‘For how long?’ Ed demands.
‘Shh, keep your voice down,’ I whisper. ‘She’ll hear you.’
It’s almost midnight on Sunday, and I’m still blinking in the light, dragging myself up from a deep sleep. Ed stands by the bed dressed in jeans and a black hoodie, the smell of beer and cigarettes brought into the room with him along with the brisk suggestion of the grassy outdoors. His holdall is a weight on the bed where he dropped it next to me.
‘Seriously, Faye – how long will she be here?’
‘I don’t know. Just a few days, she said.’
‘And you’re okay with this?’
‘I didn’t have much choice. I could hardly say no, could I?’
‘You could. You’d be perfectly justified.’ There’s a hardness in his voice that sparks to life the burning memory of the last time my mother stayed with us. London, not long after we were married, three days during which her drinking steadily grew worse and the barbed comments became nastier, her behaviour ever more outlandish and threatening, until it all culminated in a furious row and terrible recriminations. Ed was shocked by the things she said to me, the accusations made, the deeply hurtful epithets. Afterwards, he vowed that she would never spend another night under our roof, which is why I know the hardness in his voice is not anger directed at me. It’s an anxiety borne of a need to protect me, coupled with sheer surprise that I have let her back in.
‘The first sign of trouble and she’s out of here, I promise.’
‘All right,’ he remarks, mellowing. ‘It’s you I’m concerned about. I just don’t want her upsetting you.’
‘I know.’
I listen to him in the bathroom, the squeak of taps, water hitting the basin, the buzz of an electric toothbrush. I know that he’s annoyed, and bewildered at my decision. I can’t tell him how my mother’s presence here these past couple of days, regardless of her ropy history, has helped keep at bay those fears that dog me – the footprint on the patio, the sense that Michael is lurking nearby, watching me. She has made me feel safe.
Upstairs, my mother is asleep in the bed I have made up for her in the spare room – the room that will become the baby’s nursery but that, at the moment, is still full of boxes and stuffed black refuse sacks, the last remnants of our move having drifted up to the top of the house. I wonder if she’s awake and listening to us but find the thought unlikely. She’d barely touched her dinner, picking away at the bowl of tuna pasta I’d served up. The lamb and rosé I’d bought in Fallon & Byrne on Friday remained stashed in the back of the fridge once I knew that Ed would not be home for dinner. In a way I was glad he wasn’t there for that first evening with my mother in the house. Her mood was brittle. I could see her eyes flashing around the rooms, taking everything in, making little purring noises about how nice it all was – ‘modern’ was the word she kept using – and I could feel my own defences rising, hearing judgement in each remark she made, the unspoken undercurrent of jealousy and resentment.
She’d picked away at her pasta for a bit and then seemed to slump forward with exhaustion. After showing her to her room and wishing her goodnight, I’d gone back downstairs, scraped the crockery, put on the dishwasher. Then I emptied the contents of our drinks press, the bottles clustering along the kitchen worktop, bagging them up along with the wine from the wine rack and some cans of beer under the sink. I was just about to head upstairs to my bedroom, thinking I’d stash them away in the wardrobe, when I turned to the kitchen door and saw her standing there, ghostly and pale, watching me, taking it all in. Her eyes gleamed with sudden hurt and I said: ‘It’s just a precaution.’
She held me there with her silence throbbing with unexpressed emotion, and I thought: Damn you, anyway. Why should I feel guilty when I’ve learned the hard way that these precautions are necessary?
She’d slipped past me and wordlessly filled a glass with water for herself before wafting back out of the room. The bags of booze pulled heavily on my arms. I heard each painful clink of the bottles as I climbed the steps upstairs and hid them in my room.
Ed gets into bed beside me, his body warm, his breath minty with toothpaste, and he pulls me against him and sighs with tiredness.
‘Do you think she’ll still be here next Saturday?’ he asks.
His fortieth birthday party – a casual lunch here in the house. I’ve ordered food from the Butler’s Pantry, and wine from Mitchell’s. Crockery and glassware are to be collected on Friday from Caterhire, along with extra seating and a cocktail bar. Martha’s husband, Will, has promised to play bartender for the afternoon, and I’ve spent several evenings making up playlists of Ed’s favourite tunes. I want it all to be perfect.
‘I doubt it. She’ll have moved on by then. Definitely.’
‘I wish I shared your optimism,’ he murmurs.
‘I think she’s making an effort. She’s really trying to change.’ I can feel the heaviness of his body sinking into the mattress, and can tell from the drift of his breathing that sleep is taking him. Just before he drops off, he says: ‘How is it you described her to me once? A virus.’
I expected my mother to be crabby and irritable, defensive, rude, but on the Monday evening, when I arrive home after a crazy day in the office, I find her and Ed outside in the garden, my mother’s tinkling laughter rising up into the soft warm air. Lamb is sizzling on the barbecue; the patio table boasts a spread of salads, cubes of focaccia, some crudités and dips.
‘Darling!’ my mother greets me from her deckchair. ‘Look what I’m reading.’ She holds up Ed’s book with a flourish. ‘It’s marvellous! I had no idea he was so talented.’
Ed is on a stepladder hooking up a string of lights that swings from one fence to the other; he looks down at me and grins. ‘Another adoring fan,’ he jokes, and my mother laughs.
‘Don’t be so self-deprecating – it’s true!’
He climbs down the ladder, and kisses me hello. His hand automatically slips over my belly and he leans down and says an exaggerated ‘hello’ to my bump. I squirm away from his touch, laughing uncomfortably. ‘Don’t!’
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks. ‘I’m just saying hello to the little one.’
