After Ever After (17 page)

‘Hang on, if he’s NA and you’re NA, then you shouldn’t be drinking beer, should you?’

There’s a pause. ‘I’m not. He is. And anyway beer doesn’t really count, it’s not mandatory you give it up, just recommended. It’s like having a can of pop when you compare it with some of the things he’s got up to.’ She sounds sunny and self-assured, as if I’m worrying over nothing.

‘Okay,’ I say cautiously. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do, it’s fine. So anyway, how are you? How’s the kid and PC?’

‘PC?’ I can’t think why Dora should be enquiring after our computer.

‘Prince Charming! I can’t be arsed to say the full-length version any more and I can’t bring myself to use that fucking stupid name. I mean, who calls their kid Fergus?’

‘Dora! Leave it out. I like it. Anyway Fergus is, he’s … Well, he’s pissed off actually and I don’t know why. I tried to pick a fight with him but he wouldn’t go for it.’ I take a chocolate-chip biscuit out of the packet and stuff half of it into my mouth.

‘Inconsiderate bastard,’ Dora says. ‘Mind you, I’m not surprised that he’s pissed off, what with everything,’ she says mildly. ‘So how’s the baby? I almost bought her …’

I interrupt her. ‘Why aren’t you surprised? What with everything what?’ I say, wondering how my best friend seems to have a greater insight into my husband’s moods than I do, and thinking of Fergus’s forgotten encounter with her.

‘Well, I.S.S, they’re in a bit of trouble, aren’t they? I heard my boss talking about it the other day. Something to do with spending millions on training their staff to sell and install this new generation software and no one’s going for it. No one wants to make the investment at an uncertain economic time or something.’ She says it as if she’s reading a shopping list. ‘He must have told you all this, surely?’ she adds incredulously.

‘No, no,’ I say slowly, through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Do you think he might be in trouble then?’

The muffled voice of Dora’s guest prevents her response.

‘Okay, okay. I’m coming. Look, mate, I’ve got to go. Um, I don’t know if he’s in
real
trouble, that’s just what I heard on the grapevine. I doubt it, though, I mean he’s the CEO’s blue-eyed boy, right?’

I listen hard for some nuances in Dora’s voice, but I can tell that in her mind she’s already off the phone and back in bed.

‘Okay. Well, call me soon, okay? I miss you.’ I hang up the receiver and look at the phone. Fergus walks into the kitchen with his empty plate and looks at me, dark shadows draining the colour out of his eyes.

‘That was fucking revolting. Dora or Camille?’ he asks.

‘Dora. I’m sorry I didn’t cook – here, have a biscuit.’ I hand him a cookie and wonder if I should ask him about work directly, or if I should skirt around to it. I look at the set of his chin as he washes up his plate despite the perfectly good dishwasher and decide to skirt around to it.

‘Fergus, you know we don’t really need a gardener. I know I’ve made a big fuss about wanting a lovely garden, but it could wait, it doesn’t have to be right now, and maybe we don’t even need to have the patio done either. I mean, we’ve got the kitchen and the bathroom sorted. That’s all we need, really.’ I look at his back, inwardly screaming at the thought of having this huge empty house to myself again. Fergus turns around, drying his hands, and sits down next to me.

‘Why wouldn’t we have that stuff done? Now that they’ve started?’ He smiles his stock reassuring smile, which doesn’t make it to his overcast eyes.

‘Well, just in case you thought we had to tighten our belts a bit …’ I begin.

‘We don’t. We don’t have to tighten our belts. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine.’

I squirm in my seat and wonder exactly how far I should push this. If it hadn’t been for my phone call with Dora I’d have believed him. I’d have been annoyed and frustrated that he brushed off my thoughts and suggestions with his usual paternal reassurance, but I’d have believed him and I’d have let it go. But if he refuses to tell me our real situation, if it happens to be something other than what I think it is, I can’t let it go.

‘Well, listen,’ I say, ‘I got a copy of the local paper today and guess what, they’ve got this part-time HR position up at the Birchwood Business College, and there’s a crèche. I though I could send in my CV and see how it goes. It’s a really great place to work and it looks really interesting, they run all these different courses and do consulting and …’

Fergus leaves the room.

‘Fergus!’ I slide off my stool and follow him to the living room. ‘Fergus! For God’s sake don’t just walk out on me! I am a person, you know, and do deserve a bit of recognition – just tell me what’s wrong!’

