Made in Heaven (28 page)

Adrian said nothing. Zannah went on, ‘I think you should apologize to Isis.'

‘No way,' said Adrian. ‘I'll try not to yell at her in future, but she's got to learn she's not the only person in the world. That's her problem. You've spoiled her.'

‘Oh, go home, Adrian! I can't deal with this tonight. I've got a ton of work to do and I'm not spending the entire evening squabbling.'

‘We were going to have a bite together.' He looked aggrieved. ‘I've driven all the way up here from work, without changing or anything. What am I supposed to do about food?'

‘Oh, for God's sake, Adrian, you're perfectly capable of finding yourself something to eat, aren't you? Phone a friend. Get a takeaway. Something. I don't feel like going out. Sorry.'

‘If that's what you want,' Adrian stood up, ‘there's no point in staying, I suppose. Goodbye.'

‘Goodbye.'

He turned back at the front door to see if Zannah would weaken, she knew, but she made sure she seemed
entirely absorbed in the headlines of the newspaper lying on the table. He left without another word. Zannah put her head in her hands and tried to calm down. Perhaps, she thought, I shouldn't have lost my temper with him – but he could be so annoying. She'd only just stopped herself throwing something at him. He'd phone her later, she thought. He was probably regretting their quarrel already.

‘Mum? Are you okay?' Isis had crept downstairs, and put her arms round her mother without Zannah noticing.

‘Icey! You're supposed to be in your room.'

‘I didn't go. I stayed on the stairs to listen.'

‘Naughty girl! That's eavesdropping.'

‘But,' Isis said, ‘I wanted to see if you made friends. You didn't, did you? Are you still getting married?'

Zannah laughed. ‘Of course we are! People often get cross with one another, you know. It doesn't mean anything, really.'

Isis went to sit on the sofa, curling herself round one of the cushions. She didn't look entirely reassured, so Zannah said, ‘Next time I go to see Miss Hayward, you must come with me. She's got lots of lovely ornaments and a cupboard full of gorgeous materials. When we've decided what sort of bridesmaid's dress you want, and Gemma, of course, you can help choose the fabric. That'll be fun, right?'

Isis nodded, glumly. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘I want it to be very pale pink.'

‘We'll have to be careful with that, darling. It's got to go with my cream. Don't worry, though, we'll find something fantastic. Okay now? Ready for bed?'

‘I'll go and get ready.'

‘I'll be up in a minute.'

Isis turned as she reached the stairs. ‘He doesn't like me very much, does he?'

‘Adrian?' Zannah was shocked. Where had Isis
got that idea? She made a note to tell Adrian in the strongest terms that he really mustn't shout at Isis ever again. ‘Of course he likes you, darling. He's told me lots of times, really. Don't worry about him shouting at you. He honestly doesn't mean to be horrid. Would I ever think of marrying someone who didn't love you?'

Isis shook her head. ‘No,' she said. ‘S'pose not.'

‘Go on, then. Get ready for bed and stop worrying.'

When Isis had gone, Zannah picked up the newspaper and folded it up to put away. She tried to recall the occasions when Adrian had mentioned liking Isis – actually said the words, rather than let the assumption stand on its own. She remembered him saying how talented Isis was, when he had been admiring her artwork, attached to the fridge. He'd said how pretty she was at their engagement party. He'd pronounced her clever when Zannah had shown him her school report, but had he ever said he liked her? In so many words? She couldn't bring a single instance to mind. But that doesn't mean anything, she told herself. I know he likes her. He wouldn't want to marry me if he didn't … No one marries a mother unless they're sure they like her child. I'll ask him. I'll make sure, she thought, pushing this new worry to the back of her mind. She stood up and tried to think herself into bedtime-story mode.

She came downstairs just as Emily was letting herself in.

‘Hi, Zan,' she said. ‘Isis in bed?'

‘Yes,' Zannah said. Emily threw herself on to the sofa and sighed. ‘God,' she said, ‘I'm finished. Just been to the opening of the most hilarious exhibition. Couldn't make it up. Camembert boxes turned into sculptures.
Cheese City
. I kid you not.'

