Having It All (32 page)

For a moment he wished that he had left a note or gone to find Liz at her mother’s after all. He might not have persuaded her to take him back but he would at least have shown he cared.
Steeling himself he dialled the number of Five Gates Farm.

Liz’s mother had just put the last of her suitcases in the boot and tucked Jamie’s present on to the back window ledge to set off for Crossways. She’d been
appalled when Liz had said he wanted a creature called a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle.

She’d been even more appalled to see actual fights breaking out between vulgar-looking parents trying to get the correct version of this revolting toy for their offspring in Hamleys, a
toyshop she had always considered respectable and had even taken Lizzie to as a child to get Winnie-the-Pooh toys. And she had nearly died when told that the only toy left was ‘Sewer
Swimmin’ Donatello’. The original would have turned in his grave! Turtles Michelangelo and Leonardo as well as ‘Breakfightin’ Raphael’ were thankfully out of stock.
Whatever had happened to poor old Winnie-the-Pooh? Thank heavens Daisy was still too young to know what she wanted, though, God knows, in a year or two she’d probably be asking for Teenage
Mutant Barbie dolls.

Even though it was quite cold, she took off her coat and folded it up and put it on the passenger seat – she hated driving in a coat – made sure that she’d put her handbag in
the car and went into the house for a last check-up. The windows were all closed, the central heating adjusted so that it only came on in the middle of the night to prevent burst pipes, and the
back door locked. Mercifully she was too old and untechnical to bother with an answering machine like all the young people she knew had, horrid things. She sometimes suspected their chief use was
for your children to pretend they were out if you took the liberty of ringing them. Anyway who would ever have anything urgent enough to say to her that it couldn’t wait till she was back
again.

She bracketed answering machines with videos and possessed neither. Liz was always telling her she was just the person to have a video since she was always complaining that the programmes she
wanted to watch were either on too late, or clashed with each other. But she didn’t want a video. It would just be another thing to worry about. Anyway she rather enjoyed banging on about the
evils of television. As you got older complaining was one of the few pleasures left to you.

Smiling to herself she double-locked the front door and started walking towards the car. As she lowered herself carefully into the seat, cursing the touch of rheumatism which was beginning to
remind her she wasn’t twenty-one any more, she thought she could hear the phone ringing.

Slowly she pulled herself out again and began walking to the door, forgetting that her keys were in her handbag on the front seat. Cursing in a surprisingly ungenteel manner she went back to get
them, fumbling with the zip in her hurry. Eventually locating them, she hurried as fast as her rheumatism would let her back to the door. Just as she got her keys into the lock the phone stopped
ringing.

‘Britt, love, welcome home!’

Her mother took the suitcase from her shyly, backing into the narrow hall of their small semi, identical to all the others on the faceless modern estate, and put it down on the worn flowery
carpet.

The moment she walked in Britt recognized the familiar smell of poverty. Not feckless poverty with its sweat, stale air and chip fat. This was the smell of decent honest poverty: of Dettol and
air-freshener and laundry drying in the spare room.

Her mother didn’t touch Britt, not even a handshake, certainly not a kiss. Britt thought for a moment of her mother’s Swedish ancestry. Her Nordic relatives all kissed and slapped
each other on the back continually. They were even worse than Londoners in the kissing stakes. But her mother had taken after the Yorkshire side of the family and squandering kisses wasn’t a
Yorkshire habit. For a moment she tried to imagine her father kissing a mate on both cheeks in the pub and had to suppress a smile. No one would ever speak to him again.

Britt looked at her mother, chatting away nervously. She looked even more worn and faded than usual. She’d probably decided to spring-clean the place in honour of Britt’s visit and
knocked herself out dusting.

To her amazement her mother actually claimed to enjoy housework and had acquired as few labour-saving devices as possible. If the consumer boom had depended on Mrs Mary Williams, of Acacia
Gardens, Rothwell, then Zanussi, Hoover and AEG would have gone out of business long ago.

She had recently acquired an aged automatic but she would no more have allowed a tumble-drier in the house than a fancy pasta-maker from the Elizabeth David shop or a coffee percolator. In
Acacia Gardens people drank tea.

