A Not Quite Perfect Family

by Claire Sandy

  The small European tour had been set up by Penny, who’d also had the T-shirts printed. Tallulah wore hers to bed, proclaiming ‘KINKY MIMI RIP UP EUROPE!’ among her soft toys. When she lay a certain way it read ‘KINKY MIMI RIP’, which made Fern snigger, and felt more appropriate.

  ‘How did Dad sound on the phone last night?’ Adam called every evening before going on stage, telling Ollie and Tallulah all about the new town he found himself in. Never Fern. That was how things were between them now. To Fern it felt like a quiet war, a subtle re-drawing of boundaries. ‘Still moaning about his back?’ The conversations were nothing like the gung-ho cards.

  ‘Keith’s feet are playing up,’ said Tallulah, picking out chocolate loops from her bowl. ‘What does playing up mean?’

  ‘Dad’s got a cold sore.’ Ollie laughed, a short hur hur. ‘He was whingeing about room service sending him Lapsang Souchong instead of English Breakfast tea.’

  ‘Very rock’n’roll,’ murmured Fern, hoping Tallulah wouldn’t hear.

  But Tallulah, defender of her father’s rock-god delusions, did hear. Funny, thought Fern, how she heard that but I can stand at the bottom of the stairs calling her name for ten whole minutes.

  ‘Daddy’s going to be as famous as Elvis. Stop being mean, Mummy.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ollie, enjoying himself. ‘You’re so mean, mommie dearest.’

  Swatting him with the gas bill, Fern was delighted by the teasing. He hadn’t called her ‘mommie dearest’ for years. Despite the treadmill of casual jobs that had Ollie coming and going all day and night, with barely time to take a bite of toast in between, he’d relaxed enough to allow some of the old playfulness back in. ‘You watch it,’ she laughed. ‘You’re not too old to put over my knee.’

  ‘You’ve never put him over your knee.’ Tallulah, as ever, was a stickler for the truth.

  A wail started above their heads.

  ‘Madam’s awake,’ said Fern.

  ‘I wish I could breastfeed her,’ said Tallulah. ‘Donna’s so lucky.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Ollie pulled a face. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I love Amelie,’ said Tallulah. She said it a thousand times a day, sometimes to the baby herself, sometimes to thin air. It would be hard not to love Amelie, who seemed designed to be adored.

  Amelie was, as Fern told all her clients, a nicely finished baby. Not one of those raw red little creatures, like her own two. Tallulah had been stubbornly bald until she was nearly a year old and Ollie had looked like a prawn wearing a nappy for months. At five weeks old, Amelie was, according to Nora, a ‘bobby dazzler’, with skin the colour of coffee, a head of dark hair, and lashes that curled like a beauty queen’s.

  Another department had opened in Fern’s heart the moment she met the tiny girl. She couldn’t quite remember life before her. It must have been a strange life, with no soundtrack of baby noises to nudge them all into feeding or changing or cuddling. What did I do all day? Fern was involved in all aspects of Amelie’s care, dispensing her hard-won wisdom to the new parents, always giving Amelie a thorough once-over before she went out in the grand pushchair Adam had bought.

  Holding her was therapy. Fern could gaze at the baby’s soft features indefinitely. There was a lot of competition for Amelie; she was the pet of everybody in Homestead House. And there were a lot of people within those four walls. Sandwiched between the generations, Fern was the cog that kept it all whirring.

  Up in the loft, Nora bumped into things, complained about being too cold or too warm, spilled things on the carpet and then denied spilling things on the carpet. A floor below, Evka took up the spare room with her extensive collection of very small items of clothing, resolutely not cleaning anything and having loud phone conversations with various conquests. Next door to her, the new trinity of Ollie, Donna and Amelie had commandeered the master bedroom with all the kit necessary to keep one small human dry, warm and fed. Along the corridor, Fern was getting used to a single bed again and vowing each day to repaint the black and purple walls still studded with gobbets of Blu-Tack from Ollie’s posters. Tallulah’s room, defiantly non-pink, was the child’s refuge. She spent more time there than she had before; Tallulah’s reversion to carefree giddiness in France had been short-lived.

  ‘Amelie sounds a bit colicky.’ Fern cocked her head, listening to the baby’s cries like Sherlock Holmes considering a clue. ‘She might need to be picked up. Gentle movement can help.’

  ‘She sounds fine to me.’ Standing up, Ollie wiped his mouth. ‘I’ll go and check.’

