The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back

10

The day before I returned home from that stay with my father was cool and blustery. I pushed open the sitting-room french windows and stepped outside. The smell of the garden never changed: damp earth, a sharp, acrid whiff of mould, the sweeter tang of the shrubs growing close by. The lawn was wet, the earth soft, and my feet left a predictable trail as I made for the beech tree. It looked the same and its sounds were familiar – the rustle of leaves, the whistle of wind, the fractured light shafting through the thick canopy.

I squinted upwards. The tree-house appeared to be intact still. I ran my hands over my hips, felt their extra fullness and softness. Go on, Fanny. Smiling, I placed my hand on the first branch and hauled myself up. Easy. Then I scrambled up inch by inch to the platform. Not so easy.

Yet once up there, queasily balanced on the now unsteady planks, I was, fleetingly, queen of all I surveyed.

The breeze released a shower of moisture from previous rain and I put my hand to my mouth and licked it. Clean and cool. Up here, I felt weightless, without responsibility, without the terrors that came wrapped up with a baby. Peaceful. Not precisely how I used to be, but good enough.

Gradually, my jangled feelings lightened and drifted away.

That evening, to cheer me up, my father held a little party.

It was quite like old times. My high heels felt strange from disuse and I squeezed myself into a tight black skirt, wincing at the pad of fat still attached to my stomach, and stood in the receiving line with my pelvis tilted forward and my toes pinched, and felt wonderfully normal.

The guests were wine people and I knew them all, including Raoul who was over for a short visit. We were often a little awkward with each other, but it tended to wear off. ‘How’s the nose?’ he asked as he kissed me. As pregnancy was known to affect the nose, it was the first question he would have asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said seriously. ‘I shall have to see.’

Raoul had olive skin, an interesting, sensitive face and liked to dress well. Today, for some reason, he had a scratch on his cheek which gave him a bold and buccaneering look.

‘What happened?’

‘I was hacking down some undergrowth back home and it hit me, but I haven’t congratulated you,’ he said. ‘I hope when the baby is older you will make sure you pay us a visit. My family would love to see her.’

‘I would love that, too.’

In France, passion for good wine was part of the national psyche – it is what makes the French consider themselves French, apart from their language. Thus the Villeneuves would consider it only their due that they lived in the most exquisite château I had ever seen.

He peered at me. ‘You look a little tired, Fanny. I know it’s hard after a baby to get back to normal.’

Again, I felt those treacherous tears and I looked away, down at the carpet that I helped to choose with Caro many years ago.

‘My father will be retiring soon, and I will be taking over.’

How perfect, I thought. Raoul’s life is now arranged like an immaculately set dinner table. Well off, position assured. Doing what he loves. Knife, fork, spoon… and wine glass.

‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.

I told Raoul and he said he considered that the interesting bit in life would prove to be when one has worked through the hors d’oeuvre and was half-way through the entrée.

‘We must discuss it when we get there,’ I said.

Before I left for home, my father and I had a serious talk about the business and I began to Understand more precisely my own limits. My new world. ‘I think we should consider employing someone else to help me until Chloë is well launched. There’s no hurry for you to come back. You need time.’

I was not sure if I was hurt or relieved. ‘I can’t imagine not working,’ I said.

My father looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I understand. But I think for the moment, you must put Chloë first.’

After a little struggle, I gave in. ‘I want you to know I can cope, but you’re probably right. It would be wiser for the time being. Why don’t you ask if Raoul could come over and help out for a month or two.’

‘I already have,’ said my father. ‘I can’t put my granddaughter at risk. Nor your health.’

I digested his sleight of hand.

‘By the way, he tells me he is going to marry Thérèse. Very suitable.’ Thérèse, I knew, was the daughter of a fellow negociant family, also very well off. He smiled. ‘So, it has all worked out, hasn’t it? What’s the matter, my love? Didn’t he tell you?’

I wanted to go home. I missed Will and, now that I felt stronger, I needed to be in my own domain. The idea of it was growing clearer and more urgent: the notion of drawing the curtains, lighting the fire and tucking my daughter into a cheerful bedroom decorated with Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit.

‘Now, you take care,’ said my father, holding me close.

