The Godmother (18 page)

“What have you done?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

I bet. I stepped away from my desk and walked to the window. A police boat putted slowly up river. “Well, what's this about then?”

“There was a party, I took some beer, but—”

“Caspar!”

“What? Four fucking cans of beer. Cheap stuff too. Shitty own-brand.”

“Hey, language.”

“Yeah, right, I've heard you turn the air blue with swear words before now.” That was a problem. Was I a mate, a bad example, or a good excuse, I wondered. Whichever it was, I was beginning to think that perhaps I wasn't the ideal person to rein Caspar in; he certainly didn't sound like he was going to be taking instruction from me any time soon. “I thought about what you said, Tessa, and I think they're being like this with me because of what you said. You're right, you got it, it's spot on, isn't it? Right, so now I know, I'm not taking it, for no reason, see?”

And in human speak that would mean what exactly? “Huh?”

“Missing out, they missed out; they don't know what's going on, what's normal, right? They're like stuck in a time warp. Need a Tardis. Four beers, man. Zac nicks vodka all the time from his old man and no one notices.”

How many bottles of vodka did a kid have to nick before he got noticed, I wondered, but Zac wasn't my problem. “Well, that's OK then.”

“Nice.”

“No. I was being sarcastic.”

“I've given up the ganja, but she can't keep me in all the time.”

Why not? One morning your lovely son goes out and that afternoon comes back all f-ing and blinding and confounding you with middle-class “street” talk.

“Just coz she never went out.”

Manipulative little bugger. I didn't mind letting Caspar think he was getting one over on me when it came to treats and extracting extra pocket money but I wasn't going to be complicit in his plans to get one over on his parents. Not knowingly, anyway.

“Don't twist my words. They were much older than you are.”

“Come on, T-bird, you know the score. It's all relative. Please. They'll listen to you.”

T-bird? I had no idea what he was talking about. “I'll talk to your mum, but get one thing straight, she's the boss.”

He laughed.

“I'm being serious,” I insisted, trying to sound like a real grown-up.

After the call, Caspar's laugh came back to me. We'd laughed a lot over the years—it was the basis of our peculiar friendship—but that wasn't the jolly, heart-warming laugh I'd heard before. That had been a thinner, meaner laugh, and it repeated on me like cheap meat.

If teenagers were advertised in nappies on the telly all the time, perhaps I wouldn't feel the pinch of my ovaries so much. My sympathy for Francesca and Nick was on the increase. Looking after babies was tough, no doubt, but
kidulthood
, now there was a challenge. I know Fran got a great deal of backchat from Katie and Poppy, especially Katie, who seemed to have an answer for everything, but they could still be sent to their room, or made to sit on the naughty step. What did you do when they were bigger than you? What did you do when they laughed at you?

I returned to the desk and closed my laptop. I felt a huge sense of achievement as I tidied my papers away, put the laptop back in its case and slid the printer back under the small Ikea desk that inhabits a little corner of the room. It was no good worrying about everyone else all the time, I had to get on with my own life. I washed up the cafetière and mug I'd been using. My flat is too small to leave anything lying about so it has taught me to be tidy. Naturally
I'm very messy, so it took a huge amount of energy to locate and train my tidy gene. Now I'm like a reformed smoker, I detest mess. Probably because I know that my whole life is only one dirty coffee cup away from chaos.

That Monday, however, despite everything that had happened I felt under control. I'd made a huge first step to reclaiming my life and decided to reward myself with an outing to the video store. I could order movies over the Internet—I used to—but I worried that it closed off another avenue to the outside world, so since leaving work I'd stopped doing it. Organizing food, laundry, books, CDs and gifts on the Internet meant my field of contact had vastly diminished, which meant I often nipped into the pub to make up for it. Now that I had more time I realized this wasn't necessarily a good thing, so I put on a better pair of jeans and walked to the video store. I always enjoy chatting to the dweeby film boffins behind the counter, though, like everyone else, they seem to be getting younger. They advised
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
—the original, naturally; it has been a mission of mine to watch all the great films. I've barely scratched the surface.

