Separate Beds (31 page)

From out of the window, she could see Tom wrestling with the machine. The interview with the headhunter had depressed him, and the last few days had seen him polite, but subdued. But if the marital atmospheric pressure was not exactly sunny, it was more or less calm.

Hermione emerged into the passage. ‘No one, then?’ She made a play of twisting her favourite and much worn Jaeger scarf around her neck and buttoned her jacket. Her
uncharacteristically wistful expression smote Annie as, of course, Hermione had calculated it would do.

‘Let me tie that scarf properly. You might lose it.’ Annie knew that Hermione didn’t like to be touched, but she tucked the scarf ends into the jacket. ‘You won’t be too warm in all this?’

‘I’ve been feeling a bit chilly lately, dear.’

Sub-text: the house was cold.

Downstairs, Tom lumbered into the hall. ‘I need some oil for the mower. See you later.’

‘Wait!’ cried Hermione, her face lighting up. ‘I’m coming with you.’

Thankfully, Annie returned to her task.

She could never accuse her mother-in-law of being
that
difficult. Hermione kept herself to herself in the mornings and watched a tactful amount of television (still the only set functioning in the house) in her room after supper. Yet her shadow fell across them. It was akin to peering over a neighbour’s fence with a telescope and spying on private routines and habits. ‘She drinks coffee for breakfast and a cup of tea at half past eleven, regular as clockwork,’ she told Sadie. ‘She won’t have anything else but sixty-denier tights in a ghastly tan colour, uses talcum powder and insists on a night light.’

‘At least she doesn’t have a drug habit,’ said Sadie. ‘When my friend Laura Desmond sent her son over from Boston she forgot to mention he was half crazed by skunk. He smashed a few glasses, I can tell you. And I won’t go into the state of the bedroom.’

Information, however mundane, about people you didn’t love could often be distasteful, even repugnant. So were
their things. With people whom you loved, everything was precious, even a dirty sock. Annie paused in the act of folding the trouser-suit jacket. She would give almost anything to know if Mia still wore a vest, if her shoes fitted properly and whether or not she still suffered from the occasional chilblain.

‘Oh, Mum, you’re so nosy,’ Mia had often said. But what was wrong with wanting to know even the tiny details? Surely you couldn’t give up on your blood and bone just because they had inconveniently grown up. Or even if they swore they wanted nothing more to do with you.

A scorched-soup smell drifted upstairs. Annie arranged the final layer of tissue, shut the suitcase and descended into the kitchen.

Emily was scrubbing a pan. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of this damn cooker.’ She ran clean water into the sink. ‘Don’t think it likes me.’

‘Well, you’d better be nice to it.’ She searched in her bag for the latest invoices and sorted them before pinning them up on the noticeboard. From his pole position, Leonardo’s angel watched her from under heavy lids with the tender, steady grace she coveted for herself. Absorbed in her task, she did not register the doorbell.

Emily abandoned the saucepan. ‘I’ll go.’

‘My God.’ She heard Emily’s angry exclamation and rose to her feet.

Emily edged into the kitchen. ‘Look who’s turned up, Mum.’

‘Yes, look who’s turned up,’ echoed a familiar voice.

Jocasta. Whippet thin, armed with bronzed confidence, a laptop, from which dangled an American Airlines label,
plus a designer bag weighed down with chains and locks. Judging her entrance precisely, she remained framed in the doorway, importing into the quiet kitchen a flavour of the Big Apple’s optimism, its heat and traffic.

(‘Didn’t you beg her to stay for Maisie’s sake?’ Annie had asked Jake, and was silenced by the finality of the answer: ‘She doesn’t want either of us.’)

Annie slumped back against the dresser, which rattled the precious blue-and-whites. ‘Oh, no.’

On the surface, Jocasta was calm, even amused, at the effect of her arrival. ‘Are you going to ask me what I’m doing here?’

Emily cut across her: ‘Do you want some tea?’

Jocasta glanced at her watch. ‘Coffee. Got used to drinking it a lot more, you know.’ She glanced around. ‘Is Jake here?’

Annie shook her head. ‘You should have rung.’

‘Perhaps.’ Jocasta helped herself to a chair and accepted the mug of coffee Emily stuck in front of her. ‘It would have made things complicated. I was over and I thought I should see Maisie.’

Annie sprang to the championship of her grand daughter. ‘You
thought
you should see Maisie?’

‘No need to be angry, Annie.’ Jocasta examined the coffee before hazarding a mouthful. ‘Just my way of putting it.’

