‘Rose, you are not involved. OK?’
She said softly, ‘Don’t take it out on Nathan.’
‘Nathan is dead,’ I hissed through my teeth. ‘Dead.’
Across the street Mrs Austen, who had given up hope of any further street theatre from number fourteen, was loading her car with plastic bags of rubbish. A lorry was depositing a builder’s skip on the opposite side of the road.
Provoked beyond endurance, I cried, ‘Did you plan this with Nathan in one of your cosy chats? Did he say to you, “Minty needs help. She’s not up to looking after the twins”? Which was his way of telling you I wasn’t up to scratch.’
‘That’s your interpretation, not mine,’ Rose said quietly. ‘I’m only their guardian if you’re not around. It was a precaution, that’s all.’
‘I wish you’d vanish,’ I said. ‘But you won’t.’
Rose swung round so abruptly that she dislodged a cup from the dresser, which fell to the floor. Neither of us moved to pick it up. It rolled away and came to rest by the table. ‘I don’t know what you spend your time imagining, Minty,’ her voice was flat, ‘but just think for a minute. I’ve tried to get rid of Nathan. After he went off with you… After you took him, I had to remake my life, and it was tough. I have no wish to be dragged back into his. Or yours. I don’t want anything to do with your children.’
‘Then go away.’
‘But equally I have no intention of vanishing, as you put it, for your convenience. I will do as I wish, when I think fit.’
Angry, jangled and edging closer to despair, I lay awake for much of the night. When Rose had brought me to number seven and introduced me to Nathan, it had been a warm night. ‘Perfect, Minty, for dinner in the garden. Do come.’ Before the introductions were completed, my disloyalty to her had already taken shape. It hadn’t been difficult to effect. As the three of us discussed the nature of long-lived friendships, I looked at Nathan and widened my eyes a fraction. It was sufficient.
He said to me afterwards, ‘I don’t know what came over me, Minty. I’ve sometimes been tempted before, but I’ve never done anything.’
In the end, we had married thinking the other had wanted the opposite of what they really did. In a rush of blood to the brain, Nathan had abandoned Rose and their life in Lakey Street because he had developed a yen for something that was unpredictable, spontaneous and glamorous. He wanted to try another way of living before it was too late. ‘Your flat is perfect,’ he said, flinging himself on to the – necessarily – small double bed. ‘We’re free of all those tedious domestic complications.’
I didn’t tell him that he wasn’t seeing straight. That would have embarrassed him. No one wishes to be told that they’re trying fruitlessly to turn the clock back.
‘You do understand?’ he asked.
I stroked his face. ‘We’re as free as birds.’
I didn’t confess to entertaining an attractive mental picture of a woman moving around the kitchen at number seven or presiding over the dinner table, clean socks in the drawers, milk in the fridge, soap in the bathrooms, in a house where there was plenty of space. That woman was me.
The clock said 5.15 a.m. I ran my hand over my body, and felt my ribcage and hipbones outlined more sharply than before. My eyes stung, my head was thick and heavy. There was no more sleep to be had that night. I got out of bed, went downstairs and let myself out into the garden.
It was chilly and I shivered. A spot or two of rain fell on to my face as I picked my way over the lawn.
I should have been honest with Nathan and told him, ‘We won’t be free. It isn’t like that.’
His death – his untimely, stupid death – deserved to be marked by more than small eruptions of anger between Rose and me. Nathan was owed a banquet, a cinematic farewell, a clash of cymbals. I owed him an august sorrow that would cleanse any spite, guilt and disappointment.
I knew this. I knew it very well. And yet I found myself staring down at the rose. I reached over and grasped it by the stem. A thorn drove itself into the base of my thumb and a pinprick of blood appeared. With a little gasp of pain, I pulled the rose from the earth.
18
Two months later, at three o’clock precisely, Barry, Chris and I got out of a taxi at BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane. ‘Right,’ said Barry, after he had paid the very large fare. ‘Now to battle.’
