To Have and to Hold (27 page)

For the first time in the four years she had known him, she saw Alan blush. It was almost worth it for this. First the tips of his ears went pink, then it spread. ‘You mean . . .'

‘It's not his baby.' She told the faded staffroom rug: this isn't lying, it's simply omission.

Alan ran his hand again around his jaw. ‘Forgive me for prying,' he said, and stopped.

‘What?'

She stared at him. ‘
What?
'

‘It's not, by any chance . . .' He paused, and then spoke precisely: ‘Harold's baby?'

She stared at him. ‘
What?
'

‘Harold's baby?'

She burst out laughing. She wobbled on the sofa arm, losing her balance. Alan blushed pinker and inspected his fingernails.

At last she gapsed: ‘For such a self-righteous prig you do have a filthy mind.'

Ollie should never have gone to the loo. Or Viv should never have gone to the gym. If they hadn't, Ellie might never have found out. Yet, anyway.

Viv, influenced by Ken, was trying to keep fit and had enrolled in a chic ladies' gym in Covent Garden, where for various reasons the others were slimmer that she was and dressed in pink and emerald leotards, like sheeny skins. One day there was nobody to look after the children and she left them with Ollie, who was going to take them to lunch.

First, though, he went to the lavatory, and as they lay on the rubberized flooring environment of the
Capital
office, sucking
Pentels and gazing at the revised T'ai Ch'i handouts he had given them to draw on, Ellie came over.

‘Have a Polo,' she said.

They took one each, and another for later. Daisy, sucking, said: ‘My mum says they're bad for our teeth.'

‘You going somewhere nice for your hols?' asked Ellie politely. She had no idea where they were going: nobody told her anything.

‘The Isle of Wight,' said Rosie.

‘Ooh, that's nice.'

‘We're going with Mum and Auntie Ann,' said Daisy, ‘because Dad's writing a book.'

Ellie was about to reply: is he? But she stopped. She might be young, but she was learning.

‘I want to paint my fingernails,' said Daisy, who was less loyal than her sister, ‘like you.'

‘You can't do that,' said Ellie, ‘till you're a big grown-up lady.'

‘When you're grown-up you can have a baby,' said Daisy. ‘Are you going to have a baby?'

‘I hope not!' laughed Ellie.

Daisy the chatterbox said: ‘Mum is.'

Rosie hit her. Daisy yelped. Ollie came back from the lavatory. Ellie got up swiftly and moved away.

Ann came back from work, flopped down in the armchair and closed her eyes. Only one week to go before the holiday. She felt pleasantly drained of energy. Though she felt worried about Derek – he had been moved sideways at his own request, and she had recently heard that his marriage was breaking up – perversely the office was a more lighthearted place without him: a female confederacy of banter and affection. It is sad how one person's unhappiness can bring out the cruellest in those around him. Prickling, girlish resentments.

She was thinking of this, and the supper she couldn't be bothered to cook yet, and the week in the Isle of Wight from which the two husbands were going to be absent themselves, saying that the sisters should have some time together – she
was contemplating this when the front door opend and closed and Ken came in.

‘Close your eyes,' he said.

‘They're closed already.'

‘Keep them like that.'

She heard him go into the hall. He had collected something; it was his scarf. He tied it around her head, blindfolding her.

‘Hey!'

‘Come on,' he said, taking her hand. His own felt large and dry. She stood up obediently and he led her out of the door, guiding her so she didn't bump. As she smelt the evening air – warm pavement and exhaust fumes – she suddenly remembered how when she was little she had pretended to be lame. Her parents and Viv would walk ahead and she limped behind. Passers-by would stop in the street and gaze at her sorrowfully, then glare at the rest of the family who, exasperated, would tell her to hurry up. She realized, now, that it was rare for them all to be out together; this must only have happened once. But how vividly she remembered it, the thirst for pity in a big, breezy, unfair world. She smelt next door's privet as Ken seated her in the car, and she thought for the first time: how nice was I?
There are some people,
said Douglas,
who make the world smile on them.
And the others?

