Stop the Clock (18 page)

Of course both her parents probably still believed, deep down, that a woman’s name should appear in the papers only when she got engaged, married, gave birth, and died. If they had tolerated and even encouraged her
career as a journalist, it was at least partly out of relief that she’d dropped the idea of becoming an actress, which would, had she succeeded, have been even more exhibitionistic and amoral. She’d compromised early on, by applying to do a degree in drama and English rather than trying to get into RADA or LAMDA or Central or Guildhall . . .

She pictured the scene back home: her mother banishing any conflicting feelings by keeping busy, stewing apple for the winter’s crumbles or boiling up a great vat of plums for jam or chutney, while her father harrumphed over the
Record
crossword in the dining room.

Don’t care! Don’t care was made to care!
A small, mean, miserable sense of satisfaction stole over her. This was the rebel’s reward; if you invited punishment, it lost at least some of its sting.

By eight o’clock that evening she was lying on the sofa in her new, large, drawstring-waisted pyjamas, grateful for the sudden cool that came with sundown, enjoying, if truth be told, the smooth, taut, alien protuberance of her bump, and watching
Friends
, which had become her proxy social life. Then she heard the phone Justin had given her working its way through its default ringtone.

She padded downstairs, fished the phone out of Great-Aunt Win’s box and listened to the message. He would call back in ten. He did not sound anxious, or angry. He sounded . . . professional.

Now feeling thoroughly unrelaxed, she put the phone away, carried the box upstairs and set it down on the coffee table.

Her mobile beeped. It was Lucy:
Well, well, well, you are a dark horse! Congratulations. It makes a change to hear some good news, for once.

What a nice response! She remembered Dan saying,
It’s a new life, Tina. That’s what matters, in the end, isn’t it?
Perhaps Justin would be sympathetic too . . . concerned . . . interested. He was, after all, not without fatherly feelings – on and off, over the years, he’d mentioned his children quite a bit.

Feeling encouraged, she opened up the sewing box, lifted out the top layer and picked out an envelope.

To my dear little Vixen –

Please, no more sulking: you know as well as anyone what the British public are like where affairs are concerned. This is the most hypocritical nation on earth. Its appetite for smut is almost unlimited, and matched only by the pleasure it takes in shaming anyone who is less than perfect. The man in the street doesn’t have the opportunity or energy or resources to sin as thoroughly as he would like, so he takes what satisfaction he can from reviling those who are more fortunate, but who are unlucky enough to get caught. If we were French, we would not have this problem; I could take you to the Ivy and hold your hand between courses on as many consecutive nights as you could wish. But as it is, we must be wily, we must be strong, and we must take our chances where we can.

But it is very dreary and bare without you, Vixen.

She put the letter back.

Right on time, the phone he had given her rang again.

‘I’m glad to have caught you,’ he said.

‘It’s not hard, these days. I haven’t been going out much.’

‘You’re wise to take it easy. You’re going to need your rest. I saw your column today, of course.’

‘I thought you probably had.’

‘I shall look forward to following your progress. Perhaps you’ll end up with a book deal. Maybe even a television mini-series.’

‘I’ll be lucky if I hang on to my job, the way things are going. You know they got rid of Flora McNamara. Ten years of uselessness, and finally she gets the axe.’

‘Nonsense. You’re a favoured daughter. Even if you are a prodigal one at present. Just don’t let anyone see you smoking.’

‘I’ve given up. I can hear traffic. You’re not in a phone box, are you?’

‘You know what your brethren are like, and it’s very important for me that this conversation should remain private. I’m relying on your innate good breeding not to allow matters to get out of hand. I simply cannot afford to have my name attached to some is-he-isn’t-he hokum scandal concocted by your rag.’

Tina didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted.

‘Your name is safe with me,’ she said.

‘It’s a good idea to counterbalance ambition with restraint, as you know. And there’s no point making enemies unless you absolutely have to. Sometimes it’s best to ignore short-term advantage in favour of long-term peace of mind.’

