Nearest Thing to Crazy (15 page)

‘Lovely to see you, Mum.’ I stood up and walked over to the chair where she sat, her face animated by her anger. I brushed her cheek lightly with my lips. I would wipe them as soon as I was out of her sight.

‘Oh go on then, go . . . You never stay long, do you?’

‘I stay as long as I can, Mum. Same time next Thursday. Have a good week.’

My legs wobbled as I made my way back down the stairs. Sometimes I fantasized that if I could get away with it I’d put a pillow over her head and press down with all my strength until the life, all the hatred and bile, drained out of her. After all, she made me feel like I was already serving a life sentence.

‘Mrs Burton . . . Cassandra . . . could I have a quick word?’

‘What? Oh, yes, of course.’ Matron had poked her head out of her office and was beckoning me to join her. I wondered what my latest crime would be. Mum had a habit of accusing me of dreadful things to the staff, so I found myself often having to give an account of myself. The worst so far had been stealing one of her life policies and pocketing the cash. I hadn’t, but the facts weren’t really the point. The point was that she could be at the centre of the storm, watching everyone running around – well, me, actually – trying to prove their innocence. So I braced myself for my latest misdemeanour.

‘Is everything all right?’ I asked, tentatively.

‘Oh fine. No, nothing’s wrong. In fact your mother’s been on fine form. Did she mention the life story project?’

‘Life story project?’

‘Yes. Some of our residents are putting their life stories on tape. It’s a local company going around all the care homes, offering the service. We think it’s good for their memories and obviously nice for the families to have. Oh dear, I hope she wasn’t saving it as a surprise.’

‘I don’t know, maybe. I shall look forward to hearing it, then.’ It would indeed be interesting to hear how Mum re-wrote her history. Still, no harm in it that I could see.

‘Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘Er, no. Your mother tells me that you’re a very keen gardener.’

‘She did?’

‘Yes. She said that you’ve started a business, and that you were very good at it.’

‘Did she?’ This was new. Praise from my mother?

‘Oh yes, she’s very proud of you.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said.

‘Well, the thing is, I’ve actually got a bit of a favour to ask.’
This wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. ‘Fire away.’

‘We need someone to take over the garden club. Just once a week for an hour or so now that we’ve got the new greenhouse designed to accommodate the wheelchairs. You know the kind of thing . . . seedlings . . . flowers, a few vegetables . . . I wondered if you’d be interested? I’m afraid it’s voluntary but we’d meet all your expenses. Quite a few of our residents are keen on the idea. They do miss their gardens. I’m sure I would . . . and they get tired of bingo and war-time sing-alongs. It’s easy to forget how active they might have been . . . and all that knowledge they must have.’

‘Well, I’m flattered to be asked. But I’m not sure I’d be very good at running a group.’

‘You don’t know ’til you try. How about giving it, say, a month’s trial and then if it doesn’t work out, no harm done, eh?’

of?’
‘Well, maybe . . .’ I said, hesitantly. ‘What day were you thinking

‘We could fit in with you, but Thursdays would be fine, or even
Wednesday mornings if that was better?’

‘Let me check my diary, though I’d imagine Wednesday morning might be best. Then I could see Mum afterwards instead of coming on Thursdays.’

‘She might want to come to the club.’

‘Mum? I don’t think so. She never was very keen – didn’t like getting her nails dirty.’

‘She takes such a pride in her appearance, doesn’t she? She always looks so elegant. She really might want to come along if you’re there because she’ll see more of you – in fact it was she who suggested you might like to do it. She’s very proud of you, you know, constantly talking about how she misses you when she doesn’t see you. All the staff are very fond of her . . .’ She must have read something in my face because she added quickly, ‘Although I do know she can be difficult – especially towards you.’

‘Indeed she can,’ I said. The not so subtle little guilt trip hadn’t passed me by. I ‘got’ the ‘she really doesn’t see enough of you’ message. I didn’t know if I really wanted to take on the garden club, but Matron had successfully pushed all the right buttons on my guilt monitor. ‘I’ll give you a call when I’ve had chance to think it over.’

