The cleaners had just left and Helen was making her way around the house inspecting their work. She wasn’t very happy with them. They were impossibly quick. In and out in under an hour. Four of them. Each racing off into different rooms. One does bathrooms, one vacuums, one dusts and wipes the tops of tables and benches, bookshelves, and the last takes on the kitchen and then mops the floors in the bathrooms and kitchen and flat.
She didn’t like strangers in the house. They touched everything. They went through her most private spaces – her bedroom and office. They moved her things, never putting them back as they were. They shuffled Malcolm’s pages, upset the piles of books. Left things in strange places. She once found her reading glasses on top of the loo. Why would they move them at all?
This was the second company of cleaners. The first was exactly the same. So she was reluctant to try a third group. She just wanted them to do what they said they’d do. It wasn’t challenging work. The objectives were clear. She’d even offered them more money to take more time. But this was rejected as unnecessary. She didn’t understand this conclusion.
They were gone now, though, and the bathroom smelt clean. She wouldn’t look in the corners.
She just didn’t have the energy to clean such a large house. The flat had been much easier to maintain. These stairs were a problem, too. She felt it now. Their bedroom was on the second floor, their offices on the first. It was a difficult climb to the top some evenings.
She imagined a day when neither of them could reach the second floor. She imagined they would use the ground-floor front room as a master bedroom. Too old to visit the upper floors of their own house. Thank goodness there was a ground-floor lavatory.
She stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. She heard noise downstairs and wondered if Malcolm had returned with Trevor. They were having Trevor to dinner to celebrate Malcolm’s shortlisting.
She went into their bedroom to change. On the bed she found a letter she’d hidden down the side of the mattress. The cleaners must have found it and thought it lost. It wasn’t. She opened it and read it again. She would lose the house. There were no two ways about it. They didn’t even seem to want the book anymore. Just the money. And the papers were saying house values were dropping. She sat down on the bed.
‘Helen?’
‘I’m in here.’
Daniel pushed open the bedroom door.
‘It’s so hot out there!’
‘Is it?’
‘Haven’t you been out?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘I picked up all you asked me to get. I bought a cake, too.’
‘Thank you, Daniel.’
‘Is anything the matter? You look a bit out of sorts.’
She handed him the letter.
Daniel read it and said, ‘Can they do that?’
‘They seem to think so.’
‘I don’t understand. It says “failure to deliver”; I thought you gave them the book. That’s why you have the house. You sold out.’
‘It isn’t that simple!’ she said crossly, taking back the letter. ‘Forget it.’
‘Have you repented the decision? Is that what’s happened? Is this about your integrity?’
‘Go away, Daniel. Forget about the letter. Don’t mention it to Malcolm.’
‘He doesn’t know?!’
‘About the letter? No. He knows I’m debating whether to give them the book.’
‘He’ll join the dots.’
‘I know he will.’
‘What’s done is done. Give them the book. Why lose the house over this? You think anyone will know the difference between this book and your others? They won’t.’
‘Malcolm knows the difference. I know the difference. The difference is the whole point!’
‘Then you shouldn’t have written the book.’
‘I was tired of Brixton. Of never having enough money! I needed to do something. I was writing my best work but no one was paying any attention to it. The papers were full of debut authors getting astonishing publishing deals. Always young, always attractive. My work was irrelevant. I needed to do something.’
‘So you did sell out,’ he said, smiling. He sat down on the dressing chair by the wardrobe, his hands on his thighs.
‘Why does that make you happy?’
‘Because you’ve always been so bloody holier than thou.’
‘Daniel, you say such horrible things.’
‘I only say them. You do them.’
Helen looked at him, uncomprehending.
‘Neglect, Helen. Your work was always more important than I was. You never had time for me. You were always home and always absent.’
Under Daniel’s gaze, Helen looked at the carpet.
‘I understand what you were doing now. You were being the great writer. But it was impossible for me to understand what you were doing then. Impossible. You and Malcolm treated me like a little adult. A tiny literary gent. You never spoke about anything I could understand. Nothing was simply as it seemed. Everything was complex. Everything had meanings beyond my grasp. And you were continually disappointed that I didn’t rise to the challenge. You couldn’t hide that from me.’
‘We did our best.’