Fergus sits on the sofa, his face closed down.

‘There is nothing wrong. Okay? Everything is fine,’ he says testily.

I stare at him, disbelief painted all over my face.

‘Okay.’ He relents. ‘Things are a bit tight at work at the moment, there’s a lot of competition and a limited number of contracts so I’m having to work my bollocks off to keep up my targets and …’ Suddenly his forced reasonable tone erupts into anger. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you could be just a little bit pleased to see me when I get home at night and maybe just once give me something to eat that hasn’t been irradiated!’

My jaw drops open. ‘You know I’m no good at cooking. And anyway I’m not your skivvy!’ I whisper angrily, afraid that if I raise my voice I’ll wake the baby again.

‘No, you’re not my skivvy, are you. Maybe you’d like me to get a chef and a cleaner to add to your fleet of domestic staff? Free up some more time for you to sit on your arse and get even fatter.’ Fergus sits heavily on the sofa and begins to flick through the channels.

I swallow hard. I know he doesn’t mean it, I know he’s just worried and angry, but it takes a lot for me to swallow my hurt.

I kneel beside him and take his hand.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know things were rough for you at work. If you’d tell me I could be more supportive. But please don’t have a go at me because you are angry with someone or something else. I’m on your side.’ Fergus’s eyes are fixed straight ahead. I try again, ‘Listen, why don’t I send my CV in to that job. It’s only part-time. I could see Ella during my breaks and at lunchtime, and the walk up there every day’d be some exercise …’

Fergus turns off the TV and runs his fingers through his hair.

‘No,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to do that. You don’t need to work. I can still support this family.’

‘I know, and I’m so proud of you, but …’ I falter, unable to think of the right thing to say. ‘I am proud and I
love
you, you know how much I love you. But I don’t care if we live in a one-bed flat with a leak in the roof, I’ll still love you. I just want to feel that I’m contributing to this family too, it’s just the way I am, and I think that if I had a job I’d start to feel a bit more like my old self …’ I trail off as Fergus drops his shoulders, his anger falling suddenly away, making him look very tired.

He pulls me into an embrace.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just stress at work. It’s nothing really, just a client I thought I’d landed pulled out at the last minute, but there are plenty more in the pipeline,’ he says, more to himself than to me. I hold him close and think of what Dora told me. If I mention it he might think that I’ve been sort of spying on him, and I have the feeling that’s the last thing we need right now. I decide not to mention it.

‘It’s okay,’ I say to his chest. ‘It’s okay.’

‘It means a lot to me that you don’t care where or how we live, but I know how you grew up and I know more than anyone how things have been. I just want to take that burden away from you. I want you to feel secure, to know that you’ll never have to struggle again, and you won’t, you won’t ever. I promise you,’ he tells me, and I lean into his arms and think for a moment. I want to tell him that if I went back to work it wouldn’t mean that he was failing, and that feeling secure in his love is the only security I need, but something tells me that to push him any more might hurt us both.

‘I know,’ I say at last. ‘I know.’

It’s one of those mornings that the weather people call unseasonably hot, even though for the last decade at least we’ve had a few every spring. On my bed is a huge pile of summer clothes that I don’t seem to fit into any more, and Ella, now able to sit unsupported, is right in the middle of them, happily banging two lipsticks together, stopping only to flop a discarded T-shirt on her head and chew the corner. Through the open window I can hear Gareth singing ‘Motorcycle Loneliness’ and I wonder if he’s hinting. Since Fergus coming home like that yesterday, and after everything we said to each other, it just seems as if maybe I was getting a bit carried away with all this mock flirting. It seems as though the best thing to do would be to leave him to it for a couple of days and then start my gardening again with a bit more distance. Start acting like a grown-up, because the last thing I want is for Fergus to get the wrong idea.

After everything he said yesterday, it turns out that Mr Crawley can’t even come today. He and Tim have gone to Potten End to give a quote on an extension to a house that is quite big enough already, in my opinion, and on to which I have transferred all my anxiety about him leaving. I always knew that Mr Crawley would be going one day, but now that he has only a week or so of work left I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do without him. I concentrate on getting ready for a visit from Clare and try and push the thought out of my mind.

