The Godmother (43 page)

“Budge up,” said a voice as I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Budge up
? I looked up from under the rim of Helen's magnificent hat and saw Claudia and Al looking down at me. Claudia burst into tears as soon as our eyes met. I take it back—I thought I'd lost it earlier, but when I saw Claudia cry, I howled. Marguerite turned in her seat to see who was making the commotion; when she saw us, her eyes narrowed. I shimmied down the well-rubbed wooden pew to make room for my friends. I couldn't understand why they had suitcases with them. There were so many questions—how, why, when, what—but the vicar cleared his throat and we settled into line. Al and Claudia, me and Rose. The forces were gathering. Claudia held out her arms to take Bobby, and silently I handed him over. Rose passed me Tommy. I guess she knew I needed something to hold on to. Each with a baby in one arm, Claudia and I held hands, turned our faces to the front and, with dry eyes now, joined the funeral.

Eventually it was my turn to stand. I handed Tommy back to Rose and took my place at the lectern. I looked at the people, then down to my paper.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence
.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

As far as possible, without surrender,

be on good terms with all people.

I paused. Without surrender.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly
;

and listen to others.

Speak your truth.

I looked at Marguerite, then back to the script. Then I looked at Claudia and Al and two orphaned boys, then I looked back at Marguerite. I could feel her fury.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I can't do this.” I faced the congregation. “You've got the poem right there, you don't need me to read it to you.” I looked back at the coffin. “Helen knew these words by heart.” I swallowed. “She clung to them, my lovely, exotic, crazy friend, but they weren't enough. You have to be guided in this world. It's too big a place for anyone to deal with alone. She thought she was
a child of the universe
. I used to love that about her; it felt so
free, so wild, but I think it cost her dearly and constricted her more than any of us will ever know.”

I looked out at the sea of faces, faces I didn't know, then back at Helen's coffin. “I'm sorry that I let you down, I'm sorry that I didn't understand how hard marriage and having kids is, and I'm so sorry that I turned home because I couldn't face the traffic when I should have come to see you. We should have talked more. I wish you were here, Helen. I wish you could have seen yourself as those who loved you saw you. But you've left your mark. Everything good about you is in those boys; I can see your potential in them whenever I look at them. I promise you I'll make sure that this time they're nurtured and encouraged. And whether you like it or not, I'll tell them about all the ridiculous scrapes you got us into.”

I found the strength to raise my head. “I don't think Helen is in that box. I don't think she's a child of the universe either, she's right here.” I pointed at the second pew. “Grounded, at last. In Tommy and Bobby.” I looked back at my piece of paper. “So, to cut to the chase:

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams
,
it is still a beautiful world.

I looked up and saw Ben watching me.

Be careful.

Strive to be happy
.

I stepped down from the lectern, took my seat and started to shake. Claudia took my hand again, and held it until the service was over.

Thankfully, polite conversation was not required, so when we all filed out of the church and waited to be directed up to the graveyard, my proximity to Ben and Sasha was not made more uncomfortable by the obvious absence of our usual chat. I saw James Kent leave the church. I was deeply ashamed of my behavior—yes, I'd been duped, but mad psycho-bitch wasn't my style. I wanted to apologize, or at least offer to pay him back, but he never looked our way and I didn't see him again at the wake. I saw Neil's parents emerge from the church followed by a younger woman with two small girls in tow. The vicar came up behind them, looked at me, then placed his arms around them and guided them over to the other side of the church. They stood talking in a quiet huddle when Marguerite appeared and called the vicar over. It was clear
from his expression that he didn't want to leave them. I watched them for a while; at one point both of the women caught my eye, but they quickly looked away. I wanted to introduce myself, but the vicar instructed those who were family and close friends to follow him for the internment. Up ahead the two coffins sat on wooden boards. Alongside them were two hillocks of AstroTurf. It was supposed to hide the sticky earth that would soon be dumped on top of them. No amount of landscape gardening could mask what was taking place.

The coffins were lowered into the gaping wound in the ground that was to be Helen and Neil's final resting place. Kindly words were spoken by the vicar, then people started to trickle off. People once again found their voices, but I couldn't move and I couldn't speak. On the other side of the graves stood Neil's elderly parents. The people who'd held him like I held Bobby now. In fact, I was holding their grandson, yet we might as well have been at different funerals for all the contact we'd had. Marguerite barely looked their way. This was all a mad scam, and now these two people were going to lie side by side, rotting away, like their marriage. I wanted to get Helen out of there. Out of the box. Out of the hole.