‘Shouldn’t you be coming over
expressly
to see your daughter?’

Jocasta looked enigmatic. She gazed down at the mug. ‘Actually, that’s what I meant.’

The back of Annie’s neck prickled. Jocasta never, as far as she knew, did anything without an intention. However,
Jake would not forgive her if she antagonized Jocasta and she moderated her tone. ‘Of course you’ve come to see Maisie.’

‘Nice cooker.’ Jocasta gestured towards it. ‘Credit crunch isn’t having too bad an effect, then?’

Emily grabbed a chair. ‘You have a nerve, Jocasta, coming back with no warning. Do you know what you’ve done to Jake?’

‘Of course I do.’ Jocasta retained her customary cool. ‘But you might spare a thought for my side of the argument.’

Annie stiffened.

Jocasta examined the residue of coffee in the mug. ‘I was unwise and unfair but I’m fully aware of it. So was Jake … but he doesn’t own to it.’

‘Stop there,’ said Annie. ‘OK?’

A trace of coffee winked at the corner of the red mouth and Jocasta wiped it off, smearing her chin with red.

‘Your lipstick’s smudged,’ Emily pointed out, with obvious satisfaction. ‘And on your teeth.’

Jocasta dabbed it away and winched her professional smile back into place. She picked up the mug. She put it down again. She paused. Then she spoke: ‘I’ve come for Maisie.’

It was Emily who cottoned on first what Jocasta was really about and got in, way before Annie: ‘But you didn’t want her. You left her with Jake.’

‘You may be surprised … but I’ve changed my mind, and Noah has agreed. I found … I
find
that I miss her. I never thought I would … but things have a way of surprising one. We’re all set up. Big house in upstate New York. Good jobs.’ Jocasta looked directly at Annie – and Annie
caught a hint of the confusions that lay behind the glossy patina. ‘After all, I am her mother.’

Annie searched her memory for similar eventualities that she might have come across and found nothing remotely approaching this situation. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘Not sure that I’m her mother?’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Annie. ‘Don’t play games.’

‘Careful, Annie.’ Jocasta bent down and searched in her bag, and Annie seized the opportunity to mouth at Emily.
Go phone Jake
. Emily leaped to her feet and disappeared upstairs.

Jocasta produced a sheaf of documents. ‘There’s quite a bit to straighten out. Obviously, there’s the divorce and the house …’

‘I thought you were going to hand that over to Jake?’

‘Here’s the thing,’ said Jocasta. ‘My lawyer has advised me that I was far too upset at the time to think straight. I agree with him. So, I intend to pay off the tenants and repossess the house, and we can go from there. Meanwhile, I’m applying for Leave to Remove Maisie.’

‘You can’t do that,’ said Annie.

When Jake had first produced Jocasta with a proud flourish, Annie had understood exactly what he saw in her: beauty, the astute practical operator, the alpha-ness, and she had told herself that Jake had been clever in choosing a partner whose qualities complemented his very different ones.

The front door opened and shut, and Jake called out, ‘Anyone in?’

Emily leaned over the banisters. ‘Jake, I’ve been trying to call you.’ She clattered downstairs but not quickly enough.

Seconds later, he walked into the kitchen, accompanied by a tall, curvy girl in a full skirt and impractical satin ballet shoes carrying Maisie. ‘Mum, this is Ruth.’ Then he saw Jocasta. ‘What on earth …?’

This should only happen in films, thought Annie, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Normal, run-of-the-mill families are jogging along in the boondocks, or at least getting by, until, without warning, Jack Nicholson or Angelina Jolie arrives and a landmine is detonated.

‘Hallo, Jake.’ Jocasta kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. I’ve come straight from the airport.’

Jake submitted to the kiss but his fists clenched, and he did not reciprocate.

Ruth shifted Maisie to the other hip. ‘Jake,’ she said. ‘I think …’

The baby in her arms twisted round towards its mother, observed her gravely, but did not react in any way.

‘She doesn’t recognize me.’ Jocasta stated the obvious. ‘But that’s not so surprising.’

‘Are you her mother?’ asked Ruth.

‘I am. I’d like to take her, please.’

Ruth glanced at Jake. Jocasta frowned. ‘I
am
her mother.’ She stepped forward, and detached Maisie from Ruth. ‘Hallo, honey. It’s Mummy.’

Annie winced at ‘honey’.

Little Maisie searched her mother’s face and Annie found herself holding her breath. What did she see? The one for whom, in her baby way, she longed? But Maisie was thrown. Her bottom lip wobbled, her eyes did the welling-fountain trick and she reared back. A clearly disconcerted Jocasta
kissed the top of her head and said, ‘Never mind, she’ll get used to me again.’

