Plan B (13 page)

‘You’ll be getting ADSL soon, won’t you?’ Fiona said. ‘I know we will. That’ll make it all easier, I’m sure.’

‘What about you? How have you managed it?’

Andy smiled proudly. ‘Property,’ he said grandly. ‘I’ve speculated and accumulated, my dear. Managed to buy years ago in areas that are now highly desirable. I’ve got houses rented out all over Leeds, and a couple in London. The proceeds keep us in the style to which my wife has become accustomed.’

She nudged him. ‘You!’

‘It’s true. There’s everything on tap for the ladies in France, isn’t there? I mean, how big is this town? Five thousand people? And yet it’s got more hairdressers than bloody bakeries. Plus beauticians on top of that. Eyebrow waxing, manicures, pedicures, you name it, it’s all essential. I’m scared to stand still in some parts of this town in case someone jumps out and waxes me. And don’t get me started on clothes.’ He rolled his eyes. I imagined Andy performing monologues for the cameras. I knew he must love it. I looked at Fiona’s eyebrows, which were barely there, and her hands, which were soft and flawless. I hid my own nails — bitten, and ingrained with dirt from the garden. I rarely bothered to wear my gardening gloves because they made me feel clumsy. I noticed that Fiona’s rosy cheeks were delicately made up with blusher, and that her clothes were floaty designer offerings rather than the baggy casual wear I had first taken them for.

She saw me assessing her. ‘Don’t worry, lovie,’ she said kindly. ‘I do it for the telly. Plus, I’ve nothing else to do. You’ve got your kiddy to think about. And,’ she added hastily, ‘you look lovely anyway.’

I snorted. ‘Right.’

Alice was playing under the table. She popped up next to me. ‘Can I eat your sugar?’ she asked Andy conversationally.

‘No you can’t,’ I said, but tailed off as he handed her two cubes. Alice looked at me, triumphant, and stuffed them both into her mouth before I could take them away. I checked to see if the exchange had been captured on film. It had.

I was relieved to walk away from the camera. I dreaded to think how I would come across and hoped that I had been so awkward and inept that the footage of me could not appear in the finished product.

We were all invited to Sunday lunch with Andy and Fiona at the weekend. I felt odd about making friends with people purely because they were British.

‘Will we be filmed?’ I asked anxiously. I knew I would not be able to eat with a camera trained upon me.

‘Not a chance,’ Andy replied immediately. ‘They’re all off to the beach for the weekend, the slack buggers.’

And so I accepted. Andy and Fiona lived, I realised, in the huge hilltop house I had admired every time I was out walking. It was seven or eight kilometres away from our house, but it still seemed to loom. I had driven through their village several times, and always slowed in front of the château. Close up, it was immaculate. They had a cleaner and a gardener, and when they bought the house six months earlier, it had needed no work at all. This made me extremely jealous.

My secret bitch was dying to butt in with acidic observations about my new friends, but I restrained her. All I would admit to myself was that I was intrigued to find out what the interior of the fabulous house was like.

Matt arrived home on Friday afternoon. He stood in the front door frame, with the late afternoon sun behind him, making his shadow extend halfway down the hall. I could barely make out his features but I knew something was wrong. Normally he rushed in and gathered us both up and squeezed us close to him.

‘Sweetie!’ I said. I was concerned because I was in a buoyant mood at the prospect of his return, and could not bear to see him hanging back. I ran up and hugged him. ‘What is it?’

He shrugged and kissed my mouth. He smiled, but it was a feeble effort. Normally his face shone when he came back to us. Today he looked pale and tired.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Work. There’s too much of it. You know I’d promised to do a short week next week, to go back Monday night and be back here for Thursday? It’s not going to happen. I’m sorry, darling.’

‘When are you going back, then?’

‘Sunday night. Last flight. I’ve got a six thirty breakfast meeting on Monday.’

I smiled. ‘That’s OK then because we have a Sunday lunch engagement with some expats. They live in that huge house.’ I took his overnight bag from his shoulder and his briefcase from his hand, and led him into the kitchen. ‘Alice!’ I shouted. ‘Daddy’s home!’

I heard her footsteps overhead.

‘She’s playing upstairs?’ Matt asked, surprised. Alice generally liked to be as close as possible to one or the other of us.