‘Thank you. We would all be so grateful.’

I got into the car and wound the windows down so that I could drink in the unpolluted air. If I said no I would just be confirming what a difficult and selfish person I was; all the things my mother really thought about me. And if I said yes I knew that she was showing me that she still had the power to manipulate me into doing exactly what she wanted.

CHAPTER

7

I could hear Dan singing in the shower. There was a time when the sound would have made me feel happy, giving me the sense that all was well with the world; happy in the knowledge that I had a contented husband. But tonight I wanted to shut it out, because I didn’t want him sounding so happy that we were going to Ellie’s house. I closed the bedroom door but I could still hear him. I decided the safest thing would be to be out of the bedroom before he was out of the shower, for fear I said anything I might regret, or in case he read something dark in my mood. I focused on finishing off my face as quickly as possible so that I could be out of the way. But just a few minutes later he was in the bedroom, towel wrapped around his waist, damp hair sticking up around a scrubbed and shaved pink face. ‘Hi babe,’ he said, grinning at my reflection, and then he came over and planted a kiss on the back of my neck. Seeds of cold water dripped from his hair onto my skin and tickled, making me shudder.

‘Your hair looks nice,’ he said. I’d been to the hairdressers that morning and came out with it all bouffant, so that I looked like I should be smiling from the cover of a sixties knitting pattern.

‘Do you like it? Thanks.’ I’d pulled a brush through it a few times to flatten it and to get some of the lacquer out of it, and it looked all right, maybe just a little fuller than usual and so I was happy. Happy? Okay, satisfied then.

‘Doesn’t seem long since you last had it cut . . .’

I knew what he was really saying: that we were on an economy drive. I turned to face him. ‘My mother paid for it.’ It was a lie, but I didn’t feel too guilty. I mean if we were going to judge each other on the potential scale of deceit, mine was a very small offence.

‘I thought you hated her paying for anything.’

‘I do, but sometimes it’s easier just to go along with her. Appeasement, for a quiet life.’ I turned from him, back to the face in the mirror that didn’t really look like me. I hoped I looked a bit better than me, but I didn’t want to look like I’d gone to too much effort because that would have flagged up some kind of insecurity, which I know would have been correct; but I didn’t want her to know that. The mirror and the light in the bedroom was rubbish for putting on make-up, and my eyesight wasn’t what it was, so I had to squint into one of those magnifying mirrors. I’d got to that age when looking in the mirror was never a particularly edifying experience, but I do remember a friend – maybe Amelia – saying once that in ten years’ time you’d be glad to look like you do today. I guess it’s some comfort to think that when I’m eighty I’d give anything to look like this.

I’d bought a pair of stretchy white jeans from Joseph at huge expense, and because they were long and my legs were short, I had to wear high heels. I didn’t have any high enough so I’d had to buy a new pair of shoes too. I probably spent far more than I would have done if Laura had been with me; partly because Laura would have scolded me over our economy drive, and partly because the small act of rebellion distracted me, albeit temporarily, from the misery I was suffering.

I’d dressed my bottom half and wrapped my dressing gown over the top, so I could postpone the ‘I haven’t seen that before . . .’ conversation. I didn’t want to finish dressing while Dan was in the room because I hadn’t taken off the labels and I knew he’d be bound to spot them. So I just faffed about with cotton buds, blusher brushes and lip liners and then pretended to linger over choosing earrings from my jewellery box, while Dan got dressed in the background. I watched him surreptitiously from the mirror and found myself wondering how he would be viewed through another woman’s eyes. The towel was on the floor and so I could see his firm, white buttocks. He had a good body; compact and strong, and just enough hair on his chest not to be gorilla-like. Everything that I took for granted would be fresh and new, unchartered territory to someone else . . . I wondered if the touch of a new hand on his body would generate the kind of electricity that we used to have. Once, Dan only had to look at me in a certain way, a sort of sideways glance with a slow blink of his eyelids and a twitch at the corner of his mouth to make me feel weak. Did
she
feel like that?

