Authors: Wendy Perriam
‘M
UM, WE’RE LEAVING
now,’ Amy called from the foot of the attic stairs.
‘Oh, right – just a sec.’ Maria glanced at herself in the mirror, suddenly regretting the tight blue-denim jeans and brilliant swirly top. She was about to be a grandma, for God’s sake! Too late to change, though, since she wanted to go down and see Amy and Hugo off.
‘Wow, Mum, you look amazing!’
She flushed. ‘You don’t think it’s – you know, mutton dressed as lamb?’
‘Well, to be perfectly frank, you look nothing like the mother I’ve grown used to, but I’d say that’s all to the good. Why the change, though?’
She hesitated. ‘I … I’ve been feeling a bit frumpy in the life class.’ That was true, at least. ‘The others aren’t particularly young, but they
dress
young, certainly. And they’ve invited me to supper this evening, so I thought I’d make a bit of an effort.’ ‘They’ was safely vague.
‘Oh, I’m glad you have something planned. I hate leaving you alone on a Sunday. It’s bad enough in the week, with me and Hugo both so busy. You should have mentioned it before, though – saved me all that guilt!’
‘It came up sort of … suddenly.’
‘So are you all going out as a group?’
‘No. One of them’s asked us all back to her flat.’ ‘All’ and ‘her’ weren’t true. She hated lying to Amy, but she just couldn’t admit the truth. Indeed, she could hardly believe how ridiculously apprehensive she had felt since Friday’s class, when Felix had suggested she go round to his place this Sunday evening, to see his recent paintings. Never would it have occurred to her that he had anything more in mind than an appraisal of his work, were it not for the signs he had given during the last few classes. These had escalated from a hand on her arm as he leaned over to assess her drawing, to the brushing of his body against hers, to direct, almost provocative
eye-contact
, to compliments on her hair and even figure. And, just last week,
when all the others had left, he had actually taken her hand and slowly traced each finger with his own. The soft, mesmeric pressure had been so sensual, so surprising, she had felt its shockwaves throbbing further down. But then he’d laughed and made a joke of it; said he was simply checking to see if she had artistic hands.
‘Mum, I’ve the perfect scarf to go with that top – a red and purply one. I haven’t time to find it now, but just rummage through my drawers and help yourself to anything you want. And I think a paler lipstick would work better than that vivid red, so feel free to borrow mine.’
Having thanked her daughter, Maria added, with a sudden guilt, ‘Darling, you mustn’t think I’ve been throwing money around. I bought this entire outfit at Tachbrook Market for less than twenty quid, and that includes the boots.’
‘Mum, for heaven’s sake, you’ve
never
thrown money around! You should see my friend, Beth. She spent over a thousand pounds on some Balmain jeans last week.’
Appalled, Maria did a speedy calculation: a thousand pounds would probably buy a sandwich for almost every homeless Londoner.
‘OK, that’s over the top. But you don’t have to keep economizing. Why not spoil yourself for once and buy some decent clothes?’
‘Why, do these look cheap and nasty?’
‘No, they look surprisingly good. In fact, I doubt if I could tell the jeans from Beth’s, apart from examining the label. Hell! Is that the time? I told Hugo I’d only be a sec. And he’s pretty pissed off as it is.’
‘Why, what’s wrong?’
‘Oh, it’s connected with his old firm in Dubai. Apparently, a major problem’s developed in that huge hotel complex he built.’
‘But you left Dubai a good nine months ago, so surely it’s not his
responsibility
?’
‘Well, actually it is. You see, there’s a clause in the contract that says if any defects are discovered in the materials or workmanship within one year of completion, the contractors are liable and have to—’ She broke off, impatiently, with another glance at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, I can’t go into all the details now – it’s just too complicated. Basically, Hugo blames the contractors, but
they
say he approved it, so it’s actually his fault. It’s a major hassle for him – poor darling! He has enough on his plate with his current job, without all this exploding in his face.’
As if confirming his tense state, there was a tetchy shout from
downstairs
. ‘Get a move on, Amy! We’re going to be frightfully late.’
