These Days of Ours (35 page)

Patting Song’s narrow back, Kate spoke into the baby’s hair as she wandered about the kitchen, the early sun making the mundane utensils and pans gleam like amulets. ‘We
don’t need photos, Song,’ she said as the baby finished a thunderous burp. ‘I’ve got your granddad up here.’ Kate tapped her forehead. ‘You’ll know him
through my stories and funny little sayings. It’s only a photograph that got lost. He left all the love behind, more than enough to keep us both going. You can’t drop love out of a
suitcase, can you, Song, my pet?’

The child didn’t settle in her cot, with its new bedding and its array of soft animals lined up for her pleasure. She kicked and gurned until Kate picked her up again. ‘If I’m
not careful I’ll spoil you rotten, young lady.’ Kate padded downstairs with the now content baby.

The new playpen with a multicoloured mat was laid out in the sitting room. Song lived in a world of new things, fresh out of the box. Trips back to Yulan House would help keep her grounded, and
would do the same for Kate, who keenly felt the responsibility of caring for this malleable little person. It didn’t frighten her; on the contrary, it was exhilarating.

Setting down Puss Cat within mauling distance – Song loved to bite the poor thing’s ears – Kate reviewed her use of
malleable
. Song was fully formed, all there, a
magnolia bud waiting to blossom.

‘What have you got there, naughty pants?’ Kate gently retrieved the cardboard square Song was sucking.

A little creased, a little damp, Kate’s mustachioed father stared out at Kate, who looked from the snap to Song, to Song from the snap.

‘Relax!’ snapped Becca. ‘Imagine I’m not here.’

Easier said than done. Each of Becca’s diets had added a few more pounds to her frame, and her blonde hair was so subsidised with hair extensions she was a trendy version of the Cowardly
Lion.

‘I’ve never been filmed before,’ said Kate, straight backed on a hard chair, facing the single silver eye of a camera on a tripod. She didn’t know what to do with her
hands; suddenly they were the size of table tennis bats.

Becca tutted. ‘You’re not a Masai tribeswoman. You’ve seen a camera before. It’s not going to eat your soul.’

Accustomed to subjects’ nerves, Leon was gentler than his wife. ‘Look over at Becca,’ he advised. ‘Not into the lens. Stand up and sit down again, casually, like you
usually sit. And separate those hands.’

‘You look as if you’re strangling a chicken,’ added Becca.

‘And ignore my wife. Just cos she loves being filmed she thinks everybody else does too.’ Leon rolled his eyes at Becca’s eruption and his dreadlocks danced to the rhythm of
his laughter.

‘Shut up, Leon,’ said Becca. It was without rancour; she said it four times an hour and never meant it. ‘Look, Kate, even though we’ve pinned a sheet up over the cabinets
to make a neutral backdrop this is still just my kitchen diner.’ She always referred to it in that way, in case somebody might miss its splendour. Becca bent down to Song, who was playing
with the laces on Becca’s boots, as focused as if splitting the atom. ‘Your mummy is nice and relaxed when she comes here for supper, isn’t she, Song?’

Your mummy
. After six months back in Blighty, Kate still got goose bumps when she heard her title. Maybe the thrill would never wear off and the rest of her life would be a long
succession of Christmas mornings.

‘Actually,’ said Leon, squinting at a light meter on a cord around his neck, ‘this is
more
relaxing than supper at our house because there’s no spare man sitting
next to you, Kate.’

‘You mean . . .’ Kate feigned incredulity. ‘All those last minute unattached male guests are a
set up
?’

‘Mock me all you like,’ said Becca. ‘I won’t apologise for trying to fix up my pretty, clever, single mother, cousin. You’ll thank me one day.’ Becca was as
unrepentant about her quest to marry Kate off as she was about smoking, or having cake for breakfast.

‘Is that what I am? A single mother?’ Kate was amused. She sounded like a statistic, something that would crop up in an earnest BBC documentary about broken Britain.

‘Yes,’ said Becca, happy to put her straight. ‘I was one and it was lonely and it was hard and I worried I’d die alone and the police could only identify me by my dental
records.’

‘Surely,’ said Leon mildly as he bent to peer through his viewfinder, ‘they’d identify you by your silicone implants, love?’

‘I’m not alone,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve got Song, like you had Flo.’

‘It’s not the same.’ Becca was dismissive, as if this was Life 101. ‘I was a mess until this hunk of burning love came along.’ She slapped her husband lovingly (if
extremely hard) on the bottom. ‘You need your own Leon, Kate.’

