Life Begins Page 9

  Sam twirled his apple juice, not catching her eye. He knew that she wanted him to leap out of his chair and punch the air. A part of him wanted to. A dog of his own! At long last! But another part of him felt cross and cornered.

  ‘It’s called bribery,’ she said, smiling. ‘A dog for a house. Not too bad a trade-off, is it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, you think about it,’ she said, brisk and cheerful, like she thought the battle had been won.

  Sam pushed back his chair and stood up, but she reached across the table and motioned him back down. ‘Hang on, young man, I haven’t seen you for two days. I think I deserve another couple of minutes at least.’ Sam leant against the chair, not going, but wanting to show that he had no desire to carry on talking either. The lack of desire shrivelled still more when she went on to announce, as if it was some huge cause for celebration, that they were to have lunch with George’s family the following weekend. ‘And Theresa has said we can use their Suffolk cottage during the Easter holidays,’ she continued gaily. ‘Won’t that be great? I thought you might like to take a friend. It doesn’t have to be George – it could be anyone.’ She made a grand sweep of her arms, as if he had the whole world to choose from.

  Sam tried to make a smile come but it wouldn’t. He hated how, like all adults these days, she seemed constantly to be trying so hard to get stuff out of him, trying to get him to say – to feel– the right things.

  ‘Sam… darling…’ She was speaking really softly now and gazing at him with her green, unblinking eyes. ‘Are you all right? Really all right? I mean, there’s nothing going on that I should know about, is there?’

  Sam pushed the chair, so roughly that it rocked forwards, slamming against the table before settling back on to all four legs. Needing something else to do, something that wouldn’t involve having to look at her, he swiped an apple out of the fruit bowl and took a large bite.

  ‘Sam, darling,’ Charlotte urged gently, ‘it’s a perfectly simple question and I only ask it because I’m a little worried –’

  ‘Yeah, but you – everyone – always ask it,’ he spluttered, through the apple, which was soft and tasteless. ‘And I’m fed up, fucking fed up –’

  She was on her feet in a second, as if an electric bolt had shot up through the seat of her chair. ‘Don’t you dare use such language.’

  ‘I dare,’ he shouted, ‘I fucking dare,’ and then, because he was crying and because he could see no way forward through the dark, terrible sight of her face and the even darker more terrible sound of the words he had uttered, he flung the apple back into the fruit bowl and ran from the kitchen. He tore up the stairs, taking three at a time all the way, using the banisters, his thighs burning. On the top floor he barged at his bedroom door and flung himself on to his bed, pulling his duvet over his head so that there was nothing for company but darkness and the thump of his heart.

  Time seemed to stop and then drag. It was hot under the covers and hard to breathe. Sam strained his ears for the sound of footsteps, but none came. He would die of lack of oxygen, he decided, gripping the cotton of the duvet in his fists, thinking with a surge of joy how bad it would make them feel. All of them. For ever and ever. He’d show them. He imagined his mother finding his lifeless body under the covers, wailing and beating her chest like women in long black dresses he had seen in films. He imagined her telling his teachers, telling George and Rose – all that sick guilt they would feel – and how dumb his dad would look for having said no to the iPod. It would be brilliant, except that, of course, Sam realized, sitting up and shaking off the duvet, as a corpse he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the show.

  Outside, what had begun as a spray of rain had quickly thickened to fat sheets of water. Soon a powerful wind was driving it against the window next to his bed, making splatting noises and causing the glass to shake in its fittings. It was so loud that Sam wasn’t aware Charlotte had even come upstairs until she switched on the light. He blinked in the glare, pulling the duvet back across his shoulders. Here we go, he thought, here we bloody well go. ‘Sorry.’ He tried to spit the word out, but it seemed to trickle from his lips in a whisper, barely audible against the drumming of the rain.

  ‘I took the giraffe down, did you see?’ She crossed to the blank space that had once housed the childish tape-measure of a wall hanging and ran her fingers across the wall, very gently, as if she was stroking it. ‘Someone had been firing missiles at it. Look, they’ve left three holes, here and here and here. Poor giraffe, he needed rescuing,’ she murmured, half turning so that he could see the smile on her face. ‘I thought we could put that clock you like here instead – the one in the spare room that shows its insides. You’ve always liked it, haven’t you?’

