Look how she reacted when I tried to talk to her about Simon. She’ll be furious when she knows that I used her as a decoy. And she thinks that whatever was going on between Simon and me is over.
It
is
over, but how can I tell her that again and have her believe me?
She
has
to believe me. She has to back me up.
Yet she will not even answer the phone, and I cannot help feeling, however irrationally, that she is ignoring me deliberately. I am too muddled and too queasy and too plain miserable to think anything else.
And so we arrive at my parents’ house at one o’clock prompt the next day, the three of us, doing our best to behave like the devoted family that everyone supposes us to be. Andrew is good at duty; it requires no passion, no spontaneity, just the functional predictability of carrying out a certain role. He is dutiful in all his roles, be it son, son-in-law, father, husband. Oh yes, he is a dutiful husband. Never let it be said that Andrew isn’t
dutiful.
And here is Jono, the showpiece of the family, psyched up for another performance. He stares out of the window and frequently sighs in the car on the way there, a faint but audible whisper of a sound floating across the otherwise heavy silence. And when we get out of the car he sighs again, and puts back his shoulders, as though bracing himself.
And then there is me, keeping up the rear. I am feeling sick, and resentful, and prickling up with an almost
dare-you
dread. I look at Andrew as he locks the car and puts his key in the pocket of his jacket, and I hate him. I hate him for his role in this inadequate family that we have created; for the silence in the car, the silence that we inflict upon Jono. I hate him for his emotional deadness; for his inability to see the suffering of his son, and the suffering of his wife.
But here we are the three of us, bound by our charade.
Both my parents are at the door the second we ring the bell. I suspect they were watching out for us and their eagerness needles me with a twinge of guilt. I know how much they love us. Not just me as their daughter – in fact, especially not me in particular – but this family that I have melded myself into and provided them with. First they swoop upon Jono, my mother fairly choking his head off with the fierceness of her embrace, and bombarding him with the promise that he’ll sit next to her at lunch so that he can tell her all about school, and my father ruffling his hair till the poor boy is squirming;
No, no
, my dad insists;
he’ll sit next to me, and talk to me – after all, it is my day.
How they do love him, my dear, precious son. I see it, and the guilt inches a little deeper. This should have been enough for me. It should have been, but it wasn’t.
It isn’t.
And now they move on to Andrew: a pat on the back from my dad, a clasp of the shoulders and a kiss from my mum.
‘Good to see you,’ my dad says. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Come on in,’ says my mum. ‘Let me get you a drink.’
I am last; the mere provider of these other, newer and therefore more appealing members of my small family. My mum pecks me quickly on the cheek and says, by way of greeting, ‘I’ve done Jono some peas, as I know he doesn’t like broccoli. And there’s some ice cream if he wants it, as well as Dad’s cake, for pudding.’
It is always strange, coming back to the family home. Things that I remember as new – the cream-coloured tiles in the kitchen, with the acorn pattern every third one along; the green carpet in the hall, two unfortunate shades darker than the one in the living room; the gas fire with its panelled pine surround – seem so excruciatingly old and out of date now. And so they mark the passage of time; they highlight the ageing of us all: of my parents and, more disturbing still, of me. I want to come back here and find everything unchanged. I want there still to be time.
And how small the house seems to me now, as though it has shrunk over the years. We crowd into the kitchen while my dad pours us drinks and my mother fusses over vegetables that will have been boiling away for too long already, and over the gravy, which she swooshes around with a wooden spoon in a vast, warped roasting tin balanced precariously on one side of the hob. It is so hot in the kitchen; steam has blotted out the windows and is running down the glass in random tear-like trickles. The heat and the smell of the cooking are oppressive; I cannot breathe without breathing it all in, and we are too close, all of us; in proximity and in need and in history. Far, far too close.
‘Happy birthday, Ron,’ Andrew says, and he raises his glass.
My mum turns away from the gravy, her thin cheeks scarlet from the heat. She wipes one hand down her apron and the other one back over her hair, smartening herself up, before picking up her glass. ‘Yes, happy birthday, Ron,’ she says, before downing her wine as if it were water.
The nausea in my stomach grips and pulls.
‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ I manage to say. ‘Where’s Janice?’
‘Running late,’ my mother replies, the flippant phrase at odds with the quick tightening of her lips. ‘She called just before you arrived. I think we’ll have to start without her.’
So her phone works well enough now, I think. And she’ll have picked up my messages, and all my missed calls.
‘She’ll be here soon,’ my dad says, and he beams at each of us in turn. And then he fixes his attention on Jono. ‘Now then, young man,’ he says. ‘How about we go and open my presents?’
While presents are being opened, and food is being dished, I extract myself from the others and walk about the house, taking my handbag with me. It is cooler away from the kitchen, though the smell of boiling vegetables comes with me, clinging to my clothes and my hair. I take myself upstairs, ostensibly to visit the bathroom, but really I am just looking around as I always do, seeing what, if anything, is different.
But I find everything as it always is; a little older, that is all. The real change is all in me.
There is the ceramic oval bearing my name entwined with rosebuds, still nailed to my bedroom door, just as Janice’s still hangs on hers. The same floorboards creak underneath my feet. My bed is made up as if ready for me; my old, discarded teddy bears sit propped up against the pillow. And on my chest of drawers my ancient white plastic jewellery box, turned cream now; a small pink vase; and the red and blue glass dish that I bought on holiday in Spain. My mother has kept these things, things that I didn’t want any more and left behind me, discarded, when I moved out. She has kept them all, and each week she will polish them and arrange them and be reminded of me. The thought of it fills me with regret.