At eight I watched the film. At ten I ran a bath. At ten-thirty I went to bed. At half past one in the morning I was still staring at the ceiling. My resolve to forget about Ben had crumbled. Suddenly I got it. I could deal with teenagers. I could deal with the whole damn lot. I wanted stretch marks. Bring on the piles, collapse my uterus and make me incontinent if that's what it would take to make me whole. I wanted children, God, not godchildren, and I knew who with and where he was. I propped myself up on one elbow, opened the bedside-table drawer and pulled out the photograph of Ben with his leg in traction. I placed the cool glass against my cheek and lay back down on the pillow. I felt the same now as I had then. No, I felt more. And it really, really hurt. The photo was a strange sort of comfort blanket, but I was at a strange sort of age. I needed reassurance now more than I ever had at any time in my life.

The following morning I packed a small case and fled to my mum and dad's cottage near Marlow. I had that bloody photograph in my case until the last minute, but just before leaving the flat I managed to yank it out and hide it among the books in my bookshelf. Twice, I nearly went back.

I said goodbye to Roman, telling him I was going away for a night or two, but a week later I was still in Buckinghamshire. My parents' constant warm embrace was hard to leave. More than that, I didn't trust myself to be in London without a chaperone. It was nice to be cooked for, put in front of a fire with a book, handed a glass of wine at six whether asked for or not, sent to bed. It was nice to tell them about my trip in minute detail and know that they were genuinely interested. It was nice to be able to switch off my phone. It was nice to be able to set off along the bridleway and think of him for hours in peace. It was easy to explain my lengthy stay if they questioned it. I hadn't seen them since I'd returned from India and as I wasn't working it was nice to hang out with them for more than a hurried weekend. Normally, Sunday night arrived just as the stress cogs in my system had stopped spinning.

As it happened, I didn't have to explain myself, since they didn't ask. A week had nearly passed and I thought I'd got away with it, but then Mum and I went scavenging for the last of the blackberries.

I was stretched precariously over a thorny branch when she got me.

“Tessa?” she asked in a concerned voice.

“Yes?”

“Is there anything you'd like to talk about?”

I threw the berries in the old ice-cream container she held. “Well, I've been thinking a lot about the state of the union.”

“Seriously,” she pleaded. “Dad and I are a bit worried about you.”

“Don't be.”

“Well, you say that, but you seem a bit…” She struggled to find the appropriate words.

I couldn't fill in the gap either. Lost at sea…In a trance…Dazed and confused…Desperate and alone…Going insane…

“Are you OK?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure—”

“Mum, I'm fine.”

We carried on picking berries. The easy silence between us had gone. The air prickled with expectation. I waited for Mum to pluck up the courage to come at me again. I can be horribly obtuse when I want to be. I wasn't going to make it easy.

“You've been here a week now…”

Ah-ha. Just the trap I wanted her to fall into. “I thought it would be nice. We never do this, I'm always rushing off somewhere.”

“Don't choose to misunderstand me, Tessa. You're very good at that.”

“Mum, I'll be back at work any minute, then it will be back to the occasional Saturday nights again.”

“Will you be back at work?”

“Course.”

“You are trying to get another job, then?”

I was indignant. “I told you. Weren't you listening? The headhunter I spoke to was really positive about getting me another job.”

My mother blew her nose into a hanky.

“You're getting cold, Mum,” I said, immediately concerned. “We should go home.”

“I'm absolutely fine. We haven't got enough yet,” she said, shaking the blackberries. And I wonder where I get my obtuseness from?

“You didn't tell me about the job thing,” she went on. “You told us about Caspar and tracking down Billy's ex Christoph in Dubai, and the christening but—”

“I'm sorry, I thought I'd told you,” I said.

“That's what I'm trying to say…” I waited. My mother's hand hovered over the brambles. “I mean, you do seem to be spending quite a lot of time focusing on your friends…”

“I know I've been on the phone a lot to Claudia, but she lost a baby.”

“It's not just that.”

“What do you want me to do, tell her to get over it?”

My mother finally stopped pretending to look for blackberries and turned to face me. “Darling, you've always been there for your friends, it's one of your best attributes. Please don't misunderstand me, but…”

“But what, Mum? Al was away.”

