This Perfect World (19 page)

But it isn’t Mrs Partridge. It’s Ian.

‘Laura!’ he calls down his crackly mobile, just like we
were old friends. ‘Ian here, Ian Partridge. I’m on the M40,
just past Oxford. Mum phoned me from the hospital, said
Heddy’s in a bad way. Headed down, straight from work.
Should be there in an hour or so.’

His voice is tinny in my ear. I picture him as a boy, pudding
face salivating at the prospect of sweets, or cake, or a better
look at me.

‘Mum says you’ve got Nathan,’ he shouts over the crackle.
‘I’ll pick him up later, when I take Mum home.’

Sheer horror forces me to think quickly. I cannot have Ian
Partridge and Mrs Partridge turning up here at God knows
what hour. I’d have to invite them in. I cannot bear it, the
thought of them here, in my house.

‘Well, that’ll be late—’ I start to say, but he butts in.

‘What? Can’t hear you,’ he shouts in my ear. ‘The line’s
breaking up.’

‘It’ll be too late,’ I shout back, determined to be heard.
‘Nathan can stay here. I’ll bring him home in the morning.’

‘You sure?’ he yells at me. ‘That’s great then, Laura. Thanks
a lot.’

I put down the phone slowly, reeling from the shock of
yet another Partridge barging into my life.

They’re in the playroom, all three of them squashed onto
one sofa, watching TV.

‘Guess what?’ I say, like I have fantastic news. ‘Nathan’s
staying tonight!’ I say it like it’s the biggest treat since
Christmas, but they all look at me with tired, doubtful
eyes.

‘Where’s he sleeping?’ Arianne asks.

‘In the spare room,’ I say. ‘He’ll be nice and cosy in there.’

‘Where’s his pyjamas?’ asks Thomas.

‘He can borrow some for tonight,’ I say in my cheeriest,
jolliest voice, knowing what’s coming next.

Sure enough, ‘He’s not borrowing mine,’ Thomas says,
scowling at Nathan.

‘We’ve got plenty of pyjamas,’ I say. ‘I’m sure we can find
a pair for Nathan.’

I wish I’d anticipated this and got Mrs Partridge to pack
him a bag of clothes, just in case. But if I had anticipated it,
there’s no way I’d have ended up in this situation at all.

I’ve only an hour before James comes home, so I put Thomas
and Arianne in the bath together, to save time. Nathan watches
from the doorway, seemingly fascinated as they splash and
play. Then the bath is emptied, and refilled, and it is his turn.

I leave him to it as I see Thomas and Arianne into their
pyjamas and beds. I find spare pyjamas, plump up the pillows
on the bed in the spare room next to Arianne’s, then whip
Nathan out of the bath, even though he seems to be having
a lovely time, wallowing on his front and making whale
noises into the water. I wrap him in a towel and rub him
dry. The skin on his body is white and slack already; in a
year or two he’ll be fat.

Then James phones. Fortunately for me, his train has been
cancelled and he is stuck at Waterloo. This means I can gather
the children into Arianne’s room and read them a story,
which is fine until Thomas notices that Nathan is wearing
his Superman pyjamas.

‘He’s got my pyjamas on!’ Thomas accuses in outrage,
pointing his finger at Nathan, who is sitting on the floor
with his legs crossed and staring at his knees.

‘He’s just borrowing them for tonight,’ I say placatingly,
but Thomas will not be appeased.

‘No he’s not!’ he storms. ‘I want them back!’

‘You can have them back tomorrow,’ I say. ‘Now let’s get
on with the story.’

‘I want them back now!’ Thomas yells, and throws himself
into a full-scale rage. He launches himself off the bed and
at Nathan, and starts tugging at his pyjamas.

‘Thomas!’ I shout, pulling him away from poor Nathan,
who just sits there, bending his head down further, his face
turning scarlet.

‘He’s stinky!’ Thomas yells. ‘And he doesn’t live here. I
want him to go home!’

‘Enough, Thomas!’ I know he doesn’t mean it. He’s just
a child, he doesn’t mean to be cruel. But as I drag him out
of Arianne’s room and put him into his own with a thorough
telling-off, I don’t know who I am most embarrassed
for, Nathan or myself.

Amazingly, the children are all asleep by the time James eventually
gets home. I hear his key in the lock, then he swings
open the door and flings his briefcase down in the hall,
breaking the silence.

