by Sarah May
Down in Dorset they could be busy together all afternoon, especially in the greenhouse or out in the vegetable patch. Toby loved helping in the seedbeds, crouching low with his hands in the mud, and Lauren and him mumbling to themselves. Then Lauren would stand up and stretch, check the position of the sun in the sky and shake her head, laughing. ‘Listen to uslike a couple of old women twittering on.’
Toby would grin back at her, pleased. He liked the idea of being a twittering old woman if it meant crouching in the mud with the sun on your back being allowed to talk to yourself without interruption.
Ros was terrified of her mother and that had never changed over the years. Apart from a couple of requests for money in the early years, which Lauren had always been obliging about and always made clear were gifts, not loans, Ros made very few demands on her. She shared the good news with her and remained silent about any bad.
‘Why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll sort the children,’ Lauren said in the soft Canadian accent she’d never lost, while drawing a packet of cigarettes out of her back pocket.
Ros nodded and turned to Martin. ‘You want to come up and take a shower?’
Martin, too full of horror at the prospect of having to share a shower with his wife to reply, let his mouth fall loosely opensomething which had started to give him a double chin in the last six months or so.
‘Okaywell, I’ll go on up,’ Ros said at last. ‘They’re delivering the stalls in the next forty-five minutes. I’d better get on.’
Martin nodded, amazed that Ros didn’t comment on the fact that her mother had just drawn a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of her jeans pocket and was now proceeding to light one.
Martin couldn’t believe it.
Ros had gone up without a word and left her mother smoking in their kitchen.
Nobody was allowed to smoke inside No. 188 Prendergast Road; nobody was allowed to even smell of smoke inside No. 188 Prendergast Road. Those who did were sent into the garden.
And here was Lauren, smoking in their kitchen and flicking the ash into the sink.
God, he wasn’t even allowed to dream about smoking a cigarette. ‘D’you want an ashtray for that?’ he said, bitterly, as she tapped another sprinkling of ash into the sink.
‘You don’t have an ashtray,’ Lauren said, without turning round.
‘You’re rightwe don’t have an ashtray. Because nobody in the house smokes,’ he tried not to yell.
‘That’s right,’ she agreed.
‘Look, Lauren…’ At last she turned round. Was that a smile on her faceever so slight? Was Lauren smiling at him? ‘I don’t know what arrangement you’ve come to with Ros about this, but I—’
‘You what?’ she cut in. ‘You really think the nicotine from this cigarette’s going to cause more damage to this family than you are? I don’t think so.’
She exhaled deeply and turned away to pour herself a cup of tea, which she did with a steady hand.
Martin was transfixed by the steady handhe couldn’t have done a steady hand after saying something like that.
She stood with her cup of tea in one hand and cigarette in the other, staring out through the window againwithout the enjoyment of before when she’d seen all the pigeons in the ivy. ‘Why did you ever do it? You should never have done it.’
She kept her back turned to him as she said it.
Martin stared at her shoulder blades, which were pronounced, like Ros’s. Did she know? Had Ros found out about Martina? Had Ros told Lauren?
At last she turned round. ‘You’ve never made any effort to make this marriage work.’
She didn’t know about Martina.
‘I can’t help it,’ Martin said. It didn’t feel wrong saying it; he didn’t even feel particularly sorry. It suddenly occurred to him that he’d as good as told Lauren he was goingso why didn’t he? He hadn’t taken his jacket off or even put his bags down. He was ready to go. So what if he just went? What if he didn’t go upstairs and take a shower. What if he just turned round and walked out of the kitchen, down the corridor and out of the house?
‘This is your life,’ Lauren insisted quietly, but with just the right tone of command.
‘Well, I don’t want it,’ Martin said with an overwhelming sense of relief, beaming triumphantly at his mother-in-law, without a hint of malignancy. ‘I don’t want it.’
‘I’ve always hated you Martin,’ she said.
