Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

Chapter Nine

The journey, which we knew like the backs of our hands, had been hard-fought down the conveyor belt of traffic stretching from London to Cornwall, but now the packed car nosed round the headland. Since Launceston, Nathan had been humming off and on under his breath and persisted in saying, ‘Yip, sirree,’ when I asked a question. Sam, twenty, and Poppy, eighteen, who had both been at all-night parties and had not been to bed, woke up. Poppy put on her glasses and punched Sam lightly on the arm. ‘You owe me a beer.’

The car bore its hungry, thirsty pilgrims down the unmade road. Yes, yes, there it was, windows glinting in the sun. Sited in a dip overlooking the sea, which sheltered it, the cottage possessed a privacy that, in our family, went beyond its physical location.

By now, we were experts in the light and weather that swept over the coastline: grey storms, pink and gold sundrenched evenings, meditative blue on calm clear days. Sometimes a mist layered the coast and hid the beach. Quite often clouds were pasted over the horizon, which had the curious effect of bringing it closer. Sometimes I imagined myself walking across the water and climbing on to it. If it was blue, we went fishing. If it rained we went in search of fish and chips or hiked over the headline to the village where we ate Mrs Tresco’s cream and treacle, ‘thunder and lightning’ teas and drank beer in the pub.

‘Yip, sirree. Nice and blue.’ Nathan stopped the car. ‘I’m going straight out.’

I folded my hands in my lap and asked sweetly, ‘What about the unpacking?’

He came round to my side of the car and opened the door. ‘Sod the unpacking. The children can do it. You’re coming too.’

‘Sod the unpacking.’ I abandoned the car and its mess of suitcases, papers, empty drink cartons and boxes of food.

Sam sighed. ‘What’s it worth?’

‘Quite a lot,’ I said. ‘We’ll fix the exchange rate later.’

Nathan picked up his fishing bag and grabbed my hand. I had time only to snatch up my sweater. Down, down to the beach we went, like the excited children we had once shepherded so carefully. My feet in their plimsolls sped over the turf, sprang over the stones, dug into dry white sand.

Johnny the Sail had towed the boat down to the beach and left it in its usual place, with the outboard oiled and ready. Nathan unhooked the tarpaulin, wrestled with the stiff, damp awkwardness, stowed it, then threw in his bag. I joined him and we pushed the trailer to the water’s edge.

Nathan swung over the side and primed the motor. I pulled the trailer back up the beach, and waded through silky ruffles of water towards the boat.

‘Come on.’ Nathan held out his hand. ‘Are you going to be all day?’

Proud of the deftness acquired over years, I slotted the oars into the rowlocks. They dipped into the water, and I began the measured, steady pull, feeling the muscles tighten in my back and arms and the tide working against me. I quickened the pace and, pretty soon, I stopped shivering.

The wind sharpened at Fiddler’s Rock and I took care to skirt a field of flat, rank-smelling seaweed, which hid rocks with sharp pointy teeth that liked boats for breakfast. ‘OK,’ said Nathan, and I stopped rowing. Instantly there was hush, except for the water slapping against the clinker side of the boat. Nathan pulled at the string, the motor spluttered, roared and settled down. He took the tiller and we rode the waves out towards the place where the mackerel cruised.

I busied myself sorting out the line. However carefully it was stowed at the end of the season, it always twisted in storage and I had to concentrate so that the hooks did not catch my fingers. Nathan cut the engine and primed it again, ready for a quick start if necessary. ‘You go first.’

I threw the line overboard, watching the bright bait-feathers swell as they touched the water. The sun beat down on my bare arms, warming flesh that had been hidden in the city. I looked up. Nathan was watching me. ‘We’ll have time together this year,’ he said, ‘won’t we?’

The line tugged in my hands, the water flip-flopped against the boat and the light was dazzling. I found myself astonished and shaken by joy. It was the joy of being alive, of being part of the mystery of existence, the more simple joy of Nathan’s love.

An hour or so later, we clambered back up the path to Beach Cottage. I carried the fishing bag, and Nathan carried our supper. Three mackerel: the best ever for a first day’s catch.

At the top of the path, Sam was scanning the cliff, one hand shielding his eyes. When he spotted us, he started down the path towards us. Lazily, I imagined what he might say. All done. Beds made. Food stowed. Pay up.

Instead, when he arrived, panting, at the ledge where we had stopped to look at the sea and Nathan had slipped his arm around my shoulders, he said, ‘Dad, there’s been a phone call. They want you back in London.’

Why hadn’t I put my foot down then, I thought, and at all the other times? Why didn’t I now?

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jean. ‘I know you and Nathan had things to talk about, but it was impossible not to interrupt.’ She looked pained, and I knew that she knew.

‘It was ever thus, Jean.’

