Needlemouse

by Jane O'Connor

  For example, I noticed that over the course of the evening Shona never once mentioned Ian. Imagine not wanting to talk about your beloved and say his name as often as possible? She couldn’t shut up about her children’s achievements, though (she didn’t mention Beth’s tattoos so, kindly, neither did I), and, horror of horrors, her oldest son Tom has made her a grandmother to boot. We had to endure picture after picture of a nondescript baby being held up by various family members as Shona trilled on about his daily routine as if it was some kind of a miracle that the child ate and slept. I don’t know how I kept the benign smile plastered on my face, really I don’t. Emma came too. She has become the most pathetic type of bored housewife – mother of two indifferent teenagers with a golf-mad husband and a heavy hand for pouring Chardonnay.

  The only interesting part of the evening was when Tig swung by on her way home from the theatre. I was fascinated by how little she has changed over the years – still the short, edgy peroxide-blonde hair, black eyeliner and leather jacket. The trainers, watch and handbag are now of the super expensive variety, though, and even the fine lines covering her face don’t detract from her famously high cheekbones and feline eyes. She is still a beautiful woman, there’s no doubt about that, and I wondered if she was still a complete bitch as well.

  ‘Tamsin Iglesias, as I live and breathe!’ Millie was quite drunk by this stage in the evening and gave Tig a kind of military salute as she sat down.

  ‘Hi, Mills, girls.’ Tig always was a cool customer, not big on showy emotions or the over-the-top gushing that you’d expect from a theatrical type. She was forever having secret affairs with exciting men when I knew her, and not in the least bit interested in settling down or having children. I remember the first time she found out she was pregnant, having had a fling with a famous, married actor. She arranged the termination with all the emotion of taking her car in for a service, a slightly inconvenient but necessary procedure. I was shocked at her pragmatism and the way she refused to entertain any doubt at all about what she was doing. But that’s Tig. She’s not the sentimental type and that’s always been her strength – she just does what she wants to do and doesn’t feel guilty about it. Tig has a way of glancing around when she’s speaking that makes you feel like she’s telling you a secret even when she’s sharing something quite ordinary. Her deep, husky voice and laugh are a permanent reminder of how she used to chain smoke Marlboros, always lit with a gold Zippo lighter that she handled constantly. This has now been replaced, at least indoors, by her smartphone. It never left her hand the whole time she was with us, her attention taken unapologetically by constant beeps and alerts, just like Crystal and her friends.

  To my dismay, and to Millie’s absolute glee, Emma had brought a whole sheaf of photos from what she called our party days and placed each one in the middle of the table in turn, to be exclaimed and marvelled over. There we all were, dressed up in platform boots and flares for a 1970s retro night at the Clapham Grand. There we all were again, in Santa hats, for a Christmas party in Camden. There was Millie, Tig, me and Shona on the deck of a cross-channel ferry on a booze cruise to France (minus Emma who took the picture). And us again, outside the Hyper Marché with Tig in the trolley on top of half-a-dozen crates of wine, swigging from a bottle of champagne. I looked happy, I suppose, although I often found situations of such forced gaiety a strain and part of me would have preferred to be at home with a good book. I was only there because Millie always invited me; I could never have made or kept such lively friends myself. Life was certainly more fun and unpredictable then, but I think it’s only really the young who consider that to be a good thing. I suppose being young didn’t suit me, if I’m honest. I like to know what’s going to happen and I like to feel in control and I don’t have a natural silliness or quirkiness like Millie. The one thing I did love about being young was the feeling of having plenty of time ahead, that life was full of opportunities and possibilities. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when ‘what could be’ becomes ‘what could have been’ – it’s another disagreeable facet of getting older that nobody warns you about and that can only be recognised in retrospect. Thank goodness, in matters of the heart at least, that I am still in the realms of future possibility with Prof.

  ‘And here you are, Mills, back from India with your handsome beau! My goodness, you both look incredible.’ Emma held the picture close to her face to fully appreciate their youthful beauty before putting it on the table. I gasped when I saw it, but managed to turn it into a cough, and nobody was taking any particular notice of my reactions anyway. Millie was thrilled by the image and so she should have been. Her fingers traced the outline of Kamal’s face and she drifted into a blissful, drunken ramble.

