To Have and to Hold

  All along the street beside the hospital the parking spaces were full. Viv stopped the car on a double yellow line and turned off the engine. In a perverse way she wanted to get a ticket and a small ten pounds’ worth of suffering. ‘Life’s not fair!’ her father used to shout at them, when they were too young to realize the truth. What had Viv done to deserve two strong children, with hair she could brush, that they could now brush themselves, and clever fingers, and complaints about school, and letters that they wrote, in unstamped envelopes, to the Dennis the Menace Fan Club? Two girls, with their fragrant breathing at night and their scattered Pentels on the floor which drove Viv mad because nobody put the tops on, but look what happened in the morning – the girls opened their eyes, they were alive, they had to be bullied to do their teeth.

  Viv got out of the car. Today she brought flowers; yesterday there had been no time. She walked towards the hospital steps and stopped. Ken’s car was parked there. She hesitated. Inside his car it was as neat as always, with his Zenith Dry Rot files on the passenger seat, just like a normal Monday. The ashtray was full.

  Viv walked back to her car and sat inside it. People were going into the hospital, carrying flowers. She waited in the car, amongst the debris of her family life – mud from the allotment, crumbs, wrappers, and My Naughty Little Sister cassettes, all out of their boxes. Did she deserve children, that she couldn’t be bothered to put back their tapes? She started to do so. Every few moments she glanced at the hospital steps, and that was how she saw her mother.

  Viv hurried from the car.

  ‘Mum!’ She grabbed her arm.

  Irene turned. ‘Blimey, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Still, there’s worse places to have one.’

  ‘Ken’s in there.’ She pointed to the building. ‘Let’s wait in my car.’

  Irene sat in the passenger seat. ‘You and your mobile dustbin,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Beats me how Ollie puts up with it.’

  Viv indicated the hospital. ‘I think we should let them have some time together.’

  ‘They’ll have plenty of time together when she comes out.’

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘I’m just saying now’s the time to rally round. The poor pet. How did she seem yesterday?’

  ‘She tried to be bright. I wish she hadn’t felt she should.’

  ‘Was it a little boy or girl?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’ Viv watched the hospital steps. Down them walked a couple, the woman carrying a new-born baby wrapped in a shawl, small as a doll. The husband carried her case, and opened their car door for her to get in.

  ‘The poor pet,’ said Irene again. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look who’s here.’

  Douglas was walking towards them. He, too, was carrying flowers. Viv got out of the car again.

  ‘Hello, Dad.’

  She told him about Ken. At the car door he hesitated.

  ‘Hello, Reenie.’

  She opened the back door for him and he got in.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘This is cosy.’

  There was a silence.

  Irene looked in the driving mirror. ‘What’s those things?’

  ‘What things?’ said Douglas.

  ‘Sideboards. You didn’t have them last time.’ She turned to inspect her ex-husband properly.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Sideboards. Like a pop star.’

  Douglas smiled. ‘Nobody’s compared me to a pop star before.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Another silence. The car felt cramped. Irene took out her cigarettes and offered one to Douglas.

  ‘No thanks.’

  She stared. ‘Given up?’

  He nodded. Irene raised her eyebrows and looked at Viv. Viv shrugged.

  ‘Bit late, isn’t it?’ said Irene.

  ‘Nothing’s too late,’ he said.

  ‘Since when have you got so healthy?’

  Viv took a cigarette. ‘Some things are too late.’

  Irene, through her smoke, was still squinting at Douglas.

  Viv said: ‘For Ann, anyway.’ She thought: I haven’t sat in a car with both my parents for fifteen years, since they’ve been divorced. It takes this to do it. She said: ‘It’s too late for Ann.’

  ‘She can’t have any more babies.’

  ‘Why?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Because she’s had a hysterectomy, which means –’

  ‘I don’t want shoes like this, I want them without any straps and with little heels.’

  ‘Well you can’t.’

  ‘Tamsin has and Rashida has and –’

  ‘Shut up.’

