Out of Step (38 page)

She and Sibyl laughed about it together. ‘I take it Rob’s an indulgent dad?’ Sibyl asked.

‘He’s the ultimate Mr Nice Guy,’ Nell agreed. ‘I get lumbered with enforcing all the discipline. I sometimes feel it’s Rob and the three children versus me!’

Sibyl smiled. ‘But then, you never did like aggressive macho men.’

‘I thought I didn’t.’

‘And how are the other two? I can see Lottie’s blooming.’

‘Oh, they’re pretty good really. Rob’s been teaching them to play chess, and Josh is learning – with great difficulty – to lose gracefully. And lately I’ve been having to go upstairs and kiss them both good night after Rob has read them a story.’ She smiled at the thought.

‘That’s nice. So they’re not jealous of Lottie?’

‘Rosie’s sometimes resentful about not being the youngest any more, then the next day she’s all over her. They both seem to be irritated by her and affectionate in turns.’

‘Sounds normal,’ Sibyl said.

But I can’t trust them, Nell thought to herself. And I can’t be honest about how I feel, or vent my spleen. And every time they come I feel
invaded
. And Rob doesn’t support me enough, so our rôles are unfairly unequal, and I feel second best all the time, and I’m fed up with him being so easy-going and so
weak
…

But all she said was, ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

That evening, when she came downstairs after putting Lottie to bed for the night, she found the kitchen full of smoke and rushed to open all the windows.

‘The bloody stove needs its sodding chimney cleaning out again!’ she shouted at Rob, who was in the sitting
room watching
Blind Date
on television with avid contempt.

‘I know,’ he said, not moving.

‘Well, if Lottie dies of lung cancer it will be all your fault!’

‘I’ll do it later. Stop nagging!’

‘I’ve never nagged in my life – before I met you. You’d make a saint nag!’

‘Cassie used to –’

‘And shut up about fucking Cassie! Hasn’t it occurred to you that she might have had a point? Hasn’t it ever entered your minute brain that there could be lots of reasons why your first marriage failed, and that they might not
all
be down to her?’

‘Calm down, Nell. There’s no need to yell.’

‘I’m utterly pissed off with you!’ Nell shouted louder. ‘I’m sick to death of being taken for granted and always being second best. I’ve had it up to here with doing my duty, and having to cook your endless bloody meals, and shifting Lottie from room to room all the time to accommodate your horrible bloody ungrateful children!’ And she stormed upstairs and lay on her bed and wept. Then, when her anger had subsided, she felt ashamed of herself and cried some more with self-reproach.

She was only roused when Lottie began to wail next door, and she had to get up to go and attend to her. She took her downstairs for moral support, hiding her face behind the warm pudgy body. Rob was still watching television, but he turned the sound off as they came in.

‘Now she’s upset too,’ Nell said.

‘Come to Daddy,’ Rob said, taking the child from her and making silly faces. Lottie chuckled delightedly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nell mumbled. ‘I shouldn’t have said any of that.’

‘Perhaps it needed saying?’ Rob suggested. ‘Sounds to
me as though you’ve been bottling things up, and that’s always a bad idea.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Look,’ he offered, ‘tomorrow’s Sunday and the weather forecast is good. Why don’t we walk down to the sea and have a picnic lunch, and talk things over?’

‘But you never discuss feelings?’

‘Well, perhaps I should make an effort. You look worn out, Nell. Go to bed. We’ll sort it out tomorrow.’ He reached out and patted her arm awkwardly.

Sunday was as bright and dry as predicted. Rob called Nell over to the bedroom window first thing to see a roe doe with her new-born faun on the small meadow on the opposite bank of the river. Nell watched the faun hopping beside its mother, like a hare, and focused her binoculars on the small pale head and ears and the darker back with its white stripes. The doe was a warm ginger colour in her summer coat. She stood there, calm and undisturbed in a ray of morning sun, and then turned with her youngster and disappeared amongst the darker trees.

Oh! Nell thought. I really needed that – something beautiful first thing to raise my spirits. The May garden was lush and scented with lilac. The swallows were back, and there would be a cuckoo any day now. She felt a little heartened.

