Life Begins (24 page)

Pulling on a jumper over her nightie, Charlotte spotted the object of these musings up to his knees in mist and striding towards the shack he rather grandly referred to as the garage. A few minutes later he reappeared, wheeling a large old-fashioned bicycle with a broken front basket and two flat tyres. Charlotte watched as he turned it upside-down on to the saddle and began energetically levering off the tyres and pulling out the inner tubes. She was on the point of turning away when he glanced up at her bedroom window and waved.

Charlotte undid the catch on the window and stuck her head out, momentarily catching her breath at the bite of the morning air. ‘A bit early for that, isn’t it? And with all this fog – I’m surprised you can see,’ she exclaimed, laughing.

Henry grinned and put his hand to his brow as if protecting himself from a blinding light. ‘It’s like darkness – much easier to see through when you’re in the thick of it. And tomorrow, when you and your car are gone, I may well be in need of it.’

‘Oh dear, I suppose you will. Would tea help? I was just going to put the kettle on.’

‘Indeed it would. Tea. Fabulous.’

‘And toast?’

Henry groaned and clutched his stomach. ‘Toast. Heaven.’

‘Won’t be a tick.’ Charlotte tugged the window shut, pulled on some socks, got halfway downstairs and then – in
the interests of decorum – went back up in search of her jeans. Ten minutes later they were seated opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of buttered toast, an assortment of jams and the cottage teapot, which was in the gimmicky shape of a square cow and impossible to pour.

‘Allow me – years of practice. It needs one sharp tip.’

Charlotte giggled as Henry’s attempt resulted in a pool of spilt tea even larger than the one she had managed. ‘I’ll get a cloth.’ She trotted over to the sink then let out a cry of annoyance as a mild irritation in her left eye sharpened into real pain.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. Something in my eye. Toast probably. Hang on.’ Charlotte tugged at her upper lid, then blinked furiously. ‘There, that’s better. No, it isn’t.’ She blinked harder, her eye streaming. ‘Bugger, I need a mirror.’

‘No, wait, let me take a look.’

Charlotte, one hand over the afflicted eye, was already halfway to the door but Henry blocked her path. ‘I’m good at this sort of thing. I even have a clean handkerchief –
voilà.
’ He pulled a crisply folded blue hanky out of his back pocket and shook it with a flourish. ‘Keep still now… Look left… Look right… Up… Ah, there we are… there… Don’t move… don’t…’ Henry, steady-handed with the sharpest scalpel, willed the tremor from his fingers and knees as he pushed the lid upwards. He had located the tiny offending black speck, but could see only her eye – her beautiful eye – a Catherine wheel of greens and browns and blacks. And the first image of her that morning was still clouding his vision too, the tumble of hair as she pulled on her jumper, the glimpse of her ribcage through the flimsy material of her nightdress.

Charlotte, waiting patiently, face tipped up, like a most
dutiful patient, was at first merely uncomfortable. Then, like the tiniest breeze changing direction, she became aware of something different, something not right – not right at all. Henry was looking into her eye and she was trying to look at the ceiling, trying now not to blink, focusing on the antics of a fat fly trampolining near a cobweb. All was as it had been, and yet… not. For there was suspense suddenly, suspense and expectation and an
atmosphere
so thick she could have sliced it. Charlotte was still registering this change, hoping it would disappear back into the invisible, baffling place whence it came, when Henry, having deftly removed the speck with a corner of his handkerchief, cupped both hands round the back of her head and groaned, ‘Charlotte… Oh, God, Charlotte.’

For a moment Charlotte couldn’t speak. Henry’s eyes, magnified a little through the lenses of his glasses, were closed, the lids trembling. The sight, so vulnerable, so obvious in its expectation of physical bliss, was curiously moving. He was going to kiss her and part of her wanted him to. Yes, it did. Dear sweet Henry, who had spent three selfless days fathering Sam and tending her, showing the pair of them what they had never really known. Family holidays with Martin had been such battlegrounds, with poor Sam caught in the middle, the reason, often, for the arguments and the solace when they spun out of control.

Henry had an appealing mouth too – Charlotte had thought so more than once – generous, playful, agile, perfect for kissing. More importantly he was nice, really
nice.
And if he liked her in this astonishing, unexpected way then did she – the independent, no-strings party – really have to take on the huge, painful responsibility of pushing him away? Life was such a mess. Surely one could justify grabbing happiness where one could, squeezing the joy out of each
second, living for the moment? Wasn’t that precisely what she had vowed to do?

