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Authors: Margot Livesey

BOOK: Homework
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On Sunday Stephen and I drove north along the M1. I watched the newly harvested fields flash by and thought that in less than forty-eight hours Jenny would move in. I had hoped, especially with Lynne, to find sympathy for my situation, but instead I had encountered, as I did in Edinburgh, a massive, inflexible wall of approval. My mother, my father, even Harry and Julia, were all glad that I was about to become a stepmother. There was nothing to be done except to make the best of the situation. Perhaps Lynne was right in claiming that our difficulties stemmed from Jenny's not having sufficient time with Stephen. Once she was living with us, she would relax.
“Penny for them,” said Stephen.
“I was thinking about Jenny. I hope she's going to be happy with us.”
“I'm sure she is,” said Stephen. “Of course she'll miss Helen and be homesick to start with, but she'll soon settle down.” He spoke with an absent-minded conviction that did not invite discussion. For a few minutes we were both silent. Then he said, “I was wondering if I was all right with your family and friends.”
I stared in surprise. He so seldom asked for reassurance that it had not occurred to me that he might feel insecure. “You were perfect,” I said. “They all want to come and live with us. I was positively bored listening to them sing your praises. But what about you? Did you like them? Did you have a good time?”
“It was great being with Lynne and Greg; they were so easy. With your assorted parents it was more complicated. I think if I'd met Evelyn and Harry and David on, say, a train, I'd be going around telling everyone about these three fascinating people. But they're not strangers on a train, they're your parents, and I kept wanting them to behave better towards you. You know,” he said, “the whole time we were there, neither of them paid you a compliment.”
“That would be quite out of character. They believe in praise where praise is due; none of this parental gushing. Nothing is ever enough for them.” I looked over at Stephen. He sensed my gaze and reached across to pat my thigh. “It makes me feel better to hear you say these things,” I said. “Most people think I'm lucky to have such interesting parents.”
“I think they're lucky to have such a wonderful daughter.”
It was six in the evening when we arrived back in Edinburgh. The sun was shining, and in our small front garden the roses were in bloom. We stood on the pavement, looking at our flat. “The trouble with home improvement is that you can't stop,” Stephen said. “Don't you think we should paint the window frames?”
“You're too perfectionist. They're fine.” I squeezed his hand and pulled him over to the gate. “Come and smell our roses. Aren't they splendid? They're even better than Mr. Patterson's.”
“They are beautiful.” He kissed me.
I took off my sunglasses and smiled up at him. “You know, I was just thinking that it's less than a year since I moved to
Edinburgh. I remember I felt as if I was setting out to find the source of the Amazon.”
“So did your heart sink as we crossed the border?”
“No,” I said. “Quite the reverse. I felt that I was coming home.”
We unlocked the front door and went inside. I bent to pick up the mail that lay scattered on the floor and saw at a glance that most of the envelopes were bills. “Tobias, Tobias,” I called. He rushed out of the dining room. I picked him up. For a few minutes he purred rapturously in my arms. Then, as if suddenly remembering that I had abandoned him for two whole weeks, he jumped down and walked very deliberately back into the dining room. Stephen had finished decorating the hall only shortly before we left, and during our absence the smell of paint had reasserted itself. As we went from room to room, opening windows, everything seemed both familiar and strangely pristine.
Stephen went to fetch our bags. I put the remains of our picnic away in the fridge. When I came into the bedroom, he was gazing out of the window. “Look at the poppies,” he said. “They must have seeded themselves.”
All along the edge of the herbaceous border the vivid pink and red flowers were in bloom; the grass was strewn with petals. Stephen was wearing a blue shirt with snap fastenings. One by one I pulled them open.
We had returned to Edinburgh at the last possible moment. On Monday we both had to go to work, and on Tuesday Jenny was moving in. At the office, chores had piled up during my absence. So many of the staff had been on holiday simultaneously that there had been no one to take care of my projects. Almost as soon as I sat down at my desk, Clare stopped by to talk about the autumn sales conference. It was in a couple of weeks, and I would be responsible for presenting several of my books. I took notes and tried to conceal my anxiety behind intelligent questions. Last year I had attended the conference solely as a spectator.
After Clare left I began to sort through my mail, trying to divide tasks into more and less urgent categories. The editor of
Sunset Song
was delighted with my editing; Mr. Brockbank sent a letter, written in beautiful sloping copperplate, announcing that he was looking forward to our collaboration on a new edition of
Introduction to Scottish Poetry;
there were problems with the permissions for a primary-school anthology. And to my dismay, the biology book on which I had worked while the science editor was on holiday seemed to have become my property. There was a note from Bill asking if I could check through it with particular care; the last book we had published by this author had resulted in a steady flow of complaints from teachers up and down the country.
For the rest of the day I scarcely left my desk, and by the time Stephen picked me up, at six-thirty, our holiday seemed
to have taken place in the distant past. We had talked of doing something special, given that it was our last evening alone together, but after supper we were both too tired to do more than pay a visit to the pub. We had one drink and then returned to bed. Just before I fell asleep, it occurred to me that however ordinary the evening we had passed, such evenings would, in the course of the next few months, become a rarity.
Next day I came home from work to find a note on the dining-room table: “Daddy and I have gone shopping. Jenny.” The door of the spare room was ajar, and I looked inside. The floor was strewn with bags and boxes, and on the yellow walls were posters of a ballet dancer, a pop group, a pony jumping a fence. Jenny had not yet passed a single night beneath our roof, but already she had made this room her own.
She and Stephen arrived home with three parcels of fish and chips, which we ate out of the paper at the dining room table. Afterwards Jenny showed me the stationery she had bought for the new school term, and I admired her notebooks and brightly coloured pencils. Then Stephen announced that it was time for her to go to bed. While he helped her to get organised, I sat in the living room reading the
Scotsman
; the Edinburgh Festival had just begun, and I circled events that struck me as interesting. When Stephen returned, I said, “I can't believe how many things are on during the festival.”
“Weren't you here for it last year?”
“I arrived in the middle. It made moving even harder. There were all these interesting shows and no one to go to them with.”
He came and sat down beside me on the sofa. “This year we'll go to everything your heart desires.”
“I was wondering about the Polish theatre company. The review makes them sound fantastic.”
“Deirdre was talking about that. She went at the weekend and said they were wonderful. We should definitely go.” He
looked at the page of reviews and advertisements that I had been studying. “This would interest my father,” he said, pointing to an exhibition on the history of the Scottish garden. His head was close to mine, and I reached to kiss him. As our mouths touched, there was a slight noise. Stephen pulled back, and following his gaze, I saw Jenny standing in the doorway. She seemed to be staring directly at me, but then I thought that of course she was looking at both of us. She wore a white nightdress patterned with red flowers, which made her appear particularly small and waif-like.
“Daddy, I can't sleep.” She closed the door behind her and went over to sit in the armchair on the other side of the fireplace. She curled her legs up, as if settling herself for a long conversation. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“We're reading the newspaper. Now come on,” said Stephen. “It's nearly nine-thirty.” Not knowing what expression to assume—a smile of complicity with Jenny, a frown indicating solidarity with Stephen—I pretended to be engrossed in the newspaper. There was a small pause, then Jenny slowly got out of her armchair and trailed out of the room.
“Shall I try to get tickets for Friday or Saturday?” I asked. “I could telephone from work.”
“Perhaps you should wait until we've organised a baby-sitter before you do anything definite,” he said quietly.
The door opened again. “I'm thirsty,” said Jenny. Ten minutes later she had an itchy foot. On the fourth occasion, before she could say anything, I stood up and left the room. I had not myself dared to try my parents' patience in such a fashion, but I remembered vividly the awfulness of being confined to bed, especially in summer, when it was still light outside and so apparent that life was going on without me. I wandered into the kitchen with no particular purpose in mind. The sink was stacked with yesterday's dishes, which Stephen had promised to do. I pushed up my sleeves and set to work. When I had finished and even the worst of the
saucepans had been scrubbed clean, the murmur of voices from the spare room was still audible. On impulse I began to lay the table for breakfast. As a teenager, last thing before bed, I had laid three places at our kitchen table, but since I left home, breakfast, whether eaten in haste or leisure, had never been a meal to prepare for in advance.
Stephen came into the dining room as I was putting out the cereal bowls. He closed the door behind him. “Maybe this is it,” he said. “We had a long talk about Helen. About why she's doing what she's doing and when Jenny will see her again. Helen's gone over and over this, but in an odd way I don't think Jenny fully realised until today that she would be living here and Helen would be far away.” He spoke softly, and in his low tones I heard the pressure of Jenny's presence.
“It's an awful lot to adjust to all at once,” I said. “The first evening we moved in, it took me ages to go to sleep.” I lined up the knife and spoon at Jenny's place.
“I remember when I went to stay with my great-uncles I would be up and down like a yo-yo. It was partly that I had to find out what I could get away with. Of course,” he added, “they were hopelessly indulgent.” The dining room door opened, and Jenny padded in, rubbing her eyes.
 
