Half Broken Things (22 page)

‘I'm Sally,' the woman said. ‘Charlie's next door asleep, I'll show you him in a minute but I'll go mad if he wakes up again. He's hell to put down.' She hesitated. ‘I don't suppose I should say that, I might put you off. I mean, he's coming on. The thing is, he's not such a good feeder. I've got to go back to work and he's still getting used to the bottle.'

‘Oh,' Steph said.

Sally turned, and as she poured water from the kettle, which had not yet boiled, into the mugs, she said breezily, ‘Still, at least I've got my tits back. Not that they're much use to me now.'

Steph made a small noise that was half surprise, half laugh. That was the trouble with educated people. At some point in their lives they simply managed, somehow, to go beyond embarrassment. Or perhaps they were born incapable of it. Whichever it was they made you take on double the amount because you had your own and theirs on top. They told you things that you could never reply to. What was she meant to say?

‘So.' Sally was putting milk into two mugs of instant coffee, another thing she hadn't asked Steph about, shifting stuff—a baby's jacket, a purse, some keys and half a croissant—off a chair so that Steph could sit down. She didn't offer sugar, either, but she was watching Steph carefully. Steph, knowing she was being sized up, put on a bright face. ‘Charlie's a lovely name,' she said. ‘They're coming back, aren't they, the traditional names.'

Sally ignored her, but went on watching. ‘I did have somebody all lined up weeks ago but she rang to say she's not coming now, less than a week before she's meant to start. Got a better offer, I suppose. So I'm stuck. I've got to go back full-time next week.' She leaned against the worktop and sipped her coffee. ‘If I don't get somebody local I'll have to take this girl an agency's offering me and they charge a fortune. What's your name anyway? You're local, are you?' She smiled in such a way that Steph could tell she had had to remind herself that smiling was a thing she was meant to do.

‘Yes, I'm staying here. I mean, yes. I do live here now. I'm Stephanie. Well, Steph, really. I'm twenty-three and I've had . . . a lot of experience with children.'

‘Yes, but what about babies. He's only four months. Have you done babies?'

‘Oh, yes,' Steph said, ‘I had sole charge of a newborn.' She took a mouthful of coffee while she tried to assemble the words for the story she had worked out. ‘I took care of my sister's baby. She couldn't. She was depressed after it, the birth. You know, post-natal, she got it really bad? So I did everything, more or less, the lot, all the looking after. She couldn't do a thing, hardly.' Then, in case the woman might think she was complaining, ‘I really enjoyed it, I had a knack, everybody said. My sister's husband, he was away at the time as well, so I had sole charge, I held the fort. Then they moved away.' She paused. ‘To America. Her husband was American.'

That should put the question of references on ice for a bit. She began to feel slightly inspired.

‘And so now I'm staying here with . . . with my aunt, I live with my aunt.'

She had rehearsed on the walk to Sally's house the phrase ‘my boyfriend and my boyfriend's mother', and decided that it sounded too flaky and impermanent and might make her sound like a hanger-on. And she wasn't wearing a ring; suppose this woman advertising for the childminder was a religious nut or something, who disapproved of people living together? A niece helping her aunt sounded solid and respectable.

‘I'm staying with her and helping her with the house, she hasn't been too well. At Walden Manor.' Risky to give the name, perhaps, but she had guessed, correctly, precisely the effect it would have.

Sally raised her eyebrows and made an ‘oooh' shape with her mouth. ‘Walden Manor?
Oh.
I know, yes, I think I know where it is. Off the Bath road, that no through road marked private? I've never seen the house.'

‘You can't see it from the road. It's more than half a mile up the drive.'

Sally sighed. ‘There are lots of beautiful places round here, actually. But I didn't know Walden was owned by a . . . Actually,' she looked mournfully round the kitchen, ‘I don't really know many people. I haven't been here that long, we only moved here after I got pregnant. I thought it'd be all playgroups and community stuff and all that. But everybody under seventy's at work all day, in Bath or Chippenham.'

Steph made a sympathetic noise. ‘You've got a nice house, though,' she lied bravely.

‘Oh yeah, thanks, well, it is nice, or it could be. Haven't done much to it, been too tired.' She waved with the hand holding the mug. ‘As you can see.'