‘Perhaps. But I don’t think so. I don’t think you could stomach the ordinariness of parenting. You were above such things. You’d worked hard to crawl out of the sea of mediocrity, and the repetitive needs of a child, those stark unchanging realities of a child’s development, were dragging you back in. You were adept at talking to Kingsley Amis but couldn’t find a way to talk to the parents of my schoolfriends. You didn’t know how to speak to my teachers. You were bored by all of them and bored by me. The needs of your own child bored you stiff.’
‘That’s just not true, Daniel. We have always loved you. We delighted in all of your achievements. We were always available to attend school events, unlike other parents. Your friends were always welcome at home. We were a minding service for many of them. Their parents appreciated our help. We went to every game of football you played, every concert you were in, every play. We arranged for violin lessons when you requested them. We found the money to allow you to go on an exchange to France. We tried our best.’
‘That’s not how it felt.’
‘You’re so bitter, Daniel. I don’t know where your resentment comes from.’
‘I just told you.’
‘But none of it’s true. Your allegations don’t bear scrutiny. Your feelings must have some other source.’
‘There you go again,’ he said, rising.
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You just pushed my experiences of life off the table,’ he said, throwing his arms across in front of him as though knocking things off a table.
‘No, I didn’t, I suggested you might want to re-examine them.’
‘Because you can’t be wrong? Your thoughts on this matter can’t be re-examined?’
‘You forget that I was an adult throughout your childhood. You were a child. Perhaps, just perhaps, your memory is muddled. I remember a happy child. A child with friends. A child who excelled at school and who rose to challenges. I remember a child who would sit on the floor listening as adults spoke. You didn’t need to do that. The television was on in the other room. There were games and puzzles. There were children’s books to read. You chose to sit by our feet and listen. And on occasion you would surprise us by adding to our conversation.’
Daniel didn’t say anything to this. He had moved to the window with his back turned to her.
‘I agree with your father when he says your problems began when you left our world and entered the real world. You set yourself unrealistic goals, do you remember? But set out to achieve them in a desultory manner. Your university career was unspectacular, and as a result of these initial setbacks you recalibrated your goals. Even then you might have become an academic with a bit of effort, remember, but you accepted that role in university administration.’
Daniel turned abruptly.
‘So I chose financial security. I didn’t want to live hand-to-mouth like you and Malcolm.’
‘We didn’t live hand-to-mouth.’
‘I remember the arguments about money.’
‘Everyone has those.’
He smiled bitterly. ‘Do you have any idea what effect money worries have on a child?’
‘So we’re to blame for you switching degrees? We were supporting you financially while you were at university. You could have gone on to do a PhD and we would have backed you all the way.’
‘Where would I be with a PhD in semiotics? Driving a taxi.’
‘Teaching?’
Daniel scoffed and said, ‘What does a teacher earn?’
‘Respect.’
Daniel’s eyes widened at this remark. Helen saw the colour drain from his face.
‘Nothing is ever good enough.’
‘I’m sorry, Daniel. I didn’t mean that. It just came out.’
‘You both had great expectations, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had no vocation. No passion for anything. You and Malcolm have always known you were writers. I used to dream of writing a book to make you both proud of me. But that was impossible. I knew that early on.’
‘We just wanted you to be happy.’
Helen waited to see if Daniel would say anything.
‘I easily understand the detrimental effect Malcolm and I could have had on you once you were an adult. Malcolm has that effect on me. Every year he raises the bar and I must either lift my game or quit. He has such strength of character. He never wavers and never tires. He’ll continue the struggle until his last breath. And that’s exhausting. If I’m honest, I know how you must feel, because I stopped fighting, too. I feel a great deal of resentment towards Malcolm, even though I have no right to feel anything but love and pride. It’s like watching someone continue on towards the summit without you. You want them to go because you love them and you want them to stay because they should love you enough to forgo their dream.’
‘I wasn’t fit for the path you two took,’ said Daniel, his voice breaking. ‘I couldn’t keep up. I wanted you to turn around. I wanted you to give up all your dreams and stay with me.’
Helen stood up and went to her son by the window. She turned him around and kissed him, then hugged him to her, something she hadn’t felt permitted to do for many a year.
‘I’m so sorry, Daniel.’