‘Watching a DVD,’ I admitted. ‘I needed to get on with the dinner, and she was doing my head in. Plus she’s been at school and she’s knackered. She wasn’t interested in anything except the telly.’ I felt terrible, because I had always resisted TV. I had vowed that my child was not going to be pacified by moving dots on the screen. I had held out for over two years, turning down Bella’s offer of a complete set of Postman Pat, various Teletubby adventures, and
Pingu
.

‘You have to have
Pingu
,’ Bella had told me, incredulous. ‘It’s hilarious. Now the boys have grown out of it, I watch it on my own sometimes.’

‘I just don’t want children’s videos in the house,’ I explained. ‘I don’t want her to be aware of telly at all. And if I had them, I know I’d end up sitting her down with them. If I had any strength of mind I’d get rid of our own telly.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Yesterday, I had found myself buying DVDs in Intermarché. Alice adored the entire experience. I had tried to buy only quality films, but I still felt as if I had failed her.

Matt squeezed my shoulder. ‘Don’t feel you have to explain. Kids like telly. If I was here more, I’m well aware I’d be able to entertain her at such moments. But I’m not, so I’m hardly going to judge you if you occasionally park her in front of the box. God knows, I would. Every parent does. What’s on?’

‘
Toy Story
.’

‘Well, there you go. It’s a classic. I might watch it with her.’

I looked at him closely. ‘You’re down, aren’t you? You’re down because you think you’re missing out on Alice.’

He snorted. ‘It’s more of an accumulation of factors. Where’s the wine? And who are these expats and where the fuck did you find them?’

We spent Saturday at the beach. It took just over an hour to drive there — a largely silent journey with Matt frowning and huffing in the driving seat. He was oblivious to the morning sunshine lighting up the pine trees that lined the route. He didn’t notice the blue sky, didn’t seem to realise that, in a flush of optimism, I hadn’t even brought our coats with us.

When we saw the sandy beach stretching away into the distance in both directions, I was sure that he was going to start to be happy. I stepped out into the sunshine and felt the warm breeze on my face. I pulled my cardigan off and wondered whether I dared wear a swimming costume. It would be good to let my skin see the sun.

‘Come on!’ I called to him and Alice, and I set off down the steps to the beach.

‘All right, all right. Doing my best,’ he said crossly.

The beach looked endless. I felt happily insignificant as I chose a spot and put down our plastic-backed rug and a couple of towels. The sand was sprinkled with groups of people. I took a deep breath. This was beautiful. The sea was big, the sky was clear, the beach extraordinarily long. The sand dunes behind us cut us off from the real world, so for a while our universe seemed to consist only of sand, clear water, and sky. The nearest group of people was about twenty metres from us, and they were surfers. I watched them for a second, forcing limbs into wetsuits and fastening leashes round their ankles.

‘Lots of surfers,’ I said to Matt, with a smile, when he came and sat next to me. He never stayed grumpy for long. ‘I’ve always loved to see surfers. I might try it one day. Do you think I could?’ I laughed out loud at the idea of standing on a board, on the sea.

He looked at me and looked away. He pushed a hand through his hair and slicked it back. ‘Right,’ he said, with a little snort. ‘You’re going to surf. Now I’ve heard everything.’

‘I’m serious. I could have some lessons. I’d love to give it a go.’

‘Emma, you couldn’t surf. And you won’t. You’re just saying it to get me to speak to you.’

I stared at him.

‘Alice!’ I called. ‘Hat back on, please!’

Alice smiled wickedly. ‘Don’t want to.’ She ran away. I chased her, hat in hand, pleased to escape from Matt. She collapsed, giggling, onto the sand. I fell down next to her. Her nose crinkled as she laughed. Her cheeks were perfectly round. She was so gorgeous that she was edible. I told myself to forget about Matt snapping, and to be nice until I wore him down.

‘Come on,’ I told her, pushing the hat down over her hair. ‘Let’s go and make Daddy happy.’

He relaxed, slowly, as the day wore on. The three of us went down to the sea, and Matt and I held Alice’s hand as she jumped over waves. She was almost hysterical with excitement. On a whim, I walked away from her and Matt, out into the waves. I wanted to experience this wild ocean, to see whether I could imagine myself on a surfboard. I jumped over the white, breaking water, and paddled out to the calm sea, where I lay on my back and let myself be heaved up and down by the waves. I looked up at the sky. A few birds flew overhead. The waves picked me up and dropped me as if I were a piece of driftwood. I closed my eyes.