‘That sounds suspiciously like a threat. Are you planning an accident for me if I step out of line?’

He chuckled. ‘You’re keeping well, then, I take it.’

‘Not bad, thank you for asking.’

‘You have everything you need?’

‘If you mean, do I need money, then no, I don’t.’

‘Well, Christina, I wish you well, and rest assured that I’ll be thinking of you fondly. Don’t expect me to be in anything like regular contact, though. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I need to keep my distance.’

‘Well, go on then. Ask me who I think the father is.’

‘Oh, my dear girl. I was just coming to that. I have some news for you, too, you see. I’m afraid it can’t possibly be me. I had a vasectomy a couple of years ago. Ginny suggested it, and I thought it would be for the best. You did seem very focused on your career, but I know that women have a way of conjuring up babies when they decide they want them, and it seemed to me that it would be a very bad idea to put myself in a position where I might be used in that way.’

If he had been there, she would have slapped him. It probably wouldn’t have helped. Outbursts of temper amused him. He was impervious to other people’s negative emotions; sometimes this was a good quality – and sometimes it was absolutely enraging.

‘Then you lied to me. You lied by omission. We talked about this. You asked me if I wanted children, and I said I probably would one day, and you said you never ruled anything out.’

‘I think if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize I haven’t broken any promises. I didn’t see any point
in letting some vague worries about the future spoil a perfectly satisfactory present.’

‘You told me things would be different when your children were older.’

‘My children are older, Christina, and so am I, and so are you.’

She caught her breath. Did she really want to end this screaming and shouting? But then, did she have any dignity left to preserve?

‘It was good, you know,’ she said. Mustn’t cry. That would be the worst, most futile thing she could do.

‘Not all of it,’ she added – attack, within reason, was the best form of defence. ‘But definitely some of it.’

‘I know. Of course it was. But now we both have to look forward rather than back. There may be some things that you would like me to have, for safekeeping, as it were. I thought I would send Dilys round to pick them up. One evening this week perhaps. Or in the morning – she’s quite close to you, she could call by on her way in. I wondered when would be convenient.’

Dilys was Justin’s secretary. Her devotion to him would have baffled Tina if Tina hadn’t built so much of her own life around him. As it was, she did occasionally wonder if they had ever had an affair, and if Dilys’s calves had been slightly less sturdy she might have been positively suspicious.

‘Are you telling me you want your letters back?’

‘I’m going to trust to your good judgement, Christina, and your goodwill.’

‘I’m not going to sell you up the river, you know.’

‘I need peace of mind about this. Please.’

‘OK. If that’s the way you want it, I suppose it’s all the same to me. Tell Dilys to be here at seven thirty tomorrow morning. She can have the lot.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate it. And, Christina, if I may, I’d like to offer you some advice. You are now in the business of selling yourself, and you’re doing quite a good job of it, I might add. But you’re not just selling yourself – you’re selling other people, too, and sooner or later, if you are successful, demand will outstrip supply, and then there is more than a passing risk that you will lose control of what you put on the market. Let me remind you of a wise old saying: Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. And here’s another thought for you: those whom the gods wish to drive mad, they give what they want.’

‘Then I don’t think I’m in much danger of going crazy. This is most definitely not how I wanted my life to turn out.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he agreed, ‘but I think you want to take what you can. Which is understandable. But you can’t just take what you want and pay for it. We all take. We all pay. And we all want attention, but it can be very uncomfortable when you can’t escape it. Goodbye, Christina. And good luck.’

She pressed the button to end the call, then muttered, ‘Anyway, vasectomies don’t always work, you know,’ as if he might still be able to hear her.

She sat for a while without moving.

The landline rang, but had gone dead by the time she picked up. It was Natalie.

She’d left a message:
Oh my God, Lucy just told me your
news. You’re in the club! That’s fantastic! If you ever want a second-hand breast pump, I’ve got one I’d be very happy to see the back of.

