Separate Beds (20 page)

What a mess everything is
, she thought. And:
How muddled
. This conclusion, combined with her sorrow for Jake, made her cry and the tears ran down to vanish into the suds in the sink.

Chapter Twelve

It had been a long time – almost half a decade – but it seemed much longer since she and Tom had shared a bedroom. And Annie was at a loss as to whether to undress in front of him or to take refuge in the adjoining bathroom.

Already the latter’s white-towelled femininity had been diluted. While Annie had held sway, she had enjoyed garnishing it with soaps, expensive bath oils and a selection of white ceramic dishes. Tom’s shaving kit, his battered brown washbag and dark green towels were an intrusion on her careful
mise-en-scène
.

Tom was putting more stuff into a drawer, and she hovered uncertainly in the doorway. Usually, as she got ready for bed, she hung up her clothes as she removed them and laid out the next day’s. This was a sequence designed to minimize effort the following morning – such were the habits evolved to suit the working mother. It was not very exciting but it was life-saving, and the truth was she had grown used to considering herself a
useful, sensible
person.

‘Try to disguise it,’ was Sadie’s tart advice. She was right, of course. How would Tom react when he was confronted by her fuller waistline close up? What would she feel about his? The plain and ridiculous fact of the matter was that she was anxious about revealing her body to the man with whom she had lived for all these years.

Maturity was the ability to accept one’s lot. Much had
been written in that vein and – Annie glanced down at her midriff – it was a great deal more palatable on a page. She observed Tom’s bent back. Goodbye, then, the flash and brilliance of youthful shooting stars, the yearning to ride on wilder shores, and a supple body.

Tom groaned. ‘Done.’ He pressed a fist into his spine and straightened up.

Oh, my God, which side of the bed should she make for? In the old days, she had occupied the left but, during the years of solitude, had found herself migrating to the right.

Annie knotted and reknotted her dressing-gown cord.

A pair of black lace-up shoes in his hand, Tom turned round. ‘I think I’ll chuck these out.’

‘Charity shop?’

‘Sure.’ He turned back to the job in hand.

Annie retreated into the bathroom and slumped against the closed door. She and Tom were not close, and hadn’t been for years, and here she was as nervous as a bride. The logic was … Well, there was no logic.

Undressing rapidly, she put on her nightdress, brushed the obstinate tangles in her hair and creamed her face. The mirror did not spare her the truth. Nevertheless, the image in it reflected, against all reason, the mad optimism and the obstinate spirit that had got people through a long, punishing war.

She ran a finger along her stuff on the shelf, and picked up the bottle of La Perla scent. Cool and ultra-smooth between her fingers, it invited the useful woman Sadie had warned her she must not be the chance to experience the erotic and the sensuous. A quick squirt, and mist drifted over her shoulders.

Annie was ready.

Hopping around on a pale leg, Tom peeled off his sock. A lock of hair flopped over an eye and, despite the ridiculous pose, he suddenly appeared much younger.

Annie avoided the white legs (had they always been that white?), slid into the right-hand side of the bed, arranged herself and pulled out a report on hospital cleaning practices that she needed to read before the morning. Her intentions were firm but her attention was anything but and her gaze was drawn inexorably to Tom.

First off, he pushed aside her hairbrush and slotted his own beside it on the dressing-table. It fitted its new niche. Annie reapplied herself to the paper on her lap.

It was quickly clear that the beautiful theatre sister had been correct. Budgets lay at the root of the superbug problem. Annie endeavoured to tick off the salient points.

(1)
It didn’t matter where her hairbrush was
.

She sighed and tried again.

(2) Old-fashioned, effective methods of scrub and disinfect require more man hours. Therefore more expensive.

(3)
How far would the usurpation of her things and spaces go?

(4) Superbug infection rates rise from 0 to 0.69 per 69 cases per 1000 days or approx. 100,000 cases per year.

(5)
Grow up!

Tom inserted a wedge of shirts into a drawer that had been occupied by her sweaters.

Budgets. She returned to the report and tried not to think of the unhappily compacted shirts she had ironed. Tom kicked the drawer shut and padded into the bathroom.

