Perfect Love Page 8

  ‘Do you want seconds?’

  He nodded and Emmy moved towards the kettle.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  She told him and he replied that his was Angus and she suppressed a giggle for Angus always went with kilts.

  ‘Are you interested in birds?’ He pointed at the tableau outside.

  ‘Love them,’ she said, handing him back the tray.

  Angus appeared to consider her reply. ‘No accounting,’ he said finally but his expression was kind. Emmy flinched, for she imagined it was the sort of kindness reserved for cripples and defectives.

  ‘No accounting,’ she agreed.

  London was a shock to the system that kept Emmy reeling for the first weeks. How did people breathe in this air? How did they sleep with the noise, traffic, alarms, late-night talks in the streets, crashing milk bottles - and the constant light?

  For much of that time, Number 6 Austen Road was in uproar. In places, the house resembled a building site, the baby was teething and fretful and Violet was too snappy and nervous to help her son.

  Some things never change, and Emmy found herself at the beck and call of an employer whose rage for order was as bad as her mother’s — a difficult situation since the builders made it their business to import an impressive percentage of London clay into the house.

  ‘I’m growing shoulder pads on my knees,’ Emmy confided to Anna on a long - and illicit because it was after nine a.m. and before twelve o’clock - phone call.

  ‘Very sexy,’ said Anna.

  ‘How does she suppose I’m going to look after the baby if I spend my time on my hands and knees scrubbing?’

  ‘Don’t do it, Em.’ Emmy could hear Anna inhaling cigarette smoke. She longed for a fag herself but Violet had laid down battle-lines and informed Emmy that if she ever caught her smoking that would be it.

  London notwithstanding, Emmy did not want it to be it.

  ‘What’s her clothes like?’ Anna performed another noisy exhalation in Emmy’s ear.

  ‘Must have cost a packet. Mind you . . .’ Emmy paused. ‘They don’t look comfortable.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Anna. ‘Don’t expect they stay on her very long.’

  ‘Don’t think she’s that type.’

  ‘Where do you shop?’

  ‘Sainsbury’s.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bill, stupid.’

  ‘About two hundred quid. She’s very fussy. The cleaning stuff is all ecological. Trouble is, it doesn’t clean very well.’

  Anna pressed for more details and Emmy obliged. Thus did the tom-tom beat out all sorts of private facts. If the employers of nannies and mother’s helps ever considered the extent to which the detail of their lives, down to their chosen brands of soap powder, were in the public domain, they might have had second thoughts about working. Was it worth it? A salary in return for an itemized list of your habits, your knickers, the colour of your toothbrush and what precise terms you flung at your spouse when he came home drunk from a ‘quick one after work’.

  ‘Met anyone, Em?’

  Emmy reflected on the lonely evenings spent upstairs with the black and white television (‘Just till we can afford a colour one, Emmy’), tucked up with Bovril and a smelly gas fire because the heating did not quite reach that far up the house. ‘No,’ she said.

  Apart from registering that she was pleasant and capable, Jamie did not pay much attention to Emmy. He was thankful that the problem of childcare had been dealt with and, once satisfied that his son was in good hands, switched off. But Emmy watched Jamie and compared him with the men with whom she was familiar.

  For a start, Jamie took a lot of stick from Madam. On the other hand, he was capable of dealing with it and telling her to get lost. From time to time, he helped out with Edward and got up in the night and changed nappies. He even did his bit at breaking eggs into a bowl and whisking them up. Accustomed to bad-tempered men, Emmy found his good humour puzzling, then suspicious, then seductive. Nevertheless, just in case she was tempted to elevate Jamie to sainthood, he succumbed at intervals to patches of irritation. They tended to occur when Jamie and Violet both arrived back late from work, played out and hungry. Edward, of course, was always at his worst.

  ‘You deal with him,’ Jamie ordered Violet one Friday evening. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’

  ‘I’m too tired,’ said Violet flatly. ‘Anyway, why does it have to be me?’

  ‘Because you’re his bloody mother, that’s why. Although no one would guess it.’ Jamie ripped off his tie.

