Separate Beds (13 page)

‘Just like we used to …’ she said. ‘Do you remember?’ Before the children, they had met frequently in a pub after Tom finished work to drink beer, eat crisps and play cards or darts.

‘Yup.’

She caught the echo of real distress. ‘Tom, why couldn’t you talk to me at home?’

He looked away. ‘Emily’s there. But I might as well get to the point.’

‘Which is?’

‘My mother.’ He reached over and laid his hand on Annie’s. It was a considered gesture, not genuine, not really meant for her, and she felt the first whisper of alarm. ‘You
know Hermione relies on her investments to pay the bill for the home?’

‘Of course I do.’ Now she knew what was coming.

‘They are not doing so well at the moment … I can’t quite figure out why. Too much of the portfolio invested overseas? Cut in US interest rates? An underlying unease? Also, I think we sold a chunk at just the wrong time. Normally, I would pay any shortfall and hope for the best …’ Tom gripped her hand hard. ‘Annie, it looks as though we can’t afford to keep her in the home at the moment. I’m going to have to ask you to let her come and live with us.’

‘No! Not your mother.’ She whipped her hand out from under his. ‘That you should even
ask
.’ She rubbed her bare finger. ‘To live with us? For how long?’

‘Till I’ve sorted it out.’

The anger erupting in Annie shocked her. It was so raw, so unmanageable, so
murderous
– and its surprise was the greater because she had trained herself to live with unmanageable emotions. ‘I hate you for even considering it,’ she said – and that shocked her too. Her tooth bit hard into her bottom lip – and the discomfort added to her outrage. ‘On top of everything else.’

Tom turned white. ‘Annie … Annie … listen to me.’

‘Apart from Mia, Hermione has never shown the slightest trace of affection for the children or me. But that doesn’t matter, I suppose, unless she comes to live with us. Then it would. Haven’t we got enough to cope with?’ She knew perfectly well that she was being ungenerous. ‘And would you do your share?’

He looked sick. ‘For God’s sake, I know I haven’t done my best in the past. This would be different.’

‘How often did you promise to help?’ Words were Tom’s business.
Had been
his business. She thought of the evenings when she had been left to cope with three small children and then, as night followed day, of the subject that festered between them. ‘You never even made time to look for your own daughter. You said you would but you never did.’

‘Annie …’

‘Think how Hermione will feel. What will it do to her?’

‘I’ve got the message.’ Tom got to his feet. ‘We’re getting nowhere.’ A stubborn, bitter look closed down his face. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘Don’t you bottle out now, Tom.’

With Annie at his heels, Tom pushed his way through the pub’s other punters and out into the car park. The air was chilly and damp, and there was a hint of impending rain. Threading their way through the cars, Tom came to an abrupt stop and Annie banged into him. He executed a smart turnabout and caught her by the shoulders. ‘Your answer is no?’

Annie flinched and stepped back from him, and his hands fell away from her. Life had been difficult, but
possible
. The job, Sadie and other friends, plans … good books, films … ‘Yes,’ she hissed. ‘No.’ She turned away. The chill air slapped at her face and the damp was making her hair curl – which added to her despair.

‘Annie …’

At first she couldn’t find the car and searched frantically, spotted it – only to realize on reaching it that Tom had the keys. Sighing with misery, she leaned against the damp metal and dropped her head on to her arm.
I am bloody going to leave you
, she thought,
no ifs and buts
, and the idea was so final that a lump sprang into her throat.

From behind her, Tom said, ‘Annie, can’t we pull together?’

Silence.

‘Annie,
please
.’

Tom had not forgotten about the ring.

They were in the car on the way to break the news to Hermione. Annie was fretting because they hadn’t consulted the children but Tom had argued that it would be better to tell them when things had been settled.

At Streatham, the traffic ground to a customary snail’s pace. The weather had abandoned its spring promise and reverted to chilly bluster, interspersed with intense showers. Even the nascent buds on the city trees looked cold.

Annie was searching for her notebook, which had disappeared into the recesses of her handbag. She piled makeup bag, hairbrush, wallet, an assortment of glasses’ cases and address book into her lap.

Tom was asking, ‘Did you feel awful when you sold the ring?’

