The Lives of Women (25 page)

A little bristle from his newspaper, a vague clearing of his throat then, without looking up, ‘What? Oh, I'll leave it up to yourself.'

Last night he said thank you
again
. God only knows where all this could end.

Lynette is ecstatic. ‘Soon, he will be fat,' she cries. ‘Oh, he will be so fat!'

The phone rings and I jump. The phone in this house so seldom rings and mostly I forget that we have one. It's Lynette's voice on the other end.

‘So sorry,' she says and begins to explain how her car wouldn't start. How she's at the garage right now but will have to take the bus and will be late by at least an hour. Two buses she will need to cross the city. (I had no idea she lived so far away.) She is full of apologies; there is a sort of plea in her voice, as if I'm going to have
her whipped when she arrives. I want her to stop saying, So sorry, so sorry…

‘It's fine, Lynette, please take your time.'

I would like to tell her that I can manage without her today; that she should go take care of her car. That I can see to my father myself. Do whatever needs to be done. But I can't seem to bring myself to say the words.

As if she knows what I'm thinking, she says: ‘Just do usual, though. Breakfast and pills. Put chair beside bed. He can get in. I take care all else. His little worries, I take care.'

‘Well, if you're sure, Lynette. You see, I was going to go into town today. I have a few things I really need to… I'll leave the key under the brick then if you're sure.'

‘Soon I be there. I stay late.'

‘There's no need to stay late.'

‘I stay.'

‘No, Lynette, please, really. There's no need.'

‘He pay. I stay.'

 

I put down the phone and think of Serena again. So sorry. So very sorry.

The porridge is cold by the time I come back to it and so I clump it out into the dog's bowl, top it up with a little boeuf bourguignon I've kept from last night and take the dish over to him. He looks at me tiredly but doesn't get up.

‘Brekky time,' I tell him, ‘come on now. Have a sniff, go on. You know you want it… Come on, Boy. Come on.
Please?
'

Back at the stove, I start a new pot of porridge and wait for it to thicken about the spoon and burst into slow, lazy bubbles.

I glance down at the list again: only three more dishes to go.

 

When the tray is ready, I carry it into his room and lay it down on the coffee table. There's no need to tell him that Lynette will be late – the phone is right outside his door and I know he's heard every word of the conversation.

In my head the list grows: unwaxed lemons. Salted capers. Eggs.

I draw the curtains back and open the top window.

Then I help him to pull himself into a sitting position, the way Lynette taught me to do at the start of September – a lifetime ago. Hooking him underarms with my arms, hauling him backways, I can smell his breath, he can smell mine.

I wait while he edges himself into a sitting position. As he does this his colostomy bag gives a small coy slosh. His breath stinks of sulphur and pills, overnight garlic. His pyjamas are clammed to his back. But these are his little worries and Lynette's little worries – not mine.

Salami. Smoked bacon. Swiss cheese.

I straighten his bed and fix his pillows around him then lift his tray from the coffee table, pulling the little side legs down and settling them into his quilt. I spread the napkin across his chest. Then, from a shelf over the television, take down three bottles of pills. I peck out this morning's dose and place them into the plastic container which I leave beside his plate. I take his handbell from the window ledge and put it within his reach.

Throughout all this, we exchange not a glance nor a word. It's as if none of this is happening: the tray, the bed, his breath, the bulging colostomy bag – they simply do not exist. And neither do we.

On my way out, I switch on the radio.

Mushrooms and balsamic vinegar.

I get to the door and say, ‘Would it be all right to take the car this morning?'

‘Of course,' he says to his porridge.

 

Back in the kitchen, I survey last night's havoc. I am a messy cook, a cook that expects to always have someone two steps behind, cleaning up after her. The sink is the aftermath of an earthquake. The floor is an upheaval of things I dragged out of the cupboards last night. My mother's pamphlets and cookery books are strewn everywhere. Yesterday I was getting ready to dump them but was waylaid by such titles as
100 Recipes for Slimmers
.
The Joy of Cooking
.
A Summer of Low Fat Meals
.
Recipes for a Happy Family
.
Woman's Way Tricks with Mince
. And most intriguing of all:
Woman's Own Ten Things to Do with a Sausage
.

It would take me an hour to clean up. But the bit is between my teeth now and I don't have an hour to spare. I have to drive into town today. I
need
to drive into town today.

Mrs Larkin can clean it up – that is, if Mrs Larkin is in today. I can never be certain because she tends to do things in her own Mrs Larkin way.

For the first few weeks, she came in the mornings. Then one Friday morning, she just didn't show.

On Friday afternoon, the doorbell rang.

