Back to Vanilla (7 page)

“Be there soon, B_C.
Family life!” It was a joke between them that they’d never
compromise and stoop to text-speak, the shortening of their names
being the only exception.

“Here’s your glass of
water, Becks, but I think we’re reaching a point where it’s all
this drinking that’s actually keeping you awake and not just your
fretting,” she smiled, as she placed the drink on the bedside table
next to her wide-awake child. Her light was switched off, a small
fan purring softly beside her, for comforting white noise as much
as to move the air. A stifling heat had settled over the seaside
town as the school term drew to a close and the summer holidays
were within touching distance.

“Ah, whoso doth choose
to procreate not once but three times must payeth the price, I
guess. I’ll be here for another 90 minutes. My wife’s at a
conference out of town and not due home until late.”

Megan flopped down
into the large burgundy sofa that dominated her lounge, and tapped
away at the screen.

“Oh funny, haha.
You’ll be there some day and who’ll be laughing then? Hmmm.”

She paused before
pressing the enter key… did she know him well enough? What if their
childlessness hadn’t been a conscious decision but a
disappointment, one of life’s cruel jokes? Her finger slipped and
it was sent none the less, taking the choice from her hands.

“Ha yourself. I kind
of think that’s not on the cards right now, if ever. Not the
greatest fan of the rugrats anyway, all those sticky fingerprints
over my work. And my wife’s a busy woman. Thank heavens one of us
is bringing in the cash. When she’s home it’s mostly work stuff
she’s doing, hogging up my computer ;). I know, I know… boo hoo,
me.”

“Yeah, Boyd, my heart
bleeds. Trust me, there are times I’d happily trade lives with
either of you. Just to get the peace to cut my fingernails is hard
enough sometimes.”

“Uh huh, uh huh… or to
trim your nasal hair and moustache… I know… ;)”

And she laughed out
loud, a guttural guffaw, clutching the phone to her chest as if,
although totally alone, to guard the subject of her mirth from
outside eyes.

“So you’ve heard all
about us hairy European girls? Is that why you’re hanging around
with me, to gather up my fluffy tufty scraps, to use them to make
pillows to sell on Etsy? Is that it, hmm… is it?” She giggled as
she typed the words, and stared at the screen, suppressing her
sniggers, waiting for a response, willing it to arrive as the
seconds turned to minutes: six incredibly long minutes.

“Sorry… the dog
demanded attention there, had to let the little fellow out to pee.
Now where was I? Ah yes, your excess of hair. Has this always been
an issue with you or did it only hit as you matured? Please, you
can tell me, I’m a doctor.”

She paused. Was he?
“Are you?”

“Of course not. You
serious? I’m a notorious, in these parts at least, cat burglar, but
instead of stealing jewellery, I prowl the internet searching for
desolate souls to gather up. No, I’m a mechanic. Was. Now I own my
own store, car parts, advice, that kind of thing.”

And with that, several
bits fell into place – his hours, the long weeks, the odd cash
comment he’d made about being the secondary wage earner.

“But back to you and
your fur coat, WG… how come you never shared these hirsute
difficulties with me before? And is it all over your body? I mean,
surely there are bits you can’t see. Do you need someone to check
them out for you?”

Megan paused. She knew
it was madness to get quite this excited by these seemingly casual
exchanges, but she was. She could feel the blood-rush prick sharply
below the surface of the skin around her face, shoulders and neck.
In her worst-case scenario, she was wrong and this was simply some
friendly American guy chatting with her the way he passed the time
of day with the customers who came through his shop, and as a worst
case, well, this was hardly untenable. Again, she took a deep
breath and typed.

“You can trust me when
I say that the fur I do have and choose to keep, I’ll have you
know, is sleek, glossy and incredibly well groomed. If, however,
you find there are bits of me you’d like to inspect, please feel
free to ask, as a refusal, though feasible, is never unkindly
meant.”

“Mum!” Clenching her
teeth and pausing to avoid the growl that threatened to erupt in
response to Becky’s plaintive call, which had ripped into her rare
bubble of solo time, Megan rested the phone down on the couch,
reminded herself that she had been lucky with all her kids and went
to her daughter’s bedroom. Having settled her back down, she walked
up the stairs to the third floor, where Grace lay like a princess
in her pit and waved her away, as if she were a serf, with one hand
while texting with the other, and then peeped in to where Sam lay
still deeply asleep.