  They were sitting in a shoe shop. Rosie twitched her foot.

  Viv said: ‘She loved your get-well card.’

  ‘Mum, why can’t I –’

  ‘Shut up!’

  A shop assistant came up. Viv tried to exchange apologetic glances but the assistant ignored her.

  ‘Can she try these?’ Viv said, holding up a sandal. She turned to Rosie. ‘Then I’ll get you both some tights.’ She had a strong desire, today, to buy her children new clothes.

  As they walked back home she tried again.

  ‘Ann’s coming out of hospital tomorrow.’

  But Rosie and Daisy were barging ahead to catch Grange Hill on the telly.

  Viv went into the kitchen and dumped her shoulder-bag, with its crackling Barclaycard counterfoils, on the table, and put the carrier-bags on the floor. Why should they understand?

  Later, however, she went into their bedroom and there was Rosie, laying her kangaroo on the floor and tucking it up in a blanket.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ asked Viv.

  ‘She’s in hospital. Be quiet.’

  Ken drove Ann home. She was silent. In the hospital it had been hard to find things to say. He had saved up stories for her, stories from work, but they were mostly the alcoholic adventures of Bob and Al, the chippies who talked the most, and they sounded sordid in the telling so he had stopped.

  In the next ward there had been babies crying, quite distinctly. Ann had had to listen to that all day. Probably all night too, though neither of them had brought the subject up. There were so many things that could not be mentioned; he hadn’t realized how much of their life was concerned with the future, with building for a family. He couldn’t even talk about the extension because its real, unsaid name had always been a playroom, a child’s room facing the sun and connecting to the kitchen. So he had told her about the car breaking down, which really wasn’t much of a topic. He had wanted to make her smile, he had wanted to tell her about surveying the house in Wainwright Avenue, how he’d been shining his torch into the gaps in the lath and plaster and all the time some little girl, an inmate of the place, had been tying his shoe-laces together. He had wanted to tell her how the lady of the house had come in to ask him about the extent of the rot, and how he hadn’t been able to move. But he couldn’t tell her this. So they had sat in silence, and he had held her hand and asked her about the food. And she had said that soon she would be out of there and she wanted to come home.

  They drove towards Finsbury Park. It was 3.30 and the schools were coming out. A lollipop lady stepped into the road and Ken stopped the car. Children, holding their mothers’ hands, crossed the road. Blue anoraks, red anoraks, a little boy dropping some paper and his mother smacking him. Ken switched on the radio.

  ‘. . . and now, with news from Beirut, here’s our correspondent . . .’

  He twiddled the dials, revving the car. It seemed to take an age for the children to pass; didn’t they understand? He glanced at Ann’s profile.

  He ushered her into the hall. The house was neat and tidy, as if they were visitors.

  ‘Cold?’ He put her case down.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I put the heating on.’ He felt the radiator.

  She nodded and went into the lounge.

  ‘You’ve been cleaning,’ she said.

&nb
sp; ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be back at work?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  When he came back with the tea, she was sitting on the settee. He wished she had a book or a magazine on her lap. Even just for his sake.

  ‘Thought we could have a dekko at these.’ He sat down next to her and opened the brochures he’d brought. ‘Have a biscuit. Look.’ He turned a page. ‘This place, you have your own villa, balcony, strange Greek plumbing, the works. Levkas, that’s just below Corfu but not so spoiled. A touch of the vine-shaded tavernas, and we could have a bash at windsurfing.’

  The brochure lay on her lap. After a moment she turned the page. It lay there, open.

  ‘Or we could try Kos.’ It said: Family villa, sleeps six, reduction for children. He turned the page, the next, then the next. ‘Or what about a bit of culture, what about Florence?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Look, I’m not going back,’ he said.

  ‘Course you must.’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ he said. ‘With you.’

  ‘Please Ken. I’m all right.’

  Another silence.

  ‘Please go,’ she said, her voice sharper.

  Ken paused. She sat there, turning the pages. He stood up. She didn’t move. Then he went to the door.

  She raised her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice low.

