State We're In (2 page)

Thoughtlessly he hoisted the grumbling baby on to his hip and leant his forehead against the hall wall. He was a little flushed. That would be the whisky. He should have stuck to pints. He shouldn't have allowed himself to be tempted into drinking spirits at lunchtime, but it was difficult to resist. She was such a fun girl. Frivolous. Game. Plus, he knew whisky made her dirty. There was nothing better than a free and flippant afternoon in the sack, other than, perhaps, a filthy and risky one. The hall wallpaper was a smooth, cool vinyl; brown squares on a slightly paler brown background. The floor was covered with cork tiles. Eddie had picked them both out but now regretted his choices; momentarily, he felt like he was inside a cell for the mentally ill, but there was no padding.

Eddie forced himself to look at Zoe. She was a fat baby. When old women peeked into her pram they oohed and aahed and swore blind that she was a cherub, a bonny baby, a
proper
baby. The women who gave these compliments had been mothers during the war and so liked fat kids. Eddie didn't like the way his daughter looked. He wished she wasn't quite so opulent. This child seemed to burst out of her nappies and smock dresses; hats popped off her head, tights wouldn't quite pull up over her chunky thighs. Her brow melted into her nose and she had no neck at all. Dean was the same. Eddie had thought that once he was running around a bit, he'd slim down, but he hadn't. He was five years old but he had to wear clothes for eight year olds; the bottoms of his trousers were always covered in mud because Diane was too idle to hem anything. Idle or incapable. Still, at least with a boy you could tell yourself he was stocky and hardy, you could console yourself with the thought that he might make a rugby player. It was 1976, for God's sake. Lithe meant affluent, fashionable, desirable; chubby meant, well, the opposite.

Eddie was a writer for the BBC; people expected certain things from him in terms of style and presentation. He was part of the
it
crowd. He knew people who would, no doubt, one day be described as iconic. It was assumed he would wear his hair inches past the collar, and he needed long sideburns; he had to wear corduroy trousers that fell dangerously low around his groin, with unforgiving polo-neck jumpers, which did not allow for an ounce of spare flesh. People presumed he would indulge in recreational narcotics and free love, that he'd have a wife who had once dabbled as a model but now was a little bit too dependent on Valium and vino; every night was a party.

No one expected kids, but if there had to be kids then they should be skinny, whimsical types. They ought to wear fancy-dress costumes all day long and have long blond hair that made it difficult to discern gender. Scandi or American kids were the role models; Dean looked as though he was getting his vibe from Billy Bunter. Eddie blamed the copious amounts of tinned rice pudding, Angel Delight and Findus Crispy Pancakes that Diane spooned into him. He knew why she did it: kids couldn't cry when their mouths were full. Lazy cow.

His mother had warned him that Diane would not make a proper wife. That she couldn't cook a decent meal, or sew or clean. He'd agreed; it was her improperness that he'd fallen for. He thought she was like him. Bold and irreverent. Selfish. And that had been attractive. Now it was just inconvenient.

Eddie followed his wife into the kitchen. For a moment he allowed himself to hope she might actually have cooked something for supper. It was a ridiculous thought. Even if she had been the sort of wife to have his dinner waiting for him, he'd arrived home two hours later than he'd said he would, so it would be cold or burnt to a crisp by now. Anyway, there was no hint of home-cooked dishes; the kitchen smelt damp and dank, a mixture of drains and stale food. The only thing Eddie could ever taste in the kitchen was sour air and neglect.

Diane always had the radio droning on in the background. She turned the volume down low so as not to disturb the baby presumably, but this irritated Eddie. How was he supposed to enjoy the tunes or follow the news stories at that volume? He snapped the radio off and the silence was only interrupted by the sound of the hot tap dripping. He'd been meaning to get that fixed for a while. He doubted he ever would.