Tina went to the photo montage hanging on the chimney breast. Back to happier times . . . Tina, Lucy, Natalie, and Richard, fourteen years ago in the Plasnewydd Arms, postgraduate students in Cardiff, their faces smooth and bland with youth. Apart from Richard, they were all smoking, even Lucy – that was before she’d turned into an impeccable wife and mother who baked her own ciabatta bread.

Karaoke night. It had been fun – the kind of fun you have when you know you’re only going to be in a place for a year, and you’ve deferred the
Reality Bites
moment of knuckling under and getting a job. Even Richard, who was rarely parted from his law conversion course textbooks, looked as if he was enjoying himself. They had spent hours in the pub back then, talking about nonsense, talking about themselves . . .

Usually she wasn’t aware of the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece, but at that moment it struck her as obtrusively loud.

She had to tell Dan. She would. But . . . she didn’t have to do it here and now, did she? The moment she did, he would have rights. Rights over the baby . . . and since she and the baby were currently indivisible, wouldn’t that give him rights over her too?

She turned away and moved about the flat, collecting the things she needed: brown parcel paper and tape, scissors.

Then she sat down again, opened the box, picked out
the lid of the largest compartment, and ran her fingertips over the strip of paper glued to the inside.

Winifred Fox, 1875. Made by I alone.

She slotted the lid into place and closed up the box. For the first time it struck her as an ominous object, ill-starred, and she wondered if it would seem so to him. Would he feel rebuked by it? Would he see it as a token, a final lover’s gift? Would he give it any thought at all?

Great-Aunt Win had never married. As far as Tina knew, this was all that was left of her. Tina had acquired the box as a child mainly because no one else had wanted it. Now what would become of it?

Made by I alone.

She set about wrapping up the package for Dilys. When she’d finished she tidied up, rinsed out her mug and went downstairs to bed. She left the parcel unlabelled, sitting alone on the coffee table in the dark.

LUCY HADN’T SEEN
Hannah in the flesh since the first days of Ellen’s stay in hospital, but as summer turned to autumn the image of Hannah rutting with Adam intruded at odd times, throwing her off track. It kept coming back, unbidden, taunting her, haunting her . . . She tried to keep busy, and the odd glass of wine (or two, or three) was a helpful analgesic, but nothing could diminish the power of what she’d witnessed.

Perhaps seeing Hannah face to face again would bring about some kind of exorcism, but she preferred not to risk it. She’d managed to hold on to her dignity at the hospital, but that was no guarantee that she wouldn’t lose the plot next time, and launch herself at Hannah and try to wring her neck.

They were in touch more or less weekly via email, so that they could arrange separate visits to Ellen and swap notes on how she was – that way, they could both avoid each other and ensure that Ellen had contact with
the outside world at regular intervals. Hannah always asked after the girls, and Lucy answered, briefly, as if responding politely to a faraway acquaintance.

The teachers, the mums at the school gate, her friends; pretty much everybody now knew that Adam had gone for good. They had been shocked and sympathetic, but it had not taken long for them to become matter-of-fact about the separation, as if it had become normal. Whereas Lucy lived in a house filled with memories of both her husband and her sister, and could not imagine that life would ever feel normal again.

She didn’t want the girls to feel that way, however, and she tried to keep them busy over the summer, with playdates and trips and tennis and swimming. Then, in September, Clemmie went back to St Katherine’s and Lottie started at her new secondary school, Caldecott Grammar.

In the old days, Lucy would immediately have sought to establish herself as an active and committed parent, but she decided to keep her head down. It was all she could do to keep track of Lottie’s homework, and try to find out about her new friends.

Now the summer holidays were over and the girls were back at school, she had no excuse for not cracking on with her job hunt. Adam had been sending her a third of his salary; he now didn’t have one, and didn’t plan on having one, at least not on a comparable pay scale. He said he was burnt out and didn’t want another corporate job; he was going to do a TEFL course and then go travelling. Drifting round the globe having sex with gap year students . . . she could picture it all
too easily. He should probably have done it years ago. When he was gap year age himself.