by Judy Astley
She sat at the table like a good child, letting Graham make toast for them both. He refilled the coffee machine and set it up ready for her mid-morning drink.
‘What time is she coming?’ Monica asked. Graham couldn’t remember if that was exactly what she’d asked before. It sounded like it; he should listen more carefully. Perhaps the not listening was something in the blood. At work he’d got into the habit of only half listening. Really it was all he needed, that and enough calming phrases to reassure the patients on their journeys round the hospital. The ones lying on trolleys were usually only half there anyway, absent in their pain or shock or anaesthesia. The ones in the wheelchairs were talking to the space in front of them. He had time for his own thoughts, time to dream about what might turn into a future with Jennifer if he only had the nerve. There seemed to be a sequence of steps in a relationship that he hadn’t quite got the hang of in the same way other people had. When he observed other couples, just sitting together in the hospital café, or strolling on the Common or shopping, it was like watching a ballroom full of people dancing something complicated and Latin American and making it look as if it was the easiest possible thing.
‘Time for me to go, Ma,’ he said, bending to kiss the white-whiskery face. For the first time he noticed how lined her skin was, neatly and evenly crazed like a drought-stricken African riverbed.
‘Well I don’t suppose she’ll be long,’ Monica said, looking at the clock. It said 7.45. Perhaps she thinks it’s the evening, Graham thought, feeling horribly alarmed.
‘No I don’t suppose she’ll be long,’ he agreed.
‘I’m going back to school today,’ Emily announced, appearing in the kitchen with her bag of books and wearing clothes without holes in them. Nina glanced up at the clock and back to Emily. ‘You must have got up incredibly early,’ she said. ‘It’s not even eight yet and you’ve washed your hair.’
‘Oh thanks,’ Emily replied, dropping her bags onto the sofa. ‘I actually thought you’d be pleased, glad that I’m all out of victim mode and back to normal as they say.’
Risking the usual early morning rebuff, Nina got up and went to hug her. Emily was unusually relaxed about it, allowing her mother to touch her for a full five seconds before shrugging her off and reaching across to the cupboard over the sink for a mug. ‘Sorry Em. Of course I’m pleased. I certainly don’t want you to fail your A-levels just because some man—’
‘Some bastard,’ corrected Emily immediately.
‘All right, some bastard . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah. Don’t go on about it. I don’t need reminding. I’ve had enough of all that from the police. That sergeant woman, she keeps asking me if I want Victim Support and counselling and all that. I just think the longer I drag it out, the more he’ll have possession of my head.’ She took her coffee and sat at the table, opposite Nina. Her eyes looked less confident than she’d sounded.
‘I am right, aren’t I? Mum?’
‘I expect so. Only you can know that. You are if that’s what you think. Have you talked it over with Joe?’
Emily grinned. ‘I didn’t see that much of him over the weekend. Not by himself anyway. He was working Friday night, and then on Saturday he took Lucy to see Fulham get creamed by Sheffield Wednesday. And then there was Sunday. He cooked a mega lunch by the way. Catherine’s always there and I’m not talking to her about anything.’
‘Oh yes, Catherine,’ Nina murmured, thinking of the thermometer again. Perhaps this weekend there’d been a peak on the temperature chart and that was why Joe had worked late on Friday night. She imagined him skulking in a bar till he could make a reasonable guess that Catherine would have lost interest or gone to sleep, and then sliding into the flat with his shoes in his hand like a teenager terrified of being grounded. Why, she wondered, had he not simply tried telling her he didn’t want any more babies and laying in a supply of top-quality condoms? She would ask him next time they met.
‘Do you know she doesn’t like proper roast potatoes, not the way Dad does them in goose fat?’ Emily was saying. ‘When I say doesn’t like, I mean she doesn’t approve. She says they should only be done in olive oil with rosemary otherwise we’ll all die of clogged arteries. Then Dad told her, he said, “We sometimes did them like that at home.” You should have seen her face!’ Emily got up, rinsed her cup and picked up her schoolbag. ‘Got to go, meeting Chloe at the bus stop,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Are you taking Lucy and Sophie today?’
‘Yes I am, why?’
