This Holey Life (23 page)

Church. Looking round the congregation I can see mothers who are usually checking their watches wondering if they have to leave early to put on the potatoes. Today they are
more relaxed, knowing they will be taken out to lunch or at the very least have lunch cooked for them. I, on the other hand, had the bright idea of asking people over and cooking lunch myself. I
thought it would be nice to share the day with the other mothers in my life, namely Claudia and Dorota. This obviously means catering for Jeremy and Roland as well but both of these I am looking
forward to having back in the house. But it also means Martin. Because if I didn’t let Claudia know I’d invited him she might have snuck in Charles Dickens. I slip out early and enjoy a
half hour of silence, alone in the house, my house, peeling parsnips to go with a beef casserole that is already slowly cooking, praise be to God.

A crash at the door lets me know my silence has been massacred. Martin. And he’s not alone. Please, no, not Melanie. No. A man’s cough. A familiar cough. Dad?

I rush out to the hall, wiping my hands on my apron and see Dad, standing there while Martin helps him out of his coat, taking care with the wrist.

‘Dad. What a lovely surprise,’ I give him a kiss. Pat hasn’t managed to get rid of the potting shed scent yet.

‘We’ve been down the off-licence.’ He gently shrugs me off, his usual way, no fuss, straightening his cuffs. ‘Shocking prices but there’s a nice bottle of fizzy
wine.’

Martin hands it over. ‘
Champagne
, Vicky-Love. Get your laughing gear around that.’

I mutter a thank you and lead the way to the kitchen where I sit Dad down and he fills me in on the surprise, that it was Martin’s idea to fetch him for lunch. I am immediately suspicious
of my brother’s motives and yet begrudgingly thankful to have Dad here, where I can see him for myself, not via Pat’s colourful descriptions down the telephone.

I hand him the peeler and a heap of carrots. ‘Reckon your wrist is up to that?

Dad doesn’t answer, turns the peeler over in his good hand as if it’s a new invention, something he has heard about but never actually seen. I rummage around in the drawer and find
another, which I present to Martin. ‘You can do it between you while I make us a coffee.’

‘I’ll have a brown ale if you’ve got one,’ Dad says.

‘And I’ll have a beer,’ Martin adds.

Great. Once Dorota gets here with her sherry – unless she’s stuck to her Lenten promise – we’ll be in for an interesting ride this afternoon. A cultural cocktail of
delight.

Half an hour later and the hordes arrive, bringing bottles and flowers and noise. First Roland and Dorota, then Steve and the girls, and finally Claudia and Jeremy. Claudia is
dressed for lunch at Claridge’s in a linen dress and her signature kitten heels (I can feel the tingling onset of bunions just looking at them). Dorota is wearing her usual baggy cotton
trousers and tent-top but with a new ring on her wedding finger (Hallelujah).

All hands to the deck – apart from Claudia who has recently-done nails – as we sieve vegetables, warm up plates and carry food through to the back room which today earns the title of
dining room, Jeremy’s zed-bed neatly folded to one side, his belongings tidied into stacker boxes. I am more grateful than ever that Martin has not caved in and got a replacement cello,
though there has been talk of renting one. Another reason to work on marriage mediation between my brother and his wife.

As we are sitting down and starting to pass round serving dishes, the doorbell goes. I run though a quick list of possible visitors in my mind when Steve says, ‘Oh, yes, Vick, I
forgot.’ He smacks his forehead in genuine horror so I feel panic rising like bile. ‘I half-invited Karolina and Natasha for lunch. They were at church and Amanda was about to ask them
back seeing as they were on their own today and I intervened and said how about coming here if they fancied some company, thinking they’d be more relaxed with other children and she said they
might but I didn’t think they really would but that’s nice isn’t it, that she felt comfortable doing this but I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, is there enough to go
round... ?’

I don’t get a chance to answer him as he has made this speech whilst getting up from his chair, squeezing round our assembled guests, backing out the door and disappearing from sight on
his way down the hall.

The remainder of us, having broken off our conversation, listen as Steve opens the front door. Karolina’s low gravelly murmur can be heard.

‘She is Pole,’ says Dorota, picking up immediately on a fellow countrywoman. ‘I bet she has very bad-dyed blonde hair.’

Fortunately Martin is sitting opposite me so I am able to aim a sharp kick in his shin before he passes comment on the irony of this statement. But he does slip out, ‘What odds would you
give?’

