Out of My Depth (18 page)

I shuddered to think what might have become of me if it hadn’t been for Janet. I remembered that conversation so clearly: my life was divided cleanly into what had gone before it and what had come after. I had been on the brink when I met Janet. I had lost my future, and I was thinking, seriously, about heroin. I had seen it ruin people’s lives; but I had also seen that they didn’t care, and I had been drawn to the idea of not caring.

‘Where do you see yourself going?’ Janet asked.

I blew my fringe up from my forehead. ‘God knows,’ I said. ‘I can’t see that anyone’s ever going to pay me good money for drawing bowls of fruit.’

‘It worked for Cézanne. But seriously, there’s plenty of scope for you as an artist. Art is everywhere. Would you like to be a commercial artist?’

I snorted. ‘Shh! Those words are banned round here, aren’t they?’

‘Sweetie, listen,’ Janet said, with a hand on my arm. ‘You have a pretty and distinctive style. The commercial world will be kind to you. The money folks will adore you. Think about colour. Think about canvases in a Holland Park sitting room. Think about universal appeal.’ She leaned in closer, making me uncomfortably aware of the fact that I probably smelled. ‘I’ll tell you something that worked for me.’

I was still trying to take it in. She was looking at me expectantly. ‘Mmm?’ I managed.

Janet clapped her hands. ‘Pretend you’re already a successful artist! Imagine the paintings you create and the pleasure you bring to people. Make them real in your head. Imagine yourself the way you’d like to be. Now, be that way! If you behave as if something’s true, it becomes true. That works in many different ways, but it does work. Believe me.’

There was nothing to lose: my only other option was heroin. I organised myself. It took an immense effort, but I did it. When I wasn’t working for minimal money, I worked on my art. I stretched canvases, started to master oils, imagined brightly coloured skies and poppy fields. I started creating paintings for rich people’s walls. Holland Park offerings, I used to call them. I never painted anything on impulse. I would spend hours at a time staring at a blank canvas, imagining what I was going to fill it with, and when it was completely worked out, to the smallest detail, in my head, then I would transfer it, painstakingly, to the canvas before me.

‘Janet made me see that it wasn’t morally reprehensible to make a living from figurative art,’ I said. ‘She helped me approach galleries and get my work in exhibitions. It was a slow process, but after about a year, they started selling, gradually, and then quickly. They were reproduced, and the prints took off. They went onto greetings cards. My parents had been horrified at the way I dropped out, and they’d practically disowned me. All of their friends’ children had gone to university and they were embarrassed to mention me. My dad had always wanted me to be a doctor, like him, and it was bad enough for him when I did art A level.’ I smiled. ‘So when he discovered I was living in a squat, sleeping with someone he classed as a “hippy”, and dividing my time between waiting tables and painting, he was utterly horrified. Needless to say, when the art started selling, the parents reappeared in my life. Even Jackie was almost proud of me. I discovered this when she asked me to paint her kids, a few years ago.’

Izzy interrupted. ‘Jackie’s got kids?’

‘Three of them. And doesn’t she like to go on about it. She’s a GP, which is probably lucky for everyone. A doctor in the family after all. Actually, she’s furious with me — she wanted to come out this weekend and see you all but I wouldn’t let her.’

They all laughed. ‘That is the story of Jackie’s life, isn’t it?’ said Tamsin. All I remember of your sister is that she was always wanting to join in and you were always telling her to bugger off.’

‘Mmm. She tries to flex her muscles, but essentially that’s still the way it works.’

Izzy leaned forward. ‘So, then what?’

I thought about it. I was not going to tell them that I had used will power and transformed myself into the person I wanted to be, that it had taken years but that Janet’s technique had worked in the end. I acted as if I had always been a naturally thin person with a tiny appetite, and, by sheer will power, I made it come true. I started telling people that I had to exercise every day or I missed the endorphin rush, and, slowly and painfully, it became true. I told myself that I adored Whistles and Ghost clothes, that I had never really liked smoking, and that I had never wanted children. In a way, I knew, Janet’s philosophy struck a chord because I had already been using it. It had its limits, however.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I had long dumped Steve, the hippy boyfriend. I started to care about what I looked like again. Most of my fellow students despised my stuff for being so tame, and I’m sure they despise me even more now for making money out of it. But I can live with that, frankly.’

‘What about men?’ Izzy asked. ‘Come on. Share. I’ve just told you all about my sad excuse for a love life.’

