This Holey Life (5 page)

‘It’s not “cool”, Jeremy. It was a very foolish thing to do.’

‘But it was our house. He only wanted to get some stuff but Mum’s like changed the locks. That’s what you said.’

‘Your mum changed those locks for a reason and your father should have respected that and gone down the proper channels.’

‘You sound like one of those police officers off
The Bill
. How did you learn that, Auntie Vicky?’

I’ve obviously been watching far too much TV since Jeremy’s arrival.

‘I have no idea.’

I am being a good mother and aunt. I have gathered the four children together (i.e. dragged them away from CBeebies), and we are busy at the kitchen table making biscuits. Even
Imo is on the table in her car bucket, kicking her feet in encouragement. The table and the children are covered in flour but they are smiling and so am I.

Then the door goes and in walks a bedraggled Martin accompanied by a slightly crumpled curate.

‘Morning all,’ says Martin, bending his knees like Dixon of Dock Green. This goes right over the kids’ heads but annoys me right off that he can be so blasé about the
havoc he’s caused.

‘Right, I’ll put these in the oven while you lot go and get cleaned up. And don’t touch anything with your sticky hands.’

‘I’ll wash the bowl,’ volunteers Olivia, rushing to the sink before I can get rid of her and find out exactly what’s been going on.

‘Steve, do you think you could supervise while I have a little chat with Martin?’

Steve expresses concern at the prospect of me having a little chat with Martin. ‘Are you sure you want to do that now?’

‘Yes. Definitely now,’ I squeeze Steve’s arm in a display of marital harmony and support (must encourage Steve back to the gym; church doesn’t tone the biceps the way a
tap wrench once did). ‘Then I’ll make you some breakfast. You must be famished.’ I drag Martin out the back door into the garden before Steve can intervene.

It is freezing outside so I button up my cardy. ‘Don’t even think about mentioning the stepping stones or gnomes. Tell me what you’ve done, Martin.’

He looms over me in his Martin-way but I will not be made to feel small. His little sister. ‘It would never have happened if you hadn’t forced me to go round to retrieve my
EpiPen,’ he whines, colour returning to his cheeks from the cold. There is an arrogant jut to his chin that lurks somewhere under his increasingly skanky beard.

‘So it’s my fault, is it? Ha! I should’ve known.’

‘I didn’t say that. Only I wouldn’t have been at my house otherwise, would I?’

‘Do you seriously expect me to believe that you went round to retrieve your EpiPen just because I put you on peanut duty?’

Martin kicks at a bit of gravel on the patio, probably imagining it to be my head. ‘I was going to pick up a few more things. For Jeremy. He’s got Nintendo Withdrawal Syndrome. You
wouldn’t appreciate that, having girls... ’ He tails off, not sure how to get out of this.

I turn away from him, like he’s slapped me in the face. Because I haven’t always just had girls. And I don’t need him reminding me of that.

‘Sorry, I mean... You know what I mean.’

I pull my cardy round me and take a very deep breath, filling my lungs with Penge’s finest morning air. ‘So girls can’t play on Nintendo wotsits? Is that what you’re
saying?’

‘Well, not your girls. This isn’t exactly a technologically advanced household, is it? You haven’t even got Sky.’

‘What a come-down it must be, slumming it in such a deprived house.’

‘Yes, it is,’ and he smiles. Which annoys me even more than if he didn’t smile. He’s trying to pull me off the trail of his arrest. It’s not going to work.

‘Forget Sky-Nintendo-Wotsits. Tell me why you got arrested.’

‘If you stop interrupting me I’ll get to it,’ he takes out his fag packet. More delay. It’s empty. He puts it back in his pocket. More delay. More deviation. The
deviant.

I take a packet of Polos out of my cardigan pocket and offer him one. Not to be nice; to keep his concentration up.

He crushes it immediately upon entry into his mouth. No thank you or anything but at least his voice is less spiky as he goes on. ‘I went round there all prepared to be nice to Claudia and
yes, before you ask, I admit there was an ulterior motive.’

‘Which was?’

‘I was hoping the dawning of a new year might make her rethink our situation.’

‘What, the One Small Incident situation?’

‘Do you want me to tell you or what?’

The less spiky voice didn’t last long so I nod in vague encouragement, trying to get Martin back to a level of calm. Calm that I don’t feel. But I really want to know what happened.
And I really want to know if last evening’s events have taken Martin further away from the day he will move back in with Claudia and out of my house.

