Separate Beds (18 page)

‘After Mia left, you said you never wanted me anywhere near you again. And the idea of me in your bed sickened you.’

‘That was then. I was furious with you. But I can’t remember
actually
saying that.’

Tom’s eyebrows shot up. ‘People remember things differently.’

‘You never came back. You made it plain you didn’t wish to.’

He shrugged. ‘Appearances aren’t always …’

Sometimes she dreamed of change between them. Reconciliation even.

‘If Jake comes to live with us, will you have me back in your room?’

Annie looked this way and that. So long. So much water and so many bridges under which it had flowed. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Chapter Eleven

It had turned out to be a late night, a Friday-night special in fact. Far later, and far in excess of the quiet drink Emily had planned. After such a night, it was achingly early to be up.

Preparing for it the previous evening, Emily had inserted herself into her skin-tight Topshop jeans and frivolous Primark jacket – bought at a particularly intense pedi-conference with Katya. She had planned an evening programme characterized by common sense and restraint.

The mirror reflected coolness and fashion savvy. So positive was the image that, as she folded and tidied everything else away, she conducted a debate with herself. Was it possible to be a serious writer (admittedly on hold) and yet so interested in fashion? Applying the eyelash curler, she was reassured (as was often the case) by Oscar Wilde: ‘It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.’

A further coating of (visible) mascara completed the evening’s sentimental education and out Emily went.

‘Only one’ drink with Tod, the more-or-less boyfriend and striving poet, turned into two or three. The gastropub had been warmly lit and cosy and she was happy enough sitting across the table from him, sipping cold white wine and talking about nothing much. Anything they might wrangle over was not sufficiently contentious to be
dangerous or so bland as to be boring (but skated perilously close on occasions).

This gently flirtatious state of affairs was possible because they had never really been passionate about each other – merely mildly intrigued. Once the affair slithered to a halt, which Emily sensed it would, friendship would be possible.

Then she had told him about the interviews, and what had resulted, and things got a bit sticky.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, and an odd look crept into his eyes and remained there for the rest of what had turned into a not-so-satisfactory evening.

Hence the need to down an extra glass or two of the Pinot Grigio.

Head throbbing, she made her way downstairs. The backs of her clogs clunked against the stair treads – ‘They have to go,’ said Jake.

Jake, usually so good-natured, was being prickly about a lot of things, including the clogs. But, for reasons that were not entirely selfless, Emily was prepared to throw him plenty of rope and ignore the tide of his and Maisie’s things that threatened to submerge the top floor.

Reputedly, every writer harboured a sliver of ice in their hearts and Emily could not make up her mind whether to admire or condemn herself for her willingness to use her brother as copy.

‘Jocasta has gone. Abandoned me …’ She had overheard him talking on the phone, she wasn’t sure to whom. ‘But I’m having trouble believing it …’ There was a pause. ‘Her lawyer’s been in touch. Yes, very expensive and I know I must deal with it …’

How would Jake’s abandonment read on the page?
Which precise word or phrase fitted the mould? ‘Bitterness’ … ‘Humiliation’ … ‘Profound sadness’? No. ‘Grief ’ was a better choice. Embedded in ‘grief ’ was an august sadness, and it suggested a sweeping overview of the terrible things human beings inflicted on each other. Consider Phaedra, who loved her stepson and drove him to his death, before hanging herself. Actually, given that particular ana logy, Emily did not feel that ‘throwing Jake plenty of rope’ was appropriate.

Deep, deep grief. Profound grief?

The words clinked in her head, like stones under the sea. This was the school for words, the inner workshop, and what she liked to think of as the creative process. Later, she planned to write them down and to scrutinize how they appeared on the paper for she had learned that what sounded well frequently did not work within the structure of a sentence or a paragraph.

Jake appeared on the stairs above her. ‘War is declared on all clogs.’

‘Bugger off,’ she said, seized by a longing to be living in her own place, on her own terms.

Emily steadied herself. Admittedly she was a little uneasy on account of the wine, but her sleep had been fractured by a teething Maisie’s night calls and fatigue scratched at her eyeballs, so goodness knew how Jake was feeling.

