Lifesaver (24 page)

‘So, how is Vicky?’ I repeated, more tentatively.

Peter just gazed at me and shrugged helplessly. ‘Not good.’

‘Is she ill?’

‘Well. No. Well, maybe. I mean, she’s going to bed really early, and she doesn’t look all that bright, but, you know, that could be just because she’s so miserable.’

I felt like slapping him around the head. For heaven’s sake, I thought, this was Vicky’s third pregnancy, you’d have thought he’d be able to recognize the signs by now. How could he be so dense?
Ken
could predict when my period was within three days of arrival, and I’d have bet that Adam would have been able to do the same with his moonfaced wife, before she left him…Vicky was probably puking torrents every morning, with a bump showing already, and Peter was none the wiser.

‘So, what I came to say, is that, you know, Vicky’s got a lot on her plate at the moment, looking after the kids, and you know that Pat was in hospital with a urinary tract infection.’

‘
Was
he? For how long? Is he all right now?’ I sat bolt upright, my fingers twitching to ring Vicky and see if she was OK. It wasn’t the first time Pat had been hospitalized—he’d had suspected pneumonia when he was about seven months old—and Vicky and I had both cried ourselves weak, seeing him lying on that great high penned-in bed under a frieze of primary-coloured balloons and teddies, struggling for breath. It had been awful.

‘He’s fine now. They only kept him in for a day. The antibiotics cleared it up. But you know, it was tough. I mean, I had to close up the workshop early and everything.’

‘So what can I do?’

Peter drained his beer, as if the infusion of it into his system gave him courage to speak his mind. ‘You could apologize.’ His voice was cold.

‘What? What for?’

‘For whatever it was you said to her that made her so miserable.’

I paused, trying to work out how best to react. Snatching his empty beer bottle and cramming it up a small hidden orifice in his body was my immediate preference, but I realised that might not necessarily have helped smooth things over.

A noise came from inside the chimney, startling us both, followed by a shower of soot and small stones. An echoey, panicked cooing followed.

‘Pigeon,’ I said. ‘Stuck in there.’

‘Light a fire,’ said Peter conversationally. ‘Smoke the bugger out.’

Yes, thanks, Shock Headed Pete, I thought. That’s constructive. Perish the thought that he might think about the
pigeon’s
feelings, wedged in that dark, choking place, not knowing which way was up. In my mind, the pigeon assumed Vicky’s face, and the pathetic scritching of its sinewy feet moved me, unbearably.

‘I have
tried
to apologize,’ I said abruptly. ‘Not that the row was my fault - there are two sides to every argument, you know, and I don’t think anybody was specifically to blame in ours. But she wouldn’t listen. There’s nothing I can do if she won’t talk to me.’

Peter gave me a look that said ‘well, grovel, then’; and the pigeon cried in the chimney.

‘I’ll try talking to her again,’ I said. ‘But to be quite honest, Peter, I think it’s you that she really needs to speak to.’

‘Me?’ He looked utterly astonished. ‘What have I got to do with it?’

I made myself move across from the armchair to sit next to him on the sofa, but failed to bring myself to touch his arm, as I’d intended. It was funny, I thought, how it had been so difficult to tear myself away from Adam, earlier, who was a similar build and age, and who I knew even less well than I knew Peter. Attraction was a strange, unpredictable beast. I wondered what Vicky would think of Adam when—if—she met him; whether he’d elicit in her the same kind of unfavourable response that Peter did in me. I hoped not, for Adam’s sake.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I assume you’re here because you think I can help.’

Peter looked as though he wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard, but was forced to acknowledge this truism. He gave a curt nod.

‘I honestly don’t think that Vicky’s and my row is the main reason she’s unhappy at the moment. Admittedly, it probably hasn’t helped, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that.’

‘What is it, then? She’s not ill, is she?’

The words ‘She’s pregnant, you meathead,’ danced delicately on the tip of my tongue, as fizzy as sherbet, and I had to clamp my lips together to stop them bubbling out at him. If I’d have told Peter then, that would have been the end of it for me and Vicky. She really would have never spoken to me again.