  ‘Annie!’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t ever say that!’

  He moved towards her, but she turned back to the brochure. He looked at her brown hair, neatly brushed, bent over the photographs. He went out to his car.

  Ann put away the tea-mugs and the uneaten biscuits. The house was silent. She had wanted so much to come home, but now she was here she felt like a guest.

  Opening the cupboard door, she caught sight of a glimmer of plastic behind the saucepans. It was hidden away, wedged at the back. She pulled it out. It was the bag of baby’s knitting.

  Now she was alone she pulled out a chair, quite deliberately, sat down at the table, and started to cry.

  _____Three_____

  TWO YOUNG GIRLS are at the beach. It’s a perfect summer’s day; nothing must spoil it. Viv wears one of those bobbly nylon bathing suits, its bottom rubbed ochre with sand. She is standing beside her father, who is skimming pebbles over the water. He chooses the flattest he can find and gives it to her. His arm around her, he shows her how to do it.

  ‘That’s it,’ he says. ‘That’s the way.’

  Viv throws it.

  Ann sees the pebble and comes up to them.

  ‘It sank,’ she says.

  ‘No it didn’t,’ says her father. He passes Viv another pebble and Viv throws it. ‘Bravo!’ he says.

  ‘That one sank too!’ cries Ann. ‘It didn’t jump at all.’

  Her father takes no notice. Viv grimaces at Ann. This time it is Viv who finds him a flat stone, and this time it is he who throws it, with a flick of the wrist so that it skims one, two, three times. This is quite right for a dad. But Viv hadn’t done it right.

  ‘I saw she didn’t!’ Ann says again. It’s so unjust that her voice squeaks. She looks at Viv’s slender, stork-like legs, her smug buttocks rubbed with sand; she looks at her father’s neck, reddened by the sun.

  ‘It’s my turn,’ she says. She stands next to them. She too wears a bobbly swimsuit, like blisters on her, but she’s tubbier. It’s only this summer, now she’s ten, that she’s realized this. She picks up a flat pebble and throws it. Her father has lit a cigarette; he has lost interest. And anyway her pebble, of course, sinks.

  They are newly married now, and the four of them are on holiday in Devon. It is another perfect summer’s day and they are beside a river; khaki water dappled with sunlight. Ken, who is good at these things, is making a fire; he requires concentration as he pyramids the sticks and the women are staying away. Ollie, who says he enjoys being subservient, is fetching pieces of wood for him.

  Ann, in her swimsuit, is sitting on the river bank, dabbling her feet in the water.

  ‘Go on!’ calls Ollie. ‘Don’t be a sissy.’ He went to public school and sometimes it still shows, though not often.

  Viv is standing at the water’s edge. She is wearing a flowery, second-hand dress and holding her swimsuit. The sun catches the cloudy mass of her hair. She is as slender as a deer, caught unawares. But Ann is her sister and knows no adult is unaware.

  Ken blows on the flame and straightens up, standing to look at his fire. Suddenly Viv pulls off her dress and her knickers and walks into the river.

  ‘Christ, it’s freezing!’ she calls, and the men turn. She slips into the water and swims, gasping and laughing. ‘Come on, Annie!’

  But Ann sits there. She finds a stick and tosses it into the water which is now ribbing out, in circles, from Viv, who swims round and round, her long body yellow under the surface. Ann tosses another stick; it rocks in the water, rocked by Viv’s larger waves.

  ‘It’s wonderful!’ calls Viv. ‘Come on.’

  But Ann sits there, tossing twigs. Ollie is fetching wood; Ken has turned his back and is busying himself with the fire.

  Finally Viv steps out, naked and dripping, her hair hanging wet down her breasts. High up in the trees a bird calls. She hurries over to the fireside, grabs a towel and sits down, her arms around her knees.

  ‘Mmmm . . .’ She edges nearer to the warmth and passes Ken a stick. He takes it from her and puts it on the fire. Then he turns away, his back to her, and starts blowing at the flames.

