Never Mind Miss Fox (4 page)

E
liot had come back to the house from the school gates, pushing her bike alongside Martha and Eliza on the pavement.

“You'll come in, won't you?” Martha had said. “Just for a moment?”

“Please?” Eliza had begged, hopping between them over the cracks.

It was plain that Eliza had fallen in love with Miss Fox. “I know I shouldn't mind,” Martha confessed to Clive in private, “but I do.”

I do too,
Clive thought.

“It won't last,” he said aloud, in a level, careless voice. “It's a crush.”

“They're the worst!” laughed Martha. “Crushes are dangerous—you've no idea what little girls are like.”

Clive pictured Eliza leading Eliot round his home:

“—This is the hall, this is the kitchen, this is where we watch TV and down here are the bedrooms, come and look, this is Mum and Dad's and this is mine, it's really small—”

This was Eliot, pulled by the hand from room to room: Eliot looking, Eliot standing, Eliot peering and Eliot seeing.

At last she said, “I ought to go,” and they all went out to the step.

Eliza was hotheaded with excitement and attention. “It's so weird,” she said, “isn't it, Dad? That Miss Fox is my teacher? And you're all friends?”

But Clive was fiddling with the catch on the door and didn't hear her.

Martha laughed and took Eliza's hand. “Life before you, Eliza—can you imagine?” She was teasing and happy.

Clive followed Eliot down to her bike. With his back to the house he took a breath and asked her quietly, “Are you going to tell?”

It shocked him to hear his own voice, speaking that question aloud. Eliot, however, did not seem surprised. She unlocked two locks and steadied the bike against her hip while she slid the keys into a pocket. Her reply—quiet; half-smiling—mystified him: “Tell Martha? I won't have to.”

She looked over his shoulder to wave at his wife and daughter, smiling on the top step, and then she pedaled away.

“Well,” Martha said, back in the flat with the door shut. “How about that? Eliot Fox, no less, in our house. What would Tom say? I can't wait to tell him. Or do you want to?”

But Clive was lost for words.

Later, sitting at the kitchen table with her homework, Eliza said, “Miss Fox says if we go to her house at the weekend I can practice. Can we?”

“Yes, of course,” said Martha. “We'll go on Saturday.”

“Instead of swimming?” said Eliza, perking up.

“As well as swimming.”

“Bum. Dad too?”

Clive was staring at the computer screen. “No,” he said. “I have to work.”

Eliza cut her losses and subsided into her seat. She remained, however, distracted from her studies by her new favorite topic. “Dad, don't you think Miss Fox is really cool?”

Clive said nothing.

Martha glanced at him. “She was always cool,” she said, stepping in. “Even aged fifteen. Tom was in love with her—did you know that?”

If Martha resented Eliza's love for Eliot, thought Clive, she didn't show it. She sounded as loving and admiring of Eliot as Eliza could wish her to be.
That is good parenting,
he thought.
Skillful lying.
He stared at the computer screen in front of him where words seemed to wash and shimmer from one side to the other like a flock of starlings.

“Uncle Tom? Miss Fox?” Eliza goggled. “Fifteen?” Now her books did not interest her in the slightest. She stared out of the window, twisting her pen in her hair—something she did during moments of contemplation. “It's funny—isn't it,” she said, “that Miss Fox and I both have almost the same name. I mean the ‘E—l—i' part.”

“Yes,” said Martha, “I thought that too. We might get you muddled up!”

This was a joke but it was a lovely idea; Eliza smiled with pleasure, twisting the pen. “Isn't it funny, Dad?” she repeated.

“Hilarious,” said Clive. He used a flat, dead voice to smother the whole subject.

Martha and Eliza were muted and Clive cursed himself.
Pull yourself together.
Turning his head from the screen he said, “I'm a bit…I think I'll go for a walk.”

Martha looked at him with a question mark on her face that expected an answer, but Eliza had knitted her pen into her hair and got it stuck.

