A Not Quite Perfect Family

by Claire Sandy

  They were new.

  So accustomed to Adam’s body, to Adam’s touch, his mouth, Fern was a traveller in a strange new land. It hadn’t felt forbidden, as she’d feared. The very existence of Penny gave her permission. She sank onto Hal and they were glued together, murmuring.

  When Hal pulled his shirt off, buttons flying everywhere, Fern felt as if her heart must surely be jumping out through her skin. He was so . . . young. That was the only word for the expanse of Hal’s chest. Hal’s body was discreetly worked on; younger people were all gym nuts, Fern suspected.

  Her own body was not worked on. It had been left to its own devices while Fern got on with eating eclairs. Her sudden shyness, a change in pace, didn’t go unnoticed.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Hal had whispered. ‘We don’t have to.’

  ‘I do want to. I do. I really do.’

  ‘I know. Sssh.’ He’d kissed her forehead; a loving gesture free of desire, it had calmed Fern, and excited her.

  ‘Kiss me,’ she said. And he did. Over and over.

  It had been better than sex.

  Almost.

  ‘I think my half-hour’s up.’ Pongo twisted to look at Fern. ‘You really put your back into it, don’t you? Why don’t you have a little lie down, dear?’

  ‘I might just do that,’ said Fern.

  Heading for the door, Fern barked instructions left and right. ‘Donna, don’t forget the health visitor’s coming in half an hour. Have Amelie bathed. Nora, could you turn the oven on at six? One hundred and eighty. Boudi, bad dog, off the sofa.’

  In the sitting room, Tallulah was on the rug with Evka, both of them embroiled in an intense game of dolls. Tallulah could lose herself in the miniature lives of her countless Barbies and Kens; Evka was the only adult who entered their universe with her. I suppose it beats cleaning, thought Fern, who seemed to be paying Evka to play with her daughter. ‘Tallie, finish that project for school tomorrow, love.’

  ‘After I finish this game, Mum, pleeeeease.’

  ‘What’s happening with the dolls?’ Fern loved hearing about their bizarre lives.

  ‘This Barbie is rejecting male domination.’ Tallulah held up a doll in a ball gown which she’d slashed and daubed with red paint. ‘That’s her boyfriend.’

  Evka held up a surfer dude. ‘Ken is bastard just like my boyfriend,’ she drawled. ‘Is cruel. Soon Barbie will flee country just like me.’

  ‘Um, OK.’ Fern was sorry she’d asked.

  Bowling in, Ollie gave them all a perfunctory ‘Hi’ and bounded up the stairs.

  ‘Oi! Did you remember to pick up nappies on your way home?’ called Fern.

  For an answer, Ollie shook a Mothercare carrier bag. When Fern carried on, he said, ‘Can’t stop, Mum. My shift at the White Horse starts in half an hour.’

  At the mirror by the door, Fern applied some lipstick: a bolder colour than usual. She scrutinized it, withstanding the impulse to wipe it off. This was a red lippie day.

  Remembering, she shouted up the stairs, ‘Oh and Donna, use the new hypoallergenic baby bubble bath!’ She turned to leave but came up hard against Nora. ‘Christ!’ she exclaimed without thinking.

  ‘Scarlet lips?’ Nora peered at Fern’s mouth.

  ‘For a change.’ Fern noticed that one of Nora’s eyes was off kilter, the iris skittering to the right. Was it like that before?

  ‘There’s only one reason a woman puts on scarlet lipstick. To see a fancy man.’

  Hal was rather fancy, but she didn’t share that with her aunt. ‘I’m just off to see a friend.’

  ‘Hmm. I know the manner of friend you’re seeing.’ Nora folded her arms; Phase Two of her usual process. Next would be a look to the heavens and a ‘God save us’. ‘A fine example you’re setting with a new baby in the house.’

  ‘I’ve checked with Amelie and she doesn’t mind.’ Fern reached for her jacket on the coat stand. Laden with raincoats and school coats and puffas and Barbours, the coat stand was perpetually on the cusp of collapse, but somehow managed to stay upright. Fern felt it to be a kindred spirit.

  ‘What about Tallulah? She sees her father hounded out of his own home and then her mother takes up with some gigolo.’

  ‘I don’t think they make gigolos any more, Auntie.’ Buttoning up the oversized buttons of her on-trend pink jacket (another impulse buy), Fern refused to rise to Nora’s goading. It wasn’t easy; Nora was a virtuoso goader. ‘Must dash.’

