Heaven's On Hold Read online

  She said: ‘ The roundness is going, as soon as I’m allowed back in the gym, believe me.’

  ‘I bet David likes it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ Coral raised an eyebrow. It was the most she’d moved since sitting down on the sofa. Annet met her eyes squarely. ‘It’s not what he fell for in the first place.’

  ‘True.’ Coral glanced around. ‘Dare I risk a fag?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The nicotine fascists have it too much their own way, you know that?’

  ‘It’s not that, it’s not good for the baby.’

  ‘Now you’re talking. That argument hits home.’

  ‘Which?’ said Louise, from the doorway. ‘Don’t tell me she’s conceding a point.’

  ‘Here,’ said Coral, bouncing up. ‘ Let me have a hold, it’s my turn.’

  ‘And lunch is ready,’ added Louise, relinquishing Freya, ‘so you’ll have to put her down again.’

  Annet brought the car seat and sat it on the Parker-Knoll in the corner of the dining room. Demurely lidded Coalport vegetable dishes sat on Redoute rose table mats on either side of matching salt and pepper shakers. Coral pulled a chair back from the table and sat down on it with the baby still held in front of her.

  ‘Marina!’ she called, without taking her eyes from the baby’s face. ‘OK if we open our bottle of wine?’

  ‘Of course! I’m no good with the blithering corkscrew, but if any of you girls can manage it.…’

  ‘Go on,’ Coral jerked her head, ‘ what are you girls waiting for?’

  Louise went out to the kitchen. Annet said: ‘ Good thinking.’

  ‘Well you have to, don’t you? And what’s more we take the leftovers with us.’

  ‘You don’t …’ Annet was impressed. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Sure. She makes it perfectly plain this is a wine-free zone, and she makes a point of never touching it as though it’s an invention of the devil or something, so we think it’s only polite to go along with her.’

  ‘I gave up bringing it because it was only me that drank it and since I’m driving—’ Annet shrugged. ‘ When in Rome.’

  ‘When in Rome,’ said Coral, ‘ do as the Italians do, I say.’

  Marina dished up, and held court.

  ‘Isn’t this fun, all girls together? Even little Freya … we’re quite a sorority.’

  ‘Men, who needs them?’ agreed Coral mischievously.

  ‘Oh, I never said that.’ Marina wagged a finger. ‘I would never say that.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Louise turned to Annet. ‘Do you think she’ll be a real Daddy’s girl?’

  ‘Miles was always—’ began Marina.

  ‘Probably,’ replied Annet, ‘ if only because I suspect older fathers are more indulgent. So I shall be left with the unenviable role of Wicked Witch of the West.’

  ‘You’ve got the looks for it,’ said Coral.

  Louise sucked her teeth. ‘ Honestly. What sort of remark is that?’

  ‘It was a compliment. Bad girls are always the sexiest.’

  ‘Anyway,’ interjected Marina, smiling fixedly to show that she was taking no notice of the sex talk but wished to put a stop to it nonetheless, ‘ this little one will be able to wind David round her little finger, you may be bound.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Louise, ‘ how’s your social life, mother?’

  This was a question which Annet would never, on principle, have asked, and she could not bring herself to look up from her plate as Marina answered.

  ‘Quite hectic, believe it or not. I’m a Friend of the Arcadians now, thanks to Geoffrey and Phyllis, which entitles me to all sorts of jolly things.’

  ‘Translate please?’ said Coral.

  ‘The Arcadians, you know,’ said Louise. ‘Local amateurs but quite good. They put stuff on in the Masonic Hall.’

  ‘Why on earth don’t we go?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were interested.’

  ‘Interested?’ exclaimed Coral. ‘ Interested? How can you say such a thing, of course I’m interested. The tender green shoots of artistic endeavour should be nurtured wherever they appear. Particularly around here. You really must get me along to these things.’

  Annet bit on a smile.

  ‘Yes you should, you really truly should,’ agreed Marina. ‘They are quite wonderful. I mean darling, you describe them as amateurs and I suppose in the strictest sense they are but the Salad Days they did in April would have stood comparison with anything in the West End.’

