Out of Step (29 page)

‘What can you say?’ Nell stared out to sea. Elly made a small dismissive gesture and turned back to her sunbathing. After a moment, Nell said, ‘I think I can see
Paul’s boat coming back.’

‘Already?’ Elly sat up again and peered past her pointing finger.

‘You’re right. That was quick. Damn, I suppose that means I’ll have to get back too. I don’t want him commandeering the boys this afternoon.’

‘Let’s both walk back,’ Nell suggested. ‘It’s a bit too hot for me here anyway.’

They folded up the rug they were sitting on, and strolled back along the north bank of the Torrent, climbing the two stiles on the way and glimpsing the sledging field through the trees on their right. Like all the adjacent fields it was a very pale green, having recently been cut for silage.
Polypeptide
, with Paul at the helm, motored past them as the river narrowed. Elly waved to Will, who was standing on the foredeck.

‘Hi, Mum.’ His voice carried clearly over the intervening water. ‘Guess what. Sam fell overboard and nearly drowned!’

‘Look, there’s no need to carry on sulking,’ Anna complained the following day when she and Paul were alone again. ‘It was a shame that Sam fell into the sea. I’ve said so, haven’t I?’

‘That’s not the same as apologising,’ Paul said.

‘Why is it
my
fault all of a sudden? Will was there.
You
were there.’

‘We were both busy going about,’ Paul said. ‘You were the only one on the same side of the sail as Sam, and you
know
the boom swings across very suddenly.’

‘I also know that he’s your son; your responsibility. You might well have married Ermintrude so’s you’d have someone to blame, but don’t expect me to take that on board.’

‘God forbid,’ Paul said fervently.

‘And anyway, Sam’s perfectly all right so it was no
great crisis, was it? He was wearing his life jacket, and you fished him out straight away. He hasn’t suffered any after effects, has he? It might even have taught him a useful lesson.’ She stuffed both hands into the pockets of her denim shorts as far as her thumbs, and rocked slightly on the balls of her feet. She could see that Paul was looking at her breasts, so she pushed them forward subtly to stretch the thin cotton T-shirt as tightly as possible across them.

‘Oh well …’ he said, distracted by the challenge. ‘I suppose there’s no harm done. Come here.’ He came round the back of the sofa and stood behind her, undoing her bra and the button at her waistband.

‘It’s too hot,’ she protested automatically.

‘It’s never too hot for this.’ He thrust the flat of his hand down the front of her shorts, and slid it through her pubic hair, searching delicately for the way through. She opened her legs fractionally to let him in and stretched backwards against him as he found the right place.

‘Juicy,’ he murmured in her ear, sliding his fingers in and out. ‘My little knickerless juicy Anna …’ After a while he withdrew his hand and began unzipping the front of her shorts. She bent forwards to take them off, but whilst they were still round her ankles, he entered her from behind, picking her up bodily and draping her over the low back of the sofa.

‘The blood’s all running to my head!’

‘Mine’s not,’ he said cockily, holding her hips firmly between strong hands. ‘Mine’s … in
exactly
… the
place
… where it’s
most… needed!’

Anna cradled her head in her arms and let him get on with it. It was a small price to pay for winning one battle in the war against his unreasonable expectations of her. Whatever happens, she thought, he’s going to have to learn one thing. I am not going to be a stepmother!

*

Nell had put on eye make-up to give herself confidence and a façade to hide behind in her first meeting with Cassie. She was determined to avoid any hostility, but felt absurdly nervous as she rang her front doorbell. What am I anticipating, she asked herself crossly, some sort of gorgon?

The woman who opened the door was smaller than she had expected, and older-looking. She had large bags under her eyes and petulant creases on her forehead, but she was smiling after a fashion.

‘Come in,’ she said. She was wearing a pale summer dress and little high-heeled sandals which clicked on the lino of the hallway as she led the way to her sitting room. Nell’s flat canvas shoes made no sound as she followed her, stepping carefully past several overflowing cardboard boxes on the floor, and dodging a set of wooden wind chimes hanging from the ceiling, which tinkled melodiously as she passed.

‘You look just like Rob’s mother!’ Cassie said, in surprised tones.

‘Oh?’ Nell wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Did you know her?’

‘Heavens, no,’ Cassie said. ‘She died when he was a child. He must have told you that?’

