Separate Beds (32 page)

An uncharacteristically hesitant Hermione confronted
Annie. ‘He’s lost. I couldn’t stop him following me home. He just wouldn’t go away.’

Minor chaos was unleashed. Dog and baby gave vent together while Annie and Hermione were engaged in a frank, almost no-holds-barred conversation about Hermione’s decision to act as a one-woman lost-dogs’ home.

Jake took the opportunity to hustle Jocasta outside on to the pavement.

Here, the summer light was less forgiving and revealed Jocasta’s eyes and skin to be dull and jetlagged. Her lipstick had backed up into a rim around her lips, exposing a naked pink area, and one of her nails had broken off – the vulnerabilities that Jocasta always tried to cover up.

Jake clocked all this relatively dispassionately. The smart, seemingly armour-plated, recently deplaned businesswoman was also the woman with whom he had shared a bed and a bathroom. He knew that she liked to sleep on her side. He knew that, as a result of a childhood injury, she found it harder to raise her left leg when putting on her tights than her right. He knew she liked her showers dangerously hot and, however cold the weather, never wore a vest. Those tiny details had been the markers of a former intimacy: secret and precious. Yet, with a slight shock, he understood they no longer possessed the power to move him as once they had.

‘And?’ Jocasta searched in her expensive bag and produced her sunglasses. Naturally, they were expensive but, he noted unworthily, pretty vulgar with the monogram.

‘I beg you to think of Maisie.’

She tapped a high heel down on the pavement. ‘I
am
thinking of Maisie,’ she explained, as if to an imbecile.
‘That’s the point. Have
you
thought about Maisie and what’s best for her rather than for you? I don’t think so.’

Since the break-up of his marriage, Jake had explored the depths and complexity of anger. Before then, cushioned by his family and an easy cruise through life, he hadn’t understood that anger came in so many guises. He had known about the red-hot variety (he had done that with parents and sisters), but bitter, choking, murderous, acid and contemptuous? This was emotional new-found land. Yet, for the sake of his daughter, he was required to be calm. If that was what would secure him an advantage in the war Jocasta had declared, then he would make damn sure that the flat, glassy Sargasso Sea appeared turbulent beside him.

‘Jocasta, why the sudden change of heart?’

‘I don’t know. It’s muddled.’ She surprised Jake by shedding her usual fluency and stumbling over sentences. ‘I missed Maisie. But I think you understand what I’m saying, even if you pretend not to.’

A hint that the feelings he had for his daughter might be shared by Jocasta? Behind her, a sorbus tree had had one of its lower branches torn off by vandals. The ragged scar appeared to sprout out of the top of Jocasta’s head. The effect was a touch ridiculous and made him feel a lot better.

He shrugged. ‘I haven’t understood you since the day you walked out. One day, maybe …’

‘I see.’ Jocasta pulled back from a threatened display of emotion. ‘Just to reiterate. America is a great place for kids. And our house, the pool, the school …’

Maisie might have been a missing piece of household décor. ‘You mean you need a child to complete this cosy set-up.’

Clapboard house, swing in the garden fringed by maples, turquoise pool, white towels on a lounger.

‘Don’t you and Noah plan a family? Or is Noah only a stepping stone?’

‘For God’s sake, Jake.’

The vivid mental scenario was now augmented by a male figure moving around the edge of the pool – but Jake couldn’t make up his mind if the Noah in question was a WASP showcase or a foxy, pallid banker on the run from banking scandals. Either way, the picture proved to be too painful. ‘Actually, I don’t wish to know what you and Noah are getting up to.’

Jocasta dropped her eyes. ‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Right.’ He smiled thinly. ‘But Maisie is. I won’t allow you to take her away from all that she knows.’

Jocasta shrugged. ‘Children forget.’ She settled the strap of her handbag more securely. ‘You’re being sentimental again. The old Jake still rules.’ Jake made no move and she peered at him. ‘Then again, perhaps not. You’re definitely older, sterner and less compliant.’ The notion pleased her, or amused her, and she smiled and touched him fleetingly on the cheek. ‘More interesting?’

To his relief, the display left him quite cold. During their marriage, Jocasta had called the shots – and he, submerged in lust and sweet love, had freely admitted it. Jocasta’s mistake was to imagine that she still held that whip in her hand.

‘You’ve done me a favour coming back, Jocasta.’

