First thing on Monday Jake hit the phone to Robin Tyler, his solicitor.
Having assumed that he had a reasonably straightforward divorce to handle, Robin registered concern on being told of Jocasta’s change of heart. ‘No need to panic,’ he cautioned, ‘but we will have to think this through carefully. As a matter of interest, does your wife have a work permit for the US? Are we sure that she’ll be allowed to remain?’
‘The bank’s sorted it.’ He tried not to sound angry and bitter and, because he was angry and bitter, didn’t succeed.
‘At least she hasn’t gone to Australia or the Far East,’ said Robin. ‘New York isn’t so far …’
‘Far enough.’
‘And things like term times roughly coincide with the UK for future visits et cetera.’
Jake blinked rapidly. ‘Isn’t that getting a little ahead of ourselves?’
‘You have to think about it,’ said Robin, ‘and I suggest you do. You are now entering a legal process and you have to be clear in your mind about your objectives. You wish to keep Maisie, but Jocasta will have to be granted her rights too. Obviously.’
‘Why’s she changed her mind?’ cried Jake.
‘That’s irrelevant,’ replied Robin, calmly. ‘Her initial actions of assigning you your daughter and handing over the house were almost certainly motivated by guilt. Not uncommon but the law regards the guilt motive as suspect. It is not the best way to decide a child’s future. Almost certainly, there are going to be some adjustments.’
Jake finished the call with his head reeling and, having handed Maisie over to his father, went jogging. Sweat pouring, he pounded the flat, unforgiving pavements and tried to master his rage and lust for revenge. Their colonization of him felt like a sickness – intense and unignorable – which left him as winded as the run.
Back at number twenty-two, he deployed himself by checking up on Maisie’s clothes and nappies. Her cot sheet required changing so he fetched a clean one from the airing cupboard and eased it over the mattress.
How ignorant he had been – and still was. Adversity fouled up and poisoned the system, and he was the one who had put a premium on politeness, went to great lengths not to hurt other people, and tried always to empathize. Yet, at the first blast of difficulty, he found he no longer cared.
He longed to phone Mia and say: Help me. And she would respond in that breathy way of hers: Tell me.
Looking out over the London garden where the foxes and squirrels fought territorial battles among the hollyhocks and lavender bushes, he imagined relating the story to Mia and her saying something like You must steel yourself. You’re up against the structures of capitalist society and she’s the one with money.
But Mia had gone, deliberately wielding an axe to the ties that bound her to her twin – because, as she’d told him, with tears running down her face, ‘You would pull me back, Jake.’ Never before had they lived separately – even if they had been physically apart – and he felt the lack in every cell of his body. She had warned him: ‘Don’t get in touch. It won’t do any good.’ At first he had rebelled and tried to contact her but Mia, deep in love with her new political beliefs and with Pete, had determinedly, bloody-mindedly, concealed all traces of her whereabouts.
Returning downstairs, Jake ran a hand along the banister and over the newel post. That never failed. Sure enough, the smooth, polished feel under his touch helped to ground him. ‘Where’s Maisie?’ he called.
‘I put her in the garden for a nap,’ Tom answered from the sitting room, where Jake discovered him. Surrounded by the latest Appointments sections of various papers, his father was at the makeshift desk with his head in his hands. The computer screen illuminated financial graphs with arrows in red and black.
Jake said. ‘Is everything OK, Dad?’
Tom started. A flash that could have been fear went across his features. ‘Sure.’ He avoided Jake’s eye.
Jake glanced at the Appointments. A couple of the boxes had black crosses scrawled at the corner. Another had been outlined with red slashes and he sniffed out the negative vibe. ‘Don’t worry.’ He prepared to retreat. ‘I can see you’re busy.’
Again the suggestion of fear and – even – panic. ‘Do you want something, Jake?’ He sounded clipped, almost antagonistic, and it was obvious he did not want Jake in the room.
And Jake thought: Here we go again. Nothing’s changed. He could almost taste his disappointment and, illogically, a sense of betrayal. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost, Dad.’
Tom’s expression darkened. ‘Markets aren’t so good. That’s all.’
Silence.
‘I’ll leave you,’ said Jake, and headed for the door.
‘Jake. Stop. Sorry. What was it?’
‘I was going to ask for some advice.’
Tom’s tensed shoulders relaxed visibly. ‘My help?’
‘Yup.’
‘Oh, well, sure. What’s going on?’ Gesturing to the screen, Tom said, and he sounded strained, ‘Job-hunting. CV. I’m getting quite proficient in this game. But so far, no good.’
‘And the graphs, Dad?’
Tom glanced at the computer screen where a couple of indices had turned red. His jaw tightened. ‘Oh, those. Nothing much.’
