A Crowded Marriage (32 page)

“Cool! How fast can I push?”

“Fast as you like, as long as you don't actually catapult him out of it. Hannah's inside, by the way,” he directed this at me as he shadowed Rufus, who was already off with the pram, anxiously across the grass, out of the gate and on up the road.

I watched as they went, shading my eyes with my hand into the evening sun. For all his big talk, Rufus was actually pushing very carefully, taking this new responsibility very seriously, handling his cousin with care. His cousin. Lovely. Another member of the family, making Rufus not such an only, cherished child. And if only there were more. If only I could
have
more. For a moment I felt a pang of jealousy for Eleanor. Why wasn't I like that, pregnant at the drop of a pair of trousers?

I sighed and went in to find Hannah. She was on the top of a stepladder, cleaning the windows. “Should you be doing that?” I asked in alarm.

She looked down. “Why not?”

“Well, you've just had a baby and—good God, look at this place! You've had a tidy up, and—blimey, the flowers!”

I gazed round in wonder. The piles of dusty books, bundles of newspapers, chairs with broken legs stacked in a pagoda awaiting mending had all gone, and instead, space prevailed: glorious, glorious space, with freshly hoovered blue carpet, gleaming skirting boards revealed for the first time in years, and all around the room, vases and vases of flowers. She came down her ladder, looking slightly sheepish. “I know, aren't they lovely?”

“Who are they from?”

“Oh, all sorts. Locals in the village, teachers, kids at school.” She fingered some delicate wild flowers in a bowl.

“Oh, how sweet—sweet of everyone! You see?” I rounded on her accusingly.

“I know,” she agreed ruefully. “Everyone's been so kind. And of course I had to have a tidy-up. I can't have a baby in all this clutter and dust, and anyway, most of the so-called projects I had on the go were never going to be finished.”

I eyed her beadily. Ah, so she knew that too, did she?

“Yes, all right,” she muttered, folding her arms. “Too much talk and not enough action, and too much running round being bossy. Too many committees. I'm staying on at Sea Scouts, but I've resigned from the Brownies.”

“
Have
you?” Hannah had battled her way furiously to the top of that particular little empire. “Who's going to be Brown Owl, then?”

“Tawny Owl, no doubt. She's frightfully ambitious, been snapping at my heels for years. Or pecking at them, should I say.” She grinned.

“Well, quite,” I blinked, stunned that she'd made a pecking order joke. The rest of the family had for years, but secretly of course, never in front of her. Quite a lot of giggling about ruffled feathers. “But you're still going to teach?”

“Oh, yes, but part time,” she said happily, balling her J cloth and aiming it at the bucket. “The school's agreed to me doing four mornings a week, and I get all my maternity leave too, since I obviously didn't take any while I was pregnant!” She grinned and I marvelled at how well she looked. Shiny hair, rosy cheeks and
slimm
er. Well, obviously slimmer, since Tobias had come out, but still, she was in better shape than I'd expected. She saw me looking her up and down.

“Breast-feeding,” she said proudly. “Tobias sucks for England, and after every feed I reckon I lose a couple of pounds. I promise you, it's the best diet ever.”

“But you're eating?” I said, concerned. “You've got to eat properly, to feed.”

She laughed. “You sound like Eddie. Yes, I'm eating, but instead of a couple of rounds of sandwiches and a whole chocolate cake, it's one round of sandwiches and a piece of chocolate cake. I don't need all that food any more.”

“Because you're happy.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Because I'm happy. You're right, I was misery eating before. Pretending everything was fine, but feeling hollow inside. I know it's unfashionable to admit it, Imo, but all I ever wanted was to get married and have children. To have the roses round the door, the baking, the babies. I never wanted to be a success.”

“Who says that's not a success?” I said softly. “And now you are. Now you've got it.”

“Now I've got it!” she echoed, and a big beam spread across her face as she opened her arms to me.