“This isn't about Claudia. I worry that, well, while you're busy helping everybody else, your life is somehow…” She faltered.

I stepped in, before she had time to voice her fears. “Mum, come on, I had a shitty year, I took a bit of time off, but considering everything that happened, I think I'm doing pretty well.”

“Of course you are. I just wanted to check that everything else is all right.”

My mother was being brave. I usually put her off the scent much more easily than this. But then I'd never been in a position like this before. I mean, I had been—for years—but I hadn't realized it. I loved a man I couldn't have and instead had settled for the crumbs off Sasha's table. The less you eat the less you need to eat, or so you think, until you're so weak your vital organs start to fail. I was beginning to think that was what had happened to me. I'd been malnourished for so long I no longer recognized hunger pangs. I suppose in the beginning I was young enough for an ill-fated, imagined love affair not to affect my life too much. Everyone else was out having fun, not taking life too seriously, we were in it together. But bit by bit, the ones became twos, then threes and fours, while I was still wasting away on crumbs.

“Are you sure you're OK, darling?”

I turned my back on her and stared at the tiny thorns that kept me from getting to the thing I wanted most. No, I wasn't OK. I wasn't in the slightest bit OK. I felt tears well up behind my eyelids. I closed my eyes purposefully, urging them to behave.

“Tessa?”

I didn't want to worry her. I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't want to add to the deep-seated fear she must carry around with her at all times. My job was to augment, to add, to be a source of pride. But she was my mum and, God, I needed to tell someone…

I turned. Walking up the track in mustard-colored corduroys was Dad. He waved at me enthusiastically.

“Hellooo,” he bellowed.

Mum still watched me.

I stepped away from the hedgerow.

She grabbed my hand. “Tessa?”

Glancing at her fleetingly, I squeezed her hand and pulled away. “Everything's great. I'd tell you if it wasn't, I promise.” That was the biggest lie of all, of course. Mum had MS lingering dormant in her system, like a terrorist sleeper cell, able to rear up and strike anything at any time. My father was in his eighties. They had enough on their plate without having to add me to their worries. I bounded down the track to my father.

“Perfect timing,” I said. “The nice ones are getting harder to find.”

He smiled at me. I noticed that his teeth were beginning to look old. I averted my eyes. Dad placed my arm through his and we walked back to Mum. He peered inside the ice-cream carton. Picking out a couple of blackberries and throwing them back into the hedgerow, he said, “Well, you can't go picking any old manky ones, it's not worth it; you'll get the jam but it won't taste nearly as good as it should.”

I looked at my father, then back at the blackberries and finally at my mother.

“Very true,” she said nodding. Looking straight back at me. “Very true indeed.”

That afternoon we made jam and thankfully the subject of my life didn't come up again. Their friends came over for dinner. They like to show me off, though I am keenly aware they have less news to tell than they'd like. We went into the nearest town one afternoon and I forced my mother to buy some inappropriate accessories. Dad and I had a mammoth chess battle. It was fun because I won. That didn't happen very often; I swear the man never let me win at anything, not even running races when I was a kid. I once overheard Mum
imploring him to give me a break, since I was only six, but he wouldn't budge. Said it was no good thinking life was a pushover. I longed to beat him. I do now, of course, and wish I didn't.

It wasn't like that in Claudia's house. She was another only child and if she did a poo, her parents clapped. Although it's true that she hasn't achieved a great deal, she has an intrinsic belief in herself that has held her in good stead. Watching my father potter around the garden, I thought to myself that actually his way was a good way. Because deep down, below all the doubt and nonsense, I too have an intrinsic belief in my self. It's just that sometimes I forget.

By the second week my visit to my parents' house had worked its magic on me. I was feeling much more positive. Just watching them go about their strange daily routine, they reminded me to take things both not too seriously and very seriously all at the same time. It's a difficult mix to get right. I had almost, almost stopped thinking about why I had fled there.

But then Claudia had called the house and told me she was leaving the country. I'd been expecting it, but not that fast. As ever, Al had done what he'd said he was going to do. They were leaving for Singapore on Sunday.