‘I know,’ she said sadly.

The minister’s wife had been only thirty-seven. Judging by her picture on the television screen in the office, which beamed in a constant stream of news, she looked pretty, and very English in a fair, large-boned way. In the photograph, she was dressed in a pair of trousers and a polo-neck sweater, the neat, unthreatening clothes of a Good Wife. There were two teenage children, the younger of whom had discovered her hanging from the banisters.

Good Wives kill themselves as thoroughly as anyone else.

Her face was vignetted in the top right-hand corner of the screen as commentators were wheeled in to discuss her death. Accompanied by their modulated tones, I emptied my desk and packed my bag, arranged the piles of books in publication order and deleted files from the computer. I rang Steven to warn him of late pages.

‘Leave it for Minty to sort out.’ Maeve was clearly furious. The bush telegraph had been at work and she came over to supervise my career demise – and to learn the details. Her pencilled-in eyebrows snapped together. ‘I don’t know what Timon thinks he’s doing. It’s an outrage.’ But her indignation was tinged with unease. ‘It’ll be me next, no doubt, as I’m no spring chicken.’ She leant over and urged, ‘Go to a tribunal. Fight for the older woman because that’s what it’s about.’

I was shaking with fury and shock, but I continued to sort out the piles of books. ‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that, Maeve.’

‘Wake up, Rose.’ She prised a couple of books out of my hand. ‘Stop it. Don’t waste one more minute on them than you have to. You don’t owe them anything.’

The television commentator stood outside the minister’s house, which was under siege, and reported on the charitable and constituency activities of the minister’s wife, the reaction of appalled friends, and of how the children had gone into hiding.

With the grief of the minister’s children in mind, and the woman’s death, I could not bring myself to make the gesture of leaving those last unnecessary tasks unfinished. Together, Maeve and I packed up a box with my stationery and pens, my files – the photograph – and left it for delivery to Lakey Street.

Maeve glanced at the screen where the minister’s solicitor was now making a plea for the family’s privacy. ‘What fools,’ she said fiercely, and surprisingly. ‘Letting themselves get like that.’

I kissed Maeve, promised to keep in touch, and gave her my mug, which had ‘I is edikacated’ printed on it, and went to see Jenny in Human Resources. Neither of us enjoyed the fifteen minutes I spent in her office, and I emerged with a portfolio of documents I had refused to sign until I had consulted my solicitor. ‘Timon won’t like that,’ Jenny said, flustered, and I toyed with the idea of telling her that she was in the wrong job.

At the front desk, I surrendered my pass to Charlie. ‘I’m sorry about this, Rose,’ he said, as he cancelled it. He had signed my forty-fifth-birthday card, which had been organized by Jean – over forty signatures spidered over it, promoting in-house jokes (would I remember what they meant?) and wishing me long life.

‘I enjoyed working with you,’ I told him, but Charlie had transferred his attention to a messenger.

I walked out of the building and came to a halt. Only once before in my life had I had no idea what to do, or where to go next. Only once before had I felt as exposed and crushed by the weight of grief and despair.

I breathed in traffic fumes, a whiff of rotting litter, and the knowledge that, for the moment, I was lost. The book bag hung limply over my shoulder, a symbol of my emptiness.

A woman bumped into me and hurried on. A mother wheeled a baby past in a buggy. A man in a black overcoat shouted at a bus.

My feet moved forward. The air was pulled in and out of my chest. I continued down the street, but I watched that woman walking along with her empty bag from a great height. I felt an enormous detachment, and a curious desire to laugh. Look on the bright side, Rose. You won’t have to worry about people at work knowing about Nathan.

Outside the gym, I stopped. Anyone who was anyone knew that this was the place to be. The gossip and deals of the women’s changing room outflanked those of the office canteen. It was private, intimate, naked – the bone of a matter was always reached quickly and thoroughly: the smoothies at the bar, which machines did what to the anatomy and, especially, the air quality were avidly discussed. Some days the air was fine, on others it was dense with sweat sucked up from labouring bodies. At other times, diseases were said to lurk in the pipes.

It was precisely the sort of place that Minty would choose to make her second home.

The thick engraved-glass door swung open and shut, open and shut, revealing a receptionist in a tight, acid green T-shirt. A posse of women carrying sports bags streamed in, chattering to each other. The door closed silently, reinforcing the gym’s exclusivity.

From the outside, I looked in.

Eventually I pushed open the thick, dividing door and went inside.

Minty was not in the bar, or in the spa, or on a machine. I tracked her down in the changing room. Hunched on a bench, she was naked, absorbed, oblivious, drying between her toes. Then she stood up and rubbed lotion into her hard, confident body, which she tended so well.