  Sam nodded once, very slowly.

  ‘Sometimes it’s okay to swear, Sam. Sometimes it isn’t. “Fuck” is a powerful word and you should use it sparingly.’

  Sam could feel his whole body burning. The word sounded terrible on her lips. He wished she hadn’t said it.

  ‘I’m going to start cooking supper now. Come down when you’re ready.’

  Charlotte folded her arms as she left the room, glad he couldn’t see the white of her fingers where they gripped her elbows, glad he could not know how long she had rehearsed what to say, how desperate she was not to foster even an echo of the sense of maternal alienation that she had endured not just as a child but that very lunchtime, aged thirty-nine and three-quarters, seated at her mother’s kitchen table.

  Leaving the door ajar, she made her way downstairs, wishing she had something – someone – to retreat to other than the empty ground floor of the house. She cooked the pasta and the jar of inoffensively smooth sauce like an automaton, lost in contemplation of life’s repeating patterns and the vigilance it took to resist them.

  Lying among the mountainous peaks of her most scented, favourite bath foam, with her hair clipped off her neck and the radio humming from its hook above her head, Theresa contemplated the lovely calm of a late – but not too late – Sunday evening. The first half of the day had been fraught, trying to fit church and George’s out-of-school rugby round a roast, with Henry on call, the younger boys needing dropping and collecting from two different birthday parties and Matilda throwing up without having coughed herself into it. But then the afternoon had slowed and unfurled into something wondrously peaceful, like a veil lifted on a parallel world, in which children sprawled elbow to elbow doing jigsaw puzzles and reading books while one’s spouse insisted on washing up, releasing her to the unlooked-for treat of sipping coffee and browsing through the Sunday papers. Even when George put the television on for the PlayStation he kept the volume so low and was so generous in offering his brothers a turn that none of the usual mayhem broke out. Matilda had dozed on the sofa for a couple of hours and then, instead of waking and grizzling, had set up a hospital for her dolls in the corner of the sitting room, requiring no attention beyond a box of plasters and the occasional cooing exclamation of sympathy for the sickest of her plastic patients.

  By eight o’clock she and Henry were alone eating beef and pickle sandwiches and watching a detective solve a spate of grisly murders in a country village. It was what one worked for, Theresa mused, sinking deeper into her bubbles, one of those passages of calm that made the storms worthwhile. But Henry wasn’t quite right, she reminded herself, watching him carefully as he came into the bathroom and began to perform his own ablutions at the basin. A little quiet, not quite there.

  ‘I’ve been thinking – maybe we did give poor Charlotte a bug after all, though she seems better now.’ She had to raise her voice over the spurt of the taps, which Henry was running too hard as usual, splashing the front of his pyjamas.

  ‘Who? Charlotte?’

  ‘No, Matty. She’s seems better, but maybe she gave whatever she’s had to Charlotte. Remember I told you Charlotte thought she might have been ill instead of just hung-over? And Matty’s not been herself for days.’

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p; ‘Ah. Yes.’ Henry balanced his glasses across the soapdish and laid a flannel across his face, tipping his head back so that it sank round the contours of his nose and eye sockets.

  ‘Henry? Are you all right under there?’

  He peeled off the flannel and looked at her. ‘Of course. Perfectly. Why?’

  ‘Because you washed up lunch without banging the pans or shouting at the children to help,’ said Theresa, drily. ‘Most unusual.’

  ‘Remind me not to do it again.’