The interruption did,
however, offer a pause for thought, and Megan began to question her
blatant flirting with a married man with whom she was connected
only because they played Scrabble and who was most likely being no
more than polite in his banter. At this, her desire to see any
response from him again, ever, shrivelled and she sidetracked,
heading for the kitchen and the solace of tea. At some point, she’d
have the excruciating task of reading his response, but now wasn’t
quite it.

********************

Her daughter was
not the only one who struggled to sleep that night. Resisting any
temptation to check her messages, because the whole thing was just
too bloody silly, Megan had made and drunk a mug of tea, switched
her phone into airplane mode, and was lying in her small double bed
thinking when the sound of a key in the front door announced Rich’s
return. It was later than she’d thought.

His job as a nurse in
the nearby hospital currently had him working 10-hour shifts that
got him home shortly after 1am. During these periods, he barely saw
Megan, although he tried to stagger his sleep to be up making
breakfast for the children while she got herself ready, and while
Sam was doing three mornings at playgroup, the other two were spent
with his dad.

Rich, noticing the
light was still on upstairs, went up to the bedroom and stood in
the doorway, smiling as he noted two long red indentations running
down Megan’s cheek, pressed in by her crumpled sheet, and her eyes
blinked up at him like those of a bewildered mole. “Hey, sleepy,
what you doing up at this time?”

“Can’t sleep,” she
said. “First Becky struggled – and I mean really did, unusual for
her, poor baby – now me. Must be something in the air. Full moon,
maybe. How was your day?”

“Same old. No news on
the promotion but, hey, I’m not convinced it’s worth the extra
hassle for the pittance. You fancy tea?”

“Actually, I think
maybe I do. Peppermint maybe… there’s no caffeine in that, right?
Nothing to keep me awake.”

“Nothing. And you? How
was your day, and what is it that’s stopping you sleeping? I
thought there was nothing on Earth that could do that.” And he
ducked to dodge the friendly blow that Megan might have thrown his
way had the day been less advanced.

“Day was fine. I… I
dunno… just thinking, I guess. Life. The universe. People. Me.
Maybe I just take it all more seriously than it needs. Tea and then
sleep.”

“Tea and then sleep,
little bird. Your chicks need you wide-eyed and bushy-tailed
tomorrow. I might not make it upstairs tonight… long day, plus I
don’t want to disturb you if I can avoid it. But tea first; back in
a mo.”

She barely noticed him
leaving, then returning shortly afterwards with her drink. He
tucked her in with a goodnight kiss on the forehead, and went back
down.

Rich was shattered and
the oppressive weight of a heavy shift pressed down on him,
although his conscious thoughts were more or less in the moment,
which was where experience had taught him it felt best to keep
them. The temptation to relive, to over-analyse, the events of any
given work day was always great, but not the path to any semblance
of peace of mind.

This was, as he knew
well, easier said than done, though, and so he slumped down on the
settee, skinned himself up a fat one and felt the sag of his
shoulders and the slump of his mind and body into neutral as the
THC let loose a sigh that ran down his entire body.

Lyall stared
through the window of his black cab as the streets of Edinburgh at
pub chucking-out time on a Sunday evening whirled past. With
roughly 20 minutes on his journey home to untangle the knot of
feelings inside him, he chose the simple path and immersed himself
in the filial warmth of the mellow evening he had just spent with
his dad. Pushing down the uncomfortable thought that perhaps in
sharing a drink with Alasdair, he had, in some way, given
unofficial blessing to his dipsomania, he enjoyed a rare few
moments in his own head, before paying the driver, adding a hefty
tip, and walking towards his front door.

The relatively modern
four-bedroom detached house in which he and Lorna were bringing up
their three girls was within easy walking distance of an
outstanding primary school and three streets from Lorna’s mother,
Jane. She had relocated from London shortly after Lorna’s first
pregnancy, retiring early from her seemingly glamorous position as
a marketing manager at a fairly high-profile advertising company
based in Mayfair to stay close to her only daughter; this proximity
was a mixed blessing.