Steph said, bracingly, ‘Anyway, she's much better now, you know, my aunt, but she likes having me there so I'm staying on, but now there's less for me to do I thought it'd be nice to find something.' She smiled competently.

‘Your, er . . . . aunt, I mean, it's not, is she . . . You don't seem . . . has she lived there long, I mean? Has it always been in the family, the house?'

Steph beamed with sudden understanding and said, with a slight lowering of her voice, ‘In the family? Oh no. Not at all. Look, if I tell you, will you promise not to say, not to anybody? Not to anybody at all,
ever
?'

Sally's eyebrows shot up with interest. ‘Sure. Of course.'

‘Because she doesn't want all sorts knocking on the door, you know?' Steph paused. ‘Lottery win,' she said. ‘Five week roll-over. Only she wants it kept quiet, because she's not that sort of person, she's just ordinary. She's not, you know,
flashy
. I mean she's always had this thing about a house in the country, so straight off she went and bought this big place and well, I think it's a bit too much for her, but I can't say. I mean she can do what she likes at the end of the day.'

Sally nodded respectfully. ‘I promise I won't say a word. I didn't even know the house was up for sale.'

‘Oh. Oh no, well, it wasn't
advertised
.'

‘No, they aren't always, the big places, it's all word of mouth.' She drank some of her coffee. ‘We don't get much of the big stuff. Though we get farms from time to time, and then of course I don't get a look in. Farmers have to deal with a
man,
apparently, can't cope with a woman handling things. The firm goes along with it, doesn't matter what I say. The senior partner says,' she twisted the words sarcastically, ' “in this outfit, political correctness comes second to complete client confidence.” ‘

Steph cleared her throat. She was not sure she had understood a single word. ‘Only with my aunt—you won't spread it around, will you, because she doesn't want the publicity, she's a very private person. Not unfriendly or anything, but she likes to get to know people at her own pace, what with everything. You can understand. So you won't tell anyone, will you? I mean I'm only telling you so you know the score. About me, for the job I mean.'

‘No, no, of course I won't say anything,' Sally said, in a way that made Steph wonder if she were interested enough even to remember the story, let alone divulge it. But she roused herself from her thoughts about the senior partner to ask, ‘But that is a point. You—I mean, what do you want a child-minding job for? I mean you can't need the money, can you?'

Steph looked her in the eye. ‘My aunt, she's dead generous, she's doing a lot for me, but I've told her no way am I living off her for everything. So okay, no, in a way I don't really need it, but I like earning a bit of my own money, you know what I mean?'

Sally had begun to peel off a splitting fingernail with her teeth, but Steph thought she might still be listening. ‘Like if I earn a bit I can surprise her, you know? Make a little contribution. Get her a bunch of flowers now and then, something like that. It's the independence.'

‘Independence,' Sally said distantly, dropping her fingernail on the floor. She snorted. She looked directly at Steph. ‘
I'm
independent. Not all it's cracked up to be, let me tell you.'

She was doing it again. What was Steph supposed to say to a remark like that? She gave what she hoped was an interested murmur and hoped Sally was not taking them completely off the point.

‘I'm a solicitor,' Sally said, wanly.

‘Oh, right. So, what I mean is, I don't want you thinking I'd be unreliable, just 'cause I'm not, like, living on the money.'

‘Unreliable?' Sally gave another uneasy smile. ‘Oh, no, I wasn't thinking that. No, I can spot unreliable. I know all about unreliable. I might not even be going back full-time if Charlie's father wasn't
world class
unreliable.' She turned to tip the last of her coffee down the sink. ‘He was training to qualify too.
Was.
As a solicitor, I mean.'

Steph knew that Sally was waiting for her to ask more.

‘So . . . do you mean . . . he isn't any more?'

Sally sighed so dramatically that Steph felt in some way responsible for whatever might be coming next. ‘Oh, no,
no,
' she said with slow sarcasm, ‘Oh no, he decided being a solicitor wasn't enough for
him
.' She sighed again. ‘He's tried lots of things. He was going to be a priest, then he decided no, that would just be trying to live up to his dad. So he gave that up, tried other things, travelled a lot. Oh, he wants to save the world, basically. Law was just the latest thing, the thing he thought he should be doing while he went through his husband and father phase. But he's given up on that, too, by the look of it.'