‘What are you up to?' she asked.

‘Wait and see.'

He drove for perhaps fifteen minutes. When he turned corners she leant into them, balancing herself in her blindness. The window was open; at one point she smelt curry cooking, at another chips frying. Always fumes. With her eyes closed, sounds were clearer – shouts, a blaring radio. When they stopped, perhaps at traffic lights, she heard a child distinctly say: ‘Look at that lady.' She felt alert and wary. Ken didn't speak.

The car stopped. He got out and she heard him opening her door. The hand, hotter now, took hers and she climbed out, instinctively pulling down her skirt. He removed the scarf.

At first she wondered what she should be looking at. Beside her was a stretch of derelict concrete – perhaps an old depot
yard – with yellow ragwort struggling through the cracks. It was surrounded by a high wire fence. On one side was a used vehicle lot, luminous with stickers, and on the other side was a pub.

She said: ‘Don't keep me in supsense.'

He put his finger under her chin and lifted her head. Against the wire was a
To Let
placard.

They were sitting in the pub next door.

‘So that's what you've been doing,' she said.

He nodded. ‘It looks awful, but it's a wonderful site. Half an acre, and the nearest garden centre's way over the other side of the North Circular. This whole area's residential.'

‘You never told me.'

‘I wanted to be sure I wasn't being stupid.' He gazed at her; he looked so excited.

‘All these weeks?' she said. She didn't tell him that the Monday before, out of desperate curiosity, she had checked the dial on his car and worked out that he had driven twenty-two miles on a day he was supposed to have stayed in the office.

‘Oh, I've been around,' he said. ‘Nothing I can't tell you about disused railway land, failed timber yards and bankrupt depots for sanitary ware.'

She laughed. ‘I don't believe this.'

‘Our own garden centre, Annie. It could work, I know it could. You could be my financial adviser.' He paused. ‘It's time I got out of that place. You know that.'

She nodded. ‘I know that.'

‘Suddenly I thought; well, why the hell not? I've been bored long enough. I thought: why not stop moaning about it and actually
do
something?'

She gazed at this new, bright-eyed Ken. She thought: he
has
changed. Something flashed through her mind: who's doing is this? But she pushed it away.

He was waiting. ‘Well,' he asked. ‘What do you think?'

She said slowly: ‘We could get a grant, I expect. And a low-interest loan. And there's the house as security.'

He raised his eybrows.

She asked: ‘But why now?'

He looked down into his glass, and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Well, the way things are . . . you have your job and, well, I've been feeling you might not be wanting the baby . . .' He cleared his throat. ‘And I do see why.' He paused. ‘Well, I could at least do something. A new start. Make you proud of me.'

She leant over. ‘You don't have to do that.'

‘Don't I?'

She paused, but she didn't speak. She couldn't truthfully reply one way or the another. It would be easier to talk about profit margins and thirty-year leases, which they did.

‘Why didn't you tell me?' Furious, Ellie faced Ollie.

‘I couldn't.'

‘Why didn't you tell me she was having a baby?'

He sat down on the bed. ‘There was a good reason, I promise you.'

‘Who do you think I am? Your little bit of fluff, your bit on the side?' She glared at him. Her nose was sunburnt. He felt weak with pity. ‘Blokes do that where I come from but at least they're honest about it.'

‘Ellie –'

‘You're always saying how upfront you are and all that fiddle-faddle but you're shiftier than the lot of them!'

‘It's not what you think!' His voice squeaked like a schoolboy's.

‘Think I haven't wanted to ask? All these months you've put me into this little box, and I can lay my hand on your brow and smooth your troubles away, think I haven't longed to ask about you and your wife and your friends that I'm never allowed to meet?' She paused for breath; he looked at her poor peeling nose. ‘I'm a real person, Ollie. I may not understand half your daft magazine but I'm a real person and I deserve to be treated properly.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I know.' He too felt empty of breath. He wanted to creep under the duvet and pull it over his head. He looked at her; she was crying now and the mascara was smudged on her cheeks. Behind her was the frilled gingham curtain she had hung in front of her pots and pans. It had some
broderie anglaise stiched to the hem; he couldn't bear to look at it.

