CHAPTER EIGHT
I’m sitting in our open-plan office, staring at the computer screen with an image of a passport on it, the stamps of various countries and the words in bold,
Explore a World of Opportunity
. I’m designing a poster for a language school and have to submit at least three different concepts for them to choose from.
I finally drifted off to sleep at four last night. I need to get a grip on reality. What is the point of my saying anything now? All I’d be doing is hurting Finn and why would I want to do that? If I have lied about Clarky and me, then what else have I lied about? That’s what he’d think. He would never trust me again. Imagine how awkward it would be, let alone difficult for Clarky and me to have any kind of friendship afterwards. Each touch of the hand, hug, kiss on the cheek, would be misinterpreted because Finn would be looking for a reason to distrust us. He’d turn me into his mother.
I don’t think he would ever forgive me.
I’m not going to let one night jeopardise my marriage. It’s in the past and that’s where it should firmly stay.
Tiana won’t tell Finn. So that only leaves Clarky, and I know he won’t say anything.
What’s the time now? I have to get to George’s school by 3.30. Normally our neighbour Rose Billingham picks him up for me the three days of the week that I work. George calls her Mrs B. She dog-sits Rocky and looks after George as if he were one of her own grandchildren. She makes working life possible for me, but more importantly she is one of the few people who understand George. ‘I won’t stand no messing around,’ she always says. George has a great respect for her.
I shall never forget the first time we met. It was when Finn and I had just moved to Shepherds Bush a year ago. When he became a Registrar his basic salary increased and we finally took the plunge and bought our first home together, a three-bedroomed terrace house. Finn and I had loved it the moment we stepped through the front door. The sitting room had glass doors opening on to the sunroom, and a kitchen with a stylish slate floor and Moroccan tiles over the walls. It had a great feeling of space and light. While we were still in the process of unpacking boxes and deciding what paint samples to go for there had been a knock on the door. I saw a shock of white hair, partly covered by a green hood with fur edging. ‘Hello, Rose Billingham. I live next door.’ Rose is Irish. She walked straight in, carrying a large orange earthenware dish. ‘Thought you’d like a lasagne.’ She placed it on the stove with such an air of authority anyone would have thought it was her home.
I thanked her profusely before offering her a cup of tea. ‘Not that Earl Grey stuff. Builders’ tea, please.’ She took off her parka to reveal a tight-fitting white shirt with frills down the front, a pair of black pinstripe trousers and shiny red boots with a wedge heel. I took all that in before studying her face which was strongly lined and framed by long white hair with the odd streak of dull blonde. The two didn’t add up somehow. But she had the most incredible blue eyes that shone like bright stars in a dark sky. George had been instantly transfixed. ‘Wow! Look at your hair! Your parents must be really old?’
Finn abruptly stopped working when he saw Rose. ‘Now, you must be the man of the house,’ she said, winking at him. ‘Rose Billingham.’
His eyes came to life as he took in the figure in front of him. ‘Finn.’ He stared back at her.
‘Look at the pair of you, as tall as the skies. What do you do, Finn?’
‘I’m a doctor.’
‘Oh.’ She’d blushed and glanced at her tea, clearly impressed. ‘Are you a GP?’
‘No, I’m just a Registrar.’
‘Just a Registrar? That sounds very impressive to me. What do you specialise in?’
‘Cardiology.’
‘Hearts. I bet you’ve broken a few,’ she said with a wink and he winked back. Rose relaxed into the sofa finally. ‘My husband Michael used to be a volunteer for a heart charity – for young sufferers, you know. He visited so many hospitals, studying the latest technology for fighting heart attacks. Ironic that he died of one, really,’ she said sadly. ‘I have to watch my cholesterol, can’t eat macaroni cheese anymore.’
The office phone rings.
‘Gem Communications,’ Natalie says in her slow South African accent that could lull you to sleep. I like Natalie. She is young and her manner as gentle as a lamb, but there is a steely determination beneath. I’ve learnt that she loves roller-blading in Hyde Park and
ER
is her favourite hospital drama. Her face is pale and clear, accentuating almond-shaped eyes, and she has neat bobbed hair. She wears a silver necklace with a heart-shaped pearl pendant. She told me her mother gave it to her as a leaving present. Occasionally I notice her touching the pendant, deep in thought, as if talking to her mother secretly.
‘It’s Finn,’ she says.
I stop spinning the cards in my Rolodex and pick up. ‘I’m not going to make George’s play,’ he says hurriedly.
