This Is All (67 page)

At Julie’s I put the cornflakes and ginger ale on the kitchen table, along with a few other items I thought she might need – some fruit, milk, bread, a couple of avocados, and ready-to-eat salad. I’d also bought a bunch of daffodils, which I arranged in a vase and took to the bottom of her stairs, where I called up to her. I’d no intention of leaving without seeing her.

No reply for a moment before she came out of her bedroom – the one room in the house I’d never been in – and stood on the landing, with her tut-tut expression on her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I had to see if you were all right.’

She was wearing a turquoise dressing gown open over a short white T-shirt. Her legs were less muscular than I remembered from our times sitting in her garden in the summer. She looked washed out and frail.

‘Lovely flowers.’

‘For you.’

‘Kind.’

‘You’re ill.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘I’ve brought what you asked for. And some other bits and pieces, just in case.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Can I bring something up for you?’

‘I can manage.’

‘But I’m worried … And I’m in a bit of a state myself.’

She smiled wryly. ‘Ah, I see.’

‘No, I mean—’

‘Some of the ginger ale would be fine. Bring whatever you want for yourself. And the daffs.’

Her bedroom had very little in it, no clutter, nothing unnecessary. Double bed with sun-yellow linen, crisp white duvet and extra pillows in strong shades of green and blue. White wood bedside table with reading lamp and little black alarm clock and the litter of a disturbed night (empty glass, used bowl and spoon, crumpled tissues and box, pills and potions, coffee mug, books, notepad, a jumble of magazines). On the other side of the bed, an old silver-oak dining chair with worn leather seat. Against the wall opposite the bed was a lovely mahogany chest of drawers with shiny brass handles, on top of which was a cluster of photographs in silver frames, among which I stood the vase of flowers. Among the photos I saw one of me I didn’t know she had. My heart missed a beat. An ivory-white thick-pile carpet covered the floor wall-to-wall. The window, opposite the door, with midnight-blue curtains, looked out over the road to the park beyond.

There was nothing on the walls, except the meditation icon, which was hanging above the chest of drawers, where Julie could see it as she lay in bed. As she was now, propped up with pillows. Her hair was a mess, but though her face was peaky, her eyes were clear and alert. I handed her the ginger ale and stood at the foot of the bed, holding the glass of orange juice I’d poured for myself, and feeling awkward.

‘Thanks,’ I said, for something to say.

‘What for?’

‘Letting me come up.’ A privilege, I knew.

She drank half of the ginger ale, put the glass down on her bedside table, folded her hands together and, ‘Going?’ she said. ‘Or staying?’

‘Staying. If that’s okay?’

‘If you don’t mind me being off colour.’

‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

‘Cordelia!’ She laughed. ‘What a question! Why d’you think I might be?’

‘Being off colour. Thought you might have morning sickness. And wanting cornflakes and ginger ale. Doesn’t seem like you. I mean, you’re so diet conscious. Thought it might be – what-d’you-call-it? – that pregnant mum’s craving thing.’

She smiled. ‘No, I’m not pregnant. Unless it’s an immaculate conception. Cornflakes are the only thing I can eat when I’m feeling like this, and ginger ale seems to settle my tummy. Don’t ask me why.’

‘Are you often like this?’

‘Not often.’

‘You seemed all right at school.’

‘It’s my job to seem all right, whether I am or not.’

‘So what’s the matter? If it’s okay to ask?’

She nodded towards the bedside table. ‘Sorry about the mess.’

‘What mess? You should see my room when I’m ill. Or any time, compared with yours. Yours is lovely.’

‘I like it. And I’d like to see yours.’ She meant it, which pleased me, and added, ‘I’m glad you’ve come, after all. I’m feeling better already.’ Which flicked my mood switch from awkward to relaxed. ‘Sit down and tell me why you’re in a state.’

‘O that! It doesn’t matter.’

I wasn’t lying or minimising. Just the fact of her being there, of her presence, and attending to me, made me feel protected. And that day I wanted to protect her.

‘I’d rather hear about you,’ I said.

‘I’ll tell you my troubles, if you’ll tell me yours.’

I placed the chair facing the bed and sat.

