All That Mullarkey (22 page)

Wait. Surely it was only nine steps that time? He must be taking longer strides … ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he exploded into the chilling, dark, evening air. ‘Stop being such a sad bastard.’ He strode out of the gate, up the lane, across the lush green playing fields to the beery warmth of The Three Fishes and ordered a big, fat, cold pint. Three-quarters of it disappeared in one prolonged glug. There. Much better. What was he doing, counting his strides in Cleo’s front garden while she took her own sweet time getting home? Probably she’d accepted some last-minute task at work; she did that when she wasn’t keen on what was waiting for her at home. He was familiar with her methods.

He should have booked a hotel. He still could, then he could go out for the evening, the pubs, maybe the clubs, see if he could pull. He finished the lager. Three or four men wandered in for a quick half on their way home from work and all nodded to him.

Another pint, just the job. Cold, misted glass, brilliant amber liquid. He wiped the bottom of the glass on a beer mat and dived in. Smacked his lips.

Oh, whoops.

Two pints. He’d drunk two pints. He couldn’t drive into Peterborough now in search of a hotel. Dear, dear. Nothing for it but to wander back, more relaxed now, and see if Cleo had arrived.

And, look at that, she had. Her car was pulled up in the space where he’d been pacing. Weird, knocking on the door to Cleo’s home; Cleo’s home, after all, used to be shared with him. He shivered. She wasn’t going to open the door, he was going to freeze to death with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets. Ought to have gone to a hotel –

But then the door burst open and Cleo appeared briefly. Her hair hung as heavy and straight to her shoulders as it always had, her eyes twinkled darkly, her wide mouth smiled and, he thought sadly, the only real change was the baby on her hip. ‘Sorry, stupid traffic, did you wait long? Got to get Shona’s meal or she’ll go mental. Come in.’

From Cleo’s arms, complacent in her rightful spot, Shona gazed at him. Shona. Cleo’s
daughter
.

He followed slowly into a kitchen that was warm, steamy and smelling of chicken, feeling an awkward intruder in someone else’s cosy domesticity. The little girl pointed at him and shouted, ‘HA!’

‘Yes, all right,’ Cleo soothed, sliding her into her high chair. ‘It’s only Gav, don’t get excited.’

Shona looked up at Cleo. Her mother. ‘Gink?’ She pointed at the fridge.

‘Drink in a minute. Gav, do you mind eating straight away? Only Shona’s starving.’

He seemed planted on the quarry tiles. ‘No. Yes. Whatever.’ He must be simple, really simple; all this time he’d known Cleo had a daughter but hadn’t acknowledged the reality. He’d somehow thought he and she might go out to eat, that Shona might have dematerialised or be with a babysitter or a grannie. That Cleo would be unaltered, unfettered, dashing in from work and out with him.

Not tied, not mumsy, not putting Shona first.

She was looking at him, exasperated, hooking her hair behind her ears and trying to get past. ‘Sit down. Shona’s hungry, aren’t you, baby?’

He sat. Shona watched him and pointed silently. He smiled and wondered if it looked as unconvincing as it felt. ‘She’s very pretty,’ he managed in the end, wishing Shona would turn her stare elsewhere.

‘Yeah, gorgeous aren’t you, Shona?’ Cleo rattled cutlery in the drawer and fished out a big steel ladle.

The whole meal came out of one big brown pot, which plugged into the mains. What the hell was that? Chicken fillets were arranged on top of new potatoes with carrots underneath, everything bubbling with gravy. Cleo tried to arrange it separately on the plates but it all ended up a bit jumbled and brown. Then she stuck the two big plates in the oven while she chopped up the baby’s meal. Shona began to whinge, sucking one hand.

‘Half a minute,’ Cleo promised. ‘Just hang on.’ Once Shona had fallen on her food, Cleo retrieved theirs.

Picking up his knife and fork, Gav was glad he’d left the wine in the car. It would’ve looked ridiculous at a table with no cloth, no flowers, and no best cutlery. Cleo wasn’t making any effort. She seemed more interested in Shona in the high chair than any conversation with Gav. ‘This tastes nice,’ he tried.

‘You sound surprised.’

‘It’s just I’ve never seen … What’s that thing?’

