Miss You (38 page)

‘Yes, what is the great mystery?’

‘You know Bella has been sleeping so well since my mother arrived? Well, today I discovered the reason. She’s been dosing her bottle with vodka.’

I was expecting at least ‘Oh my God!’

‘I remember my grandmother saying they sometimes used to do that,’ Charlotte mused. ‘It obviously works!’

‘You’re not suggesting it’s OK?’

‘Oh, relax, Angus, for God’s sake! She’s perfectly fine, isn’t she? I don’t expect it’s done much harm.’

‘I really can’t see any way a doctor can approve, even tacitly approve, of giving alcohol to a baby.’

‘All right, all right. I do agree, if that makes you any happier.’ Charlotte yawned and turned over, as if the subject was closed.

‘My mother’s an alcoholic.’

The word was difficult to say. I wondered if I was experiencing something of what people felt going to AA for the first time.

‘Don’t be absurd!’ Charlotte murmured.

‘Remember you were worried how much you were drinking? Well, it turns out you weren’t, but she was. That’s where the vodka was going and she’s been bringing her own
secretly. I found two empty bottles in her suitcase, Charlotte! The nursery called me because she hadn’t picked up Flora and when I got here, she was passed out, completely pissed, but still
thought she could drive when I woke her up.’

Charlotte suddenly sat up and turned on the bedside light.

‘Are you sure?’

‘She’s a danger to the children and to herself.’

‘Well, we’ll have to get her some help.’

‘Yes, but in the meantime . . .’

‘What?’ Charlotte asked.

‘We’ll have to find someone else. Or I’ll have to look after them . . .’

‘You can’t be serious!’ Charlotte shrieked. ‘We’re exchanging contracts on the house next week.’

‘We won’t be able to.’

‘Think about it, Angus. Our sale will fall through, Caroline’s sale will fall through. If we lose that house, we’ll never move. Prices are literally going up every
day!’

‘We’ll just have to stay put then,’ I said.

Charlotte stared at me.

‘What is more important?’ I persisted. ‘The girls’ safety, or moving upmarket?’

‘God, you’re so fucking pious!’ Charlotte screamed, then got out of bed, taking the duvet with her, went downstairs and slammed the living-room door.

In the morning, I woke up to find her sitting at her dressing table applying make-up.

‘Are you in work today?’ I asked, surprised.

She didn’t reply to my question, but, staring at my reflection in the mirror, simply stated, ‘I’m not sleeping on the sofa again.’

‘Good,’ I said, blearily.

‘You’re the one who can do that from now on. Or perhaps you could have the nanny’s room since your mother’s gone.’

‘Gone?’ I sat up.

‘She says she knows she’s never been welcome here and she’s driven off on an icy road, so I hope you’re satisfied!’

‘But that’s crazy. It’s not my fault. I want to help her . . .’

‘She says you’ve blown everything completely out of proportion, as usual.’

‘And is that what you think?’

‘I’m not prepared to live in Wandsworth all my life!’ Charlotte yelled, then, as if surprised by the noise she’d made, picked up her handbag and went out for the day.

It wasn’t so much the sex, because it hadn’t been frequent since Bella’s birth. Initially I’d been afraid of hurting Charlotte after the stitches, and
then we always seemed to be so tired. But I missed the companionship of sharing a bed, the familiar rhythm of my wife’s breathing, even her huffing and pulling the duvet over her head when I
got out of bed to tend to our daughter.

Curiously, the financial meltdown provided a ray of hope for us. For a couple of months, London house prices plummeted. Suddenly it was a buyer’s market and when we made a low offer for a
little house at the top of Portobello Road, it was accepted. Even Charlotte had to admit that it was a much more suitably sized property for us. Paradoxically, it was my mother’s absence that
made it possible. I’d taken a few weeks of unpaid leave which stretched on to what the head of the GP surgery in Croydon called ‘a mutual parting of the ways’. With no childcare
or redecoration costs, and interest rates going down, we had just about enough money and I had the time to search out the best mortgage deal and organize the packing. The girls thrived and
Charlotte was freed to do the things she needed to promote her brilliant career, like working late and flying to conferences in glamorous destinations like Monte Carlo and Doha.

