by Jane Shemilt
“He’s better than he was.” Eve places glasses on the table, then napkins, knives, and forks. She sips wine as she moves about the kitchen, stirring the food, glancing at her children. These moments before supper are always the best of the day, warm with the presence of her children safely gathered in. Ash rolls his red tractor around the surfaces of the room, making engine noises; watching him, her tensions dissipate, her shoulders relax.
“I think Noah might have eaten something bad.” Poppy draws a neat margin in her math book. “He’s been sick and there are bits in it.” She jerks her head at the small pile of vomit in his basket, dark pellets in it. Eve rinses the cushion in a bucket then puts it in the washing machine. It’s lucky the dog survived.
“Noah got into the shed this afternoon.” She ruffles Poppy’s hair as she passes. “He ate some fertilizer but he’s getting better now.”
Poppy moves her head away. The braids are gone; her hair is almost shaved at the back. She’d insisted, before the start of secondary school. Eve had watched sorrowfully as the red hair fell in thick curls on the floor of the salon. Braids were babyish, Izzy had said. There are lines of blue across Poppy’s eyelids, she looks older than eleven. Eve longs to touch her cheek, take her hand and kiss it, but what might have been fine six months ago isn’t now.
Ash runs his truck lightly over Noah’s back. Sorrel pushes her little brother away.
“Noah wants to sleep,” she says.
Poppy looks up. “Izzy will think you’re being mean to Ash, Sorrel. She doesn’t like mean people.”
Sorrel puts her thumb in her mouth; tears bulge then slide slowly down her cheeks.
“Jesus.” Poppy rolls her eyes.
Eve needs to hurry supper, everyone’s tired. “Wash hands, please, food’s nearly ready.”
The children jostle briefly at the sink and she washes her hands afterward, noticing with a little jolt that her ruby ring isn’t on her finger. And then she remembers, she left it on the bedside table this afternoon. She hurries upstairs and into their room, her hand outstretched, but she halts with a sick sense of shock; the ring is gone. She moves the pile of books and then the lamp to no avail; with growing panic she searches the floor under the table and then under the bed. Feeling breathless, she shakes out the duvet and the pillows. Nothing. Her precious ruby engagement ring that cost Eric all his savings twelve years ago has completely vanished.
“I’m starving.” Sorrel’s plaintive voice floats upstairs.
“Sit down at the table, sweetheart,” she calls back. “I won’t be long.”
She straightens the bedcovers, heart thumping. Eric knows she removes the ring only before lovemaking; did he find it on the bedside table on his return? Has he guessed? He might have taken it to punish her and be waiting to gauge her response. She stands quite still, trembling, forcing herself to stay calm. It’s far more likely it was knocked somewhere when Martin pulled the duvet off the bed; maybe he discovered it on the floor and put it somewhere safe, forgetting to tell her.
“Mum!”
She hurries downstairs. The children are sitting in their places; Sorrel looks unhappy, Poppy impatient, Ash is halfasleep. Eve puts the casserole on the table and lights candles with an unsteady hand. Eric enters and sits down silently, his expression serious. How can she ask him if he has her ring? If he doesn’t, his suspicions will be aroused; if he does, what then? He might begin to question her; what would she say? She needs an excuse, something convincing; her thoughts spin. She cuts the baked potatoes and slides in butter, then serves everyone the casserole, fragrant with wine, dark mushrooms, and onions.
“So how did it go today, Pops?” She forces herself to sound bright.
Poppy shrugs, pushing her food around her plate. It might be wiser not to pursue her with questions tonight. She looks tired, her face is closed; tomorrow would be better. Sorrel glances at Noah as she eats, she looks worried. Ash’s eyelids droop with tiredness. Eric smiles at the children; the kitchen seems as peaceful as it always does at supper, but below the table her hands twist in her lap.
“More food, anyone?”
“I’ll help myself,” Eric tells her.
She watches his face, trying to see if he is angry or upset; he seems preoccupied—what does he know? He looks up and meets her gaze calmly; she lowers her eyes, feeling helpless.
