Stop the Clock Read online

  Lucy gave Jane and Elspeth her brightest smile. In accordance with the formula for these occasions, she murmured the satisfying phrase, ‘She’s been very good. I think she’s enjoyed herself.’

  ‘I’m sure she has,’ Jane said. ‘You always give lovely parties. You should go into business.’

  ‘Oh, it’s just a bit of fun, but thank you,’ Lucy said graciously.

  As Jane and Elspeth left she reflected sadly that she could have set herself up in some genteel freelance occupation – interior design, perhaps, or making pretty knickknacks, or flower arranging – if she had still been able to count on the support of a well-paid husband. But while she still had the salaried spouse, she would never have felt the need.

  Now it was too late. The time for dabbling in the production of prettiness had passed. She needed hard cash, and plenty of it, in a predictable, regular supply. And soon.

  But she wasn’t offered any more temping assignments in the weeks that followed – she’d rather blotted her copybook with Red Apple, and kept drawing a blank with other agencies too. So she put all her energy into Clemmie’s school’s cheese and wine evening, approaching it with the kind of fastidious foresight she’d put into planning her own wedding.

  She mapped out a careful arrangement of tables for the food and drink, and commissioned Jane Morris’s husband, Ian, who was good with iPods and things, to sort out the background music: All Saints and so on, hits from the late eighties and nineties, when most of those middle class enough to support such an event had been young.

  Usually a certain level of attendance during the first hour or so was almost guaranteed, as the school governors, class reps and other Very Important Parents felt obliged to put in a token appearance; but by nine o’clock the hall was still full, and Lucy decided she could afford to congratulate herself.

  It had all been worth it, and she felt she made a rather fetching mistress of ceremonies. As soon as Adam’s latest payment had come through she’d splashed out on a pair of black high-heeled suede court shoes (Hobbs sale), which she shouldn’t have done, of course, but you had to have some pleasure, didn’t you? Her hair was pinned up in an artfully casual chignon, her cleavage was modestly displayed in last winter’s Monsoon party dress, and the shoes, which finished off the ensemble perfectly, hadn’t given her blisters, despite being half a size too big. Just about every conversation she’d had kicked off with some kind of congratulation. In a way, it was easier without Adam standing in a corner somewhere, wearing a fixed grin and deigning to make conversation, but obviously hating it and wishing he was somewhere else.

  She drank two glasses of Chilean Chardonnay, which she normally detested, in quick succession while listening to Tim Sturrock, one of the few dads active on the parental scene, bore for Britain about the strengths and weaknesses of the local state secondary schools. Finally she excused herself to go to the loo, where she admired her reflection before returning to the hall. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were rosy. Her hair was a little dishevelled, but it struck her as looking rather sexy.

  Someone called out to her, ‘Lucy, come and say hello, or we’ll think you’re ignoring us and get upset.’

  It was Tessa Grier, whose daughter was in the same class as Clemmie. Tessa was one of the naughtier mums. She had a tattoo of a dolphin on her ankle, and had got drunk at her fortieth birthday party – the last social event Lucy had attended with Adam – and started talking about her rubber dress collection. Also, Lucy had seen what Tessa packed in her daughter’s lunchbox: an apple, half a ham sandwich and four different kinds of biscuit.

  Tessa was sitting with a small group that had commandeered a semi-circle of chairs next to the French wine table. They looked as if they’d all been laughing and guzzling the best booze, and she suddenly wanted very much to join them.

  ‘Come on, Lucy, take a load off. You’ve been on the go all evening,’ Tessa said, and Lucy saw that she’d eased off her very small red stilettos. Suddenly Lucy’s feet ached in sympathy. Or maybe they had been aching all along.

  ‘But where shall I sit?’ Lucy said, looking from face to face and not seeing a vacancy.

  ‘Sit on my lap if you like,’ Ian Morris said.