‘Well, yes. But …’

‘I’ve got photos of her.’

Nell glanced around the room curiously. Every flat surface was covered with things: paperweights, little porcelain bowls, candles, vases, ornaments, bits of paper, children’s toys … and framed photographs.

‘Rob took those,’ Cassie said, following her gaze. ‘He started when Joshua was born. I’ve got albums and albums of him in every conceivable situation and expression: awake, asleep, yawning, crying, smiling, serious, crawling, walking, you name it.’ She let out a little high-pitched laugh.

She’s as nervous as I am! Nell realised, and felt better.
‘And Rosie?’ she asked, failing to locate more than a few pictures of her.

‘Oh well, by the time she came along I expect the novelty had worn off a bit. Would you like a coffee?’

‘Could I just have hot water?’ Nell sat herself down whilst Cassie went to put the kettle on. The house was shabbier than she had expected, but more interesting. There were ornate mirrors and tapestry hangings on the walls, and small terracotta plaques with mottoes. The floor was covered in brightly coloured rugs and, high up where the ceiling met the wall, there were several floaty cobwebs. It felt surprisingly friendly. She sat back and waited.

‘Just water on its own?’ Cassie asked, coming back in.

‘Yes, please,’ Nell said.

‘I thought it was important to meet without Rob,’ Cassie said, sitting down. ‘He always seems to put a block on things. I can’t imagine how long it’s going to take to get the money side of the divorce settled, if he sticks to that attitude.’

Nell took a sip, but found her drink too hot.

Cassie tried another tack. ‘I’m so worried about Josh,’ she said. ‘I think I’m going to have to get professional help for him. He’s just so difficult these days, and he has the attention span of a goldfish! I can’t seem to settle him to anything.’

‘Yes,’ Nell said. ‘I’ve found that too.’

‘I’ve been trying to arrange some activities for him,’ Cassie said, ‘but it’s all so expensive, and we’re permanently short of money. I’m even having to cut Rosie’s hair myself because it’s prohibitively expensive at the hairdresser’s!’

‘Rob’s paying interim maintenance,’ Nell pointed out. ‘He is doing his best. And we aren’t all that well off either.’

‘But you’ve got a job?’

‘Not a very well-paid one.’

‘Oh, I’d love the luxury of being able to work again,’ Cassie said, closing her eyes at the thought and then opening them very wide. ‘I used to be a television presenter, you know. That was
so
rewarding – socially as well as financially. I do intend to get back to it when the children need me less, but just at the moment I really don’t have the time, and of course I’ve been ill.’ She put on a brave expression.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nell said.

She’s got a pleasant face, Cassie decided. She’s a bit fatter than I imagined; not much of a waist. Pity her job is so low grade. Rob really needs someone with a bit more of an up-market career if he’s going to be able to support his children properly. But then again, maybe a homely sort is better for Josh and Rosie – a nanny figure. At least they get well fed when they go over there. She looks the type who actually likes to cook. Can’t understand that myself; life’s too short for daily slavery in the bloody kitchen! ‘So, do you like being buried all down there in the valley bottom?’ she asked her.

‘I love it,’ Nell said, looking animated for the first time. ‘It’s my ideal home.’

‘It’s certainly very different from here. Frankly I’m concerned about how both children are adapting to the two different regimes,’ Cassie said. ‘Josh often comes home in a highly excited state, and then won’t sleep all night.’

‘Well, we don’t let him run riot, you know,’ Nell said defensively. ‘We do have rules.’

Cassie laughed. ‘I tried that at first,’ she said kindly, ‘but I soon discovered it’s a mistake to be too rigid. It never works and it just causes bad feeling. No, I was thinking, maybe if you were to keep him indoors on Sunday afternoons, doing something calming? You might make toffee together.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Nell frowned. ‘I always encourage them to spend most of the time with Rob. I mean, that’s the whole point of having them, so they can be with their father, isn’t it?’

‘Officially, I suppose, but I sometimes feel that Rob doesn’t always know what’s best for them. Men aren’t as sensitive to emotional signals as we women, are they?’

‘Rob’s absolutely devoted to both of them,’ Nell said firmly.

She’s not as biddable as she looks, Cassie thought. Pity.