Pink, white, ivory and black, tumbling hair, long legs, firm stomachs: the room was heaving with feminine flesh. Women padded between the lockers and the showers, hairdryers hummed, a locker door slammed. They were all still young. Their bodies were not yet slackening and disobedient, and the gap between their desires and what was returned had not yet widened to be impossible. Perhaps that was what Nathan was trying to redeem, and felt he could not tell me.

Minty continued to stroke and perfect the body he preferred. With a shaking hand, I wiped away the damp that, in the heat, had flowered on my upper lip. I should face Minty and call her to account. But, trembling and afraid, I fled.

When I got back to Lakey Street there was a rucksack in the hall. Poppy flew out of the kitchen as I stepped into the house. ‘Mum, I’m here.’

I drew my daughter into my arms. She nestled into me and the relief at having her there was like a burst of sun. I thought, This is what matters. Eventually, she drew away, slid her arm round my waist and led me into the kitchen.

‘You look awful, Mum.’ She took off her glasses and polished them on her muslin skirt, her eyes widened with the effort of focusing. Poppy was extremely short-sighted, hated her glasses and was never comfortable with them, but hated more the idea of contact lenses.

I tried to smile, failed, then explained that I had lost my job to Minty.

The full red mouth tightened with fury and distress. At the best of times, Poppy did not find life easy and had not, as yet, had time to develop a sense of irony that would protect her. The pitfalls ahead of her were different from those that confronted Sam, but both were capable of being terribly wounded. That kept me awake at night, too.

‘Dad can’t possibly want to live with someone who’s done that.’ She struggled to get the words out, and her bewilderment was like a stake driven into my heart. ‘Can he?’

I tried to explain that Nathan had not meant any of this to happen, and that connections between events do not necessarily exist even if they appear to. ‘It was coincidental, Timon’s decision. Dad didn’t know. I’d been there a long time, Poppy, and they wanted a different approach.’

‘Like hell.’ Poppy’s eyes filled and overflowed. ‘Timon wouldn’t have done it unless Dad had left you. He wouldn’t have dared. Oh, God,’ she wiped away the tears with the edge of her skirt, ‘I feel so miserable.’

‘Bet you haven’t eaten.’ I took refuge in being predictable and motherly.

Poppy went over to stroke Parsley, who was sitting in her customary place. ‘Parsley looks older,’ she said.

‘Parsley is an old lady,’ I said quickly. ‘Look, I’ll make you an omelette.’ I was already reaching for the eggs and the cheese.

‘I’ll go and phone Richard.’

Fifteen minutes later, I went in search of Poppy and discovered her fast asleep on the sofa in the sitting room, her mobile phone clutched in one outstretched hand. The tearstains were still on her cheek. When I kissed her awake, she turned to me in the old way and I caught my breath.

Half-way through the omelette, she put down her fork. ‘There’s nothing Sam and I can do, is there?’

‘I don’t think so. It’s between your father and me.’

Poppy tried to digest this. ‘How could he have left you?’

My knees went weak with the effort to concentrate. How could I devise rules quickly for a situation of which I had no experience? I sat down, facing Poppy, and struggled to be dispassionate and fair. ‘We’ll try to make it as civilized as possible. We won’t treat you and Sam to scenes.’

‘Why not? You don’t feel civilized, do you?’

I sometimes forgot how shrewd Poppy could be. There was a cloudy patch on the walnut surface and I rubbed at it. ‘No, I don’t. I feel as if a limb has been cut off.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

The kitchen was very quiet. ‘Neither can I.’

With no evident enthusiasm, Poppy tackled the remainder of the omelette. ‘Dad’s behaviour is many things, and it’s embarrassing. Who does he think he is, going after a younger woman? It’s such… such a cliché.’

Her vehemence made me anxious. ‘I’m sure he’ll talk to you about his feelings. You must go and see him.’

She gave an impatient click of her tongue. ‘I’m not sure I want to see him. He’s ruined our family. He’s let us down.’

‘Poppy, you’re an adult now and he’s still your father.’

She brushed me aside. ‘How you will live? Where will you live? Which one of you is home?’ Poppy put her hands up to her face and covered her eyes. ‘Lakey Street will be sold. Picture it, Mum. One weekend with you, one with Dad. Awful meetings at weddings and funerals…’ She went quite still. ‘It’s broken. Our life. The picture of our life.’

If it curves too grandly a river will take a short cut, or so I had learnt in geography, which creates an ox-bow lake of drenched grasses, watercress and busy, secret life. Poppy had the same way of cutting across loops and corners as the river and I puzzled as to where she had got this stubborn, leapfrogging bit of her – the bit that also ignored rules, and inconvenient things like exams and the necessity of earning a living.