‘A slow cooker. Invaluable aid to people who aren’t home to cook. In the morning chuck everything in, in the evening slop everything out.’

It certainly seemed effective. The chicken fell apart; the potatoes could be cut with a fork and the gravy soaked everything. ‘Very good. I like it.’

‘Good.’

‘Good.’

He tried to get a conversation going over Shona ‘Mmm-mmm-mmm’ing to herself.

‘HA!’ she shouted, cutting across Gav as if he hadn’t been speaking.

‘Ha what?’ asked Cleo, beaming.

Slowly, Shona picked up a piece of carrot and threw it on the floor.

Cleo put the dropped carrot in the bin and, bitterly, Shona began to cry, peeping at her mother through spiky lashes.

Gamely, Gav tried. ‘I stayed a weekend with Ian and Rhianne after Christmas. They’re back at each other’s throats. Will and Roland are more monsterish than ever, little Emily’s a tyrant. Me and Ian went out and he got extremely pissed. You wouldn’t believe him, trying to get off with some woman while her husband sat next to her.’

Deliberately, Shona dropped another piece of carrot. ‘No, no!’ she appealed as Cleo threw it, too, away.

‘You don’t want that, Shona! It’s all dirty, yuk!’

Shona slapped her head into her fat little hands and began to grieve for the lost carrot.

‘Right there next to her,’ Gav repeated, raising his voice slightly. ‘Her husband. Glowering at Ian and clenching his fists –’

‘Don’t cry like that,’ Cleo remonstrated. ‘Because you’re not impressing me. Do you want a piece of my carrot?’

‘Ian finally noticed the husband and suggested three-in-a-bed sex. I thought we’d both end up in casualty but the husband decided Ian was just a sad old drunk,’ Gav persisted.

Shona flung the new carrot on the floor.

‘As you like,’ said Cleo serenely. ‘But that’s going in the bin as well.’ Shona slapped her hands on her high-chair tray in rage and then held up the red palms to show her mother how she hurt.

‘Don’t do it, then,’ Cleo suggested. ‘Do you want cake? We’ve got cake tonight because Gav’s here. Look, you can get all squashy and messy.’

Gav propped his face on his palm and watched Cleo turn her back as she wiped Shona’s stubby fingers. He sighed. ‘So the woman turned into an alien with eight breasts and Ian, being a breast man, was in heaven. She ate her husband, rather gruesomely, with lemon curd and ketchup, she and Ian have emigrated to the moon and I’m visiting them on Moon Day which is in September, this year.’

‘Got room for cake?’ Cleo asked him.

At least while they washed up Shona went to rattle toy cars across the fireguard and he finally had Cleo’s attention for ten minutes while she asked about his new job prospects. But it felt most peculiar when Cleo and Shona disappeared into the bathroom behind a locked door for forty minutes, leaving him downstairs with the brandy and the telly remote. Thinking of Cleo in the bath, rosy-breasted from the hot water, he broke into a sudden sweat. Once, the door wouldn’t have been locked and he would have wandered in and perched on the steamy bath side to chat. Touched her body through the bubbles. Those were the days.

On coming downstairs, Cleo read a story. Shona pointed to the pictures, pausing occasionally to give Gav the ‘Ha!’ treatment.

Gav was becoming very bored with Shona’s ‘HA!’, particularly the pointing finger, and wondered how Cleo stood it. It wasn’t as if ‘ha’ was a word. Just a noise. In fact he’d only heard Shona say about four words. ‘Gink’ for drink, ‘ta’ and ‘no’ – pretty popular, that one. And ‘Mummee’. Then just as she was being carried off to bed she pointed at him and said, ‘Gog!’

He heard Cleo’s reply, drifting down the stairwell. ‘He’s not a dog. He’s a man and his name’s Gav.’

His nails curled into his palms. He wanted to shout, ‘I’m not just some man called Gav! I’m your husband. You’re my wife.’

And when Cleo finally came back downstairs he couldn’t help sniping, ‘Blissful silence. Alone at last.’

He could almost see Cleo’s back go up. Her reply was careful and strained, reminding him how she got when she was annoyed. ‘
So
sorry. Shona’s a bit young to understand the concept of considering one’s guest. If she wants to shout, she shouts. If the guest doesn’t care for it, tough.’

