Separate Beds (21 page)

Technically, it was only a small failure …

‘It was always Mum …’ Jake picked up his daughter. ‘But actually, Dad, now that I’m having to do everything, I don’t blame you. I see why it was so difficult.’

‘But your mum managed,’ said Tom.

Jake smiled sweetly. ‘But Mum is Mum.’

The strangeness of the night – its silence and suspended life – enfolded father and son in a peace not possible during the day, loosening the tensions between them.

‘I didn’t get up very often,’ Tom found himself admitting. ‘I should have done more.’ In the dim reaches of this particular night, the everyday seemed far away. ‘Jake …’ The old sins gathered in a battalion to haunt him. ‘Jake,
was
I such a bad father?’

Jake smiled. ‘I have to say you were on my back a lot. You weren’t there very much.’

That hurt. ‘I set out to be such a good one.’ Tom flinched from contemplating his failures – but it was necessary. ‘Didn’t we do things together? Didn’t we do carpentry? Didn’t we make a crib for Mia? Stuff like that?’

‘Yes, but …’ Jake began to say something, thought better of it and shrugged. ‘Water under the bridge. OK? Listen, thanks for getting up.’

Outside, a bird tried out the first song of the day. ‘Jake …’ Tom would have liked to continue the conversation.

‘Dad, go to bed.’ Jake placed a now sleepy Maisie back in her cot and tucked her up. He stroked the small cheek. ‘Do your old dad a favour and go back to sleep.’

All long, lean legs and tousled hair, Jake was anything but ‘old dad’: he was a showy, sexy package of energy and youth. In contrast, in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, Tom was Father Time.

Jake repeated, ‘Go to bed, Dad.’ He checked that the blanket over Maisie was drawn tight. ‘Just one thing … I know you have reason, but you’ve been pretty short with Mum. The Black Dog is sitting on your shoulder but …’

‘Have I?’

‘Yup.’

A tarpaulin appeared to drop over Tom. ‘Point taken.’
Point taken
. ‘You’ve lost a wife and I’ve lost a job.’

‘Thanks again, Dad.’ Jake’s whisper followed Tom out of the room.

He made his way downstairs and climbed stiffly into bed, lay on his back and stared up into the darkness. He knew that he should look forward to the rest of his life. He knew that, compared to many, he was lucky. Yet he was racked by loss and longing for the job he no longer had. It was there, sharp and unequivocal – the thorn driven into his heart.

He put up a hand to shield his eyes against the darkness and grief, and Annie moved and sighed in her sleep. He could not be sure but he thought her hand brushed lightly against his thigh.

Just after dawn, Annie woke up seriously freezing. Yet again, the duvet had migrated to Tom. Gritting her teeth, she got out of bed and went to fetch a spare one from the linen cupboard on the landing. It was an old one, which had done faithful service at sleepovers, and bore the stains of spilled drinks and midnight feasts.

It was also a single one. This meant a gully opened up between her and Tom, along which chilly air circulated with malevolent gusto. She tried lying flat, which she hated doing, gave up and turned on to her side.

Sleepless.

If it hadn’t been closer to breakfast than dinner she might have got up, gone downstairs and searched out the brandy. From time to time, she had resorted to it and found it settled her. Anyway, she remembered now that they had run out and brandy had gone on the luxuries-not-to-bereplaced list.

No brandy, then.

Her brain busied itself with questions of money and debt, which she was worried they might, along with hundreds of others, slip into. ‘Mum, you’re a doomster,’ Mia used to tease her. But thinking the worst was only sensible because, when it arrived, one had almost become friendly with it. Debt was a killer. It changed people in unexpected ways, drove them to extremes, and she was nervous about confronting the challenge if the economy got worse and Tom never worked again. A description she had read of Elizabeth I came to mind: ‘She was afraid but never lost her head.’ (Whence had she dredged that one up?) The great Queen had wrestled with possible national bankruptcy and bad teeth. She had also had to give up sex to preserve the nation.

Annie turned over towards Tom. Sprawled on his side, his shoulders hunched, he seemed as unreachable as ever.

As she watched, he rolled over, and Annie was vouchsafed a flash of belly, lightly dusted with dark hair. Curiously, her current anxieties made her think about sex more than she had done for some time. What would it feel like after so long? When was the last time? Four months? Longer? Yes, longer.

Whenever, it had been pretty joyless. Pretty mechanical.

