Muddy Waters (32 page)

‘No it's OK,' Stella said brightly and decisively, getting up and deciding that making a start on supper for later would be useful occupational therapy, ‘I'm fine, really. Nothing's wrong.'

‘Adrian hasn't said anything then?'

Stella turned and looked at her intently, wondering what on earth she could mean but Abigail still looked just the same, slightly manic and glittering, but otherwise more or less as usual, ‘Like what?' she demanded.

Abigail did a silly sudden giggle with her hand over her mouth like a schoolgirl. Stella wondered briefly if she was actually losing her mind. Abigail was looking out of the window, down to where her children were creeping up on the summerhouse by way of the shrubs to where Ruth was arranging her jewellery.

‘Well, nothing, I suppose,' she said, flapping her hands dismissively, ‘I mean, I thought you must be upset about something he's said, that's all. It usually starts with something they say, doesn't it – I find that's what happens anyway.'

‘
What
usually starts with “something they say”?' Stella persisted.

Abigail frowned, looking suddenly impatient. ‘Oh,
everything
,' she shrugged. ‘Just rows, general domestic battles, nothing important. Don't make such a thing of it, I didn't mean anything special,' she laughed. ‘God, what perfect utter bliss you two must live in, to get so upset about some little falling-out like this.'

Stella sighed and gave up. She couldn't cover for Adrian's hostility, didn't even, on reflection, think she should try. He and Abigail would just have to muddle along as well as they could.

Ruth, arranging her jewellery and feeling just like she had as a little girl playing shops, could hear the children scraping at the bottom of the wooden wall outside the summerhouse. She wondered if she was supposed to be keeping an eye on them, make sure they didn't try and climb over the wall, jump down onto Peggy's barge and fall in the river. The tide, at the moment, wasn't very high – they were more likely to smash their skulls on the old bricks littering the river bed than to drown. She tried to decide to have nothing to do with them, they had a parent, however lousy, useless, slaggy and painful a one Ruth considered Abigail to be. The children were her responsibility, not Ruth's. The scratching and scraping grew louder, accompanied by some weird whispery noises. Ruth smiled to herself – they were playing the games she and Toby had played when they were little and lived at their other house, where Adrian had worked in a chilly room in the cellar. They'd crept around pretending to be ghosts, trying to get him scared enough to think it just might not be
them.
Sometimes when he'd left his desk – gone off to the loo or to get a cup of tea – they'd sneaked down the stairs and hidden in the dusty alcove behind the old fireplace, scratching and rustling when he came back and trying so hard not to giggle. He must have heard every breath they took, she thought now, smiling and turning her back on the noises and pretending not to hear, just like her dad had done.

‘Ooooh, oooooh!' came the soft owl-like notes that small children think represent the undead. Ruth obligingly dropped a necklace (a carefully pre-selected unbreakable one) to the floor and put on a look of exaggerated terror, hand to chest and her eyes wide.

‘Who's that?' she called, looking round wildly. An uncontrollable giggle came from the door, a boy's giggle, halfway to an adolescent guffaw.

‘Oh, you
stupid bugger
, James. Now she's
heard
you!' A small cross face appeared at the window, a pretty but sulky little girl's face, with Abigail's big dark eyes framed by far more naturally blond fluffy hair.

‘Did you hear that?' Ruth opened the door and carried on the pretence. ‘What do you think it was?'

‘It doesn't matter,' the girl sighed, ‘we know that you know it was us. Men, huh?' she said, folding her arms and looking to the heavens, ‘Mum's always saying they're no use.'

‘I'm Ruth,' Ruth told her, ‘and I suppose you must be James and Venetia.'

‘Yes, I'm James,' the boy said, holding out his hand with odd formality.

Ruth took it and shook it while Venetia looked scornful. ‘Of
course
she knows you're James,' she sneered at him, ‘you could hardly be
Venetia
, could you?'

James looked very pink suddenly, as if he might cry. Poor boy, Ruth thought. ‘Come in and have a look at what I've made,' she said, hoping to lighten the mood. It was bad enough having Abigail around again, without having her witch of a daughter stirring things as well. ‘Do you like jewellery?' Ruth asked Venetia. The child stood in the doorway, taking a quick and doubtful glance round the room.

