Stop the Clock (27 page)

She had hoped that Christmas would bring them together as a trinity: Mum, Dad, Baby. But instead, she feared that their family was not so much a unit as two pairs, joined together by the practicalities of living
under the same roof: Mum and Baby, and Baby and Dad.

She and Richard had not yet broached the subject of whether Matilda would lose out as an only child. But Richard was still sleeping in the spare room, and they had somehow still not quite got round to sex since that half-hearted attempt in the run-up to the birth. So the creation of a sibling seemed a remote and hypothetical prospect.

This worried Natalie, but she was so preoccupied with looking after Matilda that it was easy to put off thinking about whether or not she would ever have another baby – easier, at any rate, than it would have been to force herself to think the whole thing through, and ask herself exactly why sex with Richard had become something she was content to do without.

They spent Christmas Day at Natalie’s parents’ house, where her brother David and his partner were also staying. She and Richard slept in the twin guest beds in her childhood bedroom, which still had the same old pink flowered curtains, and it felt quite normal for them to be entirely chaste.

She knew that it meant a lot to her parents to have their children and grandchild all together under one roof, but she found it as claustrophobic as if she was a teenager chafing to leave home. She escaped by taking Matilda out in the sling, accompanied by varying combinations of family members.

On one such stroll David fell in step beside her. They had a perfectly innocuous conversation about fishing, which he loved and she knew next to nothing about,
and then, out of the blue, he said, ‘Natalie, are you OK? Are you sure there’s nothing bothering you? Is everything all right?’

Thankfully no one else was in earshot, and she reassured him that she was fine, and he didn’t pursue it. Later, she wondered how he would have reacted if she’d confided in him: ‘I committed some kind of adultery with another woman; now I feel guilty and I’m doing my best to be a better wife and mother, but I’m still as miserable as sin.’ But no, it was unthinkable. She couldn’t confess all to the golden boy. ‘You see – I really am the gay daughter Mum and Dad never wanted!’ She didn’t want his enlightened response, his professional concern; there was nothing for him to fix, and still some pride left for her to lose.

Next came the visit to Richard’s parents and sister in Norfolk. She was acutely aware of being required to play a part, and the pressure to fulfil her role convincingly was increased by the knowledge that the audience, though accepting, was not automatically predisposed to take her side if something went wrong and the show ground to a halt. She and Richard were expected to share a bed, which was uncomfortable, but they did manage to sleep, and got through it with the minimum of touching. Richard’s mother did comment on how nice it would be if Natalie had a boy next time, but only once; perhaps the stony-faced reaction from both her son and her daughter-in-law persuaded her to keep her thoughts on the subject to herself.

Richard’s sister Amanda made a cake to celebrate Natalie’s birthday on 28 December, and his nieces,
who were aged three, five and eight, helped to blow the candles out. What an inauspicious start? arriving in the anticlimactic lull between Christmas and New Year, between birth and rebirth, when everybody was heavy and slothful and everything was suddenly half price.

Richard gave Natalie a surprise birthday present and watched her hopefully as she opened it. She schooled herself to look delighted – usually he stuck to the list she’d given him, he was obviously trying to be spontaneous – and smiled and thanked him when it turned out to be an imitation pearl necklace she definitely wouldn’t have chosen for herself. She’d have liked . . . maybe something a bit different, something
bold
. But still, she was touched that he’d made the effort. As she tried it on, and the nieces made admiring comments, she wondered how often she ought to wear it. Once a week? A couple of times a month? Less?

By New Year’s Eve she, Richard and Matilda were all back home, and the visiting season was over. Richard promptly came down with flu and retreated to bed. They’d been invited to a black-tie cocktail party at the large Dulwich home of one of his more successful colleagues, and while he agonized about cancelling, she could tell he was secretly relieved – any social event that involved waiters and canapés made Richard slightly nervous. She was surprised to find that she was disappointed, even though she, too, had been a little intimidated at the prospect of snacking on deep-fried tempura while making fluent small talk with people it was necessary to impress.

Anyway, she still had an excuse to get her sequinned cardie out, and put her black silk frock on, and at least she’d be able to have a proper chat with Tina and Lucy, and wouldn’t be obliged to rush off.