I never gave a thought to my parents’ feelings when I finally left home; I simply packed up my stuff and left. They weren’t at home when I came back for the last of my things; and I didn’t even leave a note. I was too busy, too preoccupied with my own life, with my future in all its potential glory. I turned my back on all this without a second thought, and yet here is my mother, twenty years later, still plumping up my teddy bears, still hanging on to the rubbish that I left behind.
Loss is loss, in whatever its form.
And what became of that glorious future that I saw for myself? There, too, is loss.
I can hear them downstairs; the comforting ho-ho-ho of my father’s laugh; the clatter of pans in the kitchen and my mother calling out,
Won’t be long now
; the softer, familiar and yet so alien tones of my husband and my son – these two so connected to me and yet so distant, so
other.
I move over to the window and look out at the street and my heart is raw. I see myself at five years old, at seven, at twelve . . . running back and forth across the road to Leanne’s house; I see the two of us out on our roller skates, clinging to each other, sliding all over; and then with our hula hoops when they were in fashion, belly-dancing them around our hips, or balancing them, rolling them down the street. I see Leanne making her weary way home from school in her ridiculous school uniform – the blazer, the hat, the pleated skirt right down to her calves, so out of place here in Ashcroft. I see her bedroom window across the street; I look and I see the flick of the curtain, the flash of the light – the sign to tell me that she is home.
Loss is loss.
My mum is calling from down stairs. ‘Rachel? Rachel? You all right up there? Lunch is on the table.’ Her voice is a mixture of concern and irritation; the perennial tone of motherhood.
‘I’m coming,’ I call back, as lightly as I can. I look in my old mirror above my chest of drawers and force a smile onto my face in preparation. My pale skin is even paler than usual; the blusher I slapped on my cheeks to give me some colour stands out clown-like, the shadows under my eyes a stark, contrasting mauve. I remember when I was pregnant with Jono: everything about me seemed to bloom. My hair became thicker, my eyes brighter, my cheeks plumper, and rosier. My body loved being pregnant, and my spirit too. I was serene; the very picture of health.
It was the same the second time, too, ironically. I carried on blossoming even as my baby withered and died.
There is nothing of the bloom about me this time.
Before I go back downstairs I try calling Janice again, but she doesn’t answer. She’ll be driving. Janice never answers her phone when she’s driving.
‘You’re very pale,’ my mother says critically, when we are seated at the table. ‘Are you not well?’ She is at one end of the table, and I am to her left; Jono is next to me, and beside him at the other end is my father. Andrew sits opposite me, and next to him is the empty space for Janice. And so my mother, and Andrew, are perfectly positioned to scrutinize me.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. A little tired, that’s all.’
‘You’re not eating much,’ my mother observes.
We are having prawn cocktail, my mother’s fail-safe starter. Only instead of the usual seafood dressing she has mixed the prawns with salad cream, and I am finding its sour acidity hard to swallow.
‘Just waiting for Janice, that’s all,’ I say, and as if on cue the doorbell rings.
‘Ah, here she is,’ my dad says. His face lights up, and I am hit by a flash of annoyance; did he look that pleased to see me? Did he even notice me behind the more appealing presence of my husband, and my son? And what does Janice ever bring with her but her lateness? But this is no time for petty jealousy.
My dad pushes back his chair to get up and answer the door, but quickly I say, ‘I’ll go,’ and beat him to it.
I open the front door to Janice and blurt out, ‘I tried to call you.’
It comes out like an accusation, and she steps back on the doorstep, eyebrows raised. ‘I’ve been out all weekend,’ she says defensively. ‘What’s the matter?’
But then my dad is in the hall, with my mum behind him, both of them calling out their hellos, and my chance is gone.
‘I need to speak to you,’ I say quickly, and Janice gives me a strange look and walks past me.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says to my mum. ‘Traffic was hell.’ And to my dad, ‘Happy birthday.’
And back we all go to the dining room. Janice sits down and eats her prawn cocktail while we all look at her. I am feeling hot and tense, wondering how long it will be till I can get her alone, and what I will say to her when I do. And I cannot bear the unfairness of it. Janice has been with Paul all weekend; I’ve no doubt about that. That’s why she had no need to check her phone.
My mother starts clearing the dishes and I get up to help. I help her bring through the meat and the vegetables for the main course, too; having arrived late, Janice is let off this task, though I wish she would have the sensitivity to make an excuse to leave the table and find a way of speaking to me. But she doesn’t. She just sits there at the table and talks to my dad, and to Andrew.
How long have I got? It feels surreal, farcical almost. I know what is going to happen and I am walking straight into it.
Yet ten minutes, twenty minutes pass and they have talked about Janice’s work, my parents’ holiday plans, and every little detail of Jono’s timetable . . . I am starting to think that maybe my insignificance might be a good thing. Nothing is required of me other than that I should be here, enabling the existence and the presence of Andrew and Jono. Andrew and Jono would not be here, today, if it were not for me, but now that they are here I hardly matter. I am like a chair leg, necessary, but not particularly noticed unless for its absence.
And so my thoughts start to drift.
I think of Simon. I think of his beautiful eyes and his beautiful body, the smell of his skin and the sound of his voice, already so distant. My heart is low in my chest, too hard, too chilled.
We’ll talk soon
, he said, but when? He couldn’t get away from me quickly enough.
I cut off a piece of beef. I put it in my mouth and I chew. It takes all my will to swallow it. I can feel my mother’s eyes on me, watching.
‘Are you sickening for something?’ she asks.
‘Not at all,’ I say and I smile widely. ‘This is delicious.’
Andrew is watching me too, now. I cannot read his eyes. I cannot read his expression at all, though once upon a time I’d have known his thoughts before he did. Now he is closed to me – his feelings, if he has any, a mystery. I try to extend my smile to him and it cracks in my face like a grimace.