I walked into them, my eyes like saucers. Hannah and I never hugged,
never
. Tears sprang to my eyes too. For her, for her hard-won, unexpected happiness, but, I suspect, for myself also. For my peace at last, my own family's sanity and security, free from the tyranny of Eleanor. Never again would my heart flip with fear when she rang and asked to speak to Alex; never again would I hold my breath when he mentioned he'd had lunch with her. I wished I could tell Hannah, but I'd promised to stay silent until Eleanor had broken it to Piers, and I would.

“You look well too,” she commented, linking my arm—
linking my arm!—
as she led me towards the back door and the garden.

“I am well,” I agreed, trying not to wonder who'd unlink first. As it happened it was me. My hands shot to my mouth in surprise as I stepped out on to the back steps. “Oh golly—look at this!”

“I know,” Hannah agreed, leaning against the door frame, folding her arms. “Didn't know your father was a master craftsman, did you? He was up all night making that.”

Dad, looking tired but unbowed, straightened up from his carpentry in the middle of the lawn, and stood back to admire his handiwork. I blinked.

“That's amazing.”

I drifted down the steps and across the lawn. An immaculate wooden cradle, complete with curved wooden hood and a pair of rocking feet, stood proudly on the grass.

“Dad, I can't
believe
you made that. It's fantastic!”

“Well, the bottom's a bit of a cheat—it's an old drawer—but the hood I'm pleased with.”

“I'm not surprised!”

“Isn't it great?” yelled Hannah, before turning and going back to her windows. Dad beamed. “Only the best for the Marmalade Bishop.”

“The what?” I frowned.

“Tobias. Haven't you noticed his hair?” he said gleefully. “Definite touch of ginger, and that profile: noble yet pious. Made for the ministry.”

I giggled. “If you say so.”

“And hopefully it's built to last.” He patted the hood. “Can accommodate any number of grandchildren that might come along.” He winked at me, and although my tummy twisted, I smiled gamely.

“Well, you never know.”

It occurred to me that Dad was looking very unlike his usual self today. Instead of the lurid shirts and tight jeans, he had on a pair of ancient beige trousers and a blue sweater. Even the white Gucci shoes had been replaced by comfortable old deck shoes covered in glue and putty, and his hair was a bit mussed, not slicked back as usual. He looked like a regular grandpa, putting the finishing touches to his grandson's cradle. I smelled a rat.

“Dawn gone to Newcastle, yet?” I asked lightly.

“Yes, luv. Went Monday.”

“I thought you said she was in the car, outside the hospital?”

He grinned. “Poetic licence. Didn't want you all thinking I'd been deserted, did I?” He crouched down to avoid my eye, packing away his tools in a tin box. “And she's staying put. We've called it a day, as you probably know.”

“I didn't actually, not for sure, but…well. There was talk you might not go the distance, as it were.”

He glanced up. “It's not just the travelling, luv. She's too young for me. Needs someone her own age.”

I gaped. Too young? For my dad? He straightened up and whipped off his jumper, chucking it on the grass. Then he dropped his trousers. I didn't flinch, since my father had been taking his clothes off at a moment's notice for as long as I could remember, claiming that as an actor he was used to people wandering in and out of his dressing room and seeing him in the buff—although privately I thought it had more to do with the fact that he was keen to show off his small but perfectly formed physique, his muscular chest and toned stomach. But I did wonder why he was doing it here, now, on Hannah's lawn. He reached into a rucksack on the grass and buttoned himself into a crisp, pinstripe shirt; then he pulled on a pair of mustard cords and some brown leather loafers, looking for all the world like a country squire.

“Where the hell are you going?” I asked in wonder.

He looked at me with round, innocent eyes as he shrugged on a tweed jacket, shooting out his shirt cuffs complete with gold crested cufflinks. “Out to dinner with Helena Parker. Why?”

“Helena Parker? Helena Parker! Why?”

Helena was one of Mum and Dad's oldest friends; a lovely, elegant lady, widowed tragically early and now in her late fifties.