Ignoring thisit was only to be expected, and was no surprisehe continued to smile happily at her, and was on the verge of leaving when he heard somebody padding into the kitchen. Turning round, he saw his son standing there. He’d forgotten about the children.
‘You’re home,’ Toby observed flatly, staring at his father then past him. ‘Balloons.’
‘Hey there, Tobes,’ Martin said, lumpish, in his strained, fake-father voice, which sounded even more strained than usual right then because of the exchange between Lauren and him. ‘How’s school been?’ Every time he had contact with his son, he came out with a cliché along these lines.
Toby made the sort of response he often made when he didn’t like the turn a conversation took, or felt that a question was too direct and therefore, to him, confrontational: he quoted a sentenceor sometimes up to an entire paragraphfrom a current reading book.
Right then, he said, ‘Danger lurks behind every tree. God bless you, my child.’
Martin nodded as knowingly as he could, and smiled, aware that he was still poised to leave.
Toby didn’t smile back.
‘Mum’s crying,’ he announced.
Lauren put her cigarette down and stared at Martin.
Toby hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but the way Lauren was looking at him was turning it into one.
This was the moment; this was it.
He was standing between a woman he’d never particularly liked, in a kitchen he’d never particularly liked, with a son he didn’t know how to love. Upstairs there was a woman he didn’t love, crying. None of it had to matter any more because he could just walk out. All he had to do was put one foot in front of the other and head for the front door.
If he didn’tif he went upstairs now insteadhe might never leave; this moment might never happen again and he couldn’t carry on standing here for ever.
He turned away from Lauren and his son and started to walk. He got as far as the fridge when the doorbell rangand stopped.
Lauren pushed past him and went to answer it.
He thoughtabsurdlythat it might be Martina.
It was the lorry delivering the scaffolding and awnings for the stall.
He heard Lauren talking to them, giving detailed instructions, aware that he was alone in the kitchen with his son. He turned to face Toby, who picked up a balloon, which popped mystifyingly almost as soon as he touched it.
Without knowing exactly how or why, Martin realised suddenly that the moment had passed.
He brushed his hand gently over his son’s head and went upstairs.
Chapter 43
Martina was going hometwo months earlier than originally intended. Joel could hear her on the other side of the bedroom wall, packing her things with Aggie, who was devastated.
He and Evie had sat up waiting for her the night Martin had called round. When she’d finally appeared, around midnight, Evie had been far more sympathetic than she’d anticipated, and Joel far more angry than he’d anticipated. This wasn’t something they had since talked about, but both of them were aware of it.
Martina had cried that nighta lotand Evie had held her, and the two women had sat there holding each other on the sofa, locked in a female complicity that Joel just hadn’t been able to fathom. Since that night of tears, hugs and retribution, Martina had gained a strange ascendancy over him. He often caught Evie and her laughing together in a way they never had before, and couldn’t shake the feelingevery time he heard themthat they were laughing about him.
Martina had confessed to Evie that she was scared of Marti
n, who she’d been trying to leave anyway because she thought he was becoming obsessive. Evie had become very hung up on this notion of Martin being obsessive, and of helping Martina to escape. Evie’s mother, Cassandra, had been brought down from St Helen’s where she was enjoying the early throes of a second marriage, in order to drive Martina to the airport while the street party was in full swing. Joel couldn’t quite see the point in all this secrecyit was hardly like they’d had to take out a restraining order on Martin or anything.
At least Martina’s departure back to her boringly stable post-communist home town meant he could start sourcing the kind of au pairas it became clear speaking to his agent, Toryyou were meant to have: Kurdish, Chinese (so your children would become fluent in time for the Chinese world takeover), or at the very least Chechen.
Martinalike the Barcelona chair he’d bought a couple of years ago that they were now filling hotel lobbies withhad been a dead-end acquisition. There was something pitiful about having a Slovak au paireven a Slovak who was having an affair.
