After the Fall

by Norman, Charity

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘I took a swig one time. Not a mistake I’d make twice.’

  I grimaced. ‘Okay, fair cop. Did Mum know?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Why would I tell her? When did you give up?’

  ‘Pretty quickly. Couldn’t afford it.’

  ‘There you are, you see? If I’d burst in like the drug squad, it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference. You had your waltz with nicotine and moved on—unlike Louisa, admittedly. Sacha will do the same if you leave her be. Probably has already.’

  I sighed. ‘God help her if she turns out like me. What a blueprint.’

  We fell into companionable silence. A blackbird warbled, out in the rain. It was a wonderfully English sound. Bernard’s tail flicked.

  At length, Dad stirred. ‘Had any interest in the house?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Offers?’

  ‘Nope. Sacha must be telling everyone the place is haunted.’

  ‘Martha.’ He regarded me carefully. ‘D’you want this?’

  ‘Kit—’

  ‘I didn’t ask what Kit wants.’

  ‘I’m terrified,’ I confessed, sagging. ‘I’ve worked in the same unit for ten years. I’m team manager, I’ve got my friends and my little power base. I know everyone around here and they know me: the lady in the post office and the GP and the man at the fuel station who’s only got one arm. In a crisis there are twenty people I could call on. I’m so comfortable here.’

  He listened without comment, head tilted, grey eyes fixed on mine.

  ‘On the other hand, that’s just the point,’ I said. ‘We’ve had it good. Too good. I hate smug people who can’t see that their world is very small. I think we all need a shake-up.’

  ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Right. But Martha, don’t go if it’s only because you’re running from something.’

  ‘What would I be running from?’

  ‘Everyone has their demons.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘You can’t run away. They follow.’ Dad’s got X-ray vision, I reckon. He sees everything. ‘Incidentally, Sacha’s been asking me about her father. I gather she collared your Aunt Patricia, too.’

  I felt my face redden. ‘There are no monsters under my bed, Dad.’

  ‘Good. Go for positive reasons, or else stay put. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.’

  Bernard began to wind around our ankles. His purr was filled with creaky miaows, silkily insistent. I was wondering who else Sacha had hassled.

  ‘I’m going to miss you lot.’ Dad reached down to scratch his friend in that soft place all cats have, just behind their ears. ‘Hell, yes. It’s going to be quiet around here. My Sacha, and those boys . . . can’t imagine not hearing the racket as they run up to the front door. They always tussle over who’s going to ring the bell.’

  ‘But neither of them can reach it.’

  Dad smiled, sadly. His face was like a ploughed field.

  ‘The housing market’s dead,’ I said, lifting Bernard onto my knee. ‘You never know, this move may never actually—’ I hadn’t even finished the sentence when my phone sang from the depths of my handbag. Bernard pounced on the sound, tail high as a flag.

  I dug out the phone. Flicked it open, and gaped at the message.

  ‘Our poor house,’ I said.

  It wasn’t anything special, really; but it was picturesque, and it had been home since Sacha was a seven-year-old chatterbox with corkscrew curls. She never stopped smiling in those days, and Kit used to say she never would. We got married from that house; I remembered Dad handing me into the wedding car. We planted two apple trees when the twins came along. Their first wobbly steps were in the kitchen, chasing after Muffin. Every clang of the plumbing, creak of the stairs or rattle of the front door was profoundly familiar. When the wind blew, it made exactly that kind of droning sound through the Expelair in the bathroom. In the mornings the dust beams whirled in front of those windows in the hall. The dimensions, acoustics and smells were ingrained in our subconscious. It was our friend. We were traitors.

  ‘The estate agent,’ I said, reaching tremulously for my silage tea.

  ‘An offer?’ Dad was craning his head to see.

  Hi. Gd news. The Simpsons have made an offer at asking price. Pls phone or call in at your earliest convenience. Dave

  ‘Whatcha going to do?’ asked Dad.

  I didn’t know. My brain was making a run for it.

  ‘Do you go forwards?’ Dad leaned back, eyeing me. ‘Or do you hightail it home to your warm, dry burrow?’

  I shut the phone, swinging it like a pendulum between my fingers. ‘The point of no return,’ I said.