  ‘That’s outrageous and unfair,’ said Violet.

  ‘Is it?’ said Jamie in a dangerously quiet voice.

  Edward’s screams interrupted further discussion and Emmy, who was hanging about in the corridor feeling useless and a gooseberry, retreated to her room. Later, percolating through the Coronation Street theme, she heard sounds of impassioned argument over who should do what, which intensified until she heard Violet clattering down the uncarpeted stairs.

  She wished she was not living on top of the Becketts and she wished she did not have to be a fly on the wall.

  At seven o’clock on Monday morning, Emmy tramped blearily downstairs to join Jamie and Violet in the kitchen.

  ‘She has a long enough day as it is, Violet,’ she caught Jamie saying as she arrived in the hall. ‘You can’t ask her to do any more.’

  ‘Try me. She sits here and eats us out of house and home.’ (Emmy started at that one. Whatever else she may have been, her appetite was modest.) ‘She is warm, housed, uses our phone, makes free with the car, it won’t hurt her.’

  Emmy grasped the banister. It was bad enough breaking into someone’s else’s intimacy — and at breakfast time at that - worse if you were the subject of discussion. It made her feel raw and jumpy. Emmy had no intimacy to safeguard and no pacts to make over the toast. But although she did not mind her solitude, indeed sought it, she did mind being discussed as if she was a fitting for the bathroom or kitchen.

  Violet was scraping vegetable spread on to her wholewheat toast as Emmy entered. Jamie looked up.

  ‘Hallo, Emmy. We were just talking about you.’

  Still at war with her perm, Emmy had pulled her hair on to the top which Emmy was aware resembled a plucked chicken’s. It was, however, a remarkably slender neck.

  Violet rubbed at hers as she spoke. ‘Emmy, would you be prepared to put the baby to bed? I know I said I would do it, part of the bonding process and all that. But, frankly, Edward leaves me very unbonded and I feel exhausted. If you could do the evenings, then I can cope with the mornings.’ Violet’s manicured nails were like scarlet petals on white silk.

  Emmy shot Jamie a look. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping quiet. He returned her look and, suddenly, Emmy felt her mouth twitch. Jamie did not appear to have the situation under control. Despite this, Jamie’s mouth also curved at the corners and she felt that she and Jamie understood one another.

  ‘If it’ll help, OK.’ Emmy sat down, remembered that the Becketts drank coffee and she liked tea, and got up again. Jamie took refuge behind the Financial Times and Violet quivered almost visibly with impatience to be gone — out and away. She cast a look at her husband.

  ‘Men have it easy,’ she said, clicking her nails on her coffee-cup, and her bitterness was both shocking and ageing.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Jamie, and retired into the paper,

  Emmy ate a piece of toast and drank lapsang souchong, which she did not like, preferring plain old teabag.

  It was odd, she confided to Anna later, being a sodding Peeping Tom. She wasn’t quite sure what she felt about the Becketts. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘they get quite lovey-dovey and all that,’ but she wondered if they got on as well as it first looked. When ordered to explain, Emmy said she didn’t know what she meant.

  She returned from taking Edward on his afternoon constitutional, as long as the cold would permit, and was unloading b
aby and shopping in the hall when Angus peered over the banister.

  ‘Thought you’d done a runner,’ he said. Emmy gave an uncertain laugh, conscious that the tip of her nose was raw. Worse, it might have a drip.

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  Emmy heaved the enormous bundle that Edward made in his outdoor things into her arms and followed Angus into the kitchen. He pointed through the window and Emmy’s gaze followed obediently until it rested on the sycamore. Her eyes widened. Nailed on to a lower branch was a small wooden platform. She turned to Angus and he nodded. Clasping Edward under one arm, Emmy fumbled to open the back door and flew down the lawn.

  If rudimentary, the bird table had been made with care and sited out of reach of the cats.

  ‘I thought the birds should eat in comfort.’ Angus stood behind her as Emrny inspected his work.

  Emmy felt a smile begin at the corners of her mouth, pulling them gently but inexorably wider and wider, until she was smiling all over her face. In her head, the sound of a nightingale in full throttle trilled clear and joyous.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, shifting the baby. ‘That was dead nice of you.’