“Homework,” Poppy mumbles, and slips from her place, leaving the room without helping to clear the table as she used to do. Eric picks up Ash and puts him on his shoulders. “Bedtime,” he announces as he walks across the kitchen, calling for Sorrel to follow. No, his voice is too cheerful, he’d sound different if he was harboring her ring, suspecting her of having an affair; all the same her stomach churns with worry. Alone in the kitchen she texts Martin. Have you seen my ring?
Sorry, the answer pings back. On the floor somewhere?
As she clears the table, Poppy’s angry shouts filter down; Sorrel begins to cry. The girls, quarreling again. They have been on edge since Greece. Poppy is better behaved when her friends are around. Eve runs water into the empty casserole dish. Sunday seems a long way off; the week could be broken up. She removes the last dishes from the table; in the end no one ate very much. She could offer a short session tomorrow, supervising homework, maybe a word game if there is time. Supper as well. It can be a regular event every Wednesday from now on; she won’t charge. Melly can come for supper this first time, Martin too. She blows out the candles. She’ll find a quiet moment to tell him their affair is over; it will end on a civilized note, an event to look back on. She texts the offer to Izzy, Melly, and Martin and feels better. She’ll find her ring, of course she will. She can search their room in the morning after Eric has left for work, move the bed and the chests of drawers, turn back the carpet, look under the radiator. If it’s not there, she’ll search the house. It’s bound to turn up, it has to; a ring like that doesn’t vanish into thin air.
Melissa
A door slams in the night. Melissa wakes, her mouth dry with fear. Paul is in Paris, she locked all the doors before bed. She gets up, heart thudding, and runs to Izzy’s room, wrenching the door open. Her daughter is sleeping peacefully, her bright hair spread out over the pillow. Melissa leans against the door, weak with relief. After a few minutes, she gathers her courage and tiptoes downstairs, her legs trembling. The silent kitchen is softly illuminated by concealed lights; it looks empty but the stench of alcohol invades her nose, a vodka bottle lies on the floor by the sink. Her breath catches in her throat. Intruders? Paul returning early? Then she freezes. Muted sobbing is coming from the pantry. She opens the door cautiously. Lina is sitting beneath the shelves, her hands around her knees, tears pouring down her cheeks. The kitten cowers by her side. Lina looks up then pushes herself to her feet, still sobbing.
“Lina! I thought we’d had a break-in! Are you all right? What happened?”
“My boyfriend, Hassan,” Lina says through her tears. “We argued.” She puts her hand over her stomach, pressing in.
“Are you hurt?”
Lina shakes her head quickly, too quickly. Is she telling the truth? Hassan was probably drunk; he might have hit her or harmed her in some way. Melissa puts a hand on her shoulder.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I said it was finished between us; he threw the bottle . . .” She lowers her gaze as if ashamed.
Her boyfriend sounds like a man whose anger turns quickly to something else, something more. Melissa begins carefully. “There are men who like to scare women. They get angry and then they lash out; they say they are sorry and promise to stop but they don’t.” Her voice is rising despite herself and the words begin to spill out in a stream. “It gets worse and they aren’t sorry anymore, but you’re trapped because they could take the most precious thing you have—” She pauses, gasping for breath. What is she saying? It won’t make any sense to Lina, in fact she could be frightening her. She takes both of Lina’s hands in hers, speaking more gently. “Pr
omise you’ll tell me if he ever comes back.”
Lina nods, she looks miserable.
“Let me make you some tea.”
Lina shakes her head.
“Okay, sweetheart.” She tries to smile. “I’m sorry if I’ve scared you; you’ve been scared enough for one night. Try to sleep now and take the day off tomorrow.”
Lina disappears up the stairs, silent as a shadow. Melissa throws the vodka bottle away; she fills a bucket and starts to wash the floor to remove the spilled alcohol, scrubbing hard as if to scrub away deeper stains that she can’t even see. She scrubs until her hands are raw. By the time she has finished she is trembling with fatigue, her feet are icy. She goes to bed, exhausted. A few seconds later, the cat leaps onto the pillow next to her. “You’re not allowed up here, little Venus,” Melissa whispers, “but I won’t tell if you don’t.”
The cat curls up, purring loudly, a small, comforting presence.
