Chapter Six

DEARLY BELOVED.

Dylan married Matt and me in his church. The building squats in a cul-de-sac like a toad, between a 1960s tower block and a derelict candle factory. Carbon black from decades of grime, its buttresses and stumpy spire are as warts on a natterjack. But appearances can be deceptive. Inside, there’s a reredos of beaten gold beneath a dado of carved alabaster. From the nave, one’s eye is drawn high above the altar to a triptych of stained-glass windows, representing in glowing colours the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of the Trinity. In their design are patterns of such richness and dreamlike unreality that each window blends into one harmonious composition. They are windows of such beauty they feature in guidebooks.

Dylan enjoys the mismatch between inside and out. It symbolises for him the essence of religion, how the inner is more important than any outer show. I’ve never really taken much notice of the architecture. I’m drawn instead to all the drama – what Dylan calls the smells and bells. I don’t have faith, as such. Haven’t had since my early childhood prayers went unanswered.

My faith is in Dylan.

Do you, Amber?

We met at university, reading English. Dylan, with his explosion of ginger curls, favoured contemporary writers, and embraced deconstruction. Back then I wore my hair in a ponytail, and found comfort in the formal social codes of Dickens and James. Dylan read voraciously, scribbling frantic notes and disagreements in the margins, cracking the spines as he splayed the books, the better to devour and digest the words. I bought little plastic covers for my books, and kept their spines in mint condition.

Mesmerised in lectures by Dylan’s habit of scrawling the letters ‘AMDG’ at the top of all his notes, I was in awe of his devotion to God. I imagined a life rich with spiritual meaning. Later I learned this was a misconception, that it was in fact a ritual left over from a failed love affair with a Catholic boy in the village.

Do you take this man?

If I now attend church at all, it’s to enjoy the changing altar drapes of the church year; to be moved by the sight of Dylan’s hands placed on the heads of children, their hair enamelled by the wands of light filtering through the stained glass; or to see his arms raised for the final blessing, striking the pose he once adopted as Salieri in a college production of Amadeus. I go out of friendship, although I suspect that something in the church’s quiet rhythm, its annual calendar or its daily rituals, has drawn me in. A toad catching a fly.

For our wedding, Jenny, in a yellow cashmere cardigan chosen to match the freesias in my bouquet, sang Sondheim’s ‘Being Alive’; a performance so moving that the congregation felt compelled to clap. And Dylan delivered a sermon, urging us to take the risk, and find the joy in each other.

Do you promise?

*

‘So, we never finished talking about Ed and Louisa, na,’ says Nicole, switching off the intercom to stop the taxi driver listening. ‘What else did she tell you?’

‘Said he phoned from the airport, to say that he needed to sort a few things out, and that she ought to think about an abortion.’

‘Eeshhh!’ says Nicole, reaching into her grosgrain handbag for a comb. ‘He cuts to the chase. And Louisa said?’

‘Nothing much. Hang on – excuse me, it’s right at the next lights, and then second on the left. Where was I? Oh yes, and her mother’s staying with her in Ed’s flat.’

‘But is Louisa going to keep the baby? That’s the most pressing thing, surely?’

‘I got the feeling it’s all a bit late for that.’

‘Catholic?’ asks Nicole, combing at a particularly resilient knot.

‘No, just too late all round. Poor girl.’

‘No wonder we haven’t seen them for months.’ We both stare thoughtfully out of our respective windows of the taxi. ‘So, approaching forty obviously hasn’t made Ed grow up.’

‘Yeah, midlife crisis,’ I say. ‘And his secretary’s also taken the week off. Yes, where that mini’s parked, thank you. Look, Louisa’s on the doorstep. She must have heard us turning into the street. Oh the poor thing – she looks exhausted,’ I add.

Nicole opens the taxi door and steps on to the pavement. ‘Hello Lou. Look, leave that bag on the pavement, I’ll get it. You step in.’

I register the stony pallor of Louisa’s skin. It emphasises her wide, green eyes. ‘Hi, Lou. Do you want to sit facing the driver?”