“Tessa?” It was Al. Tall and strong. He put his arm around my waist gently and pulled me back from the edge. He held on to me for a while, and when it was only our little group standing by the open grave, he whispered to me. “We've brought something.”

I looked up. Claudia gave Tommy back to Rose. “We brought it all the way.”

“I was terrified we'd get stopped in Customs.”

I frowned. Al brought a jar out of his coat pocket. It was full of a whitish powder.

“What is that?” asked Ben.

“Sand,” exclaimed Claudia.

“From Vietnam,” said Al.

I nearly fell to my knees.

“It was the weirdest thing, Tessa. We'd been in the jungle, and the hotel guy said they'd drop us off in Hanoi as they were going off to look at a competitor's site elsewhere.”

“China Beach,” said Al, interrupting.

“Let me tell.”

“Sorry.”

“I'd just got your emails, all of them. I ran out to tell Al about Helen. He was talking to the hotel guy about China Beach. Not any old beach, China bloody Beach—I couldn't believe it. So I said, ‘We're coming with you.' I figured we had enough time to collect some sand, get to Saigon, and get here.”

“And we just made it.”

She held up the coffee jar. “So here it is. Couldn't take the girl to the beach, so we brought the beach to the girl.”

I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't, I laughed in wonderment. The noise woke up Bobby and I swear on Helen's soul, for perhaps that's what I was looking at, he laughed for the very first time, not his usual chuckle but a long, spontaneous, joy-filled, happy laugh. He set the dormant laughter off in the rest of us. As the sand ran through my hands and girl and beach were reunited, I thought yes, with all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams, it was still a beautiful world.

The last thing I placed inside the grave before turning away and leaving Helen for good, was the photograph of her with the boys. Frame and all, it went into the hole in the ground. And then we all moved away, out of the graveyard, away from the church. As the distance between ourselves and the graves increased, the atmosphere changed. We started talking again, as the group of friends we were.

“I didn't realize Helen struggled with so many things,” said Francesca.

“I knew the relationship with her mother was bad, and the last time we spoke she told me things with Neil were coming to a head,” said Claudia.

“When was that?” I asked.

“Just after I arrived in Singapore.”

“I hate to leave her there with him,” I said.

“She's not in there, Tessa. What you said in the church was right. It's the boys we've got to concentrate on now,” said Claudia.

“What you said was amazing,” said Francesca.

Ben threw his arm over my shoulder. “Yeah, I'm so proud of you.” I stopped in my tracks, creating a pedestrian pile-up.

“We all are,” said Al, ushering me on.

“Was their marriage really bad then?” asked Sasha.

I nodded. I couldn't speak to her. It was terrible. I wanted to throw Ben's arm off me.

“She told me that he'd slept with someone,” said Claudia.

“I think it was more than one someone,” said Ben.

There was a collective murmur of disapproval.

“I need a drink,” said Al. “Look, there's a pub, let's go and drink to Helen.”

It was all so sad, but the weight of Ben's arm kept distracting me. “Good idea,” said Francesca. We walked towards the pedestrian crossing.

“Why didn't she leave?” asked Sasha.

“Sasha,” warned Ben, turning back to his wife.

“What?”

While Ben was looking backwards, Nick came up between us and, wrapping his long arms around us both, separated us. I finally exhaled.

Francesca pushed the pub door open. “I think Ben means we should change the subject,” she said and quickly looked my way.

You and me both.

“That's the trouble with infidelity, it only gets easier,” said Sasha, filing in with everyone else.

“That's not necessarily true,” said Francesca, bringing up the rear.

“You'd forgive Nick, would you?”

“Francesca is right. I don't think this is the time or place for this discussion, Sasha,” said Ben, a trifle too firmly. He moved away from Nick and me. “I'm buying. Pints?”

We all nodded.

“If it only happened once,” said Francesca, climbing on to a stool, “and it was a mistake, which he regretted, I would; I would forgive him.” Francesca wasn't looking at Nick, she was looking at her feet, but I was. He was watching his wife intently.

Sasha nudged me. “Was it really like that, Tessa?”

I pretended that I was lost in thought and hadn't heard Sasha.

“What about you, Nick? she said. “Would you forgive your wife so easily?”

“Come on, Sasha, change the subject,” said Ben, handing a drink to Nick.

“Ben, will you please stop jumping down my throat. You've been doing it all weekend.”

“Hey, guys, not a cool time to start having a marital,” said Al.

“Sorry,” said Sasha.

Nick walked over to the stool Francesca was sitting on and kissed his wife's head. Then he gave her the pint that Ben had given him. “If Francesca felt the need to have an affair, it would be because I hadn't been doing my job. It would be me asking for her forgiveness, not the other way round.”