‘Now, you take care.’ I kissed his cheek, so familiar beneath my lips.

With his instructions about getting some help ringing in my ears, I got into the car and drove away.

The laurel hedge was still the same dispiriting colour and rooks dived over the beeches. No change there. I carried Chloë into the kitchen and slotted her into her bouncer. ‘My best girl,’ I told her, and her mouth split into such a lovely grin that I could not resist picking her up again. She smelt of baby, and was so small and trusting that I knew I would die to protect one tiny fair curl from harm.

On the Thursday afternoon, Elaine Miller dropped in on her way north to visit her mother. ‘Amy thought you might need a helping word. Not a helping hand, mind. Just so we’re straight.’

I gave her a kiss. ‘The pastoral care can’t be faulted.’

‘Solidarity in numbers, Fanny.’

I served her shop-bought quiche and salad, and we scraped at the filling because the pastry was soggy. Chloë danced in her baby chair beside us and made ever-increasing eye-contact. Elaine’s children rampaged in the garden.

Elaine asked for more, and filled my kitchen with energy and crackle. ‘Listen, love, this is the worst bit. Once you’re through it, you can take stock.’ She cast her eyes over the battered old stove and the china stacked on the sideboard, which I had not got round to stowing. ‘Could be nice here.’

Over coffee, she gave more advice. ‘You’d better have something that’s yours. An interest, your job… otherwise…’ Now, she was serious. ‘You don’t know that yet, but you will.’ Her mouth stretched in a taut, painful smile. ‘Neil sleeps with his secretary. It happens. Some of ‘em consider it part of the package. Don’t worry, for me it’s neither here nor there.’

‘So you are a trouper.’

‘So will you be. I can tell.’

Later, after Elaine had gone, Will surprised me by sneaking into the bathroom where I was bathing Chloë and slid his hands round my waist. ‘Hallo, Mrs Savage. Please don’t go away again.’

I twisted round to kiss him. ‘I had planned to be all beautiful, shiny-haired and lipsticked for you.’

He swept the damp hair away from my neck and pressed his mouth on to the exposed skin and I gasped. ‘Careful, I’ll drop Chloë.’

Later on, we sat down to supper and Will produced a bottle of wine. ‘I want you to approve my choice. I’ve been doing some homework.’

‘Have you?’ I felt extraordinarily pleased and excited. I raised my glass and sniffed. Rich and warm. Tannin and blackcurrant. ‘Perfect, Will. Eight out of ten. No, nine…’

‘It isn’t that good.’ His eyes danced above the rim of the glass. ‘Not one word about politics, tonight. Promise.’ He took another sip. ‘So, first off, do you love me?’

We were half-way through our roast chicken when Chloë woke up with a touch of colic. When I finally made it back downstairs, Will was on the phone – deep in conversation with a colleague about an upcoming piece of income-tax legislation. I poked at my congealed chicken and listened in to a one-sided conversation about who in the party was likely to rebel, who would not, and the likely consequences.

Will was talking easily, rapidly, absorbed and intent. The lazy intimacy – the give and take of exchange, the delight in each other’s company – of our supper table had vanished. By the time he had convinced his colleague that an extra penny on income tax was vital to fund a social programme, I was on a second helping of fruit salad.

Will yawned. ‘Bed, I think.’

At this point in the evening, I needed no persuading. We lay with our arms wrapped around each other and, almost immediately, Will fell asleep.

It seemed no time at all before Chloë demanded her night feed. She was fractious and grizzly and when at last I backed away from the cot, hardly daring to breathe, I was chilled and shaking with exhaustion.

Will had turned on the light and was sitting propped up on the pillows. He looked up and said, ‘Fanny, I’ve had an idea which I’ve been mulling over. I meant to talk it over at supper.’ Then he dropped his bombshell. ‘I’ve been trying to think what’s best for everyone. For us, and Chloë, and Sacha. And Meg. Meg has got to move out of her flat because the area is being redeveloped and she’s looking for somewhere else. I know it’s a really big thing to ask, a huge thing, but I feel it makes sense…’

‘You’re right,’ I said, as the implications of his idea sank in. ‘It is too big a thing to ask.’