“I met up with her at that dinner party Tessa Stanley gave at The Hurlingham a while back. Tessa was all over me,” he grinned, “tried to snog me in the rose bushes, a real gay divorcee on the prowl, but Helena's much more my type. She's a lovely woman.”

Yes. She was.

“Does Mum know?” I asked anxiously, following him up the garden path and back through the house as he searched in his natty little leather pouch for his car keys. He shrugged. Frowned back at me.

“No idea, why?”

“Well, I…just wondered.”

“I don't see what it's got to do with your mother,” he said as we went down the hall. “And anyway, she likes Helena. It's Tessa she can't bear.”

“Yes. No, you're right.” I chewed my thumbnail.

“I thought I'd take her to that new Marco Polo restaurant in Chelsea. It's got a garden, apparently. Had fantastic reviews in the paper. Blimey,” he glanced at his watch, “better get a wiggle on.”

“Marco Pierre. Yes. Yes, it has.” Cost an arm and a leg too. I swallowed. “Helena Parker's not your usual type, Dad. Isn't she a bit—you know—old for you?”

“Oh, but have you seen her recently?” He turned in the narrow hallway, eyes wide. “She looks about thirty-five! Fan
tastic
ally toned body, gorgeous long legs, honey-coloured hair and she's got terrific bone structure too. Honestly, she knocks a lot of young girls for six. And anyway, fifty's the new thirty, didn't you know?” He flashed me a grin.

“But what about discoing, clubbing, all that sort of thing?” I went on doggedly. “You'd miss all that, wouldn't you? You love that!”

“Oh, so does Helena. We thought we might go to Raffles afterwards. She's a member. How do I look?” He turned to me at the front door and stood to attention, beaming.

“Terrific.” I swallowed.

“Wish me luck?” He looked a bit anxious, for Dad. A nervous man on a first date. I smiled.

“And good luck.”

“Bye, darling!” he called to Hannah, who was back up her ladder in the front room.

“Bye, Dad, and thanks!” she shouted back. As he went down the front path, Rufus and Eddie were coming back up it.

“Bye, Bishop!” he sang, giving them a jaunty wave as he strutted past, shoulders back, to his BMW at the kerb. Rufus and Eddie laughed.

“Got a date, Grandpa?” Rufus called.

“That's it, laddie. Onwards and upwards. Onwards and upwards!”

I turned and walked thoughtfully back inside, still chewing my thumbnail. Stopped at the foot of Hannah's ladder.

“Helena Parker!”

“I know, isn't it lovely?” She paused in her wiping to glance down. “They've always got on so well. Remember when they used to go out as a foursome, when Geoffrey was alive? Oh, I think it would be marvellous. He's terribly keen, you know. Says she's got the best legs in London, which she probably has. And so intelligent too. Imagine, Dad acting his age for a change, with a suitable girlfriend. Wouldn't it be great?”

“Great,” I agreed shortly.

As she resumed her scrubbing, I gazed out of the window, past Rufus and Eddie, who were manoeuvring the pram back under the tree, watching, as Dad's shiny blue convertible purred expensively off down the road in the evening sun, en route to London.

Later that evening, when Rufus had gone to bed, I rang Alex. His mobile was off, so I tried the office.

“North American Desk?”

“Alex?”

“Oh, hi, darling.” He sounded tired. “How's tricks?”

“Alex, it's half-past nine. You're not still working, are you?”

“'Fraid so,” he yawned. “But nearly finished. Christ, is it half-past nine? I had no idea.”

“Darling, pack up and go home. You'll be exhausted.”

“Yeah, I'm about to, actually. Just putting the finishing touches to this wretched pitch for the Cable and Wireless account that Baxter has been bellyaching about. It's not bad actually, d'you want to hear my closing para?”

“Go on then.”