“Really?” asked Ben, Sasha and Francesca in unison.

Told you so. For a second I thought I might have said that out loud. I didn't dare look at Francesca.

“Mind you”—he gave me a very distinct, although fleeting look—“I'd expect to be given another chance to make the marriage work.”

“You're an idealist,” said Ben. “Always have been.”

Nick took the next pint Ben offered him. “Marriage doesn't work without ideals.” Now Francesca and I both stared at our feet. “In fact, marriage is the most ludicrous thing, if you think about it. Which two human beings can live together happily ever after without at some point getting irritated or just bored? It's insane. It's impossible. The ‘love of your life' is a notion, it doesn't actually exist. If you go on holiday with your best mates in the world, at some point everyone annoys everyone else, yet that's not supposed to apply to husbands and wives. So you have to be an idealist to be married. You have to believe the magic. If you walked into marriage with your eyes open, you'd start running in the opposite direction before you got to say ‘I do,' because on paper, marriage simply doesn't make sense.”

“But your marriage works,” said Claudia.

“That's because I
know
I married the love of my life.”

“Me too,” said Al.

Ben turned back to the bar to get the last pint.

“Poor Helen,” said Claudia. “I hope she didn't know about the other women.”

“They always know,” said Sasha.

Sasha looked at me intently then raised her glass. “To Helen,” she said, and we all drank.

Sham was the word. The wake reminded me of a magazine launch Helen had once taken me to. There were even some paparazzi outside. I drank far too much, far too quickly. Considering the circumstances, I thought far too much was restrained. I understood for the first time why Helen had succumbed to medication in these situations—I would have happily taken a handful of Helen's smarties myself. Inside me, my excessive emotions strained against the crush, I could feel them pressing against my sides. My soul was trying to escape, to flee. I had thought that the kernel of horror that gripped my core was for Helen, was about the funeral, but now I wasn't so sure. Funerals are strange and terrible things, but they are a punctuation of sorts. Wakes allow people to laugh again.

I was feeling worse and the drink wasn't helping. I wasn't the only one knocking back the champagne. The subdued mood in the vast marble vestibule of Marguerite's Kensington house started to rise, the decibels with it. I didn't have the stomach for laughter so excused myself from some of Helen's distant relatives and went out into the floodlit garden. I saw Nick standing under one of the many impressive mature trees.

“Hey, Nick,” I said, walking over the flagstone terrace. “You OK?”

He looked at me and nodded. “You?”

I shrugged. “I guess. I'm glad Caspar came. He seems more like his old self.”

“We'll see.”

“I'm sorry I meddled in your family business.” I seemed to be saying sorry a lot these days.

“You are family, Tessa, you're entitled to meddle.”

I looked at my old friend. “Thanks, Nick, that means a lot to me.”

We stood side by side, breathing in the cool evening air. Suddenly he sighed heavily. “I'm not sure you'll be thanking me again.”

That sounded ominous. Was that why he looked at me in the pub? He knew about Francesca and was going to leave her? “Why won't I be thanking you?”

“Because there's something I have to say to you.”

I started shaking my head before he'd even mouthed the first word.

“I was at the hospital the other day…”

I fell still. “The hospital?” I put my hand to my mouth. “Oh my God. Don't tell me you're ill.”

He smiled sadly. “I'm fine, Tessa, you daft thing. I went to give Cora a wooden monkey puzzle.”

I hit him playfully. “You scared me,” I said. “Don't do that again. You're far too important to all of us. I need another drink now.”

He grabbed my arm. “This is the trouble with you, you make it so hard for anyone to be cross with you because you say nice things like that, so we all end up shying away from telling you things that, frankly, you should hear.”

“Like what? Actually, forget I asked.”

I was hoping Nick would laugh, but he kept staring at me. I'd seen the expression before but couldn't quite place it.

“You know Billy and I are fine now, I apologized to her too.”

“I know. You'd just been in when I arrived. In fact, I missed you by seconds.” I looked at him then looked away. When I looked back I knew where I'd seen that expression before. On my own reflection. In the mirror in Helen's house. I felt truly sick. I closed my eyes. It made me feel worse, so I opened them again.

“What are you doing, Tessa? Anyone could have seen you two. I saw you!”

I buried my head in my hands, I couldn't speak. Everyone will be so happy for us—what had we been thinking? Happy for us? That we had annihilated a great relationship to go chasing after a teenage fantasy. I tried to meet Nick's eyes. I couldn't. Shouldn't I be able to justify myself more easily than this?