He picked up my cold hand and kissed the fingers, one by one. ‘Listen to me. I’ve worked it out. We could turn the scullery into a kitchen for Meg and give her the rooms above as a bedroom and sitting room. There’s plenty of space in this house, and the alterations would be worth doing anyway. I can do some things.’

I had heard that before. ‘Will, you know you won’t… Anyway, that’s beside the point.’

There was a lengthy silence.

Will broke it first. ‘Families should help each other, shouldn’t they, Fanny? Meg is miserable, needs a home. I thought that this might be a way to keep an eye on her.’

I let my hand rest in his. ‘Will, I don’t want anyone living with us. It’s enough being with you and Chloë.’

‘I know, I feel that too, but…’ Up went a questioning eyebrow. ‘You like Meg, don’t you? She says she can talk to you.’

Meg had told me the story of her broken marriage, her battle with the bottle and her anguish when Sacha was taken away to live with his father because of her drinking. Meg had become estranged from all she cared about – her ex-husband (‘a saint whose patience snapped’), and her son (who was only permitted to see her at weekends). I had felt very sad for her, and completely helpless.

‘Of course, I like Meg,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I like lots of people. I love lots of people, but I don’t want to live with them.’

Will pulled me close. ‘Listen, Fanny. Here’s a chance to practise what we preach. But not just for the sake of a cause, for the sake of my sister…’

‘But Will, this is a marriage, not a… charity.’

I sensed he was struggling with the legacy of an old, difficult history. ‘Fanny, when I really needed her, she was there for me,’ he said simply. ‘It doesn’t seem fair for me to turn my back on her now…’ He brightened. ‘Also, we don’t have much money to buy enormous amounts of help, and you need help. Meg can do her bit. You could spend more time in London… I think it will help our marriage.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t think it is a good idea.’

He looked down at our clasped hands and made a final appeal. ‘She’s losing her flat and she hasn’t got a job at the moment; she can’t cope. I owe her so much. In one way or another, her life has turned out pretty badly, and I can’t help feeling that quite a lot of that is my fault.’

It was a long time before I got to sleep.

When I woke, Will was beside the bed with Chloë draped over his shoulder. ‘She’s hungry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to do with her.’

Everything had changed. The room swam and my heart pounded in protest. Every nerve in my body screamed with exhaustion. Downstairs, a basket of dirty washing required attention. There was not much food in the fridge, and dust still crusted the radiator. I pushed my hair out of my eyes, and pulled myself upright. ‘Give her to me.’

Will laid Chloë in my arms and I put her to suckle. ‘You win,’ I said to Will. ‘Meg can come and live here. But only for a few months, until everyone is straightened out. Just till I’m back on my feet and she’s feeling better.’

It all happened very quickly, and while the house at Stan-winton was being altered to accommodate Meg (Will did not find the time to do any DIY), I flew with Chloë to see my mother in Montana. Father was dead set against the idea. ‘Why bother?’ he demanded, with a rare flash of bitterness. ‘You can come and live here while the house is a mess, if that’s the problem.’

‘She has a right to see her granddaughter.’

‘Nothing stopping her getting on a plane.’

Sally was waiting for us by the barrier at the airport. I had not seen her for three years, and it took me a moment or two to recognize her – she could have been any one of the middle-aged women dressed in tracksuits or capacious jeans and fleeces who milled around the concourse. Sad or funny? My mother was somewhere in that crowd and I wasn’t sure who she was.

Finally I spotted her in a brown suede jacket with hair – frizzy and overlong – settled round a pale, freckled face innocent of make-up. Arms folded, she was leaning on the barrier and looked scared. Big, burly Art was beside her, smiling benignly as he scanned the arrivals. His baggy jeans and checked shirt were deceptive: he made a good living. Granted, property in Montana was not like property in New York, but there was plenty of it and more space.

‘Hi!’ cried Sally, in a voice from which all traces of her English origins had long gone. She kissed my cheek briefly, embarrassed, and turned to Chloë. ‘Why, hallo!’

I relinquished Chloë and Art pumped my hand up and down. ‘We sure appreciate this,’ he said. ‘Sally has been unreal with nerves for the past few days. Haven’t known what to do with her.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother give a tiny shrug.