‘Just wondered.’ Emily was fiddling with her hair, looking shifty, Nina suddenly thought. ‘What’s Lucy likely to tell me when you’re not around?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Did I even suggest it? And if she does, she’s making it up, OK? It was just a strange dream she had. See you later.’ And she was gone.
Nina shoved cereal bowls into the dishwasher, quickly wiped over the worktops and went out into the garden to see what was growing. The ceanothus, which was reaching out so far from the fence that it almost blocked the side gate, was about to flower. Pots of pink tulips had reached their last stage of appeal, with their petals thrown open to the sun and their elongated pale stems stretched like pleading. From an open window far upstairs she could hear Lucy singing along with the radio, putting on a voice that was supposed to sound sassy and American. Lucy was probably singing to the mirror, with her toothbrush as a pretend microphone, posing sexily like something out of Baywatch. It reminded her of Megan and Sophie’s forthcoming trip to Barbados, which everyone had seemed to decide not to mention. It was probably soon – much later and Megan would be too pregnant to be allowed on a plane.
‘Morning! Any coffee going?’ Henry appeared through the side gate, shoving aside the ceanothus and wandering casually into the garden. ‘Your delphiniums are coming along. They’re going to need staking, though.’ He marched across the terrace and started poking at the stems, weaving them together. As soon as he let go they collapsed again.
‘Sorry Henry, no coffee right now. I’ve got to do the school run. I’m just about to go and collect Sophie from across the road.’
Henry looked disappointed for a moment and then immediately cheered up. ‘I’ll come over with you. See what the lovely Megan looks like first thing in the morning!’
‘Oh she’ll be really thrilled to see you, I’m sure. All women just love a surprise visit from a man before 8.30,’ Nina told him with knowing sarcasm. ‘Come on, I don’t want to make these girls late.’ She walked through the kitchen, picked up her bag and called up the stairs: ‘Lucy! Time to go!’
‘You’d better lock this gate out here,’ Henry said, pointing back to the garden. ‘I came to tell you, there’s been another girl attacked on the Common. Late on Saturday night apparently. This time he had a knife and made her hand over her underwear. Didn’t do anything else though. Strange.’
Lucy thundered down the stairs and met them at the front door. ‘What’s happened, why are you looking so serious?’ she demanded.
‘Another girl’s had some trouble with a man on the Common. Like Emily did,’ Nina explained calmly. It was pointless to keep it from her: it would be all round the school by the end of the morning. At the gate, parents would be muttering to each other and hiding the facts under half-sentences and meaningful looks and their puzzled children would make up their own lurid versions. Lucy’s eyes glowed huge and round. ‘Wow that’s really horrible!’ she said, already halfway out of the door longing to spread the news. ‘I’ll just go across and knock on Sophie’s door!’ she yelled back to them.
Nina shuddered. ‘God, I hope they catch him soon. There’s nothing worse than not feeling safe. Ridiculously, it hadn’t occurred to me that the thing with Emily was anything more than a one-off. I take it they do think it’s the same person?’
Henry shrugged. ‘Not sure. I was just in Mr Patel’s picking up a Mirror and heard someone talking.’
Lucy was bouncing with the excitement of being the bearer of ne
ws and Nina could hear her imparting the gossip from across the road. The words ‘exposing’ (which Lucy thought was a rather grand and grown-up technical word) and ‘knife’ could be heard quite clearly, given loud and dramatic emphasis. Megan, stunning in loose black trousers and a flowing pink linen shirt, was looking pale and tight-lipped. Her arms were folded firmly across the baby-bulge as if protecting it from hearing. Nina waited at the gate for the two girls to come out but Megan beckoned her in and she and Henry strolled up the path.
Megan gave Nina a cool look. ‘Girls, go and wait by the car, will you. I just want a word with Lucy’s mummy.’ Her smile, Nina thought, would freeze rivers.
‘What’s the matter? Is Sophie all right?’
Megan’s head tipped prettily to one side and she beamed at Henry before turning to Nina. ‘Look, I don’t want to be difficult, but we do try to shield Sophie from the nastier side of life. Without being unrealistic about things, you understand. It’s just that she’ll come across all the horrors of the grown-up world quite soon enough, thank you.’ Nina felt as if she’d been told off for talking in class. If she’d had hackles, they’d be rising. Megan was standing, still with her arms folded, a picture of self-righteousness.