‘Dad, are you up to something?’
Tom switched the screen off pretty smartish. ‘As I say, job-hunting. I’m yours, Tom. What can I do?’
Jake explained that some research was required, and could Tom help him?
Tom listened carefully to Jake’s précis of Robin Tyler’s advice. ‘I want you to know,’ he said, at the finish, ‘that I and your mother will do everything in our power to help you. I … we feel that you should always be fair, Jake, which is difficult, given the circumstances. I’m not sure what we may be up against. It may be a horrible battle – in fact, I’m pretty sure it will be – but I’ll be there.’ He was working himself up to a powerful manifesto and Jake began to feel marginally better. ‘We must find out everything we can.’
‘So I’m not alone,’ said Jake. ‘You’re on my side.’
‘What made you think I wouldn’t be?’ That was a loaded question. Tom had not been on Mia’s side but Jake wasn’t going to go into that now. He had Maisie to think about and he would need the new, fragile relationship with his father.
Once upon a time Jake would have grinned. Now, weighed by heaviness and foreboding, he merely growled, ‘What?’
To Jake’s surprise, Tom got up and put an arm around him. ‘It’s OK. Nothing too terrible. Could you do a repair on the garden fork? I’ve tried, but it needs your expert eye. I’m going to dig up the bed at the end of the garden and grow vegetables.’
Jake entertained an unpleasant vision of turnips and swedes, of battling slugs and foxes. ‘Not like you, Dad.’
Tom dropped his arm and Jake sensed embarrassment. ‘Helps the exchequer.’
‘Mum won’t like the shrubs being dug up.’
‘That’s half the fun,’ confessed Tom.
‘I’ll look at the fork later,’ said Jake, heading out to check on Maisie.
Tom called after him. ‘You’re not to torture yourself. OK?’
Despite its frailties, the dog was a shrewd and cunning survivalist. Annie marvelled at the instinct that told him with whom to throw in his lot. A couple of forays in the park where he had been (almost certainly) abandoned, and he had sniffed out a weak point in Hermione (which the majority would never have spotted) and followed her with the doggedness of the superdog.
But on arrival at number twenty-two, his courage and resourcefulness had taken a rain-check. Hermione having extracted him from her room, he was relegated by Annie to the downstairs cloakroom, where he sat and shivered. But maybe that was strategy too.
With the family gathered for supper, Annie coaxed him out. Flanks pumping, he advanced warily into the kitchen. ‘Come on,’ she said.
Like a trusting child, he looked up at her – innocent, at bay, uncertain of his life. The little body seemed brittle and starved, and his coat was badly in need of attention. Annie swooped down and picked him up. At first he remained rigid. Then, responding to the whispered, ‘It’s OK’, he relaxed. Annie cradled him and he settled his head on her arm. Too late, she realized this was a mistake: she would struggle to consign him to the cages and concrete floors of the dog pound.
She carried him into the kitchen and placed him on a cushion. ‘I want you all to know that this is not a good idea.’
‘See what I’ve got.’ Emily rummaged in her bag and produced a tin of upmarket dog food. ‘The best.’ She doled out a portion on to a plate.
Jake glanced at the label. ‘That costs more than rump steak.’
It was demolished in seconds. Observing this, Annie asked, ‘Has anyone rung the vet to check if someone has been looking for him? Answer: I have. And the local police. And, no, no one has reported him missing.’
Hermione regarded the dog with imperfectly concealed pride of ownership. ‘I’d like to call him Rollo in memory of dear Rollo.’
Oh, God, thought Annie. This is happening.
The new Rollo was not a pushover. Tempered by experience – abandonment, cruelty (there were suspicious scars on his flanks)? – he made it clear in the days that followed that he guarded his affections and was careful to bestow his trust only on Hermione and Annie. Prudently, he maintained a distance from Maisie, who had decided it was uproarious to throw objects at him, and made little eff ort with Tom. Jake he ignored. ‘You shouldn’t make remarks about the cost of dog food,’ said Emily.
Hermione, however, was a marked woman. Furthermore, she succumbed to her fate with the fervour of one newly in love and sent the family mad with her fussing.
Coming home from work, Annie was not surprised to find Rollo ensconced in Hermione’s room. Nose tucked on his matted and calloused front paws, he had positioned himself at Hermione’s feet with all the authority of Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell.
Hermione was on the phone to Sheila at the Manor House Home. ‘That girl was always a nasty one. Remember when I caught her going through my things?’ At Annie’s entrance, she looked round and continued, without missing a beat. ‘Did I tell you, Sheila? I’ve been given a dog. Pedigree. Very sweet. But I have to go now …’
Annie intercepted a look that Rollo cast Hermione: the wide-eyed, I-was-ill-treated-but-you-have-saved-me look. ‘Hermione, what do you mean you’ve been given a pedigree dog?’