‘You mean he's not here?'

‘Nope. No, he's gone to Nepal. I don't mean he walked out, oh no, my dear husband never does anything he could be
blamed
for. He only does things he feels he
ought
to do, never admits it's what he
wants
. So then he can't be criticised, can he, because he's only doing what his conscience tells him is
right
.'

‘Oh.'

‘Don't get talked into having kids, Stephanie, that's what I did.'

‘Oh. Oh well. No, I won't.'

‘He was the desperate one. Gets me to agree, gets me pregnant, and just when I thought this time he means it, he's growing up
finally,
he gets another fit of conscience about privilege, east and west, all that. So practically the minute Charlie's born he gives up law and wants us all to go off and live in Nepal and work for some leprosy charity. I said no.'

‘But he went?'

‘Yep. Now he's out there working for this bloody charity, principles all intact and all for bloody nothing of course, so I've got no option. And oh, not only is he not providing a penny but
I'm
the one holding us back. He's still waiting for us to join him, you see, thinks I'll give in and go. And know what? I won't. The main thing about it is, and you should listen to this, Stephanie, because it's amazing how often this happens, the thing is he thinks because I've got the baby I shouldn't mind where I go or what I do. Because I'm a mother now, aren't I. He thinks I'm selfish, staying in a rich country and being a lawyer when I could be making a
contribution
. I'm perpetuating global inequality, apparently, going back to conveyancing and wills in Chippenham. Me.
Me,
selfish.'

Sally's voice as she spoke had been getting louder to drown out bad-tempered wailing from another room. Practically shouting now, she said, ‘Well, global
bollocks
. But it's amazing the number of other people that think I should have gone. His dad, for instance, he comes out with all the “for better for worse” stuff. Oh shit, he's awake. Well, you might as well meet him.'

Charlie squirmed in a nest of covers on the padded floor of a playpen in the dining room. A carrycot stood on the table in the middle of the room. Sally pulled him out kicking. ‘He settles better in the playpen,' she said wearily. ‘Dunno why. Doesn't like the cot.'

Steph looked round. A smell of salt and pepper and old meat still rose from the dark green carpet, but in all other respects Charlie had taken over. Both the mantelpiece and a high, polished sideboard that was too large for the room were littered with baby paraphernalia. A baby changing mat, nappies and a heap of unironed baby clothes filled one end of the table. Dozens of baby books and plastic toys covered the sideboard and the four upright chairs, and a bank of soft toy animals formed a colony against the wall on one side of the cold, green-tiled fireplace. Steph caught sight of a teddy identical to one that had been in Miranda's nursery, and felt something kick suddenly in her throat. She opened her mouth, but did not speak and managed not to gasp, and then the moment had gone, supplanted by a sense of safety. Because absolutely nothing else in this chaotic house—not Charlie's bewildering mother with her aloof but embarrassing way of telling her too much, certainly not the streaked and bawling face of Charlie himself—sounded even the thinnest chord of memory, painful or otherwise. Steph simply did not recognise it, this bulging, crammed and messy place that so many things had been spilled into, as if the house were a repository for the thoughts, ideas, plans, all the
stuff
in Sally's head. It was a place where myriad fragments and layers that made up her life had substantiated somehow into wave after wave of bits of beached rubbish, which Sally then used, abandoned, dropped, broke, lost or cherished, without explanation, apology or, it seemed, particular concern. Charlie was perhaps just another item in her collection. The very idea that one person's life could so casually produce such rich and overwhelming disorder was unknown to Steph.

Sally had Charlie on the changing mat and had wrestled him out of his wet nappy. The sight of him insulated Steph further from any link with Miranda. Charlie had a standard pouting, apelike baby face, quite unlike Miranda's ladylike and slightly worried one. And he never stopped moving. His flailing limbs creased into their own peculiar folds and bends like a badly stuffed toy, while Miranda had now and then waved her spindly arms and legs without conviction, and they had been what Jean called finely made. Steph darted forward and handed Sally a baby wipe from the carton, and deftly took the sodden clump from Sally. ‘Bin under the sink,' Sally said flatly. When Steph came back Sally was walking round the room jiggling the angry bundle on one shoulder. For the first time since she had arrived Steph saw on Sally's face not only impatience and distaste, but complete exhaustion.