‘Dead cert,’ Dorota replies.

Karolina appears in the doorway of the dining room, Natasha, eyes down, clutching her mother’s hand. Steve ushers them in, does a brief introduction. Poor Karolina is blushing as she
realises we are on the verge of beginning a family meal and says: ‘This is bad time. We will come another day when you are less busy.’

‘No, no,’ I find myself on my feet, the good vicar’s wife. ‘There’s plenty of food. We can add a couple of chairs. In fact, Olivia and Natasha could share that
small table and sit on cushions. They’d like that. It’d be fun. Like a picnic.’

Natasha doesn’t look like she would like that, or that she would find anything fun right now, especially a fake picnic on a plastic table in a stranger’s house. But when Olivia gets
up to greet her, Natasha willingly clasps her classmate’s proffered hand. She follows Olivia to the little table, checking that her mother is in fact staying. Her mother is now seated between
Martin and Steve, tight-shouldered and clutching her mobile phone.

‘So you are Polish?’ Dorota cuts to the chase, and her smug smile is intended for the rest of us that she was right about the blonde hair.

Karolina looks at Dorota, takes in her appearance, and says, ‘You are Polish too?’

‘How do you know this?’ Dorota is amazed. She thought her heritage was a deep secret from her past, forgets so many things about her give the game away.

‘You remind me of my aunt,’ Karolina states neutrally.

Dorota frowns and gets back to her food.

I hand Karolina a plate, insisting she help herself to whatever she fancies and to tuck in, it’s lovely to have her here, a nice surprise, wittering away to cause a distraction, make
everything alright.

Martin does his gentlemanly act – and I’m almost grateful – passing our new guest the various vegetable dishes, offering them like delicacies. Karolina inspects each one rather
too closely than is necessary before dabbing miniscule amounts on her plate. Martin’s attentiveness has no effect on Karolina, no giggles, no flicking of blonde hair, no pushing up and out of
chest. But her shoulders have loosened a tad; her phone has been placed next to her knife.

‘What about us, Stefan?’ Dorota asks her son. ‘Do we get anything to drink in this house?’ Her fat hand flits up to her throat to dramatically emphasise her thirst.

‘There’s that fizzy wine,’ Dad announces.

‘
Champagne
,’ Martin corrects and scrapes his chair back before setting off to retrieve it from the fridge. My fridge.

The prospect of champagne makes everyone chattier, even though we’ll have to stretch it now. Martin brings everyone to attention with the pop-and-fizz that he does in front of us, the
show-off that he is. He makes a point of looking up and down the table. ‘No champagne flutes, Victoria? Don’t tell me we’re going to have to slum it with IKEA’s
finest.’

I resist the urge to do the tablecloth trick, yanking it away from the table (ta-dah!), leaving the crockery and cutlery behind. I turn to Karolina and say, ‘Forgive my brother. He has
special needs,’ which makes Claudia and Dad hoot and splutter. But for once I don’t feel any pleasure in putting Martin down, not even with a receptive audience. It makes no odds to him
what I say. And the thought of champagne mixed with casserole now makes me feel sick. I’m surprised Martin suggested it, other than to be flash. Surely it’s red wine with beef?

I’m finding it hard to celebrate anything let alone being a mother. My new-found ability to be hospitable is already waning and as soon as the main course is eaten, and seconds consumed by
the greediest i.e. Martin, I make my excuses, saying I’ve got to check on the pudding. Not that anyone hears me, they are all too busy glugging back the remains of the champagne and the
beginnings of a bottle of Sancerre that Steve and I were saving for a special occasion, which I suppose this is. So no-one notices me leave, not even Steve, usually so keen to help, as he is deep
in conversation with Karolina, no doubt filling her in on the meaning of life. I wish someone would fill me in.

I don’t check on the pudding. The pudding is fine on its own, defrosting nicely on the side, just about enough to go round. I head upstairs instead, my feet taking me there rather than any
intention on my part. As I reach the landing I hear Socks mew. A I’m-here-come-and-give-me-a-stroke mew. He is curled up in the box room, Imo’s room, on her chair, where I sit and feed
her before putting her to bed. Where I sit with her in the night, listening to the train on the tracks, the wind in the scrubby trees, the creaks of the house. Not that I’ve done that for a
while, she is sleeping through now. But I’m not. Every night, at some point, I lie awake, resisting the urge to go and check on her, studying the monitor on the bedside table, listening out
for the reassuring snuffles, watching the string of flashing lights.