  ‘Remember!’ shouted Fern as he went up the stairs at the only speed he ever went up the stairs – far too fast. ‘Date night tomorrow!’ Once a week, without fail, the young couple were released into the wild, with instructions to eat, drink and be merry, while Fern babysat, fending off offers of help from her various dependants. On those evenings it was just her and Amelie, in a cocoon of talc and Babygros.

  ‘Where are you going, Mummy?’ Tallulah looked anxious.

  ‘Just out, darling.’ Fern cupped her daughter’s face and kissed the furrowed forehead. Tallulah was clingy of late, demanding details from Fern whenever she left the house and jumping from foot to foot if her mum was a minute or two late. ‘To see a friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A nice lady. You don’t know her, Detective Inspector Carlile.’ It was half true. Hal was nice, but he was no lady. ‘I’ll be home before dark.’

  ‘Good.’ Tallulah brightened. ‘Maybe me and Nora’ll have cheese toasties for lunch. She makes them just right.’

  Evka was in the hall when the doorbell went. ‘I’ll get it!’

  Peeking past Evka, who evidently considered over-theknee woollen socks and leather shorts ideal cold-weather wear, Fern saw a couple in the porch. He was tall, imposing, with an Easter Island face; she held her handbag like a shield.

  Oh no. Fern’s heart dropped. ‘I’ll deal with this, Evka.’ The couple gawped at the Slovak as if she was naked. ‘Hello, come in.’ Fern smiled, knowing it wouldn’t be reciprocated.

  The woman looked up at the man, enquiringly, as if uncertain whether or not to take Fern up on her offer. He nodded down at her, and they entered the house, eyes darting to either side, as if entering a high-security prison. When Binkie slithered towards them, they flattened themselves against the wall. The cat farted nonchalantly as she passed.

  ‘Sorry about . . .’ Fern glared at Binkie, who consistently lowered the tone. ‘I’ll fetch your daughter.’

  Donna was already on the stairs, Amelie in her arms, bundled up in a trailing lacy shawl that Nora had crocheted. More hole than anything else, the wispy garment was nonetheless one of Donna’s favourites. ‘At last,’ said Donna, her voice barely there.

  Eyes suddenly wet, Fern showed Mr and Mrs Palmer into the sitting room, where they sat stiffly on the sofa, knees together like debutantes. ‘I’ll leave you alone,’ she said, as Donna and Ollie entered with little Amelie.

  ‘No.’ Donna’s father put up his hand, as if stopping traffic. He was a man used to being heard. ‘It’s best you hear what we have to say.’

  Sitting down gingerly, Fern groaned inwardly at the state of the sitting room. She had a live-in cleaner and yet there were books opened out on the rug, sweet wrappers papering the hearth, and a mug on every surface. She read disgust in Mrs Palmer’s eyes and wanted to defend herself. I’m doing my best!

  ‘Mum, Dad.’ Donna was almost shy, holding out the baby. ‘Do you want to hold her? She’s changed so much since you saw her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said her mother, and Fern read a lot into the short syllable. She heard longing. She heard love. But she also heard a form of disgust.

  ‘You’ve named her?’ asked Mr Palmer.

  ‘She’s Amelie.’ Donna was cowed, hesitant, nothing like the dominatrix who policed Ollie’s every waking moment. ‘You know, like . . .’

  ‘My mother,’ said Donna’s father. He chewed his lip for a moment, lost in some place in his head. His eyes
were just like Donna’s, dark and deep, but they had none of her vivacity. Their glitter was hard. ‘We’ve come here in a spirit of openness to work out what’s to be done. About . . .’ He waved a large hand in the baby’s general direction. ‘About this.’

  Fern saw his wife flinch as Donna retreated with Amelie, the tiny offering that had been rejected. You big bully, she thought.

  ‘How’d you mean?’ Ollie sat on the arm of Donna’s chair, his arm across the back of it.

  ‘Young man,’ said Donna’s father, looking at him with self-righteous scorn, ‘I’m sorry to be blunt, but what has this baby’s future to do with you?’

  ‘Dad . . .’ Donna shrank as if her father had hit her.

  ‘She’s my daughter,’ said Ollie. His voice shook. ‘I’m taking care—’

  ‘She’s not your daughter,’ said Mr Palmer. ‘We’ve discovered a thing or two since you ran away, Donna.’ He turned his cold wrath on Fern. ‘You’re not her grandmother, Mrs Carlile. We’re here to collect our daughter and our granddaughter.’

