Stop the Clock (21 page)

It was an encounter she had not looked to have, and she passed through it without expectations, and while she knew it was not safe? you felt safe in a place where it was possible to remain, and she knew she could not
stay at Adele’s for long? at the time it did not seem dangerous, either.

It was only as she waited for the taxi that Adele had called for her that she remembered what her mother had said:
Happiness isn’t everything. Happiness doesn’t mean you’re immune to regret
.

After the ride through the night, she let herself back into the dark house and crept upstairs, past the spare room where her parents were, got into her nightie, pulled Matilda’s covers back up, and laid down next to Richard, who stirred and went on sleeping. He would go back to the guest bed the next night, after her parents had gone, and she knew this would be a relief to both of them.

She fell asleep without difficulty. When she came to it was morning, and Richard wasn’t there. She immediately remembered that she had done something she ought not to have done, and could not undo.

Matilda was pressing a button on her cot toy that made a wheel spin round, and chattering to herself. Natalie reached down to lift her up and held her close, and breathed in her smell as the baby melted into place, head against chest, knees and feet tucked up, her bottom snug in the crook of Natalie’s arm.

There was something matchlessly consoling about the way her baby’s skin felt pressed next to hers. In its way, it was completely satisfying.

Days passed, and she resumed the gentle, humdrum routine that she had established to keep herself busy and Matilda entertained: Tumble Tots, baby music and
other excuses for getting out of the house alternating with cleaning, food shopping and the making and clearing of meals.

She couldn’t tell Richard. She had confessed to him once before, and it had finished them, and they had only got back together because she had assured him it was a completely isolated incident, a folly; that she had needed to get something out of her system, and now it was gone. Why should he believe that a second time? Could she even believe it? She didn’t know, but one thing was for sure: she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it.

Yes, Adele had been a mistake, another mistake, never to be repeated. Clearly, she could not see Adele in that way again . . . and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to meet her in the cold light of day and act as if nothing had happened. She’d left a cardigan in Adele’s flat – had completely forgotten it when her taxi showed up – which could have provided a reason to get in touch; but no, better to leave well enough alone.

She was invited for coffee at the Thameside penthouse owned by Zeb and Soraya Mitchell, the trendy designers from the antenatal group. Her heartbeat went rather wild on the way over, but when she got there Soraya showed her into an open-plan living room that did not have Adele in it, and it transpired that Jessie was the only other member of the group who was free to come.

Natalie felt something very close to disappointment, but distracted herself by admiring the cream and orange colour scheme and the kitsch 1960s lamps and the view of the river. Soraya did mention Adele later on, but only
to comment that she was very hard to get hold of, and Natalie told herself that this was just as well.

As the nights drew in and the leaves changed and began to fall, that summer night’s adventure with Adele began to seem quite unreal and dreamlike. But then, when she’d finally more or less come to the conclusion that she was never going to see Adele again, Adele sent her an email.

Hi! How’s it going? I’ve been settling Paris in at
nursery. It’s dreadful! Today he screamed the place
down the minute we got in the door. Back to work next
week, so I’m just having to harden my heart and tell
myself this is how it has to be. Will be in touch soon.
Maybe we could catch up over coffee sometime. Hope
all well with you xx.

Natalie forced herself to wait a day or two before sending a brief, formal reply:
We’re all fine, thank you. Good luck with the return to work.
She allowed herself to sign off with a single kiss.

As she had half expected, there was no reply.

She rang Lucy up, and they chatted for a while about Tina: the public revelation of her pregnancy; how gutsy she was and how well she seemed; how tough it was going to be having a baby on her own. Lucy said, ‘In a way, maybe it’ll be more straightforward. She can just worry about the baby; she won’t have to keep a man happy as well.’

Was it Natalie’s fault if Richard was unhappy? She had assumed that his discontent was mainly to do
with his failure to progress as fast as he would have liked in his career. A couple of cases had not gone well; contemporaries were doing better. It occurred to Natalie that besides Matilda, and their middle-of-the-road, small-c-conservative, keenly aspirational parents, the most important attribute she and Richard had in common was frustration.

There was so little intimacy between them, physical or otherwise: that must be getting him down too, even if he hadn’t said anything. And he wouldn’t say anything, because if there was one thing Richard would avoid at all costs, it was being drawn into an analysis of their moribund sex life.

Natalie made a determined effort to be a better wife. She prepared fiddly meals (none of which quite came off), she enthused about weekend trips to petting zoos and soft play centres, she even watched some of Richard’s
The World at War
DVD with him, and rested a hand on his knee; but he told her warningly that he was feeling tired, and she took it away again.

She realized that these token attempts to foster togetherness would not be enough to break their drought, and that perhaps their only hope of becoming close again was for her to be honest; but she could not bring herself to risk it.

Richard was, as he kept reminding her, tremendously busy, but still, as 5 November drew closer, she extracted a promise from him that he would make it home in time to join her and Matilda at the Clapham Common fireworks display. She had always thought of Bonfire Night as belonging to them; it was the anniversary
of the moment, back in Cardiff, 1995, when, under cover of darkness, watching bright flowers and sizzling spirals and shooting stars form and fade in the black sky, they had brushed against each other, and Richard had reached out to squeeze her fingers. First contact: to be followed some hours later by their first kiss, a tentative, beer-enabled articulation of lips and tongues and teeth outside the Plasnewydd Arms.