Much splashing.

A crash of china and an oath.

He emerged from the bathroom, cradling two pieces of a white ceramic soap dish. ‘I’m very sorry, Annie.’

‘Oh,’ Annie said. ‘Oh.’

The dish had been purchased – French, expensive – on a trawl through one of those shops done up in taupe and white that only stocked objects in taupe and white. When it had been whole and functional, she had enjoyed it a lot.

‘I’d like to say I could mend it but it’s past repair, I’m afraid,’ said a rueful Tom. ‘I’ll get you a new one.’

She thought of the luxuries that were no longer admissible. ‘Don’t worry.’ Throwing back the duvet, she seized the wastepaper basket and held it out. ‘It belonged to the days of wine and roses.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’ The pieces slid into the basket and Annie bade them farewell.

Back in bed, she gave up on the report, settled down and pulled the duvet around her. She closed her eyes and welcomed the darkness, only to be jerked almost upright as Tom whipped back the duvet and plonked heavily down beside her.

‘Oh …’ The cool air hit her shrinking body.

Tom busied himself arranging the pillows. Suffering from hay fever, he had imported his hypo-allergenic ones, which
jostled beside Annie’s goose-down. They smelt, and felt, alien.

Annie resettled herself.

The newspaper rustled very close to her ear. Her eyes flew open. Tom was wedged back against the headboard and was deep in the leader page. She closed them tight. A sliver of light inserted itself between her clamped eyelids but she willed herself into sleep.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Tom asked loudly, ‘Am I keeping you awake?’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she murmured.

Some time during the night, Annie realized she was cold. Wallowing in the shallows of a deep sleep from which she had been dragged, she did not at first understand why. She touched a shoulder. Bare. She felt her midriff. Startled, she rolled over and encountered Tom’s unconscious form shrouded in the entire duvet.

Annie’s lips twitched. She simply could not think of any comment to direct into the chilly air.

Tom was in his element
.

Energy coursed through him. He felt fit, well and ready to go
.

The section and regional heads were dribbling into the building and taking the lifts up to the meeting room. Soon, he would join them and take his place at the head of the table and faces would turn towards him
.

He punched a number into the office phone and James answered almost at once. ‘Tom?’

‘You OK with the report?’

‘Sure,’ said James, but there was a touch of uncertainty
.

‘Do you want to come down here and we’ll go over it?’

While he waited for James, he put in a quick call to his contact at the Foreign Office. Battle was about to commence. The Foreign Office wanted to cut the budgets to the service. Absolutely nothing new about that. The BBC World Service, which spoke ‘unto nations’, would fight any threat and Tom would be there on the front line. Nothing was more important than keeping this channel of communication open and flowing. Nothing was more important than ensuring that debate and ideas and campaigns could be heard across the world – and if he had to work night and day (as he sometimes had done) to make sure it happened he would do so
.

The FO contact was bland enough and, listening to him, Tom doodled on his pad. By the end of the conversation, and expert in decoding Whitehall-speak, he had gained sufficient information to form the opinion that, if they were clever enough with the figures and lip service, they would be left to their own devices
.

James had come into the office and was spreading sheets of paper in front of Tom on the desk. He was elaborately casual, which went only halfway to disguising his nerves
.

‘It’s not as bad as all that.’ Tom flashed him a smile. Having joined the service on the same day, he and James were old companions
.

James grimaced. ‘Almost.’

As friends, they had shared much during their years with the BBC. The World Service was probably staffed with more brilliant people than most institutions and James was one of them. But, like James, the majority of these clever, committed people had the habit of modesty and not many relished being in the spotlight. But Tom did. He didn’t mind it at all
.

Today James was on show and having a bit of a wobble. Tom checked over a paragraph of the paper. ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘Really good.’

James whistled through pursed lips and knocked a fist on the desk. ‘Thanks.’

Tom leaped to his feet. ‘Off we go, then.’

‘How’re Annie and the children?’ James gathered up his papers
.