  ‘It’s lit already,’ Viv says.

  That night, in their bed-and-breakfast place, Ken makes love to Ann. He bites her shoulder and presses her into him, startling her with his passion. The room is black, she can’t see his face and he doesn’t say a word. He grips her tightly, hurting her sunburn.

  The next morning Ollie tries to pay for them all.

  ‘Of course not!’ Ken’s voice is loud in the little hall.

  ‘It’s only one night,’ says Ollie. ‘It’s my treat.’

  ‘Out of the question.’

  Ann and Viv exchange glances, behind the men’s backs. The four of them stand there as Ken finds his wallet. Against the flocked wallpaper hangs a barometer; it indicates: Thunderstorms Ahead.

  Viv bent over and pulled the washing out of the machine. It was Sunday morning. She yanked at the damp, tangled lengths, the shirts entwined with each other, the socks plaited.

  Ollie came up behind her and caressed her breasts. She pulled out a pair of dungarees, their fasteners clanking in the empty drum.

  ‘Turns you on, does it?’

  ‘What?’ he breathed into her ear.

  ‘Seeing me subservient.’

  ‘I just feel physical in my track-suit.’

  ‘Well go and be physical with your mates.’ Ollie was going to play rugger.

  He rubbed his face against the back of her head. ‘You’re my mate.’

  She nudged him away and lifted the basket of clothes on to the table. ‘Sublimate it on the playing field. That’s what it’s for.’

  She started sorting the clothes into piles. He watched her.

  ‘I know what you want,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘To be taken by force. You’ve always liked rough trade.’

  He sighed, and picked up his sports holdall. ‘I’m just too well-bred.’ He looked at his watch and started for the door.

  ‘Listen,’ said Viv. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  He put down his holdall. ‘I hate it when you say that. What do you want – a divorce? A child? A goat?’

  ‘No. Why don’t you ask Ken to join your team?’

  ‘Ken?’ He stared.

  She nodded. ‘He’s been awfully depressed. Ann says so. He hasn’t been working on his extension or anything. People are sorry for her but they forget about him. You know how buttoned-up he is.’

 
‘On our team?’

  ‘Why not? It might cheer him up. You’re only a bunch of wanky journalists. He’s fitter than the lot of you.’

  Ollie paused. ‘You ask him.’

  ‘Why? I’m always doing everything.’

  ‘He might think I was being – oh, condescending. You know how touchy he is.’

  ‘But do you think it’s a good idea?’

  Ollie hesitated, then shrugged and nodded his head. She kissed him goodbye, and slid her tongue into his mouth.

  Ann wondered what was missing from work and then realized: nobody had told her any jokes. She had been back nearly a week now and they were all so kind, but if only they realized that the way they were careful made her lonely. She silently urged them to be normal; how long would it take? She had a sweet tooth and sometimes used to bring in peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch. In the past they’d groaned at this but now nobody teased her.

  And there had been some alterations. Frances, the most homely, used to have a photo of her husband and son on her. desk but now it had been removed. Ann wanted to say: please put it back; don’t save my feelings.

  And even Janine, who was not the type, made an effort. On Friday morning she was on the phone:

  ‘Simone, you do what your nan says! You play up and I’ll give you what-for!’

  But when Ann passed the desk her voice sank to a whisper.

  She found comfort in numbers, which never let her down unless the computer developed a fault, and that at least was nothing to do with an anxiety to please. Cool numbers blipping on the screen, two and two equals four, they did, how simple, thousands slotted together to create more thousands, plus percentage interest. They worked, they were just, there was a bottom line that added up, then it could all be put away, you could clear your head and forget about it and start on the next. If she kept her eyes down and worked from one half-hour to the next, it was possible to look up and find that already nearly a morning had passed.

  Late on Friday afternoon Derek called her into his office. He held up the mortgage application forms for Ferncroft Road.

  ‘Janine did these, didn’t she?’

  Ann hesitated.

  ‘Did she?’

  Ann nodded.

  ‘We must do something about that girl,’ he said.