His career was flat at the moment, so he had time to think about these things. Tory was dragging her expensive heels over the retrospective of his work he’d been talking up for the past year, and now it looked as though it might not happen at all. He’d been harder hit by this piece of news than he’d ever anticipated. In fact, a mighty worm had set up camp inside him, and it was of the mighty worm’s increasing opinion that if he hadn’t put so much energy into Evie and Evie’s career over the past three years, maybe his own energy reserves would be more intact. Resentment wasn’t something Joel had ever really felt before, so he was having trouble even putting a name to it.
He finished getting dressed and was about to go downstairs when the door to their bedroom opened and Aggie walked in, holding Martina’s phone.
‘Watch this.’
‘What is it?’
Aggie giggled and sat down on the bed. ‘It’s the pig filmMartina said I could have the pig film.’
Martina appeared briefly in the bedroom doorway. ‘Maybe you want to make a copy for Aggieput it on your computer.’
‘Put it on your computer,’ Aggie said.
‘But what is it?’
‘It’s starting nowwatch,’ Aggie commanded, excited.
‘This is the pig film?’
On the tiny screen, he watched a boy of about ten in a red hat push his face up close, grinning. In the background there was a loud cheering. The boy turned round, away from the camera. He ran jerkily away from it across a yard covered in partially melted snow towards an indistinct group of people who had a cement wall and drainpipe behind them.
The boy came grinning back across the yard, followed by similarly dressed childrenan old woman in the background gesticulating and waving something in the air that was, Joel soon realised, a knife. Then all the people were left behind and the only thing on screen was two gloved hands holdingbrieflya bloodied pig’s head with its eyes shut, before the head was dropped into the snow and what looked like a game of football started. The film ended.
A vague sense of outrage started to creep over him at the thought of their non-Kurdish au pair showing Aggie homemade films of her relatives playing football with a freshly sawn-off pig’s head.
Then he had an idea. The idea.
‘You want me to make a copy of this so you can watch it on the computer?’
Aggie nodded, and skipped back into Martina’s room.
Joel started to download the clip then sent it to Tory. As he unplugged the lead from Martina’s phone, a message came up: five missed calls. Half curious, he took a closer look. They were all from Martin. He’d phoned her five times in the past hour.
Through the open window, he could hear the diesel engine of a taxi making its way up Prendergast Road. Martina’s phone started suddenly ringing. Startled, Joel nearly dropped it as Martina appeared again in the bedroom door.
‘It’s Martin,’ he said blankly, handing her the phone.
He watched her check the screen then switch it off.
The next minute his phone started to ring. Martina gave him a quick look. They were both having the same thoughtMartin.
‘Hello?’
‘Joel?’ Tory barked. ‘I need to talk businessthat film you just sent.’
‘Film?’ Joel tried to concentrate.
‘The pig filmjust nowI was online.’
‘The…. Oh, yeah.’ Joel turned his back on Martina.
‘Joel, are you with me?’
‘Yeah, I’m with you…I didn’t think you’d get it till Monday. So, what d’you think?’
‘Well…I more than liked it, Joel.’
‘You did?’
Tory hadn’t more than liked anything he’d done in years.
‘It was just so…so fucking eloquent,’ she carried on.
Now she had his full attention. Fucking eloquenthe’d thought so.
‘Where did you film it?’
Joel had given this some thought. ‘The Balkans.’
‘When were you in the Balkans?’
‘I was there in Nineteen ninety-eightremember?’
Tory didn’t. ‘Of course. Of course,’ she said again. ‘Have you got a title for it?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you need to think of a title. We’ll talk. If we get this right, Joel, I’m seriously thinking about the Turner Prize. I mean, what you’ve done here, it turns its back on gimmickryit’s just so raw. I’m shutting up now. We’ll talk…’
He was rawhe was turning his back on gimmickrythe Turner Prize…
Chapter 44
Margery was back at No. 22 following Leicestershire Council’s decision to remove her bungalow’s old windows and replace them with uPVC double glazing, rendering her home temporarily uninhabitable. This was how she put it to Robert, knowing it would provokeas it promptly didan invitation to come and stay with them. Which was why, on the morning of the 12 June, she came to be standing at the bay window looking through Kate and Robert’s single glazing at Kate as she turned into the gate at No. 22 with two Tesco carrier bags.