Henry, sensing the possibility of reciprocation, murmured her name again and pulled her face towards his. Their lips were barely an inch apart when two things happened in quick succession: Charlotte, coming to her senses, jerked out of reach and Henry’s phone rang in his trouser pocket.

‘It’s Theresa.’ He stared bleakly at the handset, not answering.

‘I’ll speak to her, shall I?’ Charlotte snapped.

‘No… I…’ Henry carried on looking at the phone although it had stopped ringing. His shoulder was still throbbing where Charlotte had pushed him away: firm, sharp as a gunshot. ‘Charlotte, being with you has been… I…’

‘You,’ she hissed, ‘are an idiot. As am I.’

‘No, never you, never…’

‘Oh, Henry, grow up and stop playing games. I came down here in good faith, with no agenda except a break with Sam. It never
occurred
to me that – my God, all that dancing around us, all that
pandering
… I don’t even have the words to say how it makes me feel.’

‘Charlotte.’ Henry’s knees had finally given way and he was supporting himself against the old pine dresser that had belonged to his mother and still displayed what had been her favourite cut-glass vase. ‘Charlotte, my feelings for you – I thought you knew… I thought that you… these last few days…’

‘Feelings?’ Charlotte snorted, too angry to care about being kind. ‘And what about Theresa’s
feelings
? She doesn’t deserve this, Henry, and what’s more, I know you love her, I
know
it, because I’ve seen it over years and years – seen it and been jealous of it, because although I loved Martin once, it went wrong through his total lack of ability to be
faithful
,’
she spat the word, ‘and though I’m glad to be
un
married because of how hopeless and mutually horrible that made us, I have lately realized the size and scale of the thing we managed to throw away. And if I could get it back I would – I bloody
would.
’

Charlotte stood clenching and unclenching her fists, breathing hard, her eyes burning. Now call Theresa back, for God’s sake. It might have been urgent.’

‘Urgent?’ Henry gripped the edge of the dresser, struggling to accommodate this new horror alongside Charlotte’s shattering hostility: all that vulnerability, all that intoxicating neediness, where had it gone? But she was absolutely right – for Theresa to call at eight on a holiday morning, it had to be pretty important. He turned away to make the call, dreading to hear his wife’s voice and what she might detect in his.

Charlotte was on the doorstep, shivering with aftershock rather than cold, when Henry came rushing out of the kitchen waving the phone. ‘It’s not me Theresa wants, it’s you. Your phone was off.’

‘No, it’s not, it’s just the signal,’ Charlotte muttered, too sickened still to look at him.

‘It’s your mother, Charlotte.’

‘My mother?’ He had her attention now. ‘My mother?’ she repeated, as Henry hovered, chewing his lips, his face flexing in an unreadable mesh of emotions.

‘I’m sorry, but apparently she’s had a fall. Here.’

Henry retreated to the bike while the two women talked. It was still parked on its saddle next to the barn, the inner tubes hanging limply out of the tyres. Slowly, carefully, miserably, he teased and stretched them, using his clever doctor fingers to search for holes. The collision of fantasy and reality – Charlotte’s revulsion, Theresa’s call – had been
like the worst physical pain. It was with him still, in the pump of his heart and in the sensation of standing not on the cottage’s gravelled drive but on two separating tectonic plates; his life had cracked down the middle and he was astride the widening chasm, certain to tumble into it, to lose everything he had ever wanted and held dear.

The mist had cleared, revealing the flat brown and green counterpane of the fields and the gauzy grey-blue strip of the sea beyond. Turning his back on the stricken bike, Henry stared till the colours blurred, wretched that not even such a well-loved sight could offer comfort.

On Sam’s second birthday I buy a set of Mickey Mouse-themed paper plates, cups, napkins and hooters from the supermarket. Five small playmates from Tumble Tots are coming to tea and I have made a cake that sagged so badly on cooling that I filled the hole with Smarties, smothered it in icing and called it a treasure chest. The camouflage is to satisfy the beady eyes of the other mothers: Sam is still too young to recognize a pirate, let alone his booty. Squirming for release from the supermarket trolley, he is enthralled into silence not by the papery images of the cartoon mouse but by the crackle of the cellophane encasing it.