  Lucy tucked a stray curl behind her ear. ‘I’m much too heavy,’ she demurred, ‘I’ll do you a damage.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Ian, who was quite sturdily built himself; he had the look of a former rugby player. ‘It would be a pleasure. I’d be delighted to be of service.’

  He patted his thighs, and suddenly sitting down struck her as a very good idea indeed. She dropped down on to him with all the delicacy she could muster.

  Jane flashed into orbit, quick as a red kite dropping from the sky to peck at road kill.

  ‘Lucy,’ she hissed, ‘would you mind not sitting on my husband’s knee?’

  Lucy jumped up. ‘So sorry, just a bit of fun, no offence.’

  ‘None taken,’ Jane said, and then, as Lucy made a show of studying the few bottles that still contained anything more than dregs, ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t feel too well,’ Lucy mumbled, ‘I’m on antibiotics. I think it must have interacted. I’ll just go and get some air.’

  As she turned and stumbled towards the exit her foot came right out of her shoe. She slipped it back on, looked round, and saw that Mr Dalston, the headmaster, was watching her with an expression of puzzled concern.

  Chin up! She walked out with all the nonchalance she could muster, as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time – hell, it could happen to anybody; there was just no relying on shoes.

  Hard on the heels of the cheese and wine fundraiser came another event that called for an investment of Lucy’s flagging maternal energy: Hallowe’en.

  The morning after she woke early, with a start; it was as if an intruder, wishing to alarm her, had suddenly switched on the lights, though her bedroom was still pitch dark. Her mouth tasted dry and sweet, and her head throbbed. Oh God, she was heading towards forty, alone, and broke, and she had lost Adam; these things could be put to one side in the evening, but in the morning, which always began too early for comfort, they recurred like a fresh insult.

  She was still wearing yesterday’s underwear. She got up, found her pyjamas and dressing-gown and put them on instead. Then she tiptoed downstairs – she wasn’t quite ready to face either Clemmie or Lottie yet – and put the kettle on.

  The Hallowe’en pumpkin was still sitting on the kitchen windowsill, baring its grinning teeth at the world, a burnt-out candle in its hollowed-out belly. Sad. Like a Christmas tree on Boxing Day, or a row of greetings cards the week after the birthday they were meant to celebrate: out of time.

  Hallowe’en had been a washout, she had to admit it. Lottie had refused point-blank to participate, and had retreated to her room to listen to God knows what and read Twilight. Clemmie still wanted to go trick or treating, but Lucy didn’t want to leave Lottie alone in the house, and didn’t like to impose by asking one of the neighbours to take Clemmie with them. So instead she and Clemmie had dressed up, bobbed for apples and read Room on the Broom, but really it had been a poor show, and she knew Clemmie knew it.

  She had dreaded the moment when the doorbell would ring and an eager little crew of green-faced, fang-wearing, black-hatted marauders would demand their fistful of Celebrations – would Clemmie cry, protest, demand to know why she was being kept from collecting as much candy as they? – but in fact, what had happened had been worse; nobody had come at all, despite the message of welcome she had hoped to transmit with her carefully positioned pumpkin.

  Maybe, not having seen her out and about with the girls in costume, the neighbours had assumed she’d turned her back on the tradition. Or was it a sign of something more ominous – evidence of how, without a man in the house, she and her daughters had become inconsequential and thus invisible, or at least, easy to overlook? Did they think she would feel threatened by people calling at t
he door under cover of darkness? Or, which was perhaps more likely, had they all just had somewhere better to be – some event to which she and the girls had not been invited?

  She unlocked the back door so she could take the pumpkin out to compost. But the door was unlocked already, or had been, and must have been left that way overnight, and she’d just locked it.

  Damn! What had got into her? Since Adam had gone she’d become as absent-minded as a new mother. Milk-brained, they called it. But how could she have forgotten to lock up? It had always been her job – she’d never trusted Adam to oversee the security of the house. Burglaries were not uncommon in the houses on the green; they were assumed to have wealthy inhabitants.

