Did The Earth Move? (3 page)

Some fun she must be, Eve consoled herself.

'Eve,' Joseph warned, 'Behave.'

'Sorry.'

But then he couldn't help adding: 'At least Michelle can cook something other than lentils.'

Owww, oww, ouch: 'Oh, please,' she managed, hoping it sounded offhand and unwounded.

'Have you got plans?' he asked then, maybe trying to make up for the dig.

'Yeah. I've got a date tomorrow night. Our new vet actually – a very nice guy.'

If Joseph was a surprised by this, he didn't show it. She was studying him to read his reaction, but all that came was a smile and a polite-sounding: 'That's good, I hope you have fun.'

Yes I bloody well will
she told herself, surprisingly hurt at his lack of interest in this, the first ever date she was telling him about.
I will eat, drink and be merry and bring him home for a sexathon and not think of you for one moment.
Even though Nils hadn't invited her for dinner or any sort of date and she had made this up on the spur of the moment just to annoy him.

'You're going on a
date?
With the
vet?'
Anna was asking. Oh no, now she had shocked the one person in the world she least wanted to: 'Why didn't you tell me?' She knelt down and said to Anna: 'Honey, it's just for fun. Robbie's coming and we're going to talk about the cats.' See. This is why she hardly ever lied. It always got far too complicated.

'OK.' Joseph picked up Anna's bag and started on the goodbyes.

'Give Mummy and Robbie a kiss, Anna. It's time to go.'

Robbie was in bed at 8p.m., cuddled into the bottom bunk with his bunnies, struggling to keep his eyes open as Eve read him a story.

She ate a solitary supper with the radio on and afterwards forced herself to go round the house doing the bare minimum of chores – washing in machine, cursory sweep of kitchen floor, wipe of surfaces, armfuls of child junk into toyboxes. In the kitchen she filled up the bread machine and clicked it on, then chopped up vegetables and threw them into boiling stock to simmer.

At least Michelle can cook something other than lentils,
she couldn't help remembering as she stirred her soup. God, Joseph.

As if he'd been worried about her cooking skills on evenings when the big boys were away and Anna asleep in her cot, and they had come into the kitchen for supper, watching each other eat by candlelight, absolutely certain of what was going to come next.

She remembered him dripping salad dressing onto her warm, bare summer arm and licking it off all the way from her wrist to her shoulder, until she was sitting in his lap, tasting him, wanting him, but he was tilting back to look into the fridge and see what other props he could find.

'What about ice cubes... or butter? Oh... the classic: we have cream
and
strawberries.'

'Yes, please.'

He'd once invented some ridiculous smorgasbord of snacks to complement oral sex: taramasalata, cream cheese, slivers of smoked salmon.

And sometimes he would tell her all the way through a meal what they were going to do afterwards, until they were so breathless they could hardly finish the food. 'See this strawberry—' he'd dip it into chocolate or hot caramel or cream and start to lick it with the very tip of his tongue, as she was imagining he would do to her nipple, her clitoris, the tip of her nose.

'Lucky strawberry,' she'd say, not able to take her eyes from his face, wondering once again how she'd managed to land such an irresistible man.

Why was Joseph so hard to get over?

This was the question which could still wake her up at 3a.m. and make it difficult to get back to sleep.

He
looked
exactly like the man she'd been so in love with. But she just couldn't believe what he had turned into. It was as if she was still, after all this time, expecting him to one day give up the executive position, return the car, the phones, the laptop and the gadgets, and appear on the doorstep all rumpled, delicious and studenty again saying 'I'm back the way you want me, please let me in.' Where had that person gone? The one she'd been so in love with? Was he inside there somewhere? Was there even the slightest chance she could lure him out again? Or had he disappeared completely?

The two cats, winding and purring round her legs as she stood at the cooker, were fed and then it was time to go out into the garden.

Eve slipped on her fleece jacket and heavy boots at the back door and went out, flicking on the outdoor spotlights, which lit up the green haven she had been working on since the day she'd moved into the flat.