The beauty of my child still takes my breath away. His hair is white blond, with a gully of frizzed ringlets running from his crown to the nape of his neck. Martin likes to joke that they make him look like a girl and should be cut off. But the ringlets, especially, make me weak with love. I would sooner hack at my own hand than cut them off. On the rare occasions that Sam is sleepy, he winds his fingers through them while his mouth chomps on his left thumb. Martin enjoys remarking on this too, saying he’ll grow up with a bald patch and buck teeth and should have the habits trained out of him before it’s too late.

I know Martin only means to tease, but these days I find it harder to laugh. We’re not on the same, effortless wavelength we once were. Before Newcastle it was Birmingham and before that Leeds. The computer companies are changing, getting larger, but we need more money, more space. I lack sleep and friends. Bella stayed in Australia and Eve, seeking her fortune in America, is rarely in touch. Sometimes I feel as if I only really have Sam.

I pause at the checkout to consider this, wondering whether to worry,
whether such feelings are normal after eight years together and the vortex of mothering. Martin would like more sex, I know that, but often I am too physically crushed by fatigue to respond (colic, teething pain, ear infections, eczema, croup – Sam leaves nothing out in the gamut of possibilities to offer disturbance).

‘He’s gorgeous!’ exclaims the checkout girl, cocking her head at the trolley where Sam, having bitten through the wrapping is now sucking the napkins. ‘Hello, gorgeous.’ She waves and Sam, kicking, offers an obliging smile.

But we made love that morning, I remind myself, pressing the worry away as I unload the bags and Sam into the car. Wary, as ever, of disturbing our boy, still parked at my insistence for convenience) at the bottom of our double bed, we touched and moved with some furtiveness, but a glimmer of the old, effortless closeness was there. Afterwards I said sorry for so seldom being in the mood and Martin said he understood and not to worry. I explained also, for the first time, how – with my history – being a good mother meant the world and he said he understood that too.

Later, downstairs, while Sam banged his spoon against the sides of his high-chair, spraying blobs of baby porridge across the wall, I straightened Martin’s tie fondly and reminded him of the birthday tea. He kissed me on the lips, saying he wouldn’t miss it for the world, then made Sam wave and gurgle one of his ‘bye-byes’ before offering a valedictory thumbs-up at the lumpy treasure chest, now sprouting two candles and a spangled sign saying, ‘You Are 2!’.

Yet when the party starts he is not there. The women offer reassurance and sympathy between attending to full nappies and tantrums. I want to wait for Martin, but time is racing and noise levels rising. My friends pick at the finger food, exchange anecdotes about minor domestic dramas and say, ‘No hurry’, but they have to be away by five. It’s no big deal, I tell myself, swallowing analgesics for a pounding head before giving up the wait and embarking on a search for matches. It’s no big deal,’ I say aloud, smiling defiantly at the faces round the table, as
I pluck Sam out of his high-chair and bolster his baby puffing at the two little flames.

I’m surveying the debris of the party when Martin rushes in, pushing the hair from his eyes, his tie flying over one shoulder. He is apologetic but cheerful, full of quick-fire talk about late trains and overrun meetings. He would help clear up, he says, but he has to work. There is a possibility of promotion, to London, if he doesn’t make a hash of things with his new boss, Fiona, a first in Maths from Oxford, a PhD from Harvard and sharp as nails. Talk about being kept on one’s toes. He takes his briefcase into the sitting room and then, when Sam’s tears of exhaustion grow too loud, stomps impatiently along the hall to our bedroom and closes the door.

A promotion might mean a house instead of a cramped flat and I want that badly, even if it means another move. A play room, a garden, an extra loo. I think of these things as I scrape the soggy remains of the cake into the bin and cajole Sam into the bath.

Suspicion arrives later that night, quietly, like a thief, tiptoeing in search of valuables. It is the suspicion not of infidelity – not yet – but of emotional desertion. To miss a birthday tea is a small crime; it is the ease with which it was missed that hurts – no phone call, no real attempt to atone, just talk of work, promotions and his big-brained boss. With such priorities how can there be room for love, either for me or Sam? I move closer, nuzzling the little forest of curls on the patch of neck under his hairline, seeking reassurance. But there is no response, only Martin’s own skin-smell and the faint scent of something else, something sweeter – the new body-wash, probably, that I bought for the shower.