When we’d settled in, we invited my mother to visit, but she claimed she was too upset by my accusation. I thought the problem was more that she didn’t think she’d get through
the weekend without alcohol, and eventually Charlotte, who took the girls to see her every couple of months, conceded that was probably the case. There’s not much you can do to help someone
who won’t admit they have a problem.

At weekends, Portobello Road is an impassable throng of tourists, but during the week, especially early in the morning, it’s virtually empty. On fine days, after dropping
Flora off at school, Bella and I usually walked all the way down the street looking for Paddington Bear in the windows of antique shops, trying to guess which one was Mr Gruber’s. We’d
read the Paddington books so many times that the pages were falling out of our copies. I was almost disappointed when, one day, Bella pointed excitedly at a life-size toy bear, complete with duffle
coat, sou’wester and wellington boots, standing on a chaise longue deep inside one of the shops. But the following day he had gone, perhaps proving more attractive to customers than the
second-hand furniture. So our quest continued.

By the time the antique shops petered out, and the street became a food and clothes market, Bella had usually fallen asleep and I often whiled away the morning reading the newspaper with a
coffee and one of the delicious little custard tarts with a glaze of burnt sugar that they served in our favourite cafe. One spring day, as I was manoeuvring the buggy through the door, I heard
someone shouting, ‘Gus! Gus!’

Nobody had called me Gus for years, so it took a moment to register Nash waving across the road at me. I hadn’t seen her in person since Flora was a baby, but I had occasionally watched
her on television because the American medical drama series she starred in had become a huge hit in the UK too. With her hair dyed a deep crimson colour, she looked much sleeker and smarter than
before, and as we pushed through to the back of the cafe where there was a table with room for the buggy, I was aware that other customers were nudging each other as they recognized her face.

‘How long are you back for?’ I asked.

‘Indefinitely, I’m afraid. I was in a motorbike accident,’ she informed me.

‘Are you OK?’

‘No, actually I died,’ said Nash. ‘Oh, wait a minute, you’re only on series two over here, aren’t you? It’s what happens to ballsy female leads. We get tamed
or we perish . . .’

‘What a shame,’ I said, adding quickly, ‘Everyone thinks you’re great.’

‘Really?’ said Nash.

I caught a glimpse of her old endearing neediness beneath the immaculately groomed exterior.

‘Even Charlotte,’ I told her. ‘And she’s a real consultant herself now.’

‘Wow!’ said Nash, flicking her gleaming curtain of hair back over her shoulder. ‘So, what are you up to these days?’

‘Still looking after the kids. It’s a long story. This is Bella, by the way.’

‘Cute,’ said Nash, glancing at my sleeping child, then giving me a long, appraising look. ‘I could never see you as a doctor . . .’

‘How come?’ Now I was the needy one.

‘Too insecure. You need to have a certain confidence in your decision-making skills . . . I did a lot of research for the role . . .’

‘Obviously,’ I said.

‘So what
are
you going to do, Gus?’ she asked.

The perennial London question. In a thriving capital city, your job defines you.

‘I haven’t thought that far,’ I said, as Bella began to stir. ‘Look, why don’t you come back to ours for some lunch?’

Our front door opened straight into one big room which served as the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I had fastened felt boards to the walls to display the girls’ art along with a
few of my sketches of them.

Nash looked at the drawings as I prepared a simple lunch of pasta with cherry tomatoes and basil. ‘Who did these?’

‘I did.’

‘They’re good, Gus. I always knew you must have a hidden talent!’

‘Perhaps that’s something I could do . . . you know, in Covent Garden, those people who draw the tourists?’

Nash stared at me. ‘Jesus, Gus, only you could be thirty years old and thinking of a career as a street artist!’

I put a steaming bowl of pasta down in front of her.

‘How about becoming a children’s portrait artist?’ She blew on a hot forkful. ‘There must be some loaded parents round here?’

‘A couple of people have asked me, you know, when they’ve picked their kids up from play dates, but I’ve never thought of charging . . .’

‘God, Gus, you haven’t changed!’ Nash laughed.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You’re so – I don’t know what the right word is – fey, maybe? Unworldly. Dreamy.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. The quality I’m talking about – it’s not unattractive.’