‘You want to come here and play houses,' she said, ‘and you know why? Because you can't face up to your real life, and your wife who's pregnant – what a time to leave her!'

‘You don't understand.'

‘Too stupid, am I?'

‘No. It's not what you think.'

‘I can't think, can I?' she said. ‘I'm not allowed to.'

‘No –'

‘Yes.'

‘Look,' he said, ‘it's not like that.'

‘It is!'

‘It's not! Listen. It's not my baby.'

‘What?' She sat down on the stool beside the sink.

‘She's having the baby for her sister.'

Ellie stared at him. ‘Come again?'

‘It was all arranged. She's been, well, made pregnant by her brother-in-law. When she has the baby she's going to give it to her sister.'

To his horror, Ellie started smiling. ‘Tell us another.'

‘I know it sounds bizarre, but it's true.'

‘You really take me for an eejit, don't you – ?'

‘No!' he shouted.

‘I knew you thought I was dumb, but this –'

‘Listen!'

‘Oh shut up! I'm fed up with your lies. Lies to your wife, lies to me, you don't know whether you're coming or going –'

‘It's true!'

‘I want a proper bloke who's straight with me –'

‘It's true about my wife!'

‘Save your lurid stories for your crappy, pretentious magazine. Go on, get out!' She moved to the mantelpiece and flung the blue china cat, his gift, to the floor. The carpet was soft and it didn't break. She stamped on it. ‘Get out!' she shouted. She stamped on the cat again. He had to turn away; it was so undignified for her to be seen by him. He wished the bloody thing would break.

‘Listen –' he began.

‘Oh shut up!'

He got to his feet and tried to grab her but she pushed him away. She was surprisingly strong; he staggered back.

She had given up with the cat. Instead, she picked up his shirt and flung it at him. It missed and landed softly on the carpet. ‘I even ironed that for you!' she screeched.

One always feels safe with an aunt, particularly an elderly one. Ann and Viv stayed with their Auntie Dot, their mother's unmarried sister, who for as long as they could remember had lived in a bungalow not quite overlooking Freshwater Bay. She was old, and short-sighted now, and she had never been curious. Not once during the week did she enquire the whereabouts of the two husbands, neither of whom she had much liked anyway. This was restful. She tolerated the children benignly, and gave them unsuitably infantile gifts – slot-in plastic shapes and Bambi egg-cup – from the local Missionary Mart. She seldom stirred from the house and the four of them were free to wander the lanes – all dusty hedgerows and, underfoot, toads, which had been flattened like cardboard. They picked early blackberries, staining their fingers, and climbed the slippery rocks at the beach where it always seemed to be high tide. For the first time in months Viv felt fit. She dreaded going home.

They arrived early in the afternoon. As they unpacked the car, Bella from next door remarked to Viv: ‘You're looking bonny.'

Inside the house Viv turned to Ann. ‘Know what she means by bonny?'

Ann nodded. ‘Fat.' She asked: ‘What're you going to tell her?'

‘That I'm pregnant. That's all. Then we'll wait till it's born. We must all get together, to get our story right.'

The girls had run out to the playground. Viv started pulling their things out of their bags – pebbles, crackling lengths of seaweed, a plastic bottle. Sand scattered. Grimacing, she threw the bottle into the bin.

‘We used to collect pebbles,' said Ann.

‘We weren't parents.' Viv smiled ‘One day you'll find out what it's like to have lots of little pebbles, with holes in for one day making into necklaces – one day – jamming up your kitchen drawers, and shrivelled conkers under the stair carpet tripping you up, and lots of touching little presents they made at school, with glue and Rice Krispies packets, all falling to bits and yet how can you bear to thow them away?'

‘Can't wait' said Ann.

Viv sat down heavily. ‘I hate coming home.'

‘It's all my fault.'

‘No.'

‘You're doing all this for me, and look what's happened to you and Ollie.'

‘It was my decision,' said Viv. ‘I just wish he'd make up his mind.'