Gone were Derek’s golfing trophies. In their place were an assortment of plants she had either bought or been given by Viv – offspring from the leggy windowsill collection. She had also bought three Van Gogh prints – the chair, the sunflowers and the bed, all of which moved her by their homeliness. Whatever her sister thought, she was not entirely unvisual.
However, there were disadvantages to the open-plan concept. It was nearly one o’clock when, with surprise, she was given a note by Trish. Scrawled on the back of a dry-cleaning receipt, it said: To the Manageress. I humbly crave a moment of your time. I am at Customer Window 3.
She looked across the office. Behind the customer’s window she saw Ken’s face.
Trish let him into the office and he came across to her desk. He stood in front of her, his head hanging.
‘I can see that you’re got a busy schedule ahead of you, maybe lunch with a Rotarian, I heard you went to an ever-so-important do last night, and I’m just a humble working chap, but I was wondering if I might beg a few moments of your time.’
She blushed. Everyone in the office was staring at them; Janine was sniggering.
‘Quick,’ she hissed. ‘Let’s get out.’
It was pouring with rain but she didn’t mind. They sat in the car, eating Big Macs. He had brought a bottle of champagne and, parked in a side street facing a railway bridge and an expired Hillman Imp, they drank it out of plastic cups.
‘I meant us to have a picnic,’ he said, as the rain rattled on the roof.
‘I don’t care,’ she said truthfully and sucked her fingers. He passed her his slivers of gherkin.
Afterwards he drove on.
‘Where’re we going?’ she asked.
‘Ssh.’
He drew up outside a hotel. It was a modern place, with tubs of chrysanthemums and multi-national flags.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
‘It’s called having a long lunch-hour,’ he replied. ‘Managers do it.’ He got out of the car and opened the door for her with a flourish.
‘We can’t!’ she said.
‘We can.’
For practically the first time in fifteen years of married life he couldn’t manage to rise to the occasion. They struggled, their naked limbs bumping.
Finally they admitted defeat and collapsed helplessly on the sheets.
‘I do love you,’ she gasped.
‘You can’t.’
‘I do.’
‘Us men are just useful for reproductive purposes,’ said Al. ‘Otherwise we’re redundant.’
Ollie frowned, re-read this and typed it out with a row of x’s. I’m writing a story, he thought, not a thesis.
He started again. Al stormed into the room and slammed the door. ‘You don’t want me any more!’ he shouted.
Ann sat down in the living room and gave Viv a carrier-bag.
‘Something I’ve been knitting,’ she said.
Viv opened the bag and pulled out a woollen object in multicoloured stripes. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely, but won’t it be a bit big?’
‘It’s not for the baby, silly,’ said Ann. She held it against Viv. ‘It’s for you.’
It was an enormous cardigan.
‘Your weird colours,’ said Ann.
Viv was carrying her books to the car. Behind her she heard hurrying steps. Harold caught her up and took the books from her arms.
‘When I first met Ollie,’ said Viv, ‘he used to do that.’
Harold said meaningfully: ‘He was still a gentleman then.’
Viv reached her car. ‘Then again, I wasn’t eight months gone.’
She paused for a moment beside the car door. Outside the school gates a crowd of children waited at the bus stop. Amongst them were a group of sixth-formers – Yvonne, Eileen and the rest. They were talking to a very pregnant Tracey, who had long ago left school and must have come to the bus stop for a chat.
Harold remarked: ‘Tracey’s showing off again.’ He spoke with solemnity: ‘Girls nowadays are strangers to shame.’
Viv paused, then opened the car door. Harold put her books in the front, but she moved them to the back. ‘Sit in here a moment, Harry,’ she said, patting the passenger seat. ‘Please.’
Surprised, Harold climbed in. For a moment she couldn’t think how to begin. She gazed, for inspiration, at the mustard-coloured bricks of the Science Block. ‘It’s about me and Ollie. He’s not such a shit.’
‘Oh no?’
‘I’ve been longing to tell you. You’re my friend.’ Sunlight shone on the hideous yellow bricks; soon it would be dark by four. She said: ‘It’s not just Ollie who’s been having an affair.’
