Out of Step (28 page)

‘Only if you’ll stay with me.’

‘Yes, all right.’ He turned to Nell. ‘See you later.’

‘Right,’ she said. She snuggled down again and closed her eyes, but by now she felt far too wide awake to go back to sleep. She wondered how they would pass the day, and whether it would seem as long as the previous ones. Josh would ride his new bike on the turnaround at the front of the cottage for ten minutes, if they were lucky, before demanding attention. Rosie would execute splashy paintings on the kitchen table. Maybe Rob would cut their fingernails, since Cassie had singularly failed to do so. Josh might be persuaded to draw too, but his pictures were mostly of tiny stick figures and lots of black explosions, like those of a child brought up in a war zone. Children don’t seem to draw what’s around them, Nell thought, but what’s inside. They were making progress though. They were managing knives and forks better, and they really did seem to have grasped the no-welly-boots-upstairs rule. It
does help, Nell acknowledged, to have them here for more than just a couple of days at a time…

She jumped. She must have dozed off in spite of herself. ‘Hello, hello, hello!’ Rosie was saying joyfully, clambering on top of her. ‘Play the hair game!’

‘Oh, Rosie …’ Nell rubbed her eyes. The clock said seven o’clock. ‘Is it that time already?’

‘Yeth.’ Rosie was carrying a small hand mirror and looked expectant.

‘Where’s Daddy?’

‘Making tea with Joth. Play the hair game?’

Nell pulled herself up and sat back against the headboard. Rosie snuggled in with her back to her, sitting on top of her outstretched legs under the duvet, and holding up the mirror. Nell stroked her hair.

‘Now what have we here?’ she said. ‘My goodness, it’s a devil. Look at those horns!’ She gathered Rosie’s hair up into two bunches on top of her head and waggled them. Rosie giggled delightedly. ‘No, I’m wrong. It’s an Old English sheepdog.’ She pulled the hair forward and made a long fringe covering her eyes. ‘Or maybe it’s a pussycat, all soft and sleek.’ She smoothed the hair off Rosie’s forehead and stroked her head. ‘I can’t hear purring.’

Rosie snorted and began blowing through her lips.

‘Sounds more like a camel,’ Nell teased. ‘Oh yes, look, it’s got a hump on top! What a strange creat –’

‘Move over!’ cried Josh, rushing in ahead of Rob with the tea tray. ‘We’re all getting in!’

They sat in a row: Nell, Rosie, Rob and Josh. Nell and Rob drank their tea very carefully, making warning noises about the necessity for sitting still.

‘I’m your baby,’ Rosie said to Nell.

‘My pretend baby,’ she agreed.

‘So you have to kith me.’

‘Mmmmmmwah!’ Nell planted a smacker on her forehead.

‘I want to live here all the time,’ Rosie announced rapturously.

Elly telephoned Nell the following week.

‘Are you all right?’ Nell asked her.

‘I’m missing the boys, but otherwise I’m OK. I’ve actually got some work this week, so that takes my mind off things. How did your Easter go?’

‘Pretty well. It got better as time went on, and we all got used to each other.’

‘Oh good. I thought it would.’

‘And the best thing was that Rob’s decree absolute has come through, so he’s finally divorced.’

‘Marvellous. How did you celebrate?’

‘He moved back into my bed.’

‘About time.’ She sounded as though she was smiling.

‘But then at the very end, just as they were leaving, Josh said something that really upset me,’ Nell confessed. ‘They were all in the Land Rover and actually driving off at the time, so I couldn’t do anything about it except feel bad.’

‘Oh dear. What did he say?’

‘You’ll laugh. It sounds so trivial now.’

‘Go on.’

‘He said, “Fuck off, Nell.” ’

‘You’re not being sick again, are you?’ Rob asked, putting his head round the bathroom door a few mornings later. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I might suspect you were pregnant!’

Nell flushed the lavatory and turned to him, blotting her mouth with a ball of toilet paper. ‘I can’t be!’ she protested. ‘I haven’t missed a single pill.’

‘But you did have the shits, didn’t you?’ Rob pointed out. ‘What if several of the pills went straight through you without doing their job?’

‘But… can that happen?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Nell put the seat down and sat heavily on it. ‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘What if I am?’

‘No problem,’ Rob said cheerfully. ‘After all, what’s one more?’

‘You mean, you wouldn’t mind?’

‘Not at all. I like children.’

