The Sisterhood (22 page)

I shrugged, and capitulated. Being looked after was an unusual and comforting experience.

Strangely, I managed to relax for the first time in months. I pretended the sauce was homemade, even though I'd bought it in a little plastic tub from Waitrose and added cream for authenticity. I was not sure why I was lying about it, but everyone said it was delicious, and that made me feel good. I knew I was pathetic, and I knew I ought to start to cook properly, but I could never be bothered. I should have been shopping at Lidl, not Waitrose. My finances had the illusion of being shaky but fine, but I was like a cartoon character who has run off the edge of a cliff. Everything was about to crash to earth.

I drank two pints of water in quick succession, while Dad and Sue had wine and Julie finished the lemonade. The kitchen smelt of Sue's candle, and pasta, tomatoes and melted cheese. Slowly, I relaxed. It was good to have company. I realised that these people, who all shared a home with each other, had no idea what loneliness was like. They had known it, but they didn't any more. They ate together every day. Steve and I had done that, and now I fended for myself, and so, possibly, did he.

I still thought about him all the time. That was my guilty, pathetic secret. I was carrying a transsexual's baby, and pining covertly for my gay ex-boyfriend. I thought I would concentrate on Julie and try to forget about all that.

'Are you going back to work?' I asked. I realised I knew nothing about her.
'Do
you work?' I added, trying hard to remember whether she had ever talked about a job.

'Yeah, I work for a couple of hotels in Brighton,' she said, 'but it's only casual. You know I'm an accountant?' I nodded, although I didn't. 'Well, I do their books. But I'm self-employed so I get no maternity leave and certainly no one's going to be paying me for not working. I haven't really got my act together to work properly. I've just been doing what I've had to to get enough money for the two of us to get by.'

I looked warily at Sue, who was pathologically averse to any perceived criticism of her only-born.

'Is Roberto working?' I asked, quietly and innocently. I saw Sue look at me, and quickly look away again. She had not forgiven me for being rude, and now she was watching me hawkishly.

'Yes,' said Julie, and I thought she was wary too. 'He's got some shifts at the local retail emporium.'

Sue butted in. 'We can't all be teachers and accountants,' she said, in a gentle manner that belied the underlying ferociousness. 'So yes, for the moment, Roberto's helping out at Sainsbury's. It's just as a stopgap, just until he gets himself straightened out. He's doing it to make sure he's supporting his son.'

'Good for him,' I said, as casually as I could. I hoped I didn't sound sarcastic.

Soon afterwards, I addressed Julie across the table.

'Can you come upstairs for a moment?' I asked. 'I need a second opinion on the spare room walls.'

'The walls?' She heaved herself up. I looked at her trousers, which were surprisingly nice.

'Are those maternity jeans?' I asked. 'Where are they from? I've looked everywhere for good ones.'

'They're bollocks,' she said. 'They look OK, but they cut into my crotch like you wouldn't bloody believe.'

As soon as we were out of earshot, I turned to her.

'How are you getting on with Sue?' I demanded. 'Living with her! It must be hard when you're carrying her grandson.'

Julie looked miserable. I was beginning to see why this was her default expression.

'Tell me about it,' she said, in a dull voice. 'Nobody could ever be good enough for Bobby, you know that. Least of all me. And I know that once the baby comes, no one but Sue will know how to look after him. I feel like an incubator on legs. Like when he's born I'll be expected to hand him over and crawl off into a corner until next time, because my work will be done.'

'Aren't you guys going to get your own place?'

We arrived in the spare room doorway. 'Oh, look,' she said. 'This is purple. It makes me feel quite at home, living at Sue's. The House of Purple, I call it. If we got our own place I'd do it beige throughout. I see purple when I shut my eyes at night these days. Purple with silver stars.'

'I think I'm painting this one cream. For the baby.'

'Don't you want to know the sex? Then you could do it blue or pink.'

'I don't think I'm ready for that. If I knew the sex it would mean I had a son or a daughter tucked away in there. For the moment I'd just rather call it "the baby".'

