Queen Mum (12 page)

I felt the end of the mattress fall away by my feet, then lurch back up thirty seconds later, and the clink of the scissors being dropped back.

There was a pause, which made me open my eyes.

‘What are these?’

Tom was holding the scrap of paper with my gay phone numbers scribbled on it. I’d forgotten they were in there. I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling and exhaled slowly. Thank God I
hadn’t written the names of the organizations down.

‘It’s not more of your bloody bereavement helplines, is it?’

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘It’s a list of all the lovers I’ve got on the go at the moment. Will you put it back, please?’

It says something about our marriage – I’m not sure what – that not for one second did Tom believe I was having an affair.

‘Keep the damn things, then,’ he said, screwing the paper up in his fist and pushing the crumpled ball back in my jewellery box. ‘It would be a hell of a lot healthier if I put
them in the bin for you.’

‘
What’s
unhealthy?’

I sat up then, angry as well as shaken.

‘Oh, you know; spilling the beans to people you’ve never even met,’ he said testily. ‘It’s been four years now, Ally. Sorry, but it has. You shouldn’t
be— You don’t get me calling up total strangers and telling them personal information.’

‘You don’t talk to anyone at all.’

He shrugged. That’s the way I am, his body said.

‘I talk to strangers,’ I hissed, ‘because I can’t bloody get through to my own husband!’

That made him flinch. I could have stopped and calmed down then, softened, so he could find a way in. But I didn’t.

‘You’re so closed up, Tom. It’s like you have a separate
life
from me. I can’t tell you anything emotional because you make me feel as if I’m just wallowing
in self-indulgence. That’s not right. I’m fed up of trying to keep everything inside.’

He stood with his feet apart, staring at me. After a moment, he said, ‘You don’t, though, do you? You give it all up to St Juno next door. I’m redundant.’

But look at what Juno did. Taking care of Ben while I went to hospital, sitting in our house all evening so he could be in his own bed; all those self-help books and website addresses she gave
me afterwards. And while the rest of the road was avoiding me and my radioactive grief, Juno let me sit in her kitchen and weep for hours because I didn’t want to do it in front of Ben.
Don’t you remember, I could have said, when you walked to the post box and it emptied the street, and you came back and threw a box of nails at the wall? Juno’s never hidden from us.
She’s the best friend we’ve got.

He knew all this, though. I said: ‘It’s the other way round. I talk to her because you don’t want to listen.’

He turned away from me and strode towards the door. ‘Never mind, eh, she’s back tomorrow.’ And there was such an edge to his voice. ‘Thank Christ.’

‘It was
The Merchant of Venice
. MOV, Act 2, scene 3, line 2; “Our house is hell.” Just a silly joke. I shouldn’t have even been sending emails;
I’d have been in trouble if they’d found out, but I thought a coded message would be all right.’ Juno looked done in. I’d never seen her hair so flat; it needed a wash. She
looked thinner, too. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t have sent one back, could you? So it doesn’t matter.’

‘I still feel like I let you down.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said brightly, pushing a cup of coffee across the kitchen table at me. ‘I was only letting off steam. I felt loads better after I’d sent
it.’

‘So, was it?’

‘What?’

‘Hell?’

‘Good Lord, no. I was joking, like I said. Although I could have done without that
awful
dog.’

‘Why, what did it do?’

She grinned. ‘I think it must have been on Viagra. It was humping every damn thing in sight. I spent half the time pulling its nose out of my crotch.’

‘Eugh.’

‘Absolutely. I never want to see another dog’s penis as long as I live.’

We laughed for a long time; I think we were both quite high. I’d made myself wait till the Monday afternoon before going round, partly because the TV vans were still there and partly
because I thought she’d want some time with Manny and the girls. Also, I didn’t want to prove Tom right by panting on the doorstep as the car pulled up.

‘Is it weird to be back?’