‘Are you listening, Victoria?’

‘Of course. Fire away.’

‘Right, well, I rang the doorbell. Nothing doing. I went round the back and peered through the lounge French windows and the kitchen door. Nothing. Then I came back round the front and got
out my keys. Tried the lock. Tried all the locks. They’d been changed. Can you believe it?’ He snatches the packet of Polos out of my hand, shovels three into his mouth and starts
crunching them aggressively.

‘Yes, Martin, I most definitely can believe it. You’ve got yourself into trouble and Claudia’s not happy.’

He ignores this and gobs instead into a nearby flower pot. Some of it remains in his beard, glistening in the weak morning sun.

I practise heavy breathing. ‘And what exactly did you do then?’

‘Nothing.’

I raise my eyebrow.

‘Well, I went round the back again and tried the utility room. There’s an old sash there. I’ve been meaning to get a lock for it. It was a bit of a squeeze – you’ve
been giving me far too much fat – but I managed it.’

Breathe, Vicky, breathe.

‘Only then the alarm went and I couldn’t switch it off because she’s changed the code. I tried every sequence I could think of – even the date of our wedding anniversary,
which, yes, alright, is an unlikely choice under the circumstances – and then next thing I know there’s a torch in my face and two coppers grabbing hold of me.’ He relives this
moment of disbelief. Like the time the French lady won the Eurovision. Disbelief that he could lose control over the situation. His life.

‘Go on.’

‘I told them I live there and to go and ask next door for verification. Only I should’ve been more specific. I meant next door at Giles’ house. But they went the other side and
got Bella. Bella hates me. Even more so since Claudia’s told her the gory details of our marriage. She denied that she knew me. Can you believe it? Surely that’s perjury.’

‘Did you tell them that?’

‘Yes, of course I did.’

‘And?’

‘They arrested me and bunged me in the car. One of them put his filthy hands on my head just like on the TV.’

‘Yes,
The Bill
, I’ve seen it.’

‘Really? I didn’t have you down as a
Bill
fan.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Martin.’

At that moment the sun skulks off and a gust of wind blows up the railway track, wrapping itself around us as if to emphasise this enigmatic point I am making to my brother. He watches me pull
my woolly sleeves down over my hands to try and keep warm. As if it weren’t his fault we were out here in the cold. As if I wouldn’t rather be inside in the warm with my family,
breathing in the comforting smell of baking biscuits instead of a great hulk of a man who has spent the night in the cells.

‘I’ve heard that cardigans are back in fashion,’ he switches the focus, deftly, onto me. ‘Were you aware of that, Victoria? Isn’t it lucky you hung onto that one
from the Wham! years?’

‘At least I don’t have a beard.’

‘Give it time, Vicky-Love. Give it time.’

If I had itching powder on me, now would be the time to throw it in his cantankerous, eczematous, beardy face. But I don’t. Instead, I turn on my heel and leave him to it. I need some of
those biscuits. Even if Jeremy’s slimy fingers have been all over them.

Thoughts for the Day:
Why don’t we own a house that requires an alarm? Will we ever?

Martin has a girlfriend. Yuck. She is called Heidi like on that programme where the actors’ lips move in different time to the words they are saying. It’s called
‘dubbing’ Martin told me. Know-it-all. He said
Heidi
was a book as well – as if I cared. I’d rather watch the telly.

Martin’s girlfriend, Heidi, has big bosoms. Bigger than any grown up I know and she’s only 14. Martin has taken her to the cinema tonight to see
Star Wars
. Again. I think
Heidi would rather see
Watership Down
. I would. But Martin always gets his own way.

Heidi came for tea first. Mum gave us fish fingers (burnt), mash (lumpy) and peas (hard). Heidi ate it all up without complaining. She likes her food Dad said when they’d gone to the
cinema and we were watching
Tomorrow’s World
(Dad is interested in technology, especially when it is Judith Hann talking about it).

Mum went to put the kettle on. Dad said Heidi must like Martin. He sounded surprised. She’ll soon learn I said. I have inside knowledge. If anyone knows, it is me. I know what it is
like to be alone with Martin. He sits on your head and blows off. He is a disgusting pig.