She resettled herself and squinted at towards the window. The early light outside was, as yet, dim and unsure of itself. It had a quality peculiar to the moment of transition just before summer arrives, a perfect papery foil for the season’s pastel colours.

Was Sadie right? Would it have been better, a more honest way of behaving, to leave Tom?

‘Annie.’ His voice sounded in her ear. ‘Go to sleep.’

She turned her head but, in an instant, he had fallen back into unconsciousness.

Annie could negotiate pay rises with the best of them. Her budgets were neat and decisive. She had a working knowledge of insurance, pensions and the other tedious necessities of modern life. She relied on herself, and had grown used to doing so. But what lay ahead, and the weight of carrying a wounded Tom, made her realize how much she still depended on him.

Please
, she thought.
Don’t go under, Tom
.

The gully of air between them seemed colder and deeper and she tucked the midnight-feast-stained duvet around her torso and tried not to think of the orange drinks, chocolate biscuits and God knew what else contained in its depth.

Actually, Annie did not like being on the right-hand side of the bed after all. She preferred the left.

Chapter Thirteen

‘The Nicholsons stumble on,’ Annie informed Sadie, when they met for a catch-up in a wine bar.

Sadie had just had her hair done and it gleamed soft and perfect in a way that Annie could only envy helplessly. ‘And mother-in-law?’

‘Moving in at the weekend. What with one thing and another, the arrangements took longer than we thought. Finances and stuff, and she wanted to take her time and we couldn’t deny her that.’

‘You know,’ said Sadie, unexpectedly, ‘it might not be so bad.’

Annie aimed a kick at Sadie’s foot, clad in a thigh-length leather boot. ‘Take my place?’ Then, with a rush, she said, ‘Thanks, Sadie, for listening to everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘I don’t mind homage,’ said Sadie. ‘In fact, I was born for it.’ She adopted the wise look Annie knew so well. ‘Have you and Tom decided what you’re going to do?’

Annie gave a tiny shrug. ‘Working on it.’

‘You know what?’ said Sadie. ‘At risk of repeating myself, if you live with someone, you might as well get to understand what’s going on in their head.’

Annie couldn’t resist. She grinned naughtily. ‘Easy when you change them so often.’

‘I never said I was perfect.’

Annie kissed Sadie on her scented cheek. ‘You’re a witch. Please don’t change.’

But witchy Sadie had a point.

Soon after breakfast on the designated Sunday, Tom and Jake departed in the hired van and family car to collect Hermione. Emily and Annie stayed behind, Emily to babysit and Annie to fuss over last-minute arrangements. She got busy with dusters and polish.

‘Mum, there’s no need to clean the house from top to toe.’ Emily edged past Annie, hard at work on the landing.

Zosia had gone to work for Pat Hillaby. Naturally, her mourned departure had had consequences for the good order of the house. The idea was – and Annie had issued the edict – that the occupants of number twenty-two should be responsible for and clean their own territories. The results were, to shine the best light on them, variable.

Annie pointed to a streak of dirt on the skirting-board. Emily put her head knowingly to one side and said, ‘Oh, I get it. It’s a mother-in-law-daughter-in-law thing.’

Seizing a breathing space, Annie sat down at the kitchen table to catch up with the accounts, which now featured prominently in her routines. However, despite the rigour and expertise she had at her fingertips for work budgets, her control over the domestic one was less sure. The figures would dodge here and there. With a life of their own, they chased after Annie and wrestled her to the ground. Aha, they seemed to say, we control you.

Every so often, she glanced up and eyed the cooker. That, too, was the enemy: the malevolent beast crouching in its corner, readying itself to unleash its torments. Like
malign besiegers materializing out of nowhere, the cooker, defective vacuum cleaner and piles of laundry silently encircled Annie and, oh, how her horizons had shrunk. The winds of change were whirling across the world and here she was tallying up her enemies in the shape of dusters and tricky accounts.

The hands on the kitchen clock moved far too quickly.

Technically, there was no more time to worry. No more time for conjecture. No more space to ask, is Hermione going to make life impossible? But Annie had a feeling that she had (a) opened Pandora’s Box, (b) set herself up for a life of constant sniping, and (c) not sufficiently understood that strangers, who arrived wired up with their quirks and dislikes like a computer mother board, don’t necessarily merge quietly into a household.

Clutching Maisie, Emily puffed downstairs and into the kitchen. ‘Wow, she’s getting heavy.’