‘Bloody trains!’ he says, by way of greeting. He shrugs off
his jacket and more or less throws it at me, as if I were a
coat hook. ‘I have had a bloody hard day and I do not need
to finish it waiting at Waterloo station for nearly an hour
because of some stupid signal failure!’

He continues moaning throughout supper. I watch him eat
and listen to him complaining. Then he goes into the living
room and watches the TV, and falls asleep the minute the
news is finished. He comes to bed after me. I hear him
padding up the stairs, and listen to the pause as he glances
first into Thomas’s room and then into Arianne’s, oblivious
to the fact that we have a visitor fast asleep in the spare room.

I wake in the night, hearing something.

James hears it too. ‘Oh, what now?’ he moans and turns
over, dragging the duvet up around his ears.

‘One of the children,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll go.’

Quickly I slip out of bed and out of the room, closing the
door behind me. The landing light is on, turned down low
on a dimmer switch. I turn it up a fraction and see Nathan,
standing in the doorway of his room. He’s crying, his little
shoulders jerking up and down inside the borrowed pyjamas
as he sobs. He’s making an awful noise, crying like only a
boy can, from low down in his throat. He sees me, and cries
louder.

‘Sshh!’ I whisper, thinking he’ll wake the others, but already
Arianne’s door is opening wider and out she comes, dragging
her beanie doll behind her.

‘What’s the matter with Nathan?’ she asks, her voice thick
with sleep, and loud.

‘Sshh!’ I say again, to her this time. ‘I don’t know.’

I’m thinking he’s probably wet his bed or something, which
is the last thing I need, but when I bend down nearer to him
I see his pyjamas are dry, thank God. But there’s a huge snot
bubble growing out of his nose.

‘What’s the matter, Nathan?’ I ask him quietly, but he just
keeps on crying, and the snot bubble is getting bigger. I can’t
stand to look at it, so I take him by his hot little hand and
lead him into the bathroom.

Arianne follows us and watches, squinting in the bright
light as I tear off a strip of loo roll and wipe his nose. ‘Go
back to bed,’ I say to her. ‘He’s probably just had a bad dream.’

She stays where she is and stares at him, not convinced.

‘Go on,’ I tell her. ‘He’ll be fine in the morning.’

Reluctantly, she goes back to her room. Now Nathan’s
face is clean I can touch him; I put my hand against his forehead.
He’s hot from crying, but there’s no temperature. I’m
pretty sure he isn’t ill and so, as he isn’t telling me what’s
wrong, I tell him.

‘Just a bad dream,’ I confirm.

He’s still crying a bit, but it’s under control now
and, armed with a length of tissue, I take him back to his
room. I pull back the duvet and obediently he climbs into
bed.

‘You’ll be all right now,’ I tell him, wanting just to get
back to bed myself now. I’m about to leave him when at last
he speaks.

‘I want my mum,’ he says, and the crying starts up again,
even harder.

I sit down on the bed beside him.

‘I want my mum!’ he wails again, and his little body is
jerking up and down on a torrent of tears. Somewhat rigidly
I put my arm around his shoulders; instantly he yields and
turns his face into my body. Shocked, I hold him. His arm
comes up and clings to my neck; soon he is on my lap. With
one hand I stroke his hair, with the other I hold him to me.
Gently I rock him.

‘Sshh,’ I say, ‘sshh,’ as I stroke his hair.

He cries into my breast and I hold him. I hold him until
he cries himself to sleep, this poor, poor little boy. I rest my
face against his head and I am crying, too. I hold him long
after he is asleep, then I tuck him into his bed and kiss him
goodnight.

*

James is up early in the morning, and out, before the children
are up. He is completely unaware that we have had
Nathan to stay.

Now that we are taking him home and therefore it is certain
that he is not a permanent fixture, Thomas finds it in his
power to be a little nicer to Nathan. He especially can’t wait
to see the big black car with no wheels.

‘Look, there it is!’ squeals Arianne, frantically pointing as
we pull up outside numbers One and Two Fairview Lane.

‘Wow!’ Thomas gasps in total awe, and tries desperately
to whistle through his lips.

‘Wait,’ I say as I let them out of the car. ‘Nathan lives next
door.’ But they line up in a row, all three of them, staring at
that hideous old banger as if it was a spaceship down from
the sky.

They are still there when the door of number One opens,
and Ian Partridge comes out and walks down the path.