At noon as they were setting off for their picnic, Rob discovered a cockchafer trapped in the rain gauge. The water was halfway up its abdomen, and it was waving its feet feebly. He fished it out with a twig and held it up for Lottie to see. She was getting fractious and beginning to struggle in his arms. ‘Big Maybug beetle. Look!’

‘They’re actually quite handsome,’ Nell said grudgingly.

‘Lovely feathery antennae,’ Rob smiled. ‘Good thing it went in bum first!’

This is all very well, Nell thought, but he can’t distract
me as easily as he does Lottie. We do have to
talk
.

They walked along the coast path as far as the first stile, and Nell held Lottie as Rob lifted her pushchair over it. Then they set off again, Rob pushing and striding out.

‘The thing is,’ Nell was desperate to begin. ‘You see … I don’t love your children.’ She’d said it!

‘Why should you?’ Rob appeared unruffled. ‘I probably wouldn’t love anyone else’s either. But you do a very good job with them.’

‘You really mean that?’

‘Of course I do.’

Nell skipped to get in step with him, and took his arm. ‘I thought you’d be upset.’

‘No. I know it’s not easy,’ Rob squeezed her hand with his forearm. ‘You do your best, and it’s a very good best. But there’s something I should have done, and much earlier too.’

‘What?’

‘Well, the cottage is clearly unworkable as it is, and last night forced me to think about it properly. So I think we should build that extension, then Lottie can have her own room.’

‘Oh
yes!’
Nell stopped in her tracks and turned to him.

‘And, if you agree, I’d like an office too, so that I can work from home again. What d’you think?’

‘Why not? I’d like that.’

‘There’s more.’

‘What?’

‘We need to upgrade our river defences, so I thought we could strengthen the wall and make it go right round the garden, and maybe rebuild the jetty and get ourselves a dinghy.’

‘I’ve always wanted a boat!’

‘So you think it’s a good idea?’

‘I think it’s terrific.’

‘Listen!’ Rob put up a hand. Above them, carrying
distinctly through the clear air, came a strange rippling titter of a cry, repeated several times. Rob searched the sky with his binoculars and then pointed out half a dozen birds with slightly down-curved beaks, flying purposefully overhead. ‘Whimbrel,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘on passage.’ He looked at Nell and smiled.

‘Seven whistlers, Lottie,’ Nell said, bending down to the child in the pushchair. ‘Up there, look! We usually see a few at this time of year, but they never seem to stop.’

‘Reminds me of an old proverb,’ Rob said. ‘Persian in origin, I believe.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You can’t stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair,’
Rob quoted. ‘I realise now that I should have spent more time helping you to shoo them away. I will in future.’

That night, when they went to bed they lay there, talking.

‘I’ve decided we ought to make sure you have a studio too in this extension of ours,’ Rob said, ‘so that you can paint again. You’ve got such talent, and it’s a horrible waste not to use it.’

‘That would be wonderful,’ Nell said. ‘I never realised you thought that much of my painting.’

‘I suppose I never said.’

‘True.’

‘Well, I do. I’m very proud of you altogether. It’s not the sort of thing I’m good at expressing, but I promise to try harder.’ Nell reached to kiss him, and he rolled over to face her. ‘I love you,’ he said.

‘So do I,’ Nell said, ‘love you. It’s really very painless to say, isn’t it?’

‘After the first time, yes. I can’t think why it took me so long.’

‘Maybe you’re a late starter.’

‘But not an early finisher, I hope.’ He rolled on top of
her and began kissing her neck. Nell put both arms around him and ran her hands down his back to the little furry bit at the base of his spine that she specially cherished.

Sometime later, she realised with satisfaction that she hadn’t had to say ‘Up a bit’ or ‘Down a bit’ once. They lay silently on their backs, apart again, hot and drowsy and utterly contented. Lottie was quietly asleep in the next room. The river was flowing steadily past their garden wall. The night air was motionless and fragrant in an anticyclonic calm. All was peaceful. Nell, on the verge of sleep, fancied she could hear something hopeful – maybe from somewhere in the future. She closed her eyes, the better to concentrate, and there it was again: the faint, hesitant sound of a pig – singing.

For MATT and BEN
who turned out so well

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London
WC1B 3DP
Copyright © Maggie Makepeace 1999
The moral right of author has been asserted
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ISBN: 9781448207619
eISBN: 9781448207305
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