And Britt had always been amazed that her mother still, like many of the older women on the estate, kept rigorously to the old pattern of washday on Mondays. If anyone had suggested an outing to
her on a Monday during the school holidays, she would have answered, shocked, that Monday was washday. Britt always suspected that if she came down early enough she’d catch her mother
black-leading the gas cooker.

‘Come in and see your father.’ Britt put down her handbag, struck for the first time by the fact that her father hadn’t come to the door to meet her. Following her mum into the
small sitting room she steeled herself for the usual blunt greeting and the inevitable clash of wills that would soon follow. Whether it was after five minutes or five hours, she knew that she
would, sooner or later, fall out with her father, as her mother rushed about like an ingratiating mosquito trying to douse the sparks of acrimony with tea and biscuits.

But her father wasn’t sitting in his chair, safety catch off, with the first barbed comment of the day loaded and pointing in her direction. He was in her mother’s armchair next to
the coal fire, his modest allocation being a perk from the mine where he worked, with a rug over his knees dozing. Gently her mother tucked it round him.

‘He sleeps a lot since this heart business.’

Britt glanced at her mother in surprise, discovering a faintly guilty look in her mother’s eyes. ‘What heart business?’

‘He had a mild heart attack three weeks ago.’

‘For God’s sake, Mum, why didn’t you tell me? I’d have come straight away!’

‘I know, pet, I know. But we didn’t want to worry you. You’re so busy. And you know what your father’s like. He’s not one to make a fuss.’

Britt looked at her mother in disbelief. Her father had had a heart attack and they hadn’t wanted to worry her with it. What kind of daughter did they think she was?

It was Britt’s second brush with life and death that day and, like lightning on a steeple, she felt the shock run right through her. Unconsciously her hand strayed down to the firm
tautness of her tummy where a new life was curled, minutely, inside her. And she saw that she had insulated herself from other people’s misfortune, even her parents’, because fear and
pain and hurt were nothing to do with her. And now finally they had caught up with her.

Very gently, while he still slept, she bent down and kissed him on the top of his bald head, and remembered how, when she was a little girl, she had sat on his knee and thought he was wonderful,
and she wished things could be that simple again.

David scanned the room-service menu for tomorrow and felt grateful that he wouldn’t either have to starve or make some pathetic attempt at buying a TV dinner and
Christmas pudding for one. Grosvenor House’s Christmas menu was as lavish as any five-star hotel. They’d probably put a paper hat on the trolley and a cracker which he’d either
have to pull with himself or the waiter.

Taking a large and mind-numbing sip of Scotch, he reached for the remote control and zapped through the channels. Pausing for a moment on Sky News, he wondered whether he should let the paper
know where he was. Then he decided against it. There was never any news at Christmas, people mostly waited till 27 December, when the news media was back at work again, to stage their hijacks, mass
murders, bombings and invasions. That way they got better coverage. The odds against a really big story breaking that would need his involvement were about a hundred to one. He decided to take the
risk.

‘Mum! When can we open our presents, Mum?’

It was ten o’clock on Christmas morning and Liz wondered how much longer she could string out the time before they got down to present-opening. Usually they followed a time-honoured ritual
of waiting till at least eleven, then David would distribute the presents, leaving just the right amount of time for a glass of Pimms and a brisk walk before Christmas lunch. But what on earth was
the point of sticking to tradition this Christmas?

‘All right, Jamie, I’ll be down in a tic. Presents in ten minutes!’

Liz did up the last of Daisy’s buttons and stood back to look at her. The tartan dress with the white sailor collar looked wonderful and Daisy had even allowed her to put a red Christmas
bow in her blonde curls. Picking her up she remembered bitterly that David hadn’t even bothered to phone back and on what should have been the most exciting night of the year, Christmas Eve,
instead of waiting up wide-eyed for Santa, Jamie had cried himself to sleep.

Waking up alone in the six-foot bed David looked up at the mirror on the ceiling, but even the thought of Logan placing it there at just the right angle so that he could watch
himself, a tiger in sex as well as business, couldn’t lift his mood. Thank God he’d been able to change those ridiculous satin sheets for a pair of serviceable cotton ones he’d
found in the back of the wardrobe.