Over the years, her garden had evolved and taken shape. She'd started off tending the lawn and border arrangement she'd inherited, but soon she'd built up the confidence to change it into something much more interesting and private. She'd heightened the three walls around the space with trellises, so they were now eight-foot-high walls of ivy, then the lawn had been ripped up and replaced with winding paths of stone slab planted all around with tall shrubs and greenery in pots, dense bushes and fruit trees, so that slowly the garden had grown higher and more tangled, more secluded from the other houses all around.

Now, it was like entering a secluded green world with something interesting to see in every corner. Pots in all colours, sizes, patterns and glazes, spilling over with every kind of plant: flowering bushes, roses, tall sculptural spiky palms, earthbound knotted alpines. Every space was filled: she had planted indiscriminately, coaxing whatever she could get her hands on into vigorous life.

There wasn't any plan. Rosemary, mint, parsley, lettuce – in winter, Brussels sprouts and cabbage – grew haphazardly on the edges of the big terracotta tubs, or in the spaces between the perennials, wherever she could find room.

In the summer, tomato plants were trained up the sunniest wall alongside the sweet-smelling crumpled-up-handkerchief roses, the sunflowers planted especially for Robbie and the wild and untameable courgette plants.

Her autumn bulbs were pushed into every available square centimetre of earth so that crocus, tulips, lilies, peonies, all sorts of multicoloured blossoms popped up unexpectedly from February onwards.

At the end of the garden was a pocket-sized patio, surrounded by green and covered with a canopy of climbing roses and clematis. There was a comfortable wooden garden bench there, out all year, and at the very start of summer Eve would bring out the wrought-iron chairs and the large round table she had decorated herself with a detailed mosaic. Big containers full of scented stocks and pink geraniums would take up the rest of the patio space and when the weather was good, supper was eaten outside every night in the twinkly light of candles on the mosaic and strings of fairy lights wound through the flower canopy above.

She loved not just to garden – to move among her plants watering, pinching off deadheads, trimming back shoots, pulling out the few stray weeds – she loved the garden. It was a
place,
a 'living' room which she had created. It was a private park for Robbie, a reading bower for Anna, an oasis for her, a clandestine place to sit, talk and eat with her friends; it was a magical extension to her life and she had made it almost all by herself with her own two hands.

Tonight, she was picking off snails by torchlight and drowning them with some distaste in a bucket half filled with water. Still, this was a better way to go than the ones unlucky enough to be crunched under her boots as she walked about in the dark. She loved to be in her garden at night, feeling alone, but not lonely, feeling busy, but at peace.

Patricia opened her eyes and for a moment couldn't remember where the hell she was. Oh yes, in the tiny flat her boyfriend, Denny, shared with his brother Tom. There was Denny, still fast asleep beside her. Nice guy, she thought, watching his sleeping face, he took very good pictures, especially when the photo sessions ended in bed.

He'd probably do very well in the future and it was a shame she wasn't in love with him. She'd decided that about a month ago now. She wasn't in love with him and she didn't think she ever could be. Not his fault, just one of those things.

She looked at the bedside alarm clock: 7.18a.m. Shit. She was due over on the other side of town by ten and she had a lot to do – shower, shave, quick eyebrow pluck, nails, hair, make-up. This would be a great job, if she could get it. Every model she knew was after a shampoo contract. The money was amazing!

She was preening herself in the tiny bathroom mirror when there was a banging on the door.

'I have to come in,' came the choked voice on the other side.

'Hang on,' Patricia said, peering closely at the eyebrows. Were they matching? Or was the left one just a little bit too high?

'Please, it's urgent.'

'Oh for God's sake.' She recognized the voice now. Tom's girlfriend Deepa, Miss Completely Bloody Worthy medical student, who could barely hide the fact that she thought Patricia was a total waste of space.

She unbolted the door and Deepa ran in, lifted the toilet lid, bent over and threw up loudly.