It would be good, Natalie thought, to reaffirm that moment of connection, to wrap up warm against the cold and huddle together and acknowledge the fireworks’ spectacular but ephemeral protest against the onset of winter. This time they would have Matilda with them, too; the living legacy of that long-ago moment when Richard had taken her gloveless hand in his to warm it.

But it was not to be. That morning Richard called her from the office and told her that something urgent had come up; he would have to work. Yes, she said, of course she understood; that was absolutely fine.

Later that afternoon, while Matilda was napping, the phone rang and she grabbed it in a sudden flurry of hope – maybe he had changed his mind, was going to come after all.

‘Hello, you,’ said an assertive female voice, and she realized it was Adele. ‘I have your cardigan. Black, with sequins. You left it at mine after our illicit evening. Did you not miss it?’

Natalie hesitated. ‘I guess not,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, I hardly ever wear it.’

‘You should, it suits you,’ Adele said. ‘A bit of sparkle.
When are you free? It’s high time I gave it back to you.’

Natalie told herself there was no danger; nothing was going to happen. Adele obviously just wanted to ensure that they left things on an amicable footing; otherwise she would not have waited so long to get in touch.

‘I’m around most days,’ she managed to say. ‘When’s good for you?’

‘No time like the present. How about tonight?’

They agreed to meet near Clapham Common, set a time and a place, and said goodbye.

Natalie told herself this wasn’t some kind of amoral rendezvous, it was a cardigan exchange, a chance to restore normality; all perfectly above board. She’d pitch up to meet Adele, and afterwards she would go straight home – there was no point watching fireworks on her own, and if Adele was going and suggested Natalie join her, she would just say no. She’d keep it short and sweet, and then she’d bury the bloody cardigan in the back of the wardrobe and put it all behind her.

At half past six that evening Natalie bundled Matilda into her all-in-one snowsuit and put her in the pushchair. She locked up, and then they were off, abandoning the empty house and trundling through the dark cold streets to the prearranged meeting point: Café Canute, just off Clapham Park Road. It was a small place, painted an electric shade of blue, in which, from lunchtime onwards, local mothers were often to be found, either keeping themselves awake with coffee, or sedating themselves with large glasses of wine.

She arrived first. Matilda had dozed off, so Natalie
decided to distract herself with the café copy of the
Post
, and flicked through in search of Tina’s column.

Natalie told herself she wasn’t being self-indulgent or backstabbing – not this time. Maybe she and Adele would end up becoming friends . . . just as she and Tina had. After all, it would be fair to say that when she’d first met Tina she’d been – not attracted, obviously, that was much too strong a word –
impressed
. Those legs! They were definitely coltish, whereas Natalie’s were made for plodding along, like a dumpy little pony. And that swishy long blonde hair! The milky, lightly freckled skin,
and those quick greeny-grey eyes! The astonishing lack of shame with which Tina, in the journalism institute canteen, had held forth about the crushes she’d had on other girls at her rather intense-sounding school! But . . . no. It was obvious that those teenage attachments had been no more than a temporary diversion, and that, if Natalie were to develop similar feelings for her, she would not reciprocate.

With Tina, Natalie knew – had known, really, right from the start – that their connection was a friendship, not a romance, and that this definition meant there were certain boundaries and, ultimately, the boundaries would prevail. But ever since she had stripped off for that drawing – which was still tucked away in the depths of the wardrobe – she had been aware that Adele wasn’t much of a respecter of boundaries . . . yet it was also true that Adele had been the one who had called Natalie a taxi and sent her home. What had happened would never had happened if Adele hadn’t instigated it; it had only been possible because Adele was calling the shots.

Before Adele, before the girl in New Zealand, before Richard, there had been other chances: the woman she’d got talking to about
Possession
and other favourite novels in a bookstore café; the friend of a friend she’d met at Reading Festival, who ran a crystal healing stall in Camden . . . Both times, and on other occasions too, she’d felt the same sudden pull of implied potential.

But if she had been bolder, if she had explored these tantalizing but alarming connections, she would never have had Matilda. And she had needed to have Matilda,
for reasons that were not really reasons, but were all the more powerful for being obscure; that were to do with wanting to make something of herself, but were also to do with believing she had something to give.

She went back to the
Post
and was part-way through an article about workplace romances gone wrong, by someone called Julia McMahon, when she looked up to see Adele at the entrance, pulling at the stiff door to open it wide enough to accommodate her three-wheeler. Natalie jumped up to help, but too late; Adele was already manoeuvring the pushchair into the space next to Natalie’s table. Her eyes were darting round the café as if she was looking for someone else, and she did not seem especially relieved or cheered to see Natalie; she looked flushed and flustered, far removed from the self-assured diva who had emerged from the evening of cocktails in @happyhour.

Paris, who was still awake, didn’t look especially happy either, and Natalie wondered how long it would be before he started crying.

‘Sorry I’m late. Paris seems a bit off colour, so I don’t think I’ll be able to stay long,’ Adele announced, pulling off her coat, which was fake fur (at least, Natalie assumed it wasn’t real), a slightly darker shade of blonde than her hair.

Underneath the fur, she was wearing a paint-splattered sweatshirt and jeans. Natalie remembered the large canvas propped up against the wall in Adele’s living room – she’d only paid attention to it once her taxi was on her way, and it was nearly time for her to leave.

The painting showed a life-size female form taking flight, with great wings rearing up and away, powerful as an angel’s, black as a crow’s. Underneath the woman stood a little girl in a pink nylon fairy outfit, watching her go.

Adele had been defensive about the painting. ‘It isn’t finished.’

‘Oh,’ Natalie had said, ‘but it looks as if it is.’