To contrive a pause while he formulated something more conciliatory, he poured Cleo a brandy. ‘I’m not used to it. I don’t suppose she’s any noisier than any other kid her age.’

‘It’s not something I gauge. This is Shona’s home, she doesn’t have to be quiet.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Of
course
not.’

He reached over to clink glasses but she kept hers stubbornly tucked against her chest, so he ended up ridiculous, stretching, silly. ‘She takes all your time up,’ he observed in what he thought was a neutral tone.

‘She has a right to.’

This wasn’t the way he’d run this conversation in his head as he drove down the motorway. Why was he allowing Shona the centre stage? He decided to cut straight to his subject. ‘Um, Cleo,’ he began, moving over to sit beside her on the floor before the fire. ‘We’re not divorced yet.’

Her eyes were wary and flat. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll come.’

He flushed and a tight ball of annoyance formed in the centre of his forehead. He moved back to the chair and stared down at her, fresh after her bath, neat in softly faded old jeans, the way he’d seen her a million times.

He obviously wasn’t going to engage Cleo in the nostalgic conversation he wanted, paving the way to
why did we ever split up
? Disappointment and rising anger made him ask, ‘Where’s Shona’s father these days?’ He saw her flinch.

‘Haven’t the foggiest. Me and Shona don’t need anyone. I thought you realised.’

Conversation was strained for the rest of the evening. Cleo looked tired. At ten thirty she fetched him an air bed, foot pump, sleeping bag and pillow. ‘You’ll be cosy enough in here. The stove will stay warm till morning.’

He looked down at the bed things, sad and flat, and tried to lighten the air. ‘Delightful, thank you. A do-it-yourself bed.’ He’d meant to sound wry and instead he sounded whiny.

She pressed her hand into the small of her back, causing her chest to jut out interestingly. ‘Maybe you should’ve brought your visit to Ian and the eight-breasted man-munching alien forward. The moon’s probably lovely at this time of year.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

The second and third days were no better than the first. The atmosphere became less strained and there were no more heavy references to the divorce; but by Saturday afternoon Cleo was still glad that Gav was preparing to leave. She’d made his breakfast, she’d made his lunch, ignoring his, ‘Funny when you think how we used to do all the domestic stuff together.’

He hadn’t caught on to the sarcasm in her answering, ‘I don’t remember that.’ Meaning she did remember doing the majority alone.

Then came his hints that he’d prefer lunch out. ‘Perhaps Liza would have Shona for a couple of hours? Or we can take her over to your mum’s and find somewhere to eat around Leicester? I know it’s a bit of a trek from here but –’

She’d shaken her head without bothering to go into the impossibility of Liza being free on a Saturday unless booked a century in advance, nor how unlikely a babysitter her mother made. ‘Nice of you to offer, but as I work long hours my time with Shona’s limited so I don’t want to farm her out.’ She didn’t know how to make it any plainer that Gav was no longer number one in her life.

She had love to spare and just now there was a vacancy. But the vacancy wasn’t Gav-shaped.

He assumed a wounded silence. She prepared a cheerful cheese salad with all sorts of raw vegetables cut into chunks and soft brown finger rolls because Shona liked that.

Then Gav tentatively produced a bottle of wine from his car. ‘I don’t think so,’ Cleo protested. ‘You’ve got to drive and I can’t fall into a post-lunch stupor with Shona to look after.’

‘’Course not!’ He slapped the bottle of wine on the kitchen table. Loudly. Another wounded silence.

But now that he’d got as far as the doorstep on his way out, his hair lifting gently in the breeze, he seemed to have recovered his temper. ‘I’ll let you know how I did at the interviews.’

Cleo joggled Shona on her hip, enjoying a little weak sunshine filtering through the clouds. Another few weeks and they would see the first signs of spring. ‘Will you take the job, if they offer it?’

‘Think so. I miss Peterborough. And Middledip.’

‘Would you come back here, actually to Middledip?’ The surprise in her voice was too obvious for good manners.

His lips tightened. ‘No law against it, is there? You don’t own the whole village?’

Oh dear, she shouldn’t have sounded so … well, horrified. She shifted Shona who kept leaning over to watch something in the lane. ‘I didn’t mean to sound unwelcoming. I hope you get the job if you want it, and somewhere nice to live.’