Everything and Nothing (19 page)

Hal would grow to look more like her over time, Agatha was sure of it. Genetics, she had decided, were not important. Life was about who loved you, not who had made you. Surely that was true. She imagined a day when Hal and her would be like two peas in a pod, identical in thought and body.

She already had his passport, which hadn’t been hard to find. Ruth and Christian had a room they called an offi ce, which was nothing more than a large cupboard forced out of the space under the stairs. They had a badly organised free-standing filing cabinet in there and all the passports were in one of its drawers. Agatha didn’t worry that they might notice Hal’s was missing, and even if they did they would blame each other. Hal’s clothes were nearly all washed, folded neatly and calmly in his drawers.

What they were going to do when they left was more problematic. Agatha had to admit that. In a year or so it would be fine and she could enrol him in school and then she’d be able to work while he was there, but at first it was going to be very tight. She wouldn’t be able to apply for benefits as she suspected Hal would be front-page news. She wouldn’t be able to work and she’d have to disguise him somehow. She had bought a box of brown hair dye, which she planned to use on them both first thing, before they even got on a train. But she worried that wouldn’t be enough. She’d used Ruth’s laptop to investigate communes and they sounded interesting. As she’d read about them she’d convinced herself that she’d been brought up in one, because she had, hadn’t she, when you thought about it. She’d integrate into everything so well, she could use all her organisational skills to make a real difference, to make everything run smoothly so that soon her and Hal would become an indispensable part of the group. She just hoped that it was as easy as walking up to a commune and asking if you could be part of it. Surely that was how it worked, wasn’t it?

Ruth was surprised to find herself waking up the next morning at five o’clock because it didn’t feel as though she’d slept at all. Her whole body ached, but especially her eyes and her head. It felt like she had a hangover when really she hadn’t drunk the night before, simply coming home and shutting herself in the bedroom. She’d heard Christian come in about an hour later, but he’d had more sense than to try to see her. She had no idea where he’d slept and didn’t care.

The night had been painful, as nights often are. If you have problems, Ruth found, they multiplied like bacteria in the dark hours, looming over your head like a cartoon monster. In her mind she had already calmed a weeping Betty as they watched Christian leave, attended his wedding to Sarah for the sake of the children, argued with him over money and, at one point, hit him round the face. It seemed too cruel to realise that all of this had been nothing more than a series of malevolent fantasies and that the reality still had to be lived through. Lying in her bed, in an already bright bedroom, she felt incapable. She felt like pulling the covers over her head and admitting defeat. Signing the kids over to Aggie, resigning her job, never speaking to Christian again. It was a choice, she realised, to get up and keep going.

But it was Hal’s birthday tomorrow and there was always something. There would be a reason to get up for the rest of her life and the thought made her feel exhausted. Don’t wish your life away, a teacher had said to her once when he’d caught her clock watching and she’d had no idea what he’d meant. He’d dropped down dead a year later, just as she’d been about to start her A levels. The problem was not in her body, she was now sure of that.

Christian had broken her heart. As good as if he’d taken it out of her body and stamped on it in front of her. It seemed too teenage, too romantic, to think that about her own husband. And yet it was the truth.

But the truth was also deeper than that. Deeper than her thoughts in the taxi the night before, deeper than her dreams, deeper even than her anger. In the cold light of dawn, Ruth knew that she’d played a part this. She realised that she had always seen herself as the victim, but that life was rarely that simple. She was not excusing Christian, that was maybe something she could never do, but she thought it was time to admit she’d fucked up as well. Sometimes she felt like she couldn’t help it that she found life so hard and at others she thought maybe she could. Since the children, she’d built a wall around herself and her feelings. She loved them too intensely to let anyone else in and she worried so incessantly about all her choices that she was constantly guilty and distracted. The year after Betty’s birth had taught her how fragile all our minds are, how easily and quickly they can shatter so you hardly recognise yourself or anyone around you. Since then it had become of extreme importance to her that she remained in control; there was no letting go because look where that got you. And somewhere along the way she had lost her ability to have fun. Her anxiety had trickled irrevocably into their lives so that now she feared her mind was like a blender, processing all information with the same murderous intensity.

