It had turned out to be a late night, a Friday-night special in fact. Far later, and far in excess of the quiet drink Emily had planned. After such a night, it was achingly early to be up.
Preparing for it the previous evening, Emily had inserted herself into her skin-tight Topshop jeans and frivolous Primark jacket – bought at a particularly intense pedi-conference with Katya. She had planned an evening programme characterized by common sense and restraint.
The mirror reflected coolness and fashion savvy. So positive was the image that, as she folded and tidied everything else away, she conducted a debate with herself. Was it possible to be a serious writer (admittedly on hold) and yet so interested in fashion? Applying the eyelash curler, she was reassured (as was often the case) by Oscar Wilde: ‘It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.’
A further coating of (visible) mascara completed the evening’s sentimental education and out Emily went.
‘Only one’ drink with Tod, the more-or-less boyfriend and striving poet, turned into two or three. The gastropub had been warmly lit and cosy and she was happy enough sitting across the table from him, sipping cold white wine and talking about nothing much. Anything they might wrangle over was not sufficiently contentious to be dangerous or so bland as to be boring (but skated perilously close on occasions).
This gently flirtatious state of affairs was possible because they had never really been passionate about each other – merely mildly intrigued. Once the affair slithered to a halt, which Emily sensed it would, friendship would be possible.
Then she had told him about the interviews, and what had resulted, and things got a bit sticky.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, and an odd look crept into his eyes and remained there for the rest of what had turned into a not-so-satisfactory evening.
Hence the need to down an extra glass or two of the Pinot Grigio.
Head throbbing, she made her way downstairs. The backs of her clogs clunked against the stair treads – ‘They have to go,’ said Jake.
Jake, usually so good-natured, was being prickly about a lot of things, including the clogs. But, for reasons that were not entirely selfless, Emily was prepared to throw him plenty of rope and ignore the tide of his and Maisie’s things that threatened to submerge the top floor.
Reputedly, every writer harboured a sliver of ice in their hearts and Emily could not make up her mind whether to admire or condemn herself for her willingness to use her brother as copy.
‘Jocasta has gone. Abandoned me …’ She had overheard him talking on the phone, she wasn’t sure to whom. ‘But I’m having trouble believing it …’ There was a pause. ‘Her lawyer’s been in touch. Yes, very expensive and I know I must deal with it …’
How would Jake’s abandonment read on the page? Which precise word or phrase fitted the mould? ‘Bitterness’ … ‘Humiliation’ … ‘Profound sadness’? No. ‘Grief ’ was a better choice. Embedded in ‘grief ’ was an august sadness, and it suggested a sweeping overview of the terrible things human beings inflicted on each other. Consider Phaedra, who loved her stepson and drove him to his death, before hanging herself. Actually, given that particular ana logy, Emily did not feel that ‘throwing Jake plenty of rope’ was appropriate.
Deep, deep grief. Profound grief?
The words clinked in her head, like stones under the sea. This was the school for words, the inner workshop, and what she liked to think of as the creative process. Later, she planned to write them down and to scrutinize how they appeared on the paper for she had learned that what sounded well frequently did not work within the structure of a sentence or a paragraph.
Jake appeared on the stairs above her. ‘War is declared on all clogs.’
‘Bugger off,’ she said, seized by a longing to be living in her own place, on her own terms.
Emily steadied herself. Admittedly she was a little uneasy on account of the wine, but her sleep had been fractured by a teething Maisie’s night calls and fatigue scratched at her eyeballs, so goodness knew how Jake was feeling.
Her own news vying for attention, she loped down to the first-floor landing and prepared to negotiate the boxes that had sprouted outside her father’s/Mia’s bedroom.
Its door was ajar and Emily glanced through. Invariably and infuriatingly early risers, her parents were clearing it out in preparation for her grandmother’s arrival. Her mother was laying out the contents of a drawer in order on the bed, while her father – typically – swept brushes and combs into a bin liner.
‘Hey.’ Emily hovered.
Her mother waved a hand, but her father looked round. ‘Emily.’
She leaned against the door. Despite the muddle of objects and bed linen – or, rather, because of them – the room had a forlorn aspect. ‘Hard work,’ she offered.
‘How would you know?’ Her mother was at her driest.