  *

  English rain. A pink Beetle was parked beside the for sale sign, and I felt a twinge of irritation. I’d worked all day, broken the news to Dad, collected the twins from nursery and been elbowed twice in Tesco. I’d also sold my beloved home. I didn’t feel kindly disposed towards gnomes.

  While I lifted out shopping bags, Finn sat Buccaneer Bob in a booster seat, singing as he clicked the seatbelt around his old friend. Bob was a gift from Kit’s Great-Aunt Sibella, whose portrait hung in our hallway. He’s a rag-doll pirate dressed in black, with a rakish eye patch and a red parrot on his shoulder. They’ve been friends since the day Finn was born. The family live in fear of losing the wretched thing. On one cataclysmic occasion, Finn left Bob in the Reading motorway service station. He was inconsolable. Breaking into a cold sweat, I drove straight back—a four-hour return run—and prostrated myself tearfully before the extravagantly pierced youth in Burger King. Pierced Youth regarded me unemotionally, chewing the cud like a cow in the queue to be milked. Then he reached behind the counter and produced Bob. I could have kissed the boy. Actually—if I’m going to be honest—I did kiss him. He was mortified. I saw him using antibacterial handwash on his face as I skipped away.

  Now, his pirate safely buckled in, Finn snapped into his customary high-velocity state and sprang out of the car, leaping two-footed into a vast puddle.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I grumbled, as sludge splashed over both of us.

  He grinned unrepentantly and stamped in the water, uttering bloodcurdling battle cries. Keen-eyed and lawless, the child was a miniature version of his father. I recognised Kit’s intensity in the fine-boned face, Kit’s laughter and passion. Sometimes the look in Finn’s blue eyes was a little too knowing.

  Charlie was both kinder and more cautious. He did his best to copy Finn’s giant leap for mankind but lacked his brother’s agility. Predictably, he slipped and sat down—legs stuck out, jeans and red wellingtons submerged. Even his fair curls were sodden by the swell of muddied water that sloshed over his jersey. He sat looking up at me, bug-eyed, waiting to see whether I would go into orbit.

  Shaking my head, I gave him the thumbs-up. Then I scanned the garden for Ivan. There he was, perched with half a buttock on the swing, rocking himself on gawky legs.

  ‘Ivan!’ I forced a grin that actually hurt my facial muscles. ‘How nice. But Sacha isn’t here, I’m afraid. Just me and two feral boys.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Can I have a word, Mrs McNamara?’

  I ground my teeth. First, I had asked him fifty million times to call me Martha. Second, Can I have a word? I mean, for God’s sake. Only policemen in really bad television dramas say that.

  ‘Come on in!’ I threw open the front door.

  Finn and Charlie were happily engrossed in their water world, squatting down and commentating animatedly. Ivan tottered awkwardly behind me, fingering his little beard. I threw a despairing glance up at Great-Aunt Sibella as I passed her in the hall. She was never one to suffer fools.

  ‘Tea?’ I switched on the kettle with an irritated jerk before opening the back door for Muffin, who was gazing through the glass, her nose button-black beneath the shaggy fringe.

  Ivan seemed completely tongue-tied. Perhaps, I thought, he’d come to murder me and feed me down the waste disposal unit. Now
that would show hidden depths.

  ‘Milk?’ I persisted. ‘Biscuit?’ He managed to nod. Then he started piggling at his fingernails. ‘Sit down, Ivan,’ I barked, pointing at a chair. He sat. Poor boy, it takes a lot of misery to puff your eyelids like that.

  ‘Mrs McNamara,’ he said. ‘Um . . .’

  ‘C’mon. What’s on your mind?’

  He was clearly summoning his courage. ‘Sacha says you’re fantastic at your job. Your clients dote on you. All your colleagues come to you with their problems.’

  I raised my eyebrows. I had never heard Ivan string more than two sentences together. He rubbed the reddened eyes. ‘She feels as though the only person you’re not listening to at the moment is her.’

  ‘Well, she’s quite wrong.’

  ‘I thought she was joking when she first told me you’re emigrating. I actually laughed until I saw she was crying. I didn’t believe for one minute you’d do that to her.’

  ‘Ivan. When you’re older . . .’ My voice petered out. I was being patronising, I realised, in self-defence. I needed to stop that.