‘Well I’m sorry if Lucy was a bit over-eager to pass on the news, but don’t you think Sophie needs to be just slightly aware that it’s not all Disneyland out there?’ Nina said. ‘I mean she’s nearly ten. It’s not impossible that she could take it into her head to trot off on her own to make a camp in the bushes on the Common.’
‘No she wouldn’t do that. I’ve told her not to.’
‘Told her there’s witches and bogeymen out there, have you?’ Henry cut in. ‘That’ll really do the trick.’
‘Henry, please. That doesn’t help,’ Nina said. ‘Look Megan I’m sorry but a real girl was attacked, there is a real problem.’
Megan sniffed. ‘What on earth was a girl doing strutting about on the Common late on a Saturday night anyway? Quite honestly she’s only got herself to blame, if you ask me. It was simply asking for trouble.’
Nina sighed and gave up.
‘We’d better get going,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘Lucy’s got an early recorder lesson. I’ll see you later, but I can’t do this afternoon, I have to go and see my mother.’
‘Oh all right, sorry.’ Megan looked flustered. ’Look I’m really sorry, you’re probably right. Don’t take any notice of me.’ She smiled and patted her swollen stomach. ‘It’s probably just hormones or something. I’ll pick the girls up.’
‘Hormones, buggery,’ Henry sniffed as they reached the car. ‘She’s scared, that’s the truth.’
‘I don’t know why, she never goes on the Common, not as far as I know. They don’t even have a dog.’
Nina opened her car door and threw her handbag across to the passenger seat. As she climbed in, Henry’s face came close enough for her to smell soap, sweet powdery baby soap. ‘Dog or no dog, believe me, she’s scared enough. By the way, did either of us actually mention to her that it was late Saturday? I don’t recall. I guess she must already have heard.’ He shrugged, ‘Bye now, have a nice day.’
‘Tell me about your weekend then.’
Emily sat in the cloakroom with Chloe, hidden behind coats, feet up on the shoe racks. They were skiving assembly and knew that if any staff came checking for stragglers they’d stop at the door, glance lazily over the floor for feet and if they saw none, stroll away again.
‘My weekend?’ Chloe looked at the ceiling and pretended to ponder. ‘My weekend by Chloe Ellis,’ she announced, then giggled, ‘Well it was so boring, I might as well have had a straight run from Friday through to today with no gap. I slept and watched TV and worked. To prove I did nothing more exciting than French revision I could recite you the subjunctive of the verb être, or I could just give in and say, “OK Emily, go ahead and tell me about your weekend.” I can see you’re almost exploding to.’
‘I got him,’ Emily said simply, watching Chloe’s face for a satisfying reaction.
‘Got him? Who? Nick? I thought you could have him any old time you wanted. So did he.’
‘Sod off. Simon, the one I told you about.’ Why did even your best friend do that? she wondered: pretend they’ve forgotten everything you’ve had most on your mind, everything important and special that you’ve dumped on them, just so they can spoil the moment.
‘Oh him. When you say “got”, do you mean, like, bed-wise?’ Chloe’s eager eyes betrayed her interest. She was gleaming for details and Emily felt duly satisfied. She hesitated. ‘How and when and what etcetera,’ Chloe finally demanded.
Emily amazed herself with what she left out. She wouldn’t admit to the fear-feelings of being out in the Saturday night crowd. Couldn’t admit to terror that Simon would laugh at her and march her straight back to Joe’s. Skilfully, she glamorized the night, told of a secret midnight arrangement, lied that he’d sent a taxi to wait round the corner while she made sure Lucy was sleeping and slid like a hunting cat out through the door. Sometimes truth crept in. ‘We haven’t done it,’ she confessed. ‘Not yet. It’ll be all the more exciting because of the wait.’
Chloe looked confused. ‘Why haven’t you? You went to all that trouble and then didn’t do it? What did you do, have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit and then go home?’
Emily giggled, ‘Well actually, more or less that.’ Chloe looked doubtful. ‘It’s not because I’m younger, it’s not that,’ she insisted. It was the man on the Common, that was what it was all about. Lying on Simon’s bed, feeling his warm breath and his fingers stroking the soft tender skin of her stomach under her shirt, she’d curled herself up, away from him, protecting herself in case he suddenly turned animal, tore off his own clothes, confronted her with unstoppable violence that was nothing to do with sex.
