by Claire Sandy
‘Exciting!’ said Fern. ‘Run and get your parka, then.’
‘Thank you,’ said Adam, after Tallulah had clomped out. ‘For Evka.’
‘My plesh,’ said Fern. ‘Ollie mentioned your cleaner had defected, so . . .’
‘She started today. Seems very thorough.’
‘Hmm.’ Fern closed the door carefully, and dropped her voice as Tallulah tore up the cupboard under the stairs. Her parka was somewhere amongst the dog leads and tennis balls and padded jackets. ‘Listen, Adam: Christmas.’
Homestead House was big on Christmas. Fern pushed the boundaries each year, adding more tinsel and more Baileys.
‘What’s the plan?’
‘Why do I have to come up with the plan?’ Fern wasn’t about to fall into that trap again; the last time he’d made her do that, he’d left her.
‘Don’t be so touchy,’ said Adam, making Fern instantly ten times as touchy. He drooped slightly. ‘With things the way they are,’ he held out his hands helplessly, as if describing some terrible barren scene, ‘perhaps we’d better do separate Christmases this year.’
He was right: Fern knew that. Being right doesn’t help when you feel like crying, however. ‘I suppose it’s for the best.’
‘Crazy, really. That we can’t even have Christmas together.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But this way,’ said Adam, brightening, ‘there’s no tension and the kids get to have two Christmas Days. Can I have them on the actual day? I’m off to Rome on the twenty-sixth.’
‘With Penny?’
‘And the band. A special gig in the Piazza Navona.’
‘Ooh.’ Fern was impressed, despite the pact she’d made with herself never to be impressed with anything that involved Penny.
‘We’re improving all the time. The groove is back. Keith’s loving it now.’
‘Good,’ said Fern. She so wanted to be wholeheartedly happy for Adam, but when the things he wanted took him further away from Homestead House it was an effort for her to sound sincere. ‘So that’s a deal? You have everybody on Christmas Day, and I’ll have them on Boxing Day.’ As she said it, Fern felt Christmas slip below the horizon like the Titanic. Down, down, down it went, with just her and Nora on board, pulling a wishbone.
Evka came in as Adam, Ollie and Tallulah were leaving. Closing the door behind them, she pressed her back against it. ‘I have information,’ she hissed.
‘Tell all!’ Planting a mole in Adam’s flat was a low trick, a cheap stunt, a stroke of genius. It would cost Fern an extra twenty pounds a week, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the ‘information’.
‘Adam leads you up garden path.’ Evka’s eyes flashed Slovak fire. ‘She lives there. With him.’
‘They’ve moved in together?’ Fern hadn’t expected this calibre of revelation.
‘Silly cow monograms everything. There is P.W. on towels. Dressing gown. Probably on adulterous fanny.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe Penny just leaves stuff there, because she spends a lot of time, you know, working with Adam.’
‘I know kind of work they do together,’ sneered Evka, who could be very Nora-like when it came to other people’s sex lives. ‘Wardrobes are full of lady clothes. Bathroom is full of serums. There are napkins in kitchen drawer. Adam is not napkin man.’
‘No, he’s not.’ Adam had once wiped his mouth on a bride’s veil.
‘There is new rug on bedroom floor. Adam is not rug man.’
Adam had once suggested they use paper plates to cut down on washing up; the domesticated touches weren’t his. Fern’s belly dipped; Layla had once prophesied that the hardships of day-to-day bachelor life would bring Adam running back to a warm house filled with cooking smells. ‘You’re sure Penny’s not a lodger?’
‘Penny,’ said Evka darkly, ‘is not lodger.’
The house ticked gently, settling down for the night, as sleepy stars pressed down on the roof. Fern had looked in on Tallulah, who lay across her bed as if flung there, various soft toys spread-eagled around her. She’d knocked on Ollie’s door and received a gruff ‘G’night.’
At the foot of the stairs to the loft, she called, ‘Everything all right, Nora?’
There was a bump from inside the room, as if Nora had stumbled. ‘Yes, yes,’ answered Nora, irritable. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
Passing Evka on the landing, Fern complimented her on her black silky nightdress before realizing it was her own.