  ‘Romans in Britain, The Blue Room …?’ murmured Annet subversively.

  ‘See what we missed?’ said Coral to Louise.

  ‘So mother, what do you get for being a friend?’ asked Annet. Coral gave a snort, which she ignored. ‘Priority booking, I suppose.’

  ‘Priority booking, discounts, social evenings, workshops—’

  ‘Workshops? Do you do those?’

  Marina gave a flirtatious smile. ‘There’s no need to sound so surprised. Geoffrey and Phyllis were signed up for the one on verse speaking and Phyllis wasn’t well so I took her place and I found it quite fascinating.’

  ‘And did you?’ asked Annet. ‘Verse speak?’

  ‘I had no intention of doing anything in public, but everyone had been told to take a piece of verse along and since I’d inherited Phyllis’s mantle I was bequeathed her poem.’

  They looked at her expectantly. Coral said: ‘You have us in the palm of your hand Marina.’

  ‘Oh, it was something terribly tricksy and difficult and pretentious about a hawk.’

  ‘ ‘‘The Windhover”?’ suggested Annet.

  ‘Some such thing.’

  ‘Who he?’ Coral asked.

  ‘You know,’ said Louise. ‘Manley Hopkins. “ My heart in hiding stirred for a bird”.’

  ‘Means nothing.’

  ‘It didn’t, as far as I was concerned,’ said Marina triumphantly. ‘It wasn’t my cup of tea at all, I couldn’t make head or tail of it but fortunately I have a few old favourites rattling around in here—’ she tapped her coiffure – ‘ so I recited one of those.’

  Once again Louise obliged where Annet would not have done. ‘So which one did you give them?’

  ‘Lovely old John Masefield. Rhyme, rhythm, and something to say.’

  ‘ ‘‘Cargoes”?’ asked Coral. ‘Please say it wasn’t “ Cargoes”.’

  Marina laughed, too pleased with all the attention to perceive any slight. ‘ No, no, not this time.’ She raised her right hand, palm uppermost, like a priest invoking the holy spirit, and tilted her head to the eau de nil pleated lampshade hanging from the ceiling. ‘ ‘‘I must go down to the sea again, to the wild sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.…’’ ’ It was, reflected Annet, altogether more than flesh and blood

  could stand.

  When she’d finished, Coral led the clapping which woke the

  baby up.

  Thereafter, Freya didn’t settle. It might have been the long sleep that morning, or the new surroundings, or Annet’s humour – but whatever the cause she embarked on a campaign of noisy complaint which effectively sabotaged the rest of lunch. Annet attempted further feeding, which only seemed to make matters worse. Having unwisely speculated about the wisdom of drinking gin when breastfeeding, Marina neglected her main course in order to walk about doing a lot of ineffectual patting and jiggling. While Annet seethed, Coral and Louise cleared their plates and dished up the chocolate mousse.

  Annet took Freya back while Marina made coffee, and they drank it against a background of unabated yelling. She was tiring rapidly, straining at the end of her tether, entering that now familiar but unwelcome zone where the forcefield of new motherhood separated her from normal human intercourse. The thought of the drive home was intolerable, but as the only escape route it had to be faced. Anything was preferable to this awareness of other people’s tolerance, and their pity – it was not too strong a word – fo
r her plight.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘ Enough already. I’m out of here.’

  ‘Oh, darling,’ said Marina, ‘must you? None of us minds a bit of crying.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I do.’

  ‘I mind it,’ observed Coral, ‘a bit. It’s disturbing to hear such a small person in such a taking. If the car makes her happy, who are we to disagree?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Annet, with feeling, getting up and leaving Freya with Louise as she fetched the basket.

  Marina continued to argy-bargy gently, in the tone of one who is satisfied to have behaved impeccably, but to whom peace, nonetheless, is soon to be restored.

