Everything and Nothing (12 page)

Hal now ate yoghurts, biscuits, chocolate buttons, bananas and Marmite sandwiches. Agatha had wanted to unveil his amazing development at his birthday, making Ruth and Christian so grateful they would let her stay forever. But now this didn’t seem enough. They were both so distant and distracted, Agatha wasn’t even sure they would be as thrilled as they should have been. Since handing over Hal’s party to her, Ruth hadn’t asked one question about it. Agatha still didn’t even have a guest list and it was happening in only ten days’ time.

Over the last few days it had dawned on Agatha that Ruth was not dissimilar to her own mother. They were both scatty and tired and disorganised and left too much to chance. As a child she had longed to shake her mother as she flapped around the kitchen, failing to put anything away or complete any tasks, always too sleepy to listen to her reading or too busy to help with homework. It was when you got to this stage that you let other people take responsibility for your child and then bad things happened. Agatha did not ever want a situation where bad things could happen to Hal.

Agatha was worried Hal might eat something on the stupid trip to the farm that Ruth had planned for the next day, which presented her with a dilemma. If she asked Hal not to eat then she might not only put him back in terms of eating, but she would also be asking him to lie for her, something she could never imagine doing. She didn’t want her and Hal to have a secret which they couldn’t share with his parents, but what were her options if those parents didn’t understand? In the end she told Hal that they were planning a surprise for his mum and dad and that on his birthday they were going to show them what a big grown-up boy he was now he could eat. So, it was very important that he didn’t eat anything at the farm because then the surprise would be ruined. Hal nodded in his serious way, but Agatha wasn’t convinced he understood. If someone offered him a chocolate button she couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t eat it. The thought made her itch, as did the thought of letting Ruth and Christian in on the knowledge of his eating.

‘I cannot believe you talked me into this,’ said Christian as Ruth began passing him the multitude of bags they needed for a day-trip to Surrey. ‘Why don’t you go alone? I’ll take the kids swimming.’

‘Don’t be annoying, you agreed to it. The kids are excited.’ Ruth made up the bit about the kids. She had no idea what they would like to do today.

‘But some bloody hippy commune? I mean, please.’

‘Why do you have to make everything sound so shit. It’s not a commune.’

‘You know what I mean. They’ll be all holier than thou with their organic kids. I bet they don’t even have a TV.’

Christian’s words echoed Ruth’s own thoughts, but she wasn’t going to let him know. Instead she wondered how many bottles Hal would need. ‘Can you get Betty into the car? We’re going to be late.’ Ruth stood at the bottom of the stairs and shouted up, ‘Aggie, we’re going.’ There was no response. ‘Hal! Come on. I don’t want to be late.’ She could hear rustling and laughter from Hal’s room. A minute passed, but they didn’t appear. A surge of exasperation knotted unhealthily in Ruth’s bowels. Her foot went to the bottom step but she didn’t move forward and, in her failure to move, she realised that she felt embarrassed, that she would feel like she was intruding if she broke up their game.

But then Aggie appeared with Hal on her hip. ‘Sorry, we were playing dress up, I was just getting him changed again.’

Ruth thought she could hear an edge to the girl’s voice. ‘It’s okay, but we really do need to get going now.’

Still Aggie didn’t move. Instead she put her hand on Hal’s forehead. ‘He seems hot and tired. Are you sure you don’t want to leave him?’ As Aggie spoke Ruth saw Hal nestle his head onto her shoulder, her hand involuntarily stroking his cheek.

Ruth held out her own arms. ‘No. I want him to come. Thanks.’

‘But if he’s ill . . . ’

‘Aggie, I think I can manage. I’ve been dealing with children’s illnesses for years.’ Ruth could feel a shift in the air which she couldn’t place, but at least her words made the girl move. Aggie reached the bottom step and tried to hand Hal over, but the little boy stayed stuck to her side, his legs wrapped tightly round her waist. Ruth watched the scene in amazement as she tried to coax her own child out of another woman’s arms. She was shaking, her voice rising shrilly as she told Hal not to be so silly. He used to do that to me, Ruth wanted to scream, I know what that feels like, I know what it is to wrench a small body off you and walk away. But I do not know what it is to be the wrencher, to walk away with the small body.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ Aggie was saying now. ‘You’re going to have a lovely day with Mummy. I’ll see you later.’