When I am 14 and have a boyfriend and hopefully big bosoms, my boyfriend will take me to the roller disco and spin me around like he’s Robin Cousins or John Travolta. My friends will be
amazed. They will be jealous of me, Vicky. Ha-ha!

Chapter Seven:
Friday January 4th

Olivia sits amidst an array of shoeboxes and tissue paper, her leg up on a foot-stool, like Cinderella, waiting to try on the glass slipper. Only this is not your fairy tale
ending. She is adamant she won’t have a T-bar as recommended by the haughty young assistant called Melanie.

‘She’s got narrow heels and the bar will stop the shoe slipping,’ Melanie states firmly.

‘No,’ Olivia states, even more firmly. She quite clearly isn’t having any of it; her cheeks are flushed and she is tossing her hair like a diva. She’ll be demanding her
own stylist and a basket of exotic fruit next. ‘I want those shiny ones, Mummy. Femi’s got shiny ones like that. Her mummy let her. I hope you’re going to let me.’

I look at Imo for help, but Imo is busy sucking her big toe as thankfully shoes are still a way off for her. Why did I think it would be a good idea coming to Dulwich to buy the wretched shoes?
I should’ve stayed in Penge and gone to Shoe Zone.

Deep breath. Count to ten.

This is one of those situations when I should put my foot down. (My own feet haven’t seen new shoes in a very long time.) Martin would laugh if he saw me floundering like this, a grown
woman being manipulated by a three-year-old and an uppity shoe-fitter.

Olivia is coveting the shiny shoes. Melanie is barely concealing her disapproval, looking at her watch, and tapping the shoehorn on her long skinny leg. But like Steve is always saying, you have
to pick your battles. And I don’t have to live with Melanie. Thankfully. There’s something about her that sets my teeth on edge.

‘We’ll have the shiny ones.’

There. That is decisive. I think.

Olivia claps her hands and gushes
you’rethebestmummyinthewholewideworld
. Imo gurgles in her bucket, kicking her chubby legs like a bulbous frog. Melanie is not so appreciative; she
tuts, smoothing her long blonde hair before beginning to laboriously repack the discarded shoes in the boxes.

‘You wait till you’re a mother,’ I tell her, before I can stop myself. ‘Things will seem completely different.’

Melanie looks doubtful. But then I would’ve looked doubtful at that age. In my early twenties. With my adult life in front of me and London all around me. I never for one minute thought
about having children. And then, when the time eventually came, and the prospect of kids edged into our radar, I never thought about the consequences of having children. Real children. Snotty,
pooey, crying, three-dimensional children. I didn’t see beyond the holding-the-baby-in-your-arms stage. I didn’t consider the fact they would keep growing. They would have their own
opinions. They would voice their own opinions. Or that those opinions would be more forceful than mine. (I should’ve known though, growing up with Martin.) But what I never foresaw was that
life could be so fragile. That a baby could be here one minute, and gone the next.

‘I suppose you’re going to let her wear them home,’ Melanie sighs.

I want to tug her long blonde hair. Pull out great chunks of it and scatter it over the plush red Dulwich carpet. What does she know about anything?

It takes much self-control to muster up my primmest curate’s wife voice and push out a basic response through clenched teeth: ‘Yes. Please.’

I pay for the shoes (
How
much?), not convinced I’m doing the right thing but Olivia is doing her very own version of
Riverdance
, a big smile on her face, and there’s no
way I’m giving high-and-mighty Melanie the satisfaction of back-tracking.

I am a good mother. I make sure they have their five portions and a bath every day. I sew nametags on their school clothes. I read with them. Even Imo. I try to remember to tell them I love
them. I teach them right from wrong, their Ps and Qs, their table manners. I even pray with them sometimes though technically that’s Steve’s department seeing as I’m still not too
sure about this whole God thing.

So why does this pair of shiny shoes make me feel like such a failure?

The reason I chose to come to Dulwich – the real reason – was so that I can call round at Claudia’s. I had a text message this morning.

Back home. Sorry to land family on you at Xmas. Wot a mess. Missing J loads. Is he OK? Can u come & see me? Don’t tell Martin. Cxxx

How can I not go? I feel bad for Claudia, even worse that I couldn’t bring Jeremy as Martin had a rare moment of guilt and whisked him off to the golf course. He persuaded Steve and Rachel
to accompany them. Anything to avoid being on his own with his son and having to explain his actions to him. Wimp. Wuss. Scaredy-cat stinker.