A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, page 17
Stumbling after him, Martha saw the stricken expression on the face of the hotel manager, who was standing outside in the hallway.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she managed, as Simon dragged her towards the front door.
‘Goodbye and good-fucking riddance!’ yelled Helen.
30
She was twisting the ring on the middle finger of her right hand, watching the diamonds sparkle, the sharp edges catching the sunlight that poured in through the window next to her desk. Simon had given her this eternity ring after Joe was born. It was perfect; exactly the sort of thing she would have chosen for herself, the tiny row of stones set in a band of gleaming white gold.
‘I hope it’s okay,’ he’d said, as he stood beside the bed on the maternity wing. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d like it.’
She had burst into tears, laughing through her sobs, as she saw the terrified expression on his face. ‘I love it,’ she’d wept. ‘It’s beautiful. I’m happy – honestly!’
She had worn it ever since, though it soon began to remind her of the stress and chaos connected with those first few days of Joe’s life. Possibly because of that, it had felt like some kind of talisman that might keep them all safe, as they sat in consultants’ offices and GPs’ surgeries and heard yet more bad news. While they listened to a string of medical terms that rarely made much sense, she invariably found herself looking down at the ring, twisting it round and round. Simon had given her this because he loved her; together they would deal with whatever life threw at them.
The ring had stopped feeling lucky a long time ago, the protective qualities she’d given it disproved by years of adversity. But she couldn’t bear not to wear it, because that would feel too risky: she was superstitious enough to believe that if she took off this ring she’d be throwing their futures off balance.
‘Martha, can you get those spreadsheets finished by lunchtime?’ called Clive, through the open door of his office.
‘No problem,’ she said. This was ridiculous; she needed to put everything else out of her mind and get on with work. The spreadsheets were almost done, but she’d been sitting here all morning struggling to focus. She tapped the keyboard and woke up the screen.
She had expected to feel relieved once the funeral was over, but nothing felt better today. It was partly because she was exhausted. They hadn’t got home until after 10pm last night and, although Joe had been in bed for hours by that time, she had kept Jackie talking in the kitchen for longer than necessary, desperate to hear about every last detail of his day.
‘Was he okay at bath time? He’s sometimes overtired by that stage. Did he eat everything at tea? How was he with you in general? Did he seem worried at all, or upset that we weren’t here?’
Over Jackie’s shoulder, she had seen Simon grimacing at her as he pulled a beer out of the fridge, shaking his head as he flipped off the metal top.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said, when the woman eventually left. ‘You didn’t need to give her the Spanish Inquisition! She was fine. Joe was fine. It was all bloody fine.’
He’d walked out of the kitchen with the beer, and Martha had collapsed on the purple sofa, edging her swollen feet out of her shoes, rubbing at an inflamed patch of skin on the back of her heel. She listened as he went up the stairs and walked across the landing above her head, then heard a thump as the spare room door was kicked shut.
When she got into work this morning, everyone had gathered around, asking about the funeral. Even Janey seemed genuinely concerned and interested.
‘It all went surprisingly well,’ Martha told them. ‘The service in the crematorium was lovely and lots of my mum’s old friends were there, people I hadn’t seen in years. The hotel was great, where we held the wake.’
They had gradually drifted back to their desks, satisfied they’d made the appropriate noises and she’d supplied the right answers to their questions. Then Martha sat, staring at her computer screen, feeling as if someone had taken a knife and carved out a gaping hole where her heart used to be.
Everything she’d just told them had been true: but yesterday had been bloody awful – worse than she’d ever imagined it could be.
All she’d wanted was to give her mother a decent send-off. But it didn’t feel as if that had happened. The service itself had gone well, and she’d been pleased with her choice of The Hamilton Hotel, from the quality of the buffet to the way the sunlight had streamed in through the windows as people chatted and mingled. It had all been surprisingly cheerful – or as cheerful as these things were ever going to be.