Julie said, ‘Mine’s simple. Since the start of this term I’ve marked fifty or sixty essays and exercise books a day, average, completely revised and updated the department handbook, page one to page one hundred and thirty, redone the display boards in the English corridor in preparation for the school inspection next term that has us all going off our heads and will be a complete waste of time, produced the school mag, with a little help from a friend, attended three parents’ evenings that take from seven till ten, arranged two theatre trips, which requires hours of form-filling, permission-gathering, money-collecting, coach-hiring, and more bureaucracy than getting a motion through the United Nations to start a war, written the minutes for our weekly departmental meeting, tutored four pupils who’ll fail their exams if I don’t, attended an exam board meeting and written a report on it for my colleagues, marked the mock exam papers, arranged and attended the creative writing club on Wednesdays and the book club on Thursdays, not to mention preparing and teaching twenty-nine lessons a week or my latest minor domestic crises such as the central heating going on the blink and my fridge giving up the ghost and having to be replaced, and the fact is that by last night I’d had enough of my job and the world at large and was so MPO I knew that if I didn’t give myself a weekend of DBA I’d turn into a zombie or end up in a ward for terminal psychos.’

‘MPO?’

‘Mega Pissed Off.’

‘DBA?’

‘Do Bugger All.’

We stared at each other. Then broke into laughter.

‘You catch my drift,’ Julie said.

‘And the way the wind is blowing,’ I said.

‘I know, I know! You needn’t tell me. The stress in my life is nothing compared with the stress of some people’s. I’m lucky to be doing what I’m doing. I chose to do it. I like doing it. Et cetera. But enough is enough for the nonce in mine. So when I got in from school yesterday I slumped in bed and slept and did nothing when I was awake except read something only for myself, an essential to my sanity which I haven’t done for three months. Think of it, I’m head of English and a teacher of literature to the young, and I haven’t time to read a novel or a few poems or a play or anything of any kind for myself and for my own health and development, or indeed to do anything other than bureaucratic crap and read the books set for exams, which I’ve read to death half a dozen times before. Don’t you think that’s a crazy way to run a school or an education system? And don’t answer that question. It’s rhetorical. The answer is self-evident. End of whinge.’

Pause.

‘Sorry, Cordelia.’

‘No problem.’

‘I don’t approve of teachers laying off their worries on their pupils.’

‘Better out than in, as my granddad used to say.’

She smiled. ‘It helps to say it, that’s true.’

‘And anyway I’m not,’ I said, ‘just one of your pupils. Am I?’

She shook her head. ‘No, you’re not. But still.’

‘But still nothing. I hadn’t added up what you do like that. Makes me realise I’d rather not be a teacher.’

‘Were you thinking you might be?’

‘It had crossed my mind.’

‘Don’t let me put you off. I love it most of the time. And
usually I can last out till the holidays before collapsing. But recently it got a bit too much. Let’s talk about it another time. I’ll be fine by Monday. Now. I’ve had my say. It’s your turn. What’s upset you?’

I took a nerve-gathering breath and said, ‘I don’t know how to explain. I’ve made a mistake. It’s hard to talk about.’

‘Mistakes usually are. Let me guess. You and Edward Malcolm.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘Because of what you told me about him and you, and the way you didn’t want to listen to me, and because of how you’ve been acting lately, and because your father is worried about you and because of the surreptitious way you disappeared yesterday after school.’

‘What! Dad talked to you about me and Edward?’

‘Wondered if I knew anything and what I thought he should do.’

‘But—!’

‘But you thought you were being very – what shall we call it? – discreet?’

Shamefaced, embarrassed. ‘Yes.’

She laughed, but not unkindly.

‘In this town? In our school? Really, Cordelia, I thought you had more savvy than that.’

‘O lordy!’

‘I know. But don’t fret. You’re not the first to make that mistake. Let she who is without fault throw the first stone. Though perhaps I shouldn’t talk about throwing anything just now.’

Which helped me to laugh. ‘That wasn’t the mistake I meant.’

‘Say on, Macduff.’

‘Well, Edward and me, we’ve been …’

‘Having an affair, and?’

‘We went away for the weekend. This weekend. Which wasn’t the first time.’

‘I know.’