Together, they hurried down the two flights and found him pacing up
and down the hall. However, his expression changed as he gave Maria an appraising glance. ‘Hey, you look great!’ he exclaimed.
Well, at least
one
male approved, but Felix and Hugo were entirely different types and, if the artist was less impressed than the civil engineer, then it was Kate she had to blame. Now that they were seeing each other more often, the younger woman’s influence was beginning to rub off on her. At first, she had strongly resisted Kate’s suggestion, saying she was far too old and fat even to consider wearing jeans.
‘Don’t put yourself down, Maria. You’re not fat, you’re voluptuous. And as for being old, I have a couple of friends in their
eighties
who still look fantastic in jeans.’
Far from being an octogenarian, she was only forty-six – if sixty was the new forty, as Kate had again insisted. Although, to tell the truth, she felt more like seventeen inside: excited and terrified by turns. Would Felix be disappointed, once she was alone with him; feel her conversation lacked sparkle or authority? And did she possess the right vocabulary to comment on his work in any depth? Or suppose she disliked the paintings and was lost for any words at all? When it came to art, she was a mere novice in comparison: unconfident, unskilled and rusty. Yet, at every class so far, he had singled out her work as ‘exceptional’, ‘original’ and ‘erotic’.
Erotic …. Had he used that word with regard only to her drawings or—
‘’Bye, Mum. Have fun!’
‘You, too.’
She just hoped the Dubai problem wouldn’t spoil their day. Despite her fervent wish to make their lives easier and reduce the pressures on them, there was so little she could do in point of fact. Her frequent offers of help were usually declined and, as for Hugo’s construction contracts, they were so bafflingly arcane she simply couldn’t grasp the technicalities.
Once Amy and Hugo had left, she nipped up to their bedroom to find a suitable lipstick and the scarf. The large, all-white room made her
troublingly
conscious of the two small, shabby bedrooms in the cottage. However, now that the baby had quickened – a truly special moment, as much for her as for her daughter – she was all the more determined to keep on the place for her grandchild, as well as for herself. And although it would need total renovation, inside as well as out, Amy had generously offered to foot the bill, since she, too, liked the notion of a holiday retreat.
Returning to the attic with her booty, she paused a moment to study the new drawing on her easel. Although a definite improvement on her earlier attempts, it required a lot more work. But she couldn’t settle to anything in her present state of mind, and the easel only engendered further questions.
Why
had Felix given her an easel – an old one, admittedly – which he claimed he no longer used? Nonetheless, it marked her out as special. She simply couldn’t believe that all other eleven members of the class had been presented with free easels.
Weary from her constant introspection, she stretched out on the bed and deliberately switched her mind to something else – something mundane and practical: namely probate and the cottage, and the various minor matters still outstanding after Hanna’s death. In fact, she ought to make a trip back home, to check on the cottage, give the car a run, and put flowers on her mother’s grave. And she could take the chance to visit the solicitor, and also catch up with her friends, Carole in particular.
Suddenly, Carole’s husband Eddie was lying naked astride her, as so often in the past: thwacking, thrusting, whipping her on, as if she had become his sweaty, lathered horse, and they were careering over hedge and ditch in a mad gallop to the finish, the room vibrating with the thunder of hoofs.
Breathless, she slumped back, feeling her usual disquiet. Did other women of her age carry on in this feverish way, or was something seriously wrong with her? And it seemed all the worse considering it was Lent – a time of penitence and self-denial, not of steamy gratification. Yet, however hard she tried to resist, thoughts of Felix began creeping back again and, all at once, he was there beside her, his stubby, paint-stained fingers brushing lightly against her lips, coaxing them to open, then kissing her so wildly, she …
‘
Stop
,’ she muttered furiously. It was ludicrous, if not conceited, to imagine he had designs on her. Men preferred younger women – that was a fact of life – and only her long-thwarted desire had made her misinterpret a few merely friendly gestures.
Restlessly, she shifted on the bed. Truth to tell, she had been in a peculiar state since her recent extraordinary massage at the day-spa. Amy had given her a voucher for several treatments there – a present she was reluctant to accept until Kate offered to come with her. Hedonistic Kate had no qualms about ‘indulgence’.