‘Let her – the child – tell you her needs,’ wrote one pundit, in whom we had initially believed. Nathan read from the book as I paced up and down with a squalling three-month-old Poppy, who had given notice that sleep was boring. It was a sentiment so thoroughly in tune with a society that wanted to reshape itself and rethink its women. By the time we discovered what the pundit really meant, that ‘We should bloody allow our children to stamp all over us,’ as Nathan put it (after a clash), Sam and Poppy were well advanced.

I stacked Poppy’s plate in the dishwasher and put an apple in front of her. ‘Here, eat this.’

She looked up at me. ‘It wasn’t anything Sam and I did, was it? I used to think we were such a drain on you that you didn’t have any time left for Dad. Then there was your work.’ She took off her glasses and placed them on the table in front of her. ‘It couldn’t be that, could it?’

‘No.’

She pushed the glasses away. ‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

Poppy bit into the apple. She seemed more relaxed and reassured. ‘I gave Dad what-for on the phone. I made him angry, actually’

I did not want to look into those puzzled, short-sighted eyes so I busied myself at the sink. ‘Poppy, one day… everything will be more normal and we’ll have to build bridges. Do you see? Do you understand?’

‘Sure.’ Poppy picked up her mobile, which was never far away, and fiddled with the buttons. ‘Message from Richard. He loves me.’ She giggled. ‘I love him. He’s so full of life. So adventurous. So generous. I don’t think Richard could ever be a drag. By the way, we’re off east the minute finals are over.’

‘I thought you and Jilly were going to do something.’ Jilly was Poppy’s closest friend. They had met at university and fallen instantly into that absorbing intimacy which is only possible before real life begins.

‘Jilly is off to New Zealand to see an aunt or something.’

Poppy spoke carelessly but I could tell she felt a little betrayed. I wiped down the sink and hung the dishcloth over the tap. My chest felt tight, as it had when Sam announced that he was going to Mozambique to teach in his gap year. It was partly the danger, but more that the nestlings were shaking their wings and flying. ‘Where will you go? And on what?’

Typically, Poppy ignored the last bit of the question. ‘India, I think. Perhaps Thailand. I don’t know yet. It’s the last fling, Mum, before we become boring and serious. You mustn’t worry, Richard will look after me.’

This was not reassuring. The last time Nathan and I had seen Richard, he had hair flowing over his shoulders, was dressed in a shalwar kameez and treated us to a lecture on the wickedness of western economic imperialism when he used expressions such as ‘way cool’ and ‘oppressors’. To this day, I was not sure if he was teasing or in earnest.

I knew perfectly well what I should not say, and said it. ‘What about job-hunting?’

Colour had crept back into Poppy’s mouth. ‘I don’t want to get all tied up and desperate a minute before I have to, Mum. Like you did.’

‘What do Richard’s parents think?’ They lived in Northumberland and were, as far we could make out, a fairly shadowy presence. ‘Has Richard thought about the future?’

Boredom was registered in every line of Poppy’s body. ‘I have no idea. Possibly’ She turned her head and looked out of the window. ‘Everyone insists on talking to me about the future – well, anyone who’s over twenty-five, which seems to be the age when brain degeneration seriously sets in. It’s like a disease. They can’t wait to get me sorted into a category they can understand. “It’s so exciting,” they say. If only they knew what they sounded like.’

I looked round the kitchen, alive with murmurs from the past. ‘Remember the red shoes?’

Poppy chased an apple pip around the plate. ‘That old story.’

For her seventh birthday, Nathan, Ianthe, Sam and I had taken Poppy to purchase the exact pair of red shoes that the advertisements promised would turn her into a princess. The royal status failing to materialize (also the ballgown), Poppy’s cries had cleared the shop. ‘But they promised, and it’s not true,’ she sobbed. ‘They promised.’

‘It was one of the rare times Dad said, “Here, you take her.” He was usually the one who could calm you down.’

Poppy’s face crumpled. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she choked, ‘it’s so awful. Everything’s changed. I thought the one thing that would never change is you and Dad. And it’s so awful that I’m not taking it better.’

Poppy stayed for three days, pretending to work and refusing to see Nathan. She would not even to talk to him. That must have hurt him.

‘My dad,’ Poppy was overheard confiding to a friend at her ninth birthday party, ‘doesn’t get cross with me.’ But he got cross with Sam, of whom he expected different, sterner things. Other than the garden, it was one of the few things about which Nathan and I rowed. Sam’s gravity settled over him when he tumbled to the idea that life was intrinsically unfair. In successfully claiming a monopoly on Nathan’s heart, with witchery, a pair of large eyes and sulky red lips, Poppy had early taught her brother a brutal, useful lesson.

Laden with food and vitamin pills, she took the coach back to Nottingham. I offered to pay her train fare but she was not having it. ‘I like all this sort of studenty thing.’ Stubborn and insistent. ‘After this one I have only one more term left.’