‘She was just there. She’s called Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth, Josie thought to herself. Elizabeth Carver.
‘What did she look like?’
Rufus considered. He ate another chip. Elizabeth wasn’t pretty, but she was OK as well. Sort of peaceful. A bit like Granny.
‘A bit like Granny,’ he said.
‘Granny!’
‘Not so old,’ Rufus said, ‘but kind of not showing off.’ He thought of Becky and Clare. ‘Not boots and nose rings and stuff.’
Josie looked at him carefully. He looked completely calm, really calm, almost, to her dismay, as if this new development in his life was actually rather welcome.
‘Don’t you mind?’ Josie said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t you mind if Daddy marries someone else?’
‘I wouldn’t like him to marry anyone really fat,’ Rufus said, licking melted cheese off his forefinger. ‘Or an old tart.’
‘But you don’t mind Elizabeth—’
‘No,’ Rufus said. He gave Josie a sudden, sharp look. ‘Do you?’
Josie said confusedly, ‘It just seems a bit quick—’
‘I expect he was lonely,’ Rufus said. ‘Just him and Bas.’
‘Yes.’
Rufus picked up his bun again.
‘I showed her my bedroom.’
‘Oh—’
‘Daddy’s going to put a desk in there, with a proper lamp.’
Josie picked up her coffee and took a long swallow.
‘They want to get married quite soon. They want you to go.’
Rufus nodded. Josie found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose hard.
‘I’ll write back then, shall I, and say you’d – like to?’
‘Yes,’ Rufus said. He took another enormous bite of his burger and said through it, ‘Elizabeth can ice skate. She said she’d teach me.’
‘You can’t mind,’ Matthew said.
‘What can’t I mind?’
‘Tom getting married again.’
Josie was stacking plates in the sink.
‘It’s not his getting married—’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s this Elizabeth woman.’
‘You don’t know anything about her except what Rufus told you, which was good. She sounds fine.’
Josie turned slowly round and leaned her back against the sink, pushing her hair off her face.
‘But I’ll have to share Rufus.’
‘Only occasionally.’
‘He’s been mine and only mine all my life.’
Matthew pushed his coffee mug away from him.
‘You don’t know that Elizabeth wants to change that. You don’t even know if she wants him—’ He stopped abruptly. Danger zones loomed. ‘Why,’ Josie had said, in tears after their disastrous Christmas, ‘am I supposed to love your children when nobody expects them to even try and love me?’
‘She said she’d teach him to skate—’
‘That could just be manners,’ Matthew said. ‘He’s a nice little boy and she’s in love with his father.’
‘Yes,’ Josie said. It was unsettling to think of another woman being in love with Tom. She might not want Tom herself, but the thought of Tom and his house being taken over by someone else was not conducive to a quiet mind, either. There had been a moment in the burger bar when she thought Rufus was going to remind her, with inescapable logic, that as she had Matthew, and had chosen to have Matthew, how could she possibly object to Tom having Elizabeth? But he had said nothing, only allowed an eloquent pause to fall, and had then finished everything on his plate except the salad items and asked, suspecting quite accurately that nothing this afternoon would be denied him, for another milkshake and a chocolate brownie. On the way home he had even held her hand.
‘It’s better for everyone,’ Matthew said. He stood up, rattling the change in his trouser pockets. ‘Rufus doesn’t have to worry about Tom being lonely and you don’t have to feel guilty about leaving him.’ He came round the table and kissed her. ‘It’s good news.’
She looked up at him.
‘It’s – just that mother love is such a killer.’
‘Father love isn’t a picnic, either.’
‘Sorry—’
‘At least Rufus lives with you.’
‘Matt, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it—’
‘Just think,’ Matthew said. He put the back of his hand briefly against her cheek. ‘Sometimes, just think before you speak.’
She nodded. She wanted to say to him that, however bad things were for him, being without his children, he didn’t labour all the time under everyone else’s impossible expectations of him. If he got things right, everyone applauded; if he failed, they shrugged and said, ‘Oh well, poor bugger, at least he tried.’ Whereas for her, for women …
‘I’ve got to go and do some work,’ Matthew said gently. ‘Sorry.’
‘Of course—’
‘Just an hour or so. We’ve got one of these government assessment inspections coming up—’
‘I know.’
He kissed her again.
‘Thanks for supper.’
He went out of the kitchen, collecting the canvas briefcase in which he kept his papers, and up the stairs to the first floor. The landing light was on, and Rufus’s bedroom door was slightly ajar. Cautiously Matthew put his head in. The room was in darkness, and, by the light coming in from the landing, Matthew could only see Rufus’s outline, humped under his duvet with his pillow, as usual, on the floor. Across the room, the other bed – Rory’s bed in Matthew’s mind – lay empty.
He turned away and, with the use of a hooked pole, pulled down the extending ladder that gave access to the roof space. Up there, Matthew had made himself a study. It was small, and inevitably makeshift, but it was the only space and the only privacy that 17 Barratt Road afforded for his box files and folders. Josie had wanted to adorn it for him, soften it with paint and fabric, but he had declined. It was a Working space, a thinking space, and its lack of domestic comfort and natural light gave it a seclusion he valued. It was also becoming – and he had the odd twinge of guilt about this, having promised himself openness in all things with Josie – the place where he could think freely about his children.
Of course, he told himself, he could think about them anywhere. His thoughts were his own after all. But there was something constrained in his thinking about them because – and it was no good attempting to delude himself about this – she couldn’t see anything likeable, let alone lovable, in any of them. To be sure they had given her a relentlessly hard time ever since she had come into their father’s life, but Matthew doubted that Josie, even though she paid lip service to the idea, really had any notion at all of the degree of loyalty that Nadine demanded of them. Christmas had been appalling, he knew that. His children’s behaviour towards Josie, particularly Becky’s, had been equally appalling. And he had been so torn between the two that he had ended up passive, helpless and despising himself for his own weakness.
‘Stand up to her!’ Josie had cried, on Christmas night. ‘Why don’t you stand up to her!’
He had been so heartsick and weary, he remembered, that he had briefly wondered why he’d started all this, why he’d ever hoped he could be free of the past.
‘Because,’ he’d said, not looking at her, ‘she’d only take it out on the children. Whatever I do, I have to think of whether it’ll make it worse for the children.’
He sat down at his desk now and switched on both lamps. The plywood walls he had put up served as pinboards, too, and in front of him was a patchwork of photographs of his children, taken at all ages, in the bath, on bicycles, by the sea, in the garden, at the Tower of London, asleep, in fancy dress, in solemn school groups. He put his elbows on his desk and propped his chin in his hands. In the midst of the pictures was one he liked particularly of Rory, in pyjamas and a cowboy hat, holding a kitten that had succumbed soon after to cat flu. Rory must have been about six. His expression was stern, full of protective responsibility. Nadine had rung Matthew several times recently – and always at school – to say that Rory was playing truant. Not often and not with other boys, but the local farmer had found him in his yard a couple of times, and his school had noticed that, while he was there for morning and afternoon registration, he was often absent for subsequent lessons. She had been, inevitably, loud with reasons for Rory’s behaviour but had refused, as yet, to allow Matthew to do anything about it.