He cleared his throat and put on a pompous voice. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, is why the corporate finance team at Weinberg and Parsons is so uniquely placed, with Charles Baxter at the helm, to lead Cable and Wireless's fortunes further into the twenty-first century. Infinity and beyond.” He gave a snort of laughter. “Baxter will love that. Massages his ego and plays to his hubris too. Wanker.”

I laughed, and felt a sudden rush of love for him; working away late into the night for his family, for me and Rufus, but I felt indignation, too. Why
should
he be kowtowing to Charles Baxter, a man ten years younger and infinitely less experienced than he? Alex had been brokering deals when Baxter was still puking into loos at teenage parties, still picking his spots. As I heard him turn off his computer and scrape back his chair, I resolved once again that I'd persuade him to chuck it in; tell Baxter and his ego to take a running jump. We'd sell up in London and use the money to start our own business, a joint venture—not salmon farming perhaps; that had been a bit far-fetched—but, well, ordinary farming maybe, I thought wildly, looking out of the window at the cows. Golly, there was nothing to it, was there? I knew that now. A few bales of hay and a bit of chicken feed—yes, it was a doddle. And anything to get Alex out of this loop of misery. I felt a fierce wave of protectiveness towards him, something I'd never felt before, always believing him to be so strong, so inviolable, which, I realised with a jolt, was what he'd wanted. He hadn't wanted me to see this soft, vulnerable underbelly, but actually, he was all the more lovable for it.

“How's the flat?” I asked.

“Well, sumptuous, as you might imagine. Kate doesn't skimp on the décor, even for a nanny flat. I should think it all came from designer showrooms in Chelsea. Have you not seen it?”

“No, because Sandra was always there. Maybe I'll come up.”

“Do! Leave Rufus with Hannah and come up for the night. We could see a play or something, have dinner.”

I glowed with pleasure. “I will. And maybe Kate and Sebastian could come with us?”

“They could, but it's you I want to see. I don't see you all week, don't want to share you. Anyway, as you know, Kate and Sebastian's social whirl dictates that nothing can go into the diary without three weeks' notice. I tried to ask them out for supper this week, to thank them for the flat, and Kate said, ‘This week? Oh, no, Alex, we can't do anything until the end of the month!'”

I laughed. “I shall have words with her. Tell her she's turning into a real card-carrying member of the glitterati. So what will you do for supper tonight, my darling?”

“Oh, I don't know, pick up a curry in Putney High Street and eat it in front of Sky footy, I expect.”

I smiled. “Bachelor life has its compensations.”

“Not many,” he said gloomily. “Sleep well, my love.”

“And you.”

I put down the phone in a glow of warmth and happiness. Clutching the tops of my arms I went to the window, threw back my head and gazed out at the clear night sky with its sprinkling of stars. Oh, the relief. The
relief
to be natural and light-hearted with him, without a shadow lurking over us. Without Her between us. Think of the time I'd wasted! The time I'd spent
not
feeling light and carefree like this!

I drew the curtains and pulled my dressing gown around me as I went up to bed. It would have been nice if he'd asked after Rufus, I thought ruefully as I climbed the stairs; nice if he'd asked how his day had been, but hey, that was being picky, I told myself hurriedly. He was so busy, and anyway, all that would come, in time, when my plans for our new life had been instigated. He'd have more time for Rufus then, be more of a father to him. I poked my head around my sleeping son's bedroom door and smiled. And anyway, it wasn't as if Rufus was missing his daddy. Wasn't asking when he'd be back, how long he'd be in London, but all that would come too, I reasoned, going across the landing to my room, come the start of the Cameron family's new life together. Come the revolution. I got into bed with a smile and turned out the light.

At three twenty, I was awakened by Rufus shaking me vigorously.

“Mum. Mum! Wake up!”

“Hmm? Wha'?” I peered at him blearily.

“Mum, the cows are out! The cows are out of the field!”

I frowned. “Don't have any cows,” I mumbled. I turned over and went back to sleep.