I murmured, ‘All for one and one for all.’
Barry laughed. ‘Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour, Minty’
Television Centre had been built in the 1950s and was a maze of studios, stacked scenery and coffee bars in odd corners. Ed Golightly’s office was situated in a basement of Ε Block, opposite Scenery Block A. We were ushered through a half-empty production office and into a room that was furnished with a black leather sofa and chairs and overlooked the Hammersmith and City Line.
Ed was short, with red hair, to which he drew attention by constantly running his hand through it. He had the world-weary expression of a man who had devoted his life to the tough business of pushing arts programmes on to the air.
He was rifling through the Paradox dossier entitled Pointe of Departure, which I had prepared and sent to him two weeks earlier. He did not look up. ‘Sit,’ he said. Then, at last, ‘Right.’ He had the grace to add apologetically, ‘I’ve only just got round to reading this.’
I heard Barry click his tongue against his teeth, but Chris said, ‘Take your time, Ed.’
‘Would you like me to run through it?’ I offered. ‘The idea and format is simple. A well-known ballerina will have a go at the tango, breakdancing, belly-dancing and rock-and-roll…’
Ed leant back in his chair. ‘Any particular ballerina in mind?’
Barry took over. ‘Nora Pavane. She’s excited about the idea. Legs that do things you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Very bankable. Very personable. Can talk to anyone,’ Chris said.
Ed grimaced. ‘I have a problem – a big one. As arts editor, if I submit any idea to our controller with the word “dance” in the title, he’ll utter profanities. Or laugh. That’s the way it is. Now, if I said Nora had agreed to have live cosmetic surgery, no problem.’
‘Do you have any budget at all?’ Chris asked.
Ed was guarded. ‘A little.’
At this point, I suggested, ‘Why don’t we get Nora to meet the controller? Is there a do coming up where we could arrange it? I’m sure if he met her he’d be charmed.’
Ed seemed marginally more galvanized by the project, and rifled through his diary. ‘He’s giving a lecture at the Royal Television Society.’
Barry cut in: ‘Easy, then, Ed. I know the director of the RTS. He used to work for me on The Late, Late Show. I’ll email him and get an invite for Nora. She can sit next to the controller at the dinner afterwards.’ He grinned at Chris and me. ‘That’s it, then, guys.’
On the way home, I picked up my winter coat from the cleaner’s and a couple of bottles of fruit juice from the shop on the corner of Lakey Street. The wire coat-hanger cut into my fingers as I walked. The day had been warm and sunny. In Mrs Austen’s window-box, a bright blue lobelia was blooming. It had been a successful day and I should have been feeling happy about it. Yet if anyone had asked me – if Nathan had been there to congratulate me on a successful pitch – I would have replied, ‘You know, I don’t care that much.’
Eve was washing up in the kitchen. ‘The boys are outside,’ she said. ‘It is so nice.’ She stacked the plates and said, ‘I go now,’ then went up to her room. Her radio snapped on.
I squinted out of the back door. The boys were running about in their pyjamas and did not notice me. I listened to my phone messages. Poppy’s breathy voice filled the kitchen. Could I ring her office? She’d be there until late. Next up was Sue Frost. Had I decided about bereavement counselling? I ran myself a glass of water and drank it. If being married invaded one’s privacy, it was even more the case being a widow. Everyone wanted to help themselves to a bit of my predicament. Mrs Jenkins was constantly advising me on how to handle the twins. Paige and Gisela offered contradictory advice. Mrs Austen had asked me point-blank if I had enough money to live on. Kate Winsom had insisted that I sign up for a course of colonic irrigation. ‘It’s so cleansing. At a time like this you can’t afford to house toxins.’ Others demanded to know how I was managing. Without waiting for an answer, they proceeded to tell me how they would manage. I had begun to feel like a large fish in an aquarium where visitors are parked below the water level so that they can enjoy uninterrupted views of the exposed underbellies. No one ever considered a shark’s right to privacy. They should.