  ‘Looking at this brings back that feeling of being totally happy – you know, when just for a brief time everything is perfect in your life and it all feels right, like you have found the truth and even then there is this underlying scary feeling because you know that you will never be this happy ever again. Do you know what I mean?’ She looked around the table for signs of agreement and recognition and I copied the wistful smiles and nods, feeling, as usual, that I had somehow missed, through carelessness or bad luck, a huge portion of the happiness and emotional fulfilment that others seemed to take for granted.

  I drank in every detail of that photo. It showed Millie at the thinnest she had ever been, with the darkest tan she had ever had – a honey glow that contrasted with her bright blonde curls, white teeth and blue eyes. She had on a coral-colour vest top, faded denim shorts and a patterned blue scarf tied round her hair. She was standing on one leg, clinging onto Kamal’s arm with both hands, gazing up at him with a wide, delighted smile, heady with love. Kamal stood barefoot next to her, smiling just as broadly. With his wide shoulders and slim hips, clad in a white T-shirt and baggy jeans, he looked like a member of a boy band. I had forgotten how his skin was golden brown in those days, not the sallow olive it is now, and his eyes flashed with a joyful, playful energy. They were in Mother’s garden and the little folding table next to them, set with teacups and sponge cakes, so English in its mundanity, made them look like exotic creatures from another planet, the like of which Harrow had never seen.

  Looking closely, I saw a familiar pale hand, my hand, reaching in from outside the picture towards Kamal, like a spectre from the underworld, ready to drag him out of Millie’s life. It was with some relief that I realised I was actually reaching for the teapot, me with the boring task, outside the action as usual. I stared hard at that image of Kamal, as if he were a complete stranger, until Emma placed the next picture down on top of it, of her and Millie dressed up to the nines at Shona’s wedding. Even then I could still see the top of his head behind it, the Ray-Bans he always used to wear pushed up on top of his wavy black hair. The same pair of sunglasses that he had left at my flat the day he came round to help me carry my new television up the stairs a few months later. The day when everything changed forever because of what we did.

  ‘Oh, wow, do you remember this, darling? Do you remember how cold it was?’ Millie pulled me out of my reverie, flapping a photo in front of my eyes.

  ‘I can’t see it that close,’ I snapped, pushing her hand away.

  Millie looked hurt and I could sense that I had killed the mood. I tried to compensate by enthusing over the picture of the two of us on the top deck of a tour bus in New York, wrapped up in woolly hats and scarfs, but she had already turned her attention away from me and towards the more fun people present.

  Whilst Millie went about persuading Shona and Emma to do tequila shots, Tig asked me about where I work now and it turns out that she knows awful Martha a little bit from when her gallery provided some art for the set of a production Tig was working on last summer. I was very careful not to express any particular reaction to this intriguing revelation and mined her for information as subtly as I could. According to Tig, at a recent get-together, Martha had told them all that her husband was a bastard who
had had his latest affair with the au pair and that she had thrown him out and good riddance to bad rubbish. Tig recounted this with delight, her eyes shining – she always did admire the bad boys. I could feel the red anger rising as she relayed this nonsense and had to swallow down my urgent impulse to defend Prof and set her straight on what really happened with Martha and the architect. I managed to nod nonchalantly and simply commented that there were two sides to every story before I made my excuses (an early start) and left.

  ‘It was nice to see you, Sylvia,’ Shona said politely as I put my jacket on, but she didn’t suggest meeting up again, which suits me fine. As I opened the door to leave, I could hear them all laughing raucously behind me as they downed their tequilas, but I know that they weren’t laughing at me. Millie wouldn’t allow that.

  Saturday 24 October

  It was quite a relief to go to the sanctuary this morning. I don’t have to put any effort into socialising with Jonas. We fed the hogs in the usual order, starting with the bottom cage nearest the door, and I let Jonas tell me yet again that we do it like that so that no one gets forgotten. Then we chatted a little about the animals and the garden over tea – I simply didn’t have the energy to try and engage him in another dead-end discussion about educational research. In a lull moment, I looked around at the various hedgehog-related posters and postcards on the wall he has accumulated over the years and commented on one I had often read but never really thought about.