Life ate away at her like a caterpillar on a leaf. She held her arm up now and the light from the window showed her how translucent she’d become, how she was almost disappearing. It would be hard to love someone who found themselves so consistently wrong, she realised. Her marriage was probably salvageable, but Ruth couldn’t decide if it was too late for her. She wondered if she would ever be able to articulate all these thoughts to Christian, if he’d understand them, if they’d be able to act on them, if, in the end, their love was enough.

She was crying again so she decided to have a shower as a counter attack. The water felt warm and soothing on her skin and it had the desired effect for the few minutes it took her to remember that her parents would be arriving in a couple of hours. Her head felt too heavy to sit upright on her neck.

When Christian heard Ruth moving about overhead he got up off the sofa. He didn’t want the kids or Aggie finding him there so he went to their bedroom to at least remove his clothes. The bed looked hardly slept in, just a small neat indentation where Ruth had lain. It surprised him, this lack of turmoil, and he worried that his wife had already disposed of him. It was nothing more than he deserved, he supposed, but it also seemed unfair.

Christian had lain awake most of the night, trying to think of something to say to persuade Ruth to let him stay. There was not much that he couldn’t talk his way out of and yet for the most important deal of his life he was all out of ideas. Christian had once over-heard himself being described as a character, which had sounded as fatuous as something a reality show contestant would say because, without a character, surely you were no more than a shell. But now he wondered if perhaps a character was all he was; that all his meaning had vanished or maybe never even been there in the first place.

When he’d first met Ruth he’d been amazed at her seriousness. He realised that he’d been attracted by something in Ruth which he had expected her to discard when their lives linked together. Could it come as a great shock that a woman who thought as much as she did would find motherhood so overwhelming? He realised that he’d failed to understand or love her properly. What Ruth needed was reassurance and what she got was worry.

What time are you leaving work? she’d ask him most days at about three and he’d sometimes purposefully lie to teach her a lesson. Who’s that? she’d say when his BlackBerry bleeped on the weekend and he’d shrug enigmatically and say, No one, even though he knew this would make her paranoid. It wasn’t that he wanted to be mean, but sometimes she made him feel he was nothing more than another naughty child in her life. Get out of my face, he’d want to shout, go and fret about something else. But of course this had been wrong, he realised now, as he sat nervously on the edge of a bed that might soon not belong to him. If he’d come home when he’d said, refused the second drink, told her it was just a spam message on his phone, she would have relaxed and probably not asked him next time.

Ruth jumped when she saw him and he felt responsible for how bad she looked.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t want the kids or Aggie finding me on the sofa.’

She shrugged, not able to meet his eyes. ‘Are you going to work today?’ he asked.

‘No. I’m calling in sick.’

‘I will too.’

‘No, don’t. My parents are coming in a few hours and I don’t think I can bear to play happy families for a second longer than I have to.’

What Christian would have liked to do was pull Ruth towards him, while she was still wet from the shower. For them to lie on the bed and make love, properly, as they never seemed to do. His words were not ever going to be enough and he wanted to show her what he meant. But there was a force field around her; he felt he might get an electric shock if he even tried to touch her.

‘D’you think we’ll get a chance to talk at all this weekend?’ he ventured.

‘I doubt it. I haven’t got anything more to say.’

‘Please, Ruth. Whatever happens, we have to talk.’ She spun round at this, a hairbrush extended out to him like a weapon. ‘Why didn’t you fucking tell me you’d seen her again?’

‘I don’t know, I wish I knew the answer to that. I was knocked off guard seeing her and then she called and told me about the abortion and I got sucked in. But nothing happened, nothing was ever going to happen.’

Betty appeared in the doorway, dishevelled from sleep.

‘Hey, princess,’ he said, picking her up. ‘You’re up early.’

‘I’m hungry,’ she answered. ‘Mummy.’