Eddie thought it was bizarre that despite the lack of industry that occurred in the kitchen, the room was invariably a mess. The lino on the floor was sticky; it was like wading through a sea of Blu-Tack, his shoes making a strange squelchy sound as he walked about. The circular plastic table was crammed full of dirty pots and condiments, left over from the kids' tea, lunch and breakfast. His critical eye noted the open packet of butter that was turning rancid. There were gummy jam jars, a bottle with souring milk, a gunky ketchup bottle and plates covered with greasy smears suggesting that Dean had been fed fried eggs tonight. They'd get mice again if she wasn't more careful. They rarely sat down as a whole family at the table. Eddie didn't care that they didn't eat together on a Sunday – the family gathering for meat and two veg was bourgeois and staid, something the last generation valued – but he would have liked it if she'd sometimes made pasta or curry, neither of which was bourgeois because they were foreign; pasta and curry were cool. He'd have liked to invite friends round for supper. They could use the fondue set and drink red wine; they'd bought a carafe when they'd been on honeymoon in Spain. Where the hell was it? Eddie wondered. How come nearly every pot and pan they owned was left on a kitchen surface but he'd never laid eyes on the carafe? Had she put away all reminders of their honeymoon? It was only six years ago, but it was a lifetime back.

The wooden clothes horse was a permanent fixture in the poky kitchen, a never-ending stream of damp clothes hung on it, draped in a way that always put Eddie in mind of dead bodies. There were two plastic buckets by the door that she used for steeping the fouled nappies. Dozens of mugs and glasses were dotted around the kitchen; they each had their own bioculture growing inside, and around them crumbs were scattered like confetti. Diane ate ten Rich Tea biscuits a day; with two apples and a couple of glasses of wine, she could stay under the thousand calorie mark and ensure that her hip bones continued to jut. Recently she hadn't bothered with the apples but had had the odd extra glass.

The room could do with an airing, but the window was jammed.

The kitchen was Eddie's Room 101. Not a cage of rats put on his face, like in the George Orwell novel, but death by domesticity. In this kitchen they did not talk about the strikes, David Bowie's music or even the perm or the Chopper bike. The sort of conversations Eddie and Diane limited themselves to (if they spoke at all) were ones about this child having taken a fall and got bruised, the other having a funny rash, or Diane would moan that she needed a few more quid to buy a new breadbin, her aunt had been round, her aunt thought they needed new curtains, her aunt wondered when he was going to get a job that was better paid. Depending on how much she'd had to drink, Diane might yell that she wondered as much too. He was a graduate, for God's sake. He had a degree, why was he wasting it being a writer? Writing didn't pay. She should have married an accountant. That was what her aunt said; that was what she thought too.

Eddie knew men who hit their wives. He never had. That wasn't his thing. Hitting your woman didn't sit well with reading the
Tribune
. But sometimes when she went on and on and on and on, he could imagine grabbing one of those dirty tea towels that lay screwed up on the kitchen surface and shoving it into her mouth. He didn't want to choke her, not exactly. He just wanted to stop her going on.

He glanced down at his fat gold wedding ring. This wasn't how he'd imagined it would be. He was suffocating.

C
lara snapped off the TV with impatience. There was never any good news; just bombs, kidnappings, the threat of strikes. She only watched the news for the bit at the end when they told you what the Queen was up to. Had she visited a public garden, or perhaps some youth centre? Clara would never know, because she'd switched off before they got to that bit today. They were saying there were three million unemployed now. Three million! Couldn't someone find them something to do? They should, because nothing good ever came from idle hands. The thought stung. She knew how destructive boredom could be. She'd said to Tim that perhaps they should make these doleys join up. The soldiers and sailors and what-have-you were being so brave out in the Falkland Islands right now. They were doing a fine job, but no doubt they'd welcome a helping hand, a few more buddies. Clara didn't really know what was going on out there; in fact she hadn't known exactly where ‘out there' was until she'd checked in the atlas, but Neil Todd's father at the school gate said she wasn't to feel bad about that, hardly anyone did know. All that was clear was that there was a lot of bombing and burning and young men coming home with shocking injuries. Thinking about it, maybe the doleys were better off at home after all. Clara sighed. She didn't know what to make of it; she didn't like to think about it.