For the first three months of her pregnancy Nell felt tired all the time. The children visited them every weekend, and for some reason best known to herself, Cassie now decided that they should again stay overnight. Nell could have used the respite, and done without the disturbed sleep that this new regime occasioned, but didn’t like to complain as Rob was so openly delighted to have them.

‘I knew she’d never stick to it,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Too much like hard work.’

One Saturday afternoon towards the end of June he took Josh and Rosie to their school open day. Nell debated whether to go too, but fearing that Cassie would be there and not wanting a confrontation, she decided against it. Now, standing at the edge of the vegetable garden hoeing a row of peas, she felt, as ever, ambivalent. As Rob’s partner maybe she should have gone with him for moral support? It was much more pleasant not to have to. But on the other hand was she, by her absence, indicating to his children that she was a person of little importance? No, she thought, I’m much better off here doing something useful. If Rob is obliged to live his other life occasionally, then I should be relaxed enough to stand back and let him get on with it.

Later, sitting on the seat under the apple tree in the shade, she drank a glass of orange juice and was grateful for the rest. The afternoon was heavy with the sweet smell of the mock orange blossom. In the evening the nicotiana she had grown from seed would scent the air as
well, attracting the dusk-flying moths. Nell breathed deeply.

All too soon there was the sound of the Land Rover coming back down the hill, and she braced herself for the onslaught. But when it stopped, there were no high voices raised in argument or competition, and Nell realised with a lift of the heart that the children had not returned with him.

‘What happened?’ she asked, going to greet him. He looked harassed.

‘You were right, Cassie was there,’ he said, ‘and she deliberately enticed Josh to go home with her. It was flagrant!’

‘What about Rosie?’

‘Oh, she was all for leaving her with me.’

‘Divide and rule, eh?’

Rob snorted. ‘Well, I’m not having it. If she thinks she can dump Rosie on me whenever she feels like it and hang on to Josh, then I’ll more than likely end up barely seeing Josh at all. So I said it was both or neither.’

‘So you got neither. Tomorrow too?’

‘Yes.’ He looked fed up. ‘Stupid of me.’

‘It might be easier having them one at a time, in fact,’ Nell suggested gently.

‘Very possibly. But if so, I want it agreed at the outset.’ He slammed the door angrily and stumped off towards the cottage.

Nell thought, A free Sunday! and then felt guilty. These days she and Rob’s best interests seemed always to be at odds with each other, just at the time when they ought to be pulling together. And now I’m three months pregnant, Nell thought. The die is cast. Soon it won’t only be me who’s out of step, but the baby too. What should I do?

She tried to explain her feelings in the most general terms to Elly over the phone, when Rob was out in the garden turning the compost heap.

‘I don’t feel comfortable with the children,’ she confessed, ‘even now. I suppose your own are different because they have your genes, and behave in much the same way as you do. But other people’s are foreign and unpredictable. I feel I can’t trust them, and it upsets me.’

‘Sometimes one’s own feel like that too,’ Elly pointed out.

‘Mine wouldn’t.’ Nell was sure of it. ‘When you have a baby right from the beginning, it’s got to be different, surely?’

‘You’re not getting broody all of a sudden?’

‘Maybe.’ Nell was glad she couldn’t see her blush. She had decided not to tell anyone about her pregnancy just yet, not even Elly.

‘Not before time!’ Elly said cheerfully. ‘Well, best be off. I’m working again tomorrow so I’ve got to clean the house today. I’ll be down on the houseboat in the second week in July.’

‘Look forward to it,’ Nell said. ‘Bye.’

I’ll tell Elly about the baby when I see her, she thought. I do hope it’s a girl. I’m glad Rob doesn’t mind either way. I’m really very lucky. I shouldn’t let minor irritants build up into major difficulties. I should be
happy
.

‘This is bliss,’ Elly said, eyes closed, settling her back into the slope of the dune and angling her face to catch the sun. She was beginning to feel truly calm for the first time in months.

‘You’ll cook to a crisp in no time,’ Nell said, pulling her cotton hat down to shade her eyes.

‘No. Factor 15 is the answer. Put some on your legs and you’ll be fine too.’

Nell obediently applied suncream to her knees, and smoothed it down her calves. ‘How long will they be sailing?’ she asked, looking out over the mouth of the river to the open sea.

‘I’m not sure. I expect the boys will soon get fed up if Paul’s his usual dictatorial self. Maybe that Anna woman will see the light too!’

‘How’s he getting on living with her, d’you know?’