Even seeing Sharon and Alice hadn’t been as difficult as she’d expected.
But the row with Patrick and Helen had left her feeling battered, almost physically sick. She kept remembering fragments of that final conversation: the snide remarks slipped in, the insults hurled, the venom in their voices.
‘Do you think they’re right?’ she’d said to Simon, as he accelerated out of the hotel car park.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is this all my fault? Did Mum feel like I’d let her down?’
Simon had sighed. ‘They were so pissed they could hardly stand up straight. They probably won’t even remember what they said in the morning.’
‘But that didn’t sound like it was just the alcohol talking – they really meant it. The two of them must have been discussing it, before today.’
‘Who cares what they think?’ said Simon. ‘Your brother and his wife are vile, self-centred, vicious human beings. We’ve always struggled to get on with them and their bloody cocky kids. At least now, once probate is done and this whole business with the house has been sorted out, we’ll never need to have anything to do with either of them again.’
‘But those things they said were so hurtful.’
‘Martha, let it go,’ he said. ‘They’re not worth it.’
But she couldn’t let it go. This morning, depression was creeping up and over her like an incoming tide. She was aching with hurt at Patrick’s blunt fury, although in some ways that was the least surprising thing about yesterday. She was used to being undermined and bullied by her brother, and she and Helen had never had anything in common.
But the worst thing of all was that she’d failed her mother, yet again. She had let her down for the first time, three weeks ago, when she went home on that Friday afternoon, instead of staying beside Judith’s hospital bed. Now she had let her down again, by not giving her the sort of send-off she deserved. There was always an excess of emotion at funerals – that was par for the course – but it had been Martha’s responsibility to keep everyone on an even keel. She wasn’t sure how things had gone so horribly wrong, but she should have done more to stop that happening. Judith would have been appalled at the way they all ended up shouting at each other in the hotel last night, humiliated that her children were capable of behaving so badly.
Martha twisted the eternity ring around on her finger, watching the row of tiny diamonds sparkle as they caught the light. And then there was Simon. Or rather, there wasn’t Simon. She’d been relieved when he defended her, full of gratitude when he yelled at Helen and Patrick and told them what he thought of them. Once they got outside, she’d expected him to pull her close and hug her, to tell her that she wasn’t to blame for any of this, that she’d done her best and he loved her. But he hadn’t said a word. He’d stalked across the drive and unlocked the car, starting the engine before she’d opened the passenger door, then pulling away so quickly once she got in, that gravel spattered out in an arc behind the rear wheels. After their one brief conversation about Patrick and Helen, they’d driven home in silence.
The computer screen had gone blank again; she looked down at the keyboard and saw dots appearing on the grey plastic. It took her a moment to understand where they were coming from, to realise that tears were dripping from her cheeks and pooling on the keyboard below her.
31
‘Why do you need to go into the office on a Saturday? You’ve never done that before.’
‘We’ve never been in this kind of mess before.’ Simon was eating a slice of toast, while pulling on his jacket. ‘Where are my sodding keys? Why does nothing ever stay where you put it in this house?’
‘Hall table?’ suggested Martha. ‘What time will you be back, do you think? If you can be home by lunchtime, maybe we’ll take Joe to the park this afternoon. Or we could drive to that National Trust place with the big lake in front. The paths around there were really good, do you remember? We were able to take the wheelchair almost everywhere.’
‘Not sure,’ said Simon, walking out of the kitchen.
She stared after him, the spoon with Joe’s mashed up Weetabix hovering in mid-air. ‘What do you mean, not sure? You can’t need to be working all day? Come on, Simon, we haven’t been out as a family for weeks. It would be good to do something a bit different this afternoon.’
She heard a click as he unlatched the front door. ‘Simon?’
Joe was squirming in his chair, his eyes on the spoon suspended in front of him.
Martha stood up and ran out into the hall. The front door was open and Simon was stepping through it. ‘Come back here!’ she yelled. ‘Please don’t just walk out on me when we’re having a conversation!’
