For several days the house seems full of laughter. Vanessa would like to be a part of it. But since what happened, she’s felt oddly muted, incapable of going on the attack. The world seems to have become illogical, surreal, as if she is living at an angle to it.
One day there is a phone-call from a bubbly, husky-voiced woman who says a loud, two-tone “Ha-llo!” like an old friend, but then asks to speak to Justin.
“He’s rarely here at the moment,” sighs Vanessa, at which the woman says, with odd intimacy, “No, of course, I quite understand…My name is Jasmine. Call me Jazz. And you must be — let me see — Vanessa! Vanessa it’s so nice to talk to you. I have excellent news for you and Justin. You have been selected from hundreds of callers to take part in next month’s ‘PARENT SWAP’!” She delivers this announcement on an ear-bursting crescendo.
“This is some advertising thing,” says Vanessa, but Jasmine forges on, cheery, brazen.
“Look at it this way, Veronica. This is great opportunity. It’s your chance to tell your side of things to thousands of people who only know Justin’s—”
“Stop bothering me,” says Vanessa, and puts the phone down. When it rings again, three times, she ignores it. Of course, it is just another nuisance call, and yet it is disquieting. She sits there for a few minutes, puzzled. Justin’s side of things, indeed! How would ‘thousands of people’ know about Justin? What could it mean, a ‘parent swap’? She means to tell him about the call, later, but is overcome by a strange inertia.
Small candle-flames brighten these dark days. First, in a simple, childish way, Vanessa is looking forward to Christmas. Once she realised that Mary would not be leaving, Vanessa has simply asked her to join them, and Mary agrees, demurely, saying only, “But Vanessa, I am waiting for a call from Uganda. It is possible that my friend will come.” Vanessa doesn’t take much notice of this, since Mary has been waiting for a call for weeks. Lucy seems happy for Mary to come. So the three of them will drive up together, Vanessa thinks, with some contentment. A real Christmas. A country Christmas.
Secondly, in the last session of term, bearded Alex takes the bull by the horns. He stays behind and hands over a Christmas card. “Look, this is probably not the best time for this, not after, you know, whatever happened, which we are all sorry to hear about, but I’ve put my phone number on this card, and if you felt like going out for a drink…I promise not to talk about writing. Maybe we could do a film, or a show.”
It is sweetly old·fashioned, this talk of a show. Vanessa blushes with pleasure and smiles. The smile keeps warming and extending, on its own, and their eyes meet; older eyes; briefly unguarded. They like each other: a man, a woman. Maybe this time they will get on.
She takes the card without committing herself, but she knows she will give him a ring after Christmas. Perhaps they will go to a pantomime. Something non-verbal, unintellectual. Perhaps she can get him to shave off his beard…but she catches herself, and changes her mind. She will only suggest the lightest trim.
52
But Vanessa’s new calm is badly shaken by two events in the run-up to Christmas. She is sitting in the dining room one morning, ripping open cards with her usual elan, trying to get through ten envelopes a minute, when she realises one of them isn’t a card. It is a letter from the high-powered agent, suggesting a January date to meet the class, and responding to the extracts she’s seen. Vanessa’s heart starts to beat unsteadily, thumping at her ribs, drumming at her temples. She spots ‘Emily Self in the middle of the page.
She forces herself to read from the beginning. “Several very talented students…tribute to your teaching methods…” Then something that makes her choke on her coffee. “Perhaps the most gifted, as I’m sure you’re aware, is the African writer, Mary Tendo. Marvellously fresh, vivid descriptions of growing up in Uganda…certainly like to see more of it…though strictly between ourselves, Vanessa, the multicultural bubble may have burst…could be, frankly, just a little bit ‘last year’…Not that it’s relevant, but is she photogenic? It will be very good to meet her…and Emily Self. Thank you for drawing her to my attention. The second extract was the better of the two. She doesn’t, of course, have anything like the panache and style of Mary Tendo, but I really do think I could do something for her. The feeling is that ‘poor white rural’, sort of post-Cold Mountain with a nod to Deliverance, is going to be very big next year. That father with the henhouse is wonderfully sinister.”
Vanessa reads it again and again, at first unable to understand. Coffee and bile rise in her throat—
So Mary is a secret writer. Mary Tendo has been writing a book. She has smuggled some chapters in, like a cuckoo. Mary has charmed someone yet again. Mary Tendo ‘the most gifted’!
It is all too much for Vanessa to bear. And Emily Self “doesn’t, of course, have the panache and style of Mary Tendo…” It was the ‘of course’ that hurt so much.
But Mary need never see this letter, Vanessa thinks, crumpling it. No, Mary never will see this letter.
Then she uncrumples it, and reads it again.
On the other hand, Emily Self could be big. “The father in the hen-house is wonderfully sinister” (even though Vanessa thought she’d made him touching). “I really do think I could do something with her.”
That means, she must believe she can make me famous.
I am always said to be photogenic. So that’s one less thing to worry about.
Vanessa needs time to take it all in. For a while she cannot bear to look at Mary. The thing she has done is so dishonest. Passing herself off as one of my students! Taking advantage of my trust!
Mary, for her part, has no idea why Vanessa has started glaring again. But Mary feels guilty about having seen the grandchild, so she is submissive, and tries to placate her. It should be Vanessa who is holding the baby, Vanessa, in Mary’s place, gazing down on his quick brown eyes and long tear-slicked lashes, watching him kick like a little pink frog. Vanessa, who doted on frogs in the garden. Though she hadn’t always been good with young children—
But no, Vanessa would love this baby. Mary feels bad for her about the baby, but Justin is stubborn as a mule.
Then, the night before they are all supposed to be leaving for the country, Justin tells Vanessa he isn’t going. “I’ll have to come up later, on my own. There’s stuff I have to finish, Mother.” Vanessa questions him very closely, but all she can establish is that somewhere or other, a young couple need alterations for their new baby, or else they will not get in for Christmas. Justin’s enigmatic: “Like, no room at the inn.” She wonders yet again if he is on something: he seems so giggly, so absurdly happy, yet at the same time he has a sleepy look, though he’s up every morning and out of the house. His bedridden days seem to have gone for ever.
“But darling, you can’t get to Lucy’s on your own.” Because since his breakdown, Justin has not driven. Despite all Tigger’s attempt to encourage him—“Come on lad, you’re a bloody good driver. You passed first time, which is more than I did”—despite Tigger’s pleas that he needs help with the van, Justin’s still afraid of the driver’s seat. “I can’t do it, Dad. I might kill someone.”