Would I have known it was him, if I hadn’t seen him here,
now? I don’t know. He’s tall and wide and carries his weight
with a confident swagger. His black hair is thinning at the
front and brushed back, and he’s dressed in aged jeans that
do up tight below his belly and a check shirt. He thinks he’s
gorgeous. I can tell that just by the way he moves.

‘Laura,’ he says. ‘Good to see you again.’

He puts his hands on my shoulders and makes the bold move
of kissing me on the cheek. I hang between his hands like a
wooden doll. I do not know if he’s learned a few cosmopolitan
manners since he grew up or if he’s just taking advantage.

‘You’re looking good, Laura,’ he says as if his opinion
should matter to me, and his smile is just as leery as it ever
was. Then he calls over to Nathan, ‘All right, mate?’

Nathan looks at him and grins; it is the first time I’ve seen
him smile. I’ve the feeling he would run over to his uncle,
but he’s enjoying the success of being with the others, looking
at that car.

To me, Ian says, ‘Those yours? Kids are great, aren’t they?
Got three myself, and another one on the way. They’re hard
work, but worth it.’

I agree wholeheartedly and watch the children, which
is infinitely better than making eye contact with Ian
Partridge.

‘It’s hard for Mum, looking after Nathan on her own,’ he
says. ‘Wish I could do more. He’s a great kid. Needs his
family, though.’

‘He needs his mother,’ I can’t help saying.

I sense, rather than see, Ian shrug his shoulders beside me,
but I hear him sigh clearly enough. ‘It’s a sad old business
with poor Heddy. Can’t see an end to it, somehow. And
you’re right, the boy does need his mother.’ He clicks together
his teeth, then sighs again. ‘But it’s Mum I worry about most.
She’s not as young as she used to be and it’s too much for
her, looking after Nathan and going back and forth to the
hospital every day. Took her back over this morning, I did.
Worn out, she is, worn out.’

‘And what about Heddy?’ I ask. ‘How’s she?’

‘Oh, she’s all right,’ he says. ‘Well, as all right as she can
be, stuck in that place. Drugged up.’ He pauses. ‘She cut her
arms with a Coke ring. Didn’t do too much damage. It’s the
fallout that’s worse, you know. The upset.’

‘I can’t understand why she’d want to make things worse,’
I say.

‘That’s the trouble,’ Ian says. ‘She doesn’t see it like that.
She’s caught in a vicious circle. Can’t see how to get out.’

‘Well, she’s not going to get out if she keeps cutting herself,’
I say, perhaps a little sharply.

When I leave he gives me his business card.
Ian Partridge
, it
says,
Painter and decorator. No job too small
.

‘You can call this number any time. Always got my mobile
on.’

I put the card in my bag, quite sure I’ll never need it.

He leans against the car door as I get in, then stays standing
there right by the kerb so that I feel obliged to open the
window as I start up the engine.

‘Thanks, Laura, for all your help,’ he says, bending down
and sticking his face in the open window, uncomfortably
close. ‘Be in touch.’ Then he pats the roof of the car in farewell,
much as I’m sure he’d like to pat my bottom, given the
chance.

As I drive away, with Thomas and Arianne giggling in the
back, I think of poor Nathan crying in the dark for his
mother, and I feel an anger towards Heddy Partridge far
greater than anything I ever felt in the past.

Later that same day Tasha, Liz, Penny and I are sitting on
Tasha’s new wrought-iron chairs on her newly laid patio.
This patio is bigger than most people’s gardens; it is semicircular
in design and staggered in three tiers, each tier
being wider than the last, with the widest one opening out
onto the huge lawn. From here we can observe and contemplate
the vast expanse of grass bordered in the distance by
an eclectic assortment of interwoven and overlapping
hedgerow; honeysuckle, hydrangeas, you name it and it’s
out there, all strung together like loosely and fulsomely
braided hair. The lawn is interspersed here and there with
trees: apple and pear, and something else we can’t quite
make up our minds over.

It is a fine day, and in and out and around these trees our
children play like wingless fairies. Distractedly, we watch
them. We are busy with the dilemma of Tasha’s proposed
swimming pool. She has the plans, laid out on the table, and
lifting slightly in the gentle breeze. She’d called us all up in
a panic, and round we all came. The thing is, should the pool
be at the end of the garden as planned, or would it be better
situated on a raised area to the left and midway down, thus
breaking things up a little, without intruding on the space?

‘It could be a real feature, then. You know, with steps
leading up to it and maybe decking around the edges.’