  ‘… turning my words against me as usual, Coral. I want Freya to settle more than anyone, but it seems a shame for Annet’s day to be cut short when there might be something the rest of us could do.’

  ‘There isn’t, really,’ said Annet. ‘The two of us need to get back and eyeball one another in the privacy of our own home.’

  ‘You make it sound like the prelude to some esoteric martial art,’ said Coral as they accompanied her out to the car.

  ‘That’s what it feels like sometimes.’

  ‘But not all the time, I hope.’

  ‘No – no, of course not. It’s just rather more life-changing than I imagined, or than I care to admit.’

  ‘You and your pride. You’re wonderful.’

  Annet strapped the basket in the back. She and Marina kissed cautiously, she with a wary expression, Marina with a look of wistful tenderness.

  ‘Don’t leave it too long before you bring her over again – I shall be thinking of you both.’

  ‘All, Mummy,’ said Louise. ‘Thinking of them all. David, remember?’

  ‘Of course I remember, what are you accusing me of? But I do know a thing or two about mothers and daughters and it’s a very close and special private bond, that’s all I meant.’

  ‘Thank you mother,’ said Annet. She kissed Louise, and then Coral, who gave her shoulders a little pat. And said into her ear, just before she started the engine:

  ‘I hope it’s not all grief, because we’re thinking of adopting one.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Really?’ David was gently sceptical. ‘She wasn’t winding you up?’

  ‘I’m sure not. She is a bit of a wind-up merchant, but I got the impression this was something that had been discussed between them, and she lobbed it in at the last moment to avoid mother knowing too soon.’

  ‘But Marina was there, surely.’

  ‘She didn’t hear. It was for my ears only. I thought I’d ring later and get more details from Louise.’

  They were in the drawing room after supper. Miraculously, Freya was asleep upstairs in her room. The Nine o’clock News was on with the sound low, so that they could hear her minute sighs and grunts over the intercom. Privately David disliked this gadget – he had contended, vainly, that without it they’d still hear her if she cried, but without suffering this continuous state of low-level alert. The news vis-à-vis Louise and Coral was a welcome distraction.

  ‘I can’t believe they’ll succeed,’ he said, to himself as much as to Annet, but she was quick to pick it up.

  ‘Why shouldn’t they?’

  ‘For obvious reasons.’

  ‘They’d be model parents.’

  ‘They might be,’ he said. ‘That has yet to be tested. After all, we’re finding out how hard it is.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Annet waved this aside, ‘but anyone could have predicted that. We’re too old and hardworking, we weren’t ready. They’re just the right age, motivated as hell and Louise has a starred first in the domestic arts.’

  He gave a little laugh, and touched her hand to show that it was not only because she was funny, but because she was more her old self. He ventured a tease.

  ‘That means nothing. We’re clever and motivated and know how to boil an egg but it availeth us nought.’

  She looked incensed. ‘We’re coping!’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. Anyway we’re not the point at issue. Anyone with half a brain can see that Coral and Lou should be allowed to have a child.’

  ‘Except that they’re gay, so chances are they won’t be allowed to adopt.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said stormily. ‘I do wish you’d stop presenting the given factor as though it were an argument fresh minted by you.’

  ‘Sorry, but one should never ignore the obvious.’

  ‘Nor should the obvious be automatically regarded as right!’

  ‘I was merely being pragmatic.’

  ‘Merely?’ She was aghast. ‘Gimme a break.’

  He pushed an arm round her waist and kissed her neck, just below the cat-like angle of her jaw. ‘Any time.’

  They made love urgently on the sofa, partly because they were uncomfortable and partly from a fast-establishing habit of seizing the moment. But still Freya didn’t wake, and David, loth to let his wife go, lay with his arms wrapped round her and his trousers round his ankles like some teenage swain caught in the act.

  After a few minutes Annet said: ‘Sorry darl but my leg’s going to sleep,’ and he struggled to sit up.

  ‘That was lovely,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t it lovely?’

  She gave him the cowboy look. ‘It was many things darl, but I don’t know about lovely.’