It was Claudia's idea to have a leaving lunch for her close friends the day before they left. She said she didn't want to sneak out of the back door. She didn't want to pretend that nothing had happened; neither did she want to make her miscarriage a taboo subject, nor did she want anyone to feel bad. She had lost the baby, she was devastated, but she would, in time, she said, get over the worst. More than that, she wanted lunch to be fun. I was dreading it. The day she called me she asked me to telephone “the others” and let them know where and when. She said she didn't want to phone as she was conscious that no one knew what to say to her. She thought it would be easier for everyone if I did it. She gave me the list. It would be her and Al, Helen and Neil, Ben and Sasha and me. Seven. I am always the odd number.

I did the easy jobs first. I booked a table at a bustling Italian restaurant where I knew the food was fairly priced and the waiters exceptional. Nothing like a good Italian waiter to set the mood. None of this surly French stuff. Then I rang Helen. Neil answered. I explained the reason for my call.

“Sounds like a barrel of laughs,” said Neil.

Well, it won't be if you're there, I thought meanly. “Actually, Claudia is doing really well. She just wants to have a laugh with her mates before they go.”

“All right for them, two months in the Far East. Wish I could send my moody wife away.”

This is why I detested the man. I didn't think I was being unreasonable.

“She won't get out of bed,” said Neil.

“Is she OK?”

“Course she's OK. She just sleeps all day.”

“Probably because she's up all night.”

“The boys sleep fine. She's just neurotic about cot death or something. She checks them all the time. What's the point of having Rose live here if she can't do the odd night?”

I'd seen the way Neil spoke to Rose, and it wasn't pleasant viewing. It was a subject I didn't want to linger on, it made me too venomous. “Why don't you tell her to give up the breastfeeding? Honestly, I think it's reeking havoc on her. She doesn't seem herself.”

“Then what would she do? We've got two nannies as it is, it's not like she's run off her feet.”

“Yes, but producing that amount of milk every day is like running a mini-marathon. It just knackers you out.”

“I've read the stuff—immunity, asthma, breast is best, as they say,” he said. “Course, it means I don't get my hands on them.”

I didn't think he meant the twins. I would have changed the subject, but I wanted Neil to think about what feeding those giant babies was costing his wife. So I continued to talk breasts.

“Well then, at least tell her to pump it off and give someone else”—meaning you, you lazy bum—“the job of feeding. They are really slow eaters.”

“She's been moaning to you?”

“No.” I didn't want to get Helen into trouble. “She spends hours locked away in the nursery at the top of the house. I don't think it's good for her.”

“How would you know, Tessa? You don't have kids.”

And I'd thought this was going to be the easy call to make.

“Will you be able to make it to the lunch?” I said, forcing a softer tone into my voice. “It would mean a lot to Claudia and Al.”

“No probs.”

“Great. Shall I leave you the number at my Mum and Dad's house in case Helen wants to call?”

“No, she'll be fine. See you Saturday.”

Goody, goody. I replaced the phone. Round two. I cheated and rang Sasha's mobile. There was a long tone. Sasha was abroad again.

“Sasha Harding.”

“Hey, it's me, can you talk?”

“Sorry, hon, not really.”

“It's about a goodbye lunch for Al and—”

“When?”

“Saturday.”

“Great. I'm back on Friday. Just call Ben. Give him the details. Gotta go.”

Just call Ben. Just call Ben. Simple. Just call him the way I'd called him a million times before. I took a deep breath and pressed the numbers of Ben's mobile into the handset. I stared at them. Naturally, I knew the number by heart. I must have dialed it ten times while I'd been in Buckinghamshire, but I had never actually pressed the little green call button. I wanted to. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to keep this sensation alive. I wanted to live in my dreams. I could still feel his lips burn mine. I could recall perfectly the moment our mouths opened wider and the soft inside of his mouth met mine. It made me shudder with longing and shame. I had to find a way out of this mess.

The phone jangled in my hand.

“Anyone there?” shouted my father.

I pressed the green button and watched Ben's number disappear.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello?” replied a woman.

“Hello,” said a man, followed by confused silence.

“Tess?”

“Mum?”

“Hello, Mrs. King.”

“Who's that?”