‘Surprisingly detached.’ Annie touched her unoccupied finger. ‘I thought I wouldn’t be, but when push came to shove …’

It was a lie. Giving up the ring had hurt more than she’d thought possible for an inanimate object. Letting go of it was to say goodbye to her mother all over again but the hurt was private. Annie put the stuff back into her bag. Her mother had never rated pride. Her opinion had been that it got you into trouble. Annie disagreed. It seemed to her that pride carried you over quite a few hurdles and situations, but she agreed on one thing. When pride took a knock you couldn’t think of much else.

Tom kept his eye on the road. ‘Once the nobility has worn off, you’ll really miss it.’ For a moment he sounded like the old, teasing Tom. ‘I’ll give it a couple of weeks.’

A laugh escaped from Annie. ‘I’ll remind you to check with me.’

‘But, Annie, I think you were wonderful to sell it.’

Her eyes flew to his face.
Remember the first time she saw Tom, and the lurch of her heart?
‘Really?’

‘Really.’

They were approaching the care home, and Annie concentrated on what lay ahead. She looked out of the window at a parade of bungalows and stockbroker Tudor houses flanked by laurels and monkey-puzzle trees. Tom was twisting in the wind, miserable, at bay, the worst she had ever seen him. And it wasn’t any use thinking that things would be all right because, almost certainly, they wouldn’t be.

… To her surprise, Tom had appeared in Annie’s bedroom the previous night. He began, stopped, stuttered, tried again: ‘I need you with me, Annie.’

‘Need me?’

‘As it happens.’

No, no
, she thought.
How dare he?
Yet his muttered request had crept under her defences …

They drew into the Manor House Home and parked. Annie clutched the notebook on her lap. ‘Have we really thought this through?’

‘There’s no other option.’ He sounded very, very bleak.

‘Shouldn’t we discuss it a bit longer?’

He turned to her, and she recoiled from his misery. ‘To what end? We need a hefty sum each month to keep my mother here. There’s no longer a hefty sum available … I
no longer have a job to supply any shortfall. What part of it don’t you understand?’

She said quietly, ‘You’re asking a lot of me.’

‘I know. But I’m also asking a lot of myself.’ Pause. ‘As I should.’

‘But
will
you be there? Will you do your bit?’

He jerked the keys out of the ignition. ‘Of course.’

Hermione was waiting for them in her room, which was suspiciously tidy and fiercely heated. ‘They always muck me out when they know you’re coming,’ she maintained. ‘Otherwise they don’t bother. I’m paying to be kept like a pig in a sty.’

Hermione’s complaints had flowed pretty well non-stop since she had taken up residence in Manor House a couple of years back. Naturally, Tom and Annie had done their best to investigate them. But they had quickly realized that solving any trifling problems was not really the point. Hermione liked to stir the pot. Boredom? Malice? Whatever the explanation, her skill at sowing suspicion was considerable and, mindful of the horror stories in the media, Annie always followed up any complaint.

Tom bent over and kissed his mother on the cheek and she submitted, more or less graciously. To Annie she extended a hand, a gesture the children were convinced she had copied from a photograph of Queen Victoria entertaining her imperial subjects that used to hang in Rose Cottage.

‘Annie, so nice that you could fit me into your busy timetable.’

‘Mother.’ Tom was sharp.

Hermione was never less than well turned out, usually in a tweed skirt and a cashmere sweater. These she bought
in quantities, wherever and whenever. Annie had a vivid memory of Hermione’s stockpiling activities (which would not have disgraced a professional retailer) on a family holiday in the Scottish borders when she was supposed to be helping out with the children, who were eight and five at the time. ‘I know you’re cross about this,’ she had said, as she buzzed off in the family car to the nearest wool mill, ‘but you’ll do the same one day, and a good thing too.’

‘I’ll kill her,’ Annie had hissed furiously to Tom in the privacy of their bedroom, which they were being forced to share with Emily.

‘It’s her holiday too,’ he said.

Tired and played out, Annie had ended that holiday – which had undoubtedly tested the relationship – mistrusting her mother-in-law and had mistrusted her ever since.

Tom sat down opposite his mother, and Annie busied herself tidying the pot plants on the window-sill.

‘Say what you’ve come to say,’ said Hermione.

Tom wasted no more time. He explained that he had lost his job – and that was one problem. ‘I see,’ said Hermione, who clearly didn’t. The second problem, Tom continued, was equally serious. He leaned forward and said earnestly, ‘Hermione, I’m afraid your finances have taken a battering recently. The thing is … your income isn’t sufficient for you to stay here.’