The face that stares back at her from the mirror the next morning is papery white, the lines in the skin like fine cracks. Too much sun on holiday, too much salt water. She rubs in cream, but it makes no difference. Her skin looks tired, unlike Grace’s, which glows, or Eve’s, which seems lit from within, the skin of a woman with a lover. She puts the jar back on the shelf. That thing with Martin must be over. There’s been no more touching, no glances, no holding hands, unless—she smooths foundation down her neck—it has changed into something else, something more. They wouldn’t need to touch if they were sleeping together. Her thoughts jump and skitter like the cat when it’s scared. Eve wouldn’t do that surely, not to Grace. Everyone flirts; Paul more than most. It’s simpler not to know. Melissa applies mascara carefully. She won’t tell Grace, ever.
Izzy is sitting at the kitchen table writing in a notebook, the cat by her feet. The room looks as it usually does in the morning, the sun pooling on the shining floor. The smell of alcohol has vanished; last night’s incident has the quality of a nightmare, disturbing but a little unreal. Lina is piling fruit into the NutriBullet.
“Okay?” Melissa asks her quietly. “I hoped you’d take the day off today. You look tired, you could do with a rest.”
Lina shakes her head. She adds grated tamarind to the fruit and starts the machine. The noise fills the kitchen, drowning the possibility of speech. When she has finished making the smoothie, she tips it into two glasses and places one next to Izzy and the other at Melissa’s place on the table.
“You drink it, Lina,” Melissa offers. “It will do you good.”
Lina shakes her head, her hand on her stomach. “Sick,” she whispers.
“I’m not surprised. Go to bed then, sweetie. I’ll clear up breakfast.”
Lina nods and walks out of the kitchen.
“I need to go to Eve’s this evening,” Izzy says, sipping her smoothie.
“But it’s Wednesday today.”
“She’s offering Wednesdays now, for homework. She texted you. She’s doing food and stuff. You’re supposed to come, why don’t you for once?”
Melissa feels a pang of guilt. She forgot all about Eve’s text, how stupid. Last night’s events had driven it from her mind. She shakes her head. “I’ve already arranged to go to a client’s house in the countryside. Sorry, sweetheart, I probably won’t be back in time to take you. Maybe you could walk there? I’ll join you later if I can.”
“Grace can take me.”
“Grace is on late shifts. Dad will pop you over if he’s back in time. I’ll ask him.”
Blake and Charley are on the curb outside the flats when they arrive to take them to school; they clamber in. Poppy and Sorrel are picked up from the end of their drive. Poppy and Izzy start whispering together immediately. Melissa smiles; Izzy has made friends now, maybe friends for life. When she has dropped them all off, she phones Paul, who picks up on the fourth ring.
“So you’re back!”
“What makes you say that?” He sounds irritated.
“Well, the ring tone—”
“So you’ve started spying on me now?”
“No, of course not, sorry. How did it go in Paris?”
“Well. It went well.” He sounds impatient.
“When do you start?”
“Start what?”
She’s phoned at the wrong moment; he’s obviously exhausted.
“I’m going to Wiltshire to look at a client’s house.” She doesn’t elaborate; he’s not usually interested in the details of her work. “I’ll be back tonight. Could you take Izzy to Eve’s this evening? She’s running another session on Wednesdays now.”
“Sure.” He sounds more cheerful. He never minds ferrying his daughter about. “How is she?”
“Izzy’s fine but Lina’s poorly. I’ve sent her to bed. Her boyfriend—”
“I’ll head home,” he cuts in. “I need a shower.”
“Can you remember to be quiet? Lina might be sleeping . . .” But he’s gone.
She stacks the car with samples: squares of paper in different colors to hold against the walls, swatches of fabric for the windows, plans for the lighting, the Stanley tape measure. She turns the radio up as she makes her way through Clapham Common, Wandsworth, and around the M25 until she joins the M3 at Junction 12. She picks up speed, turns the radio off, and thinks back to the Tuesday before. She had liked Jean-Claude on sight; he was different from other clients, thoughtful, kind, a little sad.
“Thank you for meeting me here, it was good of you to come.” Jean-Claude had smiled over the silver teapot in the tea room at the Savoy. She’d smiled back. He had an intense brown gaze, white hair clipped close over a rounded head, and the South of France in his voice.
“The project intrigued me, of course I came.”