‘Can I wear it for hour?’ Evka asked, not even slightly ashamed at being caught out. ‘I have appointment for Skype sex with man I meet at football match.’
‘On second thoughts,’ said Fern, ‘keep the nightie.’
The house was full but Fern’s bed was empty. Plumping her pillows, she lay back in the powdery lamplight and contemplated the familiar shapes in the flowery wallpaper. Old-fashioned when they’d moved in, the paper had patiently waited for trends to catch up with it, and now the room was shabby chic as opposed to just shabby.
Lying there with Adam, night after night after night, Fern had concocted various new decorating schemes. At one point she’d been mad for aubergine walls, before entering a long phase when only built-in mirrored wardrobes would do. The money had arrived and they’d found themselves stumped.
The room was as static as the relationship.
Time heals, they say. Fern had discovered that it also brings perspective. She’d never stopped to examine her life with Adam. When would I have found the time to do that? Their jobs, the children, the house were a treadmill that propelled them into the future. Everything around them changed – Tallulah grew, Ollie matured, bits dropped off the house – but nothing changed between Fern and Adam.
It had seemed like a plus. We never change was a cheering thought in a society where love seemed difficult to maintain. Many of their circle were on second marriages. One intrepid woman was on her third. At the ceremony, Adam had whispered to Fern, till itchy feet do us part.
We were smug, she concluded. Or perhaps it was just Fern. Adam’s accusation that she didn’t listen smarted, but only because it was true. Fern hadn’t realized that Adam needed tending; she’d thought of him as an extension of herself, but she’d been wrong. Very wrong. As wrong as she’d been about that tankini last summer. Adam had his own needs and wishes and desires.
Time wasn’t healing – bang goes another proverb – but the five months had gently transported Fern to a different landscape where she didn’t have the same expectations of Adam. His life apart from her no longer seemed preposterous, a silly experiment. It had taken, like a grafted limb.
If Fern was her own best friend, she would counsel against scrabbling about under the bed for the box of letters. She imagined a ghostly Layla waggling a finger. Shoo! she said, and plucked one at random from the chest. By reading Adam’s unedited splurges, Fern was reassured that although their relationship had gone wrong, it hadn’t been wrong.
AN OPINION POLL
In the interests of keeping things scientific I carried out a survey among the general public of why you and I should get back together. Here are some quotes.
YOUR MATES: ‘Please get back with her ’cos then she’ll ring you in the middle of the night and not us’/‘You and Fern make a great couple because you let us put lipstick on you when you’re drunk’/‘Fern should take you back ’cos some dodgy guys are chatting her up and she seems to think they’re cool and might even fancy them.’
YOUR MUM: ‘Shut up, Adam, and stop annoying me.’
YOUR BROTHER: ‘Fern should get back with you mate ’cos she’s less of a pain when you’re on the scene.’
YOUR SISTERS: ‘You and Fernie are good for each other’/‘Fern can do better.’
YOUR DAD: ‘All I care about is my Fern being happy. When she’s with you, she’s happy!’
That had been a clever touch by the much younger Adam, putting Fern’s father last. The emotional role reversal of her parents – Dad warm, approachable, big on cuddles, wh
ile Mum was practical – had made a daddy’s girl of Fern.
The loss of her father to a heart attack with no warning, no notice, had hit Fern like a lorry. She had been left speechless with shock; each day had brought a new way to miss him, another tiny landmark she couldn’t tell him about. Dad was such a celebrator, always making a loving fuss. The silence was deafening as the family budged up into their new positions.
Sensing how deep the pain went, Adam had taken over care of little Ollie, fed them all microwave meals, and talked long into the night about the man Fern had lost. When she’d stammered out, through tears that simply wouldn’t stop, that she hadn’t got to say goodbye, Adam had held her close and said, ‘All the declarations that people make to their loved ones at the very end weren’t necessary between you and your dad. You said those things to each other every day.’
It was true. Dad sprinkled I love yous like confetti. Mum’s way of coping was to build a wall around his memory, bricking in the vibrant, laughing man as if he hadn’t existed. She carried on valiantly, refusing to break step, as her daughters and son struggled.