  Still, no harm done. She turned the key in the lock again and took the pumpkin out into the drizzle. It was cold and still very dark. She prised the lid off the composter; a few flies buzzed at her. She dropped the pumpkin on to last week’s rotting potato peelings and tried not to breathe in. Why did decay always smell sweet – toxic and curdled and sour, but still sweet? She slammed the lid back on and hurried inside.

  Carving the pumpkin had been one of the things that Adam always did. Lucy hadn’t found it easy going, but the effort had paid off in the delight on Clemmie’s face when the pumpkin was ready, and the candle inside it was lit. The effect had not been spooky or creepy at all; the fat little orange lantern had looked cosy and welcoming, an undaunted sign of life, a round glowing beacon warning the ghouls to keep their distance, and summoning the goodwill of absent friends.

  11

  Café Canute

  NATALIE HAD NOT begun to feel guilty until the morning after her kiss with Adele. The kiss, and the skirmish on Adele’s sofa that had followed, had taken her somewhere out of time. It had not occurred to her to think ahead, only to feel, and she had felt privileged, and suffused with wellbeing, and grateful.

  She had not been herself, and yet she had been more herself than ever – as if all her previous selves, all the memories locked in her body, had been brought simultaneously to life: the mother, the jealous child, the uneasy student, and the young woman who had found a companion in Richard and, once, in a flimsy room on the other side of the world, something even more powerful than the comfort of friendship.

  It was an encounter she had not looked to have, and she passed through it without expectations, and while she knew it was not safe? you felt safe in a place where it was possible to remain, and she knew she could not stay at Adele’s for long? at the time it did not seem dangerous, either.

  It was only as she waited for the taxi that Adele had called for her that she remembered what her mother had said: Happiness isn’t everything. Happiness doesn’t mean you’re immune to regret.

  After the ride through the night, she let herself back into the dark house and crept upstairs, past the spare room where her parents were, got into her nightie, pulled Matilda’s covers back up, and laid down next to Richard, who stirred and went on sleeping. He would go back to the guest bed the next night, after her parents had gone, and she knew this would be a relief to both of them.

  She fell asleep without difficulty. When she came to it was morning, and Richard wasn’t there. She immediately remembered that she had done something she ought not to have done, and could not undo.

  Matilda was pressing a button on her cot toy that made a wheel spin round, and chattering to herself. Natalie reached down to lift her up and held her close, and breathed in her smell as the baby melted into place, head against chest, knees and feet tucked up, her bottom snug in the crook of Natalie’s arm.

  There was something matchlessly consoling about the way her baby’s skin felt pressed next to hers. In its way, it was completely satisfying.

  Days passed, and she resumed the gentle, humdrum routine that she had established to keep herself busy and Matilda entertained: Tumble Tots, baby music and other excuses for getting out of the house alternating with cleaning, food shopping and the making and clearing of meals.

  She couldn’t tell Richard. She had confessed to him once before, and it had finished them, and they had only got back together because she had assured him it was a completely isolated incident, a folly; that she had needed to get something out of her system, and now it was gone. Why should he believe that a second time? Could she even believe it? She didn’t know, but one thing was for sure: she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it.

  Yes, Adele had been a mistake, another mistake, never to be repeated. Clearly, she could not see Adele in that way again . . . and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to meet her in the cold light of day and act as if nothing had happened. She’d left a cardigan in Adele’s flat – had completely forgotten it when her taxi showed up – which could have provided a reason to get in touch; but no, better to leave well enough alone.

  She was invited for coffee at the Thameside penthouse owned by Zeb and Soraya Mitchell, the trendy designers from the antenatal group. Her heartbeat went rather wild on the way over, but when she got there Soraya showed her into an open-plan living room that did not have Adele in it, and it transpired that Jessie was the only other member of the group who was free to come.

  Natalie felt something very close to disappointment, but distracted herself by admiring the cream and orange colour scheme and the kitsch 1960s lamps and the view of the river. Soraya did mention Adele later on, but only to comment that she was very hard to get hold of, and Natalie told herself that this was just as well.