Emily flushed. ‘No need to be like that, Mum.’
Tom pushed past Emily with the bulging bin liner and dumped it in the bedroom opposite. Scratching his head, he surveyed the room he was about to move back into with the air of a traveller arriving on alien territory.
He’s nervous, thought Emily, with a rush of empathy, and judging by the tense set of her mother’s body, she was too. Emily’s fists balled. Please don’t let this be a disaster, she willed, as ever Tom’s protector.
… ‘Mum blames Dad for your going,’ Emily had informed Mia, who had rung her once, and only once, after she’d stormed out and before the iron curtain finally clanged down. ‘She told me she’d never forgive him.’ Mia, who’d sounded hoarse from weeping and strain, had replied, ‘It’s not my business. They’re not my parents any longer.’
‘Mia, grow up.’
‘You grow up, Emily. Take a look at the world as it really is … It’s not an advert for happy families.’
Emily felt Mia’s vengeance settle over her. ‘You’ll regret it.’
‘Never,’ said Mia, buoyed up by martyrdom and self-righteousness. ‘You don’t understand. You can’t understand …’
Emily never told anyone about that phone call. What was the point?
‘Do you want to hear my news?’ she asked.
Her mother looked up from a pile of her father’s shirts on the bed and directed a searching stare at her. Ill? Pregnant? Emily knew exactly what was running through her mind and she enjoyed waiting for a couple of seconds longer before she dropped it into their laps: ‘I’ve got a job.’
Clattering down the stairs to the kitchen, Emily filed away their astonished faces into the writer’s cache. Speechless … Bone-deep surprise.
Jake had been up for hours scuttling as noiselessly as possible between his and Maisie’s bedroom on the top floor. Since Jocasta’s departure, Maisie had rarely slept past the five-thirty mark and she was not picky as to which day of the week it was. He had tried everything he could think of – putting her to bed a little later, giving her an extra bottle in the evening – but the ploys didn’t fool his daughter. In the past – that far-away country of his marriage – he used to stuff his fingers into ears and sit it out. Yet if he had learned only one thing during the last painful weeks, it was never to leave his daughter grizzling in the early hours when she was likely to wake a whole household.
‘She’s OK, isn’t she?’ asked Jocasta, when she had rung the previous night for an update and he told her about the early waking.
Jake struggled to keep his temper. ‘She’s missing you,’ he said. ‘What do you expect?’
‘She’ll probably get over it.’
Music played in the background and someone was moving around the room from which she was phoning. Probably Noah. He closed his eyes. Coming up against the realities of Jocasta and her new life was unbearably painful. ‘Is there anything else you want?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid I was a bit hasty in saying I would sign over the house. My lawyer has advised me against it.’
‘I’ve been meaning to tell you I’ve let it,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t afford my half of the mortgage. Don’t worry, they’re good tenants. As soon as I’m sorted, I go back in.’
‘Oh.’ At her end, Jocasta went quiet. ‘No doubt the lawyers will talk to each other on that one. Send me the details of yours. Are things bad with the business?’
‘There’s a recession on, Jocasta.’
‘Not for the very rich, thank goodness.’
Again, he sought relief by closing his eyes and blocking out the daylight. That way, life seemed possible. ‘You know perfectly well I haven’t got that sort of client base. But I’m managing.’
‘Only managing?’
‘For God’s sake, is this an inquisition?’ He added stiffly: ‘How’s the job …’ and, with indescribable self-hatred, heard himself say ‘… in the US of A?’ which made him sound puerile.
‘Let’s say I’m making headway.’ She didn’t sound that convinced. Aha, he thought, with a vindictiveness that made him feel much better, not that easy, then? ‘Jake, I’ll be in touch. If we set our minds to it, this divorce can be dealt with easily and quickly.’
The air at five thirty that morning had been sharp, but the sky had been washed by pink tints and suggested warmth to come. Jake’s burgeoning relationship with nature was an unexpected consequence of hands-on childcare. As Maisie sucked away at a bottle, he was free to stare out of the window and, each day, his acquaintance with London bird life deepened.
It was never a good idea to think about Jocasta. For starters, his heartbeat ratcheted up at least three notches. He wondered if she had turned New-York-glossy – and whether she walked to work in her suit and trainers, like high-flyer women were reported to do.