But perhaps I
ought
to tell him, I thought with sudden panic, flailing around like the pigeon for the right words. Perhaps our friendship would have to be sacrificed, if it would save a life. There was no way that Peter would allow Vicky to have an abortion, if she hadn’t already had one. If I told him, then that would be the end of the debate. Vicky and Peter would have three children, and in ten years’ time when Crystal had got over her tantrums, and Pat his weediness, and the new baby would be nine and thriving—then she’d thank me for it. ‘I can’t imagine life without them all,’ she’d say fondly, gazing at her brood.

Although, on the other hand, in ten years time, Crystal might be living up to her name and smoking crystal methylate, shacked up with some undesirable teenage leg-end. Pat’s health might get worse, not better; and maybe the new baby would turn out to be twins. Or triplets, or disabled, and Vicky’s life would be ruined entirely. Or maybe she’d already had the abortion, and Peter would divorce her for doing it without telling him, and then her life would be even more ruined…

Oh, this was not fair. It was a crushing responsibility. I felt damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t.

‘Anna?’

‘No, she’s not ill, not as far as I know,’ I said at last. ‘But she’s finding everything really tough at the moment.’

Peter sniffed and wiped his nose, dragging his palm upwards, flattening his nostrils. ‘Kids are tough. Especially our little shits, I mean, love ‘em to bits and all, but they don’t half drive you mad.’

‘It’s really hard for Vicky, to be stuck inside with them all the time. She misses working.’

‘Crystal’s at Nursery every day,’ he said defensively.

‘Yes, but still only in the mornings—till after Easter, isn’t it? And then she’s tired when she comes home, and won’t sleep in the afternoon.’

‘Well, that’s just the way things are, isn’t it? I mean, what does she expect me to do; give up my job so she can go back to work?’

‘No, I’m sure she doesn’t expect anything like that. It just might be good if-’ Oh hell, how was I going to say this? ‘– if maybe there was some way that she could have a bit more help with the kids. A bit of time to herself every now and then, maybe a couple of days a week? Or a couple of nights a week when you could get up with Pat instead? I know what Vicky’s like when she doesn’t get enough sleep, and she’s always needed loads, hasn’t she? I’m sure even two nights unbroken sleep a week would make a huge difference.’

‘What do you want me to do, grow tits and feed Pat myself?’

I struggled to remain composed, thanking my lucky stars that I had the good fortune to be married to a sensitive, considerate man like Ken.

‘No. But you could encourage her to wean him - and once he’s weaned he may well sleep better anyway.’

Peter was pulling feathers out of the sofa cushions, dropping them and watching them float down onto the rug. At first he had just worried at their scratchy ends, gradually working them out, but now he positively yanked at them, dragging them. I decided that I actually really disliked him, rather than the vague but politely-suppressed antipathy I’d previously felt for him. The feeling was clearly mutual, judging by the look he was giving me.

I ploughed on. ‘Or how about getting some childcare, maybe two or three days a week? Someone could take Pat, and collect Crystal from school, just to let Vicky have some time completely on her own.’

‘Can’t afford it,’ said Peter.

‘It would be worth it,’ I said gently. ‘Honestly, I really think she needs it.’

‘I—Can’t—Afford—It. I’m a self-employed carpenter, not a merchant banker.’ He stood up, leaving a bottom-shaped impression in the sofa cushion. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. I thought that if you two made up, then Vicky would be happy again. But if you’re not willing to do that…’

I sprang up too. Honestly, enough was enough. ‘Peter, I told you I’ve tried to make up, but she isn’t having any of it! I also told you that I’ll try again, but that’s all I can do. I hate seeing her like this too, you know, and I’m just as worried as you are.’

He nodded at me, and with a muttered, ‘well thanks then, see you around, I’ll let myself out,’ was gone.

I picked up the nearest sofa cushion and whacked it against the wall with a strangled scream of frustration. More white feathers flew out, and in the chimney the pigeon gave a hopeful flutter, evidently thinking that help was at hand. But it was wrong - there was nothing I could do for it, either.

Lifting the corner of the voile curtain, I watched Peter walk away in the dusk. He was one of those men who, although already broad in the beam, thought for some reason it was a good idea to keep his wallet in the back pocket of his trousers, making his bottom seem misshapen as well as oversized. As I watched him go, I felt a commingling of renewed relief that I was married to Ken, and renewed guilt that, after the unexpected hiatus of Peter’s house call, I was going to have to resume deception to the man I loved.