He turned and glared at her. ‘We’re not having a conversation, Martha. You’re just telling me what you want to do later. As I say, I have no idea what time I’ll be back. I don’t know how long this is all going to take. If you want to go out somewhere, you’ll have to do it without me.’
Behind her, Joe was beginning to wail in the kitchen and she could hear him knocking his feet against the legs of his chair.
‘But I don’t want to go without you,’ she said. ‘I want us all to go somewhere. That’s the whole point! It doesn’t matter where it is. I don’t particularly care about going to the National Trust place, I just want us to be together. Like a proper family!’
He was looking back at her pityingly. ‘Well, that’s never going to happen, is it?’ he said. ‘We’re not a proper family, Martha. We never will be. Why do you have to make such a bloody big deal out of this kind of thing? It’s like you’re trying to pretend there’s nothing wrong and we can do all the stuff other people do. Well, we can’t. I’m sorry – I know it makes you sad. It makes me sad too. But that’s life. I’ve got to go. Everyone is supposed to be in by ten for a meeting.’
He turned and went through the door, slamming it shut after him. Behind her in the kitchen, Joe’s wail had grown louder, the thumping on the chair more insistent.
Martha’s pulse was racing, her head spinning with the effort of containing all the words she wanted to shout out after him. ‘Great,’ she said to the closed door in front of her. ‘Bloody marvellous. Is that it then? You just bugger off to your office, and I’ll stay here and look after our son, again. As per usual. Thanks for nothing, Simon.’
She realised she was still holding the spoon of Weetabix out in front of her, her fingers trembling with rage. ‘Fuck you!’ she yelled. She flung the spoon at the door. It bounced off and clattered onto the tiled floor, leaving a brown stripe of congealed cereal across the paintwork, which began to slide slowly downwards.
Joe was screaming now, and she ran back into the kitchen. Putting her arms around him, she could feel his heart thumping nearly as hard as her own.
This was all so crazy. What were she and Simon doing to each other? Okay, so he was stressed by whatever was going on at work, but he seemed incapable of focusing on anything else – certainly not on her or Joe. All she wanted was for them to spend some time together. Was that really so impossible?
Joe was wailing in her ear, his fist bunched up against her, poking painfully into her chest as she tried to soothe him.
Maybe Simon was right – it was pointless them pretending to do the things normal families did. But if they stopped trying, they would be giving in, admitting they’d failed – and Martha wasn’t sure she was ready to do that yet.
‘Come on, Joe,’ she whispered, his wails still shrill in her ear. ‘Calm down now.’
It was his birthday in a couple of weeks – he’d be five years old. Martha realised she hadn’t even thought about what they’d do to mark it. She usually made a big deal out of celebrating birthdays and anniversaries: those special dates were like a glue that bound them together, and it had always been important to her to mark that – even when things didn’t work out as she’d planned.
Poor Joe: his birthdays invariably fell flat. When his first birthday came around, he hadn’t been doing any of the things he ought to have been doing by that stage, but he was still their gorgeous boy, and she’d been determined to celebrate the fact that they’d made it through the first traumatic year. She’d planned a day trip to the seaside: they would walk along the beach and eat ice cream, holding Joe above the waves, so his toes could get tickled by the water. She’d been excited about it – he’d never been to the sea.
But then a letter arrived, from the hospital. It was an appointment on that day, for another brain scan – he’d had so many already, but in those early years her heart still leapt when the consultants suggested something like this. There was always the chance this would be the test that would show them exactly what was wrong and how it could be cured. By then, they were wise to the vagaries of the health system, and only too aware that trying to rearrange the appointment would lead to long delays.
‘We can’t cancel,’ Simon had said. ‘It’s too important.’
‘But what about our trip?’ said Martha. ‘I wanted him to see the sea.’
‘It’s no big deal,’ Simon said. ‘Joe doesn’t even know or care it’s his birthday.’