When the time came for her to leave, Matilda was tucked up in her cot and sleeping soundly, while Richard was lying on the sofa under his duvet with his pyjamas on and a box of tissues to hand, watching more of
The World at War
on DVD.

She perched next to him, and said, ‘Are you sure this is all right? I feel rotten leaving you.’

‘Do you know what,’ Richard said, ‘I’m actually feeling a little bit brighter. Don’t worry about me. New Year’s never really been my thing, you know that.’

‘That’s true,’ Natalie agreed.

‘I haven’t always been much fun for you, have I?’ Richard said. He looked at her wistfully – his glasses had the effect of always magnifying his expressions. ‘You should go out and have a good time. Don’t feel you have to hurry back. We’ll be fine here, me and Matilda. I’m probably going to turn in soon anyway.’

He reached for a tissue and blew his nose, and she stood and planted a motherly kiss on his mild, balding forehead, and went off to get her coat.

Natalie was a nervous driver, and avoided using the car as much as possible; but she knew it would be difficult to get a taxi back, and decided there was really no other option. Luckily, she was able to find a space big enough for her less-than-adroit parking right behind Tina’s new, sensible, family hatchback. Natalie knew that
Tina had been sad to sell on her little sports car, and her sympathy was mixed with self-pity and resignation. That was how it was when you had a child; you had to try to be practical, and plan ahead, and not indulge yourself.

Tina had told her that Lucy was coming too, having arranged for Hannah to babysit. Natalie thought this was particularly selfless of Hannah, who was still, after all, in her twenties, and might legitimately have had plans to get dressed up and go out clubbing, and taking drugs, and pulling; Natalie gathered that, despite being such an obviously sexually attractive person – louche, lanky, slouching, with a sort of boyish insouciance – Hannah was still inexplicably single. But then, perhaps Hannah felt guilty for having moved out just as Lucy’s marriage fell apart; though Natalie thought that, from Hannah’s point of view, it was probably best that she had. Natalie would never have said so to Lucy, but she had wondered for some time how healthy it was for either sister for Hannah to be lodging in Lucy’s attic as a sort of au pair.

It was obvious that Lucy had decided to make the most of her evening off. As Natalie settled on Tina’s sofa she noted that Lucy was talking a little too fast and a little too loud, and tucking in to what was obviously not her first glass of champagne.

Natalie glanced at Tina, hoping that Tina would give her a look back that said something like
I know, just humour her, I’ll try not to top her up too often
, but Tina didn’t seem to be paying much attention to either of them. She was struggling to crack a walnut, and looked grumpy and withdrawn.

Natalie remembered the bad scene back in the spring, when she had been heavily pregnant, as Tina was now, and Tina and Lucy had ended up virtually trading blows across her bump. Was tonight going to be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire? For a moment she almost wished herself back home with Richard, who just didn’t do drama, and was only ever harsh towards himself.

Lucy was complaining about Adam cancelling arrangements to see the children at short notice, or turning up late. Then she told them about Adam’s girlfriend.

‘It won’t last,’ she said with grim satisfaction. ‘It’s obviously just sex, and when that burns out, he’ll find out they’ve got nothing in common. And anyway, she’s twenty-six, and before long she’s going to want to settle down, and I can’t imagine that he’ll want to start another family. She seems to have been nagging him to get a proper job, though, so I suppose I ought to be grateful to her for that. Anyway, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I’ve decided I’m going to try internet dating.’

‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ Tina asked. ‘Not that I’ve ever done it, apart from for an article, but I got the impression it can be a bit of a ruthless meat market. Mightn’t you be . . . you know . . . a bit on the rebound? Maybe you should give yourself some more time. You don’t have to move on just to show Adam you can do it too.’

‘After what I’ve been through, do you really think a bad date or two is going to hurt me?’ Lucy said. ‘I’m just
looking for a bit of fun, that’s all. I’m not looking for a soulmate.’

‘It’s just that in my experience, sometimes, when you’re upset, you do things you think will make you feel better, but actually just leave you in a worse mess than the one you were in to start with,’ Tina said.

