Everything and Nothing (9 page)

She had decided on a menu of egg or ham sandwiches, biscuits, little sausages on sticks, chocolate crispy cakes and, of course, the all-important birthday cake. Everything was going to be home made. She couldn’t decide if she should put a bit of orange into the biscuits or make one of those lemon drizzle cakes that Betty liked. But, it was Hal’s birthday and shouldn’t you always make children a chocolate cake? She was trying to find the perfect icing because everything like butter or vanilla seemed too boring.

The food was only a small part of the whole thing. She wanted a theme, but it was difficult with Hal because he was only interested in his plastic house and Thomas the Tank Engine. And every boy of his age liked Thomas, so what would be the big wow about theming a party along those lines? In her mind she was going to amaze all the guests, make Ruth never want to let her go and the children love her forever. The idea must be there in her mind, but for now it was still out of focus and she couldn’t make out all the details.

She had been trying to get a guest list out of Ruth for days now, but she was always too busy and there were only twelve days to go and you had to give people some notice. Don’t worry about invitations, Ruth had said, I’ll just telephone everyone. Which annoyed Agatha, who had spent three whole nights in her room making twenty invitations which shimmered and sparkled like proper works of art. But how many people do you think will come? Agatha had tried. Ruth had frowned in that way she had when she was trying to remember something: wrinkling up her forehead and contracting her eyebrows so she almost looked ugly. Agatha had once had a job in the bowels of some massive medical school in central London in which she’d had to spend eight hours a day filing endless pieces of paper in the dark. There were whole rows for each letter, and whole trolleys of papers for each row. Agatha had started diligently, but by the end she had begun haphazardly stuffing the paper anywhere she fancied, revelling in the mess that would probably never be undone. As she stood talking to Ruth now she was reminded of that room.

‘God,’ said Ruth, which, Agatha had noticed, was how she began most sentences, as if appealing to a saviour for help. ‘Well . . . Toby, as he’s Hal’s godfather, and I guess I’ll invite Sally . . . and it’s a good excuse to get some friends round who’ve got kids because we never have parties and then we can kill about five birds with one stone. And of course I’ll ring my parents. Christian’s are away, so don’t worry about them. I’ll write you a list, but I guess it’ll end up about twenty grown-ups and twenty kids. Is that all right? Can you manage that many, Aggie?’

It was no surprise that a list had never been forthcoming, but Agatha had worked on the assumption that there would be more rather than fewer guests and had added smoked salmon to her list of sandwiches. She’d been woken in the middle of the night by the thought that maybe she should get some wine, but when she’d mentioned this to Ruth she’d been told that Christian would deal with that. There was just one other thing, something she’d had to steel herself to ask Ruth: could she invite the little boy from the toddler group she’d been taking Hal to, as they seemed to get along so well. Of course, Ruth had chimed as she’d been rushing out the door, the more the merrier.

The toddler group was on a Tuesday in a draughty church hall across the park from where Agatha dropped Betty at school. Children’s activities were often stuck underground, out of sight, Agatha had noticed. Often in rooms with no natural light and no heating and occasionally ominous smells. They were invariably run by harassed-looking women who were always begging things off the people who came in the form of money or favours. Someone had to lead the art activity, and so far Agatha had done this three times. She still felt her first art group had been the most successful. She had saved egg boxes for weeks, cutting them in two so they looked like caterpillars before the group began. Then she’d bought some pipe cleaners and made tiny pom-poms out of left-over wool and used the glue and paint at the hall. Everyone had congratulated her. One woman had even written down her number in case she ever wanted to change jobs.

It was the same woman whom Agatha had overheard talking to a friend as they sat in a circle waiting to sing songs before the group ended.

‘These songs give me an out-of-body experience,’ she had said. ‘It’s like I’m floating above myself and I look down and I think, What am I doing, jumping around a room pretending to be marching up a hill? I used to save people’s lives on the operating table and now I’m singing about sick bunnies.’

Her friend had laughed and said, ‘You can’t think about it too much or it’ll drive you mad. You just have to remember that it’ll be over soon.’

‘Not if you have another one.’

