This Holey Life (21 page)

As for me, I am sitting on the dustbowl with Dad who is watching the box, for a change. I am giving Imo a last feed. We’ve been doing pretty well, just mornings and bedtimes but she needs
one for the road. I’ll knuckle down once we’re back and our routine gets under way again.

Imo drifts off and I tip her up and pat her back gently, her soft warm back, gathering the energy to speak to Dad, last chance for a while. ‘So you’ll be alright with us going home?
You’ll manage?’

‘I’ve got Pat,’ he says, matter-of-fact, eyes on the screen.

‘Yes, you’ve got Pat.’ I wind Imo a little more vigorously.

‘And what about the anaemia? What have the doctors said about that?’

‘They said I wasn’t eating properly. They said proper grub and some iron tablets will sort me out.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Well, insist you get another blood test soon. To make sure your blood’s back to normal.’

‘Nothing wrong with my blood. Pat’s doing me some liver and bacon later. Special treat, she said.’

I bet she did.

I’m about to say something to this effect when Dad zaps off the telly, rests the remote on his knees, sitting still like he’s in church, waiting for the right moment to speak.
It’s suddenly very quiet. The clock ticks on the mantelpiece. Rachel and Olivia screech somewhere upstairs, like baby gulls.

‘You can get help, you know,’ he says, a slight tremor in his normally assured voice.

‘With the kids... ?’

‘No, not the kids. You’re doing a grand job with the kids. For you, I mean.’ His knees jig up and down; the remote wobbles.

‘What... a cleaner?’

‘You really think you need a cleaner?’ Dad tries a smile.

‘No.’

‘Well then. No, I mean for your... for Thomas. You can get help to get over it.’ The remote falls to the floor and as I reach down for it, clutching a heavy Imo, Dad stops me,
grabbing my hand and holding it the way I held my daughters’ yesterday on his bedroom floor, Mum all around me.

‘Get over it?’

He lets go of my hand, hearing the sharp note in my words.

‘I mean “him”. Get over “him”.’

‘I don’t want to get over him, Dad. Why should I get over him? It’s all I’ve got left. This... thing.’

‘It’s called grief, Vicky-Love and it’s been going on long enough. I know you’ll never get right over him,’ he goes on, ‘I’ll never get over losing your
mum. But... look at me, Vicky... you can feel better about things. I feel better about things. It doesn’t stop me missing her, mind, but I don’t wake up and wonder what’s the
point in getting up no more. I want to get up and have my cuppa and listen to the radio. I want to get out in the garden and smell the sweet peas, pick the runners, sow the potatoes. See spring and
autumn come and go, the year passing. It was winter for a long time but now the sun’s shining.’

We look out the window at the flat grey Worthing sky.

‘Not brilliant sunshine, granted, but enough to lighten your day every now and then... ’ He catches his breath. ‘Steve must know someone. You get all sorts in
churches.’

The phone goes, grabbing our attention. Here’s my chance to avoid carrying on this conversation. I plonk Imo on his lap, rush over and pick it up.

‘Vicky, you coming home today?’

‘Tamarine?’

‘Yes, yes, is me, Tamarine. You coming home today?’

‘We’re leaving any minute now. Is everything alright?’

‘There is problem with your brother. He had fight with my Bob. And my Bob better fighter than your brother. Your brother he got brains somewhere I guess though I can’t see them but
my Bob he got muscle. Your brother he’s in your house. I let him in with your keys. I try to keep him out of Bob’s way. You better come back and sort him out.’

Tamarine’s gone before I can ask what the fight was about. Instead I kiss Dad goodbye, peppermint and compost, ignoring the exasperated look he tries to pin on me, telling him I’ll
phone him later, there’s a problem at home with Bob.

I don’t mention Martin. Not till I know more. Not to protect Martin, to protect Dad. He doesn’t need this. I don’t need this. But I need to go home. My home.

We reach Dulwich around lunchtime. Indeed Claudia is already having a lunch of smoked salmon and her favoured organic crusty bread as we drop Jeremy off. I leave Steve in the
car with the girls while I escort Jeremy inside so it’s just he and I who stumble across Claudia’s lunch guest and I realise that it is her writer. Woody Allen. Jeremy shows an
extraordinary lack of guile, beaming a bright ‘hello, Mum’, as if this wasn’t a man after his father’s crown. But Claudia gives the game away, her cheeks flushing like
she’s had a bad glass of red wine, coughing like she’s swallowed a stray fish bone.

