A Perfect Home (2 page)

‘These pictures are fab,' Sally enthused looking over Gareth's shoulder as he and Claire sat at the computer in Sally and Gareth's cramped, chaotic study. They tried to ignore the screeches and screams coming from the rest of the tiny terraced cottage as the children rampaged from room to room. ‘You should send them to a magazine and get some publicity for Emily Love.' Sally picked up a copy of
Idyllic Homes
from a jumbled pile of newspapers and catalogues in one corner. ‘I've been drooling over the things in this one.'

‘With a cup of coffee and a chocolate éclair no doubt,' muttered Gareth. ‘While I'm out slaving hard at work.'

‘You don't know what hard work is,' Sally scorned. ‘You try getting those two hooligan sons of yours out of the door to school every morning then you wouldn't be begrudging me a quick sit down with a magazine before I leave for the gallery.' She flicked through the pages of the magazine and showed Claire a glossy two-page spread.
Swish into Summer with Our Top Ten Designs for Curtain Poles!
read the heading.

‘You could try making the beds or washing up before you leave for work instead of fantasising about fancy curtain poles,' said Gareth.

‘You could try repairing
our
curtain pole in the living room and then I might not need to fantasise,' Sally countered.

‘I did repair it.'

‘With gaffer tape! It's hardly stylish is it?' Sally gave Gareth's long thin ponytail a tug, he yelped and gave her well-upholstered bottom a slap.

‘Stop this right now!' Claire put on her best stern mother voice and laughed. ‘No fighting. My mother-in-law always says it's vulgar to argue in front of others; she says you shouldn't display your dirty linen in public.'

‘There's plenty of dirty linen on display on our bedroom floor,' Sally said with a huff as she folded her arms across her generous cleavage.

‘Well, you could pick it up sometimes,' said Gareth.

‘I could if I had a linen basket that hadn't lost its bottom when your two sons tried to use it as a tardis.'

‘They're your sons too. I'll mend the laundry basket tonight.'

‘With what?'

‘With gaffer tape!'

‘I SAID STOP!' Claire had to shout above their raised voices but she was smiling, she was used to Sally and Gareth. One moment they'd be bickering like children and the next giggling together like love-struck teenagers.

Sally tossed her mane of long blonde hair and looked at Claire. ‘It's all right for you living with Mr Perfect, king of home improvements. You have your immaculate home to go back to when you leave here while I just have to live in this squalor all the time.'

‘I like your house,' said Claire. ‘It feels cosy. Sometimes I wish our house was a bit more like this.' She gestured at the disarray around her. ‘I think William gets fussier every day. I certainly don't dare leave my dirty linen lying around any more.'

‘Quit moaning,' said Sally. ‘You don't know how lucky you are.'

‘Talking of dirty linen, let's get back to your website, Claire.'

‘Don't be so cheeky, Gareth,' laughed Claire. ‘It's not dirty linen, it's vintage fabric.'

‘And it's uber fashionable at the moment,' added Sally. ‘That's why you should get it in a magazine.'

Fifteen minutes later they'd made up a press release, attached a selection of pictures, and pinged it off to
Idyllic
Homes
. Claire had practically forgotten all about it when Celia Howard, features editor for
Idyllic Homes
, phoned up two days later, saying her magazine adored the cushions (‘recycling fabric is so
in
right now') but they also loved the look of the house.

‘
Exquisite!
' Celia had gushed. ‘We'd love to do a feature on your gorgeous house and your lovely little rural craft business. Our readers just adore that sort of thing.'

William seemed quite pleased with the idea of showing off his home.

‘I'll have to finish grouting the tiles on the conservatory floor,' he had said. ‘And then I'll have to re-paint the hall. It's covered in mucky handprints. You've got to stop the children touching the walls, Claire.'

He was keen to be there on the day of the shoot, though Claire suspected that this was because he wanted to make sure the stylist didn't damage any paintwork or scratch the floors.