  That was a short-lived spirit of openness, thought Fern.

  ‘Hang on, mate.’ Ollie stood up. He was red in the face, his limbs twitching like a rag doll’s.

  The signs were all there. Fern knew Ollie was close to blowing his top. She’d seen that expression on his face when an older boy stole his Tonka Toys, or when Adam had told him off for something he didn’t do. She reached over, put a hand on his arm. ‘Ssh, love,’ she said. ‘Let Donna have her say.’

  Donna had the loose look of the new mum. As if her body had been given back to her and she wasn’t sure what to do with it. The baby, unaware of the battle raging above her head, made spitty noises as she nuzzled the striped cotton at Donna’s breast, impatient, entirely secure. ‘If I come with you,’ said Donna, and Ollie looked as if his heart had stopped, ‘what’s the plan?’

  ‘You’ll go back to your studies,’ said Mr Palmer. ‘You’ll graduate, go into the law. The baby . . .’ He paused.

  ‘The baby?’ prompted Donna.

  Her mother spoke, stumbling, with none of her husband’s gravitas. ‘This house is no place for a baby,’ she said. ‘It’s full of waifs and strays. Who was that who opened the door? What influence are these people having on you?’

  As one of ‘these people’, Fern felt racy. Insulted, but racy all the same.

  ‘The woman who opened the door helps me out when I’m tired. She sings your granddaughter to sleep.’ Donna sounded hurt on Evka’s behalf. ‘And by the way, she’s a true lady.’

  ‘Too fucking right!’ came an accented shout from the other side of the closed door.

  ‘You see!’ Mr Palmer poked a finger in the air. ‘Is that the language you want around a baby?’

  ‘It’s preferable,’ said Ollie, ‘to what you say.’

  ‘Like I said, boy, this is none of your concern.’

  Boy? Fern sat forward. ‘My son has a name.’ For Donna’s sake she wanted to keep things polite; for Ollie’s sake she wanted to bop this egomaniac on the nose.

  Finding her voice again, Mrs Palmer said, in a pleading way, ‘Donna, what can you offer this child? Really? A spare bed in this madhouse? Her parents living in sin? Why not let some other couple, good people who can’t have children of their own, have the blessing of a baby in their lives?’

  It took a moment to sink in. Fern and Ollie were silent, exchanging blank glances that were beyond puzzlement.

  Donna spoke. ‘Adoption? How can you even . . . ? Why would you say that, Mum?’ She was incoherent with rage. Beneath the rage, Fern knew, lay a strata of blistering pain. ‘Don’t you love Amelie just a little bit?’

  ‘We can love the sinner,’ said Mr Palmer, ‘while we hate the sin.’

  ‘We do love her!’ His wife was crying. ‘That’s why we want a good life for her.’

  ‘Her place is with me. I can give her the best possible life.’ Donna bared her teeth and slammed her fist against her chest. ‘Me. Her mother. Me.’

  The door swung open, rattling its hinges. Evka stood, hands on hips, oddly superhero-like in her leather shorts. ‘Come on. Out. You are bad flippin’ pair,’ she snapped at Donna’s parents.

  ‘We’ll go when we’re ready,’ said Mr Palmer, all dignity.

  ‘You’re ready.’ Ollie jumped up.

  Sobbing, Tallulah barrelled towards Fern, pushing her face into her shoulder. ‘Don’t let them give Amelie away!’ she howled.

  ‘Nobody’s giving anybody away.’ Nora, black glasses on, cardigan done up all wrong, wobbled in the doorway. ‘I never heard such nonsense in me life.’

  Donna’s father towered over them all when he stood up. ‘One last chance, child.’ He shook his head sorrowfully when his daughter wouldn’t look at him. ‘You know where we are when you change your mind,’ he said, putting his hand on his wife’s back, ushering her out. ‘When you come crawling home, we’ll be waiting.’

  ‘She has a home,’ said Fern, heartily sick of this man. ‘And for your information, I am Amelie’s grandmother.’

  ‘And I’m her dad,’ said Ollie, tailing the pair as they made for the front door.

  ‘And I’m her great-great-aunt!’ shouted Nora, as they reached the front gate.

  ‘And I’m her unbelievably sexy friend!’ screamed Evka as they clambered into their car.