‘Oh, and one other thing,’ she said, swiftly changing the subject. ‘I’ve discovered that if you get Rosie up at about four a.m. and pot her, she’s much less likely to be wet in the morning.’

Nell walked a little way along the river path early on the Saturday morning before the children arrived for a fortnight’s summer holiday. It’s all a question of mental attitude, she told herself. I’m going to take everything as it comes, and not get myself all worked up about things I can’t alter. She climbed the first stile and paused on top of it to look around her. The fields were yellow with drought. It was said to be the hottest July of the century so far, but so many weather records seemed to be being broken all the time these days. Nell wondered if it was a genuine phenomenon, or whether it was simply being studied more intensively; a preoccupation with climate reflecting the new
Zeitgeist
. I’ll walk as far as the next stile, she thought and then I’d better get back. She already felt ungainly even though the bump in her belly was very small. She patted it encouragingly. She was longing to feel the baby move inside her – incontrovertible proof that it really existed as a separate being.

At the next stile she heard raucous cries and came upon two pairs of magpies grappling with each other; all beaks and wings and claws in a mêlée of black and white feathers. They saw her at once and flew off raggedly in two directions.

‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy,’
she quoted. ‘Oh dear, and fighting too. I do hope that isn’t a bad omen.’

‘I didn’t realise you were so superstitious,’ Rob teased her when she got back.

‘I’m not usually,’ Nell said. ‘But then, I’m not usually
pregnant.’ She looked at the clock. ‘Isn’t it time you went to Boxcombe?’

‘In a minute.’

Rob still hadn’t asked her how she had got on at her meeting with Cassie. Nell found his lack of curiosity peculiar. ‘The Mad Cow told me she’s really hard up,’ she now volunteered.

‘When isn’t she?’

‘But apparently she’s swanning off for two weeks’ holiday abroad.’

‘Poverty is always relative for Cassie,’ Rob said sourly. ‘And by that I mean that her relatives are anything but poor. Her parents are always bailing her out. You have to take all her sob stuff with a hefty pinch of salt.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Right then, I’ll be off to collect my two monsters.’

When he had gone, Nell busied herself putting away all the things she didn’t want the children to appropriate or fiddle with, and everything that might be dangerous or cause disagreement. Anything for peace, she thought, closing her bedroom door on her own life and preparing to survive in enemy territory for the next two weeks.

When they arrived, Josh was back to his pre-tonsillitis bumptious self, but Rosie looked like poor little Orphan Annie. Her hair was a disaster with long strands falling the wrong way, and her dress had a large Ribena stain all down the front.

‘Nell!’ she exclaimed at once. ‘Look what mith did!’ She showed her half a bar of chocolate with tiny tooth marks all round the edge.

‘It’s been in the ‘Rover for a week or so,’ Rob said, smiling and putting it back. ‘We’ve obviously got travelling mice.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t leave it there,’ Nell said. ‘It’ll just encourage them, and it’s not exactly hygienic.’ She went to retrieve the chocolate, intending to throw it away.

‘It’s fine. OK?’ Rob stood in her way. ‘We’ll cut the tooth marks off later.’

‘Well, I still don’t think that’s a good –’ Nell hesitated.

‘I want it to stay there,’ Josh said grandly, delivering the last word on the subject.

‘I
like
mith,’ Rosie said, capping it. Nell retired as gracefully as she could, feeling irritated.

When she thought about it later, dispassionately, there definitely were rewarding times to be had with both children: the morning when she recut Rosie’s hair and washed it for her, and Rosie said, ‘It looks much more nithe now than when my other mummy did it.’ Or the time when Josh fell and cut his knees and came running to her for Elastoplast and comfort. Or when he bet her ten pence he could catch a grasshopper, and actually managed it. But these were more than counterbalanced by the occasions when Josh woke them at five in the morning to have his bottom wiped, and the night when he cried for his mother – to such an extent that Rob felt obliged to try to ring her – and Josh was inconsolable when she wasn’t there. Or the day when he deliberately made holes in a new bag of potting compost, snapped the spout off the watering can, broke a pane of glass in the kitchen window with a stick, trying to attract their attention, and then fell flat in the mud at the edge of the river
again
, and needed a complete change of clothes. All these things are only trivial, Nell reminded herself, but she still felt depressed. She had hoped by now to have become accustomed to the children, and to be able to be as comfortably capable with them as Elly was with hers.