‘Charlotte thinks it is.’

I said it without thinking.

‘Does she?’ said Nash, intrigued.

I always believed that things would improve between Charlotte and me. In the new house, we usually slept in separate bedrooms, but there were still occasions, like after the
children’s birthdays, when all our tiny guests had departed, goody bags in hand, and our daughters had gone to bed hugging their new toys, that we would open a bottle of champagne to toast
another milestone on the journey we were on together. A goodnight kiss would turn into something more intimate, and our bodies knew each other so well, the physical imperative would take over.

I was sure that there would come a time, perhaps when we were on holiday, when everything would magically revert to how it used to be. We did rent a cottage for a week on the north coast of
Cornwall. On the beach, we looked like the sort of family you’d see in a Boden catalogue, casually well dressed, smiling in the sunshine, and oh-so middle class. For the children, Charlotte
and I always put on a united front, agreeing on table manners, limiting high-sugar snacks, listening to what they told us, encouraging them to explore rock pools and create pictures with seaweed.
Charlotte wasn’t as down and dirty with the digging as I was, but she was competitive; so suggest a game of rounders, or a race to build the best sandcastle, and she’d throw herself
into the challenge. We even enjoyed ourselves on the rainy days, visiting the Eden Project and Tate St Ives, buying big net bags of imported shells to make our own art with UPVC glue and sugar
paper spread out on the kitchen table.

It was only after we’d kissed the girls goodnight and switched off the light in their room that our relationship also shut down. Charlotte had a book; I did the washing-up. We might
mention something the kids had said that had amused us, but otherwise an unnavigable gulf of silence stretched between us. I went to bed first and pretended to be asleep when Charlotte got in
beside me. And then I’d lie still and anxious until sleep blotted out the sadness and a new morning brought the glorious chaos of small children clambering into the bed and creating the
energy for another day.

‘Why don’t you and Mummy have one big bed at home?’ Flora once asked.

I looked at Charlotte for an answer. She was always better at finding the words to say nothing than I was.

‘Daddy snores so loudly, Mummy can’t sleep, and Mummy has to go to work,’ she said.

And so I obliged by closing my eyes and snoring as loud as I possibly could with my girls’ laughter pealing around us.

Anne was all for organizing a meal in a posh restaurant with a tasting menu; I thought Hope would be happier with Pizza Express, but it was Dad who came up with the perfect
suggestion. ‘It’s Hope’s eighteenth. What do you do when you’re eighteen? You go to the pub!’

We were on the point of objecting, when he added, ‘And Thursday’s karaoke night!’

So we booked a table for an early supper because they did a carvery, and there was also a salad wagon, depending on how hungry you were. Then Hope said, ‘Can Martin come?’

Hope now worked full-time at Martin’s Music. After her work experience, he had asked her to come in on Saturdays, paying her minimum wage, because, as she told me proudly, ‘I’m
useful, Tree.’

So it seemed like a natural extension when he’d offered her a full-time job after her GCSEs.

When customers came in, Hope was marginally less rude than Martin was, and the arrangement allowed him to take on more of the lucrative instrument repair work, so it suited them both.

Pushing open the heavy door of the pub, I felt a kind of draught, as if someone else had come in behind me. I turned round.

Mum was wearing the navy dress and jacket she wore for weddings.

‘Oh my God! You’re here!’ I cried.

‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world, would I?’ she said, smiling at me.

I woke up, the fizz of elation suddenly flat in the chilly morning air. I lay with my eyes closed, trying to summon back the feeling of her presence, telling her, ‘Hope’s eighteen,
Mum. And she’s fine, you know. You’d be so proud of her!’

I wanted to add, ‘. . . and of me!’

But, as a single tear rolled a ribbon of coolness down my cheek, I wasn’t so sure about that bit.

They gave us a rectangular table for six, so it was Dad and Anne, Martin and Hope and me opposite an empty chair. For Mum, I thought, still disorientated from seeing her so
clearly that morning.

I felt like a maiden aunt, sitting at the end of the table, but at least I was out of range of Anne’s be-ringed fingers gripping my arm and her Silk Cut breath reassuring me, as she often
did, that it was never too late for love, and ‘The One’ could come along at any time.