A Perfect Life (3 page)

‘I wonder?' Angel muses. ‘Beds are nicer, I expect that's why.'

Bed. Yes. Bed. Lovely. Feeling slightly demented, and sure her brain is being burnt out by overexposure to children, Angel allows herself to go into a trance, abdicating responsibility for herself as she keys in her replacement Jake's number on her phone, her heart slamming. It is so absurd; she bites her lip, smiling, thinking about Jake Driver. His copious aftershave, nice green eyes, engaging smile and short-sleeved yellow shirts are superficial guides to Jake. Thank God. Angel scratched the surface almost by mistake at first and found more in his lively voice, his enthusiasm and, most importantly, his toned athletic body. His promotion from first sales rep to head of marketing, even though it is only in Angel's absence, has caused a rash of irritation through Fourply. Nick, who supported Angel in choosing Jake and worked with him to make the transition smooth, says he is riding it out well.

‘Actually, I don't think he's noticed, which is thick-skinned of him, but good for his morale,' he said to her last night. Angel has no excuse for ringing, so feeling like a naughty teenager with a crush, she has convinced herself to believe her own internal whisper that she is just checking he is OK and letting him know she is available if he needs her. Oops, no. Not available, but accessible. Yes, that sounds professional. Jake's answerphone cuts in immediately. Relieved, Angel turns off her phone.

‘Mummy, my verruca has grown and Jamie Matthews said I wouldn't be able to do swimming because it's infectious like the plague. I think I caught it from someone sneezing on my foot.'

‘Mmm. That sounds lovely,' says Angel, aware that she is expected to respond, but not listening because her mind is miles away wondering if her number will show on Jake's missed call list, or if she has hung up quickly enough for it not to register.

Ruby waves her hand in front of Angel's face. ‘Mummy. I KNOW you aren't listening. I need you to hear to what I am saying.'

Reluctantly, Angel yanks herself back again to here and now. Goose pimples rise on her bare arms as she drives up to the house and sees that Nick is home.

‘Mummy, come on! Daddy says we can have a bonfire and cook supper on it and he's lighting it and Foss is crying because a snail just popped in the fire and it's dead.'

Ruby's excitement is like quicksilver, flowing over and around lead-heavy Angel, standing in the kitchen in the dusk's mauve-shadowed evening half-light, tears dripping, unbidden. She presses her fingers into her eyes and turns, her smile tight.

‘Let's have marshmallows,' she says, searching for a paper bag in the cupboard under the sink.

‘What are you doing?' Ruby likes to be part of everything, so she gets a bag too.

‘I'm expelling panic,' says Angel. ‘Do you remember the book Jem gave me for my birthday? It's called
The Outlaw's SAS Handbook
or something. Anyway, this is one of the things we do.'

‘I'm going to expel some too,' says Ruby.

‘Good,' says Angel. ‘Here goes.' Breaking off, she blows a huge breath into the bag, so does Ruby. They look at one another and start laughing.

‘We could do some more,' Angel suggests, grinning, ‘or we could bite a knotted handkerchief or emit a series of “Oooms”.'

‘Oooms!' says Ruby, almost bursting with the silliness of this game with her mother. They attempt a couple of limp ‘Oooms', and collapse giggling and coughing.

‘Panic over!' says Ruby and darts into the larder. In a second she is climbing up the shelves like a monkey, expertly on target for the hidden packets of sweets. She turns and smiles at her mother, and Angel sees her dimple, her busy innocence and is suffused with the delicious adoring love that runs largely unnoticed and unacknowledged through family life.

Ruby waves the packet. ‘Yes, here they are! You guessed exactly what I came back in the house to get. Yummy, come on, Mum, hurry up!' Nothing is ever fast enough for Ruby.

Angel opens the fridge and looks inside, wondering as she does so if the fall-out of Ruby's speeded-up character, her impulsive problem-solving energy, is Foss's pensive dawdling, and perhaps even his love of snails.