Hermione looked thunderstruck.

At the window, Annie ripped away savagely at the decaying leaves of an African violet.

‘Please look at this.’ Tom held out a spreadsheet crammed with figures.

Hermione barely glanced at it. ‘I leave all that to you. You’re the man of the family.’

‘OK.’ Tom smoothed the spreadsheet over his knee. ‘It shows that, at the present rate, your money will run out in approximately six months’ time.’

Hermione possessed a repertoire of laughs, and she favoured this audience with one of the harsher ones. ‘So?’

‘It means –’ began Tom.

Hermione shot a glance at Annie. ‘It means you will have to look after me.’

Crushing a fistful of dead leaves between her fingers, Annie said, ‘Given the financial circumstances, yes, we’re suggesting that you come and live with us.’

This time, Hermione’s laugh was appreciably strained. ‘That must hurt you to say.’

‘We’ll try to make you as comfortable as we can.’

‘And that, too. Heroic.’

‘Tom,’ Annie said quietly, ‘do you think you could ask your mother …’

‘Hermione,’ Tom warned, ‘this is not the time.’

Hermione caved in. ‘Forgive me, dear. It’s the shock.’

Annie dropped the detritus into the bin by the door. A sweet, spicy scent clung to her hands. ‘As I said, we’ll do our best to make you welcome.’

Hermione’s hooded lids drooped over her eyes. ‘I expect you will.’

Thrown by this unexpected shift, Annie crouched beside her mother-in-law’s chair. ‘I promise we will.’

All of a sudden, Hermione appeared shrunken and very frail. ‘I’ve got used to it here,’ she confessed, in a low voice, ‘and now you say I have to leave.’

‘I thought you hated it.’ Tom was as surprised as Annie.

‘I know its ways.’ She glanced at Annie as if for support.
‘The routines, you know. I didn’t like them at first, and I was angry with myself for … being here but I’ve made myself fit in.’

Annie strove not to sound reluctant. ‘You can have a routine with us.’

Hermione cast around for a problem, and found one. ‘I have coffee with Sheila every day. I wouldn’t have her to talk to.’

‘We’ll bring you to visit her.’ The quicksands were folding over life as it had been at number twenty-two and there was nothing Annie could do about it.

‘I see.’ Hermione looked away and out of the window. ‘Maybe I could have a cat.’

Annie moved fast to head that one off at the pass. ‘We’ll think about it later.’

Hermione was not stupid, and could read the runes as well as anyone. She abandoned that tack. She folded her hands in her lap. ‘It’s awful being old.’

Annie regarded the stricken figure with increasing apprehension. She raised her face to Tom’s and, with the leap of empathy that had bound them so securely together in the past, perceived that he did too.

Late that night, when they were getting ready for bed, she and Tom happened to collide in the corridor between the two bedrooms.

‘Sorry, I was cross earlier.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I can’t thank you enough.’ A dressing-gown-clad Tom touched her arm. ‘I want you to know that.’

She searched his face. ‘You’d better wait and see what happens before you thank me.’

‘I promise you I’ll take the lion’s share.’

Annie shivered. ‘I hope we can make her happy.’

‘There’s nothing else we can do.’ He gestured to his bedroom. ‘I’ll move upstairs to Jake’s room.’

A moment of silence.

‘Yes.’ She smoothed back her hair. ‘Of course.’

With Tom only a step or two away across the corridor, the fiction was maintained that their lives were still cobbled together. If his door was ajar, she liked to catch sight of him moving around in the faded tartan pyjamas that were long past their sell-by date. Occasionally, they shouted to each other across the neutral corridor and the times when she had bad dreams she left her door open deliberately.

‘That seems sensible. I’ll work out what needs to be done.’

Upstairs, an astonished Emily was conducting a difficult phone call with Jake. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t said anything to us,’ she said, bewildered that he should have kept such momentous news to himself. ‘Why didn’t you? You must be feeling …’ The writer searched for the best word but could only come up with ‘… dreadful.’

‘I couldn’t …’ said Jake, at his end of the line ‘… I couldn’t believe that Jocasta meant what she said. Then it took time for her to make arrangements to actually go.’ He paused. ‘I just wanted to lie low. You understand? Like an animal.’