‘First, though,’ said Leon, accustomed to speeding matters along, ‘you need to contribute your soundbite to the video for Charlie’s launch party. So chop chop,
ladies.’

‘Don’t chop chop me, Leon,’ said Becca, ramming glasses onto the bridge of her nose. A new nose, it was neither better nor worse than the perfectly nice original. ‘Right.
Like I said, we’re getting a load of people, some well known, others nobodies like you, to talk about Charlie’s book. We’ll edit them all together and it’ll be projected on
a big screen at the party.’ She winced. ‘Couldn’t you at least put a bit of lipstick on?’

‘Just start talking,’ said Leon to Kate.

‘
BLOKE
,’ said Kate, recognising Song’s bottom wiggle as a signifier that her nappy was full, ‘is a book I could read again and again.’ She had done exactly
that, alone in bed, with Song in the next room. ‘It’s wise without being preachy. It’s a great story but that’s not all it is. I find something new each time I flick through
the pages.’

Leon nodded, happy, encouraging, and Becca tried to look interested, even though Kate knew she was planning what to have for dinner.

‘Despite the title, it’s not just about blokes. It’s about people and how they find each other and what they do to hang on to one another.’ Which was, when she stopped to
think about it, ironic.
Better not stop to think about it then
. ‘I’ve never read anything quite like it before and I can’t wait for his next book.’ Kate shrugged.
‘Is that enough?’

Satisfied, Leon had left for a night shoot. Sharing a bottle of wine and an indifferent mezze Becca put together from the contents of the fridge, the women chatted about this
and that. And Charlie.

Becca, who had a bloodhound’s nose for sniffing out intrigue, had easily broken down Kate’s defences about the sexual close call on the night of the un-party. When the wine came out,
so did her insistence that Kate must ‘do something’ about Charlie.

‘I know I interfere, I know I’m a pain in the arse,’ said Becca, rifling the fridge for more foodstuffs to tip into bowls. ‘But I can see what you’re going through.
You still love the silly git.’

‘So what?’ Kate pushed her glass out of Song’s reach. ‘It’s like the weather. It’s always there but I can’t affect it. There’s nothing I can
do.’

‘There’s
always
something you can do.’ Becca sniffed at some olives in a plastic tub before slinging them into the bin. ‘Always.’

The last few months would have been very different without Becca’s support and enthusiasm and unhinged love for Song. All the vices which made her impossible were, turned on their heads,
the virtues which made her invaluable. Her nosiness was concern. Her bossiness cleared a path when Kate was unsure what to do. Her rampaging ego mutated into ironclad self-confidence when dealing
with the doctor who saw ‘no cause for concern’ at Song’s symptoms the time it transpired that the little girl had developed a hernia. Kate, cold with fear, had stood beside Becca
in A&E while her cousin demanded a second opinion. Everything about Becca was turned up to eleven; these days Kate revelled in the amplified love more than she quailed at the volume.

‘Charlie and me,’ said Becca, ‘get along fine now.’

‘I noticed.’ Kate pushed a lock of hair out of Song’s eyes as she settled the sleepy child in a padded carrycot, on the floor between her mum and her aunt. ‘About time.
Flo’s chuffed.’

‘It took me a long time to get over the death of my marriage. I was climbing out of the wreckage and I didn’t even know it was wreckage.’

Kate remembered Becca’s insistence on ‘partying’ and ‘girl power’. ‘We get through life the best way we can.’

‘And
your
way,’ said Becca with distaste, ‘is suffering in silence. Like some Renaissance saint on a tapestry.’

‘I’m not suffering,’ said Kate. That was true. ‘I have Song. Not only that,’ she rushed on, before Becca could interject, ‘but I have the time to enjoy her,
now that I have only one shop. I have a decent income.’ Not as decent as she’d hoped; Kate, accustomed to healthy cash flow, found that even her non-Becca standard of living had
suffered a little. ‘I’m busy every minute of every day. I’m full of plans for this little one and myself. We’re off to Beijing in a couple of months. And then I’ll
have to pick out a nursery school. I’m already investigating junior schools.’ She looked down at Song, sleeping sweetly as if acting the part of an ideal baby in a TV commercial.
‘I don’t have time to sit around and ponder on what might have been. Not any more.’

‘I’m sure all of that’s true,’ said Becca, who didn’t look as if she found a mere bauble like the truth particularly compelling. ‘But it’s all about
Song.’ Becca dipped a carrot stick into some hummus. ‘Look at Song,’ she ordered.