She looked mystified – but Jake was not going to enlighten her. ‘I’ll be in touch, then,’ she said, after a moment, and moved away down the street. Already she was talking into the mobile. Ordering a taxi? Jocasta rarely operated without
a taxi waiting for her, which meant she must have been very unsure of her reception – and its outcome.

The front door opened and Tom, Annie, with Maisie in her arms, and Emily filed out and gathered on the pavement. Together they observed Jocasta’s graceful retreat.

‘She’s not having Maisie,’ announced Jake. ‘I’ll fight tooth and nail.’

His father clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t panic, Jake.’

As she neared the crossroads, Jocasta glanced around and her step faltered. For a long time to come, Jake would derive satisfaction that her final snapshot of her husband and daughter would have been of them surrounded by a bunch of Nicholsons.

The chaos of the day subsided – but not that much.

Maisie was unsure how to react to the dog and alternated between shrieks of pleasure and wails of fear so Jake bore her away upstairs.

Hermione sat in the kitchen while Emily sponged out a stain on the precious scarf. ‘I hope it’s not what I think it is.’ She hung it over the drying-rack.

Small, thin, rough-coated and an indeterminate shade of dun-beige, the dog shivered with nerves and apprehension. ‘Its owner is probably going mad looking for it,’ said Annie, examining the matted coat for wounds.

‘Have you looked at it, Mum?’ Emily said. ‘It hasn’t been near an owner for weeks. I bet they abandoned it because they couldn’t afford it any more.’

‘What is it, do you think?

Emily hazarded, ‘Dachshund crossed with haystack?’

Reluctantly, Annie poured it some milk and hacked a gobbet of chicken off the carcass in the fridge. The dog flung itself on this bounty and devoured it, proving Emily correct.

‘I don’t know why it attached itself to me,’ said Hermione.

‘As if we don’t have enough on our plates,’ said Annie.

At that the dog bolted out of the kitchen and up the stairs and took refuge,
of course
, in Hermione’s room. She had set off in pursuit when Tom and Jake, who had been conferring outside, came back in. She leaned over the banister. ‘Your mother,’ she hissed. ‘We can’t have a dog. We just
can’t
.’

Tom glanced up. ‘Calm down.’

There was no sign of the dog in Hermione’s bedroom. Annie dropped on to her hands and knees by the bed. Lifting up the bedspread, she peered underneath. ‘There you are.’ The little body was pressed hard against the wall. Its flanks heaved and a pair of terrified eyes met hers.

Human and animal exchanged glances – one beaten, the other about to be. Neither quite understood – yet – what was required of them. The little dog’s weary eyes closed for a second – and Annie felt the weight of its unjust world transfer itself to her: all the cruelties and betrayals that it had encountered and did not deserve. ‘Not you as well,’ she said.

‘Where’s Tom?’ she demanded, on returning to the kitchen.

No one bothered to answer but Hermione asked, ‘Where’s the dog?’

Annie stuck a hand on her hip. ‘In your room, Hermione, as it happens. It won’t come out from under the bed.’

‘Leave it to me,’ she said grandly. ‘I’m good with dogs.’

‘Since when, Hermione?’ Annie strained to remember the last possible time Hermione might have had an opportunity to be good with dogs.

‘Rollo, dear,’ Hermione reproved her.

‘Oh, him.’ Rollo, the fat and gentle Labrador with whom Hermione had shared the cottage when Annie had first met Tom.

Hermione helped herself to a bowl and a packet of HobNobs from the cupboard, then made for the door.

‘Hermione, where are you going with those?’

‘Bait, Annie.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘In all the years I’ve known you, I had no idea you were so harsh.’

‘Hermione, you can’t keep him. The house is full.’ Hermione paid no attention. ‘Hermione, did you hear me?’

HobNobs in one hand, bowl in the other, Hermione halted in her flight path. ‘I wish Mia was here. She was my ally.’ Within seconds, she could be heard stiffly ascending the stairs to her room.

Annie gazed after her. It was true. Mia could always be relied on to champion her grandmother. Favouritism, protested Jake and Emily, who resented the way in which Hermione dished out presents to Mia and not to them. Defending herself after it had come to a head and there had been a really big argument, Mia had declared that some animals did better than others and there would always be jealousy. (That was one way of explaining it, reflected an enraged Annie, who had had to deal with the fallout from Hermione’s mischief.) Subsequently, in a touching scene,
Mia had confessed that she hadn’t realized how resentful the other two felt and, from then on, she would share out her presents with them. She had been quite distressed about it, and her small, thin hands had trembled as she owned up to her short-sightedness.