I said, ‘I thought you came in the mornings?'

‘It depends,' she said, taking off her coat and carefully arranging it on the hanger. ‘I explained to your father – he knows.'

 

I'm not all that sweet on Mrs Larkin. I just don't like her being in this house, the fact that she knows it better than I do and appears to be so at home here. I don't like the way she wears her good coat to work and hangs it so carefully on a hanger, nor the way she changes her high heels for a pair of slippers that she keeps on a shelf under the stairs, along with her perfectly laundered aprons. I don't like her carefully made-up face, nor her discreet shade of lipstick; the way she keeps opening her mouth as if she's about to say something and then appears to change her mind before abruptly moving off. And I don't like the fact that she now has her own front-door key.

I come across her sometimes when she's towing the hoover around the house and I know she's looking at me from the side of her eyes.

I don't know anything about her – if she's still married, or if she's a widow, where she lives even. Sometimes she arrives on foot; sometimes she gets out of a fairly decent car. I don't know why such a woman would work as a cleaner and maybe that's what I don't like most of all.

I stand for a while and consider the kitchen, then decide to leave it. A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of leaving it in this state, but I'm done trying to impress Mrs Larkin.

I write a note:
Please leave cookery books etc. as they are. Am in middle of sorting them
.

I let the dog out, bring the phone into the sitting room and place it beside my father, then go upstairs and begin to get ready.

Since my return, I've only ventured into town on a few occasions and that was by taxi. Sitting in the back seat, watching the suburbs give way to the city, it was like I was a kid again, going for my weekly hospital check-up. I kept expecting to see Mr Slater's ghost flapping along in the distance.

I never brought much back: a few bits of cheese, a bottle of wine, a few softback books. Sometimes I just wandered around. I could just as easily have gone by bus. But to stand at the bus stop in full view of the traffic – neighbours driving by (Is that…? Surely it's not? My God, it is! What does she want here? What does she
want
…?)

 

I have taken his car to the supermarket a few times, always asking for permission first – as if there's the remotest chance he'll be using it himself. He won't be driving again, nor will he ever sell his car. To sell it would be to admit defeat. And so the car will remain on the driveway until he dies, or even beyond then.

The first time I took it out, it had been sitting on the drive for such a long time. The windows were filthy, the body work coated in dust, the doors reluctant to budge. The seat groaned when I sat
into it. A cobweb was laced across the rear-view mirror. An old car, a car that had been left to rot in all weathers, a car that had been all but forgotten. And yet, at the first turn of the key, it sparked up.

I'm looking forward to driving it into town, to sitting in the traffic listening to the radio like anyone else. To twisting it up through the corkscrew ramps of the car park, all the way to the highest floor where I can look over the city, try to find my place within it. Then coming out and walking around in broad daylight.

Away from this neighbourhood, I could be anyone.

Somebody's wife. Somebody's mother. I could linger on the upper floors of a department store, I could be any other middle-aged woman, looking at all those clothes that I can afford at last, but no longer really want.

I could have coffee somewhere, maybe fall into a conversation. My son, you see… My daughter always says… My husband, you know. My mother.

I could be part of one of those conversations that I have so often overheard. Later I would look for that delicatessen. That hidden church. The fishmonger's. Buy turbot. Foie gras. Mustard seeds.

On the way into town, I get caught in a traffic jam and for some reason start thinking about Paris. Or the last time I saw my mother anyway, which was in Paris, where we stood late at night, watching the boats pass under the Pont Neuf arches. It could be one of those songs, something crooned out over a lounge piano or wrung out of an old man's accordion. I sing it into the car:
The last time I
saw her was Paris
… but it sounds neither funny nor ironic and so I stop.

The two of us standing there, leaning over and looking down on the river; boats sliding beneath us. The piped music. Lights on water, lights on boats, the flashing lights of cameras, the happy waving hands of Japanese girls. And our silence.

 

A week before I was due to receive my final diploma –
le grand
– Serena phoned me.

‘Your mom wants to see you. She wants to come to Paris.'

‘Here? She wants to come here! To see me
here
? Why though?
Why?
' My voice panicked and getting ready for tears.

‘I don't know, she just called.'

‘Maybe she wants to be here when I get my diploma? Would that be it? Would it? Serena – did she say?'

‘She didn't. Well, you know how she is when she calls? On and then off again.'

‘Does she… does she want me to go back – do you think?'

‘I don't know. I really don't know, sweetie, I don't.'

‘Oh. Oh God. What'll I do? Do I have to?'

‘No, of course you don't have to.'

‘Do you think I should?'

‘I can't answer that question.'

‘Well, your opinion then – at least give me that?'