A Not Quite Perfect Family

by Claire Sandy

  ‘So,’ Adam had said. The word seemed deliberately ambiguous. He quivered with something intense that might have been anger, but could have been terror.

  ‘So.’ Fern felt boxed in. Accustomed to being naked in front of Adam, all her flaws and delights on show, she was now unable to bare her soul. He has to be the one to say this is a mistake. Adam had, after all, engineered the showdown in the first place.

  Neither stood down. Both were angry, dissatisfied, heartily sick of the other’s behaviour.

  Breaking the spell, Adam was brisk. ‘Let’s keep things normal for the kids. This’ll be tough on them, no need to make it any worse.’

  ‘Why not keep things normal for the sake of, ooh, let me think, being together for twenty-five years?’ Fern had been sharp. Was Adam insinuating that without the kids for an audience he’d simply ignore her? Instead of softening, instead of asking to rewind, she pushed forward. ‘Let’s tell them on Midsummer Eve. We’ll all be together, out in the garden, relaxed. Then you can, I suppose, what? Go to your mother’s.’ Or to P.W.

  ‘Yeah.’ Adam had seemed hesitant. She noticed him gulp. The denouement had unfolded at ninety miles per hour; pushed buttons are tricky to un-push.

  Now, seeking out bowls for today’s alarmingly green soup, Fern admitted there were benefits to separation. No constant fretting about what was happening to her relationship, like bad muzak in a lift. At least I know where I stand. If Adam could walk away from all they’d built, then it was best he did just that.

  ‘Auntie Nora!’ she hollered.

  ‘All right, all right.’ Lumbering into the kitchen, her white perm as stiff and unyielding as her moral code, Nora took a seat with many an oof! An archetypal old lady, from her polyester twinset to her wide-fit shoes, Auntie Nora had looked that way ever since Fern could remember. Black and white snaps of a teenaged Nora showed a pensioner-in-waiting, the scowl and frumpy dresses needing only a pull-along shopping bag to complete the look. ‘Soup? Again?’

  ‘Soup’s nice,’ said Fern lightly.

  ‘Not every day.’ Nora glared around the well-appointed kitchen. The zig-zag stain left by the thrown bowl of soup had been painted over; in what Fern thought of as the olden days, pre-Roomies royalties, any stain would have stayed for years, gradually fading. ‘That loft’s very draughty, Fern.’

  Fern looked up at the ceiling, as if she could see through the floorboards and timbers and gaze at the loft. It was, without question, the nicest room in the house. Full of intriguing angles, yet large enough for a new king-size bed, it was painted sparkling white with the beams picked out in a powdery grey. The final touches to the hotel-style en suite had been made just days before Nora arrived. ‘Draughty?’ she queried.

  ‘Where’s my Binkie?’

  ‘Probably playing with Boudicca.’ The cantankerous fuzz-ball had chased the whippet out into the garden. Although half the dog’s size, Binkie had the confidence of a mafia don.

  ‘If that beast bites my pussy . . .’ said Nora darkly.

  That beast was far more likely to be wetting itself in fear. ‘Bread, Auntie?’ Fern held out a baguette.

  ‘With these teeth?’ Nora seemed outraged by such a suggestion. ‘No Adam again today?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s taking Ollie and Tallulah out for a burger later.’

  ‘A burger,’ repeated Nora, as if Fern had said Adam was taking them out for an orgy. ‘What on earth did you do to a lovely man like that to make him abandon his family?’

  ‘He didn’t aban—’ Fern took a deep breath, changed the subject. She couldn’t win against Nora. ‘So, Auntie, how long are we going to have you here with us?’ She asked this every day, and every day Nora managed not to answer.

  ‘Oh, well, I—’

  The doorbell rang. Apparently the gods were on Nora’s side.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ Tallulah flew in from the garden. ‘It’s Donna!’ she yelled from the front door. ‘And she’s wearing jeggings!’

  Donna was the little girl’s idol. Her hair, her shoes, her lip gloss were all obsessed over. Fern was a fan too; since Donna had come back on the scene, Ollie had relaxed a little. She released Donna from Tallulah’s iron grip by calling the little girl into the kitchen.

  ‘What?’ Tallulah’s face was granite.

  ‘Fancy joining me and Auntie for lunch?’

  ‘Urgh, no.’ Tallulah’s rudeness was a new accessory, to go with the hairbands and bangles and pricey trainers Adam showered her with each time he took her out.