‘Mummy’s still getting dressed. I’ll take you downstairs.’ They all seemed surprised by his offer so he left with his tiny daughter, wondering if all parents sucked up their emotions, waiting for a more appropriate time.

There is a song, who the hell was it by? Christian racked his brains, he couldn’t even remember the exact line. Something about how the singer regretted all those wasted breakfasts feeling tired, when they could have been spending time with their daughter. Shame washed through him as he realised it was Abba. It could have even been from Betty’s
Mamma Mia
DVD. He tried not to cry at his ridiculous new-found pathos and instead tried to shock himself into submission. Betty and Hal had never been properly real to him. Or maybe that was too harsh, but it could be true that he had loved them abstractedly, loved the thought of them more than the actuality of them. But here they were, little people, growing and changing and being. He didn’t want to miss another second. Which was another terrible song, wasn’t it? Maybe this was when you knew it was bad, when your life dissolved into nothing more than terrible cliché-riven lines from songs you wished you’d never heard.

Agatha was not amused when she got into the kitchen to find Christian sitting with Betty as she ate her cereal while Ruth stood leaning against the sink, drinking a cup of tea and wearing jeans. Please let her not be staying home today.

‘Aggie,’ she said, much too brightly, ‘I’m not going to work today, so you can put me to good use for the party.’

‘Are you still ill?’ Agatha was clutching at straws, she didn’t want Ruth having anything to do with Hal’s party.

‘I’m not too bad. But I can’t face the thought of the tube and everything. Oh, and my parents will be arriving at lunchtime, so you know.’

‘I didn’t realise they were coming today.’ Agatha went to the kettle in order to give her frustration some activity. Surely you couldn’t be as forgetful and downright stupid as Ruth. Earlier in the week they’d discussed Ruth’s parents’ attendance of the party and Agatha had very kindly, in her opinion, insisted they sleep in her room rather than the ridiculously too small box room. She’d assumed they would be arriving on Saturday and staying one night. Now she’d have to get all her stuff together and still make it look like she wasn’t doing a runner in the next four hours. Not to mention everything she had to do for the party.

‘Sorry,’ Ruth was saying now, ‘I’m sure I said. Anyway, Mum’s super organised, she’s not a bit like me, she’ll be a great help.’

Tears stung Agatha’s eyes at this new information. A fussy grandmother as well as a useless mother, all fucking up her neatly laid plans. Hal started calling from upstairs and so she responded.

Ruth put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t worry, Aggie, I’ll go. It’s not often I get to give the kids breakfast.’

Agatha’s mouth flailed like a fish drowning in oxygen, but what could she say?

Ruth made her way up the stairs to the sound of her son. It had been an effort to be jolly for those few short minutes and she wondered how she was going to survive the day. She looked at her watch, it was only just after seven. Why was Aggie up? But then again, she must always be, Ruth realised. When she flew into the kitchen at seven thirty everything was always neatly laid out, Betty already eating, tea in the pot. How quickly she’d let this happen. She’d never asked Aggie to do breakfast or to get the kids up, but somehow this had become something which she did every day. Ruth felt panicked at how easily she’d let Aggie take such an important part of the day from her. Or maybe it was the other way around, maybe it was how easily Ruth had surrendered it.

Hal’s room was dark from his blackout blind and he was sitting up in his cot, his hair sticking up from his head, shouting some indiscernible word. Ruth went and sat next to him, drawing in his fug of sleep. She put her hand on his cheek.

‘Hello, love, did you sleep well?’

Hal looked at her, stunned. He shouted again, but she couldn’t make it out. Ruth tried to pull him onto her lap but he pushed her away. ‘Gie,’ it sounded like, but then she was sure he said, ‘Mummy.’

‘I’m here, darling,’ she said, feeling her heart beating faster. She’d always worried that one day Hal would wake up and his weirdness would have to be acknowledged.

He was still pushing her away. ‘Mummy.’

‘Hal,’ she said, holding him by the shoulders. ‘It’s me, I’m here. Mummy’s here.’

Christian put his head round the door. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know, I think he’s having some sort of fit. He’s calling for me, but it’s like he can’t see me.’