Downstairs, one of the twins cried out. I swept the suit into the bag and went to find out which one.
Felix had had a bad dream. ‘Mummy, there was a big, big cat with big claws and he was trying to claw me…’
I drew his hot little body close and whispered, ‘It’s all right, Felix. Mummy’s here. I’ve chased the bad cat away. Look, it’s gone.’
It was not all right. Yet as I soothed my son with this lie I took a curious pleasure and pride in its construction. Until the boys were big and bold enough to know better, it was my business to shield them from the worst.
22
When I turned out the pocket of my black linen trousers, I discovered the sprig of the plant I’d picked at Claire Manor. It was brittle and withered, with only faint traces of the blue that had attracted me. Intrigued, I looked it up in one of Nathan’s books. It was called nepeta, and its old nickname was ‘Kattesminte’. It was so powerfully attractive to cats that infant seedlings had to be protected against them.
The phone rang as I was reading about catmint.
If you set it, the cats will get it
If you sow it, the cats won’t know it.
‘I know I’m not talking to you,’ said Paige.
‘OΚ,’ I said. ‘I’m not asking you how the baby is.’
‘He’s a bit of a screamer.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I’ve never been so exhausted.’ For Paige to admit anything of the sort was serious. ‘Three children, and I have to make them into human beings without turning myself into a monster.’ Her voice veered up the scale. ‘It’s so tough that I sometimes wonder.’
It was almost unheard-of for Paige to have doubts. ‘Paige, have you been in touch with Martin?
‘Tell you what, ask me about Lara’s arabesques instead.’
‘Paige. Have you been in touch with Martin?’
‘Minty. Don’t interfere. OK?’
I raised my eyes to the ceiling. ‘How are Lara’s arabesques?’
‘Funnily enough, very good. She has an excellent line, but she’s let down a bit by her feet. Pats of butter, unfortunately. But we’ll get to work on them.’
I felt sorry for the ramshackle, terrorized Lara. From now on, her feet would not be her own. At the other end of the phone Paige sighed heavily, a sound pregnant with despair and uncertainty, and I weighed in. ‘You’ve got to think again about Martin.’
‘I think about him, Minty, all the time, and I’m very fond of him. Very. But I haven’t time to be married. Not with three children. Not if I’m to do things properly’
‘Paige, have you eaten today?’
‘Eaten? Not much. I’m far too busy. And before you ask, no, I’m not sleeping well. I know you think I’ve gone mad with post-natal depression and maybe I have, but at the best of times, Martin’s a reluctant father. He doesn’t enjoy it. He hates the house being full of children. Now, who’s the one with a psychosis?’
‘All the same he needs to be there.’
There was an ominous silence. ‘Minty, I’m not sure about lectures from you.’
‘Where is he living?’
At his mother’s. She’s put him in the attic bedroom for the time being.’
I rang Martin and arranged to meet him the following afternoon at the bank. ‘Minty, is this urgent? I have a big convention in Geneva and I’m travelling for the next couple of weeks. But if you really need to see me I can fit you in at two thirty.’
To his credit, Martin was on time, which didn’t give me much opportunity to study the building’s stunning glass atrium. He stepped out of a lift, kissed my cheek and steered me down the corridor. ‘This had better be good.’
‘You asked me to keep an eye on Paige.’
‘Ah, my wife.’ For all the lightness of tone, Martin was on the alert. He led me into the canteen, which was more like a banqueting hall, did the equivalent of clicking his fingers and, lo and behold, we were presented with freshly made espresso, hot milk and a cantucci biscuit each. Living with his mother was doing him no harm physically for, unlike his wife, he was immaculate, slim, and healthy-complexioned.
I could never resist cantucci I dipped mine into the espresso and bit into it with the special pleasure reserved for the forbidden. ‘Martin, you must go home.’
He frowned. ‘She threw me out. Remember?’
‘She’s just had a baby. We’ve agreed you’re half mad when you’ve had a baby. You stay half mad, I reckon, until they’re adults. Paige is half mad anyway’ Martin snorted. ‘She won’t listen to me because I’m a sinner. Or, at least, she won’t take my advice.’ I stared longingly at Martin’s cantucci and, obediently, he handed it over.
‘The children, Martin. They’ll be suffering from all this. They may not show it but they will.’ I included my own in the generalization, which made the declaration even more impassioned. And if Felix and Lucas hurt, I hurt. ‘Do you really hate them?’
‘Is that what Paige says?’ Martin frowned. ‘I knew before they arrived it would be tricky, but even I was surprised by how impossible it became. I warned Paige that she was obsessed. But…’ He gave me a steady look – the I-am-a-rock one in which Nathan had specialized. ‘… I would never have left of my own accord.’
I countered, ‘Paige has had a baby. She’s weak, her hormones are all over the place, and she’s not thinking straight.’
To my acute distress, Martin’s eyes filled. ‘Ignore me,’ he muttered. ‘But could you stop right there?’
I made a rapid reconnaissance of the room. No one had noticed Martin’s tears – had a beady-eyed rival taken it on board, it would have done him no good. A group of bankers in pinstriped suits plodded in. They were all as plump as pullets and spoke to each other in low, earnest tones. I jabbed a finger in their direction. ‘Doesn’t look that much fun working here.’
‘It isn’t.’ He shaded his eyes with a hand. ‘Nothing’s much fun, these days.’
‘You could put things right.’
Martin pulled himself together. ‘As a matter of interest, Minty, why are you taking this view?’ He meant, why should you, the wrecker, argue so strongly for the opposite?
I might have taken offence but I’d grown used to my label. ‘I have two small boys,’ I said.
He directed a countenance so full of woe at me that I was forced to look down at my coffee cup. ‘Just walk back in, Martin. Tell Paige she’s wrong and that you won’t have a broken family. Tell her it’s for the children’s sake.’
‘I didn’t agree to be hauled out of an important briefing meeting so that you could tell me what’s blindingly obvious.’
‘Nevertheless.’
To my surprise he reached over and took my hands. ‘It was well done, Minty.’
I let them rest in his. I knew perfectly well that whatever I said or advised would have little influence on him, but I had said and would continue to say it. ‘On second thoughts, Martin, tell Paige it’s for her sake too. Do it.’
I left him by the state-of-the-art elevators, which would whisk him back up to the nineteenth floor, and headed out of the door.
A postcard arrived in the post. ‘Dear Minty. I enjoyed seeing the boys and I wondered…’ there was a space between ‘wondered’ and ‘if I could see them again? I would love to take them to the zoo or to the cinema perhaps. Rose.’
The card did not exude confidence. The writing was hesitant and the wording suggested that Rose had written it against her better judgement. But in her sending and my receiving, an element shifted in the balance between us.
A week elapsed before I responded.
At Paradox, I chipped away at the final details for Pointe of Departure and toyed with the notion of developing a history of choreography but discarded it. Deb announced that she was off to work for Papillon and when I told her how sorry I was, she replied, ‘Oh, I don’t have time to hang around any more,’ in a nonchalant manner that imperfectly hid her unhappiness. The mention of time got me thinking about the abandoned middle-age project, and I retrieved it from my ‘reject’ file.