‘Did I say that, dear?’
‘You must remember what you just said.’
‘We were talking about that awful girl who used to go through our drawers. Still does, according to Sheila. I’m sure she took money. Are you tired, Annie? You must be if you walked back.’
At the word ‘walk’, Rollo’s ragged tail stirred.
‘It’s all very peculiar,’ she reported back to Tom, as they got ready for bed later. ‘I definitely overheard her telling Sheila Reade that she had been given a pedigree dog. But she denied it when I asked her about it. Why Sheila would care one way or another if it’s a pedigree I don’t know. Maybe it’s Hermione’s way of making sure we can’t get rid of him.’
‘His name’s Rollo,’ said Tom.
Annie stared at him, incredulous. ‘He’s got to you.’
Tom was propped up on the pillows reading the Guardian. ‘You should know by now that dealing with my mother is like nailing jelly to the wall.’
Annie paused in brushing her hair. ‘Seriously, Tom, it was odd she felt she had to big up Rollo for Sheila. It is as if she had to prove to Sheila that she mattered to us.’
‘Aha, you’ve just said “Rollo”.’
‘On second thoughts,’ Annie concluded grimly, ‘Hermione knew exactly what she was doing.’
For all its normality, the conversation was curiously stilted. Tom and she appeared to have slipped into a guarded phase. They were considerate to each other in the manner that strangers were with fellow strangers. After their recent conversations, when a tiny aperture had opened on to each other’s private thoughts, Annie had imagined that relations between them would be easier.
Tom turned to the financial pages. ‘Oh, God,’ he exclaimed, under his breath.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Just a rumble about the state of the banks.’
There was a polite pause, during which Annie bent to pick up a discarded sock. ‘How’s the job-hunting?’
‘So-so.’
‘Tom, has something else happened?’
He retreated behind the paper. ‘Nothing.’
She trod carefully. ‘Tom, are you going about it in the right way? I mean …’
‘Annie, I’m doing my best.’
‘Yes,’ she said, with a rush of contrition, ‘I know you are. But if you want to bandy some ideas around …’ She faltered to a halt. Tom had thrown the paper aside and, if she wasn’t mistaken, he was staring at the neckline of her nightdress. She coloured. He pursed his lips and whistled – and she heard an echo of being young together. Of the passion that had turned out not to be eternal, but humiliatingly mortal.
‘You’re blushing,’ Tom said.
‘I’ve just cleaned my face. It does that.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Stop it,’ she said, but she didn’t mean it.
Annie resumed the hair ritual. It was very strange, but she had become re-sensitized to Tom’s presence. When he entered the room, she registered it in a significant manner. When he left it, she registered that too. With each stroke of the hairbrush, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck sent a prickle through her flesh.
These inner shifts and adjustments were not reflected outwardly. Neither did they impinge on her routines, which, apart from agonized conversations with Jake about Maisie, were normal. Morning and evening, Annie creamed her face and thought, Oh, Lord, what’s happening to my jawline? She got dressed in her office uniform and went out to do battle in the hospital. Samuel Smith, you should not have died. There were the odd variations – dropping her shoes at the cobbler’s, dithering over whether macaroni cheese or stew would go further to feed the family, a frantic hunt for a mislaid twenty-pound note. How is Zosia? Must get in contact and tell her how much I miss her. At work, she walked through the hospital corridors on the trail of the cleaners, expertly dodging porters, stretchers, wheelchairs and patients. (It was curious: even if they knew exactly where they were going, patients and visitors always exuded the anxiety of the refugee.) In the evening she came home, went over the accounts and, occasionally, packed up more of her possessions to sell. Just in case.
Had she been good with people? Her track record suggested yes. But it was easier to be clever with people who weren’t close to you. She had chosen her work because she had wanted to help make things better and easier for the sick. Only today she had spent several hours with the manager of the new crack cleaning teams and they had understood each other fine.
She sneaked a look at Tom. Their relationship was another matter. With that, the image of Mia sprang into her head and, so strong, so vivid, so living was it, her heart almost stopped. The coppery hair, the thin little hands, the breathy ‘Mum’. Annie held the image suspended in the silvery spaces of memory, gazed on it, endured the pain it provoked. Then, with a huge effort, she banished it.
She dropped the brush on to the dressing-table and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Tom, I’m here if you want to talk things over.’
‘Thank you.’
He didn’t move. In fact, he remained quite still but it felt to Annie as though he had reached out a hand and drawn her close.