. Surely.’
‘Nicola’s nice though,’ said Dorrie. ‘Her daughter Jade, the teenage one, she’s babysitting for us tonight.’
‘Well she never seems to have much time for me,’ said Marion.
‘I think she just doesn’t have much time full stop,’ said Dorrie.
‘Nor do any of us, dear,’ said Thomas’ mother. ‘Not proper time.’
‘Not time to yourself,’ said Marion.
‘I bet she gets more of that than I do. She commutes, doesn’t she? There you are then!’
They were all laughing again when the bell went.
‘Harry swallowed his tooth today,’ said Martin. ‘Mrs Tyrone said it didn’t matter, it would melt inside him.’ He wiggled his own front tooth, an enamel tag, tipping it forward with his fingernail. Soon there would be the growing looseness, the gradual twisting of it into a spiral, hanging on by a thread, and the final silent snap.
‘He won’t get any money from the Tooth Fairy, will he, Mum,’ said Martin. ‘Will he, Mum? Will he, Mum? Mum. Mum!’
‘Yes,’ said Dorrie. ‘What? I expect so dear.’ She was peeling carrots and cutting them into sticks.
‘And Kosenia scratched her bandage off today, and she’s got eczema, and she scratched off, you know, that stuff on top, like the cheese on Shepherd’s Pie, she just lifted it off,’ Martin went on.
‘Crust,’ said Dorrie.
‘Yes, crust,’ said Martin. ‘I’m not eating those carrots. No way.’
‘Carrots are very good for you,’ said Dorrie. ‘And tomorrow I’m going to pack some carrot sticks in your lunch box and I want you to eat them.’
‘Hey yeah right,’ gabbled Martin. ‘Hey yeah right get a life!’
And he marched off to where the other two were watching a story about a mouse who ate magic berries and grew as big as a lion. Television was nothing but good and hopeful and stimulating compared with the rest of life so far as she could see. Certainly it had been the high point of her own childhood. Her mother thought she spoiled her children, but then most of her friends said their mothers thought the same about them. She was trying to be more tender with them – she and her contemporaries – to offer them choices rather than just tell them what to do; to be more patient and to hug them when they cried, rather than briskly talk of being brave; never to hit them. They felt, they all felt they were trying harder than their parents had ever done, to love well. And one of the side effects of this was that their children were incredibly quick to castigate any shortfall in the quality of attention paid to them.
Now they were fighting again. Martin was screaming and chattering of injustice like an angry ape. Maxine shrilled back at him with her ear-splitting screech. Robin sat on the ground, hands to his ears, sobbing deep-chested sobs of dismay.
She groaned with boredom and frustration. Really she could not afford to let them out of her sight yet; not for another six months, anyway; not in another room, even with television.
‘Let’s all look at pictures of Mummy and Daddy getting married,’ she shouted above the din, skilfully deflecting the furies. Sniffing and shuddering they eventually allowed themselves to be gathered round the album she had dug out, while she wiped their eyes and noses and clucked mild reproaches. The thing was, it did not do simply to turn off. She was not a part of the action but her involved presence was required as it was necessary for her to be ready at any point to step in as adjudicator. What did not work was when she carried on round them, uninvolved, doing the chores, thinking her own thoughts and making placatory noises when the din grew earsplitting. Then the jaws of anarchy opened wide.
Soon they were laughing at the unfamiliar images of their parents in the trappings of romance, the bright spirited faces and trim figures.
‘Was it the best day in your life?’ asked Maxine.
There was me, she thought, looking at the photographs; there used to be me. She was the one who’d put on two stone; he still looked pretty fit. The whole process would have been easier, she might have been able to retain some self-respect, if at some point there had been a formal handing over like Hong Kong.
At the end of some days, by the time each child was breathing regularly, asleep, she would stand and wait for herself to grow still, and the image was of an ancient vase, crackle-glazed, still in one piece but finely crazed all over its surface. I’m shattered, she would groan to Max on his return, hale and whole, from the outside world.
Now, at the end of just such a day, Dorrie was putting the children down while Max had a bath after his day at work. It was getting late. She had booked a table at L’Horizon and arranged for Jade to come round and babysit at eight. They had not been out together for several months, but Dorrie had not forgotten how awful it always was.
It was twenty to eight, and Robin clung to her.
‘Don’t go, Mummy, don’t go,’ he sobbed, jets of water spouting from his eyes, his mouth a square buckle of anguish.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Dorrie, with her arms round him. ‘I’ve got to go and change, darling. I’ll come straight back.’
‘No you won’t,’ he bellowed. Martin watched with interest, nibbling his nails.
‘He’s making me feel sad, Mum,’ commented Maxine. ‘I feel like crying now too.’
‘So do I,’ said Dorrie grimly.