‘The third, actually.’

‘Which is what I calculated.’

‘By the sea. Eastbourne.’

‘Eastbourne,’ Julie said, deadpan.

‘Eastbourne-by-the-Sea,’ I said, also deadpan.

But neither of us could hold it.

‘
Eastbourne!
’ Julie said.

‘
Eastbourne!
’ I parroted.

‘What was the silly man thinking of!’

‘Didn’t have time to find out.’

‘Ah, like that, was it?’

‘Not
like that
, not quite, no. The other two times were, but not this time.’

‘What was different about this time?’

‘This time I didn’t want to go. I think he thought he was losing me and taking me to a nice hotel and having another
you know
weekend would make it all right again.’

‘And was he? Losing you.’

‘Yes and no. But I hadn’t said anything yet. I agreed to go this weekend because I thought we might talk about it.’

Pause to observe Julie’s reaction. She was listening, a smile on her face, like a child being told a bedtime story.

‘And did you?’ she said.

I said, ‘It wasn’t his fault. He really loves me. That’s the trouble.’ I suddenly felt I must defend Edward. He’d done everything right. It seemed mean to blame him or make fun of him. ‘The thing is, this morning, when I thought we’d talk about how I was feeling about him and why I wasn’t feeling the same as before, he told me he wanted to divorce his wife and live with me.’

‘O God, not that! He has got it bad.’

‘I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to say. In fact, I ran away from him.’

‘Good for you.’

‘We were talking on the beach, and I just ran. But he followed me and we sat on a disgusting pile of rubbishy sand and he said how he didn’t just love me but was
in love
with me, and I was horrid about that, because I’m very suspicious of those words—’

‘You’re right to be.’

‘Men say them when they only mean they want to have sex with you, isn’t that right?’

‘Not all of them, but they do too often, yes.’

‘But it was so difficult because I do sort of love him in a way, but not like Will. He is very attractive and he’s been so generous and it is fun with him and I’ve learned so much, I might have gone along with him – I mean, think of it! – I mean when I think that now, I can’t believe it – but I might have done just to please him, I always wanted to please him, which was another thing that was beginning to worry me. But anyway, he said something that stopped me, he said I’d always come first,
except for his children
. And that’s what brought me to my senses. I mean, think of me as a stepmother. Lordy! I said to him, I’m not even ready to be a wife yet, never mind a mother, and
least of all
a stepmother. But I couldn’t tell him outright I wanted to end it, end it between us, just couldn’t say it, I don’t know why – how cowardly of me – and he took me back to the hotel, and I had a shower, and he was working on his laptop, and that’s what he’s really in love with, if you ask me, his work, and I still couldn’t tell him. I think I was frightened of what he’d do if I did tell him – I’ve only just realised that now, that I was frightened of him. How strange! Why didn’t I think of that before? Anyway I just had to get away,
just had to
, so I told him I was going out for a minute, and I left a note at reception saying sorry, but it was the end, and got the train home, and came to see you, and I know I behaved badly, and I should have told him face-to-face and tried to explain and not run away like that, and now he’ll be worried and angry and lord knows what,
and I feel so ashamed and so rotten I don’t know what to do and I didn’t mean to go on like this, I meant to be calm and sensible and rational and I just
can’t
.’

And now instead of laughing I was crying.

Julie didn’t say anything, but held out a hand, which I took, and drew me onto the bed. I lay down beside her. She put her arms round me, hugged me to her, kissed me on the top of my head, and now she was mum comforting her child instead of me being mum telling her a bedtime story, and it was such a relief to be with her and to have said all that.

22

But then, on the Friday afterwards, a text message:

Hm 2nite v late must c u 2moz 10.30 kissin tree. Will.

I texted straight back: OK 2moz.

If I slept that night, I don’t remember. What I do remember is thrashing about, sweating, wondering, imagining, holding conversations with Will in my head, trying out various possibilities. He and Hannah were going to get married. Hannah was pregnant, what should he do? He’d caught some terrible disease and had only three weeks to live. That kind of thing. But at the back of my mind, shut in a cupboard to hide it from view, was a reason I didn’t want to face. The knowledge that I’d made a terrible mistake.