I smiled, and drank up. ‘Roman’s the one, of course.’ There was still no sign of him. ‘Before him I’d had boyfriends. Steve was sweet and I broke his heart. A few after that couldn’t hack me being successful. Wanted to get in on the action by calling themselves my “manager”. Roman would do anything for me, but he would never, ever style himself as my “manager”. I manage myself, thank you very much.’ I heard Amanda making an odd noise, but when I looked at her, nothing seemed out of order. ‘So, nothing much to report there. The odd episode of mild angst, but nothing unusual. And now-’ I looked up as Roman came back into the room and smiled his apologies at everyone. ‘Now we’ve got this house, which keeps us busy, and Roman works on various different projects, and life is just how I’ve always wanted it to be.’

Amanda held her head on one side. ‘But as a childless couple . . .’ she began, a finger at the corner of her mouth.

‘We’re not childless,’ I interjected, hastily. I wanted to defuse this topic. Then Roman and I spoke in unison. ‘Childfree!’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Amanda muttered. ‘What’s that about?’

Roman stared at her. ‘It’s about the fact that we don’t actually want children, thanks all the same. And not having them in our lives is not a “lack” of any sort. It’s a freedom, a positive thing. Hence, childfree. Not child
less
.’ He turned to me. ‘Suze, that was Sarah Saunders on the phone.’

‘Why?’

‘Tell you later. You need to call her in the morning.’

‘OK.’ I was annoyed with Amanda and I hoped she would shut up now. But she didn’t. When I looked at her closely, she was obviously very drunk, particularly considering that we hadn’t even cleared away the starter.

‘But you must want them really, Susie,’ Amanda said, ignoring Roman. ‘What about your biological clock? You’re thirty-two. You’ve still got time but you need to think about it.’

I shook my head and clenched my teeth. ‘I really don’t, thank you. I can’t imagine living this life with a baby in tow. And . . .’ I paused, then carried on, firmly. ‘I don’t relate to them. Being an aunt to Jackie’s three is enough for me. I don’t feel any urge whatsoever to reproduce myself and keep my genes in the world for another generation. The world is overpopulated as it is. There are people who are natural mothers, and people who aren’t. You and Izzy clearly are, and I’m not. And I don’t want to bring someone into the world who isn’t completely wanted, do I? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing to do?’

Izzy interjected. ‘Of course it would,’ she said, smiling. ‘God knows, it’s your decision, you two. I agree with you. Don’t have a baby if you don’t want to.’

‘Thanks, Izzy,’ said Roman, ‘but I wasn’t planning on asking your permission.’

Izzy looked surprised. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

I silenced Roman with a look. ‘I know you didn’t, Izzy. Don’t worry. You just wouldn’t believe the number of people . . .’ I looked at Amanda and away, ‘who cannot accept our decision. I mean, everybody, from the people in this village to my parents, to Roman’s family, to women I meet in the supermarket and the fucking stalker who gets me to paint some woman who might or might not be his wife I looked quickly to Roman.

‘I’d say, not,’ he said.

‘Well, all of them ask when we’re having a baby. And none of them can take “never” for an answer. And just about everybody — particularly women who already have children — gives us that smug look, and nods knowingly, and implies that the “biological clock” will suddenly show up, ticking, on my mantelpiece. As if I am deluding myself. As if they know better. And it infuriates me.’

‘Hear hear,’ added Roman. ‘It is definitely the worst topic of conversation I have ever encountered. It’s nobody’s business but Susie’s and mine.’ I looked at him gratefully. ‘So, let’s drop it,’ he ordered. ‘Let’s clear this table.’

I burned with annoyance as I hooked the apron back over my head and set to work getting food ready to go onto the table. I hoisted the chickens onto chargers using big forks. Amanda had been my best friend. She was the one who was supposed to understand. Amanda was not supposed to make me angry. Amanda and I had nothing to say to each other.

I performed the little test on myself that I often did after any such conversation. ‘I’m pregnant,’ I whispered. I closed my eyes and imagined it to be true. ‘I am actually pregnant.’ I believed it for a second. I felt nothing but horror. I was definitely not broody. I inhaled deeply. Definitely. I opened my eyes and found a hand lightly touching my shoulder.

‘Oh, Susie,’ said Izzy softly. ‘I’m so sorry. You have lots of options. If you want to talk, just say.’

I laughed. ‘No!’ I said. ‘You’ve completely . . .’ But Izzy had picked up the green beans, and disappeared.

Tamsin didn’t start talking until Susie had served up individual crème brûlées for pudding.