Eighteen months on, as Fern resurfaced, her mother remarried. None of the siblings met Dave before the engagement party, and the consensus when they did meet him was Eh? He was colourless and small, like the ghost of a mouse; he’d forgotten to grow a personality. At the reception, Fern’s mother’s speech was mainly about the B&B she and Dave had bought.
In Corfu? Fern and her sisters exchanged looks, but their brother was nonchalant: ‘It’s Mum’s life.’
Visits had been awkward. Watching Dave take her father’s place – as if he could! – set Fern’s nerves on edge. Had it been Mum’s intention to make Fern feel as if she and her dirty-fingered children were taking up valuable guest rooms? The rest of the family didn’t seem to notice, and Adam said of course not, but Fern was too hurt to dig deeper.
Folding up the letter, Fern switched off the lamp, glad to be tired, glad that sleep would soon come.
‘Adam, have you got a moment?’
‘I’m with the guys, Fern. We’re jamming. I was just about to turn my phone off.’
‘I want to talk about these decks or whatever they’re called. The ones you’re buying for Ollie.’
‘The software controller system? Ollie will die.’
‘I don’t think you should buy it for him.’
‘Hang on, let me . . . Fellas, I’m just going out on the fire escape! . . . Christ, it’s freezing out here. Fern, you’ve got to stop this.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Tying my hands.’
‘How am I—’
‘You behave as if it’s a sin to spend money, but if some la-la land TV company wants to spaff cash at me, what should I do? Duck?’
‘This isn’t about money.’
‘No, it’s about teaching our kids to scrimp and save and wear clothes made out of curtains. They don’t need to save!’
‘They do! Ollie and Tallulah need to take control of their own destinies. What if I hadn’t stopped wiping their bottoms? They’d never learn how to do it and now they wouldn’t be able to leave the house.’
‘Your frankly weird metaphors aren’t useful, Fern.’
‘And neither is you swooping in and throwing money at our son. Ollie and Donna haven’t even started thinking properly about where to live and the birth is two months away. Wouldn’t a modest deposit for a little flat be a better place to start with your money and advice, not this starry-eyed dream of being a famous DJ?’
‘Penny said you’d do this.’
‘Did you just say Penny said?’
‘Yeah. She did, she said—’
‘Penny said? Penny said? Fucking Penny fucking said?’
‘She’s a smart woman with a lot to offer. What does that noise mean?’
‘Just clearing my throat. Look, you’re busy and I’ve got a luxury pedi any minute. I’m just saying think before you buy, yeah?’
‘And I’m just saying . . . I don’t really know how to explain this . . . Fern, I always wanted to be a parent. Yes, it happened a bit too quickly, before I felt ready, but right from the start I loved that feeling of you and Ollie relying on me, depending on me. Some years, things were so tight, and I’d see you muffled up in cardigans ’cos we couldn’t afford to put the heating on, or Tallulah would get an extra term out of her tatty coat, and it just killed me, you know? Inside. So this feels good. Being able to provide for my kids feels good.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘I know, Fern. You never do.’
In a building the size of Homestead House there’s always scope to be alone, but everybody was in the kitchen. Maybe it was the sleety rain rattling the windows that brought them all to the warm beacon of the room where the good stuff happened.
‘Nice hat,’ said Fern to Ollie.
Ollie touched his flat cap self-consciously. ‘Part of my new look,’ he said.
‘Marvellous.’ You’re your father’s son, all right. ‘Donna, sit, sweetheart.’
The girl, who looked as if she was shoplifting a space-hopper, eased herself onto a bench. ‘Oomph.’ Donna had a widening repertoire of variations on ouch.
Wearing a sparkly top that clung to her like a frightened child, Evka elbowed Fern out of the way at the hob. ‘I fry egg. Go please.’
‘Can I have an egg?’ Tallulah was incapable of watching people eat without wanting exactly what they had.
‘No, spoiled child,’ said Evka, but so fondly that the spoiled child beamed.
‘I could die of thirst waiting for a cup of tea in this house.’ Nora heaved herself up.
‘I’ll make you one,’ said Fern, hoping to forestall a marathon of huffing, puffing and sarcasm about Fern’s choice of kettle, mugs, teabags.