‘No?’
‘I have. Hence . . .’ She patted her stomach. ‘And I’m giving it to my lover and his wife.’
Harold’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re not!’
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she whispered. ‘But that’s why I’ll be back next term.’
‘But the baby –’
‘Don’t talk about that. I just wanted you to know that it’s not all Ollie’s fault.’
Harold was still staring at her. Then he rallied. ‘You wanton hussy!’ he said.
‘I’m not,’ said Viv, automatically. Then she realized, and smiled: ‘All right, I am.’
He grabbed her arm. ‘Come on, let’s slip behind the bike sheds!’
‘Harry!’
‘All these years I’ve been sitting in the staffroom, slavering. What a waste!’
‘You’re my friend!’
‘I don’t want to be!’ he cried.
‘Oh God.’
They stared at each other. Then they both started chuckling.
‘Ollie? Hello, it’s Ken. Yes, long time no see. Look, I was just wondering if you fancy kicking a ball around again. Yes. We’ve been missing you. Yes, and a couple of bevvies afterwards. What? Bevvies. Right, good, OK.’
Ken, sighing with relief, put down the phone.
Ollie put down the phone and pushed his hand through his unwashed hair. Papers lay scattered on Caroline’s table; he had been working on his book until the early hours of the morning.
Outside, church bells were ringing. He went into the kitchen and found himself the remains of some orange juice. Drinking it, he switched on the radio. It was the Sunday Service.
‘. . . and forgive us our trespasses,’ came the murmur of voices, like wind through miles of estuary reeds, ‘as we forgive them that trespass against us –’
He switched it off.
Beside the changing-rooms the wind tossed the bushes to and fro. It was cold. Diz, in his rugger shorts, was bounding up and down. He looked at his watch.
‘He’s not coming.’
‘He said he would,’ said Ken.
‘He’s not. Come on.’ As they jogged to the pitch he said: ‘Know what happened to the switchboard girl, with whom he was engaged in a leg-over situation?’
‘No,’ replied Ken, jogging beside him.
‘She’s gone to work for Woman’s Own.’ Chortling, Diz ran on to the grass.
Ollie had cleared the table and laid out tea for his daughters. He had also washed his hair. In one bin-liner he had hidden his dirty clothes; in another, the clanking weight of his alcoholic consumption.
The three of them had been to the Natural History Museum, one of the shortening list of places he could take his daughters on a rainy Sunday afternoon. When one had got through this list, what then? And what on earth did fathers do who lived in, say, Nuneaton? And, more to the point, how could he bear any of this?
‘So did you enjoy it?’ he asked, pouring out some Tizer. They were not allowed this at home.
‘It was very nice,’ said Daisy.
‘I liked the whale,’ said Rosie.
‘When I was young,’ said Ollie, ‘they didn’t have all those push-buttons and films and things. It’s much more fun now.’
‘Yes,’ said Rosie.
He passed the plate of cakes. ‘Have another one.
’
‘I’m full up, thank you,’ said Rosie.
With a wave of panic he thought: when we’ve finished the cakes, what then? He felt his throat constrict. He passed the plate to Daisy.
She shook her head. ‘There’s too much cream. It’s bad for you.’
‘Daisy!’ said Rosie.
There was a pause. Ollie looked at his watch.
‘She’s coming at six,’ said Rosie.
There was another pause, Ollie thought: I should have bought a bunch of flowers for this table. Then he thought: but children don’t notice flowers. Daisy fidgeted; Rosie frowned at her. Today she looked heartbreakingly like an older sister.
What else could they do here? He had shown them Caroline’s school photo, and tried to remember some of the girl’s names; they had listened for a moment and then got restless. He had found a Monet’s Bathers jigsaw, but when they had finished there were three pieces missing; this had been, out of all proportion, dispiriting. His daughters had found the lift interesting but the other inhabitants, with some reason, became frosty about never being able to get to their own flats.
Suddenly he remembered, jumped up and fetched some sparklers. He gave a packet to each of them.
‘But it’s not till tomorrow,’ said Rosie. ‘Aren’t you coming to our party?’