'Oh yuk,' Patricia gathered up her make-up tools and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her. It reminded her of the early days, all that miserable puking to stay thin. She'd graduated long ago to the ballerina method of two days a week, soup and fruit juice only.

Deepa was heaving up again. She felt appalling. Beads of sweat were leaping out of her forehead, upper lip, back of her neck.

She grabbed at a handful of toilet paper and wiped her face, then lurched over to the sink to splash herself with water.

Finally, she felt able to let herself out of the bathroom and head back to Tom's room. She was going to have to tell him, oh no . . . just the thought of that and – she raced back to the toilet again.

* * *

'Are you OK?' Tom's messy head was surfacing from the tangle of mismatched pillows, sheets and blankets.

'No.' She sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and put her hands up to support her head.

'What's the matter?' He sat up now, stretched and put an arm round her, stroking her soft velvet brown shoulders and silky black bob.

'Tom ...' She wasn't looking at him, she was focused on the battered old Oasis poster Blu-Tacked to the wall, 'I'm ten days late, I'm sick as a dog. I think I'm pregnant.'

'Nah,' he said and carried on stroking the shoulders.

'I wouldn't joke about this kind of shit.' She turned to face him now. 'I'm going to do a test today.'

'I'm sure it'll be fine. We've been very careful.'

'Hmmm.'

He slipped out of bed, naked, and she watched the slim white buttock and thigh move past her face. Even from the depths of this horrible nausea, bubbles of desire still managed to burst up and she touched him as he passed.

He went to the tumble of clothes heaped at the end of the bed and fished out black moleskin jeans, which he pulled on without anything underneath. Then came a long-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned 100%
HEADSHRUNK TO FIT IN.

'Chop chop, today is a work day, Deepy-beebs,' he said, as if pregnancies were announced at his bedside every day of the week. 'Do you want tea? Toast? Cereal? Other proof that I know how to keep house?' He was hopping about pulling on a sock, which she suspected was unwashed and maybe just a little bit crusty.

'I love you,' she blurted out, which was very spooky because she'd never said it before, to anyone. She really must be pregnant: this was exactly the kind of thing pregnant women did, wasn't it?

1 love you too,' Tom replied and carried on with the other sock. Totally unconcerned, because
he
said 'I love you' all the time – to every girlfriend, to his mum, to his brothers, to his sister, to his step-dad, to his boss, to the sandwich lady, the Australian barmaid at his local. He loved everyone. Thought there was quite enough crap flying about the world without people worrying so much about who they really loved and how much and should they tell them. Love everyone. That was his motto. And, in his way, he meant it.

Deepa yanked her nightie off and stood up to try and locate her clothes. Tom quickly moved in behind her, cupping her breasts up in his hands and kissing the back of her neck.

'This looks like a Benetton ad,' she said, looking at his white hands holding her brown breasts. We'd make a beautiful baby, she thought, just as he said it aloud.

'What!?' she asked, turning round to face him.

'We'd make a beautiful baby, you and me,' he repeated.

'Tom, I'm halfway through a degree I've wanted to do for my entire life. I don't want a baby right now,' she snapped, 'I can't have a baby.' And then, for the first time since she'd begun to suspect that this was what was wrong with her, she began to cry. Great, embarrassingly helpless sobs.

'Shhh,' Tom cuddled her against him and tried to soothe her. 'It'll be fine. You won't be pregnant, I know it... And you know, if... we'll do whatever you want Deeps. It'll be fine. People go through this stuff all the time.'

She was crying really hard now.

'Anyway, I love babies,' he added, hoping this would help.

She punched his back for that.

Now what? He couldn't exactly say: 'And I love abortions too.'

'We have choices,' he said and suddenly felt a wave of panic. Was she really pregnant? Was this really going to happen to them? Jesus. What the hell would his mother say?

'We need tea,' he said and gently set her down on the edge of the bed.

He opened the door on the flat's tiny kitchen and set about trying to find the kettle.