‘Could be good,' said Zannah. ‘Depends how it was done.'

‘Trust me, this guy wasn't a what's his name? Pizza-thingie?'

‘Paolozzi. Em, can I ask you something?'

Emily sat up at once, frowning. ‘What's up?'

‘Maybe nothing. I've just had rather a … well, a bit of strange conversation with Isis. She reckons Adrian doesn't really like her. That can't be, can it? Can it? I'd have noticed if … '

‘What did Isis say exactly?'

‘Well, he shouted at her so she asked me if he liked her and I said of course … you know. But she didn't seem all that reassured. He did say he was sorry for shouting at her. I tried to explain that sometimes you do just shout at people and it doesn't mean you don't like them. What am I going to do?'

‘Have you asked him what he thinks of Isis?'

‘Not directly. I've always assumed … How could anyone not like her?'

‘You're her mother. Of course you think that. So do I. We all do, in our family but … well, she's someone else's child, isn't she? Not his. That's the point. She's a reminder of Cal.'

Zannah ran her hands through her hair and closed her eyes. ‘I don't need this. Really. I will ask him but I just cannot believe that this incredibly
primitive
stuff about whose child she is operates in the twenty-first century. It's ridiculous.'

‘Men,' said Emily, ‘are primitive. Hadn't you noticed? Fred Flintstone, the whole bloody lot of them. Behind that investment banker's exterior, under the most spiffy and impeccable of Turnbull and Asser shirts there beats the heart of a wild creature. Me Tarzan you Zannah! Trust me.'

‘I'm going to speak to him. And I'll watch him very carefully from now on, you can be sure of that.'

‘What about Isis? What's she feel about him? Have you ever asked her?'

Zannah shook her head. ‘I've always thought she likes him. She's very smiley and pleasant around him … I'll ask her, too.'

‘D'you remember the coffin carving in Manchester Museum of Isis the goddess? Pa showed us when we were not much older than she is.'

Zannah remembered it exactly: the carving still touched with pink and green even after centuries; the goddess holding out her wings, protecting Osiris. Perhaps it was seeing this at an early age that had put the name Isis into her mind when she was pregnant. That had made her love it so much. I'm the one, she thought. The one who has to do the protecting.

*

‘Weddings,' said Val, ‘are one thing. I love weddings. Marriage is quite another. Don't like that much. Mind you, I suppose I had a bad experience.'

Charlotte, Val and Edie were sitting round the kitchen table. They'd just washed up after a pleasant evening of bridge with Nadia and were having a glass of red wine together before bed.

‘I'd have agreed with you if I hadn't met Gus,' Charlotte said. ‘We didn't bother with a wedding and concentrated on our marriage. Probably the sensible option, when you come to think of it. No one came to our wedding except Joss. There's part of me that does still think the whole thing's a waste of money. But Zannah deserves to have what she wants this time. She was so … so wounded when Cal … when she divorced. She seems to want all this, the dress, the service, the reception, to make up for the pain she felt then. She said she wanted to do everything properly this time.'

‘She's young,' said Edie. ‘It's only when you've lived through a marriage that you know whether the ceremony was a wonderful prefiguring of your happiness or a really bad joke.' She took a sip of wine. ‘They've been to see Geoffrey at the church. He thought they were a
lovely couple and he's spoken to them at length about music and the order of service and so forth.'

Charlotte looked searchingly at Edie. Whenever she spoke of the vicar, a proprietorial and affectionate note crept into her voice. They used to call it ‘soppy' when she was a girl … Was Edie getting soppy over the Rev. Geoff? He was a widower, and although he was a few years younger than Edie, a relationship wasn't out of the question. The trouble was, an unattached vicar who wasn't completely revolting attracted the attention of a great many women and this parish was particularly stuffed with widows and unmarried ladies of a certain age who, by Edie's own account, were falling over themselves in their eagerness to snaffle him. That the church was always so clean and well provided with flowers was witness to those ladies trying to outdo one another in their devotion. Well, Charlotte thought, this wedding'll bring Rev. Geoff and Edie closer together, but of course she isn't going to get involved with him. Edie had a dim view of relationships between men and women. The way she put it was:
My experience of the two sexes has shown me how incompatible we are
. She said, ‘I've been in touch with the marquee people. It's all going to be quite straightforward. I have to give them final numbers soon, but Zannah told me the other day that they were in the process of finalizing the guest list.'