  ‘Hey, don’t be like that.’ Theresa reached for a towel and clambered out of the water. Stepping across the bathmat, she stood behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder. ‘I put in too much hot and now I’m puce and sweaty.’ She made a face at her reflection, her cheeks scarlet next to her husband’s pale skin, strands of damp hair sticking across her forehead. ‘Still love me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Henry smiled, turned his head and planted a kiss on her nose before reaching for his toothbrush. He worked the bristles thoroughly and hard, covering the corners the hygienist had warned him about. Theresa stepped back on to the bathmat and scissored the towel across her back and down her legs before perching on the lavatory seat to dry between her toes. There were pink blotches on her skin from the heat of her bath. Her arms and legs were shapely still and firm, but her belly, since Matilda, the heaviest of their four at birth, was pitted with silvery stretchmarks and hung in a heavy extra fold under her tummy button. A late-night bath, Henry knew, was a sign that she was very relaxed, very happy, that lovemaking was on the cards should he choose to take her up on it. After so many years such knowledge was like a silent language. He knew she was in the mood for sex, just as she knew he wasn’t quite ‘right’. And that was something to rejoice in, Henry reminded himself, patting his mouth dry and retreating to the bedroom: communication, understanding, such elements were the cornerstone of long-term love. He propped his book against his knees – a hardback biography of a politician that made his arms ache if he attempted to hold it – and began to read. A couple of minutes later Theresa climbed in next to him and slipped her arms round his waist.

  ‘You don’t really want to read, do you?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  She put her mouth against his arm and blew till his pyjamas were wet and his skin burnt. ‘There,’ she said, smacking her lips with satisfaction. A hot potato, because I love you.’

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ Henry peered affectionately at her over the top of his glasses. ‘And would you still love me if I read to the end of the chapter?’

  She smiled back at him, too comfortable, too sleepy to take offence. ‘Possibly.’ She turned on to her other side, bunched her knees up to her chest and closed her eyes. ‘By the way, Charlotte and Sam are coming next Sunday. I thought I’d do duck for a change… What do you think?’

  ‘Delicious.’

  ‘And I said she could use the cottage.’

  Henry turned sharply. ‘When?’

  ‘Easter hols… a week.’ Her voice was slurred now. She was close to sleep.

  ‘Fine.’ Henry returned his gaze to the top of the page. He had not taken in a single word. Sir William presented his findings to the House before returning to his club. Sir William…Sir William. Henry squinted, focused and squinted again, seeing not the portly frame of the protagonist of his book but Charlotte Turner, slim, milky-skinned, auburn hair streaming, green eyes sad and hopeful. If he hadn’t felt her, he was sure he would have been fine. But he had felt her, for those brief seconds, in his arms. More importantly, he had felt the need in her and it had opened a door that he didn’t seem able to close: a door that led into a room full of fantastical scenarios. What if he had held her harder, or for longer, or seen her into the house, or helped her off with her coat, or offered to make tea or pour more wine or –

  Henry rolled over and put out his bedside light. He was sorely tempted now to put his arms round his wife but she was lost to sleep – deeply, instantly, as was her wont. And it would have been wrong, anyway, he reasoned unhappily, to vent his pitiful, secret lust upon the very person it wronged. And where could such lust lead anyway, other than a catastrophe of multiple hurt? Theresa had betrayed him once and the pain of it, thirteen years on – if he concentrated – could still scythe through his heart. Forgiving her had been instinctive, then hard, but he had managed it. They wouldn’t survive something similar now. A drunken fumble, maybe, but not with Charlotte… Charlotte! Christ, was he losing his mind?

  Henry fought the bedclothes in the dark, tugging and twisting until sheer exhaustion got the better of him and he fell asleep spreadeagled between the folds like a wounded combatant.

  Chapter Six

  Bella takes a gap year, but I feel it would be nothing more than that – a gap, limbo, time to fill. On the advice of a teacher I apply, successfully, to Durham University to study English literature. My mother offers to drive me there. I pack the car the night before we leave, stuffing bedding round the boxes and suitcases, my stereo and a guitar I have bought but cannot play. My father watches from his chair at the sitting-room window where he spends most of the day now, a tartan blanket over his bony knees. His big hands, the fingers on the left stained a dirty yellow, twitch in his lap for the cigarettes he can no longer smoke. His breath is all wheeze; his eyes, dark and heavy-lidded, are withdrawing into their sockets.

