Did The Earth Move? (24 page)

The doorbell was ringing as she did up the last buttons on her jeans. There wasn't going to be a moment to straighten up the flat. But still, she picked up armfuls of stuff and threw it into cupboards as she headed for the door. At least Robbie was asleep again, that was one thing less to worry about.

And now here she was, opening the door on the man she had once called husband, the man who had walked out on her and the boys, the man she hadn't set eyes on for almost six years now.

She registered the horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as her hand went up to the Yale.

'Hello, Evelyn.' A pinstripe-suited man with a ruddy face and a blond, balding crop was holding out his hand to her.

'Dennis?' She barely recognized him. He looked so old, well into his fifties of course; even his eyes looked a different colour than she had remembered. But then again, it was probably years since she'd even looked at a photo of him.

'Hello,' she managed at last and held out a hand for him to shake. 'Come in.'

'Had a great flight,' he said, before she'd even thought to ask the question. 'First class – only way to go. Treat you like royalty, in-flight massages...' He held forth as she led him down the small corridor into the kitchen.

A mistake, she thought, as she looked round. It was never the tidiest of rooms, but this morning, oh boy. There was even a plastic salad bowl containing a small quantity of sick and a scrunched-up paper towel on the table.

She threw a cat off a chair and gestured to Dennis to sit down. He didn't look too sure.

'My little boy isn't well, we've had a terrible night.' She waved vaguely, wanting to explain away her outfit, the chaotic state of the flat. Wondering why she was caring so much what he thought of it.

'Jeez, this place is tiny. You have just this floor? What... two bedrooms?'

She nodded.

'So at some point you, the boys, your boyfriend and your other children were living here? Aren't there laws against that kind of thing?' This was said with a smile as if he meant it to be funny. Some bloody joker he was.

She was about to explain that actually Joseph and the big boys had moved out by the time Robbie arrived. But what was the point? He wasn't listening anyway, too busy critically taking it all in, making his snide little judgements.

'Tea?'

'Ummmm ... do you have coffee?'

She thought about the tin at the top of the cupboard, about making him a coffee and sitting down to a joint while he drank it.

'Decaf?' she asked instead, deciding she should try and behave herself. Not scandalize him any further.

'Sure.' Not 'thank you' or 'lovely' or anything grateful. Just 'sure'.

She banged the kettle on, thumped and clanged her way through the coffee-making process just to let off some steam.

They tried out some small talk about their children – first the mutual ones and then their second families.

It was awkward and not exactly bonding.

'Well, they've turned out quite well, considering,' Dennis had offered about Denny and Tom. 'A fashion photographer and a software designer – not bad considering they haven't a degree to rub between them.'

'They both went to college,' she snapped.

'I don't think that's quite the same.' His mobile rang, saving him from the eye-scratching he was coming close to.

'Dennis Leigh . . . Ah ha . . . that's great, Guy ... really great. No, I can reschedule. I'll be there at one for lunch, great... yup, fresh off the plane. Ah ha ... in north London, catching up with some former colleagues.'

Former colleagues. It crossed her mind to have a secret spit in his coffee.

And before he'd paused for breath he was on the phone to Tom cancelling his lunch arrangement and agreeing drinks at 6p.m. instead. No, he wouldn't be able to see their flat today – he'd do that another day ... urgent business.

Well, that was Dennis. Didn't see his sons for six years, then would postpone his reunion for a business meeting.

She'd thought he might just have mellowed a tiny little bit... but obviously not.

'So,' he sipped at his black coffee, spit-free. 'Still in the same flat, the same job as when we last met?'

She nodded.

'Haven't you managed to step up at all? In
six
years?'

For a moment, she was going to mention the promotion possibility, but then she decided she didn't want him to know even that much about her life at present: 'I've had another baby, been busy,' she said instead.

'Yeah. You well and truly missed that part of the biology lesson, didn't you?' Casual little 'ha ha', and another sip of coffee.