‘Thank you, Amber, yes,’ she says, heaving herself in with effort. Her high voice, with its refined elocution, sounds watered down somehow. ‘I still get queasy, even this late in the afternoon.’ Her lips barely part as she speaks, as if she’s scared she might throw up at any moment. I want to hold her, rub her back or something, but I’m afraid I’ll make her feel worse.

As our taxi pulls away, I catch a glimpse of a woman at the ground-floor window, who I take to be Louisa’s mother. I watch her as she runs her finger along the sash. Turning her palm upwards, she inspects the dust on the tip, before pressing it on to the windowpane, a fingerprint at the scene of the crime – the scene of Ed’s treachery. If you mess with my daughter, this gesture seems to say, you mess with me.

Till death us do part.

*

And then we were husband and wife. There was champagne for the reception, and sea bass for supper. Everyone had a lump in their throat when Dad recalled when I was small enough to lie on his forearm, between fingertip and the crook of his elbow. And my mother, sitting at a separate table, had apparently remarked to no one in particular that actually her ex-husband was wrong, and that I was a very long baby – rather like the labour.

And Matt’s best man, fellow medic Peder, had told lots of stories as fed to him by old chums like Dylan; stories which resolved important urban mysteries such as why he was known at boarding school as ‘Fat Matt’ despite being very slim and fit (answer: because no one could ever pronounce his real name, a custom his friends had praised me for overturning). And people had written rude things in our guest book, and taken mad photos of each other with disposable cameras. And I was introduced by my new mother-in-law, who was wearing nuptial black, to a distant uncle over from South Africa – and the uncle kept referring to my new husband as Matthys, but my new mother-in-law had explained that we all had to call him Matt from now on because poor Amber can’t pronounce Matthys.

For better, for worse.

*

Harry opens the door and several small children push past his legs. They thud into the three of us standing on the path. Harry blinks to attention.

‘Girls, girls, girls. What a treat!’ he enthuses, his voice carrying its habitual note of irony, as if he isn’t surrounded on a daily basis by females.

I scoop up Eloise, one of Harry’s five daughters, and balance her on my hip. Her floppy blonde hair smells of strawberries, and for a moment I turn my head slightly to inhale this scent in secret. My heart melts. She giggles and tells me I’m tickling her ear. She pulls at my face to make it face hers again. The skin at her temples is pale and delicate, nearly transparent. I marvel at the way she literally seizes what she wants from life. I want her never to lose this. I squeeze her tightly.

Eloise leans forward to pat Louisa’s distended stomach.

‘Pat gently, Ellie,’ I say. ‘Louisa has a baby in her tummy.’

‘For me?’ Eloise asks. ‘I’m six,’ she adds, as if this statement provides ample justification for Louisa handing over her one remaining reason for living.

‘Well, birthday girl,’ I say quickly, ‘let’s go in and see all the presents you’ve had.’

*

Our present table resembled something out of central casting. A dry-stone wall of boxes wrapped in shiny paper, shapes almost too perfect to contain real gifts. Frankly, I was flattered; I’d had dreams in the run-up to the wedding of walking down the aisle surrounded by empty pews.

We decided against a wedding list: the prerogative of marrying in our thirties. I suggested this because I feared our guests would overlook it. Matt agreed, and told me he hoped to offer the absence of a wedding list as a symbol to his parents of his autonomy. Above all, such was our faith in our relationship that to ask for something as mundane as a set of kitchen steps verged on the sacrilegious.

And yet, given the pile of presents we received, I could only conclude that guests had been wracked with guilt at the prospect of arriving empty-handed, or had felt under some compulsion to demonstrate by their well-judged gifts just what good friends they were of ours, of Matt and me, the new Bezeidenhouts. During the reception, Dylan had sent four choir boys to the church hall to collect trestle tables and erect them at the back of the marquee pitched in the vicar-cage garden.

By the power vested in me.

*

Dylan and Jenny loiter with poorly disguised intent beside the sausages on sticks; hardly surprising, since Dylan can’t cook, and Jenny can never stop eating (she says she’s too attached to the Mondrian patterns on her poncho jumpers to diet). Eloise is still joined to my hip, while Esme hits my bottom with a cushion. Serena approaches with a plate daubed with crumbs and smudges of buttercream.