Anna had woken as soon as the light filtered through the filmy curtains of her second bedroom, the one she had to herself and didn't have to share with her little brother.

She checked the clunky diving watch, which she wore even in bed, and saw that it was a quarter to seven. Good. Her father and Michelle wouldn't be up for about two hours, so she would have the flat to herself. She would be able to do the secret guilty thing that she could only do here, when everyone was asleep.

Wrapped in her blue dressing gown, she slipped out of the bedroom and into the sitting room where she quietly turned on the TV, then searched through the cabinet for the video which she knew was tucked down the back of the bottom shelf where she had left it last.

She slotted in into the recorder and before she pressed play, she went into the kitchen to pour herself a bowl of cereal – one of the sticky sweet kinds her dad allowed her, Coco Pops, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes – and a glass of milk. Then she came back into the room and switched the tape on.

She was planning to watch the full ninety minutes of action. Here was her mother breastfeeding while her dad videoed her, telling her how beautiful she was and how their baby, Anna, was perfect. Here, he reached out a hand and stroked them both as if he couldn't quite believe that the scene in front of him was real.

But the bit that always made Anna cry was later on in the tape. Her mother was sitting in a deckchair in the garden. A crawling Anna was now at her feet, rummaging through a selection of baby blocks on the grass and the footage bumped along, Joseph obviously walking quickly as he filmed:

'Hello there.' Eve was caught unawares, putting up her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

'Hello.' The camera swooped as Joseph bent to kiss her face.

'What is it?' Eve asked with a laugh. 'You look incredibly secretive.'

'OK, performance time.'

'Oh... great.' Eve was trying to sound sincere. Then the camera was set down on the garden table and adjusted so that it focused on Eve in her deckchair.

'I want to film your reaction,' Joseph explained.

'I see. What, the full audience horror?'

'Maybe.'

Then he slung his guitar down from his shoulder, put his foot up on her chair and strummed a chord.

"This is a home-made number.'

'Oh, how . . . nice,' she settled on, but then couldn't resist, 'Should I cover the baby's ears?'

'Ha, ha ... a one, two, three, four ...' Then the most Godawful tuneless strum broke out and Joseph began to sing, equally tunelessly.

'Eeeeve ... I can't belieeeeve,
How fab you are.
So much better than my playing
Of this guitah ... ah ... ar.'

At this, Eve almost doubled over with hysteria in her deckchair, but still the singing continued.

'I may not be able to sing . . .'
Here, Joseph reached into his pocket for a small box and held it out to her.

'But I want you to wear my ring.'

This was always the point where Anna felt the throb well up in her throat, because her dad suddenly sounded so serious and sincere. And her mum looked astonished, taking the box and opening it up without a word. Looking up at him, quite bewildered, for further explanation.

'Eeeeve, I can't belieeeeve...'

'Oh God, don't sing this. What do you want to say?' Eve asked him.

'But this is the best bit...'

He took his hands off the guitar and added, in a low, half-sing now:
'Eve, do you want to wed? Or shall I just make you happy in
...'

She burst into laughter again and put her hands over Anna's ears:
'Joe!'

'Instead
... I was going to say "instead". But I'll do the other stuff too.'

He leaned over to kiss her and that was when Anna would see the smile – the secret, conspiratorial, sexy smile, which she'd never seen on her mother's face at any other time.

'This is just perfect,' she told him, looking at the ring now, taking it out of the box to admire. 'Can we afford it?'

'I might have to do some busking.'

They collapsed into giggles at the idea.

He took it from her and put it onto her fourth finger. 'When are you going to agree to marry me?' he asked.

'I love you,' she said and they began to kiss, him adding melodramatic groaning sounds.

'Then marry me,' he added.

'I don't know, Joseph... I don't know if I want all that again.'

'Me, Eve ... Not "all that", just me. Don't you want me?'

'Are you going to turn that thing off?' she asked, looking directly at the video now, as if she'd just remembered it.

Clunk, darkness. That was where the clip ended.