I give Jeremy a squeeze of the shoulder and leave him with his adulterous mother.

To add insult to injury, as we are chugging out of Dulwich, I spot the wretched shoe-fitting student, Melanie. She is hand-in-hand with a tall, slim, cleanly-shaven young man,
strutting towards the park. And if she notices me giving her daggers, she ignores it. She stares boldly ahead like she is the only woman in the world, and her newly-found partner is the only boy.
How fickle are the young. How stupid the middle-aged.

Martin is sitting in our kitchen when we get back, a bag of garden peas strapped to the side of his face with Jeremy’s old school tie. He has a black eye and dried blood
on his cheek, right above the skanky beard. He glances up from his work and smiles as if he is the bountiful host, welcoming unexpected guests. ‘Cup of tea, anyone?’

Rachel says: ‘Wow, Uncle Martin, cool.’ Then, seeing my face, backs out the room, joining Olivia who has gone straight to the telly.

Steve deposits Imo, asleep in her bucket, on the messed-up table and says: ‘No, no, Martin, you sit there while I put the kettle on,’ as if Martin has been mugged, as if he’s
been invalided through no fault of his own.

‘Never mind the tea, Martin. What the hell have you been playing at?’

‘Ask that... ignoramus next door.’

‘So this is Bob’s fault, is it?’

‘Him and the Thai bride.’

‘Leave Tamarine out of this.’ Sexist, racist pig. Though, hang on... Tamarine? ‘What’s this got to do with Tamarine?’

Martin is quiet for a moment, weighing up how much to tell me, I know that scheming mind of his. He used it on Mum and Dad often enough. How much could he let on without getting into trouble?
How much could he hold back without getting found out? He takes a puff of his inhaler to add to the invalid effect.

Steve leaves us, taking Imo with him. I have Martin to myself and I am going to let rip if needs must. ‘Well?’

‘Don’t try your primary school teacher tactics on me. They won’t wash. I’m not a naughty boy.’

‘Exactly, Martin. You’re an adult and yet you’ve been fighting. Would you care to tell me why?’

‘It’s all Bob’s fault.’

‘Really.’

‘Yes, really. He reckoned I was chatting up his wife and told me to eff off. So I punched him.’

‘You punched Bob? Haven’t you heard of the concept of walking away or turning the other cheek? Even a Dawkins follower like you must agree that’s a good way of avoiding
confrontations.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Me? Ridiculous? I’m not the one sat there with a bag of Bird’s Eye on my head.’

Martin slouches further down the chair and removes the bag. I snatch the peas off him and put them back in the freezer; they’re starting to drip. Without thinking I make him a cup of tea
while he sits there sighing and moaning and taking more puffs.

‘Have you got any painkillers? It’s starting to hurt.’

I remove two aspirins from the packet in my handbag and hand them over with his tea. I have no words and the surprise of me not berating him does something to Martin. It gets him talking without
me having to probe.

‘I was only passing the time of day. She’s a nice woman,’ he says as if ‘nice’ and ‘woman’ are words that rarely go together.

‘She was telling me she came over here to study for a masters and I only asked her how she ended up washing Bob’s car and looking after his kid.’

‘What business is it of yours how she lives her life? Maybe she likes washing Bob’s car. And I know for a fact she loves Jessica like she was her own.’ I pour myself a glass of
wine, forget tea. I can’t believe the cheek of the man. He barely knows Tamarine yet he expects her to live a life he’s never let his own wife live, not without huge amounts of jealousy
and fuss. ‘And did Bob hear you say all this?’

‘Not exactly. It was just bad timing.’

‘In what way bad timing?’

‘She dropped her sponge and I was picking it up and... ’

‘Stop.’ I hold my hand up. ‘I don’t actually want to know any more details – it’s all a bit too Carry On if you ask me.’

‘That fat pillock made false accusations. I merely showed an interest in her academic career and suggested she give me a ring. I was only handing her my card.’

‘You and your stupid cards.’

‘You’re just jealous you don’t have any. Why don’t you get some printed up? Mrs Vicky-Love, Patron Saint of Good Housekeeping and Smugness.’