Val picked up Joss's book, which was lying on the dresser. ‘You must be so proud, Charlotte! Isn't it wonderful? A poetry book … I love the picture on the cover. But why doesn't Joss use her own name? It's as if she's hiding, isn't it?'

‘She told me she likes being someone else. Being able to say things she maybe couldn't say as Joss Gratrix. I can understand that.'

Val leafed through the pages. ‘You don't mean …'

‘No, don't worry.' Charlotte laughed. ‘Nothing she'd be ashamed of saying as herself, just … Well, she
described it to me as a kind of dressing up. You pretend to be another person. There are love poems in there, but nothing too shocking.'

Charlotte wasn't telling the truth. She had been a little startled on reading some of the things Joss had written. Ever since her niece had brought Bob back to this house to meet her, all those years ago, Charlotte had been of the opinion that he was good and kind and pleasant and entirely unexciting. When Joss had told her she wanted to marry him, Charlotte concluded that she was looking for security. Ever since the death of her parents, and even with all the care that Charlotte and later Gus had devoted to her, Joss had been tentative. She'd gone through life giving too much attention to what might go wrong with it. She didn't dare to do things most young people wouldn't even have thought of as risky. Bob was safe. Bob had a good job for life, and if they'd never be rich, they'd never be poor either. He must have seemed a good prospect to Joss and she did love him, there was no doubt of that in Charlotte's mind. It was the quality of the love she sometimes wondered about, and reading some of the lines in this book, she simply couldn't imagine them applied to Joss's husband of so many years. These were words that went with a new passion. She could feel, when she read them, the force of an ungovernable longing, a lust that surely couldn't still exist after thirty years. Perhaps she was recollecting emotion in tranquillity and remembering how things were between her and Bob in the first few years of their marriage, but somehow that wasn't the impression Charlotte took from the verse. Of course, Joss and Bob must once have felt passionately about one another, even if she hadn't been able to see it. Joss had never displayed her emotions to the world, but she felt things deeply, and it was impossible to imagine her staying in a relationship that wasn't physically satisfying. Still, these poems didn't feel as though they were
about Bob. Perhaps Joss was having an affair, but with whom? And when? As far as Charlotte knew, her life was spent either working in the library, or at home, or in London visiting her daughters and Isis … Maybe she was simply projecting her fantasies into her work. That was more likely, Charlotte decided. In prison, she remembered, many women spent hours writing verse. Her cellmate, Wilma, had been a pallid, skinny, greasy-haired, middle-aged woman who looked like a wrung-out mop. She was in for theft and used to cover pages and pages with poems about stars and fields, seashores, puppies and kittens.
Why don't you write about your feelings?
Charlotte asked her once and Wilma looked at her pityingly.
What's the point of that? Shitty, that's what my feelings are. Poetry's not about shittiness, is it? You want to get away from yourself, doncha?

Charlotte wondered whether Joss, too, was getting away from herself. Perhaps that was the way she kept her marriage going: by escaping into a fantasy world in her poems, where she could be Lydia Quentin who burned with desires Joss Gratrix couldn't admit into her own life. Well, if that was the case, nothing was wrong. She must have considered what Bob's reaction would be if he read some of them, Charlotte thought, and then something struck her. Bob would no sooner sit down and read a book of poems, even if they were by his wife, than spend his holidays in Disneyland. This made it safe for Joss to write exactly what she wanted, however erotically charged her work turned out to be. And if it was all a fantasy, no one would be hurt. She said to Edie and Val, ‘This is the book I told you about. Did I tell you that the Madrigal Prize is worth two thousand pounds?'

Edie and Val were impressed and astonished. Clearly, they'd underestimated the book's worth.

‘Well,' said Val, ‘that's something to wish for, isn't it? It would be so lovely if she wins. Let's drink to that.'