  ‘Where is that quote from, Jonas?’ I asked. ‘“The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing”. What does it mean?’

  ‘It’s by an ancient Greek poet called Archilochus,’ Jonas replied at once, comfortably slipping into his English-teacher persona. ‘No one knows for sure exactly what Archilochus meant by it, of course – he’s been dead a long time – but it’s sometimes used as a theoretical term in economics to explain why some people and businesses succeed by being flexible and open to new ways – like the fox, you see – and why others succeed, or fail, by just sticking to what they know and what they do best … like our hogs.

  ‘I’ve also heard it used to explain why hedgehogs get run over so much more often than foxes.’ He took a sip of tea for lubrication, wiped his mouth with his hankie, and continued, ‘It’s because when hogs have found a route from A to B they will keep on going the same way even if it turns out to be a dangerous road, but a fox will always keep trying different routes and so is safer. The fox learns from experience, you see, whereas hogs don’t so much. I think that perhaps it’s because they can ball up when they sense a threat, so maybe they don’t feel they have to use a lot of energy to avoid danger altogether.’

  I listened in stunned silence. It was the most Jonas had ever spoken in one go, and by far the most interesting thing he had ever said.

  ‘That’s of no use when it comes to keeping safe from traffic though, of course,’ he added thoughtfully after a pause, nodding in the direction of our latest hedgehog in-patient.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Not so good,’ replied Jonas with a frown. ‘I’m taking him to the vet again later, see what she says.’

  ‘So, it’s much better to be a wily fox then, Jonas, than a stodgy old hog?’ I said brightly, trying to lighten the mood.

  He looked at me sternly as if I had missed the point. ‘Not necessarily, Sylvia,’ he said, picking up the local newspaper, and I knew the conversation was over.

  Wednesday 28 October

  I dressed around my birthday bracelet this morning, in anticipation of my fortnightly working lunch with Prof. I put it on first, after my shower, and then picked clothes that I felt best complimented its twinkling loveliness. I finally decided on a glossy cream silk blouse, a lemon-yellow cashmere cardigan and a light tan skirt. Caught up in sparkly pleasure, I even dug out a box of colours I rarely use and put on some gold eyeshadow and a very slightly glittery blusher. I daydreamed about Prof all the way into work and felt positively giddy as I took him in his tea and biscuits.

  ‘What time suits you today?’ I asked placing his mug on the desk in front of him, subtly shaking my wrist as I did so.

  He looked baffled for a moment, then the penny dropped. ‘Oh, of course it’s Wednesday, isn’t it. Yes, Sylvia. I have a student coming at midday, so we can go straight after that. Does that work for you?’

  ‘Perfect,’ I said, touching my bracelet and giving him a meaningful smile.

  My happy mood was pricked somewhat when I looked at his diary and realised the pre-lunch student was Lola Maguire, but I was determined not to let it spoil my day.

  She came breezing in at around five to twelve, dressed head-to-toe in gym gear, with her hair scraped back, eyes bright and cheeks rosy from some sort of physical exertion.

  I looked her up and down with distaste as she took a gulp from her water bottle. ‘I thought you worked on Wednesdays?’ I said.

  ‘Half-term, Sylvia. Ned is with my parents so I have the whole week to work on my thesis. And my fitness.’ She said this last bit with a deprecating laugh. At least she realises she needs to lose weight.

  ‘Did you run here?’ I was incredulous that anyone would deliberately turn up to a meeting with Prof looking such a mess.

  ‘Well, not all the way. I parked the car a couple of tube stops back and ran from there. And up all these stairs of course.’

  I blinked at her, raised my eyebrows dismissively, and turned back to my screen.

  She stood there feeling uncomfortable, as was my intention, and I waited for her to speak again, knowing she had something she wanted from me.

  ‘Sylvia, I need your help submitting my abstract to the Rome conference. Carl … erm, Professor Lomax, said you would register me on the website.’

  I continued working as if she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘So?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘So?’ I echoed her.

  ‘So, have you done it?’ She was getting annoyed now and her post-run glow was turning into an angry flush.

  ‘It’s on my to-do list,’ I answered vaguely and she went to protest just as Prof came out of his office.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ he smiled genially at Lola. ‘Come on through.’ He held the door open and waved her through with a mock bow which made me wince.