Her own news vying for attention, she loped down to the first-floor landing and prepared to negotiate the boxes that had sprouted outside her father’s/Mia’s bedroom.

Its door was ajar and Emily glanced through. Invariably and infuriatingly early risers, her parents were clearing it out in preparation for her grandmother’s arrival. Her
mother was laying out the contents of a drawer in order on the bed, while her father – typically – swept brushes and combs into a bin liner.

‘Hey.’ Emily hovered.

Her mother waved a hand, but her father looked round. ‘Emily.’

She leaned against the door. Despite the muddle of objects and bed linen – or, rather, because of them – the room had a forlorn aspect. ‘Hard work,’ she offered.

‘How would you know?’ Her mother was at her driest.

Emily flushed. ‘No need to be like that, Mum.’

Tom pushed past Emily with the bulging bin liner and dumped it in the bedroom opposite. Scratching his head, he surveyed the room he was about to move back into with the air of a traveller arriving on alien territory.

He’s nervous, thought Emily, with a rush of empathy, and judging by the tense set of her mother’s body, she was too. Emily’s fists balled.
Please don’t let this be a disaster
, she willed, as ever Tom’s protector.

… ‘Mum blames Dad for your going,’ Emily had informed Mia, who had rung her once, and only once, after she’d stormed out and before the iron curtain finally clanged down. ‘She told me she’d never forgive him.’ Mia, who’d sounded hoarse from weeping and strain, had replied, ‘It’s not my business. They’re not my parents any longer.’

‘Mia, grow up.’

‘You grow up, Emily. Take a look at the world as it really is … It’s not an advert for happy families.’

Emily felt Mia’s vengeance settle over her. ‘You’ll regret it.’

‘Never,’ said Mia, buoyed up by martyrdom and
self-righteousness. ‘You don’t understand. You can’t understand …’

Emily never told anyone about that phone call. What was the point?

‘Do you want to hear my news?’ she asked.

Her mother looked up from a pile of her father’s shirts on the bed and directed a searching stare at her. Ill? Pregnant? Emily knew exactly what was running through her mind and she enjoyed waiting for a couple of seconds longer before she dropped it into their laps: ‘I’ve got a job.’

Clattering down the stairs to the kitchen, Emily filed away their astonished faces into the writer’s cache.
Speechless … Bone-deep
s
urprise
.

Jake had been up for hours scuttling as noiselessly as possible between his and Maisie’s bedroom on the top floor. Since Jocasta’s departure, Maisie had rarely slept past the five-thirty mark and she was not picky as to which day of the week it was. He had tried everything he could think of – putting her to bed a little later, giving her an extra bottle in the evening – but the ploys didn’t fool his daughter. In the past – that far-away country of his marriage – he used to stuff his fingers into ears and sit it out. Yet if he had learned only one thing during the last painful weeks, it was never to leave his daughter grizzling in the early hours when she was likely to wake a whole household.

‘She’s OK, isn’t she?’ asked Jocasta, when she had rung the previous night for an update and he told her about the early waking.

Jake struggled to keep his temper. ‘She’s missing you,’ he said. ‘What do you expect?’

‘She’ll probably get over it.’

Music played in the background and someone was moving around the room from which she was phoning. Probably Noah. He closed his eyes. Coming up against the realities of Jocasta and her new life was unbearably painful. ‘Is there anything else you want?’

‘Yes. I’m afraid I was a bit hasty in saying I would sign over the house. My lawyer has advised me against it.’

‘I’ve been meaning to tell you I’ve let it,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t afford my half of the mortgage. Don’t worry, they’re good tenants. As soon as I’m sorted, I go back in.’

‘Oh.’ At her end, Jocasta went quiet. ‘No doubt the lawyers will talk to each other on that one. Send me the details of yours. Are things bad with the business?’

‘There’s a recession on, Jocasta.’

‘Not for the very rich, thank goodness.’

Again, he sought relief by closing his eyes and blocking out the daylight. That way, life seemed possible. ‘You know perfectly well I haven’t got that sort of client base. But I’m managing.’

‘Only managing?’

‘For God’s sake, is this an inquisition?’ He added stiffly: ‘How’s the job …’ and, with indescribable self-hatred, heard himself say ‘… in the US of A?’ which made him sound puerile.