‘Believe me, Martin,’ I whisper. ‘If I had money to waste, it wouldn’t be on stupid poncey cards. And as for smugness, you beat me there, hands down. You beat me at
everything. Except for housekeeping. I’m a good housekeeper. You’re right there. Nobody bothered when we were growing up. And I don’t see anyone queuing up to do it
now.’

Martin looks bemused. And then he says it; he says those words. Words he used to say all the time whenever I got het up about anything. He says: ‘Why are you getting your knickers in a
twist?’

And all those holidays in Worthing cramped into the B&B, all those Christmases sat watching Morecambe and Wise, enduring his running commentaries and eating all the best Quality Streets, all
those Eurovisions, all those trips down the chemist, all my friends swooning at his big fat smelly feet, all these last few weeks running around, picking up after his responsibilities, all these
images swim before my eyes and then merge and blur into one hellish red and I feel my arm swing back and then, for one glorious moment, my fist touches his face, bodily contact for the first time
in our lives, Martin and I. One glorious second and then my brother is lying on the floor, curled up on his back like a swatted fly, his hands covering what was his good eye, a train of expletives
filling the warm air of my kitchen. I go to the fridge, my fridge, to the ice compartment and, before leaving for the garden, I lob the peas at his horizontal body, sprawled on the kitchen floor.
My kitchen floor. Ha!

Thoughts for the Day:
I have no thoughts. My mind is empty. Blissfully, miraculously empty.

Martin is in trouble. Big trouble. A policeman came to the house and told Mum and Dad that Martin has been up to no good in the park. The parky caught him smoking. But then
it gets worse. Ha, ha! Martin showed off in front of these fifth years from the Girls Grammar. He set fire to a rocket and it landed in the pond. Two ducks had a heart attack and were floating on
the water.

The police are not going to lock him up in jail, worse luck. He has been given a warning. Boo. But Dad is really angry with him. He said that he always had a feeling something like this would
happen. Der! I could have told him that. Martin has done stupid things all his life. It’s just that he doesn’t usually get caught.

And when Heidi finds out he’s been flirting with the Grammar girls she will be cross. But I don’t want her to chuck Martin because I like Heidi. She makes Martin less of a pig. At
least some of the time.

Chapter Twenty-Six:
Tuesday 26th February

We have been home nearly a week and in that time I have seen neither my brother nor my nephew. I miss one, certainly not the other. I feel no remorse for flooring Martin, just
relief that I didn’t do this in front of my children who I have told countless times that violence is wrong. I agree that violence is wrong but I also feel that on occasion, under duress or
when there is no other choice, it is understandable, or even needed. The moment my fist came into contact with my brother’s face was both understandable and needed. How else would he have
known that what
he
did was wrong? Hitting on another man’s wife and then hitting the husband? I had no choice. And one consequence of this is that he hasn’t come near the place.
My job here is done.

Rachel’s assembly. A school hall, heady with the smell of musty plimsolls and yesterday’s mashed potato. Steve and I have found two seats, next to Tamarine and Bob.
We wait impatiently and somewhat anxiously, a child apiece wriggling on our laps, for the show to get underway. We never know if Rachel will join in or limply stand there, wearing her face of
scorn. It is uncomfortable, squatting on the miniature chairs, brushed up against Bob’s fat thighs, but I grin and bear it. Now is the time to be working on our friendship, sabotaged by my
brother. These are our next door neighbours; they have to put up with the constant visitors to our house, with Imo’s screams, with the general racket that goes on in our family. Admittedly we
have to put up with Jessica’s ball-kicking and Bob’s ways but that’s what you do with your neighbours. You learn to live with each other’s idiosyncrasies and you are there
when they run out of teabags or with a spare key. I never have to see my brother again.

Bob is at the ready with his camcorder. Yet again I have forgotten our camera. And I’ve given up with my phone because whenever Imo spots it she screams till she has it in her chubby
little hands, desperate to try and cram it into her mouth. So I will have to rely on my memory but sadly it’s not what it was. Though some things can never be forgotten.

At last the members of Class 12 file in, subdued, heads down. Only last year they still looked out for their parents, grinning and waving. Now they are on that cusp, feeling the burden of
embarrassment. The girls blush and the boys slyly nudge each other. I want Rachel to be small again, wriggling on my lap, sucking her thumb and twiddling a strand of my hair. I knew what I was
doing then – now it’s all... scary... the teenage road ahead. I was a hopeless teenager.