I’m disappointed but at least I have a backup plan. ‘Don’t worry, Tiana’s coming.’
‘Great. Say good luck, will you? I’m sorry, darling.’ He hangs up abruptly.
I look at my watch. ‘Shit, I need to go.’
The phone rings again. ‘Go now, before Ruby gets back,’ Natalie urges.
I collect my bag, throw an empty sandwich box into the bin and do a quick tidy of the desk. Just then Ruby walks awkwardly into the office in the tightest grey skirt I have ever seen. It has an enormous metre-long slit up the right-hand side. Her boobs are trying to burst out of her tight white shirt, the buttons on the brink of popping. ‘Are you going?’ She looks at her watch, gold bracelet jangling.
‘It’s my son’s school play, need to dash.’ ‘Dash’ is a word Ruby frequently uses.
‘I didn’t see it in the diary.’ She sits down and starts to tap on her computer keyboard with manicured nails. ‘Off you go then, have fun.’ She smiles but there is tightness around her lips. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
‘Thanks, I’ll make the time up.’
‘Josie, it’s Christmas! But next year we are going to have to pull out
all
the stops. That means you too, Natalie.’ She chuckles. ‘I’m going to need one hundred and ten per cent from you both, at all times.’ Natalie is already hiding behind her large Evian bottle. The phone rings. ‘Gem Communications, Ruby Gold speaking … Oh, Steve, hi! Uh-huh …’ She’s nodding vigorously. ‘Uh-huh.’
I look at the door.
‘You get the pun? Gem and Ruby, that’s right!’ She laughs as she swings herself round in her chair and I swear I hear the material of her skirt tearing.
I exit rapidly. What is she going to say when I tell her I’m pregnant? I think for what must be the hundredth time that day as I jog along the blue-carpeted corridor and towards the lifts.
‘Slow down, Josie!’ calls Diana, the receptionist. ‘You’ll have a heart attack!’
‘Husband’s a cardiologist. He can sort that one out.’
*
Lights are dimmed in the school hall. I’m waiting for Tiana. She’s George’s godmother. Tiana’s free in the days because she’s just given up her recruitment job in the City, fed up of the long hours and not meeting anyone. ‘Something strange happened,’ she’d started explaining to Finn and me over supper one night, about a month ago. ‘This photograph of me shaking hands with my boss … the one taken last year when I won the award for recruiting the most people in the calendar year … well, it fell off the shelf and the frame smashed into pieces.’
Finn had braced himself. ‘You’re giving up work because you knocked over a photograph frame?’
‘But I didn’t! That’s the whole point.’
‘Prickman, you’re doing so well at work. You’d be mad to give it up for a premonition.’
Beneath Tiana’s smile she had looked hurt that she wasn’t being taken seriously. ‘I know, in here,’ she tapped her heart, ‘that it’s the right thing to do. I believe something is telling me to leave this job. I’ll find something better, you watch me. It’s time I used my languages.’ Tiana is fluent in Spanish and Italian.
Now the music teacher, Mrs Luty, is playing Christmas carols on the piano, looking deadly serious. She has a long thin nose and large front teeth that seem to protrude even more when she concentrates. Although only in her forties, she has silvery-grey hair.
How I wish Finn could be here. He would be laughing, and once Finn starts, I can’t stop. During the last parents’ evening we both got the giggles and he was squeezing my knee so hard, trying to control them. That’s what I love about Finn. He wants George to fit in but when it comes down to it, he doesn’t take any of this stuff
too
seriously, whereas other parents have already signed up their children to stage school.
Parents start to fill up the rows of seats and get out their flashy digital cameras. I hear quick footsteps. Tiana rushes in with carrier bags swinging off her arms. ‘Blimey,’ she says, putting a sweaty hand on my shoulder. ‘I didn’t think being a lady of leisure was this exhausting!’ She plonks herself down next to me and fans her face with the programme left on her wooden chair. She slides her small feet out of her heels and I can see they have left a deep indentation across the foot. I first began to notice just how pretty Tiana was when she turned sixteen. Her hair was swept off her face and her skin had become acne-free after taking herbal concoctions and using skin creams. Mum thought she was as beautiful as an exotic bird with her naturally fair hair and crystal-blue eyes. ‘I’m Capricorn, a sun sign with Scorpio rising,’ she had once explained earnestly.
‘What does that mean?’
‘The eyes talk.’