‘What’s all the noise?’ demanded Max, striding into the room drubbing his hair with a towel. ‘Why aren’t you children asleep yet?’
Robin took a wild look at his father and, howling with fresh strength, tightened his grip on Dorrie with arms, legs and fingers.
‘Let go of your mother this minute,’ snarled Max in a rage, starting to prise awa
y the desperate fingers one by one. Robin’s sobs became screams, and Maxine started to cry.
‘Please, Max,’ said Dorrie. ‘Please don’t.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ hissed Max, wrenching him from her body. Dorrie watched the child move across the line into hysteria, and groaned.
‘Stop it, Daddy!’ screamed Martin, joining in, and downstairs the doorbell rang.
‘Go and answer it then!’ said Max, pinning his frantic three-year-old son to the bed.
‘Oh God,’ said Dorrie as she stumbled downstairs to open the door to the babysitter.
‘Hello, Jade!’ she said with a wild fake smile. ‘Come in!’
‘Sounds like I’m a bit early,’ said Jade, stepping into the hall, tall and slender and dressed in snowy-white shirt and jeans.
‘No, no, let me show you how to work the video, that’s just the noise they make on their way to sleep,’ said Dorrie, feeling herself bustle around like a fat dwarf. It seemed pathetic that she should be going out and this lovely girl staying in. The same thought had crossed Jade’s mind, but she had her whole life ahead of her, as everyone kept saying.
‘Any problems, anything at all, if one of them wakes and asks for me, please ring and I’ll come back, it’s only a few minutes away.’
‘Everything’ll be fine,’ said Jade, as if to a fussy infant. ‘You shouldn’t worry so much.’
‘I’ll swing for that child,’ they heard Max growl from the landing, then a thundering patter of feet, and febrile shrieks.
‘Eight years, eh,’ said Max across the candlelit damask. ‘My Old Dutch. No need to look so tragic.’
Dorrie was still trying to quiet her body’s alarm system, the waves of miserable heat, the klaxons of distress blaring in her bloodstream from Robin’s screams.
‘You’ve got to go out sometimes,’ said Max. ‘It’s getting ridiculous.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t manage to make myself look nice,’ said Dorrie. ‘You look nice. Anyway, it’s four pounds an hour. It’s like sitting in a taxi.’
Max was big and warm, sitting relaxed like a sportsman after the game, but his eyes were flinty.
‘It’s just arrogant, thinking that nobody else can look after them as well as you,’ he said.
‘They can’t,’ mumbled Dorrie, under her breath.
‘You’re a dreadful worrier,’ said Max. ‘You’re always worrying.’
‘Well,’ said Dorrie. ‘Somebody’s got to.’
‘Everything would carry on all right, you know, if you stopped worrying.’
‘No it wouldn’t. I wish it would. But it wouldn’t.’
Lean and sexually luminous young waiting staff glided gracefully around them.
‘Have you chosen,’ he said, and while she studied the menu he appraised her worn face, free of make-up except for an unaccustomed and unflattering application of lipstick, and the flat frizz of her untended hair. She was starting to get a double chin, he reflected wrathfully; she had allowed herself to put on more weight. Here he was on his wedding anniversary sitting opposite a fat woman. And if he ever said anything, she said, the children. It showed a total lack of respect; for herself; for him.
‘I just never seem to get any time to myself,’ muttered Dorrie, nudged by the shade of her former self which had that morning appeared to rise up like a living ghost in the garden crossing the lawn to meet her, and to whom she had as good as promised a reunion. She felt uneasy complaining. Once she’d stopped bringing in money she knew she’d lost the right to object. So did he.
‘It’s a matter of discipline,’ said Max, sternly.
He felt a terrible restlessness at this time of year, particularly since his fortieth. The birthday cards had all been about being past it. Mine’s a pint of Horlicks, jokes about bad backs, expanding waistlines, better in candle-light. There it stretched, all mapped out for him; a long or not-so-long march to the grave; and he was forbidden from looking to left or right. He had to hold himself woodenly impervious, it would seem, since every waking moment was supposed to be a married one. All right for her, she could stun herself with children. But he needed a romantic motive or life wasn’t worth living.
He could see the food and drink and television waiting for him at each day’s end, and the thickening of middle age, but he was buggered if he was going to let himself go down that route. He watched Dorrie unwisely helping herself to sautéed potatoes. Her body had become like a car to her, he thought, it got her around, it accommodated people at various intervals, but she herself seemed to have nothing to do with it any more. She just couldn’t be bothered.
What had originally drawn him to her was the balance between them, a certain tranquil buoyancy she had which had gone well with his own more explosive style. These days she was not so much tranquil as stagnant, while all the buoyancy had been bounced off. He wished he could put a bomb under her. She seemed so apathetic except when she was loving the children. It made him want to boot her broad bottom whenever she meandered past him in the house, just to speed her up.