‘I’ll say. Do you know what I came home to on the Saturday morning? You won’t believe this; the girls, in their pyjamas – this is ten thirty, mind – sitting
watching
The Powerpuff Girls
and eating foam bananas. Foam bananas! And Pascale wearing one of those necklaces made of coloured sweets round her neck. How old are you, exactly, I said to
them. You’d never think GCSEs were on the horizon. And then, did you know about Sophie having her navel pierced?’

‘No! Did Kim—? Oh, Juno, that’s bad.’

‘You’re telling me. I was bloody furious about it. The girls knew how I felt about extra piercings. I’ve said; when they turn eighteen it’ll be up to them, but in the
meantime— Anyway, Soph took it straight out so it should heal up in a week or two. I think she was quite relieved to be told. It looked terrible. And school wouldn’t have allowed it, so
. . . ’ Juno yawned. ‘Oops. Still catching up.’

‘Do you want me to go?’ I said immediately. What I really wanted to ask was, Do I lean too much on you? Am I too needy?

‘Don’t you dare,’ she said, mock-stern. ‘I’ve been
dying
to talk it through with you. You have to hear all the gory details.’

‘OK. Go on.’

‘So I got the girls to go upstairs and sort themselves out and then I found, it was so nice, a cake they’d made for me, well, bought. But they’d iced it themselves;
Welcome
Home Mum
. I asked them if Kim had got them to do it, but they said no; wasn’t that sweet? And after I’d shouted at them, too. Then Manny came in – he’d been down to the
garage to get some flowers for me – and we had some time together. He looks as if he’s had a time of it, poor man. He apologized about Soph’s navel but Kim took her to have it
done while he was out. Although he could still have got her to take the stud out. He says he did but she mustn’t have heard him. Then I set to tidying up and stripping the beds, because
frankly it smelt of cigarettes in the spare bedroom, even though Manny says Kim only smoked outside, and there was a little pile of tab-ends under the flowering currant bush; I assume that’s
her. Honestly! And another thing; when I went to have a soak later on, she’d used nearly all my Freesia bath oil. You’re only supposed to put a couple of drops in.’

I wanted to hug her. ‘I’m glad you’re home,’ I said. ‘I’ve missed our chats.’

‘What was Kim like with you?’

‘OK. Quite a pleasant manner, on the surface. I think she was perfectly nice to the girls, in case you were worrying. But I didn’t feel much of a connection with her.’

That seemed to please Juno. ‘That’s more or less what Manny said; isn’t it strange?’

‘And what was it like being with Kim’s family? Apart from the randy dog.’

Juno stretched and smiled. ‘In a nutshell? Fine,’ she said. ‘I’d say it went very well.’

*

*

*

That first afternoon I held back from telling Juno about the Ben-thing; it felt too big to talk about yet. Instead I confided in her about my row with Tom.

‘Just, every so often I feel
bleak
about my marriage,’ I said, swirling my coffee grounds in the bottom of the mug.

Juno frowned. ‘But you’re so good together.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yes. When you think what you’ve been through.’

No one but Juno could have got away with those words. I said carefully, ‘I think part of the problem is that we sort of – remind each other to be sad. He’s still so angry about
Joe. Sometimes I want to run away from his anger.’

‘But you can’t run away from your own feelings.’

‘No.’ I imagined myself for a moment sitting on a seafront, watching the spray, alone. It would be worse on my own. ‘And Tom’s the only person who can really
understand.’

‘Of course he is,’ she said.

When I got in Tom had come home early from work and there was wet washing on all the radiators; an apology. Tom’s magic ear can detect the finest of tuning changes in a car engine but is
ordinarily deaf to the end of the spin cycle.

‘Thanks for sorting out the clothes,’ I said.

‘I vacuumed too.’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Juno all right?’

‘Great. Sends her love.’

Ben was at a friend’s for tea so we ate our shepherd’s pie on our laps in front of the TV news.

After we’d finished, I stood up to take the plates. Tom raised his face to me and said, ‘You see, I’m no good at talking. It stirs everything up, for me.’