Although he wasn’t
quite sure how, Lyall had grown to look on his abilities as a
father as slightly inferior. Maybe, he thought, this was because
Lorna was so fervently and relentlessly positive about her own
maternal obligations, even in private for the most part, whereas he
found the whole business relentlessly difficult and wearying.

For him, Jane offered
some relief from the feelings of his own ineptitude in the face of
so daunting a responsibility by ensuring that even when she was
around and helping out, he was always kept firmly in charge. “We
need to check with Dad first,” was a catchphrase of hers. For this,
he was grateful.

The house was as
silent as it ever could be, and the only light, a dim one, came
from the glare he knew to be the 42-inch television screen on the
lounge wall.

Lorna sat on last two
seats of the black leather corner sofa, her left arm leaning on the
armrest, her long legs up and folded next to her. She was engrossed
in some programme he didn’t recognise, but pressed pause and looked
up with a smile as he walked into the room.

“How was he?” she
asked, patting the sofa next to her. As he dutifully slumped down,
Lyall realised that the sense of bonhomie that had surrounded him
during the taxi ride had waned and was slowly being replaced by a
flatness coloured only by uneasiness at the idea that he might have
been somehow complicit in his father’s slow but steady descent.

“Aw hell,” he said,
reluctant to share something he barely understood himself, but
desperate to be assuaged of the guilt that had begun to seep into
his thoughts. “He was good. He’s looking good and I don’t think
he’d been drinking beforehand. Nice food. And it was good to talk
about Ma and all, but… aw hell. I just wish I could help, you
know...”

“You didn’t cause it,
you can’t control it, you can’t cure it, babe. All you can do is be
there and look after yourself and us. It’ll be all right. You fancy
some tea? I’m making, or… you’re, erm, smelling a little beery… you
want another?”

“Yeah, he’d got some
in… for me,” he said. “I dunno… How was your evening? Girls get to
sleep okay? No madness at bathtime?”

“Mum came round –
she’s off to stay at the flat for the week from tomorrow… birthday
week of celebrations, you know how she is. Anyhow, naturally she
was heading out for dinner, but she helped with the bedtime chaos.
No idea how she manages to keep those clothes so impeccable – cream
linen suit tonight – while getting the girls so clean, but hey,
maybe it’s a trait I’ll get to inherit someday. They asked after
you… they were great, but I know they missed you at story time. I
said you’d sneak in and kiss them when you got home. They’ll get
over it.”

He left her to the TV
and made a mug of brickies’ tea for her and a pu-erh for himself,
eating two dried figs while the kettle boiled. He took his
upstairs, laid out some running clothes for the morning so he
wouldn’t wake Lorna up before needed, showered and fell asleep as
soon as his head sank wearily into the pillow.

Six days later, the
same household was in celebration mood. It was the last weekend in
May and the sun was straining a little, but there was a definite
feeling that summer was well on its way. This was enough to stop
Lyall’s usual internal groan when his wife suggested it was time
for the annual unveiling of the family firepit.

Jane had hinted that
another of her stream of “old friends” up from London might be
joining them for what Lorna insisted on referring to as her
“birthday tea”, although Lyall always found it hard to imagine his
mother-in-law at any meal other than dinner, perhaps, or supper.
She was distinctly not a tea sort of woman, and he assumed the idea
of a birthday tea was to fulfil some image of what Lorna would
ideally like from a mother.

However, the two got
on remarkably well, the kids adored their grandma, and she was a
thoroughly entertaining woman. If a mother-in-law offers a template
for the future wife, Lyall could have done a lot worse, as his best
man had told him at his wedding.

When Jane pulled up in
a cab outside, escorted by a tall, leathery-looking guy in Ray-Ban
aviators around the same age that she had just turned – sixty – the
household was just returning to a semblance of tranquillity after
an earlier domestic squall. Emily had grown impatient with her
younger sister’s fondness for making leaf boats in the yellow and
blue paddling pool they were sharing, and simply stood up, stepped
on to the grass, lifted an edge and tipped out the water. Little
Maidie sat there wet, cold and wailing, inconsolable until Lyall
had refilled the pool and gone through the motions of chastising
Emily (while winking at her, indicating that this was for Maidie’s
sake).