‘You two! I wondered who was squirrelling all the sausages away. I don’t know! The children only want to eat sweet things this year.’

‘It was Jenny,’ mumbles Dylan, chewing. Jenny slaps Dylan play- fully and, during the ensuing laughter, pops another sausage into her mouth.

‘I can never keep up,’ laughs Serena. ‘At Eleanor’s party it was Hula Hoops, and at Emily’s it was egg sarnies. There’s always one item of food the children want to eat above all else. And this year it’s cake. At this rate, we’re going to be eating sausages until next Christmas.’

‘Not if Dylan keeps this up,’ I laugh, setting Eloise down.

‘Dylan, dearest, can you be an angel and herd everyone into the sitting room. Harry’s about to do his clown thing and the kids never listen to me.’

‘Only’, says Dylan, handing her his glass of boxed wine, ‘if you guard this till I get back.’

Serena agrees, while Dylan walks over in the manner of a ghoul to a group of children.

‘Shouldn’t really,’ whispers Serena, placing a palm over the glass. Jenny and I stare at her.

‘You’re not?’ we both chime.

‘No, no, no,’ Serena giggles. ‘I can’t be. I’m on the pill. Harry made me, after number five. No, it’s just that I’m so tired. Still, what the heck!’ She takes a long mouthful and places the glass on the table. ‘Although, don’t say anything, but I stopped last month.’

‘You stopped taking the pill?’ asks Jenny, as if to clarify. Her honey-fed tones sound coarser somehow.

‘Shhhhhh. Yes. But don’t tell Harry.’

‘You old devil!’ I say, regarding my friend. Not for the first time, I wonder what it must be like to be Serena, to have let yourself go physically, producing so many children in quick succession, and to not mind. To have permanently chapped hands, and thick ankles, and bags under the eyes, and to not have time to visit the hairdressers to mask the grey. To be barely able to tie an apron around your shapeless middle – to be too busy, perhaps, to ever take the apron off. Now, there’s an intriguing contraceptive. Instinctively I tighten my stomach muscles. I have memorised, without realising, the duration of Serena’s four labours (the most recent baby was practically born in the hospital lift). The drama of the twins’ emergency Caesarean, for example, is seared into my mind. The most remarkable thing is that Serena never complains, not about the piles, not about the nausea, not about her girls. To spend every day juggling crisis and heartache and anarchy, and to do it all for love? That, I believe, is the most mysterious part of all.

‘But you’ve got five already,’ says Jenny, taking a step back.

‘I know, I know. And Harry’s been talking lately about vasectomies. Someone in his staffroom has had one and says it’s done wonders for his sex life—’

‘Evidence would suggest’, I say, ‘that you and Harry need hardly worry on that score—’

‘’Fraid not, Amber. I’m just gloriously fertile! But I was in the attic sorting out things for this party and I came across a bag of baby clothes. I took them out and began to fold them properly with a view to giving them to charity, and I realised that I couldn’t do it. All those pink clothes, the tiny dresses. How could I give them away? It would be like giving away my own children. I sat in that attic for an hour and sobbed.’

‘Poor you,’ I say, putting a tentative arm around her. The warmth, the softness of Serena’s body surprises me – while her back feels strong, as do her shoulder blades. It’s as if she is more real, more genuine than me.

‘Oh, Amber, you’re sweet. But I know I’m lucky. Some women can’t conceive. They’re desperate. Imagine that. Every day I look at the girls and I can’t help smiling. But you career women don’t want to hear me blather on about my addiction to soiled nappies. See! Where’s Jenny gone? I’ve been boring you all and she’s escaped! Come on. Let’s go and see if Harry’s Clarence the Clown is keeping them quiet.’

As Serena follows me into the other room, she creeps up and whispers in my ear, ‘But I tell you, if Harry is planning a vasectomy, he’d better be bloody quick!’

*

I enter the kitchen having read the twins one final bedtime story, smiling at the memory of Eloise and Esme asleep in separate beds, holding hands across the carpet. Serena is spooning coffee granules into mugs. Dylan is stretching cling film over margarine tubs overflowing with cheese straws and crisps, a talent honed by fifteen years of parish soirées. Harry stands at the sink wiping clown make- up from his face with own-brand kitchen towels.