But here was the puzzle. How was it possible for that which had begun in an upwelling of excitement and positive, tender love (which surely she must have shared in a little?) to turn into such bitter disaster? How could he have read her so wrongly, and how could he have put himself into a position that had left him so scourged and suffering?
He picked up Maisie and carried her down to the first floor, glancing into his mother’s room as he passed. Both parents were sitting on the bed with slightly dazed expressions.
‘Everything all right? You both look poleaxed.’
‘We are,’ said his father, with a grin.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Emily will tell you.’
Jake continued downstairs. Just before the final step, his foot slipped and he pitched forward. In the split second before he regained his balance, his head seemed to explode with pain and despair. He was disintegrating – he was a failure – he –
Thinking this was a great joke, Maisie gurgled, and Jake was brought up short. ‘Oh, my God, Maisie,’ he whispered, pulled himself upright and deposited Maisie on the hall floor. Shaking a little, he leaned against the newel post.
The wooden ball that topped it was polished by handling, and inviting. Jake had grasped it thousands of times but this was when he became aware of its whorls and striations for the first time in a significant way. And he, the woodsman! How remarkably sane an object it was, as wholesome and as beautifully shaped as he would wish his life to be.
Parked at his feet, Maisie protested. Jake looked down. A trusting, hungry little face encountered his, and he smiled. Whatever had he been thinking? Despair and breakdown had to be off the menu. His daughter’s needs were more pressing than his – for the wound in her life made by her mother’s departure was far more dangerous than any he might have suffered.
However, on picking her up, he was dealt a sharp reminder of the realities. Intimations of the larger perspective, or of the obligation to be unselfish, vanished. Maisie smelt. Growling, he climbed back up the stairs to the room under the eaves where the nappies were kept.
Eventually, making it to the kitchen bearing the clean, more-or-less sweet-smelling package that was his daughter, he discovered Emily contemplating a bowl of porridge in a hopeless fashion.
The kitchen seemed only half awake and functioning: whiffs of the previous night’s stew floated in the corners, butter and jams littered the table, and a swathe of crumbs indicated that his parents had breakfasted but not cleared up. The dismembered newspaper had been cast aside. Its headline read: ‘Forecast: Unemployment Will Go Up’.
Emily propped her head in her hand.
‘Early teetotal night, I take it.’ Jake lifted Maisie into her chair.
Emily stuck a spoon into the porridge. ‘Has anyone told you you’re a waste of space?’
Jake was ultra-dry. ‘Someone mentioned it.’
‘Oh, God.’ Emily’s head jerked up. ‘Sorry, Jake.’ She got up and deposited the porridge in the sink, wandered over to the dresser and leaned back against it. Her mother’s precious blue-and-white plates rattled a warning. ‘You know how it is. Nice bar. Wine the colour of a prize canary. French fries. Tod being nice and asking about the writing …’ She stopped and a look of consternation swept over her features. ‘Actually, he wasn’t so nice.’
Jake paid absolutely no attention. Emily’s on/off relationship with Tod had long ceased to interest any of them – much as the bowl of tepid porridge had failed to engage her.
‘Tod’s very good at understanding the struggle to write,’ she said at last.
‘Oh, yes, that struggle.’ Jake attached a plastic bib around Maisie’s neck. ‘The struggle not to mind that you’re not, like hundreds of others, struggling into work. Tricky, that one.’
‘Double negative,’ Emily pointed out acidly.
Jake had gone too far but he didn’t care. ‘For God’s sake.’
‘Don’t we like each other any more?’
Emily was hurt, but Jake didn’t care about that either. That was what emotional adversity had done to him – turned him hard and unresponsive – and he tried to mind. He brushed back Maisie’s hair, licked a finger and smoothed her eyebrows. He had always hoped he would be the sort of person who rated empathy and worked to achieve it. That seemed to him to be the most profound moral duty in life but, just now, the will to act on it had vanished.
‘Here.’ Emily handed him a pot of baby food. ‘Lovely apple purée and additives. Shouldn’t you be making her food, not feeding her this stuff?’
‘Shut up.’ But he took the pot with a grateful smile. Emily bent over and kissed her niece, who gurgled politely.