  ‘They sound like monsters.’ Layla wore a soft hand-knit, the neck pulled up to her chin as she listened to Fern’s dramatic recreation of the visit. ‘Poor Donna. How is she?’

  ‘Sad. But she’s proud, you know? She holds it all in. Bit like you.’

  ‘I can see you’re dying to ask. Yes, all’s well.’

  ‘Thank God! Are you taking it easy?’

  ‘Not really. I’m pregnant, not ill.’

  ‘Don’t be clever, miss. Luc worries. And so do I.’

  ‘Look, Fern, I’ve been here before. I can’t think about it too much. I can’t invest too much of myself. Otherwise it’ll tear me apart when . . .’

  ‘I have such a good feeling about this. I really do. This time’ll be different.’

  ‘Please don’t say that, Fernie. It’s reckless to hope.’

  ‘I’ll do the hoping for both of us.’

  ‘You don’t have to call every day. I’m a big girl now.’

  ‘I like calling. You like me calling, too.’

  ‘I do! You look nice, by the way. Off on a hot date?’

  ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!’

  ‘Crikey, that touched a nerve. Where are you going?’

  ‘Nowhere. Well, only round to see Hal’s studio. To look at his work.’

  ‘Of course. You’ve always been so interested in pottery.’

  ‘Shut up! I am interested. He’s so crazy about what he does. I’m sure he’s talented.’

  ‘Very talented. You’re blushing! Like a Jane Austen character. Are you being careful, like we said? You’re vulnerable at the moment, Fern.’

  ‘And lonely. Even with all these bodies in the house. Allow me a bit of fun, Layla.’

  ‘Fun, yes. Heartache, no. I sound like Nora, but I’m right. Take it easy.’

  ‘Everything’s easy with Hal. There’s no baggage. He never takes what I say the wrong way. I don’t expect anything from him, except to be around. It’s easy and I need one part of my life to be easy.’

  ‘Is that Amelie I can hear?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s a cry-y baby. Like Ollie was. Oh. Look, we don’t have to talk babies, not until you, you know . . .’

  ‘I love Amelie already, even though I’ve only seen her on Skype. I want to talk about her.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do I really look all right?’

  ‘The make-up’s discreet. The hair is tamed. That blue jumper does great things for your colouring. Those are the jeans that work. So yes, you look more than all right. You look great.’

  ‘For my age.’

  ‘You look great full stop. Easy rider Hal’s a lucky chap.
’

  ‘Thanks for fitting me in, you angel.’ Pongo stretched out on the treatment bed, naked as the day she leapt from her mother’s womb. Spry and bendy, and disconcertingly that strange varnished colour all over, Pongo was out of context in the treatment room and Fern, accustomed to seeing her fully clothed in the park, covered her new client’s torso with a towel.

  ‘I couldn’t let you suffer with a sore shoulder, could I now?’ Fern still didn’t know how Pongo had found her address. She looked at the clock as she kneaded her client’s back, and hoped her carefully applied maquillage hadn’t sweated off. She’d be a tiny bit late for Hal, but he wouldn’t snipe or point at his watch. He’d simply be glad to see her.

  ‘Mmm! Aah! Yess!’

  Mortified, Fern blocked out Pongo’s disturbingly orgasmic reactions. Shutting her eyes, she was back in the hotel room on New Year’s Day. An intimate, low-lit room, it was designed for seduction with glinting gilt accents and a bed smothered with blood red throws.

  It was golden in her memory; a perfect evening captured forever in amber. Hal had been lusty, tender. Fern’s response to his touch had surprised her. She’d come alive beneath his hands; big strong hands that were capable and gentle.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ asked Pongo groggily.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Sorry!’ Fern’s hands had paused. She set to once more, teasing the knots in Pongo’s shoulder. It was satisfying, but it wasn’t enough to keep her thoughts in the room.

  There had been Dutch courage first: champagne delivered on a silver tray. The cost of it made Fern nauseous until she reminded herself it was a drop in the Roomies ocean. Another bottle was needed before she reached out and drew him to her and their lips met. Delicate at first, then happily, greedy.

  They’d rolled around in the velvet, wound up together. Falling off the bed had prised their mouths apart, but they were too impatient to clamber back up. Once they’d stopped giggling, once she’d seen the intent in Hal’s eyes, Fern had sat astride him, peeling off her top, bending to kiss his mouth. His lips were soft, determined.