Good Husband Material (41 page)

‘What do you want, Wendy?’ I asked wearily. ‘He isn’t here, you know.’

There was a long, snuffling sigh. (Something to do with having a nose like a piglet, I suppose.) ‘But he said he was going to see you yesterday and he hasn’t come back yet.’

‘He did come here for a couple of hours, but I haven’t seen him since.’

‘You could be just saying that!’

‘For goodness’ sake! Look, Wendy, I’m too tired for this sort of conversation and I’m off to bed – alone. I neither know nor care where James is.’

‘How do I know if you’re telling the truth? You told Alice you wanted a divorce, but James says you don’t.’

Fumes of sleep were drifting round inside my skull like clouds, but I attempted to focus. ‘Wendy, the divorce was my idea, and my solicitor is already dealing with it.’

‘But James says—’ she bleated.

‘I don’t care what James says. Hasn’t he already proved himself a prize liar by deceiving me with you over the last year? I don’t care about James, full stop! Right?’

‘I hope you mean that – because at least when I have
my
baby he’ll know he’s the father!’ she said viciously, then slammed down the phone.

Wendy pregnant? Alice must have taken that advice I gave her seriously! I should have known she didn’t have a sense of humour. Wendy must have moved fast … I wonder if she’ll also take the rest of my advice about smart little suits and big hair.

What will James do now – if it’s true, that is, for Wendy is probably at least as big a liar as he is?

But if it is, then the Incubus might have a half-sibling … half-baby, half-Pekinese.

I had a driving lesson booked for next day and it went quite well, especially my reversing and three-point turns. Must have been that practice with Fergal. But I’m beginning to find sitting tensely for an hour a bit uncomfortable with my increasing bulk; come to that, any position for doing
anything
is getting uncomfortable. Like one of those prisoners in a little cage who can neither stand nor lie down – a Little Ease. There’s certainly little ease in pregnancy.

I’m certain now that Bess’s puppies are half Old English sheepdog (or Durex Dog, as Mrs Deakin once put it, though I don’t think she knew she was making a mistake). At least she’s got it all over with –
and
got her figure back!

The puppies are like large, shambling, disparate bits of shaggy rug, though at least they can all now manage to stagger out onto the newspaper to perform. A certain smell still lingers, however many times I change the papers and disinfect the floor.

Bess has long since abandoned any attempt to clean up after them, though she does show interest in eating their expensive puppy food. So much for the maternal instinct.

Bob has picked out the puppy he wants: the one with the four unmatching legs and a walleye. It may improve as it gets older. Mrs Sloggit sent a note saying he could have one, and I’ve told him he can take it home when it’s eight weeks old.

Bess will be delighted.

Mrs Deakin reported (via Dulcie Blacklock) loud shouting outside the Wrekins’ flat in the early hours of the day after Boxing Day, followed by the departure of Wendy in her white Volkswagen Polo. (Bag with Baggage.) So, all the time James was trying to persuade me to take him back, he knew she was waiting for him at the flat!

I wonder where he went after he left here. Could Nerissa have wafted him away to console her for Fergal’s absence? (I mean, just how desperate can you get?)

I know where he was tonight – the Dog and Duck with Mother, because he brought her back late. He had to – from the sound of it she’d never have made it alone. But at least she found the door key I gave her, so I didn’t have to get out of bed.

James came round early in a belligerent mood, to ‘talk to me seriously’ about Mother’s drinking, which he blames entirely on the worry caused by our marital break-up. He didn’t believe me when I said it’d been creeping up for over a decade, and said I ought to have her to live with me, since it would also put a stop to my ‘goings-on with that long-haired pop singer’.

He said the whole village was talking about how I’d been seen out in Fergal’s car, and his visits to the cottage.

The village – and James – must have good, if strange, imaginations, that’s all I can say. I mean, do I look as if I’m in the middle of a torrid affair with someone?

I told him he was a complete cretin, and while he must know the baby’s his, it was nothing to do with him if I was having an affair with Fergal, or anyone else, now we’re separated.

‘And before you start on
my
morals, where were you for the two nights after Christmas? Off with someone else, while your mistress awaited you in the flat?’

He went puce and slammed out.