‘OK, do you want sausages too?' Angel gets out a packet of chipolatas and a bottle of ketchup; finds some buns in the bread bin and half a bar of chocolate. On a tray she piles plates, glasses, ginger ale, a box of straws and a bottle of wine. Ruby dances ahead, a huge yellow-and-green-checked rug swagged around her. Angel grabs a couple of cushions on her way to the garden and another sigh slides through her. Out into the garden for a sunset supper with the children and Nick. Could it be idyllic? It certainly should be, and it looked it from the outside. But no amount of props and flowers, scattered cushions and cheerful activities can swamp the tension that occupies the space between Angel and Nick. Or assuage the guilt Angel feels for being unhappy. Still, she kicks a small purple-faced nylon vampire off the doorstep, walks into the garden, determined to find the best she can in the evening and to enjoy it. Music might be the key. Ruby would play the harmonica, Nick would play guitar and they could probably muster a couple of songs; it would be better than silence. And better than talking to Nick.

Roses and the raspberry canes she was inspired to plant among them, thinking the thorns would keep the birds away, scratch at Angel's legs as she passes along a narrow path and through on to the lawn. The peonies have died now, and recent rain has left their heads like filthy tissue paper flung by careless children. Angel wants to put down the tray and pull off the dead heads, but changes her mind as she is about to do it. It is not the right moment for gardening. The trouble is, in the summer there is no right time for anything, and with no working week, and the children beginning their school holiday, structure vanishes. Life plumes away in July and August with no timetables for children's swimming lessons or work. Everything normal stops and everyone disappears. Jem says it is because of exams and people passing their driving tests, but that is just the typical view of a solipsistic teenager. The only chance of holding on to a shred of real life is to get into the garden and observe the change there as summer reaches its zenith and then begins to falter.

Deadheading flowers is the best way Angel can mark time. But not now. Now she must stop procrastinating and go and find Nick and the children for supper. Talking to herself, chastising and chivvying herself along like a mother hen, Angel seeks in her mind for more distraction to bring to the evening. Where is Coral? An eighteen-year-old daughter is a useful decoy and Coral can always be counted on to fill most silences, as long as Nick doesn't start digging at her.

There is Nick, crouched over the fire, Foss leaning on his back. The angle of his head, the peach-pink evening light and the crack of the bonfire shoot together like an arrow into Angel's heart and she remembers a moment long ago when she knew she had fallen in love with Nick. It could be yesterday it is so clear; but actually it was winter, and the peach-pink light was not the sunset, but was cast by a lamp wearing a pink silk camisole, flung off in Angel's student bedroom. Nick was standing smoking by the open fire, the only heating in the room. The fire cracked and Nick turned to look at her. Angel was in the bed and she looked back at him in silence and in that moment a lingering knot of fear or doubt gave way between them and some unspoken but mutual willingness unfurled in its place. Or so Angel felt, and she loved Nick for showing her that.

Nick and Foss are still at the bonfire. Angel approaches, every inch of her purposeful and cheery.

‘Hi there. Any sign of Coral? I thought she might like to have supper with us.'

Nick doesn't get up or look at his wife, who is leaning over the table to put the tray down. He chucks another small log on to the fire.

‘Coral's gone out on the tiles with a youth. I think his name was Matt. I'd never seen him before, but he seemed nice enough.'

‘Oh yes?' Angel's heart sinks. No Coral. And she
would be angry that Nick has seen the new love interest so early on.

‘They were going to the cinema and Coral was dressed to draw blood from the bloke.' Nick shakes his head. ‘You should talk to her about what she wears, Angel. She's going to get into all sorts of trouble, you know.'

Angel's spine contracts, her shoulders slump, she does not want to have this conversation.

‘The fire looks good,' she says. ‘I've got some sausages, and ginger beer.' It is easier to talk about nothing. It is always easier to talk about nothing now, and she wishes it were not the case. She wishes she could walk up to her husband, put a hand on his shoulder and kiss him hello. On the mouth. That is what anyone who values their marriage would do, anyone who wants to keep their life safe. That is what someone who can see trouble coming would do to avert it. Angel thinks about it. Nick pokes the fire with a green stick. His hair flops over the collar of his shirt at the back, but at his temples it is receding. Stubble across his chin of salt-and-pepper grey, brown and black, and his strongly arched eyebrows give him a piratical look. A little frayed around the edges, and certainly in need of a haircut, but he is still attractive. Angel knows this, though she cannot for the life of her feel it. The thought of kissing Nick when he hasn't shaved is about as appealing as eating sawdust.