Ollie busied himself with searching for the matches. He shook his head. ‘Nothing beats a good sparkler,’ he said heartily, striking a match.
‘Who’s going to do the rockets?’ asked Rosie.
‘Your mum,’ he replied. ‘Haven’t you heard of equal rights?’
Daisy said: ‘Uncle Ken’ll do them.’
Ollie paused. He still hadn’t got the damned things alight. ‘Ah,’ he said.
At last he managed to light them both, though by the time Rosie’s was ready Daisy’s was nearly burnt out. Over the years sparklers, like many things, seemed to have diminished in both power and duration.
‘So he’s coming, is he?’ he asked.
The girls stood, holding their sparklers. He grabbed their hands and waved them up and down.
‘You can do better than that!’ he said, more roughly than he had intended.
‘They treat me like a vaguely kind but distant uncle,’ said Ollie. He took the tea things into the kitchen and lifted the blind. In the street below, the girls were sitting in the car, trying out the headlights, then the side winkers. ‘You told them what a shit I am?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Viv stood against the oven. She turned to look at it, grimaced, and moved over to stand against the fridge. ‘They miss you.’ She looked huge. She was wearing the loose tribal dress they had bought in the Portobello Road, way back in the sixties, long before she had become pregnant with anyone. ‘Come to the fireworks tomorrow.’
He leered: ‘See Ken and his big rockets?’
‘Ollie!’
He held the bin open with his foot and scraped cream off the plates.
‘Look,’ said Viv, ‘you can do that when I’ve gone.’
‘Allow me my displacement activity.’ He threw away a bitten jam sandwich. ‘That place,’ he said. ‘Where’s the stuffed badgers, where’s my childhood security? It’s all gone electronic, buttons and buzzers, it’s like a mad, Darwinian Caesar’s Palace, it’s a sort of ecological Las Vegas . . .’ He paused for breath.
‘They don’t think of you like an uncle.’
‘. . . Put in your American Express card and out pops the meaning of life.’ He stopped, panting. ‘But that’s your speciality, isn’t it? The meaning of life.’
‘Do sit down.’ She gestured around the kitchen. ‘What sort of life is this?’
‘My sort.’
‘It’s not,’ she said.
‘How do you know? You haven’t got a monopoly on it.’ He glared at the rows of sequins sewn across her breast; some had fallen off. So dated, that ethnic stuff. ‘Though you’d like to think you have.’ He pointed the empty Tizer bottle at her. ‘You women, you’ve got the key to life, haven’t you? It’s all there, between your legs. Look at you, you’re bursting with it, no wonder you look smug. You’re at the controls.’
‘Don’t feel in control of you.’
He couldn’t bear to look at her. He turned away and glared down at the street and his winking car. ‘It’s so bloody unfair. You can screw your brother-in-law and carry his child and we actually have to call you a saint!’ His voice rose shakily. ‘I’m the one everyone despises, walking out on his pregnant wife, and I can’t even tell them why because we have to keep the bloody thing secret!’
‘You don’t have to walk out on me,’ she said, her voice maddeningly quiet. ‘Don’t cut yourself off. You should’ve played rugger today.’
‘With Ken?’
‘There’s nothing between us!’ He swung round and pointed at the black, embroidered bulge of her belly.
‘Are you angry because of Ken or me?’
‘Leave my motives alone!’ He moved to the cupboard and got out his bottle of Scotch.
‘Don’t drink so much,’ she said.
‘You can leave my liver alone too.’ He stopped and looked at her suspiciously. ‘How’ve you dealt with him?’
‘Nothing.’ She looked at her watch.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. Come home and see. This isn’t a home. What do you do all day?’
‘My own thing,’ he replied.
‘I know you need some space –’
‘Stop knowing everything!’
‘I’m only trying to help,’ she said.
‘Thanks awfully.’
She sighed, and moved back to the living room. She looked at the typewriter, put away on the bookcase. ‘How’s the novel?’
He moved swiftly in front of her. ‘Leave it alone! It’s mine!’
She shrugged, picked up the girls’ anoraks, and left.