‘We can’t all be as self-sufficient as you are, Tina,’ Lucy said. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how you’ve managed it, being single all these years. Didn’t you ever find it lonely? Because I’m so lonely it’s killing me.’

As soon as she’d said this she looked quite taken aback by her own frankness – and Tina looked stung.

‘I was lonely, sometimes,’ Tina said.

‘But you were always so busy at work,’ Lucy said. ‘And you seemed to go out an awful lot. I don’t suppose you had much time to think about it.’

Tina straightened and sighed, and when she spoke it was with regret.

‘I was having an affair with a married man,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t just a fling. It went on for years. I got together with him just before the millennium, and we broke up in the spring.’

Lucy stared at her aghast. Then she screwed up her face in concentration and began to calculate.

‘So . . .’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘Did you think he might be the father of your baby?’

‘I did.’

‘But he isn’t.’

‘No.’

‘Who was he?’

Tina shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘I’ve never told anyone. He has a certain profile in public life.’

Lucy swung round to face Natalie. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘Um. Yes,’ Natalie said.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ Lucy rounded on Tina. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Look, I’m not proud of it, and it’s over,’ Tina said. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’

‘Of course it matters! You had this massive thing going on in your life, and I had absolutely no idea.’

‘I thought you’d disapprove,’ Tina said. She looked rather hangdog, and had both hands clasped protectively around the base of her belly.

‘Of course I would have disapproved! How could you? How could you do that to another woman? It’s a dreadful thing to do. What on earth possessed you? I can just about see how somebody could make a mistake, but to keep on deliberately doing it, that’s something else entirely.’

Tina shrugged. ‘I thought I loved him,’ she said, and then added, ‘Also, to be honest, it fitted in with work, as we couldn’t see each other all that often.’

‘It fitted in with work,’ Lucy said. ‘What sort of reason is that for a ten-year relationship?’

‘Would anybody like some more tortilla chips?’ Natalie said, but Lucy ignored her.

‘Adam had been at Carlosto International longer than you’ve been at the
Post
, and they made him redundant just like that,’ she said to Tina. ‘A job isn’t for life any
more than a marriage is. But I hope you never have to find that out.’

Natalie said, ‘Everything’s so insecure, isn’t it? Even the Department for Children, Schools and Families is going to be making some cutbacks—’

‘Natalie,’ Lucy said, ‘don’t try and change the subject!’

She rounded on Tina again.

‘It’s women like you who make it impossible for the rest of us,’ she said. ‘Women who are prepared to sacrifice anything and everything to get what they want.’

‘Then the only difference between us,’ Tina said, ‘is that you were willing to sacrifice yourself.’

And then Lucy began to cry. She didn’t make a noise; the tears slid from her eyes and splashed on to her novelty snowflake jumper and caught in the wool.

‘I did,’ she said softly. ‘I know I did. And it still didn’t work. I did the absolute best I could, and it wasn’t enough.’

Natalie, who had become warier than ever about physical contact with other women, tentatively put an arm around her. Lucy didn’t recoil.

Tina said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and got up and squeezed on to the sofa on the other side of Lucy. She took a box of tissues from the coffee table and offered them to Lucy, who took one and blew her nose.

‘I found them, you know – Adam and Hannah,’ she said, ‘in our bedroom. They couldn’t have hurt me any more if they’d sat down and deliberately decided to destroy me. And in a way I think they have. I know
I’m a mess . . . barely holding it together. I’m drunk every night . . . Right now I can barely see straight. I wanted my children to have a better time than I did. And somehow it’s all turning out exactly the same.’

There was a short, shocked silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and the sound of Lucy trying to stop crying. Natalie saw in Tina’s face a reflection of her own sudden appalled understanding. So that was why both Adam and Hannah had gone; that was what Lucy had been going through, and hadn’t felt able to talk about. So much damage. The family undone, the home irrevocably broken.

Tina caught Natalie’s eye and grimaced as if to say, ‘Adam and Hannah – what a revolting pair!’ Natalie realized that Tina had already revised her impatience with Hannah and reluctant acceptance of Adam into loyal contempt for both of them. Lucy looked up, and her big brown eyes were wet and bleak and squashed-looking. Tina reached out to squeeze her hand.