‘Did she keep you awake? I do try to cut her off before she goes full throttle.’
Emily straightened up. ‘You must be tired.’
‘I am. By the way, what’s up with the parents?’
‘You wanna know?’ Now he was paying proper attention he saw she was brimming with a secret and anxious to tell him. Just like Mia used to do.
‘Jake.’ Emily’s seriousness was almost touching. ‘I’ve got a job.’
This was unexpected, and Jake felt a flicker of chagrin. He busied himself with Maisie and did not look at Emily. ‘A job? That’s – that’s wonderful.’
‘You could make more effort to sound enthusiastic.’
‘I am. I am.’
‘This is a proper job. Salary. Benefits. Pension, the lot.’
He switched on the wholehearted smile. ‘You must be the only person in the country to have pulled off such a coup right now.’
Emily ducked her head, which meant she was pleased. ‘Thanks.’
In every family, Jake supposed, there was a hierarchy of both expectation and contempt. If his father despised Jake’s occupation, then Jake had taken (shameful) comfort from Emily’s pennilessness.
His hand shook as he wrestled the bib away from a replete Maisie. One chair. One coffee-table, small. Those were the sum total of orders in Nicholson Furniture’s book. Whichever way he looked at his current position, it appeared more excruciating than anything else. Plus, and there was no merit at all in this reflection, there would no longer be the luxury of regarding Emily as an even weaker link than he was.
‘Do you understand?’ Emily heaved Maisie up and began to pace up and down, the baby pinned to her breast like a brooch. ‘I’d like you to understand, Jake. Tod doesn’t. He thinks I’ve sold out. I know I sound like the worst sort of indulged kid, but I don’t want to do this job at all. With things as they are, though … I don’t expect much sympathy, but a bit would be nice.’
The truth was Jake had no sympathy to spare.
Upstairs something thumped on the floor, and there were sounds of a tense exchange.
Emily shrugged and pointed to the ceiling. ‘Don’t go there. But aren’t you going to ask about the job?’
‘Consider yourself asked.’
‘Condor Oil. Writing press releases and speeches and things. One of a big in-house team.’
‘Good God.’
‘Had three interviews.’ She looked so pleased and eager. ‘But I got through.’
This was worse than anything, for Jake now realized the extent of Emily’s sacrifice. Never … never would he have imagined that his shy, dreamy sister would fetch up working for an oil company. The quality and depth of that sacrifice dealt him a sharp knock.
*
Annie noted the time on her watch, then rechecked – the automatic gesture of a long-time working mother. Technically, this was a normal Saturday morning: the weekly shopping (no pesto, beef, French cheese or blueberries); her newly instituted weekly cooking session (fish pie, spaghetti Bolognese, and chicken breasts in some sort of sauce, to be decided); an exhausted perusal of the papers; a couple of loose ends to tie up on work projects.
But this was not going to be exactly a normal weekend and she and Tom were going to shop together to get the stuff required for what was now called Hermione’s room. List in hand, she made the final inspection. Post-Mia, post-Tom, it had been emptied, neutralized and fumigated of its previous inhabitants. She inspected the window catches, peered into the cupboard and punched the mattress on the single bed – the bed Tom had occupied for so long. Squinting at the curtains, her lips twitched. Tom always said she had a nasty habit of checking up on his handiwork. It was, he teased, a feature of obsessive-compulsives. And which category, she countered, did his habit of checking up on her come into? Tom protested loud and long that he did nothing of the sort. ‘Well, then,’ she had said, ‘I’ll suggest to the OED they rewrite their definition of “control freak”.’
Not for the first time she wondered about the power of one’s own nature to direct behaviour, even if one knew it was unproductive behaviour, and how little one could control it.
Unearthing a cache of single socks, a pair of rogue pants and a rolled-up shirt in a bottom drawer, she felt warmly smug. Having been boiled once too often in the washing-machine, the socks were past it. Annie chucked them, plus the pants and shirt, into the bin liner.
A screw had worked loose on the cupboard hinge. She fetched a screwdriver and wrestled to re-anchor it. Tom reappeared. ‘You’re not doing it right. Here, let me.’
‘Go away, Tom. I can manage.’