Closing her eyes, she felt the masseuse’s hands again, stroking her naked body; that amazing physical contact of one person with another; the touch of skin against skin; the sense of being accepted, safe, protected. It had struck her at the time that this was what a baby must feel when cradled by its mother, and – suddenly, upsettingly – she had realized at some deep, instinctive level that
she
had never felt it as an infant.
She sat up on the bed, speculating, as in the spa, on the circumstances of
her birth – in a severely cold and snowy winter, with the war still dragging on, and her mother an evacuee, billeted on strangers. Perhaps poor Hanna – widowed, grieving and miles from home – had simply been incapable of nurturing a child, and was possibly much more vulnerable than anyone suspected. The mother she had known – strong, religious, dutiful – might have temporarily cracked at such a traumatic time. And perhaps her
devotion
to the infant Amy had arisen partly on account of guilt: what she had failed to give her own daughter she must give to her daughter’s daughter. The implications for
her
, as a grandmother-to-be, were overwhelmingly clear: if, for any reason, Amy couldn’t provide her baby with that essential early sense of safety and security, then she herself must impart it to the child – repeating history in the process, perhaps.
She walked slowly to the window, reflecting on all the mysteries embedded in her family; the things she would never know; the father she had never seen, the grandparents and other distant relatives who were only faded photographs.
But brooding over her family was no advance on fretting over Felix. However, it had at least brought her down to earth and put a halt to the erotic extravaganzas. She suspected, though, that if she didn’t have a change of scene and a breath of bracing fresh air, she would probably wheedle Felix back to bed. So, since it was a bright spring day, she decided to take a walk to Victoria Street and buy a gift for the baby. It was only 2.45 and Felix wasn’t expecting her till six, so she could wander round the shops, pick out something suitable and give it to Amy on Mother’s Day – when she would be getting on for twenty-one weeks pregnant.
At least a shopping expedition would help to pass the time.
Proceeding along Carlisle Place, she stopped to listen, puzzled by the sound of drums, which appeared to be coming from the cathedral piazza. Intrigued, she wandered over to investigate and found an event in progress. Crowds of people were milling about, some with banners and placards; stalls had been set up all along one side and, yes, a group of drummers were filling the square with urgent, rhythmic noise.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked the young lad manning one of the stalls.
‘It’s a protest,’ he informed her, ‘against a proposed new Westminster bye-law that’ll make it a crime to give out food to the homeless.’
‘That sounds a bit extreme.’
‘It’s barbaric!’ he replied. ‘It means all those charities that organize
soup-runs
and the like will now be heavily fined. And even sandwich shops won’t
be allowed to give away their unsold stock. They’ll have to chuck it out in future, which is a shocking waste of food.’
‘But why?’ Maria asked.
‘Oh, the council have their reasons, but they don’t hold water, actually. I mean, they complain that local residents get hassled by rough-sleepers drinking in the street, but it’s just as easy to be hassled by groups of toffs spilling out of ritzy clubs, all disgustingly pissed.’
She nodded, having experienced something similar last week. Besides, living in Amy and Hugo’s decidedly upmarket house had made her
shamingly
aware of the contrast between her own cushy lifestyle and that of the rough-sleepers.
‘Do sign our petition,’ the fellow urged, handing her a clipboard that held several sheets of paper, all already scrawled with signatures.
Once she had added her own, the young man went on to tell her that, at four o’clock precisely, a group of core supporters planned to lie down in the piazza, as a gesture of solidarity and to mark the end of the protest. ‘Why not join in?’ he suggested.
‘Maybe,’ she said, slightly uneasy at the prospect and hastily moving on to another stall. There, she was given a handful of leaflets and soon engaged in conversation once more and, only minutes later, she was served a free dish of rice and got talking to a woman who had helped organize the protest.
‘I’m prepared to go to gaol,’ the fiery redhead declared, ‘if this bye-law comes into force. And anyone who calls themselves a Christian should jolly well feel the same. Christ commanded us to feed the poor, so what the hell would He think if He knew that His command was now a criminal offence?’