Oh Jesus. Why couldn't she just tell him to go now? She thought of her little boy, lying on the sofa, at last getting a bit better and this creep referring to him as a mistake.

His making might have been
unplanned
but Robbie would never, ever be a mistake to her. She hated anyone even hinting at it.

'This flat is pretty... unique... isn't it?' he was looking around now. The painted ceramic plates on the table didn't match. The walls were an uneven, yellow-orange. And the place was a mess. Even with a sick child, the woman he'd married would never have let things get out of control like this.

He'd seen Eve occasionally over the years since he'd left her and in his opinion, she seemed to get more and more unravelled. Why hadn't she just made her life simple and married another wealthy City boy, like him? He couldn't believe she hadn't had the opportunity. Instead – look at her! Mad, hippie, vegetarian,
pink haired,
single mother
of four.
Bringing his sons up in some piss-pot little flat in Hackney. But he'd just left them to it, he thought with some annoyance now, he'd been too busy: work, his new wife, his two daughters. He hadn't been able to give Eve and his boys too much thought. Just hoped they'd turn out OK.

He stood up and looked out of the window at the extraordinary garden. It was small, but absolutely brimful, bursting with green and blossom. But he saw only the mess of toys strewn all over it, a little yellow tractor, a sandpit shaped like a turtle, plastic spades and forks and several footballs.

'Keeps me sane,' Eve said, anticipating the usual compliment about her garden.

'I see,' was Dennis's reply and the compliment didn't come.

She looked OK though, he had to admit. He knew she was 42, but she looked much younger. She hadn't sagged or crinkled up much, she was just a little softer round the edges, fuzzier. She still had her girlish, supple figure and he certainly envied her that. Was she happy? He had no idea. Was
he
happy? In most ways, yes. He loved his wife. He knew that, at least, had been the right decision.

'I'd like to get to know Denny and Tom a bit better,' he said now. 'I'm going to invite them to come over and visit, open invitation . . . whenever they'd like.'

'That's nice,' she heard herself answering, but knew she was just dreading this. With a wealthy, US-based dad they could both go and work in the States, and wouldn't they want to do that in a shot? Especially Denny.

Even now, she could hardly repress the fear, lurking for all those years, that Dennis would some day turn up and lure the boys back with the sheer glamour of having been the missing parent, the absent one, the fantasy parent, rather than the one who did the washing, the homework, wiped your nose, took you to the dentist.

'Mummy!' She heard the cry from the sitting room.

'You should probably go,' she told Dennis, who immediately flicked a glance at his watch. 'I don't think Robbie's really up for visitors and I'm waiting for a work call.'

'Of course, have to go anyway. Can you hail a cab round here or should I call one?' So then there was all that kerfuffle, finding cab numbers, phoning, and now he had to wait around for ten minutes.

'Mummy!'

'I'm coming.'

'Look, you go and see to him, I have some calls to make.'

Finally she was saying goodbye, waving him out of the door, forcing herself to keep that smile up for just a little bit longer.

She slammed the door shut behind him, though. No, that wasn't quite enough, she went into the sitting room and pummelled sofa cushions very hard for a few minutes while Robbie giggled at her.

Fuck him, fuck him, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

OK. That was a bit better.

Denny dropped them at the lobby of the swank hotel and drove off to find a parking place.

This was all Dennis's idea, of course. The big family reunion. She and her four children were scrubbed up and polished, ready to meet him, his wife and his daughters.

OK, she knew it was pathetic, but she'd taken ages trying to decide what to wear. The black work suit had been put back in the cupboard because it was too formal, the hipster jeans and a variety of bright tops had been tossed to the floor because they were too informal. Finally, she'd decided on a long, clingy satin skirt, green, and a black blouse with her best turquoise beads and arm cuffs. She had been worrying about whether the turquoise clashed with the green, but then Anna came in to discuss her own choice – an unusually girlie pink party dress someone had given her as a Christmas present, but Eve wasn't going to disagree – and then Robbie demanded juice and a biscuit and a video and when were they going? and was it nearly Christmas? ... So the skirt and the mildly clashing jewellery stayed and in the back of Denny's car, Eve even did lipstick and sparkly eye shadow because this was a special occasion after all.