  Nora didn’t budge. Firmly in Fern’s way, she said, ‘No wonder Tallulah’s taken to stealing and lying about it.’

  That got through. Fern was no match for Nora’s long apprenticeship at Nana’s knobbly knee. ‘She hasn’t taken to stealing, Auntie. Tallie did it once and then confessed, for God’s sake. My daughter’s not a liar.’

  ‘You’re too busy painting your face to notice there’s more to it than meets the eye.’

  ‘Auntie, sometimes you go too far. Way, way too far.’ Fern was shaking. It didn’t feel right to talk to an elderly relative this way, but a nerve had been touched. ‘It’s one thing to land in my house like a cuckoo and expect me to run around after you, but it’s quite another to interfere between me and Tallulah.’

  ‘I know you don’t want me here,’ said Nora, switching seamlessly from bully to victim. ‘I’m just an old broken-down old—’

  ‘I don’t have time for that speech again,’ said Fern, reaching around Nora to tackle the latch. ‘Save it for later.’

  ‘Charming,’ said Nora.

  The studio was a high-ceilinged industrial space in a warehouse complex, atmospheric and dusty with tall iron-framed windows along one side which filled the room with the watery but insistent February sun.

  ‘This here’s my latest batch.’ Hal, his hand in Fern’s, the tickling of his fingers on her palm making it difficult to concentrate, showed her wooden shelves of bowls. ‘They haven’t been for their last firing yet so the glazes will change. The heat brings out their personality. D’you like them?’ He sounded as though the answer was important.

  ‘I love them.’ Fern traced the rim of a dish. It was sensuous, but solid. Just like Hal, who was much improved by his clay-spattered overalls and the dust that clogged his hair and made it stand on end. ‘You’re an artist, Hal. A real artist.’

  ‘I’m lucky to do something I love. Just wish I could make a decent living at it. Sharing a house isn’t much fun.’

  ‘I dunno. Always somebody to talk to.’ Fern let go of his hand and drifted around the room, picking up a plate here, a mug there. ‘Always something going on.’

  ‘No privacy. I daren’t buy fancy cheese ’cos it gets nicked out of the fridge.’ Hal laughed. ‘Now I’ve said that out loud, it doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. I just want somewhere that’s mine. If I moved out of London I might be able to afford it.’

  Fern felt something stab her.

  ‘But I love it here.’

  Phew. ‘There’s a lovely atmosphere in this studio.’

  ‘Creative spaces are like that, don’t you think?’ Hal rubbed at a mark on a jug the colour of the pale sky outside. ‘Places where people make things. Pottery. Paintings. Music.’

  That set off unwelcome associations. There was no room for exes in Fern’s head today. She’d promised her libido it would be in charge. Hal was in the here and now, solid in his work clothes, wandering about his domain. Fern’s need reached for him, like a flower stretching towards the sun. He turned his back, fiddling with the dial of a bulky metal kiln. ‘Almost hot enough. Then I can start firing.’

  Fern worked fast. In this bright room she found the courage that had failed her in the flattering light of the hotel. Stepping noiselessly out of her jeans she slipped down her pants. Silky nothings with lace edges, they were nothing like her customary John Lewis pack of three cotton midi briefs. Pulling the blue jumper over her head, Fern tossed her hair, undoing all the careful styling. Bra. Quickly. Before he turns around.

  ‘Shall I put the kettl
e on?’ Hal turned. His eyes widened and his lips parted as his eyes travelled the length and breadth of Fern.

  Sideways on, one leg bent, shoulders back, she let him look. She kept her nerve. This is what a woman of my age looks like. Fern was neither a lingerie model nor a pensioner. She was what she was.

  And she was, according to Hal’s whisper, ‘Beautiful.’

  Hal strode to her and pressed her to him, her soft parts meeting buttons and zips. It was a matter of moments to undo them all and soon they were both naked, both trembling, both eager.

  Pushing a tray of paints and brushes off a low table, Hal ignored the clatter they made on the concrete floor. The mess . . . thought Fern, who apparently couldn’t switch off the housewife side of her brain even when about to make longed-for love.

  The kisses, harder, full of purpose, brought her mind back to the matter at hand. Hal was like warm marble, a statue come to life as he laid her on the table.