  I pulled up the Rome website and stared hard at the registration form I had half filled in for Lola. Possibilities came into my mind. I could send it as it was, unfinished, and hope they wouldn’t follow it up. I could ‘accidentally’ send it to the wrong email address. I could make some edits to her abstract to make it nonsensical so they would reject it. In the end, reluctantly, I sent it properly. Prof would be absolutely furious if something spoilt Lola’s attendance at this conference and I couldn’t risk his wrath being directed at me.

  Lola was still in there with him at quarter past one and I was starting to get twitchy. I tried to catch his eye through the glass but he was deep in conversation. The door was finally flung open at half past, a warm sweaty fug leaking from the room as they came out laughing together. ‘Sylvia, Lola says you haven’t registered her yet for the conference, is that right?’ Prof looked at me with a disappointed frown and Lola grinned at me from behind his back.

  ‘No.’ I faked confusion and shook my head. ‘It’s all done. See.’ I turned my screen to show them the email confirming her registration had taken place. I had scored a point on Lola and made her look a little silly in front of Prof, but my satisfaction didn’t last long.

  ‘Great. You really are a star, Sylvia.’ Prof clapped his hands together. ‘Right, let’s get to lunch.’

  I leaned down to pick up my bag and then realised as I went to stand up that he was talking to Lola.

  ‘You don’t mind do you, Sylvia? We can do our lunch next Wednesday instead. Lola and I are in the middle of an absolutely fascinating discussion about the school system in Bavaria.’ With that they were gone, Lola not even giving me the chance to glare at her as she walked straight out the door ah
ead of Prof.

  ‘Oh dear, it looks like you’ve got all dressed up for nothing,’ said Margaret, with fake concern as I put my bag back down on the floor and sank, deflated, into my chair.

  Saturday 31 October

  Imogen Scott and her husband Leonard live in the kind of huge Edwardian mansion in North London that is usually divided into a dozen or so flats. It is a house of dreams. Four floors of warm bohemian homeliness. Rooms filled with books and cats and textiles from Morocco and India. The Aga in the kitchen gives the house character and heart, along with the ancient wooden table, mismatched chairs and children’s drawings pinned on to every wall space. It is exactly the family home I had imagined myself inhabiting one day, with a brood of charming children and a handsome, intellectual husband.

  Somewhere along the line I convinced myself that nobody really has it all – the happy marriage, the delightful children, the beautiful house, the fascinating career – and then I got to know Imogen and realised, with a sting, that some people actually do. And to make it even more difficult to bear, they are the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. It would be so much easier if I could hate them or pity them or judge them for being small-minded or holding extreme political views, but they aren’t and they don’t.

  Imogen, an expert in early childhood education, is a fiendishly bright woman with an elfin face and long grey hair. She wears long skirts and clogs and speaks to everyone as if they were her favourite person in the world. Leonard is a famous child psychologist, originally from California. He smiles constantly, and with his white beard and rosy complexion has a Father Christmas feel about him that is rather magical. They wrote a best-selling child-rearing manual in the 1990s called Love Your Kids and They Will Love Life, based on their parenting philosophy of treating children as equals, not disciplining them, and including them in all family decisions. It is always fascinating to see how the children of parenting gurus turn out, and Imogen and Leonard’s three children don’t disappoint – growing up to become prosperous, confident and successfully paired-up adults. Iona and Skye, the twins, are both Mother Earth types with a brood of cherubic toddlers and babies in slings and identikit tall, blond husbands. They make a fortune selling some sort of organic baby food and have a regular slot on daytime TV as well as a huge entourage of followers on social media. Imogen and Leonard’s son, Lawrence, is a radio producer on a global news network. He is married to the gorgeous Martin, who is a city broker. They are also super-rich and have a penthouse apartment in Docklands, along with a beachfront town house in Brighton for weekend jollies. At the moment, they are considering having a child via a surrogate, about which the whole family are involved in on-going supportive, sensible discussions. Oh, to have liberal-minded, kind-hearted parents who only want you to be happy! How easy it must be to fulfil yourself and feel comfortable in your skin and in the world.