Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva (8 page)

When she woke up just over an hour later she couldn’t even remember falling asleep. The house was silent and dark and, lying there, Kate wasn’t entirely convinced she
was
awake. It was too quietas though the entire city had been evacuated while she slept. Rolling onto her side, the events of the morning came slowly back to her. The St Anthony’s letter. She sat up in a sudden panic. Where
was
the St Anthony’s letter? Her hands groped instinctively around the bed, remembering the suit jacket she’d worn to work and left on the bedwas almost certain she’d left on the bedbefore going to the allotments.

She threw the duvet off and slid awkwardly out of bed without bothering to put the light on. A vague trace of migraine remained and it felt as though blood wasn’t being pumped evenly round her head, so that she kept losing her balance and falling suddenly into things as she staggered over to the wardrobe it had taken Robert and her five nights to build, and that they both hated, ignoring her mobile, which had started to ring. There was the jackethanging up. She felt the envelope in the inside pocket and pulled it out. The envelope was empty. Had she taken it out at work
and left it there? Maybe it was in the caror downstairs somewhere.

She ran downstairs into the kitchen, walking into just about everything there was to walk into on the way, including Flo, who was there on the floor in her bouncy chair, reaching out excitedly for the furry stars hanging from the bar above.

And there was Robert, standing at the bench by the cooker with a screwdriver in his hand and the motor from the old Morphy Richards blender in pieces beside him.

He was wearing his favourite T-shirt, which said he’d run the New York Marathon in 1998only he hadn’tand smiling.

‘Kate’ he said, sounding pleased to see her. ‘I heard you stumbling around up theredon’t worry, she’s down here with us.’

‘Who is?’ she said, distracted, her eyes scanning the kitchen surfaces. No letter.

‘Flo.’ He paused. ‘She’s got some kind of bruise on her forehead.’

Kate stared down at Flo, then back at Robert. ‘Nursery. When did you get home?’

‘About forty-five minutes ago.’

‘What’s the time now?’

‘Almost six.’

‘I didn’t hear you come in.’ She yawned.

‘You were out cold so I just left you.’

Upstairs, her mobile started to ring again. Kate yawned and took in the scene in the kitchen. The light was falling strangely on Robert, making him look guilty, as though he was trying to make amends for a crime he hadn’t committed yet.

‘Was my suit jacket on the bed when you went up earlier?’

He shook his head. ‘Haven’t a clue. Heywhere are you
going?’ he said as she grabbed the car keys from the rack below the cupboard.

‘I left something in the car,’ she called out, disappearing through the front door.

Outside, the rain hammered on her back as she searched the car with forensic precisionand failed to find the letter.

She went back indoors. It had to be somewhere.

In the kitchen, Robert was standing with the screwdriver still in his hand and the abstract, easy-to-please look on his face that he assumed when he was concentrating intently on something his future didn’t depend on. ‘Find it?’

‘Robertwhat are you doing?’ she said, irritably.

‘Just mending this.’ He nodded at the motor on the bench, nonchalant, pleased with himself. Something was wrongcarrying out impromptu repairs, midweek, just wasn’t something Robert did. Ever.

‘But that broke over two years ago.’

‘Did it?’ He looked at the motor again, less confident now, but still enthusiastic. ‘Oh.’ He started smiling again.

‘Why now? Why tonightwhen I’ve been going on to you about that blender for over two years?’

Robert shrugged. ‘I thought I’d have a go at mending it.’

‘I don’t even use it any morewe bought the red KitchenAid instead because I got sick of waiting for that one to be mended.’

He stared blankly at her as she walked over to the units and opened the cupboard door, and he carried on staring blanklyat the red KitchenAid this timeon the shelf inside. ‘I didn’t know we had that.’

She slammed the door shut. ‘We’ve had it over two years.’

‘I haven’t seen you use it.’ He realised as he was saying this that it was the wrong thing to saythat it could even be classified a criticismbut he was getting himself lost; he couldn’t remember what it was they’d been talking about or why he
was holding a screwdriver in his hands. He stared at the disembodied motor unit on the bench in front of him, wondering when exactly he’d had the idea of trying to fix itwhen exactly he’d felt enthusiastic enough to take on the motor.