The familiar fist squeezed Annie’s insides.
Don’t
think about Mia. She sat down with a thump. What more was there? ‘Where’s your father?’ she demanded of Jake – he had returned downstairs with Maisie, who was dressed for an outing.

‘Garden? He said he needed some air.’

Emily said, ‘’Bye, everyone. I’ve got to go. Office stuff … good luck.’

‘It’s Saturday,’ Annie pointed out.

‘Rats and sinking ships,’ Jake addressed Emily. ‘Mean anything to you?’

‘Can’t think what you’re talking about.’

‘But forgiveness for scarpering at the first whiff of a family crisis is yours because you’re a Good Sister.’

Emily smiled happily at him.

Hand still anchored on hip, Annie said, ‘So, it’ll be me ringing the vet? Or the dogs’ home?’ She visualized the bleak procedure. Lure dog into car. Drive to dogs’ home. Leave dog in cage while she trudged back along the concrete aisles between other cages that contained howling or hopeless canines.

‘’Bye,’ said Emily again.

Maisie under one arm, Jake hoicked the pushchair into the hall with the other hand. ‘’Bye.’

Tom was in the shed. Of course. Annie wrenched open the door and found him cleaning the clippers with a rag.

‘You come back inside this minute, and help me sort this out.’

He knew of old that Annie in this mood was inexorable and he found himself marched smartly into the sitting room.

The computer was on. The shoal of brightly coloured fish swam across it and the light from the window exposed with particular clarity a level of deep litter on the desk, which he knew would distress Annie.

‘Maisie and the dog. What are we going to do?’

Tom paced the carpet. ‘I don’t care about the dog. Let my mother keep it, if it makes her happy. We’ve got Maisie to sort out.’

Annie picked up the magazines and banged a cushion into shape. ‘Tom, this house is bulging.’ As she talked, her indignation swelled.
Bang
. ‘It’s becoming impossible.’
Bang
. ‘Claustrophobic.’ She tossed the cushion on to the sofa. ‘I can’t do it all. The dog has to go.’

Actually, to Tom’s fine-tuned ear, she didn’t sound
that
decided. Every so often Annie had episodes of cushion-bashing or saucepan-clattering, which served as an outlet for her feelings. Afterwards, she was – usually – perfectly reasonable.

‘It’s an animal in trouble, and my mother could look after it.’

She practically bared her teeth at him. ‘Your
mother
? What planet are you on? It wouldn’t be your mother taking it for walks at all hours of the day and night.’

They were like pumice, rubbing away at each other’s skin, which struck him as amusing.

Annie halted in her frenzy. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘The cushion-bashing. Haven’t seen you do that for some time. I quite like it.’

‘No dog,’ she reiterated, and sat down on the sofa.

He sighed nostalgically. ‘You never listen to me.’

She had in the early days, when she’d walked alongside him. Then they had shared the same outlook. Each morning, she had watched him set off for the office in his shabby overcoat or jacket and radiated love. He was, she confided to him, doing the right thing as he and his colleagues wrestled to expose discrimination and political turmoil – and her whispered approval had been music to his ears.

‘The
dog
, Tom –’ She checked herself. ‘Why am I going on about the dog? Maisie is much more important.’

Tom resumed his pacing. ‘It can’t happen,’ he declared passionately. ‘I won’t let it.’

At that, Annie unravelled herself from the sofa and blocked his exit. ‘No, Tom. Listen.
Listen
. We’ve got to be very careful. It’s Jake and Jocasta’s business, not ours. We have to understand that.’ She placed her hands on his shoulders. ‘She’s Maisie’s
mother
. We are going to have to be very clever … and realistic.’ She searched his face. ‘
Are
you listening? Whatever we may feel, Jocasta has a right to her daughter as well as Jake. We must be sure that we’re fair, otherwise we’ll make problems for the future. And mothers count for a lot in court.’

He said stubbornly, ‘Maisie belongs here.’ She dropped her hands and turned away. ‘Annie, look at me. I’m not going to stand by and allow that – witch to take Jake’s daughter.’

Because we let Mia go.
The unspoken words
.