  ‘Not?’ He was crestfallen, and she cupped his cheek in her hand.

  ‘Ask yourself would it have looked good on film?’

  ‘That’s a bit of a tough one, surely. We weren’t going for an Oscar.’

  ‘Exactly. It felt sensational, but Scorsese it wasn’t.’

  As if to emphasise her point she leaned forward and yanked on the waistband of his trousers. ‘Nought point one for artistic impression.’

  He got dressed, and Annet took their wine glasses out to the kitchen, and put the kettle on. While she was making the coffee the phone rang and she called ‘I’m there!’ Then he heard her say ‘Oh, hi …’ and there was the scrape of a chair as she sat down. The conversation seemed to be fairly onesided because there followed a long period of silence broken only by murmurs and muted exclamations. After five minutes he got up and went into the kitchen in search of the neglected coffee. As he picked up where she’d left off she waved a hand and mouthed ‘Sorree!’, pointing at the receiver and also mouthing: ‘Mother!’ which told him all he wanted to know. He leaned over and kissed her neck again and she raised an absent-minded hand to touch his face. He liked that, it carried with it a pleasing sense of returning normality.

  Taking his coffee with him he went upstairs to check on Freya. They usually turned the landing light on when it became dark, but had omitted to do so tonight. Remembering why he was swept by happiness. He left the light off and walked in the gentle dark into the baby’s room.

  It was full of the faint scent he had come to associate with her – that odd mix of the sweet and the pungent, the infantile and the womanly. Even slumbering his daughter exuded a powerful presence. Almost reverently he went to the side of the cot and looked down at her, deep in that silent, motionless near-death of baby sleep. Compelled, as he and Annet both still were, to check that she was breathing, he leaned over the lowered side of the cot until his face was close to hers. Now he could detect the minutest sound, a tiny pulse or tick that seemed to come from deep inside her head. Her hand lay on the sheet and he thought he saw her index finger tremble. He was moved to think that he could have woken her in an instant – he had the size, the status, the wherewithal – but she held all the power.

  Satisfied that she was asleep he straightened up. As he did so, something brushed his face and the side of his neck. He had the overwhelming impression that someone had been standing so close beside him that his movement had caught them unawares. There was a waft of scent, fine and subtle, quite unlike that of the baby. For a split second every hair on his body stood erect, the scent in the room made him nauseous. Giddy, he grabbed the co
rner of the cot with both hands and stood clasping it, swaying slightly.

  The landing light came on. ‘David?’

  It was Annet, in the doorway. ‘Why didn’t you – darl, are you all right?’

  He drew a deep breath. ‘I gave myself a fright.’

  ‘You look ghastly. You should have turned the light on.’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb her.’

  ‘I’m not sure anything could tonight.’

  ‘No …’ He let go the cot and moved towards the door. His legs felt weak, but he could feel the warm blood returning through the layers of flesh and bone to his skin, each tiny hair softening and sinking back. ‘God almighty … what a funny turn.’

  ‘Must be neonatal neurosis of some kind.’ She slipped her hands beneath his arms and up around his shoulder blades, a nice feeling. ‘Still – shows you’re a proper new man.’

  As they left the room he looked over his shoulder and saw, hanging over the cot, the Chinese mobile of paper angel fish, the first thing they’d bought when Annet found she was pregnant. Thank God, he’d forgotten about that. Almost imperceptibly the fish turned, surrendering serenely to some undetectable movement in the air, just as they must have done when they brushed his face.

  Annet went down the stairs ahead of him. As he emerged on to the landing he was aware of the difference in the atmosphere: plain, clear – unscented.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Annet, pouring him a Scotch. ‘ Did you ever get in touch with that woman?’

  Still in the wake of one shock he now experienced another. ‘Who?’

  ‘You know – the one you knocked off her bike.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me, I’d forgotten. I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  She put the Scotch in front of him, laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘That’s not like you.’

  ‘I’d like to think not. I will call tomorrow.’ Feeling scrutinised, he changed the subject. ‘What did your mother want?’