I look at myself in the mirror. Before Ella, hot weather like this – unseasonable or not – would have inspired me to wear as little as possible, a bootlace strappy top, maybe, and a flirty summer skirt. I’d have washed my hair and let it dry naturally wavy, and if it was a weekend I’d have flounced around Sainsbury’s buying a picnic for the park, and if it was a work day, I’d have lounged languorously on the tube as if at any moment the heat might get too much for me and I’d be forced to rip off all my clothes. Before Ella
and
Fergus of course. Now eighteen months and two stone later I don’t feel quite the same way. In fact, if there is an opposite way to feel, I feel it. None of my pre-E clothes fit me without new eruptions of lumps here or bulges there. I have discovered that now I have to think very carefully about the pros and cons of sleeveless tops. If I wear my jeans they hold the bottom of my tummy in but the top spills out over my belt. If I wear my denim skirt it gives me a waist but the bulge of my tummy makes me look like I’m still half pregnant. I laugh out loud and shake my head. Half drunk as I was with Gareth yesterday I’d forgotten I wasn’t that Kitty any longer. I’d lounged on Fergus’s sofa giggling and fluttering just like old Kitty would have, except that now I was wrapped in layers and layers of extra flesh. What a fool I must have looked.

I sigh and squint at my half-naked reflection. I think I can still see her there, the old me, Kitty with all her artifice, her coloured hair and eyes, her lipsticked cupid’s bow and pencilled brows. When my love for Fergus had first stripped me bare of all that it had taken me so long to create, I had been grateful, light-headed and delirious; relieved and relaxed to be loved just for being, rather than for being me. Now, though, one wedding later, when I look at myself I see a stranger. A face a little heavier than mine ought to be, eyes bruised with shadows. Glorious red hair that I’d forgotten was out of a bottle faded to mid-range brown. Now, when I have a second to myself to think about myself, I sit au naturel in front of my bedroom mirror, looking for the insecure, longing-to-be-loved Kitty. The girl who prayed every day that that would be the day she would meet the right man, the woman who spent each empty hour wearing pretty clothes and doing exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted. The kind of girl who turned heads when she walked by.

You don’t realise how important feeling sexy is until you don’t any more.

‘What shall Mummy wear, hey baby?’ I ask Ella, but she’s unresponsive, crashed out in the middle of playing on my bed, cinnamon spice lipstick still clasped in one hand, her cheeks pink with teething roses. She looks so helpless and vulnerable, and for a moment the sadness and horror left to me by my mum crowds the corners of the room in shadow.

‘Mum,’ I say out loud. ‘I love you, and don’t worry, I know. I know you wouldn’t have left me if you’d had any choice. I know.’ I watch the sunlight dapple the windowsill for a moment, waiting for some kind of sign, I suppose, but then the shadows are gone and the voices from the garden fade in again and the moment has passed.

‘Kitty! Where are you?’ Gareth shouts up the stairs. Ella twitches but doesn’t wake up, only rolling over on to her side. I stand stock-still holding a T-shirt to my bra-only chest.

‘Kitty? Are you up there?’ For one moment longer I stand frozen in front of the mirror and then I hastily pull whatever item of clothing I’m holding over my head and go to the door; after all, it’s only the gardener not the KGB.

‘Coming!’ I stage-whisper. I lean over the banister pressing a finger to my lips. ‘Shhh, the baby’s asleep.’ Gareth smiles up at me, the improbable white of his teeth glinting in the shadows.

‘You look nice,’ he whispers back, his eyes running briefly over my torso.

‘Oh … thanks,’ I reply hesitantly, aware of my tangled hair and unwashed face and still feeling embarrassed about how I behaved, no, how I felt, yesterday. Gareth must have laughed all the way to the pub. When I look down at my hastily put-on top I see I picked one of my old-life T-shirts, far too tight for me now – pink glitter jersey with Las Vegas printed on the front. Back then it was ironic. Now I look like genuine white trash or a Vegas table dancer who’s strayed into a not-so-flattering hall of mirrors. I hunch my shoulders over my chest and fold my arms, taking a couple of steps back as I realise that he’s coming up the stairs.

‘God, sorry. I look a fright,’ I say nervously, pointlessly. ‘I’ve just been deciding what to throw out.’

He appears unconcerned.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Gareth says as he reaches the top of the stairs. ‘You look good, you should wear stuff like that more often. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, my mum used to say – is this a spare room? Can I go in here?’ I look away from him wondering if he can really mean his compliments as he slides past me into the so-called guest bedroom at the back of the house. And anyway, what exactly does he want with me in the spare bedroom?