‘Annie, you’re putting it in at the wrong angle.’
She swirled around. ‘Go away, or I’ll drive it through your head.’
Left alone, she continued with her work. The radio played Schubert’s String Quintet, which always made Annie ache, yearn and mourn but for what she had never quite managed to locate. Finding it too disturbing, she fiddled with the dial and a voice filled the room, explaining the HIV rates in India. ‘Tom!’ She whisked out of the room and leaned over the banisters. ‘Tom, the India programme – they’ve put it on Radio 4.’
She went back into the room and sat down on the bed to give it her full attention. It was a good, thoughtful programme – no doubt about that – and Tom would have spent energy and passion on ensuring it got made. As the credits were listed, she glanced around and spotted him hovering by the door.
‘Any good?’ He seemed nervous and more than a little sad.
She smiled up at him. ‘Excellent. The best.’
He nodded. ‘Well, that’s something. At least I did something,’ he said, before disappearing back downstairs.
A final search of the cupboard. She scooped up a single cufflink, which had rolled into the back, a simple green knot from which much of the colour had leached. Minus its partner, it seemed forlorn in the palm of her hand.
Ages ago on holiday in the South of France, when the children were still young and the Nicholson economy was booming, she had bought the cufflinks for Tom. Then they had seemed interestingly non-conformist and she had enjoyed seeing him wear them.
She had lived so intensely that summer, rejoicing in an unburdened mind, a captive to sensation. There was sun. Scratchy sand burning the soles of her bare feet. Swanky yachts painted in dazzling whites, and windmill sails in reds and blues. The turquoise slap of the sea. The violet and granite hues of the maquis rising behind the bay. Tom holding her as they watched a sunrise. Tom buying fruit in the market, tousled and satiated with food and sex.
Definitely, some memories were there to act as life-belts, to be thrown over waters of extreme distress and sadness and clung to.
Cufflink in hand, Annie descended to the kitchen.
Here, the table was still littered with breakfast things, the pile of crockery in the sink had mounted, and the occupants seemed to be scratchily at odds with one another.
A piece of buttered toast dangled from Emily’s limp hand. Jake was eating a plate of congealed porridge by the window. Tom was drinking coffee and making faces at Maisie, a spatter of slop trailing across the draining-board indicating his flight path.
Maisie lolled in the high chair and blinked rapidly, which was a sure sign she was sleepy and needed her nap. Annie almost said something to Jake but bit it back. She had resolved that Jake was in charge of his daughter, and intended to keep it that way.
None of them indicated that they had registered Annie’s presence. She was used to being wallpaper. And at this point, with her kitchen taken over by a noisy, fractious army, being wallpaper was absolutely fine. Remember?
… The kitchen had been ringing with the shouts of three small children and two adults at bay and, in the background, the radio rumbled on regardless.
‘Sit,’ Tom had commanded the seven-year-old twins. ‘Down.’ Then he turned on Emily who (no doubt to impress the twins) was zooming around the kitchen on her scooter. ‘If you don’t stop that …’
The table groaned under a pile of sausages, mash, ketchup, buttered peas, a white loaf (they hated brown), orange juice, token sticks of celery and an apple crumble.
Hands on hips, Annie sidestepped Emily and laughed at the chaos. ‘If you don’t all sit down, you won’t get supper.’
And Mia, coppery hair tied on top of her head, darted out of range with elfin cunning. ‘Can’t catch me.’ She executed a couple of pirouettes, dancing out of the kitchen into the hall and, with hindsight, it seemed to Annie even then that Mia was taking herself away.
The neighbours must have heard Tom’s half-enraged, half-amused bellow: ‘Come here!’ …
The light shifted off the coppery tints in Jake’s and, just discernible, Maisie’s hair. Before Tom, Annie had gone for men with looks that were basically Saxon and chimed with hers. The surprise (among many surprises) of being overwhelmed by a dark smoulderer had always intrigued her. Still did, if she was truthful.
The twins looked indisputably English – autumn tints, freckles and hazel eyes. Mia berated her parents for her division of the genetic spoils. ‘I so long to be pretty,’ she told her mother, before she had become serious and ignored issues like beauty. ‘But no chance if you look like a milkmaid.’ Emily – ‘lucky, horrible Emily’ (Mia’s terminology) – had inherited the allure of the mysterious Celt, all white skin, blazing blue eyes, dark hair and a tendency to uneasy introspection that had made for a rocky adolescence.