  ‘No thank you,’ chanted Fern gently.

  ‘Oh god, Mummy, no thank you! There! Is that all right? Can I go?’

  Fern looked at the little jaw so defiantly stuck out, the blue eyes sparkling and hard. ‘Yup,’ she said, knowing she must absorb this behaviour, that it was to be expected from a child with a walk-on part in a separation. ‘Off you pop.’

  ‘Fancy a sweet?’ Nora, who liked very little in life, liked Tallulah. She either didn’t notice or excused the child’s glowering moods.

  ‘Yes please!’ Anybody’s for a sweet, Tallulah’s good manners flooded back, her face pink again. ‘Oh.’ Her face fell. ‘They’re liquorice allsorts. No thanks, Auntie.’

  Off she went, smashing the patriarchy one bee at a time.

  ‘I see your Ollie’s been fighting again,’ said Nora, with a magnificent side-eye.

  ‘Ollie never fights.’

  ‘Where’d he get that bruise over his eye, then?’

  For a woman who needed a magnifying glass to do the crossword, Nora had laser-beam vision when it came to ferreting out sin.

  ‘It’s a good thing,’ she went on, between slurps of soup, ‘that me brother’s dead, because this divorce nonsense would have killed him.’

  ‘Dad would have understood,’ said Fern, quietly. ‘Dad always understood.’ She screwed up her mouth; an old tactic to stem tears.

  ‘Hmm.’ Nora pulled in her chin. ‘He spoiled you.’

  Fern said nothing, not trusting her voice. Memories of her father were too precious to be manhandled by Nora.

  ‘What does your mum have to say about it?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Fern. ‘I haven’t told her yet.’

  Nora clucked at such daughterly neglect. ‘When she finds out she’ll be on the first plane from Cor, Cru, Crof . . .’

  ‘Corfu.’ Nora had never been able to get her dentures around the exotic word. ‘I doubt that very much.’

  With half an hour before the Beauty Room’s next client, Fern nipped out to the park with Boudicca. She was, she realized, escaping her own home, running away from Ollie’s clenched anger, Tallulah’s confused grumpiness and Nora’s relentless criticism.

  At least there was a guarantee of a welcome from her fellow dog walkers. Now that she walked the whippet without Adam, Fern had become a member of a pack. Dog owners were a methodical bunch, sticking to their routines for the sake of their beloved pooches, and Fern was in the loose ‘gang’ of sorts that met by the southern gate each afternoon. No names were exchanged; Fern thought of them by their dogs’ names. Pongo was an older woman in pristine gym gear, who treated her haughty Chihuahua like a child. Maggie was small and bald, constantly sucking mints as his golden Labrador padded alongside him. Tinkerbell was younger, and nice-looking with a soft look about his eyes. His Cockapoo was a nitwit, but it was a happy nitwit and Tinkerbell obviously extravagantly loved the little chap.

  Off the leash, Boudicca sprang ahead, longs legs loping, taking huge joy in her own speed. A rescue dog, Boudicca had been through God knows what horrors before she rocked up at the Carliles’. The family took care to treat her gently; even Tallulah, who was prone to loving soft toys to death, stroked Boudicca carefully with her childish hands.

  None of them could save the dog from being bullied by Binkie. The cat ruled the roost, moving in on the wicker basket in the kitchen, the fleecy mat in the utility room, even the sweet spot under the piano where Boudicca retired when she was nervous. (The list of things that ma
de Boudicca nervous was long, and included sudden loud noise, hedgehogs, the Queen.) Nowhere was safe from Binkie’s Napoleonic need to invade. The fluffy grey moggy roamed the house like a flat-faced raincloud.

  There, in a knot by the gate, was Fern’s doggy crowd, singing out hellos and expressing the ritualistic British amazement at the weather as the dogs wove in and out of their legs, pressing noses to proffered bums.

  Fern chanced a weak joke about how ‘It’s a good thing we don’t greet each other like that!’ She was rewarded with appalled looks from Pongo and Maggie, and was grateful when Tinkerbell gufffawed.

  ‘We missed you yesterday,’ said Pongo, carefully setting down her Chihuahua as if its little paws might shatter.

  Tinkerbell winked at her. ‘We thought you’d forgotten us!’