Sally and I sat in the back of the station-wagon with Chloë between us while Art drove extra carefully through the town and out the other side. He did not say much but his was an easy silence. Sally did not say much either, except ‘Hasn’t changed much since you were last here. More houses, which is a pity.’

Paradiseville had been so named because at the height of gold fever it was thought a seam ran through the mountain foothills to the south and a cluster of tin and wooden shacks had mushroomed down by the river. It had grown from there.

Art gave a satisfied laugh. ‘That’s fine by me. Good business, don’t knock it.’

A person can comment,’ Sally said sharply.

I had forgotten that the landscape of Montana was a spectacle on the scale of grand opera or a wide-screen cinema epic. Nature was big here. It was like walking into a great golden tidal wave into which red and ochre had been mixed. But the details were lovely too. Cobnuts lay on the ground and spilled their tender contents out of their husks, berries dozed in the hedgerows, and horses grazed against a backdrop of mountain.

I pointed all this out to Chloë, who took no notice.

To be honest, I remembered the house better than I remembered my mother. Constructed of clapboard, which had been painted off-white, it had a balcony that ran round it, and a swinging seat at the front, where I knew I would sit and rock Chloë.

Sally slid out of the station-wagon. ‘I didn’t know what stuff you needed so I asked Ma Frobber down the way. She put me right and lent me her stuff. She’s had six.’ Sally smiled a little anxiously. ‘Hope it’s OK.’

It was fine, except that Chloë was jet-lagged and refused to sleep for most of the first night. Naturally, in the small house, her crying was magnified and, as I strove desperately to pacify her, the light was switched on more than once in Sally and Art’s room.

After breakfast, I sat on the swing seat with her. Sally plumped up a cushion which had a black horse embroidered on it and wedged herself beside me. ‘I had forgotten,’ she peered down at Chloë, ‘how awful it is.’ She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt, revealing freckled forearms. ‘I was no good at it at all,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve got no advice or handy tips.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of it yet, either.’

‘I reckon a person is given only one talent. Mine’s for horses. I always thought if you could cope with horses, you could cope with the kids. But it doesn’t work out like that.’

Chloë began to grizzle and Sally set the seat to rock, which seemed to settle her, and we sat there, talking of nothing much, until the sun slid round and hit us hard. Then we retreated to the kitchen. With one foot on the borrowed baby-bouncer, I drank bitter coffee and jiggled Chloë while Sally prepared a meal of stew and carrots for later.

I tried not to stare at my mother, but I couldn’t help it. So much of her – how she walked with a little drag of her right foot, the mole on her arm – reminded me of myself. Could I edge closer and try to cross the barrier of time and our history? It was impossible. All we shared was a set of genes, and that was not enough.

Now I had Chloë I perceived my mother from a different perspective. I knew what it was like to hold a tiny person against my body and I knew that they depended on you absolutely. Thus, the question, How could you have brought yourself to leave me? trembled on my lips. But I did not ask it. A silence between a mother and a daughter should be (should it not?) an expression of years of mutual history. My mother smacked me when I stole money out of her pocket. My mother made me wear a dress with smocking in coral pink silk. My mother promised me a hundred pounds if I did not smoke. But there was nothing between Sally and me except a gap. Not a hostile gap, we did not know each other well enough for that, just an unfilled space.

Sally chopped vigorously at a carrot. ‘How is your father?’

Sally would have had to nerve herself to ask the question and I was careful with the reply. ‘I don’t think he ever got over you,’ I said.

She put down the knife and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Yes, he did. He knew perfectly well that we… did not suit each other. He wanted one thing, I wanted another. In the end, I chose for him.’

‘You make it sound so simple.’

Sally switched on a gas-ring and slapped down a frying-pan. ‘It was. If two people can’t live together, one of them has to go. Anyway, I’d met Art so I went. It was better that you stayed with Alfredo.’

I bent over to check that the strap holding Chloë was tight enough. ‘I used to search for you in the street. I made up stories about you and imagined you might fly into my bedroom at night. I used to try to stay awake in case you did.’