  In the days that followed, however, Emmy began to wish that Angus had not singled her out. Not that the bird table did not give her pleasure. It did - a lot. She spent a great deal of time gazing out of the window at the tits and yellowhammers and shouting at the starlings to get lost and to pick on someone their own size.

  No, it was because Angus had opened a floodgate to a different type of self-consciousness, whose newness acted as an abrasion on soft skin, rendering her uneasy, expectant and vulnerable all at the same time. Why had he made the bird table? It can’t have been friendship. It could have been impulse. Or ... surely to God he didn’t fancy her?

  How could he?

  This was one problem on which Emmy did not consult Anna and remained silent.

  One morning, having disposed of the breakfast things and made a stab at the ironing, Emmy sneaked upstairs, washed her hair and larded on conditioner and spent an uncharacteristic amount of time drying it.

  The results were not much different. Emmy fingered a lock and assessed the image in the mirror. At least, it felt soft - she had been afraid that the perm would leave her with a permanent Brillo pad on her head. Then she searched for a sweater which had some pretensions to style.

  Her efforts were wasted for Angus did not turn up with the team that morning. Emmy spent the day in an uncomfortable state when every nerve was on red alert. Was he going to come? If not, why not? Perhaps he had moved on to another job?

  She made tea for the team as often as she dared without overdoing it and padded upstairs with the trays in the hope of discovering some information. It was not forthcoming.

  As she gave Edward his evening bottle, Emmy debated fiercely with herself. Was she so deprived, so insecure that a small gesture (which he would have forgotten by now) started her thinking she was a cross between Meryl Streep and Madonna? OK, nice gestures were thin on the ground, but that was no reason to prance around wiggling her bottom.

  Where was her famed liking for independence? Solitude? For the rewards of organizing her life just as she pleased?

  Emmy’s highly developed instinct for self-preservation told her that blokes spelt trouble.

  Edward choked and she ripped the bottle out of his mouth and held him up while she dealt with the paroxysm. After he had regurgitated enough to float the London docks, Edward resumed a normal expression. His eyes travelled up to Emmy’s face. He studied it, blinking now and then and breathing noisily in through his mouth. Who are you? he appeared to be asking and Emmy found herself grinning. Edward blinked again, awarded Emmy a ravishing smile and pulled himself into a sitting position, using Emmy as an anchor.

  ‘My God,’ said Emmy. ‘You little devil. You’ve never done that before. Wait till I tell your mum.’

  On the face of it, Mum did not seem interested. ‘At least he’s developing normally,’ she said. ‘We need a reward for all the hard work.’

  Having just got in from work, Violet was burdened by a long camel coat and a bulging briefcase. She fiddled with her gloves (Italian, black leather), squatted down, stuck her face towards her son’s and parted her lips. Edward did not care for this - perhaps his mother had startled him - and wailed.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Violet in a resigned fashion. ‘We’re in for it.’

  On Sundays Emmy was free. Technically, Saturdays were too, but Violet had pleaded with her to help out, just for the first few weeks while she settled into the job, and promised that if Emmy stayed on permanently the contract proper would be drawn up.

  ‘It’s either that, or I’ll have to get Prue up to help,’ she said when Emmy showed distinct signs of non-cooperation.

  ‘Mrs Valour?’ Emmy said stupidly.

  ‘Yes, my stepmother. I said that, didn’t I? I really don’t want her around unless I have to.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She’s . . . she’s not very good with children. As well I know. I use her only when I have too.’ Violet sounded strained.

  As far as Emmy was aware, Mrs Valour appeared to be a warm, comforting and more than adequate mother. She raised her eyebrows and started to fold a stack of Babygros. Better not to enquire closely about how many pots were calling kettles black.

  That Sunday, she got up late and, armed with the A-Z, let herself out of the house. In her bag were two weeks’ worth of wages which she had not had an opportunity to broach. The A-Z informed her that Clapham and Wandsworth Commons were close and because she was hungry for a sight of some green she decided to explore.