That was when Anna would sob hard into the toilet paper she'd stuffed into her dressing-gown pockets, knowing that this moment would come. How could two people love each other so much, be so happy together and yet let it turn out like this? How could her dad be in Manchester with stupid, awful Michelle, while her mother was left alone?

Why had her parents let this happen?

She'd asked them both hundreds of times and she thought their answers were just rubbish.

'Well Anna, your daddy loves you very much, but we don't love each other any more.'

'Why not? Why do you stop loving someone?' Did that mean one day they would stop loving her?

'We don't get on any more... it's complicated, Anna.'

'Well you made Robbie together, didn't you?' Anna would storm. 'How did that happen, then?' How indeed, Eve would wonder.

'Anna, I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry that your daddy and I aren't together any more. I'm so sorry for you, baby.' Her mother would hold her.

'But what about Robbie?' Anna would sob. 'He hasn't really got a daddy. How's he going to turn out?'

'Probably like Denny and Tom – really nice,' Eve would soothe, stroking her hair. 'And anyway, when Robbie's older he can go up on visits with you. He's just a bit small to spend the weekends away from home, right now. He does have a daddy, just like you do.'

But sometimes Anna still felt inconsolable about it. It wasn't something that got better. She missed her dad. She wanted him back living with them all the time. She didn't want to get used to living without him, seeing him every second weekend. Deep down, although she loved her parents very much, she thought they were both selfish to have done this to her and Robbie. Selfish, selfish, selfish. That's why she was determined to be a head doctor. She wanted to make everyone feel better. She wanted to stop these things happening. And she'd decided she was going to have one really good try at getting her parents back together again.

She heard a door opening and quickly hit the stop button on the video remote.

Michelle was standing in the doorway, all freshly showered, in a long white robe with her hair up in a towel. She smelled way too flowery for Anna's liking.

'Hi,' Michelle said.

'Hello.' Anna wasn't exactly filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of a conversation with Michelle.

'Are you watching TV?'

'I was. But I'm fed up with it now.'

'So, what would you like to do today, Anna?' Bright smile.

'Don't know. What are you doing?' Scowl.

'I was going to go into town. Maybe you and Joseph would like to come along?' Michelle was trying really hard here. 'Maybe you'd like something new? A dress or new shoes or something?'

'Ummm ... No thanks. Why don't you go off shopping so Daddy and I can do something a bit more interesting instead.' With that Anna picked up the remote control, flicked the television on again and pretended to be incredibly interested in the Japanese action fighters cartoon bursting over the screen in front of her.

Michelle left the room without another word for one of her fierce whispers with Joseph.

'It doesn't matter what I do, she just doesn't like me,' Michelle complained. 'She doesn't want to like me.'

'Calm down,' he tried to reassure her. 'It's a big thing, your dad being with someone else. Just give her a chance.'

'But she's so snooty with me. You really should tell her not to be so rude.'

'Michelle, calm down.' Joseph put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the lips, 'She's nine, you're . . .' Unfortunately, he couldn't remember.

'Twenty-seven,' she hissed at him.

'Sorry.' He gave what he hoped was a reassuring pat on the shoulder again and went to see his daughter.

'Morning honeybun,' he said as he came into the room.

'Morning.' He was treated to a rare full-beam Anna smile.

He sat down on the sofa beside her, cuddling her up against him. Then, noticing the video recorder lights on, he took the remote from her hand and pressed play. Footage of Eve laughing, holding a squirming almost-toddler Anna filled the screen.

'I'm just reminiscing.' Anna tried to sound casual.

Joseph laughed at his funny little nine-year-old, watching her toddler shots and coming out with a word like that.

'You were a lovely baby,' he said. 'You're a lovely girl.'

'Daddy?'

'Yes.'

'Why can't you and Mummy be nicer to each other?'

'Why can't you be nicer to Michelle?' he countered, but it was true, he and Eve were going through an embarrassingly snide phase at the moment.