I had to lean my forehead against the hall wall before I went upstairs, telling myself that I could do it, I could lie to Ken because I didn’t have nefarious or adulterous motives. I wasn’t trying to deceive him over anything which would actually hurt him—I mean, why would he mind that I was visiting a little boy whose life I’d saved?

Then
tell him the truth
, my conscience retorted.

But I couldn’t do that either, because he’d be furious that I was blowing out the holiday he’d so painstakingly organised, and that I’d lied to him. Plus, I had to admit that it would be convenient to have Ken believing that I was working. He might not understand were he to know that I was—hopefully—spending large amounts of time with another man.

It wasn’t as if Ken never told
me
fibs, I thought defensively. He often fudged the issue of what he did when he was working late. My idea of his working late consisting of him being chained to his desk, weary in shirtsleeves and alone in the office, bar a slope-shouldered cleaner lethargically pushing a carpet sweeper around. In reality, upon my asking why he stank of cigarette smoke, or was back so late, it had often transpired that ‘working late’ meant supper in a restaurant with several female colleagues. Which I now construed as potentially meaning; with one attractive female colleague.

I groaned involuntarily, still propped up by the shabby magnolia wall. My very own Wailing Wall. I wondered whether, if I scribbled a prayer and shoved it under the carpet—the closest I’d get to putting it in between the ancient bricks of the real thing in Jerusalem—the pressure in my head would be relieved, a kind of articulated trepanning. But what would I have prayed for: the courage not to lie, or the conviction to carry off the lies?

‘What
are
you doing?’ Ken appeared at the top of the stairs, a towel round his waist, and the hairs on his legs still wet and slicked down in patterns like crop circles.

I jumped, accidentally head-butting the wall. ‘Ouch. Nothing. Banging my head against a brick wall—Peter’s a nightmare. I don’t know how Vicky stays married to him. He hasn’t even realized that she’s -’

I stopped myself just in time. Hell, I was going to have to be more disciplined than that. Vicky’s pregnancy should have been the easiest of all my secrets to conceal.

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you aren’t interested in the ins and outs of their marital problems.’

‘Correct,’ Ken replied. ‘We’ve got more important things to talk about.’

He padded down the stairs to wrap his arms around me, and I relished the scent of his warm damp chest.

‘Have we?’ I asked cagily. He was so sinewy, compared to Adam. I shook the image of Adam out of my head crossly. So what? Why did I have to keep comparing them all: Adam to Ken, Peter to Adam, Ken to Adam, as if Adam was some great benchmark of manhood against which every other male must be measured. What did Adam have to do with anything, anyway, except as Max’s dad?

‘Yes. Like, if we’re not going to be able to meet your brother in Ibiza, then when shall we go on holiday? And where? To be honest, though, the news about your new job has kind of got me out of a hole. I booked the holiday, then Christian announced he was arranging a meeting in South East Asia, and of course wanted me to speak at it. I said no, and he wasn’t best pleased, but now…’

‘Well. That worked out then.’

He gently pushed me away, so he could look at my face to see if I was being sarcastic or not. Satisfied that I wasn’t, he hugged me again. ‘Sorry I’m away so much.’

‘Sorry I’m going to be away so much too,’ I said with feeling. ‘Although maybe it’ll make it easier for both of us. You won’t need to feel guilty about your travel, knowing that I’m not even there. We’ll just have to have extra good quality time when we are together, that’s all. And I expect there might be places other than Ibiza that you’d prefer to go to on holiday.

‘And speaking of quality time...’ I added, reaching up to kiss him. He pushed the fringe away from my forehead, and kissed my eyes, cupping his hands around my face. I tried to pull him down with me onto the stairs, but he resisted, laughing self-consciously.

‘Oh, come on, baby,’ I wheedled, slipping my hand under his towel. I’d always loved the sight and feel of a man in nothing but a towel; and the stairs used to be one of our favourite venues for sex—great angles.

But Ken twisted deftly away from me, yawning exaggeratedly. ‘Better not, sweetheart, I’m wrecked. I’ve got a mental day tomorrow, and it’s getting late.’

‘Never mind,’ I said, making an effort to kiss him tenderly on the lips before grabbing a banister and hauling myself up. I retreated into the living room and turned on the television:
Sex In the City
was on; that would have to do instead.