Denny made them wait for him in the lobby on pain of death: he didn't want to miss one second of this big get-together. When he finally got back, Eve and the children were directed to the residents' lounge where 'Mr Leigh and family' were waiting.

Deep breath.

'OK, everyone,' she summoned her band. 'Off we go.'

As soon as they walked through the door, Dennis waved with a casual-sounding 'Over here,' and stood up as they got closer.

The three women sitting around him got up too and the two groups faced each other, Eve feeling dangerously unbalanced with a suddenly shy Robbie pressed hard against the back of her knees.

Dennis did the introductions and there was a flurry of handshakes.

'This is my wife, Susan,' Dennis was saying now. 'My daughters, Sarah and Louisa. Anna, hello, I'm Dennis and this must be Robbie ... hi there.'

Eve was shaking hands with the women now – Susan, a well-padded helmet bob blonde in stiff lilac with pearls constraining her neck. Why did Eve have the feeling she'd seen her before? She was in her late forties at least. Older – that was a surprise to Eve.

But it was the girls she was shaking hands with now.

They were
so
adult, in lipgloss, low cut tops, tight jeans. Was this how quickly girls grew up in the States?

'Gosh, you're so grown-up!' she couldn't help telling the older one – who was it again? – Sarah.

'Well, I am about to turn 16—' This said with an undoubtedly teenage defiance.

Dennis heard his daughter's words and glanced at Eve, who was flushing up with an emotion he took to be shock, even as she turned to the younger girl to shake hands.
Sixteen!
she was screaming in her head as she managed 'Hello, nice to meet you', to Louisa.

Sixteen.
Wasn't Sarah just exactly the age her lost baby would have been?

Sixteen.
Didn't that mean this girl was already on the way when Dennis left?

Sixteen.
So Susan was pregnant when Dennis left Eve?

Susan? Susan? Her mind was like some demented search engine racing through data all on its own and
ping!
Up came the answer. Susan Mitchell, the financial director of one of Dennis's favourite clients . . . Well, that's what she was back then. Eve looked over at the blond helmet head and couldn't believe she hadn't recognized her straight away. Why was Susan pretending not to know her? This was completely bizarre.

'Hmmm?' Louisa was looking at her as though she expected an answer.

'How old is your little girl?' Louisa repeated.

'Oh . . . Anna, she's nine, going on nineteen. Come and say hello.'

Denny and Tom were chatting to Dennis and Susan. They were laughing, sounding polite, interested. This was not the moment to ask about her ex-husband's infidelity with his current wife.

She put her fingers up to her burning cheeks and felt tears forming at the back of her eyes. Fuck him though. Why hadn't he told her this before? Why had he left her to figure it out and muddle through the shock?

She knelt down to speak to Robbie, who was still clinging like a limpet to her legs. She hoped to stay down there for a few minutes, until she could pull herself together to deal with this.

'Hi, are you OK?' she asked her son.

'I don't like that man,' he said.

'Which man?'

'That old man—' he pointed at Dennis. It was almost impossible to hide any emotion at all from a small child. They had in-built radar for this kind of thing.

She wasn't going to ask why, but Robbie blurted his reasons out anyway: 'He looks like the Fat Controller and he makes me sad.'

'What can I get you to drink?' Dennis tapped her on the shoulder.

'Go away!
You fat man,' Robbie yelled at him.