  ‘Sure?’ he said, his voice so close to her ear it could have sprung from inside her own head.

  ‘Sure sure,’ gasped Fern, who felt as though her body had been wound tight and might explode if he didn’t make his move.

  Like all first times, it wasn’t epic. They laughed about the speed of it, but they were both satisfied. Until the kissing started up again, when their appetites were renewed.

  Definitely one benefit of a younger man, thought Fern as Hal grabbed her hips and pressed her against a wooden dresser, the crockery rattling to the rhythm of his thrusts and her cries.

  ‘Is everything—’ A girl’s voice from the doorway died away. ‘. . . all right?’ The blonde, skinny thing in a stained apron ducked her head and retreated. ‘God sorry sorry Christ sorry.’

  ‘Uh oh,’ said Hal. ‘I’m going to be the talk of the complex.’

  ‘Then let’s give them something to talk about.’ Fern barely recognized the woman she’d become since stepping into the studio. ‘What do you want from this, Hal?’ she asked, her mouth against him.

  ‘You.’

  Fern had only ever had meaningful sex with two men in her life – she didn’t count the pre-Adam fumbles with sixth-form idiots – and she’d left one an hour earlier, and was now sitting in the dark with the other.

  Since that day in the studio, Fern and Hal hadn’t had a chance to renew their acquaintance with each other’s underwear. Fern was too shamefaced to return to the warehouse – there’d been applause as she left – and Homestead House was out of the question.

  Her time with Hal and her family life were entirely separate, as if she was two women in one body. There was Fern the mum, the cook, the nanny, the chauffeur, the storyteller, the tucker-in. And there was Fern the lover. When she imagined the two lives mingling, it seemed impossible. Introducing Hal to her family was such an absurd idea it almost made her laugh.

  Ollie would die. Tallulah might vomit. Nora would reach for her Bible. Adam . . . he might be pleased for her. They were chums now. They were pleasant. A line had been drawn under the old niggles, all IOU’s torn up.

  She sneaked a look at him in the dark of the school hall. He was intent on the harp solo, shrinking in his seat each time the hesitant Year Eight pupil plucked the wrong string. They’d already sat through the Year Seven jazz band, a clarinettist who’d burst into tears before playing a note, and their own daughter at the back of the choir belting out an unrecognizable ‘Hey Jude’.

  Sitting together, shoulder to shoulder, on the familiar uncomfortable chairs, felt solidly parent-like. In public they were still a unit, able to look as if they were enjoying themselves and then able to make it to the double doors without speaking to the deputy head (bad breath) or the head of the PTA (bad attitude). They still fitted together.

  ‘Funny way to spend Valentine’s night,’ whispered Fern.

  ‘I’ve had worse,’ said Adam. Leaning in, he mouthed, ‘Paris.’

  Fern smirked. Paris, where the bed had broken and not because of any hot action, but because they were in the sort of cheap and nasty hotel that gives cheap and nasty hotels a bad name. ‘Don’t forget the London Eye.’

  Adam had been sick on the London Eye. All over the roses he’d bought.

  He sighed. ‘We were never much cop at the romantic bits, were we?’

  ‘We did OK.’ Fern didn’t much care for that past tense, even though she knew it was appropriate, even though she’d spent the whole of the clarinet solo daydreaming about that bit of Hal where his lower back met his bottom. ‘Tallulah wants you to come back to ours for dinner,’ she said brusquely as the lights went up, careful not to sound as if she wanted it too. Because she didn’t. For all the chumminess, being with Adam just reminds me of everything we’ve lost.

  ‘Nut roast!’ said Adam, in the pseudo-jolly tone of a man who’s spotted a corpse in the river but is determined not to let it spoil his day.

  Tallulah sprawled back in her seat, pretending to die. ‘It’s ’cos Donna’s a vegetarian,’ she said, taking care with the word. ‘Mum’s been experimenting.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Adam flatly.

  ‘It’s highly nutritious.’ Fern put the lumpen roast on the table.

  ‘She always says that when it’s disgusting,’ said Tallulah.

  As the table filled up, as faces fell at the sight of their dinner, Fern took Amelie from Donna’s grasp. ‘Sit, love, and eat. I’ll hold her. You should be on your way by now.’

  ‘On her way where?’ Adam poured gravy over his slab of nut roast. A lot of gravy.

  ‘It’s date night.’ Fern answered before Donna could, excited for the lovebirds.