Sally went very still. ‘That’s a lot to put on a person.’ She tipped the meat into the pan and the snap and hiss of frying filled the kitchen. ‘I wish I could say I watched over you, but that’s the way it is. Not all women manage what is expected of them, and I don’t see why I should be guilty, Fanny. You had Alfredo, who loved you.’

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘Pass me the casserole on the table.’

I got up and took it over to her. The phone rang and Sally answered it. I spooned cubes of meat and the carrots into the casserole, added some stock, and put it into the oven.

The next day I was awake early and stretched out in the old cotton-spool bed in the spare room under a patchwork quilt, watching sunlight slide like melted butter over the wall. Outside, a bird sounded in the larches, and a breeze rollicked through the branches. This was a wilder, wider place than home, with a bigger horizon. Sally had left my father for Art, a simple love triangle, but I reckoned, warm and sleepy in bed, that it had been as much to do with the wind in the larches and a horizon that marched out of sight as anything else.

‘Come and see the horses,’ Sally said, after we had had breakfast, and led the way up to the paddocks behind the house. There were seven of her shaggy-maned, large-eyed darlings milling around and, at the sound of her voice, they came over to us and jostled for attention. Rapt and confident, Sally talked to each one. ‘Here, Vince. Here, Melly…’

Not sure about them, Chloë squirmed in my arms, and I longed to be as assured in my handling of her as Sally was with her horses.

Sally took Chloë. ‘Go on. Make friends.’

I touched the hot, fragrant hides and soft muzzles. Chloë blinked and Sally guided her small hand towards a steamy flank. ‘Nice horse, Chloë,’ she said. ‘When you’re old enough, you must come and visit and I’ll teach you to ride.’

A sour taste flooded into my mouth. With a shock, I realized I was jealous of my own daughter. I busied myself with Melly’s mane and struggled to bring myself to order.

The moment passed.

Melly’s neck was corrugated with muscle. I ran my hand over it, enjoying the feel of her damp coat. ‘I wonder how Will is?’

‘What sort of man is he?’ Sally batted Melly’s nose gently out of Chloë’s orbit. ‘Would he like it here?’

‘I think so. But he hasn’t time to come.’

Sally gave me back Chloë and swung herself over the fence. Her horses swirled around her and she attached a leading-rein to Melly’s head-collar, grasped a handful of the golden mane and swung herself up. In daylight she seemed older, but the thighs under her denims were toned and strong. ‘Art gives himself plenty of time. That’s the difference.’ She turned Melly, then trotted her to the end of the paddock and back again. ‘Just testing. We’ve had trouble with her hock. But she’s fine.’

In the distance, Art’s station-wagon was nosing down the track towards us. It slowed and he wound down the window. The sound of country-and-western shattered the peace. ‘Thought I’d make a detour,’ he said, ‘to say hi to you ladies.’

He drove on. ‘Now, that’s what I call passing the test,’ said Sally fondly. ‘Most days he does that.’ She slid down from Melly’s back and leant against the picket fence. Once more, her horses closed in on her.

I felt the download of sadness, anger even, that my father had not passed Sally’s test. ‘You must get tired looking after the horses.’

Sally squinted into the sun, which emphasized the fanlight of lines around her eyes. ‘You get tired of everything. The question is, what do you tire of least? My horses are easy and uncomplicated. They want feeding, grooming, and exercising, and they might, in return, love a person a little. But not too much. It’s not their nature. I know that. And because I know that, it’s fine.’

She climbed back over the fence. ‘Do you want to know why your father and I didn’t make it? He wanted to go too far, too fast. That tired me. I didn’t want the big house, the entertaining and the wine snobbery. And I didn’t want to sacrifice everything to make money. But it was hard, because we had known each other for so long.’

‘He didn’t become that rich. The business is hardly a gold mine.’

‘I made a mistake,’ said Sally. ‘I didn’t realize how a person could change as they grew older.’

On our last day Art minded Chloë, and Sally took me out on Melly. She rode upfront on the big, prancing Quincy and urged him along a track fringed by trees, which were turning every shade of yellow and ochre. The earth was moist underfoot and insects rose in clouds. In the distance the ridge of hills rose ragged and unpeaceful-looking in contrast to the warm landscape around the town. Sally pointed towards them. ‘There’s the ruins of a couple of mining buildings up there, if you look. Poor devils. They never found anything.’