Instead she turned her attention to how she should kill the next few hours before she had to start the school pick-up. What should she do with her afternoon? Had she anything on video to watch? It was her guilty pleasure to watch recorded episodes of
Dynasty
when the children were at school. She had tried, but found it was impossible to give the TV her full attention in the evenings. The children would invariably squabble their way through an entire episode, or worse, they pestered her with irritating or inappropriate questions. Normally, she was a very patient mother. She was quite prepared to answer endless enquiries about Barbie dolls and Danger Mouse (no, she did not know that Barbie's full name was Barbara Millicent Roberts, but yes, she did think Barbie Millie was cuter, and yes, she did believe Danger Mouse had trained with James Bond; certainly the same school, if not the same year), but it was significantly trickier explaining the saga of the wealthy Denver family who had made their money in oil.

‘Does Daddy have much to do with oil?' Joanna had asked thoughtfully, when they'd last watched the programme together.

‘No, stupid. Daddy is a banker,' Lisa had replied, harshly dismissing her younger sister. Although there was less than two years between them, the gap seemed wider, as fourteen-year-old Lisa had now clambered into the teenage world that allowed access to DM boots and black eyeliner, while twelve-year-old Joanna was quite innocent, still content to dress up her dolls.

‘Perhaps he should do more with oil, because then we'd have a house as big as Krystle's,' Joanna had added, her childish lisp not quite hiding her fully formed ambition to marry well. Joanna lived for the Cinderella fairy tale.

‘We're very lucky as it is, darling,' Clara had reminded her daughter, as she often reminded herself. ‘We live in a much bigger house than nearly all our friends.'

‘What does Krystle
do
in that house all day anyway?' Lisa had demanded as she'd turned back to her homework.

Joanna had shrugged, unconcerned by the glittery woman's inertia. Then a thought struck her. Horrified, she'd asked, ‘I don't understand. Why has Blake been married to two ladies?'

Clara had tried to explain. ‘Well, Krystle was his secretary but now she's his wife. Alexis was his wife before.'

‘What is she now?'

‘His ex-wife.'

‘What does that even mean?' Jo had asked, stricken. In her protected world – the leafy suburbs of Wimbledon – it meant very little; she had no idea that divorce was run-of-the-mill in other postcodes. In Wimbledon, people stuck it out. Clara, more than anyone, knew that.

‘She's not just “his ex-wife”, she's the boss of an enormous multimillion-, possibly billion-dollar company,' Lisa had muttered, rolling her eyes.

‘Which wife do you like best, Mummy?' Joanna had pursued.

‘Krystle. She's so patient, serene and composed,' Clara had replied, even though secretly she was sure Alexis had all the fun. The insipid second wife wasn't half as exciting as the feisty first one, who had a string of younger lovers, but Alexis Carrington wasn't a role model Clara Russell could openly aspire to. Not openly.

‘Why didn't they look more for Adam? If someone kidnapped me, would you look lots?' Mark, her youngest, had asked fearfully. He'd hopped on to Clara's knee, and she'd enjoyed his warmth and chubbiness.

‘Yes, darling, I'd keep searching until the end of time and as far as the end of the world.'

‘The world is round, so strictly, it doesn't end,' Lisa had pointed out.

‘He's five, Lisa.'

‘So you shouldn't fill his head with rubbish.' Lisa had nodded pertinently in the direction of Joanna whilst continuing to glare coldly at Clara. Clara knew that Lisa firmly believed that Joanna needed to be weaned off the romantic fairy tales she'd been allowed to believe were gospel, and that Lisa did not consider Clara a particularly good role model for dreamy Jo.

Was she a let-down? She had tried so hard. Nearly always done the right thing. Even though doing the wrong thing was so much easier, so much more fun. Clara was confident that she was a superb homemaker. That wasn't up for debate. The house was spotless, their food home-cooked, their clothes carefully ironed (even nighties, petticoats and Tim's underwear), but Lisa would no doubt have preferred it if Clara was a career woman; the sort that wore shoulder pads and carried fat, impressive Filofaxes. When Joanna had started school, Clara had worked, briefly. Through an old school friend she'd found a rather fun position at the BBC; it was mostly typing and filing but it had got her out of the house for a couple of hours a day and she'd met such exciting people. Too exciting. Dangerous. So after that foray, Tim wouldn't hear of her working again. He said that working was not for women like her, ones with children and a husband, and he had a point. Tim rarely got home before nine most nights of the week; sometimes he was much later. How would it work if they both had careers?