Reluctantly Hal let Ruth take him, but she knew he was looking at Aggie over her shoulder as she carried him out to the car.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Christian as they drove off. ‘You look very pale.’

‘No, I’m not okay. Hal didn’t want to come.’

‘I don’t blame him.’

‘No, Christian, I’m not joking. I had to pull him off Aggie just now. It was like he wanted to be with her more than me.’

Christian cut up a woman in front of them. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He was probably tired or something.’

‘No.’ Ruth looked out of the window and tried to make sense of what she had seen. ‘No, it was more than that. It wasn’t right.’

‘You can’t have it all, Ruth. You can’t leave them all week and then not want them to get attached to the nanny. You should be pleased they like her so much. Think of Mark and Susan who found out that girl had been sitting Poppy in front of CBeebies for eight hours a day and feeding her chocolate spread. At least we know Aggie’s doing a good job.’

Ruth looked back at her two children strapped into their seats as they sped along the dirty London streets. Stop the car, she wanted to shout, it’s so much more likely that we’ll crash than get there unharmed. The air vibrated around them and everything seemed painfully fragile.

It had started to be that Agatha felt scared when Hal wasn’t near her. And not only scared that something might happen to him, but scared for herself. She recognised it as a return to the restless anxiety which had accompanied so much of her childhood. After they had left for the farm Agatha went into Hal’s bedroom and sat next to his cot. She pressed her face against the cold wooden bars so she could draw in the scent of him, but it wasn’t enough. She pulled the bedding out of the cot and lay with her head on his soft pillow and the covers over her head. But even Hal couldn’t stop the memories.

‘Just touch it,’ Harry had said. ‘You don’t have to do anything more than touch it.’

But of course that had been a lie. Over time touching had not been enough. In the end it had filled her up so she felt sure it had passed through every organ in her body. It was too big. Everything about Harry was too big. From his lips to his fingers to his stomach. Sometimes he would forget himself and then she would feel like he was going to crush her to death and all the air would be pushed out of her as surely as a deflated balloon.

At night she would sit with her parents and Louise, her sister and will one of them to notice her, to see that she was not normal. But no one had ever looked up from themselves and so she had begun to tell herself stories to make it better. Harry died many, many times. His deaths were violent and painful but never caused by Agatha herself or even a member of her family. Eventually her family started to die as well, less violently and less painfully, but with pathos and sympathy. Agatha told their teacher that her dad had leukaemia and only a few weeks to live. And that same teacher had taken Louise aside to tell her how sorry she was and from her reaction they’d guessed she didn’t know and so they’d taken her to the school offi ce and called up their mother and she had rushed over and again failed to back up Agatha’s story. The school’s counsellor had tried to get to the bottom of it, but her questions had been so standard that Agatha had been able to give her answers without saying anything real.

Tell us why you did it, her parents had pleaded as they’d sat round the kitchen table that night. It’s such a wicked thing to say and so obvious that you were going to be found out. Did you really think you could say that and the school wouldn’t mention anything to Louise, or us? And so Agatha learnt a lesson: stories had to be based in reality or they were lies, and they had to be told to the right people.

The farm was exactly as Ruth had imagined it would be. A perfectly proportioned house surrounded by muddy fields up a bumpy track. The front door was open and smoke was puffing artfully from the chimney. Children’s bikes were scattered in front of the door and chickens were pecking in a corner. Even a sheepdog lay asleep on a flat stone. She was surprised that Channel Four hadn’t snapped them up for a sanctimonious lifestyle documentary.

‘God,’ sighed Christian. ‘This looks like hell.’

An overly thin man sauntered out of the door, a young boy hanging off his leg as another, slightly older, hit him with a stick.

‘Cut it out, Jasper,’ snapped the man. ‘Those people are here now. Mummy wouldn’t want them to see you doing that.’ Ruth noticed that he had a glint in his eye as he spoke and he had raised his voice, making sure they heard.

She got out of the car, taking charge of the situation as she knew she had to, even though every fibre of her body wanted to run and hide. She didn’t dare even look at Christian, his anger would be too terrifying. ‘Mr Lansford?’

‘Charlie.’ He wasn’t smiling.