  ‘I know Mr McNamara lost his business. I know that’s shit. It’s totally shit to be still young and feel like you’re a waste of space. My dad was laid off.’ Ivan fiddled with his mug. ‘He was in pieces, too. He works at the petrol station now.’

  ‘I didn’t realise.’

  ‘Not the guy with one arm. Dad does nights.’

  Thinking hard, I remembered a tidy shadow in a blue shirt and tie, muffled behind reinforced glass, joking bravely about the weather.

  Ivan cracked his knuckles. I sensed he was getting ready for the big push. ‘Emigrating?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s too much. Sacha will be paying for the rest of the family’s happiness, and it’ll cost her an arm and a leg.’

  ‘This must be hard for you, Ivan. I know that, and I’m sorry. But I really do believe it’s the best thing for Sacha.’

  ‘She’s paying,’ he repeated doggedly. ‘She’ll lose her friends. Her school. Her grandpa. Her cousins.’ He took a mouthful of tea and swilled it from one cheek to the other before swallowing. ‘Oh, and me . . . but that’s not very important because we wouldn’t be together for long anyway.’ He meant that, I think. He said it simply, artlessly. It was a statement of fact. ‘I’ve never known anyone like Sacha, but she’s going places I can’t follow. And I don’t mean New Zealand.’

  The twins began giggling outside. I got up and stood at the window. They were plotting something, their heads close together. ‘We’ve had an offer on the house,’ I said.

  ‘Shit.’ Ivan drummed long, ragged fingers on the table.

  Finn and Charlie suddenly tugged down their jeans, glee in every furtive movement. The next moment they were merrily peeing into a puddle.

  ‘Those little blighters will never be lonely,’ said Ivan from behind me. ‘Wherever they go, they’ll always have a ready-made Best Mate, piddling into their puddle.’

  ‘That’s true; but Sacha will make friends wherever she goes.’

  Finn turned, trying to direct his stream down Charlie’s wellingtons. Fortunately his aim wasn’t very good. I rapped smartly on the window and they both waved, so overcome with mirth that they had to hold one another up.

  ‘She thinks the world of you,’ said Ivan. ‘She says you used to be like sisters.’

  ‘We still are, really.’

  ‘Well, then. I’m begging you to think again. Refuse the offer, get that sign down and find Mr McNamara a job. They’re a waiter short at the Beefeater.

  ’ Kit, waiting at the Beefeater. That would be the mighty, fallen. I had a horrible vision of him with his hair standing on end, thunder rumbling on his brow, deliberately pouring beer into people’s laps. I pulled my face straight as I turned around. ‘What did your father do, before he lost his job?’

  ‘Nuclear physicist.’

  ‘W-wow,’ I stammered, wondering how I hadn’t known this. ‘That’s, um . . .’

  ‘Unexpected?’ Ivan pushed back his chair. ‘Nah, pulling your leg. He drove the mobile library. Might not sound very exciting, but he loved it. The council closed it down. Not cost effective, they said. But . . . thing is, that library wasn’t just a bus filled with books. It was the highlight of the week for some people.’

  I saw my young visitor out. He stopped by the front door, watching the twins, who were on their hands and knees as they tried to lap water out of the pond.

  ‘Mrs McNamara—Martha. Can I offer you a deal? Change your mind, and I promise I’ll piss off and never have anything to do with Sacha again.’

  Touched, I squeezed him on the arm.

  ‘I mean it,’ he insisted.

  ‘I believe you, Ivan.’

  ‘The rest of you will be okay. I can see that.’ He cocked his head at the boys. ‘It’s an adventure for those little nutters. For you, it’s . . . I dunno, an escape? For Mr McNamara it’s a dream. But what about Sacha?’

  ‘I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for her,’ I maintained stubbornly.

  He walked to his car and wrenched at the door. ‘I’ve had my say. I just wish you’d think again.’

  The pink Beetle was pulling out onto the road when Mum stuck her oar in.

  For Sacha, it’s a disaster.

  Five

  It all happened so fast, once we sold the house. There wasn’t time to take a breath.