‘Annie? Oh, she’s fine.’ Tom reached for his jacket. ‘I think the children are fine too. Don’t see much of them, really.’

‘Oh,’ said James, and Tom thought he detected a hint of smugness. Of reproof, even. ‘Ours infest the house. Penny complains she doesn’t have any time to herself.’

Tom frowned, and hunted for the meeting’s agenda. ‘Onwards,’ he said, clapped his hand on James’s shoulder and ushered him out of the office. ‘Listen, I’ve got some ideas that I think could go down well. Can I lob them at you while we walk?’

‘Of course,’ said James. He was silent for a beat. ‘Do you ever stop, Tom?’ His tone combined admiration and exasperation
.

A wakeful Tom replayed the scene, one of many from his working past, pausing over every detail, each a reminder of what he had been and how he used to be. It wasn’t a useful thing to do but he couldn’t stop himself. Yet. Maybe in the future he would be able to push himself onwards.

On the floor above, Maisie was emitting a series of sparrow calls that increased in intensity and plaintiveness. Tom hated hearing her cry – far more so than when it had been his own child, which was not too good a reflection on his parenting record. Annie had occasionally accused him of never hearing the children at night.
Either you’re flat out, or there’s a pillow stuffed over your head
. But Maisie’s distress aroused a visceral feeling of distress in him and he couldn’t cope with it.

He listened for a footstep up above. None.

He squinted at the dark shape that was his wife and realized … what? Lack of sleep must have tried her sorely when the kids were little, particularly Jake, who had slept
badly for several years. With hindsight – oh, hindsight! – he realized he should have thought about it more, but in those days her job had not been so senior. ‘Your need is greater,’ Annie had always maintained, or something like it, often (now that he looked back) tired out of her mind. But then he had never thought to question it.

Maisie’s cries geared up to a full-frontal assault on the eardrums. Still no sign of Jake and, unable to bear it any longer, Tom slid out of bed, padded upstairs and scooped up the baby.

Sobbing, angry and sopping wet, she banged her head against his shoulder. Tom held her close and, for a moment, imagined he also held the ghosts of his own three babies in his arms. ‘Hush, Maisie.’ He reached over for the bottle of water by the cot, sat down and gave it to her.

Maisie attacked it with the reproach of a thirsty and neglected infant. After a moment, she quietened and settled against him.

Like an old pro, Tom congratulated himself, as quiet fell and the dawn prepared itself in the sky outside.
I’m her bulwark
. The notion pleased and warmed him.

The room was cluttered with baby equipment – changing mat, Johnson’s lotion, assorted clothes, a basket in one corner, cotton-wool balls and plastic disposal bags. The elderly curtains were frayed at the edges and the carpet needed replacing. The room was stuck in a time warp of twenty years ago and it was bloody freezing. Yet, curiously, he felt happier here, holding Maisie, than he had for weeks.

He was changing Maisie’s nappy (rather well, he reckoned) when Jake stumbled into the room in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, his hair in cockatoo barnet. ‘Good God, Dad,
I had no idea it was you.’ He cast a glance over the nappychanging operation. ‘Or that you claimed babycare as one of your skills.’

‘She’d been crying for a while, and I was awake.’ He snapped the nappy shut, bent over and gave Maisie his finger to hold. ‘All right now. Grandpa did the trick while your daddy snored.’

Jake’s elbowed him aside. ‘Don’t you believe a word of it, my Bird. Your grandfather is currying favour.’ Curious and slightly sceptical, he gave Tom the once-over. ‘I thought you never did this sort of thing, Dad.’

Tom flinched. A world of misunderstanding was wrapped up in the statement, plus a history that contained its fair share of bad moments and missed chances.

… Jake eating ice cream when forbidden. Jake being monumentally sick through the long night before a crucial meeting between Tom and the section heads. Annie trailing up and down stairs with clean sheets and disinfectant. ‘He’s calling for you,’ she had told him.

‘I can’t,’ said Tom, anchored to the bed. ‘I just can’t.’

‘Why didn’t you come, Daddy?’ asked a white-faced little boy, the following morning. ‘I wanted you.’