  Tallulah was studying Donna, whose heavy make-up covered the eye bags doled out to all new mothers. ‘Eyeliner is against my beliefs,’ she said. ‘But yours does look completely stunning.’

  ‘I just hope I can stay awake on the bus.’ Donna, who was honour bound to enjoy the roast, did her best with the sticky mass on her fork.

  ‘Did you put that new cream on madam’s bumbum?’ Fern jiggled the baby in her arms. ‘Is the rash clearing up?’

  ‘Yes and yes,’ said Donna, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Can I have a go?’ Adam held out his arms. Sitting back from the table, he stared at Amelie as if trying to memorize her. ‘I’m besotted with you,’ he said. ‘Completely besotted.’

  Ollie said, ‘She’s not like other babies. Their cries go right through you. Amelie cries like a little lamb.’

  ‘A little lamb in a horror film,’ said Tallulah.

  Nora, who’d given up with the nut roast and was ostentatiously buttering bread, said, ‘Has the real father not seen Amelie yet? What’s his name? Moss or something.’

  ‘Maz,’ said Fern. She glanced at Ollie and Donna, whose heads were down. Adam was looking up to heaven and probably counting to ten. Or a hundred, maybe; Nora had that effect on people. ‘Amelie’s biological father has decided not to be involved. As for real, well, Ollie’s her real dad in the true sense of the word.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Nora. Then, in case anybody had missed it, she said it again. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Hey chaps,’ said Adam, changing the subject and passing Amelie to his other arm, ‘Penny’s arranged for us all to be in the audience when they film the London episode of Roomies.’

  The mood picked up. ‘Can we go backstage?’ Ollie looked more like an excitable teenager than a family man.

  ‘Can we meet Lincoln Speed?’ Tallulah’s darkest secret was her deep love for the star. Everybody knew about it.

  ‘Don’t see why not.’ If Adam was trying not to look smug, it wasn’t working. ‘Might bring my guitar. Give ’em a song.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll name his new baby after you!’ Tallulah was nothing if not ambitious.

  ‘He’s already named it,’ said Adam. Lincoln Speed’s latest chip off the old block had been conceived with a make-up artist. In a cupboard, apparently, which seemed less than romantic to Fern, who had higher expectations from a date. ‘Harrington.’

  ‘Why does he
call all his children surnames?’ Fern reeled off the list, a dark-side Waltons. ‘Winwood. Ford. Drummond. Hamilton. Boyd. Reilly. Griffin. Benton.’

  ‘They’re gorgeous names.’ Tallulah defended her idol. ‘If you have another baby, Mum, let’s call it Carruthers.’

  ‘Mum’s far too old to have a baby.’ Ollie found the idea comical.

  Fern less so.

  Nora prodded Adam. ‘What number are you in the hit parade?’ Even she’d been impressed when Kinky Mimi released a track on iTunes. ‘Melt My Panther’ had been reviewed by an online magazine: ‘sneakily funky with a banging underbelly’. Fern had no idea whether that was praise or not.

  ‘One hundred and twenty three,’ mumbled Adam, kissing Amelie extravagantly on her flossy hair. ‘We’re building our audience,’ he added.

  ‘How’s Keith’s hernia?’ asked Fern, all innocence.

  ‘He’s recovering, thank you.’ Adam knew what she was doing, and was tart when he added, ‘Even rock stars get hernias, Fern.’

  ‘Cannot imagine Justin Timberlake with hernia,’ said Evka.

  Other families might talk about the big things, about life and death, around the table but at Fern’s house it always came down to trivia. She was glad; hernias were a lot more entertaining than philosophy. She asked Evka how her latest typically English pastime had gone. ‘Harrods, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Is just big shop.’ Evka curled her lip. ‘I thought it sells tigers or has gold walls. Very disappointing. Like man I meet in Harrods lift.’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘So bad at sex.’

  Fern coughed but Tallie’s giggle meant she hadn’t got there in time. As ever, Nora made no comment; her brain filtered out Evka’s vulgarities.

  Tallulah asked, ‘What did your boyfriend in Bratislava do that was so cruel, Evka? Did he oppress you?’

  ‘Or suggest that you wear, like, actual clothes?’ added Fern.

  ‘Worse than all these. It is unspeakable. I do not speak of it.’ Evka clenched her teeth. ‘I never go back.’