'Fair enough.' Julie seemed to take a deep breath. 'Look, I'd love us to move out. Obviously.' She paused for a moment, close to tears. 'It goes without saying that there's nothing I would like more than that. I hate being the spare part, and I don't think they realise half the time that I'm even there. No one cares what I think. Well, your dad's great, but Sue rules the roost. Anyway, Bobby says no to moving out. He says we can't afford to, but it's not actually that. I can easily earn enough money to pay the rent on some little flat in Haywards Heath. He could stay home with the baby. Or Sue could help out. But Bobby doesn't want to do that.' She looked at me, and smiled a tense smile. 'Can you believe that? My boyfriend has no interest in cutting the apron strings. He prefers his mother to me.'

'But you moved to Milan together last year.'

'Mmm, and his dad was an arse. But honestly, I think he missed his mum. I think that's one of the many reasons why we didn't stick it out. Milan was amazing, but we were so far out of our depth. We didn't speak Italian. Bobby's dad wanted the two of them to be off chasing beautiful girls together. We were never going to stick it out.'

I thought about this. 'Sue and Dad's is just a little terraced house. Surely Roberto can see that you need more room?'

'No,' she said in her deadpan way. 'Apparently it's fine. Three bedrooms: one for them, one for us, and a room for the baby — what could be better? So, this one'll be a good room for the baby, won't it? When it's cream.'

I decided to try out my latest idea. 'I might get a lodger,' I told her.

Three rooms opened off the tiny landing: my bedroom, the little bathroom, and the spare room.

'It would have to be a lodger you know pretty well,' said Julie. 'I mean, you'll be living on top of each other.'

'I'm desperate for cash.'

'Be careful.'

'I know.' I sat down on the spare bed, and turned to her. 'I can't really think how I can possibly find a lodger who's guaranteed to be sane and easy to live with and non-psychotic. I'm telling myself that most people are relatively normal, and I'm going to advertise it and hope for the best.' For a moment, it seemed funny that we were here, in a small room, with our swollen bellies. And as for you,' I told her. 'You are going to need to force a move, you know? Because otherwise, Julie, I promise that you will be living with your mother-in-law for ever. Sue would never turn Roberto out, and Dad wouldn't make her. The only person who's going to make anything change is you. So you have to.'

'But how?' She walked over to the window and looked down at the street. 'I wish I was like you,' she said quickly. 'I wish I was brave enough to think about striking out on my own. I used to be. I never used to care about the consequences, not about what anyone thought. But I'm not brave any more. I know I can be blunt, but that's just an act. Roberto's a bit of a shield between me and the world.'

I walked over to her. She was biting her lip and staring out of the window. Again, I thought I saw movement outside.

'Was there someone out there?' I asked her.

'Yeah, there's a woman. She's gone now.'

'You said you were still married,' I remembered. 'Is it to do with that?'

Julie sighed. 'Yes, I'm married. Sue absolutely hates it, but I mention it from time to time just for the hell of it. I don't think Bobby's bothered. He understands.'

'Understands what?'

She pushed out her lower lip and blew upwards. A lock of hair flew up, then settled haphazardly on her face.

'Terry,' she said quietly. 'Even saying his name feels a bit disloyal.' She shrugged, and looked towards the open door. I closed it. 'We were very young when we met. Eighteen. That was thirteen years ago. He was the big, muscular guy in the corner of the nightclub. The one everyone wanted for the slow dance. I, believe it or not, was the most exciting girl in Leatherhead. There's an epitaph for you. The rest was history.'

'Until?'

'Well, we got married pretty quick because we were so grown up and mature,' she said drily. 'Terry was in the army Still is. For about three years I was excited about being a forces wife. You have to understand that my friends were doing hairdressing courses or buggering about with McJobs, for the most part. So I was the winner, fair and square, when I snagged my sexy soldier and got to invite everyone to the wedding. We moved around a few bases. I hung out with the other wives a bit. It was dull as all holy shit. Terry got posted to Northern Ireland and I decided I'd had enough.'

'So you dumped him?'

'From a safe distance. Brave.'

'But you never got a divorce?'

She sighed. 'That's right. Terry, it turned out, has some issues. He's in Iraq right now. He's volatile. I worry about him. I'm not supposed to think about him because I'm with Roberto now and I'm pregnant.'

'And Terry knows that?'