I rub Socks behind the ears. He stretches his paws, pinging out his talons appreciatively. His winter fur is thick and slightly coarse from nights stalking vermin up on the cutting. Nothing
changes in his life. He has food when he wants it, somewhere cosy to sleep and groom himself, his own back door, a world of small wildlife at his disposal. He doesn’t care who’s here,
in his house, who’s not, as long as there’s someone with a lap when he wants it, a hand that can turn a tin opener, rattle a box of Go-Cat, scratch him behind the ears. Every night is
the same.

He would have been out that night too, a warm summer night, in and out of gardens, prowling, fighting, hunting. As for me, I’d had a whole night’s sleep for the first time since
Thomas had been born. I’d fed him in this chair, listening to the shouts from the TV downstairs, Wimbledon, Rachel and Steve shouting
Come on, Tim
, basking in the evening sun, a
precious moment. He drifted off and my arm became hot and heavy. He was piling on the weight like Imo. I kissed him on his fuzzy head, then got up carefully and carried him over to his cot, out for
the count, reminding myself to phone Eileen in the morning and ask about his eczema.

I can still feel the shape of him in my arms.

He’d only been sleeping in the cot for a few nights, having been promoted from the crib in our room. It was going really well, though he’d had a blip the night before, a few
snuffles, unsettled, a little hot, we guessed a new tooth, though at three months it seemed early. Steve and I were dead chuffed at how good he was. Rachel had been a shocker, waking every two to
three hours till she was six months old. We couldn’t believe our luck, having a placid, gentle, easy baby boy. Only I’d give anything now to have a loud, raucous, noisy boy. To have a
six-year-old banging and crashing and kicking chips out of the skirting board. To be able to go back to that night and stop the morning from coming. But the morning came. I woke up next to Steve
and checked the time. I could hear the telly drift up from downstairs, Rachel having gone down quietly and put it on. Her favourite video. Pingu. It was late. We’d overslept. But Thomas was
still quiet. I knew straightway something was wrong. Something had changed.

I look at Socks sitting innocently in the chair. And then at the cot, the blanket ruffled from Imo’s earlier nap. We had to get a new cot for her. I couldn’t bear to keep
Thomas’. I thought giving it away would help lay waste to the memory of going in that morning. Going in to the cot and leaning over. Seeing him blue and still. Sweeping him up in my arms.
Feeling him cold. Screaming and screaming and screaming until Steve ran in and stopped still, his face panicked, knowing but not believing I was holding our dead baby boy.

I straighten up the blanket and as I am about to go to the cat, to earn myself a little more time up here away from the white noise downstairs, I hear the doorbell.

Go away.

I was half-hoping it would be Jessica, poor girl, today’s not easy for those of us without our mother. But it’s a woman’s voice, strangely familiar.

I see her as I come down the stairs. She is standing with her fingers entwined in her long wavy blonde hair. Melanie.

She looks up at me. ‘You’re the woman who bought those ridiculous shoes.’

‘You’re the woman who sold them to me.’

Steve is standing there, unsure for a moment, then he says, ‘Do you need to speak to Martin?’

‘Steve?’

‘What?’

‘I don’t think this is appropriate right now, do you?’

But whatever I think is irrelevant because Claudia has chosen this moment to do something unusual and has come into the hall with some dishes. Which she drops. We all look at the pile of broken
crockery, maybe not Wedgewood, but mine nonetheless. The clatter brings everyone else out to the hall, including Martin, whose face drops to join the shattered fragments on the floor.

‘Have you told her yet?’ Melanie asks, looking at an ashen Claudia.

‘Not now,’ says Martin. ‘Not today. Please Melanie.’

‘Mother’s Day, eh? Of course. How thoughtless of me.’ The sarcasm is visible. I could reach out and grab it and bang Martin on the head with it if I could be bothered. But I am
tired of all this. Sick and tired.

I leave the audience and climb the stairs, hearing Melanie’s retreating footsteps and the front door slam. Then a deep and dangerous silence.

I should go back down and help my family sort out this mess but I don’t. I go back to the box room, to the place where I shared those precious moments with Thomas.