‘Yes, but then you really are mad.’

‘But do you want Barney to be an only child?’

‘Basically it’s a choice between Barney being an only child or a motherless child, because if I had another I would end up hospitalised.’

And then they had both laughed as if they got the joke, but Agatha couldn’t see for one second what was funny about what they had said. She hugged Hal’s chubby body more tightly to her and smoothed his blond hair against his head, sucking in his sweet scent. She could not understand how anyone didn’t marvel at this, didn’t want to consume their child with love. It made Agatha want to cry when she looked around and saw all these amazing children with such unworthy mothers. Images reared up before her of Barney and his friends stuck in front of whirring televisions, being fed cheap pizzas and going to bed without kisses whilst their mothers sat in kitchens drinking wine and bitching about how much they hated it all. Ruth, she realised, was one of those women and it made her wonder if perhaps working was the kinder choice.

It is very odd how sometimes the phone can ring and you know with absolute certainty who it is before you pick up. People whom Christian generally hated would claim to be psychic because of this. Christian wasn’t psychic but he still knew that his vibrating mobile would deliver Sarah to him as soon as it started to buzz face-down on his desk. Ignoring it was still an option at that moment. She wouldn’t leave a message and probably would never call back. But his hand twitched and he answered.

‘Christian.’

He tried to sound surprised. ‘Sarah. Hello.’

‘I’m sorry to call again. It’s just that . . . ’ she hesitated and in the hesitation Christian felt time loosen. Choices and decisions whirred around him as if he was on a brightly lit fairground ride. He shouldn’t have picked up, but now he had, he felt sunk, as if free will had been taken away. ‘I didn’t say what I wanted to when we met up. I wondered if I could see you again.’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘Probably not. But . . . look, to tell you the truth I’ve been having therapy, and my counsellor thinks it would be good for me.’

‘Okay.’ The floor felt like sand under his feet.

‘It’s not as scary as it sounds.’

There was no way he could refuse now. This, he realised, was it. ‘Right. When’s good for you?’

‘Anytime.’

‘Okay.’ Christian flicked through his diary, looking for an evening he could tell Ruth he was working late. And so it started again. ‘I could do Friday after work. About seven.’

‘Fine. How about The Ram?’

It was where they used to meet. ‘Great. See you then.’

What if he lost his family without meaning to? Without even wanting to?

Ruth was looking out of her window at work watching a shadow float across the building opposite her. The shape was mesmerising and totally inexplicable. Her office was high up in the sky and yet something fluid was dancing like a feather across the concrete mass opposite her. Ruth’s mind couldn’t find an explanation for it and she wondered if life as she knew it was about to dissolve and a new order take its place. She willed this to be true. She would have liked to shed her skin like a snake and start again. But then a plastic bag floated into view and she realised that a gust of wind had simply caught a piece of rubbish and thrown it into her eyeline to tip her slightly off balance.

Ruth dialled her mother’s number. It was lunchtime, the office was only half full and her plastic box of limp salad was inedible. As the rings sounded into her ear she imagined her mother’s neat and ordered house in Gloucestershire. She imagined her immaculate mother hearing the sound from her well-manicured garden and starting the walk up the path so she could hear who wanted something from her now. Ruth liked to make it a rule never to want anything from her mother.

‘Hello.’ Her mother sounded out of breath.

‘Sorry, Mum, it’s just me. Did I get you in from the garden?’

‘Yes, I always forget to take the phone out with me. It drives Dad mad.’

‘How is he?’

‘Fine. At golf.’

‘And how are you?’

‘Splendid, darling. In fact, you’re lucky to catch me, this week has been hectic. It’s the fête on Saturday.’

‘God, is it that time of year already?’

‘We were hoping you might come down for it. I did tell you about it last time we spoke.’

‘Oh shit, yes you did. I’m sorry, I forgot. I’ll talk to Christian, let you know.’

Ruth wondered when her real life would start. When she would become like her mother and remember things, have time for things, make things, grow things, have a bit of fun. The idea tugged on her arms.

‘Anyway, are you okay, Ruth?’