After he’d gone Mother finally emerged, and I tactfully reminded her to wear something warm for the journey home. She showed a tendency to cry into the home-made tangerine marmalade.

It didn’t seem to have much effect on her departure, though, for it was lunchtime before she finally got dressed and resurfaced her face, and even then she simply drifted into the kitchen and settled down again with tea and cake, while the times of two trains she could have taken came and went.

Finally I asked, point-blank, ‘Do you want me to pack for you, Mo— Mummy, or will you do it yourself?’

Instead of replying she suddenly swooped down on the puppies, and emerged with one of the little creatures in her bony hands.

It whimpered, and I saw that it was my favourite – but I was afraid to snatch it back since she was quite capable of hanging on to it until it parted in the middle. (If she’d been at the Judgement of Solomon she’d have said, ‘Ok, split it down the middle – but I want the left side, mind!’ whether it was her baby or not.)

‘You know,’ she fluted, ‘I think I’ll take this sweet little mite back with me. I need some company now I’m all alone.’

‘I’m afraid it’s too young – and in any case they’re all spoken for.’

‘Not all, surely! No one will want this one, will they? I only chose it because I thought I should take the ugly one off your hands.’

The puppy whimpered again, and Bess began stalking towards her, growling menacingly. I was quite impressed.

Mother hurriedly put the puppy down and backed away with an uncertain laugh. ‘Well, it was just an idea after all.’

‘What time is your train?’

‘Really, darling, anyone would think you wanted to get rid of me! I’ve hardly been here five minutes, and I was only thinking last night that I mustn’t let myself be hurt, or driven away by any little fancies you had about … well, about your arrival, darling.’

She made my birth sound like a train: ‘The baby now arriving at bed one …’

‘And it’s so silly! Everyone says how like me you are.’

Good heavens! If I thought I resembled Mother in any way I would stick my head in the oven. (Not the Aga, because even if it was working I expect it would only slow-cook it.)

‘And a girl really needs her mother at a time like this. It’ll be New Year’s Eve in a few days, and the new millennium – you can’t possibly be alone for that. The Wrekins are having a party and they invited— ’

‘No,’ I broke in flatly. ‘I’m totally unexcited about the new millennium – I have other things on my mind – and I certainly don’t feel like going to any parties, especially at the Wrekins’!’

‘But
I
could go and, after all, there’s no reason for me to hurry home. It’s terribly unpleasant having people coming to look over the house and trying to deduce how long I’m going to live, or if they could buy me out,’ Mother complained.

She paused breathlessly and smiled. ‘So I’ll stay here with you until the birth. You need me more than you realise.’

Like a hole in the head.

‘Mother, I like living alone, and if I need any help I’ll arrange for it. But thank you for offering. And you haven’t considered Dr Reevey – he’s missing you already, isn’t he?’

‘Yes … but no sacrifice is too great for my little girlie!’

‘I don’t want your sacrifice, Mother. Now, I’d better ring for the taxi, hadn’t I? Or you’ll miss the next train, too. Hadn’t you better bring your things down?’

She plumped down into a chair and, as I dialled, dabbed her eyes cautiously with a lace-edged handkerchief. ‘Unfeeling child!’

I put down the receiver: ‘The taxi’s coming. I won’t come to the station with you, if you don’t mind – I’m feeling rather tired.’

‘A
taxi
when James would have taken me for nothing! And after all, it’s a lot of money, and—’

‘I’ll pay for the taxi. Now, have you got your things together? What about your suitcase?’

‘I haven’t brought it down – it’s so heavy!’

‘You managed to carry it up there all right, and it should be easier coming down. Now, do you need a carrier bag for your other bits and pieces? I’ve got an enormous one somewhere. I’ll go round and see what you’ve forgotten.’

She dragged her suitcase down while I tossed various odds and ends into the bag. She’d managed to scatter her belongings into every corner of the house.

When I’d finished I found her wrapping up a bottle and some sandwiches in the kitchen. ‘Just a little something for me to eat in my cold, empty house tonight!’ she explained with a brave smile and I added another bottle of sherry and a large box of chocolate biscuits to the bag, with tears in my eyes, even though I’d just overheard her making a telephone assignation with the Laughing Cowboy.