'Errrrrrr ... Robbie, stop that.' She wanted to laugh- and cry. This was appalling. Why did she feel as if her life, the one she'd carefully constructed for herself over the past sixteen years, was falling apart? Why the hell did Dennis still have this effect on her? Like he was always able to be the one in control? The one who could wind her, wound her, still pull the rug out from underneath her? Fuck, this still hurt. All those days, long evenings, even longer nights waiting for him to call, come home, get in touch. All the tears she had shed for him, for the baby she should have had fifteen, sixteen years ago now. It felt as if it was all opening up again. FUCK. Like a seam, ping, ping, ping, she could almost hear the stitches.

'I think a drink would help.' Dennis's voice now.

'Maybe several... maybe you could line them up along the bar for me.' She tried to sound breezy but he knew she knew, had worked it out.

'We'll have to talk all about this some time. I should have given you a better explanation.'

'Aha,' she agreed.

'Go away,'
Robbie ordered again. Then to Eve and Dennis's surprise, he sank his teeth into Dennis's thigh.

'Ouch!' Dennis said quite loudly. No wonder. It bloody hurt when Robbie bit you.

'Robbie!' Eve admonished him. She knelt down beside him again, feeling flushed and horribly embarrassed.

'I don't like him!' Robbie yelled, then smacked her quite suddenly in the face.

'Robbie, NO.' Wasn't it fun being part of the transition generation? She thought, not for the first time in her life, we are the people who get hit by our parents
and
our children.

Robbie burst into noisy tears, but fortunately Tom was there and whisked his little brother outside before it all became a hideous scene.

And somehow they stumbled on through it. Eve making small talk with Susan, both of them pretending not to recognize each other. Talking about the States and how much London had changed.

Denny and Dennis talking about the States and how much London had changed, as far as she could gather from the snatches she overheard, and the girls in a little huddle. When Eve passed her daughter, long blond ponytail bobbing animatedly, she thought how sweet Anna looked trying to fit in with the big girls and she couldn't help tuning in.

'You've been in rehab? Cool. I got some therapy when my mum and dad split up, but rehab? You actually got to stay there, full time.
Cool.
I want to be a psychiatrist when I grow up,' Anna was saying.

Oh God, this was terrifying.

Walking back towards this weird family grouping, she saw Dennis put his arm round Susan's waist to give her a reassuring squeeze and Susan turned to smile at him. Just a tiny thing, it surprised her. Up until now, she thought she'd have to feel sorry for anyone with the misfortune to be married to Dennis, but when she caught that little moment, she knew they were actually in love. Well, wasn't that one of life's little ironies? Dennis the deserter was the one who'd ended up in a long and happy marriage. She'd never wanted to be like her dad, a long-term single, settling into her own eccentric little groove. But that was exactly where she was headed. Even Dennis had someone who loved him. Wasn't she worthy of that? Oh hell . . . she swirled the ice round her glass . . . two gin and tonics and I'm a bloody wreck.

When Dennis suggested dinner in the hotel's restaurant, she told him no, it wasn't suitable, she wanted to go somewhere more relaxed, nearby, and she'd already made the reservation.

That surprised him – and her. But she'd made a resolution earlier that day that she was not going to let him push her about. He was only here for a short time, but too bad. She was her own person, nothing to do with him any more.

At the restaurant, she felt like an observer, rather than one of the group taking part in this odd event.

She watched her sons, eagerly polite and curious about Dennis. And saw how even Anna wasn't impressed with how sulky and sullen the teen daughters were being to their parents. Fortunately Robbie was given a balloon. He didn't worry about how anyone was interacting with anyone else, he simply ran about making train noises until he was so exhausted, he fell asleep on Eve's lap.

Eve focused on her little girl, so ladylike, so wishing she was a grown-up and yet so nine-ish at the same time.

She watched her unfold the napkin, put it across her lap and eat her pasta elegantly with a fork and spoon, wiping her lips whenever the pink sauce strayed.

The American girls stuck gum to their side plates before eating and whispered conspiratorially before trotting off to the toilets together. Rehab or not, Anna was less and less impressed with them.