‘What’s brought this on?’ Kate demanded.

‘What?’

‘This…fixation with repairs.’

‘Fixation? I’m not fixatedI just found it in the cupboard when I was looking for tea bags and I thought—’

‘Why now?’ She insisted.

‘KateI don’t know.’

‘I wake up and find you mending a motor that’s been waiting to be mended for over two yearsfor a machine that no longer exists. Why?’

‘Why does it have to bother you so much?’

‘It doesn’tI just need to know why.’

He mumbled, ‘There is no why,’ before starting to collect the parts together, putting them back in the box next to the teapot with the broken spout Sellotaped to it, as Kate’s mobile started to ring again.

They stared at each other.

‘You want me to get that?’

She shook her head.

Making an effort, Robert said, ‘Smells nice.’ He nodded at the tortilla on the hob.

‘It’s for the PRC meeting tonight.’

‘Tonight?’

‘I did tell you,’ she warned him.

‘Okay, okay. I forgot, I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve got pie.’

‘Pie?’

She moved her hand across the panorama of carbohydrates filling the bench opposite. ‘Corned beef, cheese and onionand I think the last one’s potato.’

Robert didn’t say anything as his elbow slipped off the bench and he lurched forward into the middle of the kitchen, regaining his balance and wobbling back towards the bench.

Kate heard herself saying, ‘You’re drunk,’ before she even realised it.

That’s why he looked strange earlierhis movements had been slower and more deliberate than usual.

‘I’m not drunk.’

She stared at him in silence, trying not to panic, waiting for an explanation and at the same time not wanting to hear it. ‘Christ, Robert,’ she said at last.

‘So I had a few drinks with Les after work,’ he blurted out, aggressive with guilt.

‘How many’s a few?

It was getting darker in the kitchen and Flo was blowing raspberries at the star that squeaked.

Robert had been working in the light from the cooker hood, which cast itself unevenly round the rest of the kitchen, not quite reaching everything and bouncing off the surfaces it did reach, making them look fragile. It hadn’t occurred to either of them to switch the overhead lights on.

‘Did something happen today?’ Kate said, looking at him properly for the first time since she came in.

‘Today?’ Robert said slowly. ‘Today something did happenyes.’

This was unusually cryptic for Robert. ‘Jerome?’

The name had a visible effect on him, but he didn’t say anything.

‘Jerome’s a problem, isn’t he? Why do we never talk about Jerome?’

‘Because you’re not always the easiest person to talk to…at the moment. It’s like you’re never here.’

‘Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m trying to bring up a five-year-old and a six-month-old babyof course I’m
never here. I’m nowhere close to being bloody here. You’ve got no ideasometimes it takes all I’ve got just to get up in the morning.’

‘Kate…’

He watched her yelling at him, suddenly wanting to touch her somewhere, to try and contain her in some way before she disappeared in front of his eyes.

‘Are you going to say anything? Robert?’

‘I want to kill him.’

‘Who?’

‘Jerome. I want to kill him. I think about killing himall the time. He gets to me.’

‘They all get to you.’

Idly, Robert picked up the broken motor from the blender again. ‘Not like thisnever like this,’ he said, tired, suddenly aware of just how much he didn’t want to talk to Kate about this right now. Then, before she had time to start up again, he said, ‘I saw a job advertised in the
TES
today.’

‘You did?’ She didn’t even try to sound interested.

‘Botswana.’

‘Stop it,’ she said sharply.

‘What?’

‘The motorwhatever it is you’re about to start doing to the motor.’

Unable to bear his tinkering any longer, she crossed the kitchen, grabbed the box out of his hands, then walked over to the bin and threw it in.

As the lid clattered shut, Robert was aware that, within the last three seconds, he had become angry.

‘What was all that about?’

‘What?’ She turned on him.

‘That…just now.’

‘Nothing.’ She walked out of the kitchen and down the hallwayaway from him and his day.

‘Kate,’ he yelled, ‘are we going to talk about this? What is this? What’s this all about? I know you’ve been stressed lately…’

Peering at Flo, whose arms jerked towards him as he sidestepped the bouncy chair, he followed Kate out into the hallway.