I accept a mug from Serena, decline milk, and breathe in the muskiness. After the brittle noises of the party, I relax in the silence between friends. Everyone else has gone home: Nicole braved a cab with queasy Louisa, and Jenny left early to cook supper, or knit a sweater.

I watch Harry as I sip, remembering another performance, another lifetime, before babies, before clients, before choices. Harry as Prospero, Harry as King Lear, Harry as Joe Keller. Harry reading Sky to my Sarah in Guys and Dolls – a production that was cancelled early due to lack of funds. It’s as if Harry was always destined to play only the father.

I met Dylan and Harry at auditions for the university revue group. My thoughts turn to plays performed, curtains called, and I compare them instantaneously, as the mind can, to the competitiveness of work. And I wonder how I was seduced into trading in the simple pleasure of applause for the flashier model of a competitive package with performance-related bonus. As I watch Harry throw the last traces of his clown’s face into the bin, I marvel at his faith in being able to delight his children.

‘Sweet one, you were tremendous,’ says Serena, handing her husband his coffee.

‘Praise indeed from the Butcher of Battersea!’ he smiles, and they clink chipped mugs. Behind them, the lights on the baby monitor flare like a rash, a child’s whimper getting louder.

‘Yes,’ says Dylan, ‘I was going to say, Hal. Your finest performance ever!’

‘Well, Dyl, you’ve got to do your bit,’ says Serena, heading for the door. ‘Children’s parties are so competitive now, and we can’t afford a professional entertainer. For richer, for poorer, eh?’ Here she winks at Harry. ‘So, you do what you have to do. I’ll go, Harry. You stay and drink your coffee.’

I hear her steady footsteps as she climbs the stairs.

‘Seeing as how you obviously haven’t lost your old touch, Hal, I’ve got the parish drama group staging Company at Harvest Festival this year. I’ve tried to persuade Amber to audition. Maybe you’d like to? You could say I’m hoping to harvest the fruit of your talents!’

‘Company?’ says Harry, thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t that the Sondheim show about the chap who’s surrounded by married friends, but who’s afraid to get hitched?’

‘The very same,’ says Dylan. ‘A man under pressure! Fancy it?’

‘I’m sorry, Dyl. I’m under enough pressure this summer. I swear, I do much more work than any of my pupils, and I’m sure that’s not the right way round—’

‘Oh, go on—’

‘He’s got five children, Dylan,’ I add.

‘And, of course we’d have more, if I had my way—’

‘More?’ Dylan and I say, cautiously, together.

‘So, if I’m going to—’

‘Did you mean more money, or more work?’ I say, a little too sharply, knowing he didn’t mean either, but resisting the appalling alternative.

‘No,’ says Harry, quietly. ‘More children.’ And he reaches up into a top cupboard and brings down an old bottle of whisky.

‘You sly old dog,’ cries Dylan. ‘Last week you told me, in confidence, that you were thinking of having the snip.’

‘I know. I was. The head of Biology has had one and—’

‘Intentionally? Or a class experiment which went badly wrong?’

‘Shut up, Dyl,’ I snap. ‘Does Serena know how you feel?’ I pour a finger, and drink it back in one gulp.

‘Well, she’s on the pill, so it’s not really an issue.’ Harry stares down at his shoes and shuffles his feet away from an imaginary finishing line on the lino. ‘But, you know, I was looking at the faces of all the children this afternoon, their eyes shining like conkers, and it brought it all back to me. I so loved being a child, didn’t you? Every day was so exciting, full of adventure. I think I want to put off the day that stops happening in this house.’

I grab the bottle and pour myself another slug.

‘At this rate, by the time you stop, your oldest will be producing grandchildren!’ laughs Dylan, putting his arm around Harry.