  Emmy spent a reasonable half hour walking around Wandsworth Common, watching parents masterminding toddlers and children on tricycles and skateboards. Dog-owners were exercising every kind of breed and the keep-fit brigade was out in force.

  Emmy was curious. Londoners seemed to be so much more aware of themselves. In Dainton, the village people lived, worked, pottered and walked without thinking about their image. She avoided the puddles dug by bicycle tyres and the quagmire that spread from the toddlers’ play area and, hungry for breakfast, made for the terrace of shops. Once there her heart sank for it was very smart with a wine bar, and a restaurant that looked expensive. Not a McDonalds in sight. Emmy’s skin goosefleshed with fright. She could not go into any of those places. Not with those glossy joggers, mothers and dog owners.

  The only place remotely approachable was the newsagent and Emmy went in to buy the Mail on Sunday. When she emerged, she had persuaded herself not to be intimidated and made her way to the brasserie and ordered coffee and a sandwich. The coffee arrived all fluffed up and sprinkled with chocolate and the sandwich was made from French bread.

  Emmy stared at these with a new and acute insight into how an alien might feel when he arrived on earth. She took a bite and the sandwich filling spilled over and dropped yellow egg dollops onto her jeans.

  She walked back past big Victorian houses and past a pub whose windows glittered. A group of people stood outside by the railings, bikers in leather with serious leather boots and lots of fastenings. One of them had his back to the road and Emmy’s stomach contorted for she imagined she recognized the big back and the pony-tail.

  Head down, she hurried on past. Whoever it was did not look round.

  Chapter Seven

  That wily old bird Freud suggested that we forget things, lose things or omit to finish them because we really wish to do so. If this is true, the Lost Property Office in Baker Street is a very interesting place indeed, thought Prue, and those mountains of homeless umbrellas, briefcases, handbags and artificial limbs, plus the items left off shopping lists and the unwritten thank-you letters constitute an excellent but unwritten history of humanity.

  She had left a jumper behind in Austen Road.

  ‘Typical,’ said Max folding his arms across his chest when she told him. Since he felt fondly tender about Prue’s occasional lapses, and enjoyed the m
anifestation of what he considered a mild dotti-ness, and Prue was aware of this, she had not, in the past, minded Max’s mildly patronizing attitude. Indeed, she had not considered it as such.

  Apparently, the relativities of the position were changing and, in this instance, she did mind. Yes, there was an unfinished tapestry in her work basket, circa 1984. Yes, she did mean to go back to the art classes, one day. And, yes, Joan of Arc was waiting to be written. But, she protested hotly, ramming her weekend case back into the cupboard, anyone who runs a house, produces a meal each night, has a job (granted part-time) and does more than her bit with flower rotas, village fetes, and masterminds the ‘Teddies for Tragedy’ sew-in could reasonably expect to be considered organized.

  ‘I think you’re most unfair,’ she finished.

  Max blinked at his wife’s unaccustomed tartness, looked blank for a second or two, and then a wanness crept into his face which Helen would have recognized. Prue did not.

  ‘Sorry, darling. That was a bit tactless.’ Max unfolded his arms and held out his hand and the white slash of Helen’s wound caught her eye. ‘I expect coming back after the dazzle of London is a letdown.’

  ‘Dazzle of London? Max, I spent the whole time changing nappies and coping with a sick baby. Don’t be witless.’

  Max went quiet. He turned on his heel and left the room. Prue heard him later, moving around the study. She heard, too, the soft clink of cold metals and smelt Rangoon oil, so she knew what he was doing.

  Jamie left it a week. The telephone rang at Hallet’s Gate and he suggested that Prue and he meet for lunch when he could hand over the jumper.

  Prue struggled to say, ‘Please put it in the post,’ and failed. ‘I’m coming up to do some research next Wednesday.’

  ‘We owe you a big thank-you, Prue, especially for your suggestion about hiring Emmy as the nanny. How about the Ivy?’

  Prue would have needed to have possessed the detachment of a St Augustine, sated to the point of asceticism, to say no.

  ‘Yes,’ she heard herself say, resolving to sort out a few points with him. ‘Yes, please.’