“MUM!” He shook my shoulders violently. “Come on, get up!”

He threw back my duvet, and in that instant, stark naked and curled up in the foetal position, I came to. My eyes widened at the wall and I sat bolt upright.

Shit! The cows were out!

I ran to the window. Down below, Marge was casually snacking on a few tea roses in the front garden, whilst Princess Consuela was busy tap-dancing on the lawn.

“Christ! How the hell did they get out?”

“I think I might have left the gate open,” Rufus cowered. “I gave them some grass cuttings 'cos Tanya said they liked them, and I must have forgotten to tie up the gate!”

“Jesus wept! Well, come on, we've got to get them back in again!”

Seizing my dressing gown, I flew downstairs, shoving my arms into the sleeves as I went.

“Wellies on,” I panted, scrabbling around and finding mine by the front door.

“What—in my jim-jams?”

“Yes, in your flaming birthday suit, if need be. Now come on!”

We flew outside, me waving my arms and shouting like a banshee, whereupon Marge and Consuela, alarmed by a mad woman in a Chinese silk dressing gown complete with dragon motif, lolloped out of the garden, past their open gate, and on down the track.

“You frightened them, Mummy!” yelled Rufus. “You need to be calm, and controlled, that's what Tanya says!”

I'd give him calm and controlled. I'd give him Tanya too. “Get behind them!” I screeched. “Run round the back and we'll drive them back in a pincer movement!”

“But hadn't we better shut the gate? Otherwise the others will get out?”

“Then how are we going to get this pair in?” I screamed.

“I could stand guard at the gate and open it at the last minute! When you've got them lined up to come through!”

Good plan, good plan. Wish I'd thought of it myself, although what I really wished I'd thought of was being the gate opener, I decided as I hustled off to get behind them. I wasn't too keen on being the herder. I was reasonably au fait with cows now, but only from the pretty end. Wasn't sure about Going Round The Back. One hand clutching my dressing gown, since it had lost its cord, I nervously nipped around the beasts. Marge and Consuela eyed me with interest as Rufus ran to shut the gate—just in time, before Homer and Bart came ambling out. He shooed them away, and they shuffled off into the darkness. Good boy, good
boy
. Got his father's brains.

“Right. Ready?” he yelled, standing by at the gate.

“Ready!”

“Then drive them towards me!”

Easier said than done, actually. As I ran behind Marge's large brown bottom, she flicked her tail and ambled forwards amiably enough, but then the other one slipped away in the opposite direction. As I ran to chivvy that one, the first one slipped off too. For all their bovine bulk, these beasts were like bleeding quicksilver.

Finally, though, with much swearing and cursing, I'd got them lined up sufficiently to yell, “Right—open it, Rufus! Open it now!”

He did, and Marge went straight in. Rufus whooped with delight and went to shut the gate but, flushed with success, I yelled, “No, keep it open! I can get the other one in too!”

“No, Mum. Wait till you've lined her up properly.”

“Keep it open!” I shrieked. “I've got her!”

Unfortunately, I hadn't quite, and when Rufus opened the gate, she darted in the other direction. Instinctively we both lunged after her, and as we did, Marge and Bart slipped past Rufus and began galloping joyously after Consuela, who was lolloping down the hill, even giving little bucks occasionally, thrilled to be out in the open country, the moonlight on her back, her disciples behind her.

Rufus and I watched in dismay.

“After them!” I hollered, careering down the chalk track.

“No! Take the car!” called Rufus.

I stopped. Good plan. Good plan.

I came tearing back, ran inside for the car keys, then back to the car. Rufus was already in the front seat.

“If we get the other side of them, we can use the headlights to drive them back in the right direction,” he explained. “I've seen it in films.”

I nodded, mute with admiration, but also, fear. Oh, thumping great fear because—what would Piers say? His prize herd, his exotics, disappearing into the next county, injuring themselves perhaps, on barbed wire, keeling over in ditches, dying even—what would he say? He'd say get out, that's what.