She’d told him about it, after he’d coaxed and persuaded. She’d muttered her story into the pillow, not much caring whether he really heard or understood. Later, he was kissing tears from her face gently like a cat tending a sleepy kitten, but his hand was reaching for the phone, calling for a taxi.
‘But next time,’ she grinned at Chloe. She crossed her fingers and stroked the wood of the bench beneath her. Let there be a next time. He hadn’t actually said.
‘Yeah, keep them waiting, make them pant,’ Chloe agreed.
‘I think he’s up to something. He’s got a secret,’ Monica told Nina in the chic French coffee shop overlooking the pond. The au pairs were out there again on the benches like match substitutes who just know they’re not going to be asked to play, smoking desperately and glaring at their toddling charges.
‘What, Graham? What sort of secret?’
Nina wondered, as she had before, about Graham and sex. It surely played some part in his life; he wasn’t neutered like his old grey tomcat. Whatever private affairs he was up to, she couldn’t blame him for not letting on to Monica. She remembered, with horrible pitying clarity, when Graham at seventeen had, after much brooding and courage-building, asked a girl called Helen to go to see The Italian Job with him. Helen had been meek and blond and had a Saturday job at the sweetshop on the corner. As soon as Monica knew what Graham planned, she’d made a point of going in for a box of Quality Street and a chat about Graham’s favourite chocolate centres. ‘Your Helen’ she was referred to in the house, as in ‘Why don’t you invite Your Helen round for tea on Sunday’ and ‘I had a nice chat with Your Helen at the bus stop today’. Monica couldn’t resist involving herself. She would have called it taking an interest, looking out for Graham, making sure he didn’t get hurt. Quite soon, Helen was seen on the back of a motor bike, legs and arms wrapped round a new and more thrilling love in her life, one whose mother probably didn’t even know her name. Monica, air of disappointment and told-you-so to the fore, referred to her for long after Graham’s pride had recovered, as That Helen.
‘Perhaps he’s met someone,’ Nina suggested. ‘Is he out a lot?’
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��Not so much out, not out like saying he’s going somewhere special.’ Monica’s fork was dissecting a slice of chocolate gâteau into bite-sized pieces. ‘He says he’s going out to watch the owls on the Common. He takes his balaclava thing, you know, the one I knitted for him when he first went plane-spotting and used to get earache. So he’s camouflaged, he says. Then he’s out for hours.’
‘Oh right, I see. Well he’s always liked owls, hasn’t he? And planes of course, anything that flies.’ Nina laughed.
Monica’s fork started mashing the cake, as if she couldn’t really recall how it should be eaten. It reminded Nina of a child with a lost appetite, trying to hide the food by making it look smaller. She wanted to say something gentle like, ‘If you don’t want that cake, just leave it,’ but the words stuck, they sounded too parental, as if the two of them were subtly swapping roles. She hoped she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t ready for that yet.
Sometimes he takes an extra coat, too, as well as his old waxy one. A good one, as if he’s really off to somewhere else. He smiles a lot,’ Monica eventually said.
‘Oh does he?’ Nina was interested. ‘Then perhaps he has met someone. That would be a good thing wouldn’t it?’ she encouraged her mother. ‘Don’t you think it would be nice for him to have someone to go out and have some fun with? After all, it’s been a long time coming.’
Monica went silent and started shoving cake into her mouth. She didn’t stop till it had all gone, coughing occasionally on the dry crumbs and finally sitting looking sulky with chocolate smeared on her lips.
‘He’s all right as he is. We’re all right. No need for things to change,’ she said at last. Nina decided not to pursue it.
‘Look – let’s go off somewhere,’ she suggested. ‘How’s the hip, can you manage to stroll round Harrods? You always used to take me there when I was little and needed cheering up.’
Monica frowned. ‘The hip is fine and I don’t need cheering up,’ she said. She was taking her time to think and consider. There was the beginning of a smile in her eyes, so Nina knew she was pleased at the idea. ‘All right, if that’s what you’d like, we’ll go. Just let me go to the Ladies.’