It was unfortunate for her that the taxi arrived just then, for in my weakened state she might have worked on me to let her stay a bit longer from sheer guilt, the creation of which is her speciality.

I tucked her into the back of the taxi and gave her the fare, then guilt struck again I pressed another note I could ill afford into her hand and begged her to have a proper meal en route. You’d think she was journeying to Siberia, not the London suburbs.

The taxi finally vanished with Mother sobbing into the money, and I trudged back up the path with guilty tears rolling down my face and thankfully closed the front door.

But once I’d tidied the house and stripped the bed I felt much happier and settled down to pig out on the last of the Christmas cake and satsumas.

It was just as well I’d decided to have an early night, because Bob was knocking at the door at the crack of dawn, wanting to see his pup. I yelled down at him from the window to go away until a decent hour of the morning.

His face fell and he wandered off. He didn’t go home, though, because I heard the sound of a spade crashing into the frozen earth at the bottom of the garden. He seemed to be trying to dig a trench, perhaps to dispose of my enormous bulk in (but if so, he will have to wait for the thaw).

I called him in later and gave him a cup of tea while he played with the puppies. He has four spoons of sugar in his tea and can eat a whole packet of biscuits in five minutes by putting two in his mouth at once and swallowing them with a gulp of tea.

He informed me that four of the puppies are girls, and two boys, and I didn’t ask how he could tell.

‘Is yours a little boy or a little girl puppy, Bob?’

‘Un’s a bitch,’ he replied, holding the chosen puppy nose to nose until they both went cross-eyed.

‘Oh. And what are you going to call her?’

‘Maggie.’

His huge hands held the squirming puppy quite gently and she seemed to have taken to him.

‘Maggie? That’s nice. I’ve never met a dog called Maggie before.’ After Goldie the goldfish I’d been expecting something more like Doggo or Bitchie.

‘Dad said …’ He wrinkled his brow in an effort of recollection. ‘Dad said Maggie was a good name for a bitch.’

Maggie peed down his jumper at this point, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I might put a notice in Mrs D.’s window about the rest of the litter: ‘Free to good homes. Peculiar and potentially huge puppies, who will demolish your home and eat all your money in Half-breed Chum.’

I’m terribly tempted to keep my favourite … so I’ll just have to go on reminding myself it’ll probably grow up into an even bigger fool than Bess.

Fergal: December 1999

    
Fergal Rocco’s Christmas Wish List!

Trendsetter
magazine

If I’d been able to put what I really, really wanted on that list, it would have set a few cats among the pigeons!

Number one would have been that Nerissa’d finally get the message that our relationship – such as it was – came to an end a long time ago.

You can probably guess the rest of the list …

My sister Lucia was in Italy with her husband and children, so I visited her (and got some excellent sisterly advice) before going on to Rome to collect my aunt Maria and bring her back to Greatness: I intend living a sober and respectable life from now on, and with Aunt Maria around there won’t be much chance to stray back into my old habits, even if I’m tempted to.

And since meeting Tish again, that hasn’t happened.

Maybe I’m just getting old.

The Sweet Wine of Love
progresses very well since Christmas, considering the disruption of Mother’s visit and the fact that all my mental functions want to lie down and hibernate. (Also, I keep getting the urge to transform the little bedroom with bunny stencils.)

I saw Margaret in the village, and she was making tentative overtures, though it is very difficult with James practically living in her house … but anyway, after some thought, I phoned her up and invited her round for coffee tomorrow. Knowing her Guilty Secret sort of makes me even.

I wonder if Wendy has dropped her bombshell and moved in permanently? But I don’t think she can have or Mrs D. would have known by now. Was she lying?

There were to be fireworks on the village green at midnight on New Year’s Eve, not to mention a broadcast to the nation from London on TV (had I still had one), but I felt profoundly uninterested.

Instead, I celebrated the advent of the new millennium by half-guiltily drinking a small bottle of Guinness and then retiring to bed with a box of hazelnut whirls and a good book. I’d already unplugged the phone, to avoid any possibility of drunk and maudlin midnight calls from Mother or James, and, apart from the occasional pop of fireworks in the distance, was undisturbed.