  The wink knocked Fern off balance for a moment. ‘I could never do that,’ she smiled, recovering. Tinkerbell was handsome, if you liked that sort of thing. If you liked tilted green eyes, a ripely curling mouth wide enough to suggest all sorts of fun, and a body that boasted – quietly – about how well it knew the gym. Fifteen years ago, when Fern was about Tinkerbell’s age, she would have stammered and blushed, possibly even blown off, at being this close to him but nowadays she coped, knowing that her middle-aged force-field of wrinkles and mum-tum protected her. ‘This is the highlight of my day, God help me.’

  ‘And mine!’ Tinkerbell had a guileless smile. He glowed with positivity, like a sexy Disney character.

  ‘Yeah, right!’ Maggie laughed. An accountant, he seemed keen to live vicariously through Tinkerbell, choosing to believe that every minute the younger guy spent away from the park was spent whooping it up with scantily clad lovelies, a beer in each hand.

  ‘Off we go!’ said Pongo, and the little group set off for the mild slope they’d dubbed ‘the mountain’.

  ‘Yo, bitch!’

  ‘Yo, er, um, ho!’

  Fern missed Layla. Their weekly Skype didn’t make up for the countless suppers and coffees and stream-of-consciousness text trails.

  ‘Do da kidz even say yo any more, Fern?’

  ‘No idea. My own kidz barely speak to me. I’m the wicked witch of the south-east. The one who wrecks marriages and throws lovely daddies out into the snow.’

  ‘There’s no snow in July, not even in that godforsaken country.’

  Layla’s defection to the Île de Ré, a sun-baked comma off the western coast of France, meant she got to gloat about the weather she’d left behind.

  ‘Shush, you garlic-breathing Brie eater.’ Fern leaned forward as her computer screen went fuzzy. ‘Oh no, where’ve you gone?’ She relaxed, relieved, when Layla’s familiar face rearranged itself. ‘I wish you were here,’ she said, wondering if the giggle would lighten the weight of feeling behind the simple declaration.

  Evidently, it didn’t. ‘Don’t sound so sad!’ Layla’s wide, Bambi eyes creased in concern. ‘It’s going to be fine, Fernie.’

  Hearing her own corny promise on Layla’s lips exposed its flimsiness. ‘Why’d you have to marry that Luc person? What’d you see in him?’

  This was a running joke. ‘Hmm, let me see. Was it his French good looks? The way his black hair flops? His fit bod? Was it because he’s a vet and selflessly saves fluffy lambs’ lives every day? Was it because he offered me a home in the medieval barn he refurbished with his own bare, very sexy, hands? Dunno. Can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘How’s the lingo going?’

  ‘I can now say good morning and goodnight and order a croque monsieur with confidence. How’s my goddaughter?’

  ‘Still hates me.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Layla was stern against the backdrop of pale stone. ‘She’s acting up because she can, because she trusts and loves you. This is bewildering for Tallulah. You and Adam tell her you still love each other yet you don’t live in the same house any more. That’s a lot for an eight-year-old to compute. She’s still your little Tallie.’

  ‘It all sounds so simple when you talk about it.’

  ‘That’s because it is simple.’

  ‘How’s the job-hunting going?’ Time to wrench the spotlight back to Layla. Fern knew her friend didn’t like talking about herself; her ability to stand back and let others shine was what had made her such a good actors’ agent.

  ‘Without the language, it’s tricky. Something’ll come up.’

  It was odd to think of Layla being unemployable. In London she’d been a name to conjure with in show business; the Carliles had lapped up her tales of celebrity misbehaviour. A self-anointed ‘second mum’ to Ollie and Tallulah, she’d been a staple at Fern’s table, happy to babysit at the drop of a hat. Single for ever, she’d found love on a French cycling holiday. Two years in, Fern was still getting used to having a long-distance bezzie, and working hard not to let her resentment of Luc show.

  Handsome, certainly, and decent, but was the monosyllabic man really good enough for vibrant, shimmering Layla? ‘Can’t you work at Luc’s veterinary surgery? Bandaging kittens or something?’

  ‘You have a very basic idea of what vets do. He spends most of his time getting to first base with cows.’ Layla closed her eyes, as if dizzy, then shook her head.

  ‘You OK?’ Fern frowned. ‘Is it the Skype or are you looking tired, Layla?’

  ‘Must be the Skype. How’s my Ollie? Still not . . . ?’