I can’t articulate it – certainly not in front of my mother – this discomfort I feel when he does this. I understand that he’s excited and affectionate, but something in me recoils from it.
‘You two seem in good form,’ I remark, and my mother uncrosses her legs and leans forward. Her eyes are covered by the large square lenses of her sunglasses, and she has brightened her thin lips with cerise lipstick to match the chiffon scarf entwined round her neck.
‘We’ve been doing some catching up,’ she tells me. ‘Long overdue.’
Ed flips the meat on the grill, and steps back indoors.
‘He’s been telling me all about this party you have planned,’ my mother goes on in her bright voice. ‘It sounds like the world and his mother are invited.’
Her smile is open but I can’t see her eyes behind the shades, and I’m nudged by a new guilt.
‘You are of course welcome too,’ I say.
‘Oh, well, thank you.’
‘Although I’m not sure if it’s really your cup of tea. There’ll be a lot of kids running around. And all of Ed’s family are coming, and I know how much you dislike them –’
‘Darling! Whatever gave you that idea? I adore Des and Regina!’
I stare at her. ‘Seriously, Maggie? Have you forgotten the last time?’
She gives her head a little twitch.
‘You called Des a pompous old bore?’ I remind her. ‘And Regina an interfering cow?’
Beneath her make-up my mother blushes, then gives her shoulders a shake. ‘That was years ago. And I was upset that day –’
‘Drunk, you mean.’
‘All right, Faye. I admit it. I behaved terribly that day, and I felt awful afterwards.’
‘Did you?’
‘Oh, yes, I did,’ she says, her voice growing indignant. ‘I know you have this view of me that I sail through life unconcerned – worse, completely unaware of the harm I visit on other people – but you’re wrong. If anything, I’m plagued by guilt. That is my penance – being forced to constantly remember, to relive these awful events in my past and wish I had acted differently. Have you any idea what that is like? To live with the constant wash of guilt coming over you?’
Her voice trembles with emotion, and I can see the shake in her hand as she reaches down for her glass and takes a quick swig of wine; there’s a bottle open and sitting in an ice bucket on the patio beside her chair. It’s the rosé I’d bought in Fallon & Byrne. In my haste to clear out all the alcohol, I’d forgotten that I’d stashed it in the fridge.
She sees the glance I give her and says: ‘I’m all right on rosé. Even white wine, I’m fine. It’s the rouge that slays me. As for spirits …’ She makes a slicing motion across her throat and giggles. She doesn’t once meet my gaze because she knows I don’t trust a word of this.
‘Maggie –’
‘All right, darling. You don’t need to say it.’ Abruptly, the levity collapses, and she leans forward, upending her glass so the contents spill into a potted geranium. ‘There now. Happy?’
‘I just need you to understand that while you’re staying here you cannot drink.’
Her back stiffens. ‘If that’s the rule, who am I to argue? I’m here at your pleasure.’ She swings her legs off the lounger and gets swiftly to her feet, but I can see how unsteady she is, not from alcohol but from the uprise of sudden emotion.
‘It gets too messy otherwise,’ I continue. ‘I don’t want to fight –’
‘And nor do I.’ She smooths down her skirt with a swift flick of one hand. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll lie down.’
She passes Ed as he re-emerges from the house, handing him her empty glass.
‘Night, night, darling,’ she coos.
‘Off already?’ he asks. ‘But what about dinner?’
‘I’m very tired. And you two need your time alone.’
She withdraws with forced graciousness and he turns to me. I’m sitting with my head in my hands, already drained.
‘Did something happen?’ he whispers.
I take my hands away from my face and hiss: ‘Why did you give her wine?’
‘She helped herself. What was I supposed to do, wrench the glass from her hand?’
‘You could at least have taken the bottle away.’
‘I didn’t want to make a thing of it,’ he says, reaching for it now and refilling Maggie’s empty glass. He takes a sip and sits down in the vacated seat. ‘Come on. It was just one glass.’
I sigh, and lean back against my sun lounger, eyes closed.
‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ he says, and I feel the warmth and weight of his hand on my leg, the squeeze of reassurance.
‘It just makes me nervous,’ I tell him. ‘You know what she’s like – one glass becomes two and then –’
‘I know, you’re right,’ he soothes. After a minute, he adds: ‘She does seem to be trying to make an effort, though. She and I were talking before you got home about the baby, and it seems she really wants to be involved.’
‘You think?’
‘I got the impression that she sees it as an opportunity to rebuild some bridges. A chance to repair some of the damage.’
The warm evening air hardly moves. Overhead, the contrails of two airplanes criss-cross in the haze of blue, their thin trails fattening and puffing out as the crafts disappear from view.
‘Second chances,’ I murmur.
‘Something like that.’
At the bottom of the garden, beyond the wall, the bushes shiver with sudden movement; there is a snap of twigs underfoot; branches shift, then fall still. I sit up quickly, the hair rising at the back of my neck.
‘Maybe it’s your fox,’ he suggests teasingly, but he still gets to his feet, goes down to the wall.
I watch him, my pulse quickening at the thought of Michael crouching there. What if Ed discovers him? What if it all comes rushing out? I’ve been fighting for so long just to control this thing, to keep it tucked away in the darkness where no one can see it. The growing sense that it’s being pulled out into the open, that Michael is forcing its discovery, fills me with panic.
I sit still and alert while Ed peers over the wall. He calls out, but there is no response, and he turns back, smiles at me, shrugging, and I feel a faint sense of relief nudging past the twitching unease.
He takes his seat once more, picks up his glass and relaxes. But I can’t relax. My eye strays briefly to the kitchen window. Beneath it there’s a terracotta pot planted with pelargoniums, vibrant flower clusters on long stalks hiding the footprint beneath.