‘I am,’ said Kate, sensing a lecture.

‘Is she or is she not the best cared for ten month old you’ve ever seen? I thought I fussed over Flo but you make me look like an unfit mother.’ Becca lowered her voice, a
family tradition when touching on ‘difficult’ topics. ‘I know the scar hasn’t healed as well as you hoped, but Song will take that in her stride.’

Mention of the legacy left by Song’s cleft palate made Kate shift on her seat. The weal on Song’s face in the tiny space between her squat nose and her pout had faded in colour as
the surgeons had prophesied, but it hadn’t flattened out. Nothing could mar the perfection of Song – she was herself, everything about her was as it should be – but Kate projected
herself into her daughter’s future and saw curious stares or worse. These morbid daydreams set a bonfire in her stomach, so she wanted to snatch Song up and hold her to her, counteracting
prejudice and ridicule with the ferocity of her love.

‘The fortress you’ve built,’ said Becca, licking her fingers, ‘isn’t necessary.’ Her hand hovered hawkishly over the various dishes, before swooping on a sad
chunk of cheese. ‘Song has a smitten community of adults all looking out for her. She’s got a cousin in Flo who thinks the sun shines out of her bum. She has
you
: Joan of Arc and
Earth Mother all rolled into one.’ Becca put down the cheese to make her final point all the more emphatically. ‘And most importantly she’s got herself. Song is going to be
kick-ass.’

It should have been absurd, describing a pudgy baby in a nightdress embroidered with butterflies as kick-ass, but Kate agreed. Song had been born with a full quiver of arrows.

‘So who is the fortress really for?’ asked Becca. ‘Are those thick walls for you?’

‘I’m bored,’ said Kate suddenly, as if thumbscrews had been applied to drag this confession out of her. Her hand shot to her mouth at her own blasphemy.

Becca sat up.

‘Not with Song,’ said Kate, hastily. It was impossible to be bored of Song. Of the countless, tedious, repetitive jobs that keeping her alive/fed/warm entailed maybe, but Song was a
pearl whose iridescence threw up new colours each time Kate looked at her.

‘I know what you mean.’ Becca absolved her from being that dreaded ogre, the Bad Mother
.
‘It’s a slog. Everything is ten times more complicated than it should be.
I remember how settling Flo in her car seat used to feel like scaling the Matterhorn. And as for getting her to eat vegetables . . .’ She shook herself, chasing away memories of the long
broccoli war. ‘I had Charlie to help and I was
still
exhausted. And yes, I can read your mind, I know I’m a demanding bitch but my exhaustion was real. How you do it on your own
I can’t imagine.’

Mummy + daddy + baby. Kate had never shared Becca’s belief that this was the only equation for happiness. She perceived different paths through the forest. A subtle change had crept over
her recently
,
slowly, relentlessly. The way the intense colour had faded from Song’s scar.

I’m ready
. Kate hadn’t lunged at Charlie just because of the oddly fervid atmosphere, or the drink, or even her feelings about him. Her body had told her something her brain
had been slow to compute. Kate needed a partner. A.N. Other. Somebody to hold her hand, to talk to her and make love to her, to make her laugh and irritate the living hell out of her. She needed
somebody who needed these things from her in return. ‘I do it on my own,’ said Kate, in answer to Becca’s speculation, ‘because I have to.’

‘What if you didn’t have to?’ Becca was keen, sharp, despite her curves and lack of angles. She leaned forward: a point was about to be drummed home. Again. ‘What if you
and Charlie could bring up Song together?’ She leaned back, arms folded, triumphant. ‘Do you really think Charlie would have kissed you, undressed you if he didn’t mean it?
He’s not a womaniser, our Charles. He believes there’s a contract made in every bed. And you . . . he wouldn’t take
you
lightly. Ever.’ Becca’s voice went up as
she made light of something Kate knew had had a massive effect on Becca’s life. ‘All through our marriage, he never stopped thinking about you. Not really. There were two levels, you
know.’ Becca put her hands out stiffly, parallel to each other. ‘There was the top level.’ She shook her left hand, replete with rings of varying magnificence and Cruella de Vil
nails. ‘He jogged along, being my hubby and your mate. But there was also
this
level.’ Becca waggled her lower hand. ‘The love was still there, bubbling along. You,’
said Becca, letting her hands drop, ‘are his favourite person. End of.’