  ‘Back at school? I wish. No, he’s doing endless small-time jobs. Handing out flyers for a pizza place. Labouring on a building site. Doing Saturdays in a sportswear shop.’

  ‘I thought Donna might encourage him to be sensible.’

  ‘Me too, but what the hell do I know? Tallulah said she’s actually been back for a few weeks longer than I thought. She was in on this stupid decision to ditch his exams.’

  ‘For somebody who doesn’t want to be a snitch, that child’s doing a great job. You’re being hands-off, like you promised me?’ Layla looked sideways at the frigid little camera on her laptop. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I’m trying.’ Fern protested over Layla’s sighs. ‘I’m not a hands-off person! I don’t do standing back, I do wading in!’

  Before they signed off and Layla’s smile disappeared, leaving only a grainy darkness in its place, Layla said, ‘This isn’t the end, you know. The Fern’n’Adam show can’t just stop dead in its tracks after all this time.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘If you want it to carry on, I mean.’ Layla looked as if something had just occurred to her. ‘You do want Adam to come home, don’t you?’

  Layla’s question sent Fern to the box of letters, looking around furtively as if she was snooping.

  In a way, she was. This was another life she was peeking at. When a boy called Adam was nuts about a girl called Fern. Just one, she told herself, like a junkie, picking a leaf at random.

  With her hand over her mouth she read.

  WHY I’M THE BEST BOYFRIEND FOR YOU

  I’m not saying I’m the best boyfriend ever. Just the best for you. E.g. who else would laugh at your impressions if I wasn’t there? Seriously Fern, you sound nothing like Audrey Hepburn.

  Who told you your skirt was tucked into your knickers on New Year’s Eve? ME.

  Who held your hair back when you were sick after your sister’s engagement party?

  ME.

  Who gets you? Who loves you?

  ME ME ME ME

  Adam x

  P.S. And you love me you idiot.

  Clichés were clichés for a reason. Adam had only half believed that separated dads take their kids to burger joints, but he’d become such a McDonald’s/Wimpy/Burger King connoisseur in the past six weeks that he associated his children with condiment sachets and laminated menus.

  ‘And I don’t even like burgers all that much,’ he thought to himself as he passed the closed sitting-room door. Behind the door, his parents were watching Midsomer Murders as if their lives depended on it.

  Taking off his jacket in his room, he hung it on
the handlebars of his mother’s exercise bike. Adam’s childhood room had morphed into his mum’s hobbies room. He fell asleep each night surrounded by discarded half-sewn quilts, papier mâché models of London landmarks and dumb-bells that lay in wait on the fitted carpet like mantraps.

  The filing cabinet in the corner held what remained of Adam’s teenage tenancy; some exercise books, a well-thumbed lingerie catalogue and a stack of Kinky Mimi publicity photos for the European tour that never was. Adam hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry at the naive optimism in the young men’s eyes. He barely recognized the skinny bloke claiming to be Adz Carlile, cringing at that forgotten ‘z’.

  The mark on Ollie’s eye bothered him. A purplish bruise, it was an honour wound, apparently. Some joker called Maz had challenged him in the street, shouting ‘stuff’ about Donna. According to Ollie, this Maz had come off worse. ‘Don’t tell Mum, please, Dad.’ Ollie had bent in two like a paperclip at the thought of the fuss Fern would make.

  The telly roared through the floorboards. Adam lay on the single bed, nylon sheets crackling beneath him. He sniffed the air; Mum had done her famous hotpot again. Why is it famous? wondered Adam; because it was horrible enough to put any sane person off diced meat?

  He yawned. Fiddled with his collar. Turned onto his right side, then his left. The feeling of having nothing to do was peculiar. He remembered the very same sensation as a teenager in this very bed. No responsibilities. Hours stretching ahead.

  Naming this state of mind ‘loneliness’ was something Adam stoutly refused to do. He scrolled through ‘favourites’ on his phone, and was just pressing ‘Penny’ when he heard a shout from downstairs.

  ‘Ad-am!’ called his dad’s familiar sing-song. Adam clattered down the stairs, aware that they’d turned down Midsomer Murders; something was up. They never turned down John Nettles for anything less than a death in the family.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Adam stood on the orange rug, its tuftiness Hoovered flat long ago.

  ‘We need to talk, son.’ Dad looked shifty, unable to meet Adam’s eye.