‘I’m Ruth, from
Viva
. Thanks so much for having us all out here. Letting us intrude on your weekend.’ Her voice sounded ridiculously jolly, like she was trying to keep them all upright with the force of her goodwill.

‘Margo insisted,’ he replied, peeling his older son off his younger one. ‘Fuck knows where she is though. Probably baking some bread to impress you. Really we live off economy white sliced.’

Ruth started to attempt a laugh, although the whole situation lacked any humour. Christian had been right, she should have come alone.

‘I heard that,’ sang a woman’s voice from inside the house and then Margo appeared and everything went back to normal because she was completely and exactly as she should be. She was tall, thin to the point of wiry, with long, straggly hair that probably always lived bunched up on top of her head. She was dressed in an odd assortment of silky, ethnic clothes that did nothing for the near concave nature of her body. A baby of inde-terminate sex rested on her hip whilst a toddler clutched her free hand. ‘We never eat white bread, do we, Sammy?’ Sammy stopped thumping his brother for a second and looked at his mother with utter disdain.

‘Of course we don’t,’ shouted Charlie, hugging his wife too tightly. ‘That would never do, would it?’

Ruth realised they had gate-crashed a row and were going to be used as some sort of disenfranchised referee unless she checked the situation. She also realised that the Lansfords were enjoying it. ‘Anyway, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed,’ she said to Margo. ‘And for letting us all descend on you like this at the weekend.’ Christ, she sounded as though she was at a demented drinks party. ‘This is Christian.’ She turned to see Christian still sitting scowling in the car, the kids fighting in the back. He got out as he saw them all looking at him and Ruth wondered if Charlie and Margo could see how much he hated her at that moment or if only she could read his face so precisely.

Margo took charge as she no doubt always did. ‘I thought you boys could take the children round the farm. Why don’t you let them play on the hay? Then Ruth and I can have our little chat.’ No one wanted to do what Margo had suggested, but no one raised any objections. Ruth decided not to even look at Christian, to go into the house and deal with all the shit on the drive home.

The house was as beautiful on the inside as the outside, which somehow sunk Ruth further. Margo had perfected the look of disorganised mess which looked comfy and inviting and flowed together and, even though Ruth knew it took a whole lot of effort, she was still charmed. They went into the white kitchen plastered with shelves and cupboards overflowing with often cracked but still beautiful bits of crockery. Margo gestured for her to sit at the obligatory long wooden table with a bunch of flowers in the centre which Ruth feared had been picked somewhere on the farm.

‘What can I get you to drink?’ asked Margo.

‘I’d love some coffee,’ answered Ruth.

Margo frowned. ‘Oh, sorry, we don’t do caffeine in this house. I’ve got all kinds of herbal tea though.’

Ruth hated herbal tea. ‘Oh, right, don’t worry. I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

As the kettle whistled, Ruth tried to remember why she was there. She struggled to think up some good questions to ask this vision of perfection before her, but she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to know the answer to.

‘So,’ she began, hoping something would follow as Margo handed her a steaming cup of purple liquid. ‘What a beautiful house.’

Margo was obviously used to hearing this. ‘It was a complete wreck when we found it, but we saw the potential and we love a challenge.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Four years.’

‘So you did all this with the children?’

‘With some of them. Two came during.’ Margo laughed; she was used to being told she was wonderful, but Ruth couldn’t force the words out.

‘So, Vicky, our Features Editor, who you’ve been speaking to, she tells me that you and Charlie worked in the City before all this.’

‘We did, that’s true. We were both investment bankers, for our sins.’

‘That’s a bit of a change then, from the City to this.’

‘Yes, it is, isn’t it.’

‘What prompted it?’ Speaking to Margo was a bit like reading
OK!
magazine. It made Ruth feel dirty and unworthy, yet fascinatingly jealous.

‘I suppose it was one of those eureka moments. We were on holiday in Greece and Charlie and I suddenly realised that the nanny had put Jasper and Sammy to bed every night since we’d got there. And I said to him, Haven’t we earnt enough money? Don’t you think we could just bloody stop? And I expected some huge row or something, but he looked up at me and said, Yes, I think we probably could. We both resigned the day we got back from holiday and put our house on the market and found this one, all within a month.’