Jake had been born with inner poise and had set sail through childhood and adolescence on a fair wind. Annie had marvelled at his seemingly effortless progress. He was a craftsman and tinkerer. ‘I like to know how things work, Mum.’ Kettles, machines and, of course, searching for pieces of wood to store in his room. ‘Don’t get him,’ said Tom, more than once, who wanted Jake to study politics or, at the very least, economics – the subjects he felt were of use in the modern world. ‘You don’t know him,’ she responded. ‘You must try to understand him.’ To his credit, Tom had tried and, when Jake was still quite small, they had fiddled around with carpentry together. The results still roosted in the attic. A half-finished doll’s cradle, intended for Mia, and a box for treasures that had never got its lid, if Annie remembered correctly.
Mia’s going had thrown the family but, for obvious reasons, it had affected Jake from the roots up. He was never angry or obviously down but Annie knew, she just knew, that an element had gone missing. ‘It’s like eating food without salt,’ he confessed, when she’d tackled him on the subject. Then Jocasta had come on the scene and Jake was diverted. It wasn’t an obvious coupling but, concluded the ever-watchful Annie, it was likely that the restless and ravening Jocasta was attracted by Jake’s unruffled good spirits as much as his rangy good looks.
Her lips tightened. If Jocasta was ever arraigned before a court of human justice, Annie would be on her feet to condemn her for extinguishing the glow and sweetness in her son.
Abandoning the porridge, Jake cut himself a piece of bread and shoved it into the toaster. ‘Maisie needs a sleep. I’ll put her down in a minute,’ he said tiredly.
Tom trod carefully: ‘Are you going to the workshop at all? If you like I’ll look after her, but not for too long as your mum and I have to shop and paint your grandmother’s room later.’
Good Lord, thought Annie. That must be a first.
It was an olive branch. Of sorts.
Jake considered. Annie held her breath.
‘Thanks, Dad. That just might suit.’ Jake balanced the toast in one hand and spread raspberry jam over it with other.
Annie let her breath out. ‘Don’t any of you do anything as revolutionary as eat your meal at the table?’ she asked, by way of diversion.
Emily threw her a look implying that her mother had only recently emerged from Noah’s ark. From over his shoulder, Jake said, ‘Haven’t noticed you sitting down, Mum.’
She dropped the cufflink into Tom’s lap. ‘Recognize it?’
He frowned. ‘Should I?’
‘Oh, never mind,’ she said.
Jake finished the toast and put on his denim jacket. If possible he had lost weight and it hung more loosely on him. ‘I’ll be off.’ He bent over and kissed his daughter. ‘Tweet, tweet, Birdie.’ He flicked a look at Tom. ‘Thanks again, Dad.’ Then he was gone.
Emily stacked her used crockery in the dishwasher and wiped the table. She seemed grave and preoccupied, and Annie said, ‘It’s brilliant news, Emily.’
‘Do you think, Mum?’ She sent Annie an apprehensive smile. ‘Yup. It’s OK.’ But she seemed disinclined to discuss it further.
Then she, too, was gone.
Tom was muttering nonsense to Maisie. He undid the safety strap, extracted her and cuddled her into his shoulder. ‘Bed for the Bird, I think.’
He nodded at Annie – and for a terrible moment she had the feeling that he was acknowledging an acquaintance he had met in the street.
Then he said, ‘Got to get used to this.’
Yes, they would have to, thought Annie, left to herself in the kitchen. She didn’t know whether to laugh because most of her family had come home, or to cry because Jake was badly hurt and her routines and peace were well and truly shattered.
Dirty saucepans tottered on the sideboard. ‘Bloody family,’ she muttered aloud, as she ran hot water into the sink and began to make inroads into them. She glanced across to the noticeboard where she had pinned up the angel. ‘I’m glad I rescued you,’ she said, and hoped nobody had heard her.
What a mess everything is, she thought. And: How muddled. This conclusion, combined with her sorrow for Jake, made her cry and the tears ran down to vanish into the suds in the sink.