‘They're not going to bang nails into the beams are they?' he asked, as he touched up the paint on the banisters. He carefully dipped his brush in and out of a pot of Farrow & Ball Shaded White, dabbing at dots of missing paint. ‘There are enough holes and chips all over this house as it is.'

‘I can't see any holes or chips,' said Claire, trying to squeeze past him with a pile of ironing. ‘It looks fine to me.' She stroked his head affectionately as she passed; she liked the stubbly feel of his new hair cut. He pushed her hand away.

‘That's the trouble,' William answered. ‘You just don't notice the state this house is getting into.'

Claire bit her lip. She couldn't face an argument when she still had the tea to make and the children to bath. She continued up the stairs counting each tread as she did so. By the time she reached the top her threatened tears had passed.

At last the shock of Celia Howard's phone call began to lessen and Claire moved out from behind the sofa. She feared the raspberry stain was there for good and pushed the sofa back to hide it. As she did so she revealed something grey and lumpy which could only have been regurgitated by Macavity the cat. She didn't know how long it had been there; it was encrusted onto the floor and in between the boards. On closer inspection it looked as though it contained at least half of what had once been a bat. Claire shuddered. She'd deal with it later, she thought, and moved the sofa at an angle to cover it.

As she picked up the basket to wash the juice-splashed washing all over again, she thought about Celia's last words ‘
Stress-free life'
? She had no idea.

Claire looked at the large clock on the kitchen wall – half past nine. The fish pie looked sad and dry on top of the pale blue Aga.

Claire helped herself to a portion and ate it at the same time as writing a list of all the things she had to do before the magazine shoot. She contemplated having more wine but this would break her self-enforced rule of one glass a night. After a few minutes she poured an inch or two of Chardonnay into the large glass and mixed it with some soda water. Surely a spritzer didn't really count?

The table was half covered in fairy cakes. On reflection Claire thought it had probably been a mistake to throw the defrosted raspberries into the cake mixture, which made them look soggy and unappealingly pink.

The phone rang and Claire leapt up to answer it before it woke Ben. She knew it would be her mother, Elizabeth.

‘I'm not disturbing you, am I? You sound like you're eating.'

‘No, it's all right, Mum,' Claire said, trying not to sigh.

‘William not home yet, then?'

‘I'm sure he's on his way. Actually I'm in a bit of a rush; the house is being photographed –'

‘He's just like your father used to be …'

Claire wished she'd just pretended William was there.

‘… Coming in whenever it suited him, no thought to me waiting for him after a hard day at work and looking after you. In the seventies we thought the next generation would be better, but they're all the same. Men! Better off without them, if you ask me. Honestly, Claire, I don't know why you don't put your foot down. You've got to stand up to him. That's what I used to do.'

Claire could remember lying in bed with her hands over her ears, trying not to hear her parents shouting downstairs.

‘Of course your father was usually with another woman,' her mother continued. ‘I always suspected that. I knew deep down but always forgave him. And look what he did in the end. Look where I ended up: dumped in a bedsit while he gallivanted off to California with his teenage bride.'

Claire didn't dare remind her that the woman her father had finally left her for was nearly thirty. ‘It's a twobedroomed flat, Mum, not a bedsit. And it's been twenty-six years since he left. You could have moved house. You could have found someone else.'

‘And let someone do it to me all over again? No thank you, I'm not that stupid.' Claire closed her eyes. She was used to this. She'd listened to her mother's tirades since she was ten years old and her assault on marriage hadn't lessened when Claire became a bride herself.

Elizabeth had been baffled by her daughter's wish to get married, especially to an accountant. Since Claire's father had left, she'd brought her daughter up to believe that marriage was a pointless institution that could only fail.

Claire had been determined to prove her wrong. Her marriage, unlike her parents', would work. Happily ever after, just like in the fairy tales.

‘I'll see you at the school fête tomorrow,' said Elizabeth.

‘You don't need to come, Mum. William has promised to take the afternoon off to look after the children while I'm on my stall.'

‘And you believe him?'

‘Mum! I'm sure he'll try his best to be there.'