Elly shrugged. ‘Dunno. He wouldn’t tell me even if it was hell. We only meet to discuss the boys these days.’

‘Cassie wants to meet me,’ Nell said. ‘She sent a royal command via Rob.’

‘Good idea.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Well, why not?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I sort of feel she’s too much in our lives as it is. It’s all intrusion and power play with her.’

‘But you must be curious.’ Elly wouldn’t have been able to restrain herself from having a peek at the Mad Cow by now.

‘Yes I am… Elly?’

‘What?’

‘I’m pregnant.’

Elly opened her eyes wide and sat up abruptly. ‘Brilliant! You are pleased?’ She felt a surge of affection for her friend.

Nell smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘And Rob?’

‘Oh he rushed out straight away and bought me oranges for extra vitamin C. He was so sweet. He’s all for it.’ She looked happy, but somehow reserved.

‘I sense a “but”.’

‘No, not really. Rob is very keen on children. I’m so lucky in that respect. But I suppose I didn’t expect to have one so soon.’

Elly brushed that aside. ‘Time marches on. Why wait?’

‘True.’

‘So that’s what you were on about the other week, on the phone! How far gone are you?’

‘Fourteen weeks.’

‘Fourteen weeks and you never let on?’ Elly feigned indignation.

‘I wanted to be sure.’

‘Oh,’ Elly said sighing, ‘I remember so well how I felt when I was pregnant with Sam. The first three months I was totally knackered
all
the time. The next three, I was all twitchy and randy. Paul didn’t know what had hit him! Then the last three, I was peeing all the time and so uncomfortable … But how are you? You look good.’

‘I’m fine,’ Nell said. ‘I feel much better lately.’

‘Due at Christmas,’ Elly said, counting on her fingers. ‘Promise me you won’t call it Noel?’

Nell laughed. ‘Promise.’

‘Horatio Hayhoe,’ Elly said, trying it out. ‘Or Hiram, Hercules or Humphrey …’

‘It’s a girl,’ Nell said, crossing her fingers.

‘Oh well, then, Hortensia? Hedwig? Hermione?’

‘I want to call her Charlotte,’ Nell said. ‘Lottie for short.’

‘Not bad. What does Rob think?’

‘He wants Lesley after his mother.’ Nell made a face.

‘Lesley Lottie Hayhoe!’ Elly chanted. ‘Sounds like Milly Molly Mandy. Oh, Nell, I’m so pleased for you. You’ll be a proper family when you’ve got your own.’

‘I only hope Rosie and Josh will take to it.’

‘Of course they will. It’ll bring you all together.’

The sun was unrelenting. Elly put on a sunhat and turned over to give her back a grilling. Nell sat and dreamily contemplated the sea. It was flat calm and nibbling only gently at the base of the cliffs on the other side of the estuary. To the north of them the sky had turned black, and rumblings of thunder could be heard from the hills.

‘Perhaps it will rain,’ Nell said.

‘No chance,’ Elly said. ‘Have you got a hosepipe ban here too?’

‘Yes. We’ve been siphoning the bathwater out of the bathroom window to water the vegetable garden. The ground’s all cracked and …’

‘And what?’

Nell didn’t answer. A thirtyish couple with a young girl were walking through the dunes and passing close by. Elly rolled over to look. The man and woman had their arms around each other and were giggling and gazing into each other’s eyes, stumbling over the uneven sandhills as they went, and laughing anew each time they nearly fell over. The little girl, who looked about nine, trailed slowly after them, kicking at tufts of marram grass.

‘Come
on!’
the woman called irritably to her. The man was oblivious of her, digging his lover in the ribs and sprinting away across the beach. The woman hesitated, glanced crossly at the child again, and then bounded after him. The child followed, dragging her feet in the sand and making long skid marks.

Nell and Elly watched her walking away from them in silence until she was out of earshot. ‘Poor little thing,’ Elly said then. ‘Did that look like a new relationship to you?’

‘With an unwanted leftover from the previous one,’ Nell agreed. ‘Yes.’

‘How can people do that to children?’ Elly demanded passionately. ‘Thank God that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about with Paul. He’d never neglect Will and Sam for any fancy woman.’

‘Rob’s the same. In fact he’s so conscientious about his two that sometimes I wish he’d be a little less single-minded, and pay me more attention,’ Nell said honestly.

‘Not like that, though,’ Elly objected. ‘That was actual mental cruelty. I wish I’d said something now.’