  Early next morning he is standing by the front door with a small bag at his feet. He is coming too, he says. It is a big thing, he wants to be a part of it. He swivels his gaze between my mother’s face and mine, the sunken eyes daring contradiction. I have to rearrange the car, forcing a space for myself on the back seat so that he can sit in the front. It is a long journey and I spend most of it staring at the back of his head, seeing the contours of his skull through the papery scalp and the dear tufts of silvery hair still doing their best to cover it. The space between his collar and his hairline looks so contrastingly soft, so absurdly young and vulnerable, that I long to press my hands there – anything to keep it hidden and safe.

  Durham is more beautiful than I had expected, tall dark ancient stones interleaved with the smooth walls and extensive glass of modern buildings, like two time zones existing in parallel. The cathedral dominates the airspace with its vast square towers, a majestic point of reference that makes our cramped car, our lives, seem small. With its aid I study the map and steer us in the right direction. I am nervous but cannot wait to locate my college and for the two of them to be gone. They are staying the night somewhere on the outskirts and planning an early getaway.

  Stumped by double yellow lines, I wind down the window to ask for help from a round-faced girl in a duffel coat. She is called Eve, she says, and there’s parking round the back and is it my first term and what subject and see you soon. I wind the window back up with a full heart, recalling the hateful send-off on the station platform nine years before – that flimsy little-girl hope. I am so very grateful to be older, armoured, more prepared.

  It is bitterly cold. I feel my father’s helplessness as he hunches his shoulders against the cut of the wind and watches the unpacking of the car. There are three flights of stairs to my room. My mother, a box of books in her arms, instructs him to take care, to use the banisters. I follow behind, the handles of my bags cutting welts into my palms. I see revenge in her energy and want to make up for it. By the top his breath is all rattle and squeak. My mother marches past, plunging back down the stairwell for a second load.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he says. He perches on the edge of the desk and reaches slowly, carefully, into the inner pocket of his jacket. Watching the delicacy of the movement, the fluttering fingers, I have the sudden overwhelming sensation – as sure as knowledge itself – that this will be our last farewell. There is a softness in his eyes that tells me he knows it too. ‘Something…’ He withdraws an envelope, plump and white, and studies it hard. I gawp at it too, my heart galloping. For I know what such envelopes at such moments can mean. I have read Geo
rge Eliot and Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy: altered wills, deathbed confessionals, setting records straight. I know all the possibilities and feel ready and deserving of my chance to experience a version of them. My throat is tight – because he is dying and because I fear what this letter will say – but I am excited too. Closure. I lick my lips.

  ‘Open it later,’ he croaks.

  I hug him tenderly, hating how tall I am in my heels, how robust my frame feels against his thin chest. I press my lips to his rough cheek, wishing I could transfer some of my youth and strength to make him well. I could not in all my eighteen years have loved him more and would tell him so if I could trust my voice.

  As my mother, tight-lipped, flint-eyed, the leads of my stereo trailing round her ankles, re-enters the room, I tug open the top drawer of the Formica desk and drop the envelope inside. My knowledge of his betrayal has been a burden, but I know, too, that it has bound us in a secret, almost pleasurable allegiance. We are the circle that closes, my mother is the one on the outside.

  Later, when Eve asks me round for a coffee I almost refuse. Her room is along the corridor from mine, a cosy den of lamps and wall hangings, posters and cushions. She talks about faculties, clubs and tutors, and offers fat fingers of home-made shortbread to accompany the coffee. I nod and smile, nibble and sip, guilty that I cannot focus.

  Back in my room at last, I lock the door and light a cigarette before I approach the drawer. I inhale deeply, enjoying the giddy rush, the drama of the moment. The drawer sticks, then releases. I balance the cigarette on the edge of the desk and run my fingers under the flap of the envelope. The edge of the paper cuts my skin, but I ignore it, letting the drops of blood smudge where they will.

  Inside there is an A4 sheet, blank apart from one sentence, and folded round four fifty-pound notes. ‘For extras’, it says, ‘love, Dad.’