“Ow,” she bleated, turning in her seat to face her mother. “Help.”

“Ridiculous child!” said Martha. The two were locked together, unknotting and detangling, when Clive slid out of the door.

He stood on the step and wondered where to go.
Eliot Fox has got me out of my house,
he thought in surprise.
Already.
He felt a current of fear, as if a worm had been sleeping inside him and now it was awake, rippling its length along his guts.

Absurd! He shook his head at himself and trotted down the steps.

Each morning Belinda smoked one cigarette, standing on the bit of broken tarmac behind the office. “My club room,” she called it. Belinda preferred pronouncements to conversation: “I have to have one ciggie with my
caffè istante.
Otherwise I can't go to the loo and then the whole day falls apart.” No one could argue with this.

Today Clive followed her out of the emergency exit and told her what had happened. After puffing, sipping and coughing she said, “I thought I told you not to see Eliot.”

“She was in my house!” Clive protested. “What could I do?”

“Make something up. Leave. Go back later.”

“I can't start lying—”

“Start? What do you mean,
start?
You've been lying for
years.
”

“Well…” began Clive. “I never actually told any lies, not actual lies—”

“Oh, God,” she interrupted him. “Men!” She was really angry; he took a step back. “What bullshit you talk!” She mimicked the bleat of his voice: “
‘Never lied, never lied'
—haven't you heard of lying by omission?”

“OK, OK.” Clive tried to placate her.

“I don't want to hear about this, Clive. I'm serious. I've told you before.”

“It's just that…I don't know what to do.”

“Go away. Leave me alone. These are my favorite three minutes of the day, and you're spoiling them.”

Clive had known Belinda would not tell.

“I wish you hadn't told me any of that,” she had responded to his confession. “It's a bad, rotten deed, what you did. If I were Martha and I found out—”

He had quaked to hear her judge him. He had wished he'd held his tongue. He would have knelt at her feet and begged for her silence, if need be, but—

“The only thing that matters now is Eliza,” Belinda had told him. “Let's not mention it again.”

—and Clive had been reprieved.

He had been safe, then, but he was not safe now.

Saturday afternoon began well. Martha and Eliza took three buses to Eliot's house, which was a stout, brick villa at the top of a leafy hill.

“I like it round here,” said Eliza.

“I'm not surprised”—Martha was in a buoyant mood—“we're in Hampstead.”

Eliot opened the door in denim shirt and jeans.

“How do you manage to look so young?” Martha said. “I said the same thing to Clive the other day. And you used to be so grown-up, for your age! It's not fair.”

It was a sincere—if glib—compliment, but Eliot did not enjoy it. “I wasn't,” she frowned. “I don't.”

Martha had said the wrong thing. How could it be? She had been rebuffed.

Then Eliot seemed to relent. “It feels like a lifetime since those days.”

“It's more than my whole lifetime,” piped up Eliza. “
Years
more.”

Looking at the little girl, Eliot smiled. “That's right.”

Once inside the hall—empty, echoing—Eliza said in surprise, “But there's nothing here. Is this where you live?”

“Only just,” said Eliot. “I lived in America until the other day.”

“Don't you have any stuff?”

“Just my piano. And a bed of course.” There was a pause. Eliza was expecting more and it came—at last—in small, rationed mouthfuls. “This is my friend's house. He's selling it, but he's letting me stay for a bit.”

“Your friend must be massively rich,” Eliza sighed. “Where has he moved to?”

“He's got lots of houses,” said Eliot. “So he can choose from different places.”

“We've got two houses,” Eliza said—and then corrected herself: “Well, sort of. A flat and a cottage.”

Martha blushed. “Eliza, do stop—”

“And so have Stan and Jack.”

“—rabbiting on.” To Eliot, Martha explained, “Stan and Jack are Eliza's cousins. Tom's twins.”

It was another mistake: the spoken name seemed to create a smashed silence, as if Martha had dropped a stack of plates.
But it was so many years ago,
she thought.
How can it still matter?