Unaware of my scrutiny, I watched him open up his shirt drawer and pull out the blue and white stripes; I watched him purse his lips as he considered the decision, and then put it back. Next he pulled out the plain blue Thomas Pink shirt and repeated the process. Finally he settled on the blue and white Boden gingham which Laura had given him for his last birthday. He unfolded it and laid it on the bed, and then pulled on a pair of plain white cotton boxers. Socks next, pink and orange squares, very daring and also a present from Laura, and finally navy blue chinos. He was totally unconscious of my watching him and I had to bite my tongue when he sat on the bed and removed the socks he’d only just put on. So, he would be barefoot in loafers. How carefully he was putting together his look. Finally he put a comb through his hair and splashed on his aftershave, Chanel
Égoïste
. ‘See you downstairs,’ he said.

I nodded, got up from my dressing table and picked up the damp towel from where he’d left it in the middle of the floor and threw it into the dirty laundry basket. How well I could continue to perform my role.

I took my new Jigsaw silk embroidered tunic out of the wardrobe and slipped it over my head. I faced the mirror and agreed a temporary armistice with the image looking back at me.

When I went downstairs I found Dan sitting on the sofa watching television with Laura, his arm around her shoulders, and she was cuddled up to him. She had a habit of stuffing the knuckle of her thumb into her mouth so that it looked like she was sucking on it, but she wasn’t. He turned his head in my direction, looked me up and down, and smiled.

‘I haven’t seen that before, have I?’

‘What, this?’

‘I don’t remember it.’

‘Did you get that in Birmingham?’ Laura smiled at me, all sweetness and innocence.

‘Birmingham?’

‘Yeah, on Wednesday.’

‘You went to Birmingham on Wednesday? You never said.’

‘Well we all have our little secrets don’t we?’ I smiled.

Dan shrugged. ‘Seems you do,’ he said, and sighed one of his loaded heavy sighs that said so much more than words ever could.
‘You ready? We ought to go. Walk or drive?’

‘Let’s drive up and walk back. One of us can collect the car tomorrow.’

Laura tore her attention away from
The X Factor
. ‘Then you could take me round and introduce me. Pleeese.’

‘We’ll see.’ Dan ruffled her hair and I shouted ‘bye’ over my shoulder.

Bar forbidding Laura to go anywhere near Ellie, I hadn’t come up with an idea to keep them apart. So for the moment I felt I had no choice but to run with it and deal with the fallout later. She was obviously still feeling sore at me, trying to land me in it with Dan. But there was no point in tackling her head on, because I knew I’d only end up pushing her further away which would make things worse.

‘So you went to Birmingham?’ Dan said as I buckled up my seatbelt.

‘Yes. Has this seat moved?’ I asked. I seemed to be leaning much further back than normal. I fiddled with the buttons down the left side of the seat. I never knew how anything worked in Dan’s smart company Audi. Unlike my old heap, Dan’s car was immaculate inside and out, with lots of unfathomable digital displays, gleaming chrome, polished walnut and squeaky-soft black leather; all stinking of newness and executive indulgence. It ordered you around, too, with lots of little audio cluckings like an officious old hen.

‘Wouldn’t have thought so. Anyway, why didn’t you say?’

‘Because I didn’t want you to feel obliged to meet me, knowing how busy you are, and I wanted to catch up with Laura. Obviously I didn’t know she was planning on coming back this weekend.’

‘So you bought new clothes . . . and shoes . . . Did your mother buy you those as well?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘An early birthday present.’ I stared at the road ahead, not trusting myself to look at him. I heard him sigh heavily.

‘Anyway, you never told me about
your
lunches with Laura . . .’
‘What do you mean?’