‘When I look back now,’ she said, abruptly, during a conversational pause, ‘I think I overreacted.’

Five seconds ticked by, and nobody spoke. Tamsin waited for a response. Amanda was shovelling cream into her mouth as quickly as she could. Roman was topping up everyone’s dessert wine, raising his eyebrows ostentatiously at the fact that Amanda and Patrick were drinking twice as much as everyone else. Susie was staring into space, apparently lost in thought, and Izzy was watching her.

Then Susie looked at Tamsin. ‘You mean, back then?’ she asked.

‘Yes. By running away to Australia.’

All eyes turned to Tamsin. Amanda looked away again, quickly. Susie swallowed.

‘You can’t really overreact to something like that, can you?’ she said, quietly.

‘You can.’ Tamsin was adamant. ‘And I did. That’s why I’ve had to come back, now.’

‘You ran off so quickly’ Izzy said. ‘I always felt I should have been a better friend to you. I should have tried harder to stop you.’

Tamsin put down her spoon. ‘Maybe you should, Izzy. It might not have made any difference.’ She sighed. ‘I knew Mum was dead as soon as I opened my eyes. Instantly. The car flew off the road, and I was going to have to get through the rest of my life without a mother. I was fairly sure that I was fine. I just lay there, next to her. Then we were cut out and it was blue lights and sirens, and everything was going to be different, for ever.

‘When I got home, the world felt different. It looked different. It smelt different. It was all defined and hyper real. I think that when someone dies, or . . .’ and she smiled at Izzy and then at Amanda, ‘probably when someone is born, I wouldn’t know – but when a life-changing event happens, it’s at those times you truly do live in the present. The way the Buddhists want you to. I went through the first couple of weeks seeing every detail of every part of my life in tech-nicolour. I was suddenly aware of being myself. The fact that I took a breath in, and then let it out again, several times a minute, seemed incredible. The fact that my body worked, that it performed all its functions, was a miracle. I would put one foot in front of the other and walk to the kitchen, and be baffled by the complexity of what I had just done. Physically, I was fine. I was bruised, but nothing else. So I spent a couple of weeks wiggling my fingers and toes and marvelling at the miracle, while my dad was in pieces, Billy was taking to drink, and the neighbours were bringing us dinner every night.

‘I could have gone back to school after the Easter holidays. I could have taken my A levels, though I doubt I’d have been able to string many sentences together. Billy did: he did his GCSEs and they became a bit of a life raft for him. He stopped drinking and focused on them instead and he got pretty much As in everything. But I knew. I just knew, as the days went by, that I was never going to set foot in Lodwell’s ever again. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get as far away from South Wales as I possibly could. It was more that I didn’t have the choice. I bad to get away. I felt that, in some way, I’d lost you three. I’d gone somewhere else, already. It’s hard to explain now. A levels seemed fantastically irrelevant.’

Tamsin fiddled with her spoon. She wasn’t hungry any more. She drank some water and carried on. She was trying to tell it exactly as it had been. She knew that her friends were missing from the story, and that was because they had been missing from her life when she needed them desperately.

‘But I should have done them anyway,’ she said. ‘Nobody exactly wants to do exams, and I think that rushing off around the world because people didn’t know what to say to me, because I was shocked and grieving, because you three were awkward with me, was an overreaction. I wish somebody had told me to stay. Still. A couple of weeks after the funeral, I got a train up to London and went to the Australian embassy and applied for a working visa. Which I got, no problem. I had to show some bank statements to prove I had enough money, and I’d nicked a folder of Dad’s old ones, so the woman just asked if I would have access to that money in Australia and I said I would. And that was it. My passport came back in the post a couple of weeks later, with this big shiny visa stuck into it, and I bought a ticket to Sydney via Singapore, and I told my dad I was going, and I left. He tried to stop me, but he was pretty half-hearted about it because he was living in his own weird underwater world. Bereavement world.’ Tamsin looked at each of them. ‘I feel terrible about it now. I let myself believe that he didn’t mind me going, when really he didn’t have any fight in him to stop me. Mum would have stopped me, but then if Mum had been there, I wouldn’t have been going. Anyway, I pretended to myself that Dad was happy for me to leave, and Billy didn’t seem bothered either, and so I went. I didn’t say goodbye to any of you. Did I?’ Tamsin looked around the room. Amanda was the only one who had finished her pudding. Everyone else had put their spoons down, and they were all staring at her. She didn’t say anything else. They all waited. Finally, Isabelle spoke.