Anna decided to ignore the Michelle remark and carry on: 'It's just so . . . childish,' she told him off. 'You're so nice to me and Mummy's so nice to me. Why do you have to be so stupid when you're together? It makes me feel really sad.'

'Sorry,' Joseph said and cuddled her in a little closer. I'll be much nicer to your mummy.'

'Promise?'

'Promise.'

Oh good, there was the very first step in her reconciliation programme already achieved and how easy had that been! Now, for step two.

'Anyway, I don't really like Michelle,' she confided, 'I think she's boring.'

There was just a trace of irritation in his voice as he replied: 'Well, just try a bit harder for me, honey, because I really like her.'

'Hmmm.' She was going to have to work fast, before her dad decided he
loved
Michelle or something awful like that.

'How did you and Mum meet?' Anna asked, because apparently focusing on happier times was a very important part of relationship counselling. She now had a book on it:
Make Your Marriage a Happier Place,
which she'd bought at a secondhand bookstall at the market for 50p.

'Bit young for that, ain't you?' the dealer had asked.

'It's for a friend,' she'd said coolly, handing over her 50p and hiding the book in her bag so her mother, over at the vegetable stall with Robbie, wouldn't see it. Plus, she'd discussed the subject at length, although not to her great satisfaction, with her mother's friend, confidante and hairdresser, Harry.

'How do you think I can get my parents back together again?' she'd asked him as he'd combed through her long wet locks.

'Pah!' he'd laughed, shrugged his shoulders and said
'Amore!?
You ask-a me about
amore?'
Because although he'd been born and brought up about two centimetres from the Mile End Road, he liked to ramp up 'the Italian in him', believed to be a long since deceased grandparent.

'I think she still loves him,' Anna had observed, watching the neat comb and snip, comb and snip going on at the very bottom of her hair.

'For her, the door is still open. She hasn't found anyone else, maybe she doesn't want to find anyone else.' Big shrug. 'But for heeeeem? I don't-a know.'

'He has a girlfriend,' Anna told Harry, 'but she's awful. Young and dumb,' she added, sounding so like one of his Wednesday afternoon OAPs that it was hard not to laugh.

'But what can I do? You know, to get them back together?' Anna had asked again.

'Nothing,' was Harry's warning. 'If it was really love, the once in a lifetime stuff that everyone gets so excited about, they will wake up some day and realize.'

'But what if only one of them realizes?' she'd asked.

'Well, then it isn't meant to be.' Snip, snip. 'Two people have to be in love together, or else the whole thing falls apart, no?'

'But can't I just remind them that they still love each other?'

'How can you be sure?'

'I'm their daughter. I know this stuff.' She'd crossed her arms and kicked her legs out with a clang against the wall.

So that was why she was now trying to remind her father of the night he first came across Eve.

'How did we meet?!' he was repeating her question. 'Oh, you know that story, don't you? Anyway, it was a long time ago.' For a moment, Anna thought he was about to get up and her chance would be gone.

So she quickly added: 'I know the first thing you ever said to her,' as a prompt.

'Do you?'

'Yeah, she told me ages ago. It was: "Do you believe in love at first sight or do I have to walk past you again?"'

Anna laughed and Joseph felt himself blush.

Partly because it was such an embarrassing line and partly because with those words he was, of course, there, in the sweaty little jazz club ... ten years ago now . . . clapping eyes on Eve for the very first time and reliving the moment when he had gone to talk to her with a suddenly dry throat and knees in danger of actually knocking together.

She had been leaning on the bar, sticking out a small pert bottom, twiddling with long blond hair, and he'd only been able to see one side of her face, but the expression was a beguiling mixture of dreamy calm and mischief.

As he'd got closer, he'd realized that she was about ten years older than she had looked from afar and this had made him even more afraid and even more inflamed. He'd never felt anything like this. And even as he'd prepared to do the line – ironically, of course – he'd been convinced this was the
coup de foudre
(well, he was a French lit and philosophy student at the time). This was, on his part anyway,
love at first sight.