Annie held out her arms. ‘Give her to me.’ She accepted the solid package of her granddaughter as a relief from her apprehensions. She stroked the downy head. ‘Hallo, Birdie. Did you have a nice nap?’

Maisie sported one bright red cheek, and the little mouth was pursed with some grievance or other, almost certainly hunger, and Annie got to her feet.

Emily ran the tap for a glass of water. ‘Hey, look at that. There’s a for-sale notice in the window of the Fergusons’ four-by-four.’

They peered through the window.

‘More space in the street, then.’ Emily drained her glass.

‘The Hillabys are selling theirs too.’

‘So there is a God.’

‘I must remind you that, before Dad lost his job, we weren’t so very different.’

Emily’s sigh was a gusty one. ‘Big changes, Mum. Will we cope?’

She was obviously thinking as much about the job as anything else. Annie’s maternal watchdog leaped out of its basket. ‘Are you feeling all right? Not sickening or anything?’

‘No … but …’

‘But?’

‘The house seems changed, not quite itself.’

This was true. So far they were tiptoeing around the new arrangements. Hermione was not only going to occupy Tom/Mia’s room but she would also annex for her exclusive use the tiny second bathroom on that floor, which, since Jake and Maisie’s arrival, Emily had been using on the grounds that the equally small top-floor bathroom couldn’t accommodate them all. Emily had not been
that
ungrudging about it, especially in view of her new status as a wage earner.

Emily went cryptic. ‘We’ll change shape.’

‘Don’t know what you mean.’ Unsure of what Emily was getting at – though no doubt it had some literary application – Annie took refuge in the practical. ‘Rusk
hors d’oeuvre
, Maisie?’ She handed it over and a tiny fist clamped over it. She glanced at the clock and looked away again.

The ever-watchful Emily was on it. ‘Are you worried, Mum?’

The question disarmed her and Annie was checked in the process of warming up Maisie’s goo in the microwave. ‘Not really. A bit of an adjustment, that’s all.’ She slammed the door and decided it was better to be honest. ‘Oh, all right, yes, I am worried.’

Emily’s blue eyes sparked up. (Taking notes, Annie concluded.) ‘You can be honest, Mum. I bet you’re furious at having to accommodate Gran.’ She extracted Maisie’s bib and spoon from the drawer and handed them to her mother. ‘I would understand if you’re furious and feeling trapped.’ She sent Annie a sympathetic smile. ‘It’s not everyone who agrees to look after their mother-in-law.’

Recklessly, Annie surrendered the spoon to Maisie. ‘No choice. Your grandmother’s income has dropped to practically nothing and your father can’t help until he’s got a new job.’

‘If …’ said Emily.

‘When,’ countered Annie.

‘Is he trying?’

‘Oh, yes, he’s trying. Making lots of applications, some unsuitable. Can’t see your father as a sports-centre administrator.’ (‘Of course I’d take it,’ he’d said, when he informed Annie he had applied. ‘If offered.’)

‘No,’ Emily reflected. ‘I hear him sometimes on the phone to the old office. They’re not happy conversations and I can see it upsets him.’

‘I wish I could sort it for him.’ Annie twisted her finger where the ring used to be.

Emily’s gaze lingered on the bare finger. ‘He has to sort it for himself, Mum.’

‘When did you get so wise?’

‘And, for the record, I think you’ve been brilliant.’

Wresting the spoon back from Maisie, Annie’s eyes misted. A compliment from Emily was a precious thing.

‘Again, purely for the record,’ Emily continued, ‘Maisie’s got gunk all over her hair.’

A little later, a doused and spruced Maisie was settled into the playpen that now colonized a corner of the kitchen. Annie returned to the accounts. As feared, the replacement guttering at the front of the house had been eye-wateringly expensive. ‘You know,’ she said, crossing out ‘Hair’ on the to-do list, ‘I’ll probably have to give up going to Shandon’s and find a cheaper hairdresser.’

‘Piece of advice,’ said Emily. ‘Don’t.’

Startled, Annie looked up, encountered her daughter’s eye, which contained a tart admonition, and burst out laughing.

‘False economy. Giving up the good haircut is in the same category as buying cheap pesto. We’ve talked about it.’

‘We did,’ Annie conceded, adding, ‘It’s so nice to have a daughter.’ Too late, she slid into the trap. ‘
Daughters
, I mean.’ She swept up the bills and stacked them in the folder. ‘Have you … have you by any chance …?’