‘I’m just an old lady, no use to anybody. Everybody ignore me.’
‘I can’t ignore you, Auntie Nora,’ said Tallulah as Nora lumbered past. ‘Your bum’s right in my face.’
‘Tallie, shush,’ said Fern. ‘Honestly, Auntie, let me do it.’
‘I’ll have to use this pornographic crockery,’ sighed Nora, taking down a mug bearing Pamela Anderson’s (fully clothed) picture, a joke present to Adam one Christmas.
‘What’s pornographic?’ asked Tallulah, faltering over the pointed syllables.
‘Ask brother,’ growled Evka, making Ollie pull his funky cap over his eyes.
The cup fell, and tiny shards of Pamela’s mighty bosom scattered over the floor.
Mild uproar ensued, the sort that always accompanies a broken cup, but Nora was more agitated than anybody.
‘Stupid!’ she gasped. ‘Stupid stupid stupid!’
‘It’s just a cup,’ smiled Fern.
‘I’ll miss it,’ said Ollie.
‘Oh will you now?’ said Donna.
It’s hard to stomp in slippers, but Nora tried. Fern caught up with her in the hall and helped her into the study, closing the door behind them.
‘Seriously, Auntie, it doesn’t matter.’ Nora was a sizeable pain in Fern’s sizeable arse, but it touched her to see her aunt so upset.
‘There’s something you should know.’ Nora subsided into Fern’s office chair and was alarmed when it spun a little. ‘I had a stroke.’
Fern pulled the chair back round to face her and knelt in front of it. ‘When?’
‘A while back. About a year. There are after-effects. Me hand.’ Nora held up a plump hand, the wrinkled fingers curled. ‘The strength comes and goes.’
‘Is the stroke the reason for the dark glasses?’
‘I like dark glasses,’ said Nora, insulted.
‘Did you have physical therapy?’ Fern knew a little about strokes. ‘Exercising your hand, for example.’
‘Of course not,’ snapped Nora. ‘I didn’t hang about in that smelly hospital one minute longer than I had to. Sitting there in a backless gown while doctors got a good look at what no man has ever seen.’ Nora’s mouth turned down. ‘I hadn�
�t a day’s illness in my life before that stroke. I didn’t want to tell you. I’m ashamed.’
‘Ashamed?’ Nora’s mind was a dark rollercoaster, forever catapulting Fern round nasty curves. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of in illness. It happens to all of us.’
‘Not me,’ said Nora. ‘Not Mother. We lived a good life and we had good health.’ She looked at her lap. ‘Don’t tell anybody. I don’t want them all to know.’
‘This isn’t a punishment from God, Auntie.’ Fern chose her words carefully. It was so easy to offend Nora. ‘Why don’t I make an appointment with my GP?’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Nora took off her dark glasses. ‘Next stop a nursing home. Then the grave, next to Mother.’ With difficulty, she stood, with Fern holding the revolving chair. ‘I shall take my dinner in my room,’ she said haughtily, as if Fern was her housekeeper. ‘No red peppers in me rice.’
Later, picking out the red peppers – the recipe’s called ‘Rice with Red peppers’, for God’s sake! – Fern listened to Ollie trying out his new software controller system in the conservatory and wondered what to do about her aunt. She hated to think of Nora steeped in useless guilt.
As she put the plate on a tray, Fern admitted another, less noble thought. I don’t want to be lumbered with an ailing old lady who hates my guts.
Asked what she really wanted, what would be the best possible treat after the gruelling horrors of netball club in the rain, Tallulah chose a sorbet at a pastel and chrome café on the high street.
‘Are you bribing me, Mummy?’
‘Nonono,’ said Fern, setting a sugary lemon ball in a silver cup in front of her daughter.
‘I wouldn’t mind. I love bribes.’
‘I noticed that you and me haven’t spent much time together lately. Just the two of us.’
‘So this is like a date?’
‘If you like.’ Fern needed to reconnect with the little soul opposite. Tallulah’s hostility had tapered off. The child was, Fern supposed, adjusting to the new regime. This was for the best, but didn’t make Tallulah’s enforced maturity any less poignant. ‘How was school? Any murders?’