  As the nights drew in and the leaves changed and began to fall, that summer night’s adventure with Adele began to seem quite unreal and dreamlike. But then, when she’d finally more or less come to the conclusion that she was never going to see Adele again, Adele sent her an email.

  Hi! How’s it going? I’ve been settling Paris in at nursery. It’s dreadful! Today he screamed the place down the minute we got in the door. Back to work next week, so I’m just having to harden my heart and tell myself this is how it has to be. Will be in touch soon. Maybe we could catch up over coffee sometime. Hope all well with you xx.

  Natalie forced herself to wait a day or two before sending a brief, formal reply: We’re all fine, thank you. Good luck with the return to work. She allowed herself to sign off with a single kiss.

  As she had half expected, there was no reply.

  She rang Lucy up, and they chatted for a while about Tina: the public revelation of her pregnancy; how gutsy she was and how well she seemed; how tough it was going to be having a baby on her own. Lucy said, ‘In a way, maybe it’ll be more straightforward. She can just worry about the baby; she won’t have to keep a man happy as well.’

  Was it Natalie’s fault if Richard was unhappy? She had assumed that his discontent was mainly to do with his failure to progress as fast as he would have liked in his career. A couple of cases had not gone well; contemporaries were doing better. It occurred to Natalie that besides Matilda, and their middle-of-the-road, small-c-conservative, keenly aspirational parents, the most important attribute she and Richard had in common was frustration.

  There was so little intimacy between them, physical or otherwise: that must be getting him down too, even if he hadn’t said anything. And he wouldn’t say anything, because if there was one thing Richard would avoid at all costs, it was being drawn into an analysis of their moribund sex life.

  Natalie made a determined effort to be a better wife. She prepared fiddly meals (none of which quite came off), she enthused about weekend trips to petting zoos and soft play centres, she even watched some of Richard’s The World at War DVD with him, and rested a hand on his knee; but he told her warningly that he was feeling tired, and she took it away again.

  She realized that these token attempts to foster togetherness would not be enough to break their drought, and that perhaps their only hope of becoming close again was for her to be honest; but she could not bring herself to risk it.

  Richard was, as he kept reminding her, tremendously busy, but still, as 5 November drew closer, she
extracted a promise from him that he would make it home in time to join her and Matilda at the Clapham Common fireworks display. She had always thought of Bonfire Night as belonging to them; it was the anniversary of the moment, back in Cardiff, 1995, when, under cover of darkness, watching bright flowers and sizzling spirals and shooting stars form and fade in the black sky, they had brushed against each other, and Richard had reached out to squeeze her fingers. First contact: to be followed some hours later by their first kiss, a tentative, beer-enabled articulation of lips and tongues and teeth outside the Plasnewydd Arms.

  It would be good, Natalie thought, to reaffirm that moment of connection, to wrap up warm against the cold and huddle together and acknowledge the fireworks’ spectacular but ephemeral protest against the onset of winter. This time they would have Matilda with them, too; the living legacy of that long-ago moment when Richard had taken her gloveless hand in his to warm it.

  But it was not to be. That morning Richard called her from the office and told her that something urgent had come up; he would have to work. Yes, she said, of course she understood; that was absolutely fine.

  Later that afternoon, while Matilda was napping, the phone rang and she grabbed it in a sudden flurry of hope – maybe he had changed his mind, was going to come after all.

  ‘Hello, you,’ said an assertive female voice, and she realized it was Adele. ‘I have your cardigan. Black, with sequins. You left it at mine after our illicit evening. Did you not miss it?’

  Natalie hesitated. ‘I guess not,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, I hardly ever wear it.’

  ‘You should, it suits you,’ Adele said. ‘A bit of sparkle. When are you free? It’s high time I gave it back to you.’

  Natalie told herself there was no danger; nothing was going to happen. Adele obviously just wanted to ensure that they left things on an amicable footing; otherwise she would not have waited so long to get in touch.