No, Ruth wanted to say, I’m slowly turning to jelly and I’m frightened that I might soon dissolve. I’m losing my grip on life but I’ve got a great nanny who’ll take over if I do slip away. Do you think that’s enough? Do you think my kids would even notice if I wasn’t there any more? I’m not sure Christian would.

‘I’m all right, apart from terminal tiredness.’

‘You work too hard.’

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘And you expect too much.’

Ruth found her mother so direct and clipped she never knew if she was making a generalised comment or telling her something useful.

‘Don’t we all?’

‘No. In fact, I think the secret of life is to expect as little as possible.’

Ruth laughed. Only her mother could claim to know the secret of life.

‘Anyway, I was ringing to ask you to Hal’s birthday party. It’s going to be the Saturday after next at our house. Stay the night, if you like.’

‘How lovely. Do you want a hand? I could come early, bake something.’

‘Aggie’s got everything under control.’

‘Aggie?’

Ruth heard the disapproval in her mother’s voice but tried to shut her mind to it because it chimed too deeply with her own feelings. ‘She’s amazing, Mum. I don’t know what I did without her.’

‘You seemed fine to me.’

Conversations with her mother always left Ruth feeling soiled, as though she’d committed a sin that she could never amend, as though she’d got it all wrong. Ruth’s mother had an unshakeable belief in her own rightness and, annoyingly, it was not an assumption Ruth had been able to ignore. Were all children plagued by a fear that perhaps their parents were right? Ruth found it hard to imagine an adult Betty so troubled.

After speaking to her mother, Ruth would wonder if complete self-belief was the answer to life and whether imagining something to be so was all it took. Occasionally she tried it, but she irritated herself too much. Hearing know-it-all tones coming out of her mouth made her want to lie under a duvet and admit defeat.

Articulating panic to someone who had never felt it was very hard. It was true that when she had had her breakdown after Betty her mother had been nonjudgemental, but Ruth had still been left with the sense that she had let her down, that Stella Douglas’ daughter should have inherited her own steely determination.

And surely her mother’s disapproval was well founded this time. Surely you should organise your own child’s third birthday party. Or at least want to. But Ruth found it so easy to hand everything over to Aggie. She could imagine asking the girl to buy Hal’s presents; she would no doubt make a better job of it than Ruth could. And while it was comforting to feel so confi dent about the person looking after your children, was there something wrong with a mother who let this all happen?

Kirsty materialised next to Ruth’s desk, making her realise that she’d been lost in another world for too long.

‘Ruth, I need to ask you a favour. You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, but I’ve literally exhausted all other possibilities and, like, I can’t think of anyone else.’

‘Don’t worry. What?’ Ruth had lost the ability to say no outside her home a few years ago.

‘You know all these interviews we’ve got to do for the next issue – the women who are living their dream?’

‘Yes.’ The idea made her feel weary.

‘Well, that woman, Margo Lansford, who gave up some job on the stockmarket to move to a farm and breed pigs or whatever –’

‘Make soap. Yes.’

‘Well, she can absolutely only do the interview this Saturday, and I’m going to my friend Emma’s wedding in Scotland and there’s, like, no way I can miss it. And I’ve asked, literally, everyone else I could think of, but no one can do it. And, I mean, I could ring a freelancer, but I thought I’d better check with you first, especially after that bollocking Sally gave us all about budgets.’

‘You want me to do it?’

‘Well, I mean, only if you can. Or I’ll get a freelancer in.’

‘No, no. That’s fine.’

‘She’s only in Surrey and she’s got four kids. Maybe you could take yours?’

Life was refreshingly simple in Kirsty’s world.

Much, much later, Ruth was lying next to Christian in bed. The day had seemed relentless and she’d longed for this moment for too much of it. Her body sank into the mattress, her limbs lifeless beneath the sheets. They had been letting Betty come into their bed for a few days now and a miracle did seem to be occurring. Their daughter was waking later and later each night, padding the few feet from her room into theirs, where she would climb over their sleeping bodies and crawl between them. That morning Ruth had woken with the alarm and been unable to remember Betty even arriving in bed between them.