She’s much shorter than me, with delicate hands and feet, and I’ve always been envious of her nose. It’s still a little girl’s nose.
‘Aw, that’s better.’ Her cheeks look red from the cold winter air. She’s wearing a bright pink suede coat over white jeans, with a fur scarf clipped together with a sparkling green brooch.
‘What have you bought?’ I peek into one of the bags.
‘These jeans.’ They’re tight and white. ‘I didn’t have time to take them off.’ Tiana’s life always resembles speed dating. ‘Here, look, I bought this peacock feather to go in my hair.’
‘Ooh,’ I sigh over the prettiness of it, holding it up to my face. ‘I want one.’
‘Portobello. Bargain, only a fiver,’ she says with a nudge. ‘I’ve got a date tonight with Ben … wait for it … Shuttlecock.’
‘Prickman? Shuttlecock?’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘Not much in it really, is there?’ We both laugh.
‘Anyway I’m not going to marry the guy, am I?’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Why not? You’ll marry someone in the end so why not take off with Mr Shuttlecock?’
Mrs Luty finally stops playing and the red velvet curtain is drawn. Voices become muffled until there is complete silence. I’m nervous. ‘He’ll be great,’ Tiana whispers.
The back of the stage is painted navy with silver stars and the hills of Bethlehem. Mary sits at the front, behind the hay barrels, looking angelic with her blue hood and long fair hair. Angels with silver-glitter tiaras and white feathered wings surround her. Mothers and fathers cluck proudly.
A group of shepherds emerges from the wings. I squint because I can’t see George. ‘There he is!’ Tiana calls out. He’s huddled at the back wearing one of Finn’s old striped shirts and clutching a woolly lamb in one hand. ‘George, stop picking your nose,’ I immediately mutter under my breath.
‘
Then in a cattle shed in a manger lay the King. The angels sang for him
.’ The angels start to flutter their wings and do peculiar dances. One girl’s wings fall off and she starts to cry. I can hear George laughing. A teacher rushes onto the stage to put her back together again.
‘
The shepherds came to where the baby lay
.’ George’s group of shepherds shuffle across the stage holding crooks, some playing tambourines. My son decides it’s a good idea to overtake them. The blue and white tea towel slips from the top of his head and is now lopsided. By mistake he knocks off a white napkin that was sitting on one of the other shepherd’s heads. The boy pats his fair hair self-consciously. I am sinking lower into my seat. I can’t watch.
‘Can I play now?’ George calls out loudly in the middle of their song. I am almost on the floor with embarrassment. ‘What’s he doing?’ I whisper loudly, one eye shut. ‘Hi, Mum!’ I hear. Please, God, what have you got against me? Did I do something appalling in my last life? ‘Mumdog!’ George continues. The other children stare back at him. ‘Where’s my dad?’
‘Has to be centre of attention, that boy,’ Jason’s mother tells the one sitting next to her. ‘What’s a stupid Mumdog, anyway?’
‘God-mum spelt backwards,’ Tiana tells her with a tap on the shoulder, ‘but don’t worry, we wouldn’t expect you to get it.’
A smile spreads across my face. ‘Well said.’
‘
Now I lay me down to sleep, angels watching over me, my Lord
,’ they all continue to sing, shaking their tambourines.
‘Can I play now?’ George shouts, triangle at the ready.
This is worse than childbirth. He pings the triangle with all his strength, and laughs. A teacher places a firm hand on his shoulder to remind him where he is. He looks at the audience, at her hand and at the audience again, and says, ‘Nothing to do with me!’ Everyone starts to laugh as George is hauled behind the curtain.
He reappears when the Three Kings arrive decked in gold crowns and brightly coloured cloaks that trail across the floor. ‘
We bring gifts of frankincense and myrrh
…’ they sing, each holding an old shoebox. George hits his triangle and everyone applauds. I look around in astonishment. ‘Are they clapping George?’
‘Yes! He’s jazzing it up. Otherwise,’ she leans in closer, ‘it’d be rather boring.’
I begin to relax and drop my shoulders. All the children line up and George steps forward, in front of all the rest. He bows. The audience continues to clap and now I join in. George is pretending to be Superman, flexing his muscles. ‘He should be on the stage,’ says one of the fathers to me.
I’m astounded by the sudden turnaround. ‘Thank you.’
‘D’you know what my mother said to me the other day?’ Tiana asks.
‘What?’ I’m still watching my son fooling around. Where does he get it from? I wonder what Finn was like at his age?