Maybe not, Martha had thought, but I do. Simon had been right, of course: Joe had no idea he was missing out on a treat, while they sat for hours on uncomfortable chairs in hospital waiting rooms. But she had felt so guilty. And now, four years later, it sounded as if she would still be the only one who cared about this latest milestone.
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she murmured, resting her cheek against Joe’s hair, her fingers cradling his forehead, the skin soft, despite the sheen of sweat that had broken out across it. ‘Calm down now. It’s all going to be fine.’
Was Simon really going to the office? The thought came out of nowhere, crashing into her mind, the shock of it making her catch her breath. Maybe there was no work crisis, and he was going to meet someone. Someone who wasn’t always nagging him and asking where he was going and when he’d be home. Someone who wasn’t always shouting at him and making him feel like he wasn’t doing a good enough job as a father.
It was a possibility, wasn’t it? Maybe more than a possibility. It would explain his irritability and bad temper; his lack of interest in anything she said or did. If there was another woman in Simon’s life, it would explain why he could hardly bear to be in the same room as her, right now. It would explain why they didn’t seem able to talk to each other anymore; why they hadn’t made love in months.
Joe was calmer now, whimpering but no longer shaking. ‘Good boy,’ she whispered, stroking his hair, kissing his cheek. ‘Good boy, well done. Mummy’s here, you’ll be fine.’
The awful thing was, the idea that Simon might have someone else in his life wasn’t even making her particularly sad.
32
This was madness, but she didn’t care. The roads had been quiet and Joe had slept for most of the journey anyway, exhausted after their fight over the unfinished bowl of Weetabix. As Martha pulled up outside the bungalow, she realised that, for the first time in the last few weeks, she was actually glad to be here.
As usual, it took a while to get everything out of the car, wake up Joe and move him into the house. She struggled to push the wheelchair across the small patch of lawn in the front, where the grass was long and full of weeds; she would have to drag Judith’s mower around here later and sort it out. It was a fortnight since she’d been at the bungalow to meet the estate agents; there hadn’t been any point coming here when they drove up two days ago; they’d gone straight to the funeral directors, then on to the crematorium and the hotel. Her stomach clenched, as she remembered the scene there with Patrick and Helen.
Before leaving home a couple of hours ago, she had grabbed some bread and a tub of soup from the fridge; now she put them in the kitchen and settled Joe into his chair, before walking around throwing open windows to air the musty rooms.
She’d wondered whether the bungalow would feel different, now they’d had the funeral; whether the sense of Judith in these rooms would be fainter after a line had been officially drawn under her life. But, if anything, the opposite was the case. Martha could still feel her mother’s presence in everything: the pictures on the wall, the cushions on the chairs, the books lined up neatly on the shelves. She could picture Judith’s liver-spotted hands drawing the curtains in the bedroom, flicking through the pile of post in the hallway, holding the heavy, old-fashioned telephone handset. She could see those hands putting on the blue and white striped butcher’s apron in the kitchen and opening the fridge, her tattered slippers falling off her heels as she stood on tiptoe to peer up at the contents of the wall cupboards. Judith was still everywhere.
But that wasn’t as hard as Martha had expected it to be. She missed her mother desperately, but being in this house was bringing back memories of happier times, which were strong enough to push away the mental image of Judith’s body in a hospital bed.
‘Your Granny would be pleased to have you here,’ she said to Joe, as she spooned soup into his mouth. ‘Although she’d probably be telling me I wasn’t feeding you properly, that I was doing it all wrong!’ She smiled as her son leant forward for another spoonful, then reached to push the brown fringe out of his eyes.
After they’d eaten, she took Joe into the garden, parking the wheelchair in a shady corner of the patio. It was nearly 2.30; would Simon be home any time soon? Probably not. Even if he did come back, he wouldn’t think anything of the fact that she wasn’t there; he’d presume she’d taken Joe somewhere for the outing she’d been so desperate for them all to experience together.