She winced. 'Mmm. Not so much. He knows I'm with Roberto. I haven't told him about the baby. When I say I'm worried about him, I'm afraid that he'll lose the plot. Not that he'll go on a rampage, but that he'll do something to himself.'

'But you're going to tell him at some point.'

'You'd think so, wouldn't you?'

I was amazed, and intrigued, to discover that Julie's life was as messy as mine. Apart from anything else, until two hours earlier, if I had considered her at all, it would have been as the most boring person I knew.

'You're going to get a divorce?'

She sounded firm on this. 'Yes, but not until he's back from Iraq. It took ages for us to split up when he was in Ireland, because he thought I was being mean to keep him on his toes. I tried to convince him that I wanted out, but he'd wear me down and we'd suddenly be "trying again". We were on again, we were off again, he hated me for abandoning him when he needed support, and accused me of having no idea what he was going through out there. Which was true, but I did have enough of an idea not to want a piece of it. Lots of letters. I loved him, I didn't love him. He was all I'd ever known. In a way it was all quite exciting. Dramatic.'

'And?'

'In the end we agreed it was doing neither of us any good, so we decided to take a break. That was five years ago. We're hardly ever in touch and as far as I'm concerned the marriage is just a piece of paper I haven't managed to tear up yet. He doesn't want a divorce while he's out there living in hell, and I can't argue with that.'

'So how did Roberto come on to the scene?'

She smiled. 'I was at my lowest ebb, and there he was. A man with no career ambitions, a man who was never going to take me further afield than his dad's apartment in Milan. I didn't have the strength for any more fighting, and I didn't want to have to agonise any more. Roberto was never going to go to war. So, Roberto it was.'

I wasn't sure whether I was meant to ask, but I did anyway. 'Do you love him?'

She looked at the door warily.

'Yes, I do. When I met him, I was bowled over by how gentle he was with me. We would just hang out, talk, go to the cinema. It was exactly what I needed. There were no dramatics. And where we are at the moment, it's just a blip. I know I'm going to have to get us out of it, because there's no way I'm going through a nasty split again, and particularly not with a baby involved. So I'm going to stick it out with him, no matter what. I've made my own bed, I suppose.'

'And do you still love Terry?'

Julie smiled wanly. 'That's not something I can ever allow myself to think about.'

We looked at each other and laughed. 'Don't you wish you could get drunk sometimes?' I asked her. 'Wouldn't it be great if we could sneak off together to a bar and spend the rest of the afternoon getting off our faces, to make it all go away for a little while?'

'I bloody wish that all the sodding time,' Julie replied, fervently. 'And I spend a lot of time wondering what in Christ's name I'm doing bringing a baby into this world anyway.'

The spring was warmer than usual, and when we went out after lunch, it was actively pleasant to be walking around the streets of north London. I loved it when it was like this. The trees were in the process of unfurling their leaves. The paving stones seemed wide and clean. The people we passed did not look as if they were mired in unbearable misery. We strolled from middle-class suburbia to gritty urban landscapes that alarmed Sue (though she made a point of not showing it), and back again. I signalled to Julie to occupy Dad, and hung back next to the window of a New Age shop that had recently opened. This was in a row of shops that was in the process of being nicely gentrified. The random, scruffy places that had been there four years ago — pound shop, betting shop, dodgy burger bar — had been replaced by a dippy greetings card shop, an interior design consultancy, and this, the incense-scented horoscope emporium.

'Those candles look nice,' I told Sue. 'Look, they're zodiac ones.'

'Oh, yes,' she said, immediately interested. 'Look at them. We should pick a couple up for the babies. So nice that they'll both be Leo, if they arrive on time. Nice strong fire sign. Very loyal. Do you remember when you were young, I bought you your star chart? You were furious because you didn't want to be Cancer. You thought I'd done it to upset you, and under the circumstances, of course ... It was stupid of me. I didn't think. But no one could complain about being Leo. In fact, have you thought about it as a boy's name? Or perhaps Leonora, for a girl?'

'Not really. We will talk about names, I promise, but not yet. I haven't given them a moment's thought.' Dad and Julie were well ahead of us, so I started walking again. 'Look, Sue,' I said. 'I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I actually like Julie a lot, and I never realised that before, so thanks for bringing her.'