  Logistics and practicalities devoured our energy: packing, organising, discarding. Clothes to Oxfam, toys to Lou. Selling cars, renewing passports, applying for visas. Everything we did became charged with an awful significance because it was the Last Time. That Last Time Waltz was ghastly. I never want to do it again. The word goodbye became meaningless. Yes, we’ll keep in touch! Yes, lots of sheep in New Zealand. Yes, ha-ha, if you went any further you’d be clean off the planet. Mm, hilarious. In the end we stopped wanting to see people, especially the ones we most loved. We longed to be teleported away. Scotty, beam us up.

  They threw a party for me at work, with all the flags and bunting. Flattering speeches, a natty little video camera and a truly mammoth card signed by everybody, including people I never remembered having met and at least one who heartily disliked me. Kisses, hugs, pretending to wonder how they’d manage. I was touched and nostalgic, but the truth is I’d already left them. My mind was focused on the future.

  Some people thought we were making a mistake and felt constrained to say so. Many seemed to interpret our leaving as a personal insult—what, did we think we were better than them? Three, with ghoulish satisfaction, predicted that we would be back within the year.

  The one-armed man at the fuel station sucked on the matchstick he always held between his teeth. ‘Tedious spot though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Dull as ditch water. Like Switzerland.’

  ‘Is it really? I didn’t know that.’

  He nodded gloomily. ‘Nothing but mountains and smug folk in hiking boots.’

  ‘Do you know New Zealand well, then? Or Switzerland?’

  ‘Tears before bedtime,’ he predicted, in his Eeyore drone. ‘Never a good idea. Not in my opinion. Gambling with your family’s lives, really, aren’t you?’

  ‘Got to go,’ I said, hastily snatching back my credit card. ‘I’m collecting my daughter from school.’

  The final bell had gone, and girls were pouring out to begin their summer holidays. Abandoning the twins in the car, I raced up to the fifth-form common room to find a Greek tragedy being re-enacted. Mascara streamed down stricken faces. Ties were loosened, hair crazed in distracted grief. They were all signing Sacha’s school shirt with indelible marker pens while munching on the giant cupcake she’d made for them.

  Their lavishly coiffured class tutor, Belinda Rothman, caught my eye and wiggled her fingers. I went to this same school with Belinda. She used to be a total bitch, actually, but that’s another story. I don’t know what possessed the board when they made her deputy head. She minced over on ridi
culous kitten heels.

  ‘Mass hysteria,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve had to stop one of them mutilating her arms with a compass.’

  ‘You’re joking . . . aren’t you?’

  ‘Tanya’s a bit of a drama queen. But we’re all devastated to be losing Sacha.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re public enemy number one in the staffroom.’

  I murmured something lame, and the silly woman patted my arm. ‘I do hope this move won’t disadvantage her academically. She wants to do medicine, doesn’t she? And what about her flute lessons? Ooh!’—holding up a finger—‘I’ve got something for you to read!’ She skipped over to her French shopping basket, looking smug. Actually, Belinda Rothman’s been looking smug for twenty-five years, ever since she stole my part in the school play.

  ‘As it’s been an emotional day, I asked all the girls to express their feelings in a poem, essay or poster. Here’s Sacha’s. She doesn’t mind you seeing it.’ Belinda was holding out a piece of A4 refill, blackened with angry scrawl. ‘You’ve got a bumpy ride ahead of you!’

  Sacha emerged from the wailing chorus with her best friend draped around her shoulders. Dopey little Lydia was off to Tenerife the following day, so this truly was goodbye.

  ‘I’ll phone,’ Lydia promised. She had chestnut boy-hair and never looked more than half awake. I’d known her all her life; her mother and I were in the maternity unit together. She’d eaten at my kitchen table a thousand times over the years, and swapped awful knock-knock jokes, and was rude about my cooking. ‘I’ll be on Facebook every single night.’

  Sacha burst into tears. ‘Night’s morning over there,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s all upside down.’

  ‘Get her out,’ hissed Belinda from the corner of her mouth. ‘Before they become blood sisters. They’ve still got their compasses.’

  Getting out of the building—past teachers, girls and the janitor—took twenty heartbreaking, horrible minutes. We needed a couple of those hunky bodyguards in black suits and mirrored shades. The car was a blessed sight.