‘I watched a bit of Jem's match this afternoon.' Nick still doesn't get up, nor does he look at her; he
speaks into the fire. Irritation rises like vomit in her throat.

‘Oh really?'

‘Yes. He got a few runs. You didn't tell me it was the end of term next week.'

‘Oh. Didn't I? Well, it is.' How can she, a grown-up woman, a sophisticated person, bring herself this low? Feeling despicable, Angel wants to make it worse. ‘I don't suppose you've remembered about the Fathers and Sons Cricket match, have you?' Bingo.

Nick stands up, hands on hips, and looks at her, his expression a mixture of unease and anger. ‘I'm going to New York on Friday, you know that.'

‘Well, YOU know that the school has this match on the last day of term every year.' Is there any need to sound so venomous? No, there is never such a need. It achieves nothing except pain.

‘Why do you care, Angel?' Nick glances at her then crouches to pierce holes through the sausages with the barbecue fork, before chucking them in a string into the old black pan Ruby brought out. Angel feels as though she is built from ice with a single living vein of aggravation coursing through her. The only way to prevent herself from freezing over completely is to keep on needling Nick.

‘I don't. But I would have thought you would care. I would have thought you would have liked to play.' Her voice is rising and tightening, her jaw is tense. She hasn't noticed that she has folded her arms tight across her chest.

Foss is between them now, holding up a ball. Nick
takes the ball and tosses it from one hand to the other. ‘I'll delay the trip. I can miss the conference, it's no big deal, and I'll just go to the Trade Fair.'

Glancing uneasily at Angel, Foss says, ‘Daddy always wants to play,' and the wheedling in his voice is another flail to Angel's conscience.

It's my school holidays at last and I have been home for two days. Mum is weird. She's not normal and she made Ruby cry today. She's got this new habit of talking mad psycho stuff. So this morning – well, I suppose it was after lunchtime really, but just now, when Ruby wants to make bread and it is really hot and I have just got up and am getting my breakfast, she comes into the kitchen talking on the phone as per usual, and she stands and glares. It's the beginning of the holidays for all of us. She has given up work because she says it's too stressful with all of us to look after, but I think she would rather have given us up and kept on going into the office. She should chill out, but she is fired up and anxious. I don't like it. She isn't concentrating on what she is saying to whoever it is on the phone, because her eyes are darting about in a really stressy way at me and Ruby and all the flour and cereal and spilt stuff that just comes if you leave a seven year old to do their own thing. It's
Mum's job to look after Ruby, in fact, it's Mum's job to look after all of us, and if she's on the phone or in her office then she can't expect us to do everything her way. And just because she's decided not to go to work any more doesn't mean we all have to be perfect hologram people.

‘Listen, Janet, you'll have to wait for Nick to get back. Or call him in New York later. The children are all making bread and there's a kind of
In the Night Kitchen
insanity in my house and I must focus on that now. Let's talk later on. Actually, you should call Jake. He'll have a good take on it, and he's responsible with me out of the picture and Nick away. Look, I must go, we're about to be engulfed by dough!'

God. I so know this one. Mum is so good at making it sound as though whatever we are doing here is wonderful and creative and she is enabling it. Other people are always saying, ‘Angel, you give your children a perfect life.'

Well, if this is perfect I may as well shoot myself and save Mum and Dad a whole load of money and grief. And by the way, if this is perfect, please never show me flawed. Mum presses the off button on the phone, slams it on the dresser and stomps over to the kitchen sink.

‘Can't any of you even pick up a teaspoon?' she demands, standing like a wooden martyr at the sink. ‘I do feel, Jem, that you could take responsibility for yourself now and get yourself up and dressed before lunch. How can you have a sense of fulfilment if you're asleep all day?'

‘I don't want a sense of fulfilment, I just want some sodding breakfast,' I snarl back at her. Mum raises one eyebrow – a really irritating thing she can do which I have tried to copy.

‘It's lunchtime,' she says, trying to be withering and not succeeding.