Any celebrations, even the lowly Guy Fawkes, are painful when a family is ruptured. Viv sat in the kitchen, not drinking her orange juice, and watched the shadowy figure of Ken, rather than her own husband, stoop in the garden. He was busy with fireworks. There was a shower of sparks and his stocky figure was illuminated as he straightened up.
In the grate a fire flickered. It should be cosy. Beside her, sipping mulled wine, sat her mother, Frank and her sister. The garden door was open; there was a whoosh and a polite ‘aah’ from the girls, who stood on the grass, looking chilly.
Viv got up to fetch the sausages from the oven. Ann stopped her. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘You sit down.’ She looked at Viv. ‘You going to your classes?’
Viv nodded. ‘Don’t leave till the end of the month.’
Nibbling a sausage, her mother said: ‘I don’t mean school, ninny. I mean those antenatal things.’
Ann passed the sausages to Frank. ‘She refuses.’
Viv said: ‘I know them all.’
‘Got to practise your breathing and stuff,’ said her mother.
‘I’ve tried to persuade her,’ said Ann.
‘I know all about the breathing,’ said Viv. ‘Anyway, I’m keeping in shape.’
‘Shape’s the word,’ joked Frank. He was inclined to say the sort of thing to which nobody could think of a reply.
Ken came in for some more fireworks. There was only one left in the box. He lifted it out and read: ‘Erupts in a glittering explosion of multicoloured stars. Light the touchpaper and retreat.’ He smiled. There was a sooty smudge on the side of his nose, which made him look attractive. Viv had always preferred him in his working clothes, rather than his business suit. What had Ollie said? Your bit of rough. She passed him a glass of wine.
‘Do be careful,’ Ann said.
‘I’m enjoying this,’ he replied, and went into the garden.
‘He’ll make a lovely dad,’ said Irene. ‘Reliable, unlike some I could –’
‘Reenie!’ warned Frank.
There was a pause. In the fire, a log spat. Irene turned to V
iv. ‘It’s a girl.’
‘What?’
‘You’re carrying it so high. Just like the others. Mothers know.’
Viv replied: ‘You hated being a mother.’
Irene grinned and turned to Ann. ‘Don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.’
Ann smiled. ‘I do.’
From the garden, there was another whoosh and crackle. Beyond the houses there was a loud bang, then a distant dog started barking.
‘Puking and screeching and keeping you up all night,’ went on Irene. ‘Still, at least you won’t have the worst bit –’
‘Mum!’ said Viv.
‘As they say, they go in easier than they come out.’
There was another bang, but it was the front door slamming. Ollie came in and stood in the middle of the room. He was swaying.
‘May I have permission to join the family party?’
‘Of course,’ said Viv.
‘Where’re my girls?’
Ken had just come in from the garden. He looked at Ollie, his face impeccably polite. Viv thought: how subtly power shifts. ‘We’ve finished the fireworks,’ he said.
‘I want to see my daughters.’
Ken replied: ‘They climbed into next door’s garden.’
‘So I’ve missed all the fun and games?’
Viv said: ‘There’s some sparklers.’
‘No thanks.’
You should’ve come earlier,’ she said.
‘I was unavoidably detained,’ he said, speaking with care. ‘A bottle and I had to partake of an ongoing dialogue.’
Ann went up to him with the dish. ‘Have a sausage.’
Ollie picked one up and looked at Ken. ‘You brought these? They’re very small.’
‘Do sit down,’ said Viv.
‘I’ll do what I like in my own home.’ His face was red and swollen and his jacket was buttoned up wrong. It saddened Viv that, whatever his drunkenness, he must know how foolish he looked. ‘You’re all very quiet. Been analysing my inadequacies?’
‘Have some orange juice,’ said Viv, passing him the carton.
‘Don’t be condescending.’
‘Ollie –’ said Ann.
‘She’s my wife,’ he replied. ‘I can talk to her how I –’
‘You can’t,’ said Ann.
‘Sorry,’ said Ollie, ‘I’d forgotten she’s public property now. Her body belongs to you, in your different ways. It’s like living with . . .’, he searched for words, ‘. . . a gynaecological Joan of Arc.’
To Have and to Hold Page 24