Eliza had expected the piano to be a beautiful antique but it was a plain, black upright, scuffed at the corners. A pair of unpolished pedals poked out from underneath, like the slippers of a tired but obedient servant. It was a disappointment—but then Eliot stroked the lid with her palm before she opened it, as if she were greeting her favorite horse in its stable, and so Eliza knew that despite its appearance it must be special. She spelled in her head the plain, gold letters of its name:
C. Bechstein.
“Is it old?” she asked, too shy to touch it.

“About a hundred years old,” said Eliot. “So yes for a person, but no for a piano.” She adjusted the stool to suit Eliza's height. “Half an hour,” she said, “and then a break.”

“OK,” said Eliza, resigned. She began to pull her music from her rucksack and then said, “I won't play 'til you go, Mum. You know I don't like you listening in.”

“I didn't like to play for my parents either,” Eliot said.

Eliza was pleased when she heard this, but Martha was hurt.

In the kitchen with Martha, Eliot opened the fridge door and asked, “Will you have champagne? I found a whole case in a cupboard.”

“I like the sound of your friend,” said Martha. “Yes please.” She was embarrassed when Eliot did not drink it herself. “Won't you?” she said.

“No, I won't…I don't. Not anymore.”

She meant alcohol, and thinking of it Martha said, “Do you remember France?”

“Yes.”

It was the end of both subjects: France and drinking.

Martha sipped her champagne. She wished she did not feel such a fool but why did she? She had expected laughter and stories but this reminded her of an interview.

They sat in the garden, a brick-flagged square the size of a Ping-Pong table and yet containing, somehow, two wooden chairs and a glossy magnolia tree. The high walls of the surrounding houses peered over them. “Not much of a garden,” Eliot said.

Martha hinted, “I suppose it depends what you're used to.” She wanted to know more about America but Eliot did not respond. In the end Martha had to fill the silence herself. “You're lucky,” she said. “I'd kill for some outside space.”

A magnolia leaf, bottle green and velvet brown, clattered through the branches to the ground. “Odd how much noise they make,” Eliot said. “Like falling slates.”

“I'd never noticed.” Martha felt disadvantaged, as if there would always be sights and sounds that reached Eliot's eyes and ears but not her own.

Clive worked on Saturdays—or at least, spent the mornings in his office—and then went to a smart, spacious gym where he swam or ran on the machine. Afterwards he would sit in the steam room and look down at his body, pleased. When it came to suppertime—pizzas, on Saturdays—he could eat without guilt.

Today he would not get that opportunity. Changing back into his clothes he read a message on his phone:
Mum drunk can you come.

He rang Martha's number. “What does this mean?”

Martha's voice was thickened by alcohol: “I think Eliza wants you to join us. So do I. It's really nice here.”

“Are you drunk?” He knew she was—he could hear it in her voice—but he wanted to let her know that she had been caught.

“No! Of course not. I've only had…a glass…of champagne. Or so.”

“I can't come,” said Clive, thinking of what Belinda had said. “It's impossible.”

But then it was Eliza's voice in his ear: “You
have
to come. Miss Fox says we can all have pizzas here. She says there's a place around the corner, it's really good, they throw the whatsit—the dough—in the air. Come
on,
Dad.”

He could not say no.

When he arrived Eliza opened the door and tried to tug him into the house. “Come on, Dad, we've all been waiting—”

“We're not staying,” he said to her, “we're going. Now.”

She looked up at him. “But—”

“Get your stuff. Where's Mum?”

“I'm here.” Martha stepped forward from the hall behind Eliza. “What's the problem?” She spoke in a low voice. If they were going to have an argument she did not want it carrying to Eliot's sensitive ears.

“I want to go.”

“Well, I don't,” announced Eliza. “You said yes to pizzas. You
said.
”

“No I didn't.”

“Why—are—you—such—a—P—I—G?” Eliza retreated—slow, meaningful steps on her sneakered feet—into the house.