‘I know.’ I took the plates through to the kitchen and brought back some wine. On television, Rick Stein was unpacking a lobster.

Before he went to pick Ben up, Tom pulled me to him and mumbled into my hair: ‘I want to make things better for you, and I can’t. Do you understand what that’s like for me?
There’s nothing, nothing I can do. I feel completely inadequate.’

I nodded against him, and he left.

Joe died on a beautiful March day. He was knocked down by a car.

This is how it happened: Ben, Joe and I walked out of the house together, on the last minute as usual because Joe hadn’t wanted any breakfast and had dawdled over his toast as only a
four-year-old can. He’d been playing with shells, lining them up on the arm of the sofa, rearranging their order between every bite of toast. Even with my nagging, he’d only managed
half a slice.

Ben was keen to get to school on time because he’d made a model pyramid as part of an Egyptian project, and he wanted to show it off. I’d shouted at him for showering sand on the
hall carpet and he was sulking at me, and also sulking at Joe for holding us all up.

I parked on the road that day because the front garden was being landscaped and the drive was just a trench. We were half-running along when a gust of wind buffeted Ben’s pyramid and tore
up one cardboard edge from its base. Ben howled and I stopped to help. I tried to shield the model with my coat but the wind was strong and the whole pyramid lifted up and tore along another of its
edges. Ben began to squeal with frustration.

I took the bulky structure out of his hands and turned towards our car just as the Maestro hit Joe.

At first I couldn’t work out what had happened. I called for Joe when I couldn’t see him; I thought he might have been hiding, or gone back to the house. But I didn’t get any
reply, and there was this silver Maestro stopped in the middle of the road, a door opening and an old man getting out. Ben was still wailing about his pyramid. I handed it back to him and stepped
out into the road.

Joe’s navy coat sleeve was sticking out from under the Maestro’s body. I started to scream his name. Then I threw myself flat onto the road and put my cheek to the tarmac so I could
see what state he was in, but it was dark between the wheels. All I could make out was that he was lying completely still.

The old man was babbling, telling me not to move him, and I turned and yelled something like, ‘Do you expect me to leave him there, then?’ Ben had cottoned on that something was
wrong and he was shouting ‘Mum! Mum!’ over and over again. As gently as I could, I dragged Joe out into the light.

I could see at once that the car tyres had passed over his body because his pale blue sweatshirt had black marks across it and the material was rucked up and pleated flat. I couldn’t see
the skin of his stomach because he had a vest on. He was limp and I couldn’t get any response when I patted his cheek or called his name. His face looked untouched, but dead. I felt for a
pulse by kneading his neck because I knew I ought to do something like that, and I thought I could feel a faint one. All the time I was saying his name in case he could hear me. I heard the driver
calling for an ambulance on his mobile.

‘He ran out,’ I heard him say, his voice cracking. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Yes. Cestrian Park. C-e-s-t-r-i-a-n. Yes. I’m not sure.’

He tried to hand the phone to me but I wouldn’t let go of Joe. I was trying to work out whether he was breathing or not. Then I heard Juno’s voice saying, ‘Manny, take Ben
inside. Give me the phone.’

I slipped my coat off and laid it over Joe to try and keep him warm because it was freezing down there on the tarmac. I stroked his hair and forehead till the ambulance came. ‘I
didn’t dare do any chest compressions because I thought he might have internal injuries,’ I told the paramedic, quite rationally. He was nice with me, nodded, but I think he must have
known Joe was dead then. ‘Should I have done chest compressions?’ ‘You did the right thing,’ he said.

I didn’t ask, ‘Will Joe be all right?’ Afterwards I thought maybe I’d given up too easily; if I’d expected him to pull through, then he would have done. I expected
him to die, and he did. Tom’s never once said, ‘What were you doing? Why weren’t you watching him?’ But I still think it was my fault, when you get down to it; if not for
failing to hold his hand, then for letting Fate take over.