The following night I attended a workshop on the use of computers in publishing and did not get home until almost eleven. I let myself in quietly. The light was on in the hall, and the doors of both bedrooms were ajar. Without pausing to take off my coat, I tiptoed into our room. Stephen was sitting up in bed, reading. “How did it go?” he asked. “Have you worked out how to replace authors by silicon chips?”
“Not quite, but we're getting closer.” I sat down on the edge of the bed. “You're wearing pyjamas,” I said in surprise.
“Yes, in the interests of paternity, but with a little encouragement I'll throw them aside.”
“I'll try to provide it.” I stood up and took off my coat.
“I think the worst is over,” he said. “There was only one request this evening, for a glass of water.”
“Can I close her door? I'm worried that I'll wake her.”
Stephen shook his head. “She insists on having it open, but don't worry. She's used to sleeping through noise.”
I went to hang my coat up in the hall cupboard and then to the bathroom, where I performed my toilette as quietly as possible. When I had finished I stole back into the bedroom and closed the door. Stephen switched off the light; we turned to each other. He groaned my name and whispered words of passion. I slid my hand up under the jacket of his pyjamas and kissed his neck. But I could not forget that only a thin layer of wood kept the noises of our mouths and bodies from travelling to Jenny; I tried to be quiet, to bury my face against Stephen or in the pillow, as I had done, during the last couple of weeks, when we made love in other people's houses.
 