Ruth touched Jake’s arm. ‘Another time,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll go now.’

Victim transfixed by the executioner or, reflected Annie grimly, a man still in love, Jake did not take his eyes off his wife. ‘I’ll phone you, Ruth.’

Maisie began to sob in earnest. Ruth swivelled on her ballet-pumped feet and her skirt swayed like a bell. She held out a hand to Annie. ‘Mrs Nicholson.’

‘Ruth.’ Annie stepped into the breach and ushered her out of the front door, following her on to the step. ‘I’m sorry about this.’

In the daylight, the colours Ruth wore were almost dazzling. She smiled gravely at Annie. ‘That’s all right.’

‘I hope another time I get to meet you properly.’

Ruth said quickly, ‘So do I … You have … you seem such a lovely family.’

To which Annie had no reply and retreated indoors with a heightened pulse.

Back in the kitchen, Maisie was wailing and Jake demanded of Jocasta in an unfamiliar authoritarian voice, ‘Give Maisie to me.’ A nonplussed Jocasta obeyed. Maisie buried her face in Jake’s neck, and he soothed and cosseted her until she quietened.

Jocasta said, ‘You’ve certainly got the hang of it.’

‘I don’t imagine that you’ve come all this way to praise my parenting skills.’

‘Jake, I can’t disappear totally out of your life. But you’re right. I want to talk to you about Maisie.’

Emily slid over to Jake, flanking him like the loyal foot
soldier she was. ‘Let me take her. I think it would be best.’

‘Thanks, Em.’

‘The thing is,’ Jocasta positioned the coffee mug on the table, ‘I miss her. I didn’t think I would, but I do.’ Her eyes rested on her daughter. ‘You haven’t got any work at the moment, right?’

‘I’m mending and making-do,’ said Jake. ‘It’s work.’

Jocasta frowned. Maisie slotted on her hip, Emily rocked back and forth. Annie looked from Jake to Jocasta and her knees felt peculiar with fright. ‘Jake, why don’t you take Jocasta into the sitting room and you can talk in there?’

The door shut behind them. Annie and Emily exchanged glances and Annie sat down with a thump at the table.

A murmur of raised voices issued from behind the sitting-room door, mostly Jocasta’s …
big house … Noah willing … best for baby
.

Annie said, without much conviction, ‘We mustn’t listen.’

Emily caressed Maisie’s hair and observed her mother. ‘She doesn’t really mean it.’

‘She does.’

Emily’s pretty mouth set in a hard line. ‘Look. She does. Here.’ She posted Maisie on to Annie’s knee. ‘I’ll do the washing-up.’

For what appeared an unconscionable time, the sounds of swishing water and clattering cutlery were all that could be heard in the kitchen.

Behind the closed door, the voices rose harshly and fell.

‘Who’s the girl?’ asked Emily.

‘I don’t know. He hasn’t mentioned her.’ Annie had forgotten about Ruth.

Eventually the door snapped open and Jocasta’s voice
floated across the passage. ‘I can provide her with a better life.’

When they emerged from the sitting room, Annie perceived with a shock that the old sweet Jake had been replaced by a grim, white-lipped stranger she barely recognized. ‘If you imagine that by dropping in on the off -chance everything will be sorted, then …’ He checked himself, and Annie applauded the last-ditch prudence. ‘If you want to discuss things, arrange a meeting. I should warn you, I’m not going to let Maisie go.’

‘Goodness,’ Jocasta murmured, almost with approval. ‘I’ve never seen you so masterful.’

Emily made to intervene but Annie shook her head.
No
.

‘Right now,’ continued Jake, ‘Maisie needs her lunch. I suggest you go, and contact me later.’

The front door opened and banged shut. ‘Let me, Hermione.’ Tom sounded exasperated.

‘You mustn’t be cross with me,’ countered Hermione. ‘What was I to do?’

A dog’s bark cut through this exchange.

‘Am I hearing things?’ Emily whirled round and Maisie cried out with excitement.

Annie shot into the hall. ‘What on earth …?’

A can of oil had been dumped on the hall table. Tom was on the front step, kicking mud from his shoes. Inside, Hermione was struggling to divest herself of her jacket. The helmet hairdo had been severely ruffled and she was minus the treasured Jaeger scarf. This was because, as Annie saw with incipient hysteria, it had been deployed to tether a small, unkempt dog of uncertain lineage.