“Marriage is tough, Tessa. No marriage can survive that.”

“I…Nothing's happened.”

“And you think that makes it all right?”

“Well…”

“You think sex is the big thing, you think that because you and Ben haven't gone to bed with each other that you're OK? Sex is the easy bit. You can have sex with anyone. It's not ideal, I grant you, but a meaningless shag is surmountable. And yes, I mean even a fling with a bloke you may think you've fallen in love with for a moment, even that a couple can get beyond.”

So he did know, and loved his wife regardless. I frowned, trying to hide my thoughts.

“Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.” My eyes met his. “Look, that's not important now. What's important, vital, is you think very carefully about what you're doing and what you think you're going to achieve. Ben and Sasha are good together.”

We stood side by side. “Have you told Francesca you saw us?” I asked.

“Haven't you?”

I shook my head.

“Embarrassed about something?” he asked.

Mortified, but I didn't want to admit that. Ben was in love with me. We were in love with each other. Jesus, it sounded so childish.

Nick shifted his weight. “Dreams, myths, fantasies are one thing but once they're out in the open it is very hard to put them back in a box. And in this case, impossible. There is a point of no return for everyone, no matter how strong a relationship is.”

Why do tears sting so much? I reached inside Helen's pink coat which I'd refused to take off, and brought out a damp, screwed-up tissue.

“Be very sure about this. Absolutely, fundamentally, categorically sure. Can you be that sure? Of course you can't. No one can. So is it really worth it?”

They burnt, not stung. I moved my head a fraction. Yes? No? I don't know?

“It has been a very, very strange time for you. I understand that,” said Nick, putting his hand on my shoulder. “But you've got to think about what you're doing. Don't get me wrong, being married is wonderful and I love my wife, but it hasn't been easy. This Caspar thing has been so awful, I still don't know where he's heading; the girls are growing up way too fast, our worries for the kids seem to get bigger, the sleepless nights never end…That's the reality.
Would I give them back? Of course not, but…” He put his hands together, as if begging me to listen, as if he was terrified that I wouldn't. “We started from a good place. No one got hurt when we got together. We both have our fair share of guilt, but it hasn't been hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles, making a difficult job impossible. I know you think you want all this, but really, Tessa, are you willing to pay such a high price?”

I couldn't answer him. My head was reeling.

“I'm so sorry to do this here, today of all days, but I'm begging you to think about it. Please. You don't need him, Tessa.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “You never have.” It was Helen's voice that came to me out of the darkness.
Listen to others
, she had said.
Listen to others
.

There was only one option. And that was to drink more. A lot more. I saw Rose in the cloakroom. “Where are the twins?” I asked, over-articulating. I sounded like Maggie Smith.

“With Neil's brother.”

“The elusive brother.”

“He seems nice,” said Rose, drying her hands on the white linen towel, folding it precisely and replacing it on the countertop. “Time to go?” she asked.

“No,” I said. I walked back out to the massive hall and noticed it was thinning out. People were starting to drift away. I saw Marguerite holding court by the door. Pencil-thin in black. Her long grey hair was curled up in a chignon and held in place by a black rose. I wanted to spit. Those blood-red nails were clasped around the fist of a middle-aged man who was clearly sympathizing with her about her terrible loss. His dowdy wife stood awkwardly behind him, looking uncomfortable. People hovered around her like a bride on her wedding day, waiting for their moment with the star of the show.

I grabbed another glass. I was supposed to be finding Claudia and Al to talk to them about the twins but I got waylaid by a group of comedians at the bar. They were absolutely paralytic and made me feel considerably more sober than I was. Everything's relative. They had some great stories about Neil and when I forgot who they were talking about, I started to like him. Who knew he did stand-up, aged seven, at his granddad's working man's club?

Someone put their arm on mine. I was beginning to find those stilettos hard to keep steady.

“Tessa.” I felt a hand snake around me. “Come and have a little leveler.”

“Oh God, it's you.”

Sasha gave me a stern look. Shit, I had said that aloud. “I'm not going to start lecturing you, honey, you get as pissed as you like. I'm with you all the way. We all are. Just didn't want you falling over unless it was among friends. Come on, we found the drinks cabinet. Claudia's been making mean margaritas.”

“I love you,” I said to Sasha. God knows where it came from.

She drew me closer. “Yes, Tessa.”