She was about four paces in front of him, moving slowly, silently, away from him towards the stairs. There was something intractable about her postureas though she was taking something away from him she had no intention of ever giving backand he hated her for that, hated her so much he could have killed her right then.

He caught up with her at the first landing, grabbing hold of her wrist. If he didn’t stop her now it felt as though she would just carry on climbing flight after flight of stairs, willing them into existence, and he’d be fated to walk four paces behind herin perpetuity.

‘I haven’t got time for this,’ she said, against a backdrop of hall wall that needed painting, but that they couldn’t agree on a colour for.

She didn’t try to pull her wrist away.

‘For what?’

She paused. Up close, even in his own clothes, Robert smelt of other people’s children, and povertyother people’s poverty. She hadn’t started out afraid of poverty, but she was now. ‘This,’ she said, suddenly unsure.

‘Listen, I know you’ve been stressed lately,’ he said again. ‘About St Anthony’s and stuff.’

‘You should be saying
we’ve
been stressed, but you’re right
I’ve
been stressed. Throughout the whole thing it’s felt like me and my stress, we’re over here somewhere and you…fuck knows where you’ve been.’

‘It’s Jerome, he…’

‘…Probably went to Brunton Park before going to
Ellington. Ellington’s biggest intake comes from Brunton Park. They have children there who were child soldiers in the Congo, Robert.’

‘I knowI’ve got most of them sitting in the back row of my English class.’

‘And would you want to see Findlay sitting in the back row of one of your English classes?’

‘Well, they wouldn’t timetable it so that—’

‘Robert!’

‘Okayokay.’

‘How would you feel about Findlay ending up at Ellington?’

‘What, like me?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Robertthat’s exactly what I’m talking about when I say
I’ve
been stressed. This is what it’s been like for months nowsince before Flo was born.’

‘But, Kate,’ he moved his hands up to her shoulders. ‘Findlay’s not going to Oliver Goldsmith’she’s going to St Anthony’s. You can relaxFindlay’s in now.’ This had no visible effect on Kate, who was watching him strangely, with a look that veered between blank and suspicious.

‘Kate, look at mewill you just look at me. Kate -.’

He saw the effort on her face: she tried, she really did. Their eyes met and he was startledsuddenly, unexpectedlyby an overwhelming memory of the gloriously filthy sex they used to have. ‘No,’ he said, instinctively, as Kate’s eyes slid away from him, towards the stairs. ‘We have to do this now.’

‘What?’

‘Thiswhatever we’re doing that’s…that’s…’ The anger had gone, passing through him so quickly it had left him feeling bereft, tearful even. He could feel the tears collecting now somewhere in his belly, getting mixed up with the desire he felt at the sight of the curls the rain had given Kate’s hair
at the nape of her neck as she twisted away from himcurls he hadn’t noticed for months, maybe even years. ‘That’s…keeping us standing here together.’

Kate couldn’t move her head any further without hitting wall, so she looked up instead, through the skylight at the top of the stairs to an evening full, suddenly, of starlings.

‘Kate…’

The way he said it made so many things feel possible again.

Robert saw her face change and could feel himself beginning to unravel. He wanted to kiss her more than anything. The tears were rising up from his belly; he was going to start crying and Kate didn’t want to see him cry. Kate wanted…what
did
Kate want? Did she feel as lonely as he did right then? Was loneliness what they had in commonthe profound loneliness of people bereft of themselves? If Kate had lost Kate and Robert had lost Roberthow on earth were they meant to set about finding each other?

‘Kate…’

She was looking directly at him now. If he said her name like that once more, she was going to end up telling him everything and she wasn’t entirely sure where everything would lead them. ‘Stop it! Stop saying that,’ she yelled suddenly.

The tears, which had been on the verge of breaking, fell back down into his belly as she vanished before his eyes.

‘Please, Kate.’

‘Stop itjust stop it.’ She was almost screaming now.

The air between them was vibrating wildly, gravity had been shot to pieces and there was no way of holding anything down any more. Who started this, anyway?

Robert let his back slump against the wall and gave in to feeling drunk and exhausted. ‘We just need a break, Kate, a clean break.’ He paused. ‘What about it?’

They looked at each other, and a brief spark of recognitioncomplicitypassed between them.

Then Kate broke away, unconvinced. ‘A clean break, where?’