‘Well, I'm coming anyway, Claire. I'm longing to see all your things displayed on your stall. This will be a big day for you, the first time you've shown your work in public.'

‘It's a primary school summer fair, Mum, not a major exhibition at the V&A.'

‘It's important; three years at art college shouldn't be wasted on just being a housewife.'

‘Yes, Mum,' said Claire, and she added
polish banisters
to her list.

‘Nightmare evening,' William said, suddenly seeming to fill the kitchen. ‘The train was late, then I went to get the wood for the living room shelves but they didn't have the right thickness. Can you believe it? It's a standard measurement. So I had to go miles out of my way to bloody B&Q.' He handed a bunch of yellow carnations to Claire and pulled loose his tie.

‘I'd better go, Mum, William's home.' Claire put down the phone and smiled up at her husband, wondering how she could incorporate the carnations into the Christmas decor. ‘Thank you for the flowers. Glass of wine?'

William was already opening a bottle of red, twisting the corkscrew down hard, before pulling out the cork with a muffled pop. He poured himself a large glass.

‘Let me guess,' he said nodding towards the phone. ‘Your mother – as usual.'

‘She's lonely, especially since she retired from teaching.'

‘I'm not surprised she's lonely.' He sniffed at the fish pie. ‘Who'd want to be with someone so miserable?'

‘Please don't be cruel, William,' she said, pouring water into a glass vase. ‘She hasn't had it easy. It's not like it is for your parents. They've have been lucky. They have each other and a lovely home and lots of things to keep them busy.'

‘That's right; you wouldn't find my mother moping about finding fault with her life.'

Claire held back the desire to say she was too busy finding fault with everybody else's.

‘Fish pie?' she asked, putting on her brightest smile.

‘I'll have it later. What are these?' He picked up a fairy cake.

‘Raspberry buns. Do you want one?'

He shook his head. ‘I'm going to put the new shelves up.'

‘It's nearly ten o'clock. Isn't it a bit late? You might wake the children.'

‘It's all right for you at home all day, Claire, but I've got to get things done when I can if you want this house to look perfect.' He collected the keys for his tool shed and headed for the back door.

Claire wanted to say she didn't want it to be perfect, didn't
need
it to be perfect. She was happy with it how it was. If only William could sit back and enjoy it, enjoy his family. Enjoy her, like he used to before they had the children, before Jack had died. She started arranging the carnations in the vase. William stopped, his hand on the door handle, and turned to look at her, his eyes softening. He suddenly walked back across the room.

‘Sorry, darling. I don't mean to sound so irritable. It's been a long hard day and having to go to B&Q was the final straw.'

Claire reached up to kiss his cheek and wrapped her arms around him; the muscles in his back felt tense.

‘I could give you a massage,' she offered.

‘Maybe later. Tell me how your day's been?'

‘You won't believe what the magazine people want to do,' she said, her cheek still pressed against his pinstriped shirt. ‘They're going to come on –,'

‘Isn't that a bit tall for those flowers?' he interrupted her mid flow. ‘I imagined you would put them in that Moorcroft vase my mother gave you for your birthday.'

‘I think I might need that for the holly.'

‘Holly?' He disentangled himself from her embrace. ‘Why would you have holly at this time of year?'

‘I was just trying to tell you.' Claire bent down to search in the dresser cupboard for a tin to put the cakes into. ‘The magazine people are coming to photograph the house on Thursday and they want it to be a Christmas shoot. Christmas in July! I'm worried we'll never get the house ready in time.'

She turned around to an empty room. The thought struck her that William didn't need to have an affair like her father had done – the house was already his mistress.

‘Claire!'

William was back. His face had turned the sort of blotchy red that she always knew meant trouble.

‘What the hell has been going on in the living room? Did you know that the cat's been sick and there's a huge stain on the floor?'

‘Oh, that was an accident with Ben and some raspberries. And Macavity –'

‘I've only just laid that floor – it took me weeks to sand and varnish. Now I'll have to do it all over again.'