“Maybe we should ring Piers?” said Rufus, bouncing up and down on the seat beside me as we bumped down the track. “Ask him to help?”

“No!” I yelped. “No, we can manage this together, Rufus, just you and me. Here they are!” Three broad bottoms with whisking tails trotted plumply ahead of us in the headlights. “Right, I'll drive up on this verge, get round the other—oh shit, SHIT!”

“They think you're racing them!” squealed Rufus.

They surely did. As I drew up alongside them, they put their heads down and charged, Consuela rolling her eyes and shooting me a flirtatious, catch-me-if-you-can look, thrilling to the chase.

“Slow down, Mummy, slow down. They're heading for the road!”

I hit the brakes as the cattle stampeded on. They'd clearly decided this had become a big night out and were heading for the bright lights—as bright as they got around here, anyway—the beckoning twinkle of the A41. Oh God, I thought in terror, now someone would
die
! And it wouldn't just be a cow, it would be a human being, driving along—a nurse perhaps, returning from a night shift, a very nice, innocent person anyway, not a drunk returning from a pub crawl—and SMACK! into the cows she'd go, swerving off the road, into a ditch, dead in seconds.

“This isn't working!” I yelled. “The car's frightening them. We'll leave it here and get out!”

As we stopped, the cows, placid, inquisitive creatures by nature, stopped too and turned to look at us, sides heaving. Then they promptly put their heads down and grazed, greedy for the uncharacteristically lush pasture. We crept up on them, Rufus and I, like Red Indians, and there then ensued much scampering about in the fields, much waving of our arms and cajoling, but we were outnumbered.

“It's no good, Mummy, we need someone else! Every time I get Consuela, Bart goes running off again!”

In the moonlight Rufus was scarlet behind his freckles, and I could tell from his voice he was close to tears.

“Pat's house is just there.” He pointed to the brick and flint lodge, the proximity of which hadn't escaped me. “Why don't I go and get him?”

Holding my sides and panting hard, I hesitated. The last, the very
last
person I wanted to involve, aside from Piers, of course, was that man. But actually, things were getting out of control here, and if I wasn't careful I'd have an accident on my hands. I swallowed my pride, which was about the size of a baked potato, and nodded.

“Wait here,” I muttered. “I'll go.”

I ran across the fields and down the lane beside the little stone wall, clutching my dressing gown to me as I threw open his front gate. We'd move, obviously, after this. Yes, move house. Somewhere far flung, somewhere remote, where no one knew us. Yorkshire perhaps. Yorkshire had farms. No, no farms. No cows. Liverpool, then. No cows in Liverpool. I rang the bell. He didn't answer. Well, of course he didn't; it was nearly three in the morning. Shutting my eyes for courage, I rang again, leaning on it this time. Scotland, I decided. Right up in the Highlands. Back to the salmon farming.

Eventually there was a shuffling sound down the passage: a light went on in the decorative fanlight above the door, and then it opened. Molly peered at me, clutching her own dressing gown and looking dazed.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” I breathed, taken aback. “It's me, Imogen.”

“Imogen,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“Um, Molly, our cows have escaped and I just wondered—is Pat in? Only I'm rather hopeless and I've only got Rufus.” It all came babbling out in a rush. “You see the thing is, they're almost on the road now and I'm so worried there'll be an accident!”

My voice sounded as small and cracked as Rufus's.

“Oh Lord,” she said sleepily. She turned. “Pat…oh.”

A pair of tanned legs in boxer shorts and a bare bronzed torso emerged down the hallway behind her. Instinctively, I glanced away.

“I'm so sorry,” I gasped, keeping my eyes firmly on the architrave around the door, “but our cows have escaped, and I just wondered…only there's only me and Rufus—”

“Hang on.”

As I glanced back, he'd turned and legged it back down the hallway. He reappeared seconds later, thrusting his legs into jeans as he hopped along, a fishing jumper over his head.