Quincy’s tail twitched and I tagged behind, fussing with Melly’s reins and the angle of my foot. Every movement reminded me that I was not with Chloë. I knew she was perfectly all right, that she was safe, yet with every rustle in the undergrowth or shiver of the branches, I found myself listening for my child’s breathing. With every thud of the horses’ hoofs, I strained to hear her cry of distress, hunger or pleasure.

It was like that now, and there was nothing to be done about it.

After supper, I helped Sally to make gingerbread for the Rotary Club picnic. ‘We take the station-wagons and head up into the mountains, sing a little, eat a lot. It’s neat.’ Chloë was asleep in the little boxroom and Art was watching television in the next room, surrounded by papers and beer cans.

Sally dug a spoon into the molasses. ‘Since you’ve been here, my paperwork has gone to pot. Never mind – I’ve enjoyed it, Fanny. This has been good.’

The molasses had to be coaxed into the bowl.

‘Friends?’

‘Yup.’ She flushed a harsh red. ‘I wish… But that’s my business.’ She dropped the spoon and folded her hands across her stomach.

‘I thought you had no regrets.’

‘I don’t and I do. That’s natural.’ She poured the gingerbread mix into the tin. ‘But I have to say it’s mighty big of you to… Oh, what the heck, Fanny? What I did was for the best.’

‘Hey,’ I slipped my arm round her shoulders, ‘I didn’t mean…’

She looked up at me. ‘I chose me because I figured I only had one life and I’d better live it.’ She lowered her voice. ‘In a manner of speaking, Art was incidental.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Coincidental, more like, because he happened along at the right time. But that’s our secret.’

I leant past her and ran my finger around the bowl. ‘He’s nice, Sally.’

‘He’s a man,’ she said briskly. ‘Is any of us nice? But we come in all shapes and his suited mine.’

I licked my finger. ‘You got away.’

Sally offered me the bowl for a second helping. ‘Like I say, I’m better with horses. And that’s what I’ve stuck to. You need things, you know, to take your mind off the mess and muddle of eating and sleeping and being polite in the home. Men don’t expect to think about it all the time. Why should I?’

Just as I was climbing into the spool bed for the last time Will rang. I wrapped a rug round my shoulders and went down to the kitchen to take the call.

‘Can’t wait to see you, Fanny,’ he said.

We hadn’t spoken for three days and I felt it acutely. ‘Tell me what’s been happening.’

He had several pieces of gossip. ‘Listen to this. The PM liked the speech I wrote for him and used a couple of the phrases. “Tough care”, you know, that sort of thing. Not very revolutionary but it seemed to do the trick.’

I told him about riding through the larch woods and the ruins of the mining buildings. ‘They sat up there during the winter, freezing and dying.’

‘They wanted a better life.’ He sounded like the Will I had first known.

‘If you come out here we can ride up into the mountains.’

‘Yup,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’

Arriving home in the airport in London, I spotted Will before he saw Chloë and me. He was deep in conversation with a girl with a blonde ponytail and tight leather trousers.

He was smiling and talking, and gesticulating, in the way that he had when he wooed a listener around to his way of thinking. This was Will at his most persuasive and the girl was listening intently.

Despite my burden of Chloë and the luggage trolley, I almost ran up to him. ‘Will?’

He whirled round. ‘Hallo, darling. Hallo, my poppet.’

The girl melted away. ‘Who was that?’ I asked.

‘I’ve no idea.’ Will hugged Chloë. ‘She said she recognized me from television and admired what we were trying to do, so I was just explaining to her how it would work.’

I clung on to him. ‘Am I pleased to see you. The last few days went so slowly.’

‘For me too.’

Will handed back Chloë and took over the luggage and we made our way out to the car. ‘It’s good isn’t it,’ he commented, as he strapped Chloë into her seat. ‘My face is getting known.’

All the way home, I kept looking at him, ravenous for every detail. ‘Did you really miss me?’ I asked.

He turned his head and looked at me and, for a moment, I thought I saw a shadow in his eyes, a wariness that I could not place. ‘I missed you more than you can possibly imagine.’

I laid my hand on his thigh and let it rest there.