I never felt myself being carried in to shore, but that is what happens to driftwood, and that is what happened to me. Suddenly, I was pulled back, and when I opened my eyes, the wave was just about to break on me. It crashed into my face, onto my body. I spun around, forced down to the sand. I struggled to stand up. My eyes and mouth were full of salty water and I lost all control. It was over in a few seconds. I got up, knee deep in water, and rubbed my face.

‘Jesus, Emma,’ said Matt, running through the shallows with Alice in his arms. ‘What were you
doing
?’

I laughed. ‘I was just experimenting. I’m fine.’

‘God. You scared me. Christ.’

I was shaken but strangely pleased by my experience. I liked wild oceans.

We carried buckets of sea water back to our camp to pour over sand and make it sticky enough for sandcastles. We built a huge fort with a moat that steadfastly refused to fill with water because we were sitting at the top of a steep slope that was several metres above sea level. To our right, the beach stretched halfway up France. To our left, it reached Spain. I was still tingling from my encounter with the water. I wanted to do that again.

‘Who wants an ice cream?’ Matt asked, after a couple of hours.

‘Me!’ shouted Alice. ‘Chocolate one.’

‘Me too,’ I added, with a few reservations. I had to have one, since it was a perfect day on a sunny beach in the south of France, but I still hadn’t lost the weight I had gained having Alice, and the women on this beach were making me feel woefully inadequate. In a swimming costume, even a one-piece, I could not escape my flabby stomach and thunderous thighs. The tops of my arms disgusted me. I knew I had a double chin.

A little way down the beach, there was a woman who was probably ten years older than me but who was lying back wearing a tiny pair of black bikini bottoms. Her body was impeccable. She was toned and slender, with pert breasts that pointed straight upwards and did not slide into her armpits. She was tanned but not overly so. Three teenage boys were getting ready to surf next to her, and I watched her speaking to them, unable to hear, but knowing that she was telling them to be careful. I could not believe that it was possible to give birth three times and still have a body like that. Nor could I believe it was possible to be so unselfconscious in front of one’s teenage sons.

I had let myself off the hook on the body front, entirely excusing my flab on the grounds that everyone got a little podgy in between babies. Now I saw that if I were to carry on living in France, I was going to have to raise my standards.

‘Actually, just a bottle of water, thanks, nice and cold,’ I said loudly, as Matt started to walk away. Alice leapt up.

‘I’m coming too, Daddy,’ she shouted, and I watched Matt stop and wait for her, smiling indulgently.

While they were away I gazed at all the figures in the water. They were black and glistening, like seals. I could not take my eyes off them. Matt was right: I would probably never surf, but I could still watch. I could empathise. I picked a figure, randomly, and watched him until he got a wave. I was frustrated with him as he jumped up a little too late and missed his ride. A few waves later, he tried again. He jumped up and caught the crest of the wave. I saw him slowly rise to his feet. The wave carried him along. He stood triumphantly. I felt a vicarious exhilaration as he prolonged his ride by executing a turn and gliding back with the wave arching over his head. It broke over him. I relived what that had felt like, pleased to be able to involve myself to a tiny degree. He bobbed to the surface a moment later. He paused for a couple of seconds before turning back towards the horizon, throwing himself on his board, and paddling out again. I shook my head. I could never have done that.

‘I’m sorry,’ Matt said, later, in the back garden. Alice had just gone to bed and we were watching the sun set behind the house. ‘I’m hopeless, aren’t I?’

‘Of course you’re not hopeless,’ I told him, relieved that he had admitted it.

‘But I am. I let work and exhaustion get on top of me, and I’ve ruined half our weekend. You can’t tell me that’s not crap.’

I stroked his hand. ‘It’s completely understandable. Commuting by plane can’t be easy. It is not, on the face of it, a sane way to live your life. And I know how busy you are with work. You’re being pulled in half.’

He smiled, a funny little smile. ‘I certainly am. You have no idea how right you are. I miss you girls when I’m not with you. I hate being away from you all the time. So, obviously, I deal with it by getting depressed and taking it out on the pair of you and making you both miserable. Because I’m a modern man and that’s what we do.’ He put his head in his hands so his hair fell forward, then looked at me with a comical hangdog expression. As soon as I laughed, he crinkled his eyes and chuckled along with me, and we were officially friends again.