“I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I saw what you did in my friend’s flat in Chelsea. I hoped you might work the same magic on our house.”
“I loved the images you sent me, have you any others?”
He reached into the briefcase by his feet and drew out a bulging envelope, fanning the contents on the tablecloth between the plates of cucumber sandwiches and slices of fruit cake. The photos were of a Georgian house with faded brick; wide, empty rooms; exquisite windows; a long green view.
“I am trusting you with the whole restoration project, to do with the house as you please.”
Melissa looked up, startled. The dark eyes were somber.
“My son is ill; the family is in France. We will be in Paris for a year at least, while he recovers.”
He doesn’t elaborate, he didn’t need to, she understood. She would drop everything to be with Izzy if she was ill, nothing else would count.
“I’m so sorry.”
Jean-Claude nodded, acknowledging her sympathy. “The house has been empty a long time.” The brown eyes studied her closely. “It’s in good shape structurally but it needs fresh air and light, heat, color, curtains, rugs, furniture; color most of all. I love the choices you made for my friend. Please, take the key.” He passed a large iron key across the starched white tablecloth. It felt heavy in her hand, like an expensive gift. Her heart beat fast with excitement.
“I’ll visit next week,” she had promised. “I can’t wait to get started.”
After two hours, the gray spire of Salisbury Cathedral appears in a dip in the hills, so tall and finely wrought it seems to pierce the pale blue sky. She drives slowly through the winding streets of the city, past the gray stone walls of the Cathedral Close and the leaning, timbered houses. A few miles farther west toward the village of Broad Chalke, she takes a left turn and the country road narrows. She slows, opening her window; birdsong and the bitter scent of hedgerows enter the car. The white iron gate is where he’d described, a mile beyond a village of brick and flint. The house stands at the end of the long drive, tall, symmetrical, rose-bricked. Weeds straggle through the gravel; an old man pushes a mower across the lawn—the last cut of the year probably—the sound flares and fades as he walks toward her then away. A couple
of thrushes peck at the grass. The walls are warm under her hand. A hidden England beneath the England she knows; calm falls like sunshine. Inside her feet tap on dusty boards pale with age. The kitchen has a dresser and an ancient ceramic sink, copper pans left behind hang by hooks above the range. There is a stage at one end of the room in front, a ballroom perhaps. The rooms in the attic smell of sun-warmed wood. She holds fabric up to the light, measures for curtains, paces distances, and returns to the view; there are sheep on the chalky slopes, beech trees in shadowy stands. The hours tick by, she doesn’t want to leave; she makes a call.
“Hi, Melly.” Eve’s voice is brimming with warmth. “Why aren’t you here?”
“I’m at work in Wiltshire, I haven’t left yet. I’m sorry but I’ll miss your supper. Paul’s bringing Izzy.”
“They’ve arrived already. Charley and Blake are here, with Martin. Join us when you get back if you can, I expect we’ll go on till late. Bye-bye, lovely.” A kiss down the phone, the tickle of a laugh.
It’s less easy to disguise happiness in a voice than a face. Eve and Martin. She feels sick, poor Grace. They’ll be careful, surely, the children are there, Izzy notices everything. Melissa revisits the rooms, walking around slowly, reluctant to leave. After another hour she locks the door, dropping the key through the letterbox. It lands with a little thud, the house is no longer hers. Rain begins when she reaches the motorway; Paul calls as she’s passing Reading. She hears laughing in the background, music, and the noise of Ash wailing.
“We’re staying over.” Paul’s voice is slightly slurred. “Eric insisted, I couldn’t say no.”
He must be drunk for Eric to have made that suggestion, drunk enough not to be able to walk back home.
“We’re all having fun, except maybe little Ash,” he continues pleasantly. “Hang on a tick.” She hears a door shutting, footsteps, a door opening then shutting again; he must have walked out of the kitchen and into another room for privacy. “He won’t stop crying.” Paul’s voice has changed, darkened. “It’s driving me insane.”
Paul hates the noise of children crying. When Izzy cried as a baby, Melissa had to take her to another part of the house or out in the car. She bites back the offer she was going to make about collecting them. The anger and alcohol will make a potent mix; safer for her if he stays over there, Izzy will enjoy the night with her friends.