On Saturday morning, while Stephen did the washing, I took the car to Safeways. I was used to having Jenny around on Saturdays, but months of weekly visits had not prepared me for how different it felt for Stephen and me to divide the household tasks between us, sensibly, out of necessity, and without the respite of Sunday in our immediate future. Just before I left I had asked Stephen again about the Polish theatre, and he had said that he thought it was premature to leave Jenny with a baby-sitter. He urged me to go by myself. “There's no reason why you should stay at home,” he had said. I agreed, but I did not relish the prospect of making solitary arrangements; it was too reminiscent of the previous year.
In Safeways I wandered up and down the aisles, unable to make decisions. Which kind of cereal did Jenny prefer? I could not remember. Was there any point in buying ingredients for ratatouille when she hated it? Should I buy more chocolate biscuits, given the rapidity with which they disappeared?
The shop was thronged with people, and whenever I paused for more than a few seconds, someone would say, “Excuse me.”
Finally I had all the items on the list and made my way to the front of the shop. The cashier was deep in conversation with the girl at the next register about a new kind of diet. “It works by enzymes,” she explained. Without pausing in her conversation, she rang up my groceries; I owed seventeen pounds and sixty-three pence. I opened my purse, and as I counted out the money, I discovered that ten pounds was missing.
I arrived home to find Stephen in the kitchen, organising a third load of washing. We had both remarked on the amazing amount of extra laundry that Jenny's presence had created in only a few days. “You were gone a long time,” he said. “I hope it wasn't fiendishly busy.”
Tobias ran to meet me, purring loudly. I put the box of groceries on the counter and bent to pet him. “Not especially,” I said. “I've lost ten pounds.”
“Maybe you spent it. That's what usually happens when I think I've lost some money. Or I've stuffed it into a pocket.” Stephen smiled; he was going through the pockets of a pair of jeans.
“I went to the bank at lunchtime yesterday, and I haven't done anything since then except take the bus home.”
“And you're sure the cashier gave you the correct amount?”
“It was only fifty pounds. She counted the notes out in front of me, and I counted them again.” I had been going to the Royal Bank of Scotland, round the corner from the office, since I moved to Edinburgh, and I knew all the cashiers by sight. The day before, the dark, plump woman with gap teeth had given me my money. I had noticed a new ring glittering on her well-manicured hand.
“A note must have fallen out,” Stephen said. He began to
scoop the rest of the clothes off the floor into the machine. I felt that he was giving me only a fraction of his attention, and I was irritated by his suggestions; I had already, while driving home, considered all the obvious alternatives. Rather tartly, I said that I did not see how I could lose one note out of five. Tobias padded off towards the garden.
Stephen straightened up. “Well then,” he said, “perhaps someone took it.”
I stared at him in amazement. “But I've only been here and at the office, and I can't believe anyone at work would steal. Besides, why not steal the whole lot?”
“I don't know. Ten pounds is not a great deal of money, Celia. I expect it will turn up.” He closed the door of the machine, set the dial, and pulled the knob. I watched the water rushing into the tub. He was being so reasonable that I did not know how to explain my distress. I was vexed not by the loss, which as he pointed out was small, but by my ignorance of where or how it could have occurred.
He moved over to the counter and looked inside the box of groceries. “What nice apples. You can actually smell them.”
He picked one up, bit into it, and then held it out for me to see; the flesh beneath the skin was tinged with pink. I took the apple out of his hand and sank my teeth into it. The back door swung open.
 
I left Stephen to put away the groceries and went to the bedroom. Although I had no recollection of doing so, it was possible that I had tucked the money away in a pocket. As I searched through the clothes I had worn the day before, I remembered how often I had mysteriously lost things as a child. “Be sure not to lose it,” my mother would say, giving me a letter to post, a shopping list, money, and the occasions when I neglected her injunction were many and tragic. She thought I was careless; on the contrary, I was always taking great care, thinking about whatever must not be lost, the
piece of paper clutched in my hand, the action to be performed. But almost inevitably, it seemed, I would be distracted—I would see a comic in a shop window, or someone would talk to me—and the precious object would disappear. Often hours, even days, would pass before something would bring it back to mind and I would, with a start, realise my loss. Then terrible, panic-stricken searches would ensue, before I was forced to confess. At least nowadays, I thought, there was no one to be angry with me. My search yielded a total of twenty pence.

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