The children had taken it out of her, he had to admit. She’d had pneumonia after Maxine, her hair had fallen out in handfuls after Robin, there had been two caesareans, plus that operation to remove an ovarian cyst. The saga of her health since babies was like a seaside postcard joke, along with the mothers-in-law and the fat-wife harridans. After that childminder incident involving Martin breaking his leg at the age of two, she’d done bits of part-time but even that had fizzled out soon after Robin, so now she wasn’t bringing in any money at all. When he married her, she’d had an interesting job, she’d earned a bit, she was lively and sparky; back in the mists of time. Now he had the whole pack of them on his back and he was supposed to be as philosophical about this as some old leech-gatherer.
He didn’t want to hurt her, that was the trouble. He did not want the house to fly apart in weeping and wailing and children who would plead with him not to go, Daddy. He did not want to seem disloyal, either. But, he thought wildly, neither could he bear being sentenced to living death. Things were going to have to be different. She couldn’t carry on malingering round the house like this. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t expect. He felt a shocking contraction of pity twist his guts. Why couldn’t she bloody well look after herself better? He took a deep breath.
‘Did I mention about Naomi,’ he said casually, spearing a floret of broccoli.
Naomi was Max’s right-hand woman at the builder’s yard. She oversaw the stock, manned the till when necessary, sorted the receipts and paperwork for Dorrie to deal with at home and doled out advice about undercoats to the customers. She had been working for them for almost two years.
‘Is she well?’ asked Dorrie. ‘I thought she was looking very white when I saw her last Wednesday.’
‘Not only is she not well, she’s throwing up all over the place,’ said Max heavily. ‘She’s pregnant,’ he added in a muffled voice, stuffing more vegetables into his mouth.
‘Pregnant?’ said Dorrie. ‘Oh!’ Tears came to her eyes and she turned to scrabble under the table as if for a dropped napkin. So far she had managed to hide from him her insane lusting after yet another.
‘That’s what I thought,’ sighed Max, misinterpreting her reaction.
‘I’m so pleased for her, they’ve been wanting a baby for ages,’ said Dorrie, and this time it was her voice that was muffled.
‘So of course I’ve had to let her go,’ said Max, looking at his watch.
‘You’ve what?’ said Dorrie.
‘It’s a great shame, of course. I’ll have to go through all that with someone else now, showing them the ropes and so on.’
‘How could you, Max?’
‘Look, I knew you’d be like this. I know. It’s a shame isn’t it, yes; but there it is. That’s life. It’s lucky it happened when it did. Another few weeks and she’d have been able to nail me to the wall, unfair dismissal, the works.’
‘But they need the money,’ said Dorrie, horrified. ‘How are the
y going to manage the mortgage now?’
‘He should pull his finger out then, shouldn’t he,’ shrugged Max. ‘He’s public sector anyway, they’ll be all right. Look, Dorrie, I’ve got a wife and children to support.’
‘Get her back,’ said Dorrie. ‘Naomi will be fine. She’s not like me, she’ll have the baby easily, she won’t get ill afterwards, nor will the baby. We were unlucky. She’s very capable, she’s not soft about things like childminders. You’d be mad to lose her.’
‘Actually,’ said Max, I’ve offered her a part-time job when she is ready to come back, and I rather think that might suit us better too. If I keep her below a certain number of hours.’
‘What did Naomi say to that?’
‘She was still a bit peeved about being let go,’ said Max. ‘But she said she’d think about it. If she could combine it with another part-time job. Beggars can’t be choosers. I mean, if she chooses to have a baby, that’s her choice.’
‘I see,’ said Dorrie carefully. ‘So who will take over her work at the yard meanwhile?’
‘Well, you, of course,’ said Max, swallowing a big forkful of chop, his eyes bulging. He hurried on. ‘Robin starts at nursery after Easter, Maxine’s nearly finished there, and Martin’s doing fine at school full-time now. So you can work the mornings, then you can collect Robin and Maxine and bring them along for a sandwich and work round them from then till it’s time to pick up Martin. We can leave the paperwork till the evening. We’ll save all ways like that. He’s a big boy now, he can potter around.’
‘He’s only three and a half,’ she said breathlessly. ‘And when would I do the meals and the ironing and the cleaning and the shopping in all this?’
‘Fit it in round the edges,’ said Max. ‘Other women do. It’ll be good for you, get you out of the house. Come on, Dorrie, I can’t carry passengers forever. You’ll have to start pulling your weight again.’
It was towards the end of the main course and they had both drunk enough house white to be up near the surface.
‘They’re hard work, young children, you know,’ she said.
Hey Yeah Right Get a Life Page 5