When he’d decided to come here, David realized he’d had no idea what it would be like to spend three days alone, especially these three days, and he was finally forced to admit how
incredibly lonely he felt. There was only one answer. He would have to try, one more time to speak to Liz and the kids.

Dialling Liz’s mother’s number he held on for twenty full rings before admitting that it was useless. She couldn’t be there. Maybe they’d gone to a hotel. And then he
thought of Ginny. Ginny would know where she was. She might even be there for God’s sake, why hadn’t he thought of that before?

Feeling more cheerful, he fumbled for her number. Maybe he didn’t have it. No, there it was, thank God for that.

Ginny answered the phone immediately and he realized from the noises that she must be in the kitchen. For a moment he pictured it, warm and aromatic and hospitable, and, irrationally, he hoped
that she might invite him down for Christmas.

‘Hello, Ginny. It’s David.’ He rushed quickly on not giving her the chance of expressing surprise at hearing from him. ‘I wondered if Liz was there by any
chance?’

‘Liz? No. Isn’t she at Crossways? She left here about six yesterday and said she was going straight there.’

There was a silence from the other end as David took this in. He must have missed her by only half an hour! She hadn’t been away at all!

Getting no response, Ginny began to be alarmed. ‘David, there’s nothing wrong is there? She hasn’t had an accident or anything?’

‘No, no. I expect she’s sitting by the fire opening her presents.’ Ginny thought she could detect an edge of bitterness in his tone. ‘I never thought of trying her at
home,’ he added lamely. ‘Thanks a lot, Ginny. I’ll call her now.’

As she put the phone down Ginny wondered for a moment if she’d done the right thing in telling David where Liz was. Surely a phone call couldn’t do any harm. Maybe it would help.
After all, it was clear to anyone with half a brain that they were still in love with each other.

‘Look, Mum, it’s Donatello!’ Jamie brandished the revolting toy and gave Eleanor a huge kiss. ‘Thanks, Gran, I’ve already got Michelangelo and
Raphael. Oh, and Leonardo. This is great!’

Eleanor shook her head and smiled. ‘Jamie, do you realize that Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo were probably the greatest artists who ever lived?’

Jamie gave his granny a patient, understanding look. ‘They’re not real, you know, Granny, they’re just made of plastic. They couldn’t do any paintings!’

Liz tried to suppress a giggle and was grateful that Daisy still liked fluffy toys and music boxes that played ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?’

As Daisy ignored her presents in favour of the wrapping paper, Jamie rushed back to go on opening his. Ginny had knitted him a jumper with zoo animals on it and then there was the bike that Liz,
in an attempt to broaden his interest beyond slaughter in space, had told a white lie to get him.

‘Great, Mum, it’s brilliant!’

But she knew he was really waiting to open his last present, a huge square box. It was what he wanted more than anything, so she’d saved it till last and pretended it came from David. If
he hadn’t even bothered to ring, he’d hardly have remembered to get them any presents.

It was the MantaForce Spaceship he’d told Britt about.

‘Here you are, Jamie. This one’s from Daddy.’

‘Oh, Mum . . .’ Jamie tore off the wrapping paper feverishly, his eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘It’s got a rocket launcher too! How did he know I wanted it?’
Jamie started to unpack the red and black space troopers. ‘I know. He must have overheard me telling that lady with him.’

Liz avoided her mother’s glance.

Suddenly he looked up suspiciously. ‘When did Daddy bring it?’

Liz thought quickly. ‘That time he took you out for the day. He brought it back with him. It was in the boot.’

Jamie put down the space troopers and fixed her with eyes narrowed with pain at her betrayal. Her, the one person he’d thought he could trust. ‘No it wasn’t. The boot was
empty, except for the nappies that lady bought.’

Her heart lurched as she heard the catch in his voice and saw him blink, his eyes bright with tears, all the happiness and excitement wiped from his face.

‘It wasn’t from Daddy at all,’ he accused, ‘it’s from
you! You
bought it!’ Pushing over the toy that had only seconds ago given him so much pleasure,
he ran sobbing from the room as Liz watched helplessly, unable to think of what to say to soothe his hurt.