‘Well, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’ I can see his eyes are shining. ‘I have such clear memories. Like having chickenpox one June, and my father teaching me to bowl in the fortnight I was off school. Bowling at a wicket painted on the back wall, over, and over, and over again. Off-spinners, leg breaks. God, that was the best summer ever. And Ian Botham being sacked as captain against Australia, and then making two centuries, and taking five wickets to win the series. And seeing Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. And visiting HMS Victory in dry dock in Portsmouth and discovering that the floorboards of the lowest deck where the surgeon worked were painted red to hide the blood. Those were wonderful days, wonderful days. I don’t want to lose that. I loved it so much, I want it all over again.’ He looks from Dylan to me and grins shyly, as if seeking affirmation. ‘I want a son.’

*

I close my front door and rest against it. I can still smell Dylan’s cologne where we cheek-hugged goodnight. He declined my offer of coffee; he has a sermon to write, and a suitcase to pack for tomorrow’s retreat. My stomach, even after tonight’s diet of party food, rumbles vigorously. The house is in darkness. Tallulah (or is it timid Tim? Who gives a toss?) tiptoes into the hall and swirls herself, himself, around my legs. The fur against my tights sets my teeth on edge. My mother says cats gravitate to those who like them least. How fortunate, I think, that in human relationships it’s the other way around.

I’ve never been nervous before about discussing things with Dylan. There’s never been any censorship. We’ve survived meeting each other’s mothers, for goodness sake; what more evidence of friendship do you need? And yet, tonight, I was conscious of the word hanging in the car between us, as annoying as furry dice. Adoption. Yet I know I must say something soon. I want specifics. Above all, I think I want him to tell me it was all a joke.

In the kitchen, the answer machine is winking at me. It’ll be Matt’s caramel voice explaining, in vague terms, the crisis currently rendering me a work widow. I feel an irrational stab of envy for the patients commanding his attention. I want the man they call a saint to be my saviour alone.

Before I have a chance to play his message, the doorbell rings. I pad up to the hall. Matt must have left his keys at the hospital.

‘The cats!’ wails Dylan, pushing past me. His melodrama isn’t even feigned.

‘What about them?’ I ask, through tight lips.

‘Well, I could hardly go on retreat without saying goodbye!’

‘They’ve been suicidal,’ I say, drily. Dylan laughs at what he imagines is sarcasm. Suddenly, I can’t bear for Dylan to find them. ‘They just left.’

I watch a frown crumple Dylan’s forehead as he thinks this through. This is my power, the power to make Dylan pause and reflect. But he’d never understand, would never choose me over the cats, would never even realise he was expected to make a choice. And all because I can never tell anyone of my fear that there never seems to be enough love to go round.

As he calls their names, Tallulah enters the hall. She sidles up to his legs and curls herself around them. She half-lowers her eyelids, and lets out a seductive purr of encouragement. Dylan picks her up. I scrunch my toes on the sisal.

‘So, you hadn’t come to see me, then?’ I say, going downstairs to the kitchen. I’m aiming for levity, but recognise it, once vocalised, as a handbrake turn on the slip road to hysteria. I busy myself making drinks and stand close to the kettle. In the background, Dylan is making baby talk. He is so engrossed in his reunion that it’s not until I slam his mug down on a pile of rejected CVs that he starts to communicate with me and admits that he really can’t stay.

‘Just for a few minutes.’ My whine revolts me. But at just this moment, Tallulah (she’s probably killed Tim) leaps from Dylan’s arms. So he agrees to stay, and sips his coffee.

‘God,’ he groans, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, which are watering profusely. ‘Imagine having to entertain kids all day, every day. I don’t know how Serena and Harry do it.’

I eye him carefully. ‘I reckon they find it hard, finding time for each other.’ I want to speak on, but something makes me hesitate, knowing Dylan will never fully understand my bizarre fears of being replaced in his affections by two cats. Dylan, son of Pamela, who married young and produced her little prince before she was out of her teens. As Matt once put it to me: unable to tolerate the competition, Dylan’s father had died of a heart attack when our Oedipus was less than two. Dylan has Pamela.

I’ve never known such certainty.

‘Do you know your answer machine’s flashing?’ says Dylan, suddenly. He leans over and hits the play button. Which on reflection is a good thing, as it means that I’m not alone as I listen to Audrey’s voice, letting me know, with much sorrow, that my father has died.