‘Mummy says it has to be real gold,' she warned.

Ruth smiled, ‘Yes, “Mummy” would.'

‘I like these. What are they for?' James asked. He stood by Adrian's velvet-covered desk holding a small, brightly-coloured fimo doll. It had long black legs, a honey-coloured body and arms and bright spiky blond hair. In one hand it clutched six pins with black pearl heads, and in the other six pins with white heads. Ruth had enjoyed making them, enjoyed the feeling of power it gave her to arrange their faces, give them expressions. They all had large brown eyes and sly smiles. She'd especially liked making the smiles. Just now Ruth frowned. She could hardly tell the trusting and rather sweet boy that each and every one of the ten of them was his mother, his mother in all her witchy awfulness. She could hardly explain the idea of a voodoo doll, which was that its owner, wanting to do evil to someone, should stick it with the black-headed pins, but that to do good and to help they should use the white-headed ones.

‘They're just dolls,' Venetia said dismissively, her attention on earrings shaped like humbugs. ‘I'd like earrings shaped like gummy bears,' she declared. ‘Will you make me some?'

‘What's the magic word?' Ruth asked, wondering why she should care whether the child had manners.

‘Abracadabra,' Venetia said cheekily.

‘No, it's not,' Ruth said, taking the earrings carefully away from her hot and dangerous little hands and replacing them on their velvet.

Venetia pouted and looked longingly at the earrings. ‘OK,
please
,' she mocked.

‘Pretty please,' Ruth said solemnly. James gasped, his horrified face warning Ruth to watch out for vengeance.

‘Pretty please. Pretty please with knobs on,' Venetia conceded.

Ruth smiled. ‘All right then, some time during the weekend I'll make you some, in time for when you go home.'

‘Home? We
are
home,' Venetia crowed triumphantly. ‘We're staying
here.
For
ever.
Mummy said. Didn't anybody tell you?'

‘What do you think Venetia meant?' Ruth asked Toby as she tacked a poster for her jewellery to the garden gate. ‘Do you think Abigail's buying somewhere to live on the island? What would she want to live here for? And anyway, what's for sale?'

Toby shrugged off the uncomfortable questions. ‘Nothing that I know of. I suppose Willow might get rid of her place now she's moved in with Bernard, but can you honestly see Abigail living there?' He laughed, but only half-heartedly.

Ruth didn't laugh at all. She didn't want daily contact with Abigail's sharp-angled body, subtle bitchiness, the fierce yellow hair like gold-painted spikes on park railings. The island just wasn't like her, its residents were slower, gentler, rounder. No one's hair went upwards like that into such sophisticated shock (apart from Willow's after the drastic chopping, but even that was calming since the fates had taken pity on her). No one had shoes without mud on them, or clothes that would be in
next
month's magazines. ‘She couldn't live there,' Ruth assured herself and Toby, ‘wouldn't even think of it. She's probably got a garden shed bigger than that.
And
,' she added, ‘I don't think Willow would start selling her place when she's only been living with Bernard a week. Even she would realize that sticking a “For Sale” sign up this fast would terrify him, the idea that she really is a permanent fixture.' She thought for a moment and graciously conceded defeat to Willow with, ‘Even though she obviously is one now. It's only Bernard who's going to need time to work it out.'

‘The thing with Abigail,' Toby said, ‘is that she makes Mum different. She makes her go sort of silly. I don't like it.'

‘Mum might like it though,' Ruth argued, ‘I expect Abigail reminds her of being young and irresponsible, before she had us and all the boring grown-up stuff to worry about.'

‘She doesn't make Dad feel like that,' said Toby gloomily, ‘he just goes round looking petrified and cross. He's not even going to be in for supper – I heard him telling Mum he had to see his agent, something to do with the next book. She didn't look as if she believed him.'

Ruth laughed, ‘Well it
might
be true. I wish I was going with him. I don't want to eat with Abigail, she'll give me indigestion, glaring at me when I dare to put a potato into my bloated body.'