It didn’t occur to Margery to go and open the door. She stayed where she was, listening to her daughter-in-law turn the key in the lock, and only turned round when Kate poked her head into the room to see how Flo and Findlay were doing.
Both her and Margery watched Flo try to pick up a plastic cube that rattled, her hands wide open, distended as she tried to grasp the object, concentrating so hard she was letting out a succession of rasping sounds. ‘She’ll be crawling soon,’ Margery observed. ‘You’ll have to get a playpen.’
‘Where’s Findlay?’ Kate asked, ignoring this.
‘Upstairs.’ Margery couldn’t be any more specific than this because she hadn’t actually been upstairs. She’d been too busy down here watching Kate’s friend Evie and her husband start to construct the stalls.
‘Isn’t Robert up yet?’ Kate said.
‘Haven’t heard a peep from himmust be fast asleep still.’
Kate stared at her then backed out of the room with the shopping.
A few seconds later, Margery heard her banging about in the kitchen. ‘When’s your mother getting here?’ she called out.
‘In about twenty minutesshe just rang. Listen, it’s a help-yourself breakfast this morning. I’ve got to get out and start on the stalls.’
Margery smiled flatly at her reflection in the window. Since when wasn’t it a help-yourself breakfast in this house?
She went through to the kitchen, walking through the shafts of dust that the sunlight illuminated.
Kate was in the study, irritably folding away the sofa bed.
‘I was getting to that,’ Margery said defensively.
‘Margery, it’s fine.’ With a grunt, Kate let go of the handle and the bed base dropped into place inside the sofa. ‘It’s Robert’s job.’
Without commenting on this, Margery started to pick up her stray belongingsthe nightdress case Robert had made her in home economics, the p
ink plastic hairbrush. Wincing with the effort, Margery knelt down and pushed the small suitcase she’d bought in the ASDA luggage sale under the armchair. ‘There,’ she said, getting unsteadily to her feet again. ‘Tidy enough for you now?’
‘Margery…’
‘I would of done the bed if you’d given me a chance.’
‘It’s not your job, it’s Robert’s,’ Kate said again, trying not to lose patience.
The next minute she was banging around in the kitchen in an attempt to wake up Robert. Margery knew exactly what she was doingKate was far more spiteful than she gave herself credit for.
Margery remained poised in the study doorway, feeling stranded. She often felt stranded at No. 22 Prendergast Road, and as a consequence spent a lot of time hovering in doorways. Something Kate had commented on to Robert, saying that all his mother did was hang constantly in doorways. Most people moved between rooms in a house, but not Margery. Margery moved between doorways.
She held onto the doorframe as the bout of vertigo passed. These were now happening on a regular basis and were probablyEdith pointed outthe precursor to a stroke. A fortnight ago it had happened after her weekly ASDA trip as she was getting off the mobility bus with her shopping at the end of the estate. The bus doors had opened onto a thick black roadside puddle, the sun had been shining, and in the distance she’d heard the sounds of horses making their way from the stables up the road towards the fields near the bypass. She’d looked up at the sound, then the next minute felt herself falling. She’d come to almost instantlyas two of the passengers and the driver got to her.
She could smell mud from the verge she was lying face down across, the bottom half of her legs were wet, she hurt everywhere, one of the bags her shopping had been in was flapping near her face and the vacuum-pack bag of carrot batons had exploded when she’d landed on top of it. The bus driver was saying to her, ‘Come on love, let’s get you onto your feet.’ There were hands all over herall of them olda face she recognised came briefly into view, but she couldn’t move. She just lay there sobbing, her mouth full of grass and mud.