And Dennis was starting to bray now: 'Well, I'm hoping to send the girls to medical school. If they ever open a book and think about passing an exam, that is.' On cue, the girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes. 'Only way to make money in the States, as far as I can tell,' Dennis continued. 'Doctors ...' Blah, blah, Eve tried not to listen.

'Are you OK?' she asked Anna.

'Yeah, fine,' Anna answered. 'It's all very interesting,' she added in a whisper.

'Aha.'

'It'll never be like this with my dad though, will it?' she asked now.

'You mean, not see him for years and years? No, sweetpea, your dad and I are friends and we both love you very much.'

'I think Daddy's still in love with you,' Anna said matter-of-factly, pushing another forkful into her mouth.

'What makes you think that this time?' Eve asked with a smile.

'Because I could tell he was really sad when you came back from Grandpa's and it was time for him to go home.'

'Ah ha.'

'And I told him you always slept in his old pyjamas and he said that was sweet.'

'I don't sleep in his pyjamas!'

'I know, but I just wondered what his reaction would be.'

'Anna!'

'And Michelle makes him very grumpy. We never have a laugh when she's around.'

'Ah ha.' This she could believe, but she didn't think it had anything to do with him being in love with her.

'And . . .' Anna was getting ready for the big one now: "There's a picture of you in a little frame hidden under the jumpers in his cupboard.' Never mind that Anna had put it there, her dad had never removed it, she'd checked every time she went up.

'Well. . . that's very nice,' Eve said. 'But you really shouldn't be looking through Daddy's cupboards and as I said, we're good friends, Anna, and we both love you, that's the main thing.'

After that, Eve tried to carry on eating and behaving normally, but it was no use.
I am so pathetic,
she told herself. 'Why is my heart pounding like a teenager's over a photo in his jumper pile? I am a pathetic, sad and lonely old bag, I really need to get a life. I need to go out with the vet immediately. And why do I keep calling him "the vet"? Nils ... Nils.' Thoughts of Nils ... Did they help?'

When they got home, there were about eight messages on the answering machine from Jen.

'For God's sake woman ... I don't care how late it is, get your children into bed, pour yourself another glass of wine and phone me back. I want to know all about it.'

'How are you feeling?' Jen asked her, when she'd heard Eve tell it all right from arriving at the hotel down to the very last detail of the evening.

'I'm still furious with him,' Eve said. 'But I hardly think it's worth telling him now. I don't want to go there, get involved, be fighting with my ex. But I certainly don't want him to come back and play the big glamorous daddy-figure when he's been so absent for all these years. I don't want the boys to like him!' she blurted out. 'I know that's unreasonable and it's only fair for them to want to get to know him... blah... blah . . . But actually, I just wanted: Dennis comes back, it's obvious to everyone what a big shit he is, Dennis goes away again.

'And how come I was never told about his wife? About the fact that she was pregnant when he left us? That was quite an important thing he left out there.'

'He's a prat,' Jen reminded her. 'He thinks about himself almost all of the time. We know all this, Eve. But I have to say, I'm so looking forward to meeting him.'

'What?'

'At the wedding! There is still going to be a wedding, isn't there?'

'As far as I know – but what do I know? I didn't even know about my ex-husband's other woman. God! I was supposed to be the one who was so together and I feel totally undermined.'

'Because you haven't got a husband?' Jen asked with some indignation.

'Maybe ... or a glamorous job ... or any sort of fuck-off lifestyle to show off.'

'EVE!!! I just can't believe I'm hearing this from you! You had nothing. He left you with two little kids and nothing else. You've done it all yourself, so please stop having a wobble.'

There was a small silence before Jen burst out again: 'I can't believe he still has this effect on you. Hello!!! You know, I might have to pretend you didn't say any of these things and you'll wake up again in the morning the woman I know and love. The woman who can grow her own potatoes, find fifty-five different ways to cook them, answer A-level algebra questions, have sex in the lotus position, and still hold down a full-time job.'