Claudia was doing some kind of hooly-hooly dance. Ben and Al were in hysterics. They were the only people left in Marguerite's well-staged drawing room. I noticed a few photos of Helen that I recognized from the house in Notting Hill Gate, but was too pissed and too riveted by Claudia's party piece to register my anger. But it was all there, bubbling away under the surface, waiting for one drink that would compound all the others. Unbeknown to me, it was the one Sasha handed me. A mean margarita.

“On the rocks,” shouted Claudia.

“Hello, you,” Ben whispered into my ear.

“What about the salt?” I said, moving away from him.

“We've made a bit of a mess with the salt,” said Al, laughing. He'd written “I love you” in it. Claudia had returned the compliment by writing “Soppy git.” I picked up the salt cellar. I had a message of my own. I. Hate. Marguer—

“Tessa!”

“Oops.” I smiled at Marguerite and wiped the salt away, spilling it all over the carpet.

“Where are my grandsons?”

“I saw them with Neil's brother and sister-in-law,” said Sasha. “They've got two adorable girls.”

“Could someone get Tessa a glass of water, please?” said Marguerite, staring at me.

I was about to retaliate when Ben stepped up beside me. “Lay off her,” he said.

“Ben,” warned Sasha, touching her husband lightly on the arm.

“She's been looking after those boys single-handed,” said Ben, continuing
his protest. Marguerite dismissed him as though he were a boy. “It's what Tessa wanted. To have them all to herself. I see you managed to get Rose back, so you haven't really been doing it on your own, have you? Not as easy as it looks, is it?” I squinted at Marguerite. Was it me, or was she swaying slightly? Al and Claudia came up on either side of me. Sasha went to Ben. “Don't make this worse,” said Sasha quietly, but she was drunk too, so it wasn't that quiet. Ben shrugged her off. It was a bit more than a shrug, actually; I didn't see it myself, but Al did a quick U-turn to put a restraining arm around Ben.

“And how are you planning on getting them home tonight? Drive? Taxi? Or will the hired help be doing it for you again?” asked Marguerite.

I wanted to point out that I'd only be copying her approach to parenting if I did, but a petulant retort was just playing into her hands. I was pissed, of course, so petulant retorts were the only things coming to mind. I tried to focus. “Actually, I thought,” I started slowly, “that you'd have…that they might stay here. I assumed you'd have most of the kit here.” I was warming to my theme. “What did they do when they stayed before?”

“Helen didn't bring them to stay here,” said Marguerite.

“Oh, silly me, I thought you were used to having them to stay. My mistake. Don't worry, we'll push them home in their pram.”

“It's freezing out there, Tessa, what on earth are you thinking?”

“We came prepared, Marguerite. Helen's house isn't far.” Rose had pushed the twins there. We would push them back.

“You're not taking them anywhere in your state.”

“My friends will help me.”

She looked at my friends with unveiled contempt. “I think it would be better if they stayed with me.”

“Hey, we're not so bad,” said Ben. He was saying far too much for my liking. Every syllable that came out of his mouth ricocheted through my conscience. I was glad that I'd seen Nick and Francesca sneak out of the door with Caspar. But that still left Sasha, whom I caught looking at me every time I looked at her.

“We'll order Rose a taxi,” said Al. The problem-solver, even when pissed and jet-lagged. It was quite annoying, actually. I looked back at him, about to
tell him so, but nearly fell over. I fixed my concentration on my leg muscles until the leg righted itself.

“And who will take care of her?” said Marguerite, watching me.

“I will take care of myself, thank you.” I replied faster than Ben could, who, I saw, was readying himself to answer. Unfortunately, replying that fast also meant loudly and not very clearly.

“You're incapable of looking after yourself, Tessa. You can't even speak, let alone stand up straight.”

I laughed heartily. “Well, thank you for a simply lovely evening. Remind me, what was it in aid of?”

“How dare you—”

“Excuse me.”

We all turned. The young woman from the church stood in the doorway of the drawing room. She was holding Bobby. There was a man standing next to her who looked weirdly like Neil. He held Tommy. It freaked me out to see Neil holding his son. I shook my head and tried to sober up.

The man spoke first. “We've got to catch the last train to Norwich.”

“It's been lovely to see the boys. I can't believe how much they've grown in a month.”

“Yes, well, babies do that,” said Marguerite, practically snatching Bobby from her.

“Say goodbye to Granny,” I said, coming in to reclaim Bobby. I've no idea where the coffee table came from. It hadn't been there before. I tripped, fell into Marguerite and watched in dreadful slow motion as Bobby toppled out of her arms. He fell face-down on the sofa. Thank God it was the squishy kind. Thank God it was there. Marguerite and I were too shocked to move. The woman scooped him up, expertly checked him over, calmed him down and made him smile.