‘Let’s say I’m making headway.’ She didn’t sound that convinced. Aha, he thought, with a vindictiveness that made him feel much better, not that easy, then? ‘Jake, I’ll be in touch. If we set our minds to it, this divorce can be dealt with easily and quickly.’

The air at five thirty that morning had been sharp, but
the sky had been washed by pink tints and suggested warmth to come. Jake’s burgeoning relationship with nature was an unexpected consequence of hands-on childcare. As Maisie sucked away at a bottle, he was free to stare out of the window and, each day, his acquaintance with London bird life deepened.

It was never a good idea to think about Jocasta. For starters, his heartbeat ratcheted up at least three notches. He wondered if she had turned New-York-glossy – and whether she walked to work in her suit and trainers, like high-flyer women were reported to do.

But here was the puzzle. How was it possible for that which had begun in an upwelling of excitement and positive, tender love (which surely she must have shared in a little?) to turn into such bitter disaster? How could he have read her so wrongly, and how could he have put himself into a position that had left him so scourged and suffering?

He picked up Maisie and carried her down to the first floor, glancing into his mother’s room as he passed. Both parents were sitting on the bed with slightly dazed expressions.

‘Everything all right? You both look poleaxed.’

‘We are,’ said his father, with a grin.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Emily will tell you.’

Jake continued downstairs. Just before the final step, his foot slipped and he pitched forward. In the split second before he regained his balance, his head seemed to explode with pain and despair. He was disintegrating – he was a failure – he –

Thinking this was a great joke, Maisie gurgled, and Jake was brought up short. ‘Oh, my God, Maisie,’ he whispered,
pulled himself upright and deposited Maisie on the hall floor. Shaking a little, he leaned against the newel post.

The wooden ball that topped it was polished by handling, and inviting. Jake had grasped it thousands of times but this was when he became
aware
of its whorls and striations for the first time in a significant way. And he, the woodsman! How remarkably sane an object it was, as wholesome and as beautifully shaped as he would wish his life to be.

Parked at his feet, Maisie protested. Jake looked down. A trusting, hungry little face encountered his, and he smiled. Whatever had he been thinking? Despair and breakdown had to be off the menu. His daughter’s needs were more pressing than his – for the wound in her life made by her mother’s departure was far more dangerous than any he might have suffered.

However, on picking her up, he was dealt a sharp reminder of the realities. Intimations of the larger perspective, or of the obligation to be unselfish, vanished. Maisie smelt. Growling, he climbed back up the stairs to the room under the eaves where the nappies were kept.

Eventually, making it to the kitchen bearing the clean, more-or-less sweet-smelling package that was his daughter, he discovered Emily contemplating a bowl of porridge in a hopeless fashion.

The kitchen seemed only half awake and functioning: whiffs of the previous night’s stew floated in the corners, butter and jams littered the table, and a swathe of crumbs indicated that his parents had breakfasted but not cleared up. The dismembered newspaper had been cast aside. Its headline read: ‘Forecast: Unemployment Will Go Up’.

Emily propped her head in her hand.

‘Early teetotal night, I take it.’ Jake lifted Maisie into her chair.

Emily stuck a spoon into the porridge. ‘Has anyone told you you’re a waste of space?’

Jake was ultra-dry. ‘Someone mentioned it.’

‘Oh, God.’ Emily’s head jerked up. ‘Sorry, Jake.’ She got up and deposited the porridge in the sink, wandered over to the dresser and leaned back against it. Her mother’s precious blue-and-white plates rattled a warning. ‘You know how it is. Nice bar. Wine the colour of a prize canary. French fries. Tod being nice and asking about the writing …’ She stopped and a look of consternation swept over her features. ‘Actually, he wasn’t so nice.’

Jake paid absolutely no attention. Emily’s on/off relationship with Tod had long ceased to interest any of them – much as the bowl of tepid porridge had failed to engage her.

‘Tod’s very good at understanding the struggle to write,’ she said at last.

‘Oh, yes, that struggle.’ Jake attached a plastic bib around Maisie’s neck. ‘The struggle not to mind that you’re not, like hundreds of others, struggling into work. Tricky, that one.’