Toby said nothing. He could tell Ruth what he'd seen at the restaurant, make her as depressed and concerned as he had been feeling but it wouldn't change or solve anything. He knew other people's parents could be a lot less than perfect – perhaps the grown-up attitude would be to stop expecting his own to be different. That he hadn't been wrong in thinking the worst was only confirmed by Adrian's slippery absences. But somewhere in the back of Toby's mind a tiny seed of amusement was sprouting. It had to – he needed a bit of self-centred distancing at the moment. Soon he'd be going away but he was still young enough to need to picture home life continuing reasonably harmoniously without him. It just had to be there to come back and visit. His father was acting like a two-timing teenager, shiftily avoiding confrontation and sliding out of the way of trouble, looking for all the world as if he was living in fear of being caught out and told off. Toby decided he'd need time, maybe all the way to Giuliana's part of Italy, to decide whether it was cheering or disheartening to think that middle age didn't automatically bring with it immunity from getting tangled up in the consequences of bad behaviour.

Abigail was being extraordinarily helpful, Stella thought, as together they assembled the supper. It was as if, this time, it was Abigail who was administering the sympathy and help, and Stella who was in dire need of it. She wasn't sure, anymore, whether she was or not. On balance she thought it was more comfortable to decide she wasn't, not really. Adrian was just having a simple sulk and it would pass, though probably not until Abigail had left. Stella watched her confidently making her way round the kitchen, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards, searching for whatever implements she needed without feeling the need to ask where they were, chopping up vegetables and switching on the oven as if she'd always lived there. Stella, washing potatoes and watching, felt uneasy, taken over. When Venetia came in and asked if there was any apple juice, it was Abigail she went to and asked, and Abigail who immediately said, ‘Of course, darling,' opening the fridge and pulling out the bottle for the child.

I'm just being picky, Stella decided, trying to feel more relaxed. Of course Venetia's going to ask her own mother. What's the point of inviting people to stay and then not expecting them to feel at home. Surely it's a sign of good hospitality. And after all, looking on the positive side, surely it was better to have. Abigail's considerable cooking talents put to good use than to have to keep serving her spritzers while she lounged in the garden and Stella slaved alone and resentful in the kitchen. She blamed Adrian – if he wasn't in such a fraught mood she wouldn't be finding fault with everything. Poor Abigail, and poor everyone else at the moment, couldn't really do a thing right.

‘It should be ready in about half an hour, I think,' Abigail said, opening a drawer and selecting cutlery. ‘Another drink now, or would you rather wait?'

‘I'll have one now,' Stella decided, heading for the fridge.

‘No, let me, you just sit down and relax,' Abigail ordered, intercepting her at the fridge door, Stella wondered if she was imagining things, or did she really feel Abigail shoving her hand firmly off the door handle, as if she was a child who couldn't be trusted not to spill things?

Adrian sneaked up from Peggy's barge, feeling like a spy in a bad movie. He crept past the garden, along the path on the far side of the hedge. He flinched at every gravelly crunch, fully aware that when Bernard's art class tramped along it every Tuesday evening, each step, each whisper could be heard from just outside the kitchen door. That was the problem with being so close to the river. All around, every sound that was made could be picked up, seemingly for miles, like living in an echoing canyon. He would use that in his next book, he decided as he tip-toed furtively. He'd have a cheated husband find out the bitter truth from hearing his wife and her lover having raucous sex across half a mile of foaming estuary, perhaps somewhere in steamy Africa. They'd sound eerie and wild, like mate-seeking foxes at night in the island's wilderness. Creeping on, Adrian's heart almost stopped as he heard the kitchen door open. Through the dense cotoneaster he saw Abigail step out (wearing
gold
deck shoes, for heaven's sake) and start snipping at the pot of chives on the terrace. She looked very contented, very at home, he thought. She looked as if she had nothing at all on her mind beyond helping with the supper and having a relaxing weekend. It occurred to him he might be overdoing the avoidance tactics. What was the big deal about
him
compared with all the lovers Abigail had had in her time? Probably she gave no more thought to what they'd done under that willow tree than she did